It started off as usual. Joy flagged down a milk truck at about 6:50 this morning to give the teacher some Bible studies and coloring pages for her students at Gariche. (the teacher rides out to the school every Monday in the milk truck, stays the week in a little house behind the school, then returns to Volcan on Friday evenings, provided she can find a ride. If not, she goes out with the milk truck on Saturday morning again.) By the time Joy handed off the papers I was already working on the fully automatic washing machine which was making a terrible racket. I finally gave up after about an hour and a half, finding 3 quarters, but additional coins were below that I could not reach.
We left to purchase the groceries for El Valle school. We stopped at the school and Joy talked with the teacher in charge of the kitchen to find out what they needed for the week. As we passed Elsa’s, the little corner store we saw the teacher from Caña Blanca waiting outside. We stopped and talked with her. Her ride had not come by this morning. He usually was there by 7:00 am, but it was now 8:30, and he had not shown. Joy volunteered to take her after we ran our errands. She had forgotten that we had a tire with a big bump in the tread, so we ran to the tire store and bought 4 new tires ($400). Then we had to go to another store to have them put on (that cost $8.) While they were being changed we walked to the store and bought the food for the school then walked back to the truck. We then drove to the vegetable market, picked up the vegetables and headed back toward the school.
We went by Celinda’s place and dropped off some food for her children, then picked up the teacher. We stopped at El Valle school and dropped off the food. As usual, we were bombarded with small hands taking the bags as we pulled them from the truck. They love to help. Then we headed for Caña Blanca. By this time it was 10:45. We stopped one more time at our neighbor’s house to pick José up. He had wanted to go with us the next time we went to Caña Blanca. He has a house there, and wanted to pick up a mattress from the house.
Joy had a good visit with the teacher on the way out, and learned quite a bit about the situation there. This teacher actually lives in Puerta Armuellas - 4 hours away, and rides in and out on the weekends as well. We got her to the school, but it was late and the kids had already gone home. The standing rule, she told us, was that if she had not arrived by 9:30 the kids should go home, and they had. After that, José pointed out his house to us. It was on a mountain side across the valley. It was a one hour walk from where we would leave the car. He decided it was better to wait until another time to get the mattress, but he did have a rope he had borrowed from a man in Caña Blanca, so we took him to deliver that. When he returned to the car he had a small dog in his arms. He explained that the dog was his, but had been loaned to the man for breeding purposes. The little dog had been bitten by something and could not walk, so José was taking it back to his house to take care of it.
By the time we got home, Joy was late for her 1:00 English class. The day slowed a little after that. We had a late lunch. I began painting 450 5” pieces of 1 1/2” PVC tubing. (These are for the group coming down next week from riverside. i am told they will be music makers for the kids) Joy did go to town again in the afternoon and took 3 of the neighbor kids with her. We later had a little supper. One of the sisters came by needing copies of some documents. That is a service that we also extend. Joy is on the computer working. I am ready for bed. Tomorrow will be another day.
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