A full, satisfying day

Today was a day of blessings. It started early. We had a full morning planned: going to the bank to change dollars to bolivianos… then going to the photo store to check on the cost of scanning film to a PhotoCD… then going to the plaza and visiting a museum.

Well, things at the photo store turned out great. We knew they could do PhotoCDs. Basically they either scan prints or use a negative scanner to scan the negatives. The guy told me a few days ago that he generally leaves the images raw, so color correction will be up to me. He told me it would cost 50. The confusion was afterward… Yoli thought he meant dollars and I thought he meant Bs. $50 US would be rape, and 50 Bs would be a good deal. Well, we went back to the store today hoping and praying for the best.

It turns out I was right. He meant 50 Bs. So I dropped off two rolls of film that I had taken (yes, Mom, I’ve used half of my film halfway through the trip. Pretty good, eh?) as well as a stack of photos I brought from “Hogar Nacer”:http://nacerusa.org/childrens-homes/. All of it will be scanned in at 400 DPI and saved to a CD. This will save me a load of work. I’ll be able to post some photos from my trip (since they’ll already be on the computer) and it will help me begin to design the Hogar Nacer website much more quickly.

(2013 UPDATE: The site I designed years ago for Hogar Nacer has been superseded by a new website. Thanks to the Internet Archive, you can still see my “original design”:http://web.archive.org/web/20050305001400/http://www.casahogarnacer.org/.)

Since we didn’t get to eat it the other day, we went back to the restaurant that sold “helado leche” (milk ice cream) and “helado canela” (cinnamon ice cream). We wanted the helado canela, but we were surprised that it wasn’t an ice cream at all. It was more like an “icee” or “slurpee.” It was a cup of iced cinnamon juice. It tasted very good, and they make it the same way they’d make ice cream: by turning a metal canister in a bucket of ice.

We went to two different museums around the plaza. One seemed to be an art museum that had some very distinctive and eye-catching paintings on exhibit. Yoli told me that in the back of this museum they taught all sorts of fine art classes. When she was young, she took classes there, and really loved the place. I enjoyed visiting it. We also went to a history museum that was somewhat new. It was interesting as well, but didn’t have as much to offer as the art museum. We went through several rooms all dedicated to showing different aspects of life for Indians, from pre-Spanish times to the present.

We bought some bread from the market, and stopped at a little bakery to try some Santa Cruz specialties. I had a rice cake with cheese in it, and Yoli had something similar made with corn. They both also had a little yucca in them. They tasted good, and we had them with tea, which hit the spot.

Later we bought bread to bring back to the guest kitchen and a bar of soap (2 Bs) for my shower.

At work, I got quite a bit finished. The website is coming along well. I also talked with Rusty and I think we’ve found a solution to get all the digital photos he hason his computer onto mine. Then I can use some of them for the seminary website.

I can’t fully explain some of the things that happened in the evening, but they were all good. We went to Yoli’s house to visit the family. On the bus ride there, we met a friend of Yoli’s that she knew from church. He was a nice young guy and I got to practice a little Spanish with him as we rode toward her house.

We had dinner at a small restaurant-in-a-house in Yoli’s neighborhood, kind of like the other one we’ve been to twice. It was nice cheap food, and pretty good. I had a beef milanesa with rice. Then we walked a few blocks to Yoli’s house.

Unfortunately, Jessi (Yoli’s niece) had a swollen eye. She probably got sand or something in it. She visited the doctor today and he gave her some drops to put in it. She was playing the pouty preschooler to a T, so she wasn’t much fun. Her little baby brother (nicknamed Papicho) was still going full-steam, though, toddling his way around his mom Lucy’s room. We also saw Leya, who asked me a few questions that I actually understood and was able to answer. I also understood clearly a story told by Yoli’s dad. I had told him how I had some trouble understanding the guy on the bus because of all the noise. Her dad explained that 40 years ago he worked at a place that sold salteñas (a food like empanadas) with a Japanese guy who didn’t speak any Spanish. I usually have a lot of trouble understanding Yoli’s parents when they speak, but this particular anecdote came through loud and clear.

Yoli and I spent some time looking through wedding magazines she’d saved and she also showed me ideas for wedding souvenirs that she had made for friends’ weddings. It was supposed to be a semi-private conversation, but the once-quiet house seemed to come to life, and we were joined by different members of the family. Yoli’s mom suggested we just talk in English, which we did. 🙂