Monday, May 20, 2013

The Only White Boy In Town


Hola,

 First of let me say that this computer is lame and it is not letting me put up pictures so I’m really sorry but nothing this week.

So thing are going really good. The ward is really nice and friendly, they understand that I don't know spanish perfectly and are patient with me. We meet in a real Chapel, its really nice since they have air conditioning in the building ( I  think I should tell the investigators that, maybe they will come more if they knew that). When people give talks in church I don’t understand perfectly but I can understand a lot of what they are saying. Everyday is a little better. When some of the members try to talk to me afterwards I can’t understand them much at all because they speak so fast and drop letters when they speak. For example, go out side can be translated to para afearda but here they say pafeda. Its like the southern accent in the America. You don’t know what they are are saying half the time. so I just smile and wave.

The town is great, like I have said we do a lot of walking but the people are friendly. The town is really dirty, not dirty because of trash, but because most of the roads outside the main streets in central are all dirt. Dust gets every where. Also the city basically floods when it rains so the water rises to like a foot a foot and half in some places. It forces us to backtrack a lot after it rains because we cant get through the water in our leather shoes.

The city is way to small for any ´´fast-food´´ although there are a lot of people on the streets cooking up ´´meat´´ on a coal grill. I wouldn’t eat it even if it was safe. There is a place near central where a lot of people set up their food carts. We have bought hot dogs and hamburgers from one of the members that owns one of the carts. Its okay food but not super good.

The area is pretty safe, well as safe for a white boy from the states can be in town where he is the only non-latino here. There are not any areas we cant go. The only time I have been scared about walking any were was when were were in Prado ( basically the poorest part of town, with metal roofs and dirt floors). All the lights in Cerete went out. Luckily I had my flash light with me so me and Gomez had to walk all the way home with only the light of my flashlight. It was super sketchy.

We do have a curfew here but its just because we need to go to bed. The mission rules say we need to be at the house by 9:30 and in bed by 10:30 so its not for safety, its just so we have time to get ready for bed.

I did get my debit card to work finally. I went to another ATM this time and it worked. I was kind of uneasy walking around with 700 mil pesos for a few hours. After I got back to the house I put the money in a safe place that no one could find by accident. I got it out to make my first big purchase soon. There is a guy that makes custom cases for scriptures in my mission. He burns images by hand of any church photo you want into leather cases he makes. I don’t know how much it is going to be because its always different. I will make sure to upload pictures when I get them done.

We have not had a lot of service lately due to rain everyday. We were going to help build a part of this house a week or so ago but it rained really bad and the whole site flooded so we couldn't do it. The ward hasn't picked a time to do another service project so I do know if I will in this area.

Been noticing lots of the motorcycles and scooters here because of how much my Dad is into them back home and how much he takes care of them. Even though some are 50 years old I know they will last another 50 cause of what he does. The people here don’t seem to take care of their stuff. They are all trashed and have missing parts and strange paint schemes.

So thats it, love you guy lots and hope you all are doing well. Sorry again for the pictures not working this week.

Love,
Alec

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