The taxi to take me to La Villa showed up at 8:00 rather than 8:30. That meant throwing things together in just
two minutes. Which in turn meant I left
the sunscreen in my room. That turned
out to matter later in the day. The taxi
driver could not find La Villa and I could get close, but not all the way
there. We did find a really impressive
Swiss/German orphanage. Eventually, we
asked enough people and drove around until we found it. I ended up getting there about when I was
supposed to!
Today Lila was busy and not at La Villa. I was supposed to work on one of three projects,
helping the kids work in the garden, painting something, or making Easter cards
to send to supporters in the States.
Gardening turned out to not be on Wednesday and no one knew what the painting
was. So, it was arts and crafts with the
kids and Diego. We rounded up what kids
were not in classes and worked on cards.
The word had come back that some people did not appreciate bunnies and
eggs on the cards. That seemed
understandable until you try to think what should the kids draw? Especially when it is autumn here, not
spring! We tried an empty tomb, but that
pretty much looked like a black circle.
One girl (about 12) drew three crosses.
Two younger girls decided that tracing a sea turtle made sense and who
were we to argue? Add "Feliz
Pascua" and it is a Bolivian Easter card.
At that point Diego was getting restless and bored, so he
decided he would show me how to take a bus to La Morada. I told him that I thought we could walk as my
taxi yesterday had gone more or less straight on a cobblestone road. He had never done that and thought it would
be interesting to try. It took about 45
minutes on a warm day, but we made it and only had to ask directions once. That, of course, was enough time to make me
miss the sunscreen, but I will live!
After lunch, he talked me into going to downtown
Cochabamba in search of WiFi and adventure (and he needed to do some work
downtown). So, he explained how taxi TRUFIs
worked. Basically, they are taxis that
run fixed routes for fixed fares (1.8 bolivianos, about 25 cents). So, we talked and walked to a cafe with WiFi
and then he went on. I could not get the
password to work, but the cafe con crema was yummy.
I then got to see how good I would be at getting
home. I got back to the street where the
right taxi TRUFI was running. I needed
the 103 to Atohuallpa. All the ones I
could see were full. After about ten
minutes, I got one with an empty back seat.
Picture a Subaru with three rows of seats. After picking up a few more people, it turns
out that my definition of full was different from theirs! Nine or ten people in the car, in traffic, on
bumpy roads was an experience. At some
point, I realized that my Spanish did not include a command to stop. I'm sure my crazy gesticulations from the
back seat reinforced some gringo stereotypes.
I got home in time for my Spanish lesson and asked Reginaldo
the right way to stop a taxi TRUFI. A
simple "at the corner" (a la esquina) is the right protocol unless
you want to answer the question "Where?"
All in all, it was a good day. Time to see if I can get some sleep in before
the next dog barking outburst.
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