Rio San Juan and Last Week!

Hi!

Us girls were fortunate to hitch a ride with the study abroad students and Christine to visit the beautiful city of Rio San Juan! Although we squished 13 people in a 7 passenger van for an hour trip, it was totally worth it! It was such a relaxing day, and we had a wonderful time making memories with the study abroad students!

We were able to take a little small motorized boat through this beautiful little area filled with trees and egrets. It was amazing to see all the trees crazy roots, hear the birds, and see little fish!

We then took the boat on the open ocean, it was beautiful! We even drove into a cave!

The rock that resembled a type of skull. Possibly a buffalo or monkey!

After driving through some caves and spending time at a little beach, we headed to a bigger beach where we spent the rest of our day. We bought drinks that were served in pineapples and coconuts and just hung out on the beach. I had many great conversations with the study abroad students and loved having that time to learn more about their life! 

That night, we had a surprise birthday party for Taylor because she was leaving the following day along with Susie and her birthday was July 31st. She was so surprised and it was precious because her sweet parents planned it all by themselves! We had a little dance party in their house and loved the dessert that Luisa made for all of us! 

The next day was very difficult. We had to say goodbye to Susie and Taylor as they started their journey back to The States.We decided to get up early and see the sun rise at the vista that overlooks the beach that we made many memories at! 

Here is a view from the vista

The sun eventually peaked through behind the clouds!

Alicen, Taylor, and I along with one of the study abroad students, Ryan, were the ones who ventured up to this place at 5:45AM. We had quite an interesting experience. We kind of thought the sun wasn't ever going to come out which was going to be frustrating since we all got up so early! The sun did come out but only for a few minutes. Then, we could see rain headed toward us. We eventually could even hear it before it had reached us. We were seriously getting chased by rain. We started heading down, but the rain caught us. We got soaked, but that makes the memory even better!  Watching Taylor and Susie say their goodbyes was emotional because I knew that in just a week that would be me. After they left, Alicen and I spent a good bit of the day just spending time with the community, especially their host families, and comforting them during this sad time! 

Okay, now on to my last week! I am just going to put some of the highlights and lots of pictures!

I spent a lot of time at Gonzale and Luisa's(Taylor's host parents) house after she left. They were missing her greatly and I enjoyed spending time with them! They have this absolutely precious litter of puppies in their backyard and I wanted to play with them one day. So I headed back there and the mom dog is freaking out! She is barking and trying to get me to do something. She kind of successfully brings me to this one spot of the yard where I hear puppies whimpering. I lift up this little piece of wood and there are two puppies in a whole probably like a foot deep and 6 inches filled with water and mud. The mom would try to put her head in the whole to grab the puppies out, but she couldn't. After reaching my hand and pulling the dogs out I felt like such a hero! It was weird, I have never felt like I communicated with a dog more than that day! 

This is one of the pups even after I had rinsed them off in a bucket! So miserable! 

But sweet mom and siblings were trying to clean the wet ones up!

SO adorable and clean!

One of the little cuties another day when it wasn't all wet!

One of my other favorite memories from my last week was going to the beach for a girl in the community's birthday. Maite turned 10 and so much of the community came to the beach to celebrate with her. We literally stayed all day and I loved every minute of it. Usually when I went to the beach it was just about 6-7 of us, but this day there ended up being at least like 30 or more! Some of us traveled there in the back of a pick-up. I think there was about 13 of us, plus tables, chairs, and food. It was so great! I spent so much time with some of the younger boys playing keep away and volleyball in the river that feeds into the ocean. The keep away ended up kind of being lets just tackle whoever has the ball. Although there were like 10 guys playing and I was the only girl, I hung in there and tackled my fair share of boys!  We also jumped off the bridge and just made so many great memories! Well, the memory making continued when it started to pour rain when we needed to be leaving! So needless to say, we had a crowded, wet, cold and pretty uncomfortable journey back to La Esquina! 

Another thing that I loved to watch is the boys found some boxing gloves and just started having these little boxing matches. They definitely weren't serious at all, but it was so funny! 

Some friendly boxing with all the other boys cheering them on!

This time they had the head gear!

These boys are probably both like 7, they were pretty adorable. This picture seems much more serious that it actually was!

One of my favorite things that happened was this:

The sweet man that I am hugging is Papa Miguel and he is seriously the most adorable man ever. . He wore a Cardinal's hat everyday and always talked about how they were his favorite team. Every time I wore my T-shirt he would give me a big hug and we'd talk about The Cardinal's for a bit! He is hugging me in this picture because I gave him the T-shirt that I had brought as a gift for him to have!

Here is him in the shirt I just gave him and me in the hat he wore around everyday! I absolutely love this picture and this moment!

Another wonderful memory was the day before I left: ONE LAST MANGO HUNT!

Here is Jeremia climbing in the tree getting mangoes for us!

Alicen and I decided to actually be adventurous and climb up in the mango tree with the boys! We seriously spent over and hour hanging out in the tree eating mangoes and talking. For sure one of my favorite memories!

Then the boys had to show off their log rolling skills. We'll just say I didn't get the timing down quite right when taking the picture...

MORE:

Another litter of puppies!! They had just opened their eyes when I left and were about 2-3 weeks old!

I could've seriously held those sweet babies all day!

Maite "sledding" down the hill on a huge plantain leaf, so inventive!

Bobby joined in too!

Papa Lion teaching me how to shoot his pellet gun. He really got a kick out of it, and I think he thought it was my first time to shoot a gun!

My Last Day:

So, we sort of made getting up to watch the sun rise a thing to do when someone was heading back to the U.S. This particular time the group that went was Alicen, Ryan, and I. But, we also had some special guests as well. Three of the kids that I got the closest too decided to get up early for me so that I could get to share this memory with them on my last day. Jeremia had asked me if I would go to his house to wake him up so I left my house at 5:30AM. While I was headed toward Jere's house, I saw someone walking toward me and after being scared of who it was for a second I realized it was Jere. He was so proud of himself for waking up to his alarm and not having to make me wake him up! He and I then headed up to the twins house to wake them up. After a bit, they were up. Next, Alicen. This was difficult, we went old school and threw rocks at her window and whispered her name. It was so funny, but we had to try not to laugh too loud to wake everyone up or make the dogs go crazy. After picking up Ryan, we headed up to the vista! After a bit, we were curious if the sun was going to rise through the clouds, but it eventually did! 

Such a wonderful place!

The Three Amigos: Oniel, Jeremia, and Aniel

God is good!

Love these boys so much. We truly became the best of friends!

Alicen and I with our boys!

The little parade some of the kids threw me before I left!

This summer was such a wonderful experience, and I cannot thank The Lord enough for placing this opportunity in front of me! I am planning on sharing and expanding on the lessons he taught me and the impact this community had on my life in a later blog. I am missing this place so much right now, but I have full confidence in The Lord and His plan. Thanks again for all your thoughts and prayers throughout this summer. Please continue praying for this wonderful community and for me!