Spaghetti Dinner anyone?

Does anyone out there not like spaghetti with garlic bread? I did´t think so either, until two nights ago when we invited our Chilean friends over for dinner. They have been so gracious to us in the last two weeks, inviting us over in the evening for mate and pan (tea and bread) that we wanted to return the favor. When trying to decide what to make, we took into account that we should give them an ¨ American¨ dish. The dish had to be something that we could make without too much effort. Spaghetti.
The family came over around 7:30 and the food was hot, the first was roaring, I was pumped. Everyone was served and the littlest girl who is three took a bite after staring at her plate for the longest time. Her face curled up in disgust. After that experience the bread didn´t seem to look all that good either. The rest of the family just did not seem to chow down the dinner either, some odd about noodles with meat sauce. Thankfully our garlic bread with melted cheese was a big hit, the father took two pieces.
We have been eating left over spaghetti and garlic cheese bread for two days. Who knew.

FIRE!!!

Fire. It´s a really simple basic thing, that can be used for heat, cooking, hanging around singing songs, just relaxing in front of. Well here in Chile, fire is used for cooking and most importantly to me Heat. Growing up we had a woodstove and a fire place and I would watch my dad start fires on cold winter nights, sometime I would even help. In high school we´d go camping and I loved to start fires. So coming to Chile I thought having a fire would be great thing.
Nobody told me however, that in Chile most of the time all the wood is wet. It´s very difficult to start a fire with wet wood. Coming to Quemchi I made it a point to cut the firewood into small pieces and even cut some kindling. Once the fire is started there is no problem. Saturday night we returned from a good trip to Castro to find the stove almost cold, which was fine, I needed to clean out the ashes anyway. After I had cleaned out the stove I was ready to make Fire. After an hour I was still waiting to make Fire. All my hard work was for nothing everything was damp or wet. The paper would burn, the tissues would burn, the paper bags would burn, I even managed to fill the house up with smoke, yet no fire.
As it got later into the night, with no fire and the house got colder and I got angrier still no fire. I called the land lord and told him the problem, however, I don´t know enough spanish to understand what he was telling me to do and eventually he hung up on me.
After 3 hours still no fire. We saw smoke from the neigbhors and decided that we would go over and get some of their hot coals to start our fire. Putting all my pride on the shelf I went with frying pan and metal spoon to get fire. We met, we look fire back and...still no fire would light. We gave up after 4 hours of trying and then suddenly...fire appeared out of know where in the stove.
The lesson we learned, is that we needed to meet the neighbors because they are new and are a christian family. God has his plans and purposes, which many times we will never understand. He does what he wants when He wants.

oops

oops, so what if I looked at the wrong day on the bus schedule, it couldn´t make that big a difference. If it wasn´t for that mistake I wouldn´t be making an entry in the internet cafe in Castro, Chiloe. Nope, I would almost be back in Quemchi which is where I belong. We survived another night of terrible weather, where the rain comes from the sky, the ground or sideways it´s hard to tell. The wind was so strong I was sure our house was going to blow away (fortunately it only swaid back and forth) Wind gust of 50+ mph for 9 hours makes for a really long night, not to mention a really cold night. Sometimes it hails to. Winter sure is different down south...way down south.

The Rains Come Down

We are now officially living in Quemchi. We´ve been here almost a week and here are some of the observations. It rains morning, noon, and night. Not your gentle soothing rain, but the fierce sideways rain sometimes coming from the sky and sometimes coming from the ground. The wind blows so hard some nights I wonder if the house will withold. The spanish...it´s tough to call what i´m hearing spanish. As chilean friends in Puerto Montt told me before coming ¨I can´t even understand what they are saying.¨ Makes me think that I´m in the wrong place, but this is where God has called us, and like a tree planted by a river of water I will yield my fruit in season.