In early March I returned from Peru to arrive back in my home base of Puerto Madryn. Late to mid March I was on the move again, to spend two months in Bariloche, a beautiful city nestled right in amongst the Andes mountain ranges and alongside a huge blue lake. It is also home to a LOT of chocolate. It is here that a new YWAM base has started its first Discipleship Training School, and I am here to help them in the school and to also help build, buy, fix, or sort out whatever they need in the base building area. Of course, it seems that wherever I go, there is something also related to websites involved. But that is par for the course these days.
It has been almost one month here now. So how has it been?
I am enjoying Bariloche, and although I was supposed to be here for only 2 months I am now here for 3 months, until the DTS school ends, which is actually great in a lot of ways because now I will get to finish my first DTS school as staff since being in YWAM. It always worked out that somewhere along the way my other activities would pull me out of the school early. So this is a good thing.
Bariloche is now getting cold. We had our first snow fall on the mountain tops two nights ago and most of it has now melted away. It is truly magnificent to see this amazing sights, things that I have never seen in my life before and I am really truly enjoying it, even if I have to sleep with a jumper and socks so early before winter. It has been a really windy month here and the wind blows so strongly through the night that it rattles our roof and wakes me up. Every time that I wake up I wonder if the roof is going to get blown off. It hasn’t yet, and the wind has now died down so that has to be a good thing.
Us guys are now living upstairs in the room above the kitchen. It has a wooden floor and by nature of being above everything one would think that it would be really warm. But all of the windows are wooden and really bent out of shape. I have had to get the grinder out to get some of them to actually shut. Even closed, the wind whistles through the gaps and so our room ends up being the coldest place in the house. Just today I was up there at the balcony doors putting foam sealing strips and pumping silicone into all of the gaps in the frames. There is still a slight breeze coming from somewhere but now the curtains do not move around in the breeze. Hopefully tonight will be a little warmer now.
The DTS school is going really well. My role has been translating during all of the classes. I am also brushing up on my guitar skills and leading the worship times which has been a challenge yet worked out really well every time. There are three ladies and two guys in the school, so I am discipling the guys and because one of the girls is from Canada and only speaks English I also help the others communicate with her, and her with the others. She shared with everyone today about some of her frustrations of not being able to communicate and took advantage of the moment to also share some of the things that she had been wanting to say. The others had felt her frustration and sympathised with her, also sharing with her their frustrations of not being able to chat with her too.
Although the prices of everything here are much higher there are many more things here too. The city here is a little bigger than Puerto Madryn, with about 130,000 people here and about 50,000 people in Madryn. The best part of it all (for now) would have to be all of the different chocolate factories and being able to stop in their coffee shops and enjoy a rich hot pure chocolate drink every visit to town. A little indulgent I know, but ooooh so wonderful, and besides I hardly head into town, only once or twice a week.
So that is life here in Bariloche. All of my stuff is still over in Puerto Madryn, and even though I brought over two really loaded suitcases it seems as though I hardly have enough stuff for the cold. It is really really cold even now, probably because of the high levels of humidity, and some of my warmest stuff is not feeling so warm any more. Will have to start layering up the clothes soon. But I am really enjoying this place.
It has been great to come here for this time.
