The day started out with a trip to the bank where my ATM card was rejected, but not eaten, followed by a trip to the grocery store, a taxi ride home, and a couple hours running between my bed, the john, and my stash of Peptobismul. Around 2:45 or so Josh and I headed over to Wendy DeVries' house where we met up with her, her Daniel, Emily, and a Venezuelan lady whose name I didn't catch. We caught a taxi to the boat dock and took a ferry over to the other side of the Oronoco River to Columbia. The other side isn't much different, except that there are several leather shops (where all the belts are made in Italy) and things are priced in Columbian pesos. A peso is 2/5 a bolivar (the Venezuelan currency), making 1500 pesos a US dollar. I bought a belt (stamped with MADE IN ITALY) for 30,000 pesos. I really wanted a belt made in Columbia and there were a lot of Columbian leather products in the leather shops along the strip, but none had belts made in Columbia. But I really needed a belt since my pants were falling down, so I settled for MADE IN ITALY. Maybe it's like McDonald's US beef which magically acquires the title "US" when it crosses the border from Mexico - I bought the belt in Columbia, therefore it's a Columbian belt, right? On the way back across the river, the engine on the little ferry started making these horrible grinding noises like when you miss a shift in a manual transmision car. Some guy went back and thumped on the thing and it behaved itself half a minute until asking for another thumping which kept us going the rest of the 5 minute ride. We walked back to the house from the boat dock, which took about an hour, though it was just on the other side of town. It was nice since I haven't had the opportunity to stretch my legs like that since I've been here.
Felíz cumpleanos a mi. I headed out to the hangar this morning planning on cleaning up one of the computers, but when I got there Dan said he had extra room on a flight and that if I wanted to go out to the jungle again, this was my chance. There was a group of 7 from SPU who was going out to Majauaña where they would be doing some construction work, so I rode along. This village is unique because the missionary there is a Venezuelan lady, Elisabeth (forgot her last name). Her husband was killed several years ago in an MAF plane crash, along with the pilot Alan King. The village has its own church and pastor and is pretty much self supporting as far as ministry goes, which is pretty cool. Elisabeth is very grandmotherly and very nice. It was quite a contrast from Cosh. The missionaries lived a little more primitive here, but still fairly comfortable. I guess comfortable is a relative term. Being out in the jungle makes me wonder if I really need that BMW I want to buy when I graduate, or if I really need TV or internet or even telephone. There's just something about being out in the middle of nowhere that makes the way of life I'm used to seem so busy - overly so. I guess I'd really have to spend some time out there to get a good feel for what it's like, but it seems very appealing to me. I rode back with Bruce, and it was just he and I for a ways, so he let me fly the plane. That was fun! I mostly just kept a straight line, but did a little turning back and forth and elevation changing. I really like being up in those small planes. I think if I'd done this trip a couple years ago, I would have looked into aviation as a major. Bruce really enjoys working with the people, and I can see why. It seems like everyone I've met since coming down here has been real neat. I'm not looking forward to saying goodbye. Bruce said a couple of things today that I thought were worth noting. As a missionary pilot, it's not just what you do going from point A to point B that is important. What you do AT point A and point B are just as if not more important.
Today was real laid back. We tweaked with the radio a little and did some switching of power supplies to try and solve a noise problem with the radio and the phone line. The charger/inverter that drives the old computer and charges the car battery the radio runs off of makes a huge amount of noise that the radio broadcasts. The noise shows up on the phone line and causes grief for the modems. We moved the old computer onto the UPS for the new computer and turned of the inverter circuit on the charger/inverter. That made a big difference. Other than that, didn't get much done. Bruce and Josh and I went out for dinner. The place Bruce wanted to go wasn't open, so we stopped at the first place that looked good, an outdoor place. Right as our food was being brought out to us, some girl who looked in her late teens came up to the table and asked us for a gift. We didn't really know what to do, so we gave her a piece of bread and she took it and walked away. She wasn't a street person, she had a nice dress on and looked clean. As she walked away, I was wondering what her situation was. Maybe she was a single mom and had kids to feed or maybe she just saw some gringos and thought she could get some quick cash. Who knows.