Cochabamba (4-20-11)

Everyone is fully back to feeling healthy.  We are all, however, a bit more cautious about what we eat.  I am eating much more vegetarian as it is easier to not be noticed in a larger group.  When I return home, I am definitely going to miss the fresh fruit or vegetables with every meal. 

This morning we went to La Villa and walked through the surrounding neighborhoods.  Amistad is investigating building a community center to support the surrounding people to try and minimize the number of orphans.  We wanted to get a better idea what the conditions were like.

We returned for lunch.  The others then went to get ingredients to make brownies for the kids.  Amy and Walker had an annual Amistad meeting and the others made the brownies.  I guess translating things from imperial to metric units and the adjustments for the altitude made things quite an adventure. 

While they were meeting and baking, I had my Spanish lesson.  The lessons are very tiring.  I can understand and speak, but very haltingly.  I often have to close my eyes and see the words.  Obviously, that is a bit rude in a real conversation!

For dinner, we went into town to a nice restaurant (Paprika) with some of the key staff from La Villa.  The food was wonderful.  I had a very good traditional Bolivian dish called pique.  They served a cake with a large sparkler on it for Amy’s upcoming birthday.  It was a wonderful evening.

In talking on the ride back, we discussed trying to come back at around this time next year.  I'd love to come with Susie as she would enjoy meeting Amy whose new job will be establishing pediatric clinics in poor areas around the world.

It was another great day in Bolivia.  I am, however, thinking more and more about being home... 

Cochabamba (4-19-11)

The sick folks (all but, Amy and I) were feeling much better this morning.  Walker insists the Cipro cured him, but Doña Celia thinks it was her special herb tea.  Amy and I are going to La Villa while the others stay and rest.  I hooked Mike up with Civilization Revolution on my iPad and he loves it.  Amy thanked me because now she thinks she'll have no trouble convincing him to buy an iPad.

When we got to La Villa we joined the weekly Bible study for the mamás and tias (who act as sort of substitute mamás).  After they finished, Amy announced her departure as Director of Amistad.  There were lots of tears all around.  Generally, I think it went as well as could be hoped.  We distributed the dishes and utensils for each house that Laura had bought.  We played a bit with some the kids before it was time to go.

Amy wanted to walk back to La Morada and after some convincing

they agreed to let the two of us do so.  We left about 20 minutes later than I normally do and it was a very different walk.  First, we ran into little Mario coming back from school with his older sister.  He insisted on hugs and being lifted up in the air.  Then, about 15 minutes into the walk, a school let out and the streets were full of children of all ages walking home.  There was noise, color, and activity all around, unlike my usual solitary walk home.  About 15 minutes later Jose Luis, our bus driver, was waiting for us and took us the remainder of the way home.

Later in the afternoon, Susana took us into town.  We ran into one of the protests.  Oddly, the vice president was speaking.  We never could get a good explanation for what kind of protest includes speeches by the government.  We did some shopping for more Cipro and souvenirs before returning for some meetings and playing with the kids.  One of the boys, Wilson, felt obligated to rearrange my hair.  We all then got into a play fight throwing some bean-like pods from a tree.

When we returned, Mike was still playing on the iPad.  Amy now says she blames me for creating a new addiction for him!

In the evening, we had dinner with the high school girls.  Walker held court with this group that he obviously cares deeply about.  It was good to see the step between being kids and college students.

Cochabamba (4-18-11)

One of the girls, Marinely, showed me around the gardens and tried to teach me the names of the different vegetables.  One of them was a vine that looked like pumpkin, but grows up in the trees.  On one tree, we saw one of the large squashes hanging down.  She also showed me a prickly pear cactus that they call tuna.  I forgot most of the other plants.

Mike, Laura and I played with some kids in the gym.  I think Zulma was on my shoulders for what seemed like half an hour.  Ariel and some others were kicking around a small soccer ball.

Evelin gave me her email address so we could be Facebook friends.  The older kids can use three old computers (one is a 66MHz Pentium) in the library for things like that. 

We returned for lunch at La Morada with one of the girls who will graduate from college in August.  Later, the others left and I had my Spanish lesson.  As usual, I had to recount my day.  I tried to say something about buying pots and pans for the mamás.  In doing so, I learned the importance of accents in Spanish.  If you put the accent on the second syllable of mamás, it means mothers, as I intended.  If the accent is on the first syllable, it means breasts.  Whoops!

We all met up for dinner at Tuesdays with the college students.  Most are doing very well.  Claudia graduated and Mercedes is in law school.  One plays World of Warcraft.  (I was never able to figure out the right Spanish word for the character class of priest.)  It was hard to believe this was a bunch of orphans. I really wish my son, Davey, could be here with his knowledge of Spanish.

Most of the adults were feeling sick with stomach/intestinal issues even before eating.  Walker left early to take some Cipro.  Laura and Amy both felt poorly.  Mike was on the edge.  Fortunately, I felt fine.  Folks decided to not go to Aramasi tomorrow.  Just Diego (as my guide) and I plan to go.

The latest is that because of labor strikes with road blockades that no one is going to Aramasi.  We'll see how everyone is feeling and play tomorrow by ear.

Cochabamba (4-17-11)

We had a good breakfast   I think Doña Celia either cooks better for more people or she is pulling out all the stops for Amy and the Board.  We went to La Villa and straight to the church at the large orphanage next door, Cuidad de Niños.  The Catholic service was hard to follow and long, but at least interesting for Domingo de Ramos (Palm Sunday).

We went back to La Villa and played with the kids for a while.  Since none of them were in school on Sunday, it is livelier than I've grown accustomed.  We then went to the kitchen to prepare the pizzas.  The mamás (the women in charge of the houses) where there to help.  Walker, the force behind the pizzas, had other things to do.  It ended up being eight mamás and me.  They quickly took charge.  I was useful in that I knew how to open flip-top cans of pizza sauce and they did not.  Things generally went very smoothly.

The gym was full of eighty wired kids.  The minute the pizza was served, they sat and ate.  A group of older girls called me over to talk.  They asked me easy questions that I was able to answer like, “How many children do you have?”  When the kids were done eating and talking, I played basketball for quite some time.  Bolivian basketball apparently has special rules that allow kids to hang on my arms while I try to shoot.

The Americans all played with different sets of kids.  At one point, a group of girls invited me to come watch TV in their house.  We watched the end of the Whitney Houston movie, The Bodyguard.  We then watched part of the middle of the animated movie 9.  I left to go find other kids.

I'm starting to know some of the kids by name.  Mario is one of the youngest, around three.  He loves for me to lift him over my head and asks me constantly to do so.  Rosalia, is about ten and cuter than I would have thought possible.  Zulma is an eight-year-old girl who taught me the word cosquillas (tickle).  Evelin is seventeen, shy, and well under five feet tall.  She was the one who invited me to watch TV.  Ariel is a boy about four who is always fighting with some other boy.

As the day wore on, we were all rather tired, dirty, and thirsty.  The women had gone to la concha, a large open air market, to buy things like pots and pans for the houses and unknowingly had taken our water bottles with them on the bus.

We finally returned to La Morada after stopping on the way back at a small grocery store.  Walker could not stop talking about how it had been the most amazing day ever.  It really was a great day.

Cochabamba (4-16-11)

My sleep was rather fitful, but my shower was hot.  Close enough to a good start.  I got up and ate breakfast at the normal time, but I have no idea what is supposed to happen today.  I didn't think I was going to La Villa and indeed no taxi came.  Diego mentioned something about there being a city tour I was to go on, but that seemed unlikely until the group arrived and I expected them to be tired.  So, reading and studying Spanish is the plan for the day until something happens to change that. 

I don't have another Spanish lesson until Monday, so I'm on my own for studying.  I think my biggest hurdle at the moment is vocabulary which Reginaldo really can't much help with.  I've been trying to look up words as I encounter them, but I don't always have my iPad with me.  I need to get Internet access for my iPhone so I can download the translation app for it as well.  I also wish I could find some way to make a list of new words to practice.  I look them up, but promptly forget many of them.  I found an intro to Spanish book here in the library and plan to read through the dictionary in the back. 

It is quite amazing that I have not had any access to the Internet since Sunday.  At one level, it has been great to avoid that time sink.  On the other hand, I constantly want to check something (like how much to tip here) and cannot.  In an annoying recursion, I bet I could find a place nearby with WiFi, if I could check on the Web.  At this point, I consider this all part of my spiritual training that I am not in control. 

At about 11:30, Amy (the Director of Amistad) and some members of the Amistad board arrived.  One of them, Walker, turns out to be even more of a hard-core cyclist than me.  We went to a big supermarket which felt very American.  We bought ingredients to make pizzas for all the kids in La Villa tomorrow.  We have a guide, Susana, who seems very nice.  We then went to La Villa to visit the kids for a couple hours.  Most of these folks know some of the kids and had a blast interacting with them.  It was fun to watch them.  The group should be fun rather than the drag I feared. 

We ended the evening on the balcony overlooking Cochabamba as the sun set and the lights to the city turned on.  Life is indeed good.

Cochabamba (4-15-11)

I had another decent night's sleep and a hot shower.  Life is good.  There were more traffic disruptions today, so I arrived at La Villa at the end of devotions.  From there I went to help Diego get a picture of the kids in one of the houses.  The church that supports them sent personalized T-shirts and hats for each of them.  Corralling and getting dressed about a dozen kids for a photo is non-trivial.  It took about 30 minutes to get a picture with at least most of them smiling. 

From there, we went to try again to get kids to make Easter cards.  The last time, we got about five made and two of those were by Diego and me.  This time Diego was better organized and had lots of markers and paper.  We had about eight to ten kids at a time making cards.  Diego had other things he needed to do, so I had a wonderful time helping the kids.  I understand color names pretty well, so I was able to find the right marker or piece of paper.  I was even able to answer simple questions like how to spell my name and how many children I have.  We had a couple girls I called máquinas de tarjetas that turned out cards like machines.  We ended up with twenty or thirty cards which Diego now has to translate.  I saw at least one card to Guillermo (me), so I considered it a successful morning.

When I was leaving, Diego said his wife (of about a month and a half) and his 3-year-old daughter were going to be out in the evening, so he invited me to come into town for dinner.  He said he'd call later to make final plans.

I again walked back to La Morada, but this time I did not have a backpack.  I just brought my point and shoot camera in my pocket.  And, I made more of an effort to walk in the shade when I could find it.  As a consequence, I arrived back at La Morada not dripping in sweat.  I was happy to have been able to explain successfully to Doña Celia that I would not need dinner since I was going out with Diego. 

Around two, Diego called to say he would have to cancel.  That left me in the awkward position of having to explain things to Doña Celia.  I decided it was easier to skip dinner since I've been eating too much anyways!  At about 6:30, Doña Celia saw I was still in my room and asked where Diego was.  I settled for saying that he could not come because of his wife.  She insisted on making dinner.  Life is definitely hard here!

I finished a second book (The Next Christians: The Good News about the End of Christian America).  The basic premise of the book is that 20- and 30-something Christians are about doing things, not talking about them.  I’m not sure how much I agree, but the stories were inspiring and I’d love to hang out with those folks.  If nothing else, I am getting a lot of reading done.  I need to get WiFi access to get a few more books downloaded to my iPad.  Maybe tomorrow I will get into town.  

I called Susie again this evening, as I have every day.  It sure sounds like she is having a tough week.  Sadly, like pretty much everything while I'm in Bolivia, it is out of my control and beyond my ability to change or help.  I fear that is what God is trying to teach me.