Goodbye, Cold!

I finally think it's safe to say that the worst of winter is over!!! Phew, what a huge relief. At the beginning of the month I wore five layers of clothes to bed with four blankets and a heater trained right on me. Nowadays it's one layer, one blanket and no heater. Gosh it makes me so grateful. I won't take warm weather for granted again!

Plant sales at the park to celebrate la candelaria. Spring is coming!

Warm weather means the mosquitoes are back, but no matter. The key is to cover all your extremities (pants and long sleeves all the way)...then you only get bites on your hands. Yah, I'm basically becoming a survival expert when it comes to slight life inconveniences.

It's been actually really helpful to try and cultivate my friendships outside of the volunteers. I've been spending more time with people from church and trying to attend more evening meetings on weeknights, and reaching out to friends and family back home in the United States and making a plans with Becca, who is wrapping up her time as Volunteer Coordinator with the girls' orphanage. A month or two may seem like a long time for volunteers to be here, but really, it goes by really quickly and then they're gone! So I feel much more stable choosing to spend more time with people that aren't going to up and leave before I know it. ;-)

It's also been interesting to witness the comings and goings of the kids at the daycare. The program is quite structured here, in that the mom's need to complete their hour of service to the daycare, pick-up and drop-off their children on time, label their kids' clothes with their names, make sure their nails are cut, etc. So in the time we've been here we've lost a couple of handfuls of children because their mothers couldn't/didn't want to keep up with all of the rules. Or others have been suspended for a month because they still haven't become potty training despite months of trying to teach them. Of course, it's sad when your favorites suddenly disappear, but that's life, I guess! I hope Aldo comes back soon... I miss him.

Anyway, I'm just so relieved that the cold snap is over. It's kind of a metaphorical reminder that whatever difficult times may come, they won't last forever. It's a season, and spring will come soon enough.

In terms of prayer requests, I've been struggling with a knee injury since November that keeps hanging on. I went to see the doctor yesterday and am using a knee brace and limiting my walking as much as possible. Please pray for full healing! It's kind of necessary to walk everywhere in this town and it would be super inconvenient to have chronic knee pain here of all places.