Tuesday (in Santa Cruz)

We spent the entire morning on Tuesday shopping for supplies for cooking and baking!  We're having a "Texas Dinner" on Thursday night for all of the transition home staff and all of the girls who have stayed there over the past 2 years.  It's going to be a great time of experiencing each other's cultures while serving them and just having fun. And then on Friday we're having a bake sale.

We started out at the big-outdoor-people everywhere-loud-bustling-multicolored-market.  And it was a blast!  We not only bought a ton of ingredients for the dinner and the bake sale, but we also purchased some things to make table decorations.  We got 4 little chili pepper bushes, some cacti, and some succulents...along with some clay pots and containers...and some "chicken straw."  Then Debra and Vanessa arranged it all later back at the home...they turned out so cute! Debra was so in her element looking at plants and thinking through how to arrange them...I was having fun just from seeing her get so into it!  (Pictures later!) Also at the market, Debra and I used the public restroom which required a couple of coins.  These coins got you a little stack of toilet paper and access to the toilets.  Not too shabby.

Then we had lunch at the home.  One of the girls had prepared it for us.  It was seasoned rice with some different vegetables...kind of like fried rice.  Then you put some fried plantains and a fried egg on top...delicious!

We spent the rest of the afternoon making t-shirts with crosses and bleach...well really, we spent the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out the best way to make the t-shirts :) and sewing more headbands.  Oh, and we also brought stuff to make S'mores for the girls.  They LOVED them...like licked-the-plate LOVED them.  We kept working on t-shirts and headbands for the evening then we left to have dinner at the Irish pub again, where we had a Bolivian dish that is very "Santa Cruz" apparently.  It's called Pique Macho...or something to that effect.  It's beef, veggies, and sauce served on top of fries.  Then we strolled around the plaza again!