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Current Location:
La Paz, Bolivia
Welcome
to Luffmans.com - a web site for Aaron, Robyn, Anders and Brooks
Luffman. This site helps us stay in touch with friends and family who
are spread around the world - alright, we're really the only ones
around the world now but others used to be. You will find photos,
video, and news about Aaron, Robyn and sons Anders and Brooks. The site
is updated a couple of times a month so check back often. Thanks for
visiting.
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11/03/2008 02:46 PM
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We survived our trip back to Bolivia relatively incident free. It was difficult to deal with the altitude again but none of us had any major problems – just shortness of breath and difficulty sleeping. It’s getting better quickly though so there must be some residual benefit from living here for a year.
The picture to the left is Brooks as a pumpkin on Halloween – the day we made it back to Bolivia – at the Embassy Halloween party at the USAID building, hence the living sign. Things are relatively calm here, with no major civil unrest reported in the country, but the President made a statement in a speech on Saturday that makes it look like he will be suspending DEA operations in the country. That shouldn’t affect our stay here.
Anders and Brooks are both doing well and getting settled back into life in La Paz in stride. Anders has established an attachment to a stuffed animal for the first time in his four year life. I guess that’s an indication of how stressful all these moves have been on him. It is definitely cute to see him walking around with this little tiger though.
Robyn and I are excited and nervous about the election tomorrow. We’ve been invited to the official Embassy election party but are not sure if we want to go because we’d have to behave in an impartial way and that just doesn’t sound like much fun. It’s been difficult to go virtually cold turkey on TV election news. We’d gotten used to having some sort of election news on at any hour of the day. Now we have to deal with CNN International – and they only run a few hours of election coverage a day! Sacrilegious. At least we still have the internet.
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10/27/2008 11:48 PM
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That's right ladies and gentlemen, we're going home at last. The travel warning has been lifted and with it, the authorized departure - as of today. That mean we can board a plane on Thursday night and be in La Paz on Friday morning. We are excited to get home and leave DC just as the cold weather sets in.
On a sadder note, Brooks was diagnosed with a severe speech delay. As a 25 month old, he should have a much larger vocabulary (50+ words) than he does. The initial concern of the therapists when they see a kid with this kind of speech delay is the big "A" word - autism. Luckily, Brooks does not show ANY signs of autism (not on the continuum as they say) and everyone thinks he's delayed because of a number of reasons, including the fact that we haven't made him talk to get what he wants. I think the clinical term is SPOILED. So, now we're hitting him hard with professional therapy every day and intensive work from both Robyn and me. He's a quick learner and is making good progress but we're going to have to keep at it for a while to get him back on track. The prognosis is very positive.
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10/13/2008 09:55 PM
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Here we are on October 13th and we still don't have any plans to return to La Paz yet. Another 30 day extension was approved for the evacuation so we are planning on a few more weeks at least. We're getting more and more settled and it will probably actually be a little difficult to return when it's actually time.
We had a quiet, long weekend in Stafford. Yesterday we didn't even leave the house - just played outside and inside all day long. It was nice. Today Anders and I had our haircut and is it just me or is a haircut today outrageously expensive? Maybe I've just lived in the third world for too long but $35 for two haircuts seems crazy.
The title of this post refers to Brooks. He's having a difficult time sleeping tonight. I've put him back in his bed at least 15 times, including three in the time it took me to write this. Maybe this latest time will be the last.
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10/08/2008 10:27 PM
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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95507590
Talk of the Nation - an NPR program that examines an issue in an in depth way with both experts and callers over an hour long audio program - today examined prejudice.
I'm through the first 22 minutes and I'm just very saddened by what I'm hearing. People don't even know they are prejudiced - they just change their behavior because of race without even knowing it. Sad.
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10/01/2008 11:27 PM
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No word yet on whether we can go home on the 12th or not but my money is on not. There apparently is an upcoming anniversary of killings that many blame on an old president who happens to be living in the US - therefor it is likely that there will be an increase in anti American sentiment that might make it a bad idea for us to be in the country.
That's alright with me because I'm starting to get settled here and I found a job that is meaningful and interesting. I'm working in the office that provides communications for the sec of state while she's traveling. Interesting stuff.
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09/20/2008 11:29 AM
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We made it to Washington National Airport on time last night via United (note - not American which we've had horrible luck with) and got checked into our new home for at least three weeks - the Courtland Towers - in Arlington.
The kids did a great job with the flights and got complements from everyone around them. I guess we've turned them into good travelers with all the flying and driving they have done. The apartment is very nice - large with three bedrooms. Probably bigger than our place was in Baku! We are already saying it's too bad we can't live here when/if we come back for a long term assignment - it's just too expensive if we aren't on per diem.
Now that we are in one location for the next few weeks, I'll start working on getting photos uploaded. Needless to say, we've gathered a lot over the last few weeks with Disney and time at the Oregon coast.
Monday I start a leadership training course at an annex here in Arlington. Beyond Friday I have no idea what I'll be doing but I'm sure it will be meaningful.
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9-12-2007
We love La Paz!
Pictures from Home Leave (and Home Leave part 2) are posted.
Also, our first pictures from La Paz are here.
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6-06-2007
New photos from our Memorial Day camping
trip and other stuff:
Memorial
Day camping trip
Aaron's
camping and climbing trip
Old
snapshots
January
snapshots
Brooks
at 6.5 months
Anders
and Brooks portraits by Robyn
Easter
Xiniliqu Dag
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FireFox is a good replacement for Internet Explorer which has lots of
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