Back from Bolivia.

Well first of all I am home! Well at least most of me, I believe that I left part of my heart back in Bolivia. I can say that all that happened on the trip (and that is still happening in me) is more than I ever expected. I am sure that I could write a novel about the things that happened, the things my heart felt and all that we did. Its taking me some effort to really get my mind “back in the game” I am so blessed that I do what I love, because I don’t think I would have been able to get any work done otherwise! I also want to thank you for your patience on the blog while I was away, it was meant to update every few days, but instead updated all of the posts for when I was gone all in one day! I’ll soon get back in the swing of Wedding Detail Wednesday and 10 Random Thing Tuesdays (next weeks will doubtlessly be Bolivia related) but for now I just wanted to share one story, three photos, and likely a few tears as I type.

This trip was listed as a “construction trip” so I thought my heart would be a bit safer than say when I went to Africa last year, but it turns out my heart was hit just as hard this time around. The people in Bolivia were amazing. When you first looked around it is not their culture to just smile a lot…but if you smile at them, make yourself a fool around them, or anything really, their smiles will absolutely warm your heart! While we were working on the boat a small group of the team was also working off-site preparing wood for us, I know that the family that they were working with touched their hearts, and I enjoyed the little bit we got to know them. One day, I joined this group to get some photos of the “lumberyard” (very loose quotations there) because they had spent so much time their. One of the men that they had been working with, and had visited the boat a couple of times, was there as well (wow…tears running down my face already) a girl walked up the dirt road towards him holding a baby and brought the little baby girl over to him. Gustavo, our host and translator, asked what the little girl’s name was, and then the man said something and pointed to me. Gustavo said “su nombre es Heather” the man said something else to Gustavo, and Gustavo turned to me and said “they want to name her Heather.”  As you’ll see in the photos below, she is almost 6 months old, but I learned that in their culture, they won’t name a child until they feel they have the right name. I almost didn’t believe that they really would name her that, but when we returned a couple of days to bring a dress that I bought for her Gustavo asked the Grandfather (the man our team had been working with) “donde está Heather” (where is Heather) and they pointed inside the house. I was (and still am) so humbled that they wanted to name their little daughter/granddaughter after me. I don’t know why they wanted to, or what they saw in me, but the fact that they did see something is more of a gift than I think I have ever received in my life. In one of the pictures below you can see I was laughing, it was all I could do to stop me from breaking down into tears. (I am not doing so well at that now) Wow, so yeah, see how I am having trouble focusing on work??? Here are a few photos of Heather & Heather (they aren’t perfect technically but they are perfect to me!)