5 days!

In 5 days I will be getting on a plane to head to mi patria! I find it funny/telling that I felt an urgent need to pack last night (since I practically NEVER pack prior to the night before my trips). It could be that I'm very anxious to get there, or it could just be that I'm not anticipating a lot of free time this week and don't want to be scrambling at the last minute ;)

Yesterday I went with a group of co-workers to see the Nutcracker, which was a lot of fun. It was a large production with stellar sets and costumes. The orchestra and dancers both were pretty good (enough to make it very enjoyable). It was a good push toward getting some Christmas spirit (hard to do when it's 85 degrees and sunny outside and there's not Christmas carols on the radio!). I came home, wrapped presents while watching Elf, and then got all packed for my trip home this week.

I made it through my week of traveling to prisons around the country and my cold is getting better. Tonight I'm going to do a "yankee swap" gift exchange with some friends, which should be fun. I'm looking forward to 1 week of the cold weather I've been seeing on the news in the states (yeah, just 1 week, then back to the beautiful weather here). I hope you're all having a good Christmas season!

10 day countdown!

Holla Peeps,
Sorry it's been a little while since I've posted. I had a busy week last week, with the Embassy holiday party on Thursday starting immediately after work (attendance strongly suggested, and you better stay till it's over), then got sick the following day, and barely got out of bed over the weekend. I was determined to be better by Monday, since I am scheduled through Thursday to be traveling for prison visits.

So, I'm probably about 70% now, but it's good enough. Tomorrow will mark my 4th prison visit, and Thursday will be my 5th. So far so good. Today we did a 7 hour drive, will do a 20-minute visit tomorrow, and then will drive 7 hours back to Caracas. It seems a little excessive, but there are no flights from Caracas to the town we're in, so it's pretty much a necessity. The comfort you can take in this is that if you're ever imprisoned abroad, the US Embassy will send a Consular Officer to visit you approximately once a month until you receive a sentence, then once every 6 months until your sentence is served, whether you're guilty or not!

It's neat to get outside of Caracas and see a whole different side of Venezuela. Driving along the highway, I'd almost believe I was in Illinois due to the flat lands and trees along the side of the road. The quality of the roads, though, is another story. And speeding along a highway full of speedbumps, potholes, and completely missing the surfacing at many points in a (Heavy!) armored vehicle does not make for a comfortable ride! But worth it.

Hearing about the blizzards and cold snaps back in the States, I am grateful for the nice warm weather here. I even heard that Guadalajara had a high of 4 degrees earlier this week! It's a nice pleasant 70 or so on a daily basis. Where I am today it's about 91 I think. But I look forward to the cold for one week when I go home at the end of this month!

4th place is the 3rd loser

Hi all, the good news today is that it didn't rain! In fact, it hasn't rained enough in the past couple days to make things a lot worse in regard to the mudslides in Venezuela. The roads are in horrible shape right now (including some gaping holes so big that cars get stuck in them if they go in).

This afternoon team USA played in the Friendly Cup tournament (thefriendlycup.org) for 3rd place, but alas we did not win, so we settled for 4th. We still were lucky enough to get medals for it :) It's been a lot of fun playing soccer with the team, and I look forward to many more tournaments. We were so glad for the sunny day today too.

I'm looking forward to my trip home for Christmas coming up before too long! While I am very much enjoying the great weather here, I am up for about a week of the snowy weather :) I look forward to seeing family and friends, and going to bridal showers for Joanna, and just enjoying being able to let my guard down when I'm out of the house. In the meantime, I'm enjoying my hammock whenever I have a spare moment!

rain, rain, go away

As I am watching the reports of the snowstorms and cold fronts sweeping across the US, we are fighting rain and landslides here in Venezuela. Due to the poor construction of many "homes" many peoples homes are completely destroyed and many people have died as well. We're grateful today that the embassy has insisted on such high security for our homes, which allows us to enjoy little to no effect from the mudslides and flooding that is going on in much of the city and country. Because we live so close to the embassy, those of us who are in town haven't had any trouble getting in to work like some of our locally employed co-workers.

One of my coworkers that lives about 15 miles outside of town usually takes 1.5 hours to get in to work. Yesterday, he left home at 4:30 am, and 2 hours later had only moved 4 kilometers. He took another 2 hours to get home after deciding it wasn't going to work to come in.

Schools have been closed in many states for the rest of the week, partly to keep people off the roads, of which many are blocked by mud, rocks, debris, and tree branches. Airports are closed, and a few of my co-workers were stranded out of town yesterday. We're hoping they're able to make it back into Caracas today.

The following link has pictures sent in by people in different parts of Venezuela showing the flooding and the problems it's causing: http://picfog.com/search/lluviasve

Official reports only tell of casualties in the low teens, but unofficial reports have cited many more (in the low hundreds in just one area). The landslides are supposed to be the worst in 10 years. Thankfully, embassy staff have not been effected very much by it, but it is definitely all around us. It's hard not to think about how the lack of decent housing is a major contributor to the mass casualties resulting from the rain.