dbarney, I agree. There are so many names of the people we lived, laughed and played with in the three villages (and two countries) we were in. We had nationals stay in our home and eat with us and we stayed in theirs. Many years after leaving Bolivia my parents went back to the village to visit. The people were glad to see my parents and threw a "potluck" celebration for them. During the celebration several of them came up to my parents and said, "Watch the (missionary family name here), they won't eat anything that we fixed. They will only pretend. They are not like you, they don't love us like you did." My parents came back and told me that it was true. Many years later my parents retired and dad passed away shortly after. Mom remarried after several years and a few years ago went back to the village they worked in with my stepdad. My stepdad was nervous about going but when he came back he was totally pumped by the experience. They stayed in a national home for more than a week. I asked him had he seen this or gone here or there and he kept saying no. Then he said "We never left the house. People were coming all day every day to visit your mom. They were coming in from several days away and bringing their whole families saying, do you remember Maria? you delivered her as a baby, now this is her baby, etc. We did nothing but visit with the people all day long." Then he looked at me and said "I have never seen anything like it in my life, those people LOVE your family!" With the advent of electricity and computers, we are able to keep in touch with some of the people. Mom sends messages to them and the church via e-mail and someone in the church checks in at an internet cafe occasionally. Facebook has also made continued contact possible. It is funny. The villages have all changed, bambo & thatch huts are now wood with tin roofs, there is running water and electricity, even TV. If I ever go back again I won't know where I am. I remember having to walk to villages or go by canoe and we measured distance by how many days on the trail it took to walk to another village, now they have vehicles and roads and what took days can now be travelled in a matter of minutes or hours. I have even seen my old home on google earth.
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