Wednesday, October 31, 2012

It's Been An Exciting Week! Yahoo!

Where do I start?  Que en del mundo?  Or...what in the world?  Anyway.  It has been raining buckets upon buckets upon buckets.  It has't rained though in two days so things are better but there is still a bunch of slushy mud around.  Neil slips and slides around in the backhoe and even had to be pulled out with the forklift.  Louanne, where are you? 

 
This is the future entry to the assembly hall.  An awesome view.



 You can see some of the mud tracks but it has dried out some.  This is a view of the assembly hall standing outside of our kitchen looking towards the northeast. Look at the clouds.

 
Just another view.
 
 
This is the school standing at the end of the temporary shower and bathrooms looking west.
 
 
 
The school is coming along.
Standing in the dining room looking into the living quarters.  Neil wanted to add that he got about 50 mosquito bites taking this picture.  He said to enjoy this photo as it comes at great sacrifice.  Thank you, Neil.
 
 
 
Transformer/Generator Building.  They hope to pour soon.  Rain is expected this weekend again.
 
We have been attending our Spanish Congregation and Neil and I manage to give simple comments each meeting. We sound like little babies but I think the brothers appreciate our efforts.
 
 
Field service has been a challenge for us.  The sister on the right and her husband took us out on Sunday.  I told her I was going to say, "Hola, mi nombre is Cindy.  Nosotros Testigos de Jehova.  Estoy no hablar espanol.  Mi amiga algo dice."  All wrong.  Hello, my name is Cindy.  We are Jehovah's Witnesses.  I do not speak Spanish.  My friend something say.  So it is wrong in both languages.  Well, I didn't get anyone home.  So she did all the talking.
 
 
At the door.
 
 
 
Every morning in the dining room Gaston has the "chicas" do exercises to warm up.  It's a lot of  fun.  But once the exercises (15 minutes) are over, it is run, run, run.

While doing this blog, the electricity went out.  We were without power since Sunday night, all night long.  Then when we came home on Monday it was on.  Yeah.....then it went out.  It was out all night again.  Family worship had to be cancelled.  We had no water either because our water comes from a pump.  However, my husband had empty coke bottles filled with water for some reason.  So, we could brush our teeth and flush the toilet.  I always said if  I was ever on a deserted island I would want to be with Neil.

 
Ok.  Where were we?  Oh, yes.  The kitchen and Gaston.  He has "excessive energy" and he is a crack up.  He always says, "Cindy, would you like to......"  I want to say no, but even though he speaks no English, he still knows what "no" means, so I refrain and just laugh and comply.  I challenged him to throw the pizza.  He used to own a restaurant so I shouldn't have been surprised that he could do it.
 
Well, that is it for today.  There is one last thing that was exciting though.  I have saved it for last and please don't tell my mom.  She doesn't have a computer so she won't see this.  Yesterday we didn't get home till 7:00 p.m.  There were demonstrations in the streets over the power outages.  Well, they were blocking roads by burning tree limbs and old tires and wouldn't let anyone pass.  The police even shut down the highways.   Our chauffeur (doesn't that sound fancy) knew a back road and we took it.  It was all mud and ruts and slipped around but finally made it back to the security of the assembly hall.  Tonight we came home the same way just in case.
I'm not going to proofread, so pardon the errors. 
 
 
I have to end with Gaston throwing the pizza.
 
 
Till next time..... we are still working at Spanish but it is a slow process so I won't end in Spanish this time.

Friday, October 19, 2012

It's Raining Again

Well, today is my dia libre and I'm done with my laundry so I'm going to tell you what's new.  It is raining again.  I guess that isn't new.  And it is supposed to rain tomorrow.  The rain really puts things behind but we keep working.  Two days ago we had lost power during the night and that's when we found out why there are so many candles in our room.

I am going to post some construction pictures because after all, that is what we are here for, so I hope you enjoy them.

 
This is the Ezeiza Assembly Hall as it appreared last Saturday.  Neil and I had to work last Saturday and I was not in the kitchen.  I actually got to run the skid steer which you will see later.  The assembly hall is huge and the surrounding land is also enormous.
 
 
Another View
 
This is the School for Married Couples and also the School for Single Brothers.  You can see the block wall in the back.  All of the buildings are of block because it is much less expensive than wood.  When the school is done it will have rooms for the students so then the IV's and IS's from Canuelas will move there.  We have been invited to stay until February and so we have accepted.  Thank you to our family for supporting us.
 
 

 
Here is Neil in the backhoe with the Assembly Hall in the background.
 
And Neil again through the columns.
 
 
A closer view of the AH.
 
 


 
Ok.  Here is the skid steer I was driving.  The assistant construction overseer let me run it last Saturday all day.  It was crazy.  It moves around so fast without even doing anything hardly.  So here's what happened on my second load.  I lifted the bucket to dump it on a pile and I guess I lifted it too high....no I didn't fall over, but.....I dumped the whole bucket on me and inside the skid steer and completely filled a brother's hardhat with dirt.  The brothers around just laughed and laughed and Neil just shook his head.  I felt really stupid but I laugh now.  From then on, this one brother working laying block got so scared when I came around that he completely would stop working.  That was funny.  I thought he was going to have a stroke.
 
 
Last Sunday after the meeting, we went for a walk in the woods of the property of the assembly hall where we live in Canuelas.  When coming back, some brothers and sisters were having a picnic because they had been doing maintenance on the assembly hall and grounds here.  One brother ran up to us and said, "Hermano, torte?"  Well, when we heard "torte"  (cake)  we said si.  Well, we spent the rest of the day with them eating torte and playing soccer and volleyball.  None of them spoke any English so that is always interesting.  When we get back we challenge everyone to charades.  We are getting pretty good at it. 
 
 
Last night at the meeting the little girl on the right
 gave a talk.  I don't understand Spanish but it sure sounded good to me.  These are fleshly sisters that are alway so nice to us.  The older one is the same age as Myah.  The congregation is very friendly and we each commented last night.  When we try at all to speak Spanish they just go nuts.  We are getting better a little each day.  But our singing...well, we sit in the back row!
 
As for Gaston, well, he made pasta yesterday, gnocchi.  I don't care for gnocchi, until now.  It was so good and of course homemade yesterday.  You can't get fresher than that.    Well, that's what's up for this week.  And we'll keep posting. Hope the circuit assembly is good and a special congratulations to our granddaughter Myah.  We love you and are so proud. Jehovah is too.   Also congratulations  to Mandy and Aubrey.
 
 Hasta la proxima vez.
 

Friday, October 12, 2012

WOW!!! Can't Believe it's Been 3 Weeks

Yes, since I have posted it has been 3 weeks.  Anyway, exciting and busy days.   We are tired.  We are old.  Anyway, let's start with Argentina Bethel.  How beautiful.  Just like every Bethel I would suppose.  We got a wonderful room that was way too nice for us.   The next few photos are all of  the grounds and our room.

 
This is the Bethel Turtle.  So Adorable.
 
 
Neil and he's so adorable too.
 
Now we will take you into our guest room.  We did not get to tour anything because it was on the weekend, but two members of the Branch Committee came to lunch here in Ezeiza and told us to be sure to come back during the week and tour everything.  Well, that is hard to do since we work during the week, but we do have to go to Uraguay to get our passports stamped in November so perhaps we can go then.  That would be great.
 
 
Did you notice the TV?  It is so funny to watch.  It is all in English with Spanish subtitles.  Now we know what the brothers mean when they say they learned English on TV.  Thus the funny questions they ask us.  Such as "Does OK mean Zero Dead or Zero Killed?"  Anyway, it was funny at the time.
 
 
I really was doing dishes.  This was no staged photo.  We were able to buy some homemade chocolate chip ice cream in their commisary and Neil got Mango.  He tries to eat healthy.
 
The next morning, last Saturday, we walked awhile, and made it to the subway and went to downtown Buenos Aires.  There we hopped on a tour bus that you can get on and off whenever you like.  We never got off till the end and it was three and half hours long.  We had gone to the Casa Rosada before but didn't take the tour.  So we decided to take the tour.  They were only offering it in Spanish but we took it anyway and there was an English-speaking tour guide visiting and she translated for us.  These Argentines love their Eva Peron.  On our way to the Casa Rosada, Neil got a friendly gentleman to spray fake bird poop all over him and then helped to wipe it off.  It smelled like sulfur and he really was helping him get it off his pockets.  Alas, Neil had his most important stuff in the front pocket.  That was an experience.  Then off to Eva's house.
 
 

 
This was her desk that she always used and just to the left of the photo is where she could go out that balcony.  We also saw the fabulous dining room and some of her clothes, etc. etc. etc. but we didn't want to bore you with that.  They really love her here even though she is dead.  Their  new money will have her picture on it.  They tried it once but it would get stuck in the ATM's so they had to abandoned it and they are working on new money.
 
 
On the way home from our tour, we took the subway again and about five or six stops before we were to get off five people got on.  They were all dressed in suits and the two women were dressed so nice.  Neil said, "They're witnesses."  So I got out our Guest Badges for Bethel and showed them to the brother there with the white shirt.  They all got excited and started talking all fast and crazy.  Well, it turns out that the brother with the white shirt is a Bethelite named Jonathan.  The brother and sister on the left are a CO and his wife visiting from Brazil on vacation and staying at the Bethel as guests like we were.  The other standing brother and his wife (she's taking the photo) are friends of the CO.  He serves the sign language circuit.  They invited us to their room for pizza and we spent the rest of the evening with them.  None of them spoke very much English and we spoke only a little Spanish but then that didn't help very much because they speak Portuguese.  Anyway, we had an awesome time and the brother kept quoting Zephania 3:9. So nice.  Also, when we would say Spanish words he would also say, "No, you say it like this."  And then he would say it in Portuguese.  So not only were we struggling with Spanish now we were struggling with Portuguese.    His friend works for some computer place or something like that (not sure) in RDJ (Rio) and when he looks out his office window he sees the statute of "Jesucristo".  You know, the big one with his arms stretched out.  He laughed when he told us about that.
 
 
Last night at our meeting, Neil was asked to give the closing prayer and the brother said he could say it all in English.  Well, Neil decided to say some Spanish in there. They said they have had English prayers and Spanish prayers and now they have had Spanglish prayers.  They were all so excited and telling him how wonderful it was.  It was a nice prayer.  Now tomorrow is the first Saturday we work, then we get an extra day off during the week but we are saving it to go to Uraguay to get our passports stamped.  So this wouldn't be complete without mentioning something fabulous Gaston has prepared.  Yesterday it was Paella and the brothers were so happy.  Neil and me, not so much.  But since the Branch Committe Members had come from Buenos Aires, they brought some homemade ice cream for us and that made up for everything.  I am showing you a photo of one of Gaston's salads and let me tell you, he even makes beets taste good.
 
 
 
 
 
Hasta la proxima fez!!