Floyd Trouble: The Day The Van Broke Down

Today's verses were Psalm 38/39/40.

Left the base at 5:45am.  To village to unload supplies we picked up from IOM Warehouse yesterday.  Molive (pregnant lady at the village) tried to talk to me.  She is due in January.

To Mayor's office for our 8am meeting with him.  It was weird because no one else was waiting like usual.  We were completely alone.

During our down time Jose was reading his creole Bible.  I also found out his real name is Joseph Francy.  What?  Joseph?  I thought it was Jose (because that is how you say it in creole).  I learn so much.  The Mayor sent us a text just after 8am to let us know he had to go meet with the President.  Jose doesn't know how to text, so he wrote out our reply on a piece of paper and I texted it.

Back to the IOM Warehouse to pick up tents that we didn't have room for yesterday.  I did all the paperwork this time.  When Kendra drove the van around a part fell out.  I picked it up - big mistake.  It was hot!

After a small panic attack, we decided to coast back to the Paraguayan base with no brakes and no power steering since it was only 2 miles.  I jumped out of Floyd (the rolling van) a few times to move obstacles.  We gave Joseph money for a taptap back to his place since he can't go in the UN base.

Took Floyd to the "garage" on base.  I kept saying "Floyd is sick" in Spanish because I don't know how to say broke or broken.

Floyd (the van) in the garage.

Discussion of the parts. 

Everything fell out except the belt.

At this time it was only 10am.  We spent most of the day writing emails and making phone calls to find a car to use or rent.  We called six friends in Haiti and no one had a spare vehicle.  Rental was $80 a day plus more for insurance.  The average cost per day was about $200 a day when it is all said and done. Yikes.

There are two doctors at the base.  One checked Kendra's blood pressure and it was too high, so they made her lay down for awhile.  His name is Diego Lesme.  Unlike most people here, his faith reflects beliefs similar to ours as opposed to the Catholic way.  His Dad is a Pastor at a church in Paraguay with an attendence of 20,000.

About 4pm we were extremely frustrated and at the end of our rope, so we decided we needed a break.  The guys were playing volleyball and the Deacon asked if we could play too.  Susan watched, took pictures and socialized with a few men who speak English.  Kendra played two games and I played on a team that only lost one game.  I was decent enough to be invited back tomorrow.

Dinner with the two current Colonels, the new Colonel and Major Rodriguez.

Had friends over to our container again tonight to ask them if we could bake a cake tomorrow for Colonel Casco.  His 50th birthday is Saturday.  The guys let us do laundry and we sat outside and talked until 11:30pm.

This has been such a weird trip.  It's like in slow motion and you keep trying to speed up the video, but it is stuck on the slowest fast forward setting.