Yikes... I went almost three weeks without posting. I'm sorry to everyone who mentioned it to me and asked me to post waaaaayyyyy before this. I guess it's because last time I posted twice in one day! There is so much more to write about! I really don't know where to start. In my past posts I talked about how much it has rained and the "torrential downpourage". Up until last week, it had rained literally every day since we moved here. But, we have now been over a week rain-free! It's moved into October, which is apparently windy season. It's so windy, you can hear the buildings practically shaking. Sometimes I wake up in the morning to the wind so loud it sounds similar to the crazy loud rain we were finally getting used to. The locals think that it is just freezing when the wind blows like that. We think it feels pretty great. Since there's been no rain, there have hardly been any clouds. Last night when we were walking home from Reina's, we looked up and just stopped in awe. There are no words to describe how breathtakingly beautiful the stars were. We had seen a few from here before, but it's almost always cloudy. Last night was perfectly clear. We saw the Milky Way, a planet, and a kajillion stars. As cliche as it sounds, it's pretty amazing to think that I can see the same stars here that you all are seeing back home. :)


When we first arrived here, the Sunday morning church services were set up so that there was one big class combined for adults and kids, then a break, and then worship services for everyone as well. This meant that the kids weren't receiving any children's Bible class or anything that we're used to having in America. So Mom and I have been doing a children's class every Sunday morning during the first class. And of course, where do we start but with Genesis? So, we started with the days of creation.


Mom drew a picture for each of the seven days on a paper plate, and told them the story. Then we picked these 7 volunteers to line up in the right order with them. We put them in order the first time. The second time, we mixed them up in crazy orders, and let the kids figure out where they went. When all that was over, we had an art project. We had little coloring pages with birds on them and a verse about it from Genesis. They could color them, and when they were done I would come around and put glue dots on them and give them the bird's "feathers". They were just some cut up pieces of streamers, but the projects ended up looking great, and the kid's were so excited. They aren't used to doing things like that. In the schools, kid's don't get their own text books to work from; the schools can't afford that. The teacher has one, and they copy it onto the board and the kids copy it into their notebooks. That's almost all they do! They don't learn how to color, or cut, or make art projects.


The next week's class was a lot of fun for me. We were going over Adam and Eve and eating the forbidden fruit and whatnot. At the beginning of the class, Mom brought in a bowl of little cookies. She made sure to make it clear that no one was allowed to eat them, or even touch them. The kids were very serious about it. They said the understood, nodded, and looked super serious. At that point, Mom faked like she had forgotten something at home and had to go back over to the house. So she left, and I was in charge of the class. I walked over and picked up the cookie bowl. I looked around, and (in Spanish) asked, "Want a cookie?" The kids looked shocked at first. I said we had tons. Come on, just take one.. And every kid in the class gave in and took a cookie except two; Nathan, and a little girl named Gabby. When Mom came back into the class, most of them were still eating theirs. Some gasped when they saw her, some tried to hide the cookies or shove them into their mouths quickly. She acted like she was so sad that they'd taken her cookies, and what else did they do but blame me? "But Erin said!" "She gave them to us!" Stuff like that. We just moved on to the story. When it got to the part about blaming the serpent and everything, you could literally see a light come on in some of those kids' eyes. One of them looked at me, smiled, and shook her finger at me. Watching them really get the lesson was great. We did another craft and made little serpents with a verse on them.

Sorry, I didn't get around to posting last night.
Weather forecast for La Palma as given by Selina Thornton and I: "Rainy with a chance of Rain" or "Torrential downpour-y with no chance of stopping". :)
Every afternoon, sometime around 2 it starts to rain. Within 10 minutes of that it starts to pour. Yesterday, It was so loud you could hardly hear yourself think! I had to yell just to talk to my family when we were inside. Which is difficult, because I got a really sore throat yesterday morning, and it hurts to talk. :P
We went out shopping again yesterday morning and got our Tigo cell phones that work here, mostly for calling each other to make sure of where we are. Then Dad and Nathan went on home after lunch. Mom took me shopping to get paper clips and string. I figure that if I'm going to be away from everyone, why not at least have their pictures up in my room? I have tons of pictures that I packed into my carry on, and I used paperclips to put them onto strings and hung the strings on my walls. I don't have much blank wall left on my half of the room, and I like it :).
The rest of the day was spent inside because of the rain. It started lightly raining at 2:10, and by 2:15 it was pouring. Imagine my shock. Mom and I had just reached the church campus area about then and made it inside just before it started. Mom has a couple of ladies from the church coming over today for cooking. Not sure what else is on the agenda yet...
More to be posted later!
su amiga,
Ruth Erin

Random fact of the day? Coconut milk is clear! They actually call it "agua de coco" which would be coconut water... Who knew? Haha, we bought a freshly picked coconut on the way here from San Salvador, and the hotel chopped off the top and brought us a glass of it with breakfast. I don't think any of us actually liked it...

After we finished breakfast, Ruth (no, I am not talking in third person) helped us get the rest of our stuff from the hotel to our new place. She took Mom and I shopping, and we left Dad and Nathan to get some stuff situated at home. Today was my first experience in the market! It's kind of inside, but kind of outside. I'm not sure how to explain it. There are tons of tables inside, piled high with fresh vegetables. Others have meat, cheeses, beans, whatever you want. What I was most excited by, was the huge boquets of flowers, like my personal favorite, calla lilies. These gorgeous bunches of flowers that would be really expensive in the States, are only a dollar! I bought some calla lilies. A boquet of 13 freshly picked calla lilies for one dollar :)Here they are on our kitchen table:
Don't you love the fancy vase they're in? ;)
And we almost made it through our whole shopping trip before the weather came in. Guess what we got more of today? Yep, torrential downpours. I seriously don't think there is a single dry thing in the whole city. It was raining so hard I couldn't see out the window, and I could hardly hear myself think! lol
We had a singing service at the building tonight. It's impressive how many of the people will walk all these hills and stuff in the pounding rain for miles to come to services. And it's amazing to hear them singing out praises so loud, regardless of how they sound. :)
We're finally moved into our house, and I have a bed to call my own, with a new woven blanket we got at a little tienda near the market... I'm heading there soon :)
More to be posted later!
su amiga,
Ruth Erin

Yesterday I said we were planning on moving the beds in and doing grocery shopping. God had other plans! While I was typing, it started pouring rain. Like, seriously pouring. Thunder and lightening like crazy, too. Torrential downpours, as Mom called it, are not good for walking the market or moving furniture in trucks. We instead had a fun night consisting of travel Scrabble over dinner, and a movie on the laptop in the room. :)

Today was not any more dry than yesterday. It started out alright, we went to worship servicce and saw a lot of friends I hadn't seen since... 5th grade? I felt bad that I couldn't speak as much to them as I wanted to. I'm really looking forward to Spanish lessons!
When we got back to the hotel from lunch, the plan was for Romeo and Mauricio to come with a truck to get our luggage and the beds/wardrobes. When we planned this, it was hot and sunny. An hour or so later, before he was supposed to come, guess what started again? More torrential downpour. He showed up anyway, and with help from some plastic tarps we were able to get the luggage there. Dad, Nathan, and the guys went to go get the furniture. The bunk beds came in ok, despite the rain.
The wardrobes started to. Now, these arent' just little wardrobes. They are for the orphanage once it's open, but we are using them till then. Seven feet high, 5 feet wide, and 2 feet back. They made it through the door, but there was just no possible way to fit them into the bedrooms...
They plan on coming back tomorrow afternoon and possibly cutting them down some to fit.
After they left we headed to Reina's house/tienda for pupusas... :D
They were so amazing! The least amazing part of the day was the rainy walk home, though. It actually made it cold. When we got back to the hotel, I wrapped up in a blanket and hung out in the hammock for a while. We went to the hotel restaurant and got to see Isabel, back from her break. I got some vanilla tea stuff, and it was wonderful. It warmed me up, too lol. Nathan and I relearned how to play hearts with the fam during that. We're all back in the room now, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow night when we can sleep in our own place!

By the way, this is the view out one of our windows... and this is on a cloudy day, you should see when it's clear! :)
More to be posted later!
Su amiga,
Ruth Erin