Hi! My name is Katrina.Remember me?Well I am here again.My Aunt Betsy started the Pathfinder club here and we have been having alot of fun. A few weeks ago we had a "Fun Night".It was fun! We had popcorn ,Kool-Aid, and cookies first.Then we all got

Goofing off with my cousin Kristen

one Marshmallow apiece to roast.(One of our relatives brought them when they came to visit us) We told everybody that they were clouds.They almost believed us but after a while they knew we were joking.Then we had "bread on stick."We roasted the dough over a fire outside the shool where we were staying .Alot of us burned ours,including me.

Well after that we taught them and played Circle Dare Base.then we each tied a ballon to our foot and tried to pop the other person's ballon.Of course the ballons were imported.The boys cheated and tied their's real close to their shoe.Well then we played several games and before we realized it,it was 2:30.As was normal,allthe other girls had gone to bed early and it was my cousins and I and the rest of the guys awake.We told jokes and finally agreed on going to bed.So "we" went to bed the boys stayed up and laughed and talked.Sometimes the girls here can be so boring!We wanted to stay up and talk but all the girls were sleeping!

My cousin Kara and some of our friends

And there are times when we go out for free time and the boys play football or something and the girls sit around inside.But of course I have learned to live with that.If I jump from a building and run around they ask me if I want to be a boy.Well that's their culture so I understand.Well anyway we have a lot of fun in the river.When it doesn't rain alot the water goes down and we can swim to a log in the middle of the river and also to the other side ,which is Venezuela.when the water goes up higher we jump from the top of our landing.When it does go up high we have trouble rowing our canoe bacause the water goes fast.Sometimes when it get really high we will have a lot of trouble going to the store on the other side of the river.You have to go get supplies just in case the water goes even higher, but the funnest part is jumping in.Right now the water is up, but not up enough for us to jump in,so we hope it will either go up or go down,we don't

Unusual Bark Canoe

like it in the middle.Well this week different pathfinder groups are coming each day to do swimming honors so this week isn't that boring.

We also are Practicing running ang swimming bacause soon some other villages will be coming and there will be competitions so our week is busy.Well upstairs in my mom's bedroom a bird came in and made her nest in a backpack up on a shelf.Now there are baby birds there and they seem to be chirping the day away!We climbed up and saw four of them,we're not sure what kind they are yet.Also we have to spend the day making sure there are no cats upstairs.Anyway,after I swim and run and wash,etc. I go to Dialect lessons.I'm learning pretty good but it's hard.The thing is that the people here speak English and

Singing by the river with Lina, Kristen, and Heidi

their dialect.The only problem is, is that at school they are required to speak English and the rest of the time they speak they're dialect but to us they always speak English so we never get to learn so we started taking lessons.It would be easier if people spoke to us but they don't so every afternoon we got to lessons.

Anyway a few nights ago we were going to have a social but it was barely drizzling so they didn't have it.We wanted to do something fun because we were in the spirit so we invited some of our friends to have a sleep-over.So we walked to their houses and asked their parents.After getting permission we came back and my dad put on a short movie on the universe using his notebook computer.(You see he has a VCR here which he uses for evangelism and we have solar panels) Then we ate some popcorn and drank some juice.Then we set out our beds under the kitchen hut.It was pretty fun and in the morning we had a pillow fight.After that we all went down to the river and let them use shampoo and conditioner for the first time .They really liked it.

Well anyway we haven't seen much snakes anymore.When we are swimming we have invented our own games.We sing songs under water and the other person tries to guess them.It's really fun.Sometimes we'll stay down at the river for a couple hours doing that.Also we will play catch or hide-and-go-seek.You see, when we come up

Me helping to paint the church

out of the water we are supposed to have our eyes closed so that we can't see where the other person is.The funny thing is that people tell us not drink from the creek because they say it runs by the village cemetary so we shouldn't drink from it, they tell us to drink from the river(where they wash dirty diapers!)Well anyway they come up with the weirdest things sometimes!!!They said that my uncle lost weight because ,after he skinned so many snakes, he didn't wash his hands before he ate,that's why he lost weight!Most of these things make no sense.They also told me not to eat in a hammock because if I did then I would fall down when I was walking,then they told me not to jump in the river because if fell on my stomach then I wouldn't be able to have children or something like that .One day we went on a walk and I was thirsty so I went to the river(another) and some of the kids told me not to drink it because I would get malaria.I burst out laughing and told them you got malaria from mosquitoes but they didn't believe me!

Some other ideas my friends have here are:
- If a father works too hard or cuts down a banana tree soon after the baby is born, the baby will get an umbilical hernia.
- There is a certain tree that if you smile at it, all your teeth will eventually fall out. No one knows how soon. Maybe by 90?
- In order to make your headache go away, you must stick some pepper on a string and stick it up your nose until you sneeze.
- If you dream of being poked or proded in your dream, you will certainly get bitten by a snake the next day.

Well anyway I gotta go now.

BYE

Your Friend,

Katrina

You may write to Katrina at: gates@andrews.edu

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Last Updated: May 13, 1997