Ken's Random Life...

Random funny moments from the past couple of weeks:

Riding the bus with Yimy for 12 hours to get to Cochabamba only to find out my truck still wasn't ready after being at the autobody place for nearly five months. 

Wait...that's not really that funny.  Uh...the 12 hour ride back to Santa Cruz?  Not that funny either.  Fighting with the lady in the seat in front of us over the use of her window...kind of funny.  Lots of Bolivians don't like breezes.  They think it will give them some unidentified illness.  It was like a freaking sauna on the bus.  So everytime the lady in front of us fell asleep I made Yimy push her window open a couple of inches (our seats didn't have a window that opened).  Then when she woke up she'd close it again.  Then she'd fall asleep and we'd open it.  That went on for...well, like I said, 12 hours.  There wasn't much else to do.

Let's see...what else?  I drove one of the guys out to his house this afternoon and was running on fumes by the time I got there.  I dropped him off and drove straight to the nearest gas station.  And...they were out of gas.  Of course they were.  And the only other gas station in town?  Out of gas too. 

I was starting to worry a bit, but then I got a tip on a lady who sold gas out of a barrel.  It took awhile to find her, but I eventually tracked her down and bought two Coke bottles worth of gas.  I didn't want to put too much in the truck 'cause you never know how clean gas you buy by the bottle is. 

Then I got in my truck and started back to the city.  I kept waiting for the fuel needle to move but it really didn't.  And then I started wondering if four litres of gas is really that much and if I had enough to get back to civilization where I could find another gas station.  I tried to do the math in my head on how many kilometres I could go on four litres of gas but then decided that math is hard.  I figured either I had enough or I didn't.  No sense worrying about it.  So I turned the radio on.  That pretty much sums up my philosophy on life.

I made it.

Let's see...anything else?  So far this has been kind of weak on the funny.  Not sure if this is amusing to anyone else or not, but Yimy and I had a rousing round of Punch Buggy up in Cochabamba.  If you're unfamiliar (and I don't know how that's possible) it's a game where you punch someone everytime you see a Volkswagon bug.  We play it a lot here in Santa Cruz. 

Cochabamba, however, is a whole other ball game.  There are tons (and I do mean tons!) of bugs.  At the end of day one I beat Yimy 78 - 56.  It was a glorious victory but I could barely move my arm the next day and we both had bruises.  We start out just kind of tapping each other, but then the competition and tension grows and by the end we're pretty much wailing on each other.  It makes random people in the street look at us funny.  But it's fun.  And I won, so...you know...

Maybe I should have just called this random news instead of random funny stuff...

In random news, my friend Deb is here with her family for a couple of weeks on a family missions trip.  It's been great having them here.  It's always fun to show people around and introduce them to my life down here.  So far I've mostly just dragged them around to wherever I needed to go, but tomorrow we'll get a little more serious and start working. 

We did visit a home for sick children on Saturday afternoon, which was a lot of fun.  It's a new place for me and a great ministry to connect with.  It's run by an American couple with huge hearts.  I'm sure we'll be spending more time there.

One last story and then I'll go.  As I was driving to pick up the team on Saturday, I saw a group of kids playing in the street.  I just assumed they were playing soccer like every other group of kids in Bolivia.  Then as I got closer I suddenly realized they were playing ROAD HOCKEY!  I couldn't believe it. 

When one of the kids saw me, he yelled, "CAR!" in Spanish and two of the guys grabbed the nets and they all moved to the side of the street.  It was the weirdest Canada meets Bolivia moment I've ever had.  I'm still shaking my head....

Anyhow...that's life.  It's late here and that'll be my excuse as to why this is as random and kind of dumb.  =)  But I made myself laugh so I guess that's good enough. 

Thanks for praying for us everyone! 

Oh yea...and enjoy the snow.  I figure I had to say that...first big snow of the season and all that. 

Here?  34 C in the sunshine baby. 

And so it begins...
     

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Dreams and such...

This post is one of those, "This is my blog and I can write what I want..." posts.  It really has nothing to do with anything.

And on that note...

It is a very rare night when I remember dreaming anything.  I'm sure I do dream...I think everyone does.  But when I wake up in the morning, ninety nine percent of the time there's not even a whiff of what happened in my head during the night.

Which is what makes Tuesday night's dream stand out.  It was one of those crystal clear, I remember every moment, kind of dreams.  It was fairly long, as dreams go...and every detail was stuck in my head the next morning.

The dream was about me, my mom and my two younger brother, living in a small apartment.  My brothers and I were much younger (my youngest brother was still in diapers).  My mom was raising us as a single mom.  As in most after-school specials, there was no mention of where dad was. 

Mom had that tired, slightly angry at life attitude that most single moms in after-school specials have.  She'd come home kind of grumpy every evening after work and cook us supper.  As the oldest, I was in charge of the two younger ones and had to help get them ready for bed after we ate.  Of course I could never quite do it right, and mom, in her weary of life state, was always frustrated with us.

As a side note, it really was my mom in the dream.  She looked exactly like she did in a old picture we have of her from the sixties...young, pretty...big poofy hair. 

Anyhow, one day through a serious of events while mom was at work, we managed to put a hole in one of her favourite towels and wreck the kitchen blinds.  I have to admit I'm not totally clear on how we wrecked the blinds, but there was a lot of detail in the dream about that towel.

We tried to fix everything, and failing that...hide the damage.  That part of the dream was probably based on reality.  I seem to remember an episode in my childhood of my brothers and I playing baseball in the living room one afternoon after school, when my parents were away.  My brother hit an excellent line drive and put the ball right through the glass shade of one of my mom's favourite lamps.  It left a perfectly circular hole.  So my brother just turned the lamp so the hole was facing the back and hoped for the best.  He was a middle child and not that bright.  Needless to say it didn't work for very long...mom and dad found out and we were roundly punished

Maybe that story was in the back of my head in this dream, because when mom got home we (well...me) confessed to what we had done, rather than try to lie about it.  Our honesty broke through mom's hardened exterior and she was touched by our confession.  She cried...we cried...and we all had a big, group hug.  Then mom, with her three sons by her side, proceeded to fix the blind using the ingenuity that every after-school special mom has.

It was all very touching and sweet.  Like I said...it played out just like every after-school TV special ever. 

Well...except maybe for the part about the cartoon alien who seemed to be living on our dining room floor.  He was there the whole time...we just didn't pay him much attention.  He had a big head and really stretchy skin and didn't say much.  He had a little card that he'd pull out every once in awhile that said, "Instructions.  If you feel uncomfortable wait for an opportunity to speak with the humans." 

After the moving and heart-felt moment with the towel and kitchen blind, mom and I were sitting at the table talking while my two little brothers and the alien slept on the floor by our feet.  My mom reached out with her foot and slid my little, sleeping brother across the floor until his diaper was up against the alien's face.  When the alien woke up he quickly got out his card and sat quietly, waiting for an opportunity to talk to my little brother.

And that's when I woke up. 

You know...after all the many, many profound dreams I'm sure I've had that I can't remember...this is the one that super-glued to my brain.  Why is that? 

That was, by the way, a rhetorical question.  No need to respond....

I'm sure tomorrow there will be something here that has something to do with...well, something.
  

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