Hello, and welcome to my blog!

I've set this up to try and keep everyone informed of what I'm doing and how I'm getting on out in Bolivia. Hopefully I'll be able to get access to the internet during my time there and will be able to upload some photos for you!

This photo was taken at our Tearfund orientation at Oakwood in January.This is the first time each of us met. It was a week of team building activities inc. silly games, newspaper-tower building and a fantasic low ropes course! We did various personality tests and exercises in order to get to know each other better and look at our team dynamics and roles. We listened to seminars on real issues such as 'What is poverty?', 'Gender issues', 'Child protection', 'Culture' and more. As a team we did an activity in which we were to recognise our collective hopes, fears and goals for the trip. We thought that our team-motto, focus, or purpose even was found in James 1 v 27. (I'm purposely not writing out the verse to encourage you to go and have a look there yourself, haha).

So, the photo.. left to right.. Hannah S-R, me, Hannah W, Katie, Emma, Heather. This might be helpful as I start to talk about the team. You'll have faces for the names!

I leave Belfast on Sunday 6th April so I'm entering my last week here. ( I'll be spending this week sifting through and packing and re-packing my stuff - no chance it's all going to fit in! ) I'm flying to Gatwick to meet Katie, then we will travel together to Oakwood again where we meet the rest of the team and have our second orientation. On Tuesday 8th we begin the journey together.. Fly at 22.30 from Heathrow to Sao Paulo.. from Sao Paulo to Asuncion.. from Asuncion to Cochabamba, arriving there at 14.30 on the 9th.