#42 - A short painting activity

16/03/2011 (posted 02/04/2011)

One advantage of going to bed at 7:30pm is that getting up for a shower at 6am is fine.
I decided to do this because I was afraid the girls would get in and never leave so I went in nice and early. To my pleasant surprise, I didn't have to wait and waltzed straight in. I was proud of myself.

Breakfast was once again good - porridge and cereal. So far we're eating well but we'll see how long throughout the week that lasts.

We then went to a school for the morning. It seemed fairly well equipped compared to past ones we've visited - by this I mean there was running water and the teachers were dressed fairly smartly.
We put on a thirty minute programme with songs and dramas. I was MC and resorted to using the failsafe way of captivating an audience - pretending you can't hear them and getting them to shout louder. It went fairly well and the teachers seemed pleased with us so that's ok.

They then asked us to paint some pillars for them - our team of semi-professional roofers and altar-builders were well up to the challenge. I tried really hard not to get dirty but got paint all over my hands, arms and most annoyingly, a splash on my shorts. Despite going to great lengths to avoid it, it happened  - this annoyed me. We also got eaten alive by ants whilst painting which was also fairly annoying.
After we finished it took copious amounts of kerosene to wash the oil-based paint from our hands - we looked like smurfs for ages before we essentially burned it off our skin.

Lunch was macaroni cheese which the Pastor's wife cooked for us while we were out which was nice of her. The one issue was that Lissette misunderstood our plans and asked the woman to add the chicken which we had bought for tonight.
In a week where cost of food is so essential it wasn't what we needed. But we'll sort it out - it was delicious so at least the chicken wasn't wasted per se.

In the afternoon, five of us went back to Guabito to do some more door-to-door evangelism and invite people to the services on Friday, Saturday and Sunday that we'll be leading. Bonnie, Jess and Andrew went shopping for food for the rest of the week.
There were some really weird people that we met this afternoon. One guy grabbed Lissette's Bible and shouted at us for ten minutes about how women shouldn't be allowed to share the word of God or be involved with churches etc.
Idiot.

We then came back and went out to a local park area where there were loads of local guys playing football and volleyball which was cool. They invited us back tomorrow so hopefully we'll be able to bring some leaflets and invite them to the church for the weekend services.

When we returned we found that Bonnie, Jess and Andrew had bought some absolutely cracking food. We certainly won't be bored on rice every day - their plans for the week include burritos, omelettes, a full English breakfast and a Roast Dinner!
We also had ice cream and cookies tonight for pudding which was such a treat. I wish the bowl would never have emptied.

Andy and I went for a stroll to the local shop and I got an ice-cold glass bottle of Fresca, a lemony fizzy drink which I have become partial to. Having glass bottles of drink is one great thing about this country.

JG