Finally Here!!

Hello friends, family, whoever may be reading this! I know it´s been ages since I first posted on here but hopefully it will be weekly now that I´ve got into a bit of a routine. Well, I say routine, but actually everything is pretty relaxed here- I don´t think Chileans understand what routine is!

Last week I tried to write but my hour at the internet shack (it really is a shack) didn´t really give me enough time, especially as half an hour into it my computer crashed, much to the internet man´s amusement! It was just as I was about to send an update to church as well, so then I spent most of my remaining time time doing that again. That´s why now I´m writing my blog on paper first and then just typing them out later.

Right now I´m in our little ´garden´, which is a rectangle of bare earth with a few little trees and a rotting shed, and I´m accompanied by Gerald the horse and a cat that we haven´t named yet. Random animals are pretty usual in these parts! Next door has lent us 3 cats because our shack (yes, shacks are the only way they can be described) has a bit of a vermin problem... :S As for the horse, well I have no idea! I think it belongs to one of the other residents.

So far the garden has been the only place I can be completely by myself, and it´s SO refreshing. It´s a beautiful day as well- there are no clouds in the sky ans it´s definitely suncream weather. SO much for it being Chilean autumn! I can´t imagine how hot sumer must be!

So....Chile Chile Chile, what else shall I tell you...there´s just so much to tell, I don´t really know where to begin. We´ve been here just over a week and it´s already beginning to feel like home. Although I´m totally overwhelmed by the new culture, I also feel like there´s no place I´d rather be right now. We have been made to feel so welcome here- the people from the church we are working with are so loving, they treat us just like family. For example, when we got off the bus in Cajon at some silly hour after our 37 hour journey, the whole church was there to greet us, and they had prepared a meal for us at our house! And anytime we need anything, they´ve managed to get it for us, sometimes even before we´ve finished asking them. Even though they don´t have much themselves, they want to provide us with as much as they can, because they say we´ve been such a blessing to them in building their new church.

Oh yeh...building. It´s quite hard work! There´s not alot to do at the moment because we just don´t have all the materials, but what we can do, we get on with doing. So far, we´ve dug some trenches, wired some metal rods together, and cememnted the rods into the trenches. I don´t know alot about building, so I´m just doing as I´m told and hoping I´m getting it right! Most of the time it´s been fine though. It´s amazing how much we´ve managed to do in such a short time, actually.

I´m not going to lie, I do miss England. I miss my bed! A matresss and a sleeping bag is comfy, but just not quite the same...and there is no space for anything in the girls´ bedroom, we´re all just living out of our bags. Clothes avalanches are becoming a regular ocurance :P I have managed to put up some nails to hang our towells and coats on though (go me :D ) Also living in a team is quite challenging- it´s hard to get real alone time, and I´m missing having chats with people who know me properly. But we as a team are getting closer every day, especially us girls, so I think it will get easier in time.

I hope you are all ok. Hopefully I will update soon!!

Dios te bendiga
Laura
xxx