Day 9 - According to Philip(pe)

Last day in Bolivia

Disclaimer: just because milk comes in a bag, it doesn’t mean is spoils any less.

This morning half of us drank sour milk. The car ride back to La Paz wasn’t very fun.

But after lunch at Burger King many of us felt good enough to go and haggle in the marketplace some more. Chris says that Burger King is a place for rich people, so count your blessings next time you decide to casually get a Whopper.

In the Market place Trevor and I followed Kep. He is an excellent bargainer, speaking the language helps I guess. But I still did pretty well with knowing only a limited amount of the language. However, I can say that I know way more Spanish now than when I first stepped in the country.

The Spanish I learned I attribute to my great teachers: Patti, Chris, Yas, Anita, Daniela, Kep, and Wh(ea)tney. By far the highlight of today was the time we spent at Patti’s house with Kep and Debbie, Patti, Chris and Anita, Yas, and Yas’ mother and little sister. We, the Gringos, taught the Bolivians how to play Signs. It was the best way to end the trip. Actually scratch that – the combination of bunuelos, api, the company of new friends, and Signs was the best way to end the trip.

Even though we only had the single acquaintance with Yas’ mother, we loved her. Her first time playing, she got caught with the sign because Danny took too long to send the sign to her. She yelled at him for being too slow. I believe her exact words were “Next time go faster, you baby.”

The hospitality Patti, her mother, her daughters, Yas, and Kep and Debbie showed us was the best example of my favorite word: xenodochial. I speak for the whole group when I say that we will never forget them, their Christ like love or their love for Christ.

At night, we met face to face with our biggest struggle yet: fitting everything back into our suitcases. But after the struggle we were rewarded with some dope games of One Night Ultimate Werewolf. Debbie had wanted to learn how to play since she heard it was such a fun game. In our last game, Debbie and Kep were the Werewolves: que romantico.

Ciao Bolivia y hasta luego amigos. Vamos a ver a todos cuando llegamos en Cleveland.

Luego en Miami:

Ahora en el Airopuerto nosostros esperamos por un (flight attendant). We’ve been waiting for five hours and our flight just got delayed. Brandon left us. More like A(Brandon)ded us. They overbooked our flight and Brandon volunteered to stay in Miami until the morning. At least in Bolivia, they had enough people to staff a flight. To board alone, they had like ten people helping get people in line.

To pass the time, Danny is pushing Connor around on a cart. Connor is yelling “Not my Airliner!” And Danny says that if he gets yelled at for pushing Connor around, he’s going to respond with “Then get me on my plane.”  Clearly we are the group with the most efficacy.

But our group is divided. There are those like Brandon who would rather stay here in Miami for another night and get wined and dined. And then there are those like Danny who will walk home if that is what it takes.

From experience we don’t underestimate the ability of walking. Last night, all of us except for Kep took a Taxi back to the church from Patti’s. As kep started walking and as we drove, we joked that it would be funny if Kep beat us. Then the cab driver got lost, dropped us off at a coffee shop we knew. We walked four blocks to get back to the church to find that Kep really had beaten us. He’s a beast.