Beni River Trip: Day 1 - July 7, 2010

I am sorry this has taken so long but here is the story on our river trip. Since it was just too exciting to summarize in one post, I decided to take you day by day through our journey by writing one post per day, basicly copying my journal from the trip. Check back regularly for more updates from our river trip.


Day 1 - July 7, 2010

We were somewhat rushed getting ready to leave for our river trip since last minute we were told the trip date had been moved up because the river water level was dropping fast and getting dangerously low. We were hardly unpacked from our San Jose/Santiago trip before we started packing for this trip.

Greg, our mission pilot, flew Jenna, Noah, and I to the city of Trinidad and then to San Joaquin in the Beni region of Bolivia where we met up with our boat. The Beni is the northeastern part of Bolivia and consists of many rivers, all part of the Amazon basin river system. This is the more “jungle” or rainforest part of Bolivia.

We were wondering how Noah would fair the ride in a small aircraft. He slept. Noah never ceases to amaze us just how easy going he his. He has handled all the traveling we have put him through in his short life as if he was born for such a lifestyle, much to his parents’ relief. The flight was a little turbulent but it was beautiful watching the Bolivian landscape from the air. As we flew further from the more developed parts of Bolivia, trees reclaimed the land broken only by snaking rivers and oxbow lakes. In some of these oxbow lakes I could see giant Victoria Lilies, the worlds largest lily pads, from the air. It was beautiful to see so much land yet uncut and un-carved by humans.

San Joaquin, the port where we met the boat

In Trinidad, while Greg refueled the plane, Jenna and I desperately searched for sustenance since we had missed lunch. We found a restaurant but they were not serving anything since it was between lunch and dinner (they have much more defined meal times here). After much debate, we managed to finagle a few pieces of bread from them. They could not understand why on earth we wanted to buy just the bread they were going to make into sandwiches to sell later.

Armadillo for dinner

Once in San Joaquin we made our way down to the river where we boarded the two boats (tied together to make one super boat) that would be our home for the next 10 days. We ate a dinner of rice, eggs, bread, and stewed armadillo (boney but good). Afterwards the crew pulled out their instruments and belted out some Spanish worship songs. It was beautiful to listen to them on the river under a clear night sky dusted with billions of stars. Little did I know those songs would be played morning, day, and night at every conceivable opportunity for the next 10 days. I crawled into my hammock and attempted to construct a mosquito net over me. It was, to borrow the current common vernacular in the States right now that I learned on our breif visit back, an “epic fail”. It would take me another two nights to perfect the use of a mosquito net over a hammock.

Chilling with Noah in my "bed"

Return to FUA and Santiago

*Due to internet issues, I was not able to add photos.  I will try again later but for now you can see photos from this trip at: http://picasaweb.google.com/JayWeigner/OrangeHillTeamJune2010?feat=directlink *


This past week a team from a church in Georgia came down to work with our team. The first night they spent out our house before the 28 of us made the long journey out to the communities we were going to work with. Our first stop was San Jose, a painful 6.5 hours from our house down red rock roads that resembled the surface of Mars and roads covered in dust as fine as flour that envelope our car and clogged our lungs. More than once I had to use the windshield wipers for dust rather than rain. At one point several vehicles blocked the road and some guy mentioned we could not pass and used some word I did not understand. When the road in front of us suddenly exploded in a cloud of dust and rock, and the concussion rocked out car I realized the guy had said "dinamita" or in English "dynamite".

We spent the night in San Jose, after working out some double booking issues at the hotel, and then went to the village of FUA in the forest outside of San Jose. FUA is a community of Ayoreos who wanted to get their kids away from the influences of drugs and prostitution that are common in other Ayoreo communities. We spent the day visiting with the Ayoreos, conducting a medical clinic, a VBS for the kids, and constructing a rain water catchment system on the roof of the school and church to help alleviate some of the water problems in the community. We are hoping that a well will soon be dug in the community.

After our time in FUA, we moved on to Santiago (Bolivia not Chile), a small town in the middle of nowhere which is quickly becoming one of my favorite places on Earth. The road out to Santiago was nothing like there previous trip, it was actually a real highway! To wonderful hours on a smooth highway with painted line, rumble strips, guard rails, real road signs, and reflectors, then a short dirt road and we were to Santiago. Why there is such a beautiful highway out in the middle of nowhere and then such awful roads between major cities I will never know. One the way we stopped at a hot spring and had a baptism for one missionary family's 3 kids.

Santiago is a clean, quiet little town at the base of a fantastic plateau system. There is even a small orchestra in the town that put on a little concert for us. We spent the next few days working on building an extension on the back of the church and conducting several VBS and adult services. Noah did just fine with all the traveling and picked up another grandmother along the way. One of the ladies on the team snatched him up and hardly let go until she had to go back to the states. The extra set of willing arms was a real blessing on this trip since it freed us up a bit more.

Over all, the trip went smoothly, that is until the return trip. Both our car and one of the other trucks began to overheat. The truck was leaking oil like water from a faucet. We had to buy 4 or 5 four liter containers of oil to pour into the truck every hour and managed to limp it home. Our car was not so fortunate. It sprung several leaks in the radiator system and blew a head gasket (or something like that, can you tell I'm not a mechanic?). The bleeding truck towed our car the 2 hours back to San Jose where we found a mechanic who is currently still working on it. Since we were down a vehicle, we had to send some of the group back by train while the others squeezed into the remaining cars. I was going to go back by train and pick up my car this week, but today I found out that our Beni river trip was moved up to TOMORROW and so someone else will have to pick it up for us. Today we spent franticly packing and preparing for our river trip. Always the adventure!

For more photos from this trip, visit: http://picasaweb.google.com/JayWeigner/OrangeHillTeamJune2010?feat=directlink

Baby Goes To The USA

So the baby paperwork drama ended well.  We went to La Paz and Noah handled the altitude quite well despite all the "baby turning blue in La Paz" horror stories we heard beforehand.  Everything went smoothly turning in the paperwork at the US Consulate and Noah's US passport arived 6 days before our trip to the USA. 

The last two weeks of May we spent up in the US for my sister Julie's wedding, visiting Noah's grandparents and great-grandparents, and visiting two of our supporting churches.  When we landed in the US, we kissed Noah goodbye and said "see you in two weeks" and gave him up to be passed around like a hot-potato between friends and relatives.  Of course we kept the "Baby Crowbar" (patent pending) handy to pry Noah from his grandmothers' arms.  It was a great trip up north to see friends and family but it was also an exausting whirlwind of a journey and it is good to be back in Bolivia trying to settle into some sort of routine, if that is even possible.

Noah is doing great and I think he is glad to be back to some stability too.  It seems every day he grows and changes a little bit.  They were not kidding when they said babies grow quick!

4 Generations of Weigners

Relaxing with Grandma Debi and Grandpa Gerry

Shared between Mema and Poppy

Enjoying time with Oma

Baby Bureaucracy - Part II

Getting Noah's Bolivian ID and passport was relatively easy, aside from having to wait hours on end in a government building (like going to the DMV) and the ride home turning into a 5 hour trip (normally 1 hour) because of a road blockade by discontented citizens which forced us to take a detour through corn fields on roads so dusty we had to use our windshield wipers to clear off the snow-like dust and farmers charged us tolls to pass through their lands. No, that was easy. The next paperwork battle was preparing for, no not starting, but preparing to start the US paperwork.

So to get Noah's US passport, SS card, and Birth Abroad documents, we have to go to a US consulate with, of course, all kinds of ID and documentation, one of which is our marriage licence. Good thing that was one of the important papers we brought down with us for getting our visas and Bolivian ID. Too bad we could not find it. We found all the other papers we used for getting our Bolivian Visa when we first got here, just not the marriage certificate. We searched everywhere. We had one of our administrators look for it too since he had all the paperwork at one point. We also had our lawyer look, who was also in possession of these papers at one point. No luck until a few days later when the lawyer called and said he found it in the wrong folder. Great news except just hours before we had contacted friends and family in the US to track down our other copy and overnight it to Jenna's mom who is coming down next week. Now it is off to La Paz to visit the consulate to actually start the process. The consulate here in Santa Cruz and the next closest consulate in Cochabama are closed at the moment so we are stuck flying to La Paz. We are hoping and praying this part of the process goes smoothly.

Baby Bureaucracy - Part I

How to get a Bolivian Birth Certificate:
1. Return to the hospital and ask
2. Be told to go home for different ID
3. Return to hospital to receive form
4. Go to Notary only to be told to go to the Department of Health
5. Go to Department of Health to have form stamped
6. Go back to notary to be told I need my wife and two witnesses along with their IDs
7. Find witnesses and return to notary to sign and thumb print all kinds of papers
8. Be told to come back at the end of the day
9. Return to notary to receive birth certificate only to find he was registered as a she
10. Go back the next day to get corrected certificates

This was just the first step, now on to Bolivian ID and Passport then US Passport, birth certificate, and SS card.

It's A Boy!

It's a Boy! Oh wait, you knew that already?  Well did you know his name is Noah James Weigner?  That's right!  And he weighed a healthy 3 kilos (6 pounds, 10 ounces) and was 50.5cm long (20 inches).  After about 26 hours of labor Jenna got up to relax in the shower.  About 10 seconds in the shower and "Uh oh, something is coming out!".  No one was ready.  Our OB/GYN, Dr. Vidal, had gone to visit another patient thinking it would be a few more hours yet.  Fortunately Toni, a doctor with our mission, was with us at the time.  She sent me off to find some nurses.  The ONE TIME I needed to find a nurse, there were none to be found.  Every time I stepped out of the room before, both this time and the 3 nights Jenna was in the hospital before, there were nurses in the nurses' station, usually 3 or 4 watching Soaps.  Not this time.  After running up and down the halls for a little bit I finally found one coming up  the stairs.  She rounded up the troops and our room quickly flooded with medical staff and equipment.  Dr. Vidal made it just in time.  The nurses were a little off guard for two reasons: One, women who go to this hospital almost always opt for a C-section, and two, the few live births they assist happen in a delivery room.  There was no time to get to the delivery room and so they had to make do where we were.  It was fun watching their looks of confusion and disbelief.  Fortunately, our doctor orcistrated the whole ordeal and with a few pushes, Noah was out, blue as a blueberry, and crying his little head off.  It was one incredible moment when they held him up.  It was amazing to see finally him and such a relief to see the worst of Jenna's pain over with.

Mom and baby are doing well.  Mom handles food, dad handles diapers, its a good arangement (I've got the easy end of the bargen).  Right now life consists of figuring out what life looks like as parents and working out the never ending mountain of paperwork required for having a baby here.  Thursday morning we are planning to head home.  Oh it will feel good to be home!

To see more baby pictures check out our Picasa album:

http://picasaweb.google.com/JayWeigner/NoahJames?feat=directlink

My Life as a Country Music Song

I've decided that I may have missed my calling as a country music writer. Here is my recently inspired country song:

"My wife stuck in bed all day,

'cause doc says baby needs to rest.

My dog got diced to pieces

By some wild animal.

Left my heart out in the campo

While I'm stuck in Santa Cruz.

And I ain't go'n nowhere

'cause my truck broke down again."

Maybe I'll stick to being a missionary, I would not be able to stomach the music needed to make this a country song anyhow. But yes, this is what life has been like lately.  Jenna is still on bedrest but thankfully we think this is the last week!  If the baby does not come on his own in the next few days, we are planning to induce on Saturday.  She will be at 37 weeks at that point which is considered "full term".  At this point the risk of infection is greater than the benifit he would gain from staying in.  We are looking forward to finally meeting him after all the gray hairs he has given us already.

Simon did get diced up pretty bad the other day.  Last Friday we recieved a call from our landlords that they had not seen Simon in 2 days, very unusual for Simon.  I went out to our house the next day and spent some time walking around calling for him.  That dog will do anything to be with me.  After a little while I looked out in the backyard to see a muddy and starved dog dragging himself out of the pasture out back.  I aproached cautiously and when I got close he colapsed exausted but happy to see me.  He had a broken back leg as well as claw and teeth gashes all over his body.  After a couple days of a good diet and some vet care he has perked up a lot and is starting to look more like the Simon we know.  Now I have two bedrest patients to take care of here in our little room in the city!

Yes the car broke down again! I took it into one shop to get the power steering fixed (for the 4th time).  Next I need to take it into a glass repair shop to have the sideview mirror replaced that had been smashed.  Then I need to go to an electrical repair shop to have the alarm fixed or turned off to keep it from constantly going off.  Then eventually it might be nice to take it to an AC repair place so we can have AC again, but that one is kind of low on my priorities right now.  No one stop repair place here, you have to find a specialty shop for everything around here.  I'm not a big fan of malls and Walmart but sometimes there is something to be said for convienience!

Life has been a bit crazy lately and it seems keeping up with life has been taking up all my time, but soon we will get to go home with our little guy in our arms and I'm sure it will all be worth it.