Thursday, August 23, 2012

8/23/2012 Hurricane Isaac

    We've spent the day hearing about the nearing hurricane that could result in 20" of rain.  Wish we could send some home!  The most vulnerable things here are the poor people who live in tin shacks that can be blown or washed away and the electricity which goes on and off most of the time anyway.  Those who live in cement cinder block houses just have feet of water in their houses. I'm worried about our friends who work here. We are blessed to live in an area where government buildings are located so our power has been good most of the time.  It was out most of the day the other day and goes off at times but usually comes back on within four hours or so.  The  part of town our church is located in has constant power outages.  A few weeks ago during Sacrament meeting the power went off and the generator clicked back on, then it would go off, click back on until they finally moved the meetings to the lower level of the building so they could save what electricity they had from the generator to cool off the downstairs.  The people who live in that area say the power outages are constant.
   Today was our music lessons with the returned missionaries.  It is always fun to work with those kids. (Anyone under forty is a kid to us these days!)  The three of them are all at different levels so that makes it challenging.  Alwin had taught himself to play the first hymn in the simplified Hymn book.  He is the one who plays so well by ear so you always hope he is actually reading the music.  He is such a talented young man.  Jose is the one with a beautiful voice and is doing well.  He has had lessons before but didn't finish.  His goal is to learn to play so he can play and sing a love song to his girlfriend.  I don't think that is the goal of the church's program but it motivates him so ......
Katty is such a pretty girl who thinks she is so dumb because these boys are far ahead of her.  It is harder for her but she hasn't had the experience they have. I just love her - there is just so much humility in these kids.  So today I had Katty to teach - she speaks little English and my Spanish is marginal but we did ok.  We'll both learn alot!!
    Went to the temple.  I didn't use the headphones in English at all and don't think I will use them again. The Spanish is making more sense to me but I really have a headache after listening so intently and trying to pick out the words and phrases I know and make some sense out of them.  I am so grateful for what I have learned.
   Guess we'll go to bed and see if we are awakened by a storm....
   
   

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