Wednesday

Well, well, well...A boring title for a very exciting day. Today is Wednesday, I'm not gona lie...but let me tell you, you should've been there. After reading my blog, you may have a different opinion.
It started out as any other day...no, wait, it really didn't. I woke up at 6:30 and stayed in bed, asleep off and on until about 8. There were 12 little kidos in our house! Amber made pancakes. There was a harsh smell, though, and it wasn't her pancakes. 2 of the littlest ones needed diapers, of which we didn't have any left. I took the diaper off one and decided to take my chances, and took it off the other(the 1 year old) and then put a towel around her like a diaper. I gave her a bottle which she drank all of without stopping for air. After she was done we sat together awhile, and then I felt it. The hotness on my stomach. The towel wasn't very absorbent, I soon discovered. There wasn't much else to do but sit until more diapers came from the store run, so we just had to get comfortable. Soon her older sister found a "spare" diaper somewhere and changed her while I cleaned up.
The rest of the morning was spent doing laundry and getting the kids ready to go home. We took them home and then headed for the airport to pick up two new groups, the last of the summer. If you think the morning at home was exciting, it just gets better.
There was a huge strike of teachers of the whole country today. Since we're the capital, they decided this was the place to be! Public school teachers here get paid very little, if at all usually. They have striked before and nothing has changed. Today every teacher from every village decended into the streets of the city. They marched, closing major roads and bringing out police in riot gear to block streets and keep them from storming onto certain other major streets, and basically to keep the peace. We were told that the main way we usually take to the airport was closed and we could go around another way, but on our way there we get a call saying to get off the main road and weave through residential side streets to get there. Mind you, there are 2 groups from the states waiting for us at the airport, not knowing what's going on or where we are (Amber, Alyssa, Rachel,and I). We had to park the truck about 1/4 mile away and walk, but we couldn't get through the wall of policeman. We were about one block from the airport. We walked up a side street and tried to get to the airport from across the street, but where we ended up was even worse. People were shouting "Foreigners! Travelers!" at us, even though we weren't going to travel anywhere. As we got closer to the police wall, another couple white guys came up with their bags wanting to cross and I thought a riot was going to go up. People wouldn't even let them get close to the police line and the police didn't do anything. I'm sure they would've broken it up if there had been violence, but people were just shouting at them that they couldn't pass. The teachers aren't getting any word from the government and are mad at the president so they tried to close down the airport or disturb traffic as much as they could to make a statement and try to get paid!
We stood near the crowd for awhile, then a nice lady participating came over and quietly told us that we probably shouldn't be standing where we are because people could start throwing things at us, but that it should end in about 30 minutes. So we walked just a little way down the road and waiting and low and behold, in about 30 minutes, we really were able to get through. With the help of the police, we crossed the road and ran into the airport. And the group hadn't even picked up their bags yet so they had no idea. We went to lunch, took them to Baxter, and everything was fine.
Tonight we, our house, went out to dinner for Rachel's last night. We went to a really nice steak restaurant. Rachel has been here since May and is awesome, a lot of fun, and has worked hard at perfecting her spanish. She has worked super hard and has been a great blessing to Amber and I this summer.