Best afternoon snack ever! Papaya with lime juice and chile powder from Mi Pueblo Market and a Diet Peach Snapple!!!! Yum. Refreshing combination!
![This is a picture of me when I was five. Lately through some circumstances in life I’ve thought often back to the simple days of being five. I lived in Bolivia, South America at the time, where my parents were serving as missionaries.
My mom and dad were helping run a Mission Home [a place where missionaries arriving to or leaving from Bolivia could come and stay, kind of like a hotel - with guest rooms and a dining room as well as a sweet volleyball court where I grew up playing almost daily as I got older]. There were very few other staff families who had children and because of the age gap in our family for my siblings, I was often the only kid around.
I remember hanging out with the handyman, Don Maximo, who patiently would listen to me chatter and would let me play with his tools. I remember sitting in the dining room with the cooks, tasting the food and talking to them. I remember wandering over to the laundry lines, helping the laundry staff hang sheets and towels, running through the hanging linens, letting them float behind me as I ran fast enough to whip them up into the air.
I remember sitting and listening to “Aunt Lucille” practice piano. She played for our church services in a little chapel that was on the property. I loved watching her fingers glide over the keys as she pounded out the weekend’s hymns with gusto.
Sometimes I’d go hang out with the accountant on staff, Anna, and watch her fingers fly over the 10 key punch calculator as she counted and bundled money.
The neighbors had a creepy house that I convinced myself contained eccentric old people who would kidnap me if I wasn’t careful. Their property could be viewed from an upstairs window - they had an enormous yard with beautifully maintained gardens leading to the mysterious huge house where comings and goings were marked with polished cars picking up the residents, always dressed in black, with dark glasses, swishing into the cars as they whisked them away. I have no idea who they were to this day, but they seemed very mysterious.
If I close my eyes, I can see myself as this little girl, taking it all in, a student of so many adults who lived there. It was a great way to grow up!](http://29.media.tumblr.com/mGR3Z05Ospuw0j0zSXLl4Fi6o1_400.jpg)
This is a picture of me when I was five. Lately through some circumstances in life I’ve thought often back to the simple days of being five. I lived in Bolivia, South America at the time, where my parents were serving as missionaries.
My mom and dad were helping run a Mission Home [a place where missionaries arriving to or leaving from Bolivia could come and stay, kind of like a hotel - with guest rooms and a dining room as well as a sweet volleyball court where I grew up playing almost daily as I got older]. There were very few other staff families who had children and because of the age gap in our family for my siblings, I was often the only kid around.
I remember hanging out with the handyman, Don Maximo, who patiently would listen to me chatter and would let me play with his tools. I remember sitting in the dining room with the cooks, tasting the food and talking to them. I remember wandering over to the laundry lines, helping the laundry staff hang sheets and towels, running through the hanging linens, letting them float behind me as I ran fast enough to whip them up into the air.
I remember sitting and listening to “Aunt Lucille” practice piano. She played for our church services in a little chapel that was on the property. I loved watching her fingers glide over the keys as she pounded out the weekend’s hymns with gusto.
Sometimes I’d go hang out with the accountant on staff, Anna, and watch her fingers fly over the 10 key punch calculator as she counted and bundled money.
The neighbors had a creepy house that I convinced myself contained eccentric old people who would kidnap me if I wasn’t careful. Their property could be viewed from an upstairs window - they had an enormous yard with beautifully maintained gardens leading to the mysterious huge house where comings and goings were marked with polished cars picking up the residents, always dressed in black, with dark glasses, swishing into the cars as they whisked them away. I have no idea who they were to this day, but they seemed very mysterious.
If I close my eyes, I can see myself as this little girl, taking it all in, a student of so many adults who lived there. It was a great way to grow up!
