Moto Foto Time

This just got in here by accident, this is about three weeks into our Villa Olimpica (VO) house, so I held out for a long time! but it is my first official meal I cooked...spaghetti, of course. Only without basil...couldn't find it anywhere in town, nor could I find it in my dictionary to see if it really was in the store and I just didn't recognize it by its Spanish name. Found ketchup in a bag, then some paste, but no tomatoes in cans. So I cut up some tomatoes and onions, added some garlic salt and some oregano, and let it cook for a while, then added it to the meat, ketchup, etc. It turned out pretty good, but not like I fix at home. Wayne liked it, and we invited Andres and Laura, they seemed to really like it. I guess if you didn't know what the real stuff tastes like, it was good. Check the avocados! This is in our Villa Olimpica house....still looking for rest of pictures of VO house!

Ok, I have resisted this long enough, but I just have to squeeze in the moto-culture here. I love it, and my goal is to capture every possible thing I can that is carried by moto here. Fascinating! I have infected others with my goal, and these will be interspersed as they are recorded here.

This was one of my first and favorite shots of the park. This little horse just stands out there, seemingly alone, and has a real horse-hair or cowhide covering. He shows signs of wear from being petted, I'm sure he is very old and has had lots of loving care.

The other day, Elder Baque came running to me excited about a Moto-Foto he had taken, and here it is!.....

Isn't it nice to know my little horse gets to ride to the park!

Does everyone know you can click on the photos to enlarge them? I discovered it by accident.

One thing we could not believe when we arrived in Bogota, and were talking about the possibililty of renting a place unfurnished, was that as we were adding in the expense of a washing machine, people said... "Not to worry , you just rent one." "Oh, how much per month?" "Oh no, you rent them by the hour"....hmmmmm, I guess my Spanish is really poor...I thought they said by the hour! Nope, my Spanish was just fine...This was on the post outside the door of the missionaries house where we stayed our first night. Yep, it says you can rent them by the hour or the day. But how do they get them in and out of your house......?

This is how!

Here is Rosa, in our little lavaderia room with this cute little washing machine. It costs about 50 cents an hour to rent. She washed until late, and the guy couldn't make it back, so we kept it over night, and he came the next morning and got it. The first picture is actually him picking it up, but I wasn't there for the delivery, so had to substitute.

Here is the moto, ready and waiting with this little platform. By the way, you may be able to see it is raining pretty hard.

He steadies it,



Fastens it down with a bar, (or often a bungie cord - Colombian equivalent to duct tape, I think)

...and away he goes.

My last one for the day, is we went to talk with a friend here at his store, and they were unloading the pvc pipe from these big storage tubes. At the left, you can see them taking the pipe down from the loft. They then took the big tubes and tied them in a bundle of three.

I jokingly said, they are going to take them by moto, this was really a ridiculous comment, until I saw the guy put on a helmet. Wayne commented they would need two motos, one in front and one in back. Then we saw another guy put on a helmet. By then it was too late to take a picture of the tubes lying on the floor, so my next shot was this one.

They did go to just one bike, hefted them onto the shoulders....

They're really going to do it.

And off they went . . .Fun, no?

We are doing missionary work!

We had a great visit with a family last night, I will put more details in my letter. We are going back for another lesson on Thursday, after we return from Bucaramanga (B'manga). I hope that we will be able to teach what we need to, they are a nice family.

Have a good day, we are off to meetings now, plus finishing touches on a lesson I have to give.