Prayer Request

I'm dealing with one of those situations where I can't say too much.  It's all personal to someone.  But I'm finding it incredibly difficult to sort out in my head what's true and what's not.  I've gotten caught off guard a few times in the past couple of months and it's made me skittish. 

I want to believe the young guy I'm working with.  But...my heart says he might not be telling the truth.  And it's kind of a serious situation.  The truth needs to come out for everyone's sake. 

If you can pray about this with me, I'd appreciate it.  Learning to trust can be difficult no matter who you are, but it's an even greater obstacle when you never had that opportunity at a young age.

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Ah Subway...once again you toy with my heart.

I really do appreciate when someone down here tries to get it right.  And to clarify, I'm talking about things like restaurants and business services and whatnot.  Not things like character development or learning to make good decisions.  Of course I'm happy when someone does that...goes without saying.  It's kind of what I do here.

But living in a third world country away from your home culture has it's challenges and struggles somedays.  So when there's a restaurant or business that clicks with you and reminds you of home...it's nice.  I'm not advocating that Bolivia become North American or anything (heaven forbid)...but once in awhile it's nice to eat food that tastes like it looks like it should. 

Which brings me to Subway.  I love Subway.  I mean...I really, really LOVE Subway.  It's the first place I go when I hit the airport in Miami.  When I lived in Saskatoon there was a Subway a block and a half from my house and the "Sandwich Artist" kid behind the counter knew my order.  I'm sure I ate there a least twice a week (okay...maybe more).

So when Subway opened in Santa Cruz you can imagine my reaction.  The gong of joy in my heart rang loud and true.  I'm sure my mouth dropped open the day I saw that glorious sign and if I was a person who cried I would have cried huge, wet tears of happiness. 

But sadly, as with many things in life and in Bolivia...it didn't last.  I went a few times and eventually the pang of disappointment was too much and I stopped going.  It just wasn't the same.  It's been long enough now since I've gone that I've almost gotten over the slight pain I feel in my heart every time I drive past a Subway sign. 

Which brings me to Monday night.  I was at the airport dropping off a couple of my friends.  One of them, Jeremy (who's just freshly arrived from the States and hasn't had time to become jaded yet) commented on the fresh, happy smell of baking bread coming from the airport's nearby Subway store.  Maybe it was his naive excitement or maybe it was my age induced memory loss...but after my friends got on their plane, I meandered past Subway's little corner. 

The thing is...it looks the same.  I mean exactly the same.  They even got rid of their McDonald style plastic tables and put in those lounge chairs and little short coffee tables that no one could possibly eat a sub at without being uncomfortably hunched over...just like in North America!  "Look!" my heart said, "Surely it'll taste the same now!  They have the same stupid tables and chairs!"

So I got in line. 

I faltered momentarily when I saw the menu and prices and realized I was about to spend twice what a normal plate of food costs here.  But then I watched as my favourite Parmesano Orégano bread came freshly out of the oven...and I caved to tempation and desire. 

I made it past the meat and cheese selection fairly unscathed.  I wasn't thrilled with the three little pieces of ham or the one slice of cheese that adorned each half of my sandwich.  But I decided I could live with that.

Lettuce is lettuce.  So whatever.

Then I asked for a few onions.  I'm not a huge onion fan, so honestly... I was very clear on "a few!"  The girl hesitated for a moment as if she couldn't understand why I would say that and then procceded to put as many sliced onions on the sandwich as there was lettuce on the thing.  Seriously.  When I later walked through the airport I'm sure people wondered at the the smell of onions wafting behind me... 

Okay whatever, I can pick them off.

Then came green peppers.  I really like green peppers.  Always have.  My "Sandwich Artist" kid (yea, I kind of enoy writing that) in Saskatoon would load up my sub so much that you could eat the thing without leaving great chunks of pepper behind. 

So I winced slightly at the sad, two little pieces of green pepper she carefully laid side by side on each half of the sandwich.  Which is weird 'cause it's not like green peppers are so much more rare and expensive than the stupid onions.  But whatever.

The tomatoes looked kind of dicey so I skipped them and went straight to the olives.  I also like pickles but I learned long ago that Bolivian pickles bear no resemblance to real pickles in any way whatsoever.  Except maybe that they're green.  But nothing else. 

So yea...the olives.  No lie, the girl counted out four pieces of olive for each half.  And I'm not even talking about olive slices here.  I'm talking about a slice of olive cut in half.  So...a piece.

After carefully placing each of the four pieces of olive on the sandwich she hesitated and then carefully put on one more "piece" of olive on each half.  Oh, the generosity of it all.  Warms my heart it does.

I skipped the bacon.  I could say that it's bad for my heart, but we all know I couldn't really care less about that.  Reality is...a floppy, half-cooked slice of pork just doesn't really help improve my sub sandwich experience at all.  I know, I KNOW...it's bacon!  How can you ruin bacon?  But as it turns out, you really can.

Then with a dribble (and I do mean dribble) of sweet onion sauce,  I was on my way.  I did break with form and tradition here and asked for another dribble of sauce.  She grudginly complied.  But her heart wasn't in it.

I wish I could convey what it's like to then eat the above described sandwich.  It's kind of like eating the ghost of a memory.  I'm not sure what that means exactly but wow, let's be honest...that's some impressive alliteration.  It's like your mouth almost remembers and recognizes what you're eating...but just not quite...

Granted the bread is pretty good.  No complaints there.  If you squish the sandwich around in your mouth a bit and try your darndest to ignore the overpowering flavour of onions...you can almost catch the ham and cheese in there.  The flavour of green pepper is a joke and the olives?  A distant memory...

And so...once again...my heart has become jaded and cold.  Thanks you Bolivian Subway.  Fortunately, the lack of a good sub sandwich isn't going to exactly impact my life in any substancial way.  And in three weeks I'll be passing through Miami and come hurricanes or floods or South Beach gangsta dudes with their Cadilac Escalades...I'm eating a freaking Subway Melt with pickles and olives and bacon.

Wow...this is a really long post about a sandwich.  I should maybe have mentioned that at the begining...

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One of those days...

Once again the SCS team has come and gone.  And once again I had an excellent time with them.  We always have fun.  At least that's how I remember it.  Hopefully they feel the same. 

For some reason though, in the middle of those good, happy times, there are always moments when you have to choose to either laugh about what's going down...or you hit the nearest person with a shovel. 

Most days I choose to laugh.

Last Monday was one of those days.  We were working at fixing up the house of a lady from our church.  It was a great project and I was excited to get it done.  But it just seemed like everything that could go wrong that day did.

It's tough keeping twenty eight people busy.  Yimy and I were running around getting supplies and trying to keep things organized.  We accidentally bought four times too much plastic for one of the projects (at about $80 a roll).  Then the brakes went on the truck (I looked in the mirror and there was smoke POURING out from the rear tire wells). 

And then as we limped back to the work site in the truck, we found our road was closed.  Workers had dug a big trench across the street.  We bumped and jostled our way down a side road until we came to a cross road.  There was a big muddy spot that we had to get through and Yimy hesitated (he was driving).  He suggested that we turn around and go back and find another way. 

But the team was waiting and I didn't have much patience left at that point.  So I just said, "Vamos Yimy!  Cuatro por cuatro!" ("Come on Yimy!  Four wheel drive!")

Yea...dumber words were never spoken.  We drove into what turned out to be a much deeper mud hole that we'd anticipated. 

Oh...did I say mud hole?  Raw sewage hole would be more appropriate.  Yimy just looked over at me and gave me that classic "I told you so" look.  I rolled my eyes and told him to move so I could drive.  I figured I'd show him how it was done.

Yea...not so much. 

We weren't going anywhere.  The undercarriage of the truck was resting on the ground.  So Yimy hoofed it back to where the team was to get us some help.  I just sat there in the truck while everyone drove by and judged me and smirked at what an idiot the gringo was.  I burried my head in a magazine and didn't make eye contact.

Eventually some help arrived from the team and they gave it their best.  But there wasn't much they could do.  After awhile, we managed to flag down a big truck who backed up to us and yanked us out with no real effort.  Then he proceeded to drive right through the mess as soon as we were out of the way.  Yea, yea...whatever.

Anyhow...here are a couple of picks I snapped on my phone.  They make me laugh. 

Now.

Outstanding...

Digging...

More digging...

Good effort boys...good effort.

A little bit later back at the house, after everything else that had gone wrong, one of the guys on the team brushed his head against a piece of wire hanging from the ceiling of the house where we were working.  It gave him a shock and it turned out to have live current in it. 

I just shook my head and pretended not to see.  He was fine and his hair was already curly so I figured we were all good.
 
It was just that kind of day...

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