When I first arrived to my host home, I would have never said this is luxurious. A family of 7 or more (given the day) use one bathroom that smells so bad it’s unbelievable. Also, in Bolivia you never put your used toilet paper in the toilet, you put it in the trashcan, which contributes to this smell. The weather is about 40 degrees, and even colder at night and there is no heat in the house. The bed is about as hard as a rock and to get to our room you have to walk through the mom’s room. But, we have a bed. We have covers to keep us warm. We have clothes to layer up in. We have a working toilet (for the most part) and shower, and not a squatty potty (Thank you Lord! Future months we won’t be so lucky). I do live in luxury this month. I am so blessed to have a woman and family who put food on the table for us three times a day, who literally runs around to get us sugar or milk or anything she notices is missing. This woman is absolutely amazing. She raises 6 children, plus grandchildren, plus the local neighborhood children. She’s like the grandmother of this community. I’ll also mention this is not a nice or safe community, with human dummies hanging from every other lamp post to threaten thieves that they will be lynched (which has happened). But, I love this area. I love the church we get to go to even though I have no idea what is being said. I love the view from our window that is so astonishing and breathtaking that I still am not used to it. I love the hospitality, the joy in people’s eyes, the belly laughs they all have when the family gets together. These kids have so much joy in their heart, and the little ones play with toys that probably haven’t been in America since the 1980s. But they don’t care. They love to play with them anyway. This month has showed me that you don’t need much to be happy. You don’t need nice toys and clothes to be happy. You don’t need fancy cars (the transit system is really old cars and buses that are overcrowded and constantly have engine problems, but we get from point a. to point b.) or big houses to be happy. You don’t really need anything to be happy other than love and laughter. This family is so rich in love and they have given me nothing but love this month, even though we seriously can barely talk to each other because they don’t speak English and I don’t speak Spanish. I wouldn’t change it for anything.
