I plop down on my bed after an intensive cramming session before a test. I let out a sigh. Not exactly the happy kind, more like the can-you-believe-this kind.

I hear humming. “Hush.” I tell the noise.

More humming. “Hush. I need quiet.”

A giggle escapes from somewhere in the room. I look around, but I don’t see anything.

Oh, perfect, I think. Now on top of a science test, I’ve got hallucinations to worry about!

Shuffling noises come from behind the bed. I get off the bed and approach the shuffle.

“Hola!”

“Aahh!” I yell.

Another giggle. It’s Andy.

(If you don’t remember Andy, read “Elijah, Andy, Moo-Chella, and Me”, a blog about the day I babysat him. (https://soallmayknow.org/elijah-andy-moo-chella-and-me/.)

“Le dijo, hola!” he says.

“Oh, uh, um,” I fumble.

I think I just had a heart attack at 13 years old.

Andy? In my house? In my room? For how long? And why?

There he was, playing with Legos, talking to himself, and scaring me to death.

The rest of the conversation was in Spanish, but I’ll write it here in English.

“You are in my house!” I accuse.

“I know that,” he replies calmly.

“Yeah, but why are you in my house?”

“I’m playing hide-and-seek,” He explains.

“Oh,” Relief flows into me. “Then where’s Elijah?”

“I’m not playing with Elijah, I’m playing with my sister,”

“You are? Then where’s she?” I ask. How many preschoolers are there, lurking in my home?

“She’s at my house. She’ll never find me here!” He brags.

I give a short yelp and pick him up.

I jog to Ms. Cecilia’s house. Oh, no…

She’s going to be mad. “–And I thought, what a great hiding spot!–”

She’s going to be mad. “–And, she’ll never, ever find me!–”

She’s going to be mad. “–Oh, look, my house!–”

We come to a halt in front of his house.

“Andy– I found you! You’re it!” says his sister, as she tags him.

“Andy! Where were you?” says Ms. Cecilia.

Rapid Spanish scoldings address Andy.

“Your house is a great hiding spot!” he shouts.

I smile.

 

-Madeline

So. I’m at home with Dad, working on Algebra and Science. You know, the usual.

All of the sudden, a really strong breeze blows in through the window.

Oh, sweet relief, I think to myself. On a day as hot as this, every breath of wind seems like it’s sent straight from heaven. But, then again, that was a really strong breeze…

We look up from Algebra I.

“Oh, dear,” I say. The sky is filled with clouds– big, black, and full of rain. The sun disappears.

Another gust of wind. “Here it comes,” I murmur.

Dad jumps up, heading for the back door. I gasp. The laundry!

We run out back towards the clothesline. “Get them under the eaves!” Dad roars above the thunder.

Another burst of wind and sheets, shirts, and pants come flying off the lines. With this weather, clothespins don’t make much of a difference.

Leaves come flying of the trees– along with a few branches.

The sky is dark– but it’s only 10:00 am.

A big white towel comes off the clothesline at top-speed– and hits me in the face.

“Aahhh!” I scream, like I’m being attacked by a ghost. “Help me!”

Then, as if to dramatize my running-around-with-a-towel-on-my-head, a car alarm starts going of in the distance. Wee-ooh-wee-ooh! Woo-woo! Ba-ba-ba-ba! Whoo-whoop! Me-me-me–

“Are you okay?” Dad asks.

“Oh, yes, I’m fine. This towel just came flying at my face, and–”

The thunder, once again, drowns me out.

“Maybe we should get the clothes under the eaves. Remember?”

“Uhh… yes! Of course. Great idea,” I agree, regaining my composure. Well, trying to.

Dad had hung up a couple of long wires under the eaves of the house to serve as clotheslines during storms. When it starts to rain, we have somewhere to put all the clothes.

The wind whips my hair into my eyes. “Oww.” Pain.

“That’s all of the clothes!” Dad triumphs. “Now, into the house!”

We hang up sheets in front of the windows to keep the rain from getting in.

We put pots and pans under the places in the roof we know leak. The two bedrooms, the living room (in two different places), and the kitchen.

We close the two glass windows– the only glass windows– and we’re ready.

The wind blows again, and an old wood-and-tin soccer dug-out falls down and the sheet of metal rips through the grass.

It starts to rain. Not that pitter-patter beginning, either. The I-can’t-hear-myself-thinking kind of rain.

And I feel like Dorothy, from the Wizard of Oz, ready to take off in the cyclone.

Munchkins, here we come.

 

-Madeline Studebaker

Washing the dishes was never really my thing. I just don’t like it.

Dirty water, gross leftovers, and stubborn grease.

I remind myself exactly how much I detest this job, and then get to work.

I turn on the kitchen faucet. Funny noises are coming through the pipes. Oh, no, I think to myself.

Mud pours into the sink. When I say mud, I’m not talking about dirty water.

I mean mini dirt clods and sand and grit and brown-ness. Lots of brown-ness.

“Uugghh!” I throw my hands up in the air. “I’m trying to be nice about this, but come on!” I say in disgust.

I fill two buckets with water from our rain barrel and haul them inside. “This is not fun.” I announce. “I don’t care if we can’t have a dishwasher. All I want is clean water,” And I get started on the dishes, one by one, rinse and scrub and rinse and soap and rinse.

So this is how it goes.

Washing your dishes in mud. Isn’t fun.

Washing your clothes in mud. Isn’t fun.

Washing your hair in mud. Isn’t fun.

“Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve,” She tells me.

“Yes, I know. Are you excited?”

“Of course! There will be fireworks, and there will be parties, and we will burn the dolls,”

I know exactly what she’s talking about. Of course, the celebrations started right after Christmas, and would actually end several days after New Year’s had come and gone. The fireworks, I understand. But the burning of paper-mache and cardboard effigies is beyond me, a cultural tradition I know about, but still can’t quite grasp.

They start selling the figures weeks in advance, and then, on New Year’s Eve, they set them on fire, to blaze in the streets with wild taunts and laughter, jumping over the effigies and going on about how the old year is finished with, how the old year is dying. After surviving the start of 2013, I knew all about the doll-burning. I know all about what and how, but not why.

“But why?” I think aloud.

“Why… why what?” she asks, puzzled.

“Um, I said, why burn the dolls?”

“We burn them because, well, because they represent the old year. You know that,”

I nod. “Oh, sure,”

“And the old year is over,” She adds. “It’s just so we can remember. You know that, too,” she smiles.

“Yes,” now I know, but I still don’t understand.

Fire consumes the effigies, but not the sins and mistakes of the old year.

Fire, too, will consume those who don’t understand -and then accept- the One who can take away those sins, those mistakes. I don’t want to think about that. Not right now. I smile to try and cover up my long silence.

“How about an ice cream?”

But I can’t get it out of my head.

 

-Madeline Studebaker

“Come play with us!” I hear. Oh, no.

“Um… I’m wearing a skirt. And… I’m bad at this game,” I tell them, trying to make up believable excuses in Spanish.

“You’re scared,” they say. Well, yes, honestly, but you’re not supposed to be thinking that along with me, I want to say. But I can’t. My Spanish won’t let me.

“Fine! I’ll do it,” I grumble, trying to hide my anxiousness.

You know, to me, flying out of a swing set and trying to land the farthest away from it sounds pretty severe. But that’s the game.

Sounds pretty dangerous, actually.

And, meaning to fly out of the swing? On purpose?!

Trying to land more than five feet away from it?!

But I had said I would do it, and now I had to.

So. I took a deep breath.

“Uno, dos, tres,” they chant.

Three of us girls swinging back and forth.

I’m supposed to jump off and break my neck. Instead, I’m going to fall off and break my neck. There’s a big, horrible difference. Believe me.

“Cuatro cinco, seis,”

This is bad.

“Siete, ocho!”

I’m going to die.

“Nueve!”

Aahh!!

“Diez!”

“Help meeeee!” I scream, as speed and gravity hurl me towards my fate.

Then, my feet the ground.

I look up, expecting to have flown half way around the world.

Huh?! I’ve made it two feet from the swing set. Seriously?

Two feet?

“Um, did I win?”

 

So All May Know,

Madeline Studebaker

Marta doesn’t know why we’re here. All she knows is that her mother brings her to my house, leaves her with me, and goes into the classroom.

I speak Spanish to her, painfully slow to make sure she understands me.

“Marta,” I tell her. “Don’t go in there.” She reaches for the doorknob.

“Da-da!” she pleads.

“No,” I say. “You cannot go in there. They are working,”

She runs up to me. “Da-da, da-da!” she says.

“What?” I ask. “What is da-da?”

“Da-da,” she whispers.

“Do you have to go to the bathroom?”

She shakes her head.

“Are you hungry?”

She shakes her head.

“Tired?”

She shakes her head again.

“Want some water?”

“Da-da, da-da!”

Then it clicks: to Marta, saying da-da is the same as saying agua, or water.

I fill a plastic glass full.

“Marta,” I say, “Say thank you,”

She stares at me with her big brown eyes. She hands me back the water.

“Thank you,” I model again. “Just say it,”

“Da-da,” she says, smiling. “Da-da,”

We have our little conversations. She tugs on my arm and I ask her what it is she needs. I go though the list until she starts nodding and tugging harder.

She doesn’t speak any English. She barely speaks to me even in Spanish.

She’s only three years old, yet I can’t seem to give her want she needs.

It’s hard.

But I’m learning to love Marta.

“Okay. Here’s our strategy- we split up. Madeline coming in from the left, Abigail coming in from the right,” Dad whispers. “Amy, you and Elijah wait for my signal,”

“Right,” she nods.

“Divide and conquer!” I shout, adrenaline pumping.

“Shh! Do you want everyone to know our plan?!” Abigail hushes me.

“Oops,”

Now, you’re reading this, but you’re not really getting it.

“Stop,” you say. “What exactly are you doing? Is this some kind of sport? Some weird way to homeschool? Please don’t tell me this is a new ministry tactic of yours,”

“The bus is coming! Move out!” Dad yells.

“Oh,” you say. Yes, oh.

This… this is the bus stop.

“Go, go, go!” shouts Elijah.

I start running with the crowd toward the moving bus. If I’m going to have to fight 100+ high schoolers for 4 seats (Elijah would sit in Mom’s lap), I need to be in the first wave.

“Oigan!”

“Que haces?”

“Muevete!”

“Ay!”

So. There I was. Running toward a moving bus with more than a hundred people trampling each other around me. A hundred people going after 60 seats. Well, then there was me. I needed to save 4 seats.

Before the bus even stopped, we were trying to pile on. Pushing, shoving, falling, and yelling.

Bang! A backpack is being used to make someone’s path. On my head.

Crack! Somebody kicks me in the shin. I’m… sure it was an accident.

Whomp! Someone trips. And uses me as a support beam. Ow.

And, oh. We haven’t even made it onto the bus yet. We’re just warming up.

We then narrow it down to who can make it onto the stairs.

It’s like on a movie, when a building’s gonna blow and everyone’s trying to get out the door. Except, we’re trying to get in the building. And the building’s a bus.

I make it to the bus door, and grab onto the first handle bar I see.

Ah-ha, I think.

I pull myself up the stairs and onto the platform in the front. Then I sort of fall and land in the seat next to the bus driver.

“Hello,” I say. “Um… four, please,”

Score one for the missionary!

So All May Know,

Madeline Studebaker

She sets a plate in front of me.

The long awaited dish: guinea pig. Yum.

“This is cuy. Eat it,” she tells me. She means well, but I had watched them cooking it.

They had skinned it, gutted it, skewered it, buttered it, and held it about a foot or so from the stone oven.

I would not, could not, have this over-sized rodent closer than 4 feet away from me.

“Oh, thank you, it looks-” Less than appetizing, I wanted to say. “Delicious,”

I can’t do this.

But then I look at it. I had been given the ribs.

I smell it. It smelled kind of like pork.

Okay, I think, I can do this. I can do a set of miniature baby-back ribs.

But then I look at it again. There was no meat on it. Skin, and then the bones. How could I eat something that wasn’t there?!

She looks at me again, anxiously.

I force a smile. “Que… rico! (How delicious!)” I say, hoping it will suffice.

“Then… eat it,” she says.

I wait until she turns around, and then try to pick off a small piece of the meat. Well, skin.

I lift the fork up to my mouth. And… it hits the plate again.

I try again- and she looks back at me. I squeeze my eyes shut, shove it in my mouth, and start to chew as fast as I can. My goal is to get it down as fast as possible, and then wash it down with some berry juice.

But I’m not that lucky. Boing! I open my eyes.

My teeth bounce off the meat. What? I think. What?!

I try to chew again. Boing, boing, boing!

Then I almost throw up.

So I wisely swallow.

“Did you enjoy it, Madeline?” she asks me.

“Oh, yes, it was delicious,” I fib.

“Good! Tomorrow we will go to the market and you will try snails!”

“Oh.” I say. The guinea pig does a back-flip in my stomach. “Sounds super,”

So All May Know,

Madeline Studebaker

 

Basketball.

One team trying to get the ball into one hoop, the other team trying to get in the other hoop.

It sounds really simple, doesn’t it?

I’m terrible at it! I mean, have you seen me try to dribble a ball?

Maybe it’s my feet. Maybe it’s my hand-eye coordination. Maybe it’s my timing. I don’t know. Whatever it is, even when I’m standing still, the ball plunges down, hits my toes, and bounces away. You know what? Maybe it’s the ball.

And yesterday, after standing there for thirty minutes, just trying to bounce the ball up and down, I got it right. Well, mostly right.

What do you mean “So what?” Obviously, you don’t appreciate the work we athlete’s put into our sports.

Our friend Peter, a missionary working with Jungle Kids for Christ, is having a basketball camp for the kids in Misahualli this week. We went, and learned how bad I actually am at it.

I know practice is supposed to help, you know “practice makes perfect” but there’s this other thing.

Called talent.

And with basketball, I just don’t have any. I mean, I’m good at missing the hoop and bouncing the ball of some random by-standers head. But I don’t really think that counts.

“Who’s team am I one?”

“Which basket is this supposed to go into?”

“Oh, so you mean there’s a better way to get the ball in the hoop than climbing the pole?”

And shooting hoops?

It feels like I always miss. I could try ten times and only make one hoop.

It’s like my life. When I do try, I mess it up somehow and miss.

I do this, only to find out I was supposed to do that.

I do this, and there isn’t anything worse I could have done.

I do that, and I get “what on earth are you doing?”

I don’t do that, and I get “why are you just sitting there?”

So do I feel like shooting the hoops of life?

I don’t know. I might miss.