The Streets of San Gil

Our little city of San Gil (pronounced San Hill) seems appropriately named. . . Saint Hill, to us! It is about 30 to 40,000 in population, depending on whom you talk to, or which brochure you read. We have heard up to 60,000. This was the first street that we came to as we were coming home from playing basketball, decided against this one. But this is a cool picture because at the time we were living at the hotel, on this side of the river, and across the valley (a very narrow valley, I might add) of the Fonce River, you can see the two settlements the one on the left is Villa Provivienda, and the one on the right is Villa Olimpica, where, unbeknownst to us, we would be living in a few weeks...in Villa Olimpica. The slight white dot between the two is "La Cruz", and you will see that many times in our pictures.

We decided to pass the above street up, and this one was our next option! Aren't these stones great!

We have just come from the Colisea, the local reacreation spot, basketball courts, which yield to any soccer group that wants to play soccer on them, a covered court with wood floor, and a park-like area. (More pictures about this area later). Do we dare or not? This lady is walking down carrying a 5 gallon bucket loaded with something, ok, we'll give it a go! We are going to within a stone's throw of the trees/river at the end. There is a certain part of me that says, "let go of the ball, and let's see how far, how fast, how many taxis hit, trucks, people, etc..." This picture does NOT do justice to the steepness of the streets! But aren't they beautiful streets? It's not as evident here, but later on you can see where the rock changes to cement streets. Notice the taxi on the left, you will look back up at it later. Waaaaaaay down on the right there is a barely perceptable red dot of a car. It's also in a later photo.

This clever protection for the water meter main caught my eye. It is located right at the feet of the lady in the previous picture. These streets are awesome during a strong rain, the water cascading down them has you looking around for Noah II.

This is better than half way down, you can see the taxi from the first picture, and we started at the short wall you can see close to the top. This is one of the few streets that they do block off from the top. Some of the others just have a big rock sitting in the middle of the street. The lady at the right of the wheelbarrow, when I turned to take the picture, told everyone to smile. They were good sports about my taking photos. I liked this one because it showed three types of transportation, four if you count the guy walking. This is always one of my favorite things to capture, the transportation of a place. Here you see the change from stone to cement streets.

Waaaaaaay up on the right, by the second little rectangle in the long white strip, you can barely disinguish the little dot of the taxi from the first foto. You can also see where the wheelbarrow picture was taken at the junction of the smooth cement street, and the textured stone street, cool no? The slight off-set of the while rectangles near the top, on the right shows the street where we were standing for the first shot. There is a slight hill that continues up the mountain. There is a blue painted wall that has a religious saying on it, I guess I need to take of foto of that to make this complete.

This foto is one of the streets in Villa Olimpica where we often walked to visit members living near to our next home after the La Posada Familiar. It makes a nice transition, but Villa Olimpica will have to be another day.

Hope you have enjoyed getting acquainted with San Gil. We do walk a lot, but the taxi rides are a lifesaver for the steep uphills. We love the empanadas here, filled with all kinds of great stuff - ground beef (carne molida), chicken (pollo), etc., but we learned another similar word that is not so great - empinada means steep, and steep it is here!

While we want you to become acquainted with the setting of our mission, I want you all to know how much serving here means to us. I love this from the Preach My Gospel manual:

...many people are searching for purpose in life. They are concerned for their families. They need the sense of belonging that comes from the knowledge that they are children of God, members of His eternal family. They want to feel secure in a world of changing values. They want "peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come" (D&C59:23), but they are "kept from the truth because they know not where to find it" (D&C 123:12).

We are meeting so many people every day that are looking for something more in their lives, what a privilege to be able to bring the gospel to them. A wonderful opportunity and experience.

Have a good day, we are off to visit members, and at 6:30 we go the the hotel for a fun activity for our 49th Anniversary!

Love, the Jensons