long time, no letter...

February 16, 2015

 

After being pelted by water balloons

(sorry for not sending a letter like this in so long, I keep forgetting/running out of time)

So we´re writing a lot earlier today because of Carnaval.  It´s a lot crazier here than it was in Cuenca.  There, it´s cold so everyone travels out of town to go to the beach, but here it´s hot and people are traveling to come HERE to party and whatnot.  I think I might have mentioned last year that what they do for Carnaval is throw water at people?  Welp, it´s way more common here than it was in Cuenca.  We escaped water balloons, water guns, trucks full of guys with buckets of water that drive around attacking people in the street.  Saturday was the day that it was "officially" carnaval (even though they´ve been playing for two weeks).  We passed through the park in the middle of the center (downtown, I guess you´d call it), where it was the craziest:  There were people all through there, soaking each other, throwing water balloons, spraying carioca (it´s basically a can of foam that you spray at people), and we somehow miraculously stayed dry.  I said to my companion "we are literally walking with angels today".  Buuuuuuuuuuuuut the next day, Sunday, was very very different.  We had so many people following us, trying to get us wet.  It was worse in the afternoon.  These last two days, we´ve had to be in the house by 6pm, and yesterday about an hour before we had to go back, we got straight up attacked.  I have a picture of me at around 5 o´clock, where I´m perfectly dry, and then a picture in the house at 6 o´clock where I´m completely soaked.  There were probably about a dozen people, men, women, and children, that were straight up chasing us with buckets of water.  I was yelling at everyone in English and no one understood me.  It was great.  We were with about 5 other sisters there in the branch, and alllllllll of us were so wet.  We went home about 10-15 minutes early, because it was just ridiculous.  

Today we only have until noon to write, but it´s better than last year; at least we got to write this time.

Well, that was pretty much all the news I had.  We´ve been super terrified and paranoid all week with everyone throwing water balloons and everything.  Y´all can keep on praying for me if you want, no complaints here...

Love you a lot and talk to you soon!

Hermana Iverson