It has been a very long time since l popped in and l was darishly close to not popping in at all... However, due to the fear of having this amazing adventure drift into the shadows of the middle distance with many other memories gone past, l decided it was something that l should take time out of the good times to chronicle the second part of my volunteer adventures. BOLIVIA!
Bolivia was amazing, the time sped by rapidly in a haze of volunteer events, fundraisers, empanadas, carnival and working. l am surprised how long ago it feels as l sit here in Bogotá Colombia only four weeks after leaving. It feels like a life-time ago when l was in that mountainous city filled with women in traditional dress and different and strange scents of street food.
I arrived mid January, after 20 hours of travelling from leaving Mark and the boys in Honduras. I was tired and a little delirious from an overnight stay in La Paz airport (filled with altitude sickness). Overall l was really just pretty excited to finally be there, however in the same moment it was strange to have finally arrived. Bolivia was my number one spot to visit on this trip and l had chosen to volunteer here before Mexico. Ryan, the director of Sustainable Bolivia (SB), meet me at the airport and we trundled our way back to the SB headquarters to meet the gang and get settled in. The first day was about getting adjusted, having a tour of the city and getting to know the SB crew. My Bolivian family weren't returning to the city till the following day, so l stayed the night at the SB house.
SB is a non-profit organisation based in Cochabamba, Bolivia. It's primary objective is to provide Bolivian organisations with much needed human and financial resources whilst providing international students and professionals the opportunity to gain practical work experience. It is a great organisation, with passionate people heading the charge and filling the ranks. It was such a relief after the solitude of Mexico to enter into this community, Every week it was ready with activities, advice and support when needed. One of the great things l loved about SB (besides the two canine representatives on the staff) was the Charla and shared dinner nights. Where topics about different projects and aspects of development would be discussed over dinner and wine. Many minds coming together to share ideas and views on many convoluted topics. There were also work days, where we would all trundle off to one organisation and do work that just needed manpower, like moving offices or painting a corridor. The other thing that really sold me on SB was the mini- grant program which gives the volunteer $75/month to return to the organisation in anyway they and the organisation saw as a beneficial and sustainable contribution.
On the second day we headed out to what would be my new home for the next three months. After a little bus ride and a trek to find the house, we arrived at a ridiculously sized four story house set behind tall concrete walls, topped with spikes and broken glass. A little yellow fortress, with a big backyard, the complete dichotomy to my little abode in Mexico. I had a room on the top floor and was greeted each day and afternoon with spectacular views of the surrounding neighbourhood and the mountains that lined the north side of the city.
View from my bedroom....!
We were greeted by the wonderful Arminda, the matriarch of the Acha Zapatas family who would turn into a good friend during my time in Bolivia, with many conversations had over cooking and cups of tea. The family consisted of Arminda the mother, Victor Hugo the father, Estefi the eldest daughter (21), Zulema the middle daughter (18), Katy the youngest daughter (14) and Spot the dog. A lovely family that has been hosting volunteers for the last 4 years. Arminda runs the house in every conceivable way. Victor Hugo is a lecturer of forestry and environmental systems at one of the local universities. A quiet, yet very welcoming family, it was lovely to spend the three months with them. It was interesting to see the difference in family life to what l experienced growing up in Australia. In Bolivia, children will often stay at home until married (and at times beyond this) and people rarely work whilst studying at university so both the older girls were still very dependent on the parents for financial support. Therefore, it seemed they had less freedom than what you may see with many of the young people in Australia. The same conversations as in Mexico were often had with the family, such as; Why l didn't live with my parents still? Why l moved out so young? Why did l work whilst studying? How can l afford a trip such as this? Why am l not married....many many questions! Which went both ways and there were discussions that l enjoyed immensely comparing the two cultures.
Lunch is the main meal of the day in Bolivia, and when l first arrived everyone in the family was still on holidays from work or university. Many days l would return from Spanish class to the whole family (including grandparents, uncles and cousins) enjoying a parrilla (BBQ) in the backyard, drinking singani (traditional Bolivian wine made of distilled grapes) and playing traditional music. Victor Hugo is a lover of music, karaoke and a very adept flute and pan-pipe player and was always ready to get the grill and the music going!
So the first few weeks of Bolivia were filled with getting comfortable with the city of Cochabamba and four hourly Spanish lessons every day. I found my Spanish had taken a huge dive on arrival to Bolivia. I don't know whether it was because of the three weeks l had spent with Mark and the boys and the break from speaking so much Spanish. Or the different accent and the different vocabulary in Bolivia. I also wondered whether it was because Bolivia is less touristy than Mexico and Guatemala and maybe people aren't as accustomed to hearing (very) badly pronounced Spanish in Bolivia. l wasn't being understood as well and l lost a lot of confidence in the amount that l knew. I was also studying some more advanced grammar and was trying to incorporate that into everyday speech (unsuccessfully), which could be another reason why my confidence took a bit of a plunge. However, l loved continuing to learn spanish with Patricia my spanish teacher, where we merged gas-bagging (official term = conversation practice) and hard core grammar.
Originally l was supposed to work at Atendi, however the start date kept getting pushed back and after three weeks we decided to give Puntiti a go instead. Puntiti is a small organisation that is run by nuns and receives a small amount of funding from the government (around 35%). The organisation is in two parts, one half is an orphanage for approximately 80 children with disabilities, most of whom have very significant disabilities associated with cerebal palsy, downs syndrome and austism. Attached is a school for about another 80 children who as well have disabilities however still live at home and come everyday for specialist education. I worked solely in the orphanage section. It took me a few weeks to find my feet in this organisation, as they didn't really want me to work as an occupational therapist and also had a very strict view on what an OT does...seating. I think the lack of Spanish also contributed to my warm up period and settling in. I found it just like Mexico, a very difficult process to find my place and feel confident working within this new context. l do think this is the nature of volunteering. Many of the volunteers expressed as well being hesitant to get too involved too quickly and feeling a bit lost in the first weeks. As essentially we are visitors in these organisations, there to learn and help where we can and need to be respective of the people who come in everyday and will continue to do so long after we leave.
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| Puntiti main gates, no photos were allowed inside the building so this is as far as we go! After those initial few weeks l had started to really focus on seating which was as much a learning process for me as what l hope was a help for the organisation. Using a lot of blue foam, material, glue and many chats with the physiotherapist and the two Spanish girls, Anna and Natalia, who were volunteering as physiotherapists at Puntiti. We started working with the children with the greatest issues with positioning and worked from there. It was a great project for me that then led into being able to observe how all of these childrens conditions affected their tone and position and consequently their overall health. |
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| Crazed and delirious Australian with too much foam and a stanley knife! |
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| Getting into that foamy goodness! |
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| Cut and glued....nearly/ casi casi! |
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| Covered finished product! Unfortunately l cant post photos of the kids as it wasn't permitted to publish their photos on the internet. |
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| Positioning and pressure care guides for the children |
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| Fundraising Loot! |
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| Some of the loot that the fundraising was able to purchase! Activity boxes all wrapped up! |
Within the first few weekends of my stay in Cochabamba passed Australia Day. Even though l was the only Australian in the vicinity l decided to demand a typical Australia day BBQ, with many beers, meats and salads to be had. As well the activities of picking your top 10 songs of the year (in accordance with the Triple J tradition) and bocce played with potatoes and lemons (that isn't strictly an Australia Day activity however garden sports is!). All in all a fabulous day which ended in a few sore heads and some great Australian styled comoradorie.
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| Salad and veggie burger preparation in the the SB kitchen! |
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| MEAT PREPARATION! Suitably cooked by Ryan in an Australian blue wife beater singlet. |
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| The playlist costume, had to be donned when playlist on, Christian here took the first run! |
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| The traditional measuring method between potato and lemon in Bolivian style EXTREME bocce!
Following the adventures of Australia day came CARNIVAL. This included a few weeks work up of fiestas including Co-Padres, which is a night just for the gents and then Co-Madres (a night just for the ladies). These were held on the previous two Thursdays leading up to Carnival weekend. Here is when l learnt that Bolivians definitely know how to sustain a party for the longest time possible! Co-Madres was a night of good ol fashioned girly partying, with my spanish teacher, Patricia, another of the teachers Andrea and Christian pushing on late into the evening. The night ended in sore heads and feet after we decided that one must dance on such an evening . The next morning was the day to leave for Oruro, where the biggest of Carnivales fiestas occur. So off we trundled by bus, kindly organised by the SB boys with around 40 eager volunteers and friends of SB in tow. I was a touch worried about a bad stomach (standard Latin American affair for me) affecting the good times, so rushed to the pharmacy to get some tablets before leaving. I thought my spanish was improving however once l returned home and realised that l had been sold the morning after pill, l realised maybe not......
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| Christian, Andrea and Patricia out on CoMadres...at a bar that resembled a wierd high school formal.... |
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| This will not help you with your diarrhoea....no no it won't.... |
The bus ride to Oruro was beautiful, travelling through mountains and small towns. Unfortunately we hit a massive traffic jam somewhere in the mountains so decided to take our festive selves off the bus and keep celebrating on the road. What could've been a horrendous seven hour journey was filled with fun, dance and games. We arrived in Oruro, hungry and ready to get our festive on. And that is exactly what we did. With a weekend filled with enormous parades (Sat 9am to Sunday 5pm....), thousands of dancers, dozens of bottles of shaving cream, water bomb fights, running around the city and just generally causing a little havock. Great times!
Beautiful mountains somewhere in between Cochabamba and Oruro
Bus escape!
... and bringing the dance to the streets!
Thousand of gents in colourful costumes and many bells on their legs showing us how to really take the dance to the streets! There was no stalking or thieving possible with these jingley jangley lads about!
Thousands of men with many instruments having a very good time!
Thousands of festive Bolivian ladies dancing their short skirt dances on the street!
Strange bear like animals....dancing... with smoke bombs!
And then we got our foam on!
And then some more foaming!
Then we foamed some more!
And obviously we drank beer while during this indiscriminate foaming .....!
Unfortunately after all this frivolity of Australia Day,
Comadres and Carnival my little body went into some form of revolt and ended up having
to cancel the next few weekends of away trips and fiestas to recoop. My B. Mama
did a fantastic job of taking care of me and providing me with strange Bolivian
cures for such ailments, which included visiting the clinic, putting my head over a boiling pot of
Manzanilla and drinking some strange gooey drink. I mended well and quickly and
was ready to get back into the game that Bolivia has no shortage of!
Strange Bolivian health goo......
We decided to follow up some of these
more ridiculous weekends with a quiet yet sophisticated trip to Sucre, the countries capital which is tiny and
Canberra like in it’s quietness. However,
a stunning little town, surrounded by mountains filled with cafes and bars. We spent the weekend
eating great food, wandering the streets and working on our overall levels of sophistication!
Pretty Sucre architecture at one of the Museums in Sucre
Half way up to the Mirador....
View over Sucre at the top of Mirador
Sophisticated posing at the Mirador! A must do!
Fun traditional musicians keeping us company during our sophisticated Mirador lunch!
More sophistication with Christian and Chloe in a cafe downtown
Why stop there when you can bring the sophistication home to the hostel!?
Whilst in Sucre we also decided to visit the little market town of Tarabuco, another bumpy bus ride out into the countryside. Here we discovered more beautiful mountains and a market that had taken over an entire town. It was interesting to see the different style of traditional dresses and we enjoyed the day meandering down the tiny streets crammed with all types of wears.
The pretty lil town of Tarabuco!
More pretty Bolivian mountains, no shortage there!
On my final full weekend in Bolivia, besides wrapping up project stuff, we
decided that a day trip up to Agua Calientes would be a good way to prepare and reward ourselves for the final week to come. Seven
of us trundled into buses and up into the mountains we went, changing buses
multiple times and doing some dodgy river crossing to get to the last bus. We
arrived half way up a mountain to see a man-made pool that was filled with the
mountain's hot spring water, food stalls and locals sprawling all around us. A
pretty and relaxing day however not quite what we imagined it was going to be!?
So you just need to climb up that rock stack and across the branchy bridge meters above the river to grab that final bus that will take you up the rest of the way....!?
Hot Springing Enjoyment!!
With a pretty good view!
And an even better view on the way home!
So the final week flew by and before
i knew it we were on the last Friday night.
A few of us had planned to climb the Christo on this afternoon with obligatory ridiculous exercise costumes. After the descent we
headed out to a benefit to raise money for kids with AIDS. Again, in ridiculous
costumes and with much frivolity. Unfortunately we found once at the event that
it was a little more conservative than we thought! We headed out clubbing after this and then before we knew it it was time (or well past the time) to go home. This ended being the final night l would see the SB crew. We had a great night, however it was sad to say goodbye (for the moment) to some great people!
Pre climb enthusiasm at it's best!
oh yeah...that's it....we all made it!
The sun going down over cochabamba and the mountains
Just hanging out at the Christo!
AIDS benefit frivolity!
And a little bit more....
And a little bit more!
