happenings

I didn't realize that it had been over a month since my last posting...so here's an update on the latest happenings. The kids are back in school after having a short interruption due to H1N1 flu scare. We hope that the school year will flow smoothly now. Taylan is on the Volleyball team and taking guitar as one of his electives in school. With the addition of his Saturday guitar lesson, he's getting three classes per week right now ... I think it should satisfy his love of playing the guitar. The girls are both in music classes as well, Jessica in piano and Kailey in violin. I am still taking violin classes together with her at this time and am really enjoying doing this with her. I am also learning a lot!!

This past week was the funeral of Dona Raquel's son. Dona Raquel used to work for MCC Bolivia and left MCC earlier this year. Her son was hit by a drunk driver on August 25th. He lived, although supported by machines, til this past week Wednesday. The funeral was on Thursday. It was my first time attending a funeral here. We went to the home of Dona Raquel where people were gathered and immediately the procession to the cemetary began. There were a lot of people, including 2 full micros (bus), in the funeral procession. It took about 40 minutes to get to the cemetary. There the family, together with the casket, led the way to the place where the body was laid to rest. Most cemetaries in Santa Cruz have "niches" for storing people's bodies instead of burying them. I asked a coworker why it was done this way and he said there were mainly 2 reasons, one being that the water table here is so high that once you dig 4 or 5 feet you hit water, the other reason being that it saves space. Niches are stacked one on top of another, and space in the city is scarce. A family will buy a space in the cemetary, sometimes building a modest (or elaborate) house, with openings to place bodies.

So during this funeral, the deceased person's body was placed into one of these niches, and then a cemetary worker enclosed the niche with cement, and finally a family member wrote the name and dates on the wet cement. Later it will be painted and the name and dates written in permanently. There was a lot of crying at the funeral. The young man was only 31 years old, the oldest of Dona Raquel's 7 sons. Dona Raquel is mourning the loss of her son deeply. In about a month or so, the family will probably have a memorial service at their church to celebrate the life of this young man.

One of the most interesting (in a sad way) of this event was the way that the accident happened. The young man was standing beside a road when he was hit by the drunk driver. When the driver realized he had hit somebody, he came back with his car to try and hit him again. But a nearby neighbor saw what happened and started screaming, thus calling attention to the scene and not allowing for the driver to hit the young man again. I have asked several people about this, why they would come back to try to make sure the person is dead. One person said that maybe it was so that the hit person would not suffer. Another said that it is cheaper if the person dies than lives. By law, in this type of accident, the drunk driver has to pay the family $3500 to pay for funeral expenses. But if the person that was hit survives, it could potentially cost the drunk driver a lot more as medical bills could continue indefinitely.

When I asked about the legal consequences for the drunk driver, it seemed very unclear what that would be. Right now the man who hit Dona Raquel's son is in jail, but apparently if Dona Raquel doesn't put a lot of pressure (and money) on this case, it will eventually just get dropped and the person will be let go. The justice system here does not seem to work very well. People often say that Bolivia has a lot of good laws, the problem is the corruption that is prevalent throughout the system.

Another area where we see the corruption is in the case of mass rapings in the Mennonnite communities. There are men being held in jail, but they are denying all charges. It seems the lawyers on both sides are doing their best to benefit financially from this case. Hans and a coworker went to visit the men in jail this last week. Their time there was very short, but the men were very adament about being innocent. It is a very sad time for the colonists here. We pray for the truth to come out, for justice for the guilty, and for healing for the victims.