A pretty great week!

Hola!



I've had a pretty great week this week so I'm going to share a little bit of that with you.



Work at Trabajadoras is good.I'm enjoying it more and more each day. It's had much more structure this last week because school has re-started. The school holiday was supposed to be one week but it got extended to two weeks to keep the teachers happy who were threatening strike about something else. Then, and this is funny, the government then extended the holiday to a third week because it's "too cold". Extending a school holiday because it's too cold is ridiculous anyway but even more so here because we are averaging about 16degrees in the morning and mid 20s midday! haha, freezing eh? Anyway the kids that come to Trabajadoras all go to school either in the morning or the afternoon. A typical day runs like this : the kids arrive from 8.30am and eat breakfast; they then start homework. Education here is dreadful - I'll not even get into it now but it's a terrible system. They then have some recreation time then lunch starts at noon. Before lunch the girls all have to wash their hands then, as the morning group are mostly young children, they line up and sing a song and one of them prays. They pay 1Boliviano(that's the currency..they don't trade people, girly..) for lunch and breakfast. Lunch runs from 12-2pm because there is a changeover of girls. Those at the centre in the morning go to school in the afternoon and vice versa. So the morning girls eat lunch and leave while the afternoon girls come straight from school and eat lunch.Then after lunch there is some recreation time and homework begins around 2.30pm. They get a snack around 4pm and leave at 5pm when the centre closes. From time to time there are special talks on hygiene etc.. Since I've been here we had an afternoon headlice talk.



what I'`ve called 'homework time' the girls do schoolwork or, if they claim to have none, are encouraged to read.The schools are rubbish and the girls get little or no help or encouragement from home. Their parents don't care much about education - they send their kids to school cause they have to and it's free but as soon as possible they'll have their kids back out selling and working their stalls. So here the staff encourage learning and help teachthe girls if they don't understand things from school. They want the girls to do well in school and want to continue their education and make something of themselves.



The older teenage girls who come in the afternoon are given more freedom. They can do schoolwork if they want but actually most of them go to technical colleges and so make good use of the craft room. Here they listen to music and make various bits n pieces that are then sold in the Mosoj Yan shop.



I've found out recently that all of the girls at the centre now have come from La Cancha. This will mean nothing to you but I'm going to tell you about the cancha project called "Nucleus".



"Nucleus" is right at the heart of the Trabajadoras centre. One member of staff, called Gladys, runs this project. Basically she goes onto the streets and, more importantly, La Cancha, to promote Mosoj Yan. La Cancha is the largest outdoor market in South America. I don't know exactly what size it is but it's a huge place, I've never seen anything like it. It's so big it's like an actual town of venders and stalls. I don't even know how to describe it - it's just something that has to be seen. And smelt. It's where all the poorest people sell things, and more often than not the people manning the stalls are children. Girls as young as 8yrs old vending in the streets.

I've been through La Cancha many times just with friends and seen things but going there with Gladys when she lets me tag along is a totally different experience altogether. My eyes have been opened. What she does is such a vital work. She's an incredible, passionate, caring woman who loves what she does and is so good at it. When I first went with her I felt like I was filming a behind the scenes watchdog-type documentary. I first went with her on a Wednesday morning. It was just me and her and I've never spoken to her before that day and she doesn't speak any English..butI had the best time ever with her. I love her to bits now! My Spanish just seemed to click into place and I chatted with her the whole 30 min walk down and back. She was telling me all about Bolivia and Cochabamba, La Cancha and about "Nucleus". Usually what she does is play games for an hour with the kids who are hanging about the market selling or whatever. This just gives them a bit of fun and laughter, a change from sitting behind a stall selling oranges for example. In this time she builds relationships with the kids who come back each week to meet her where they play andshe can tell them about Mosoj Yan. However, this time when we went to the usual place to play ther were no kids. So Gladys let me come with her walking around the cancha talking to people. If she say a girl manning a stall on her own she went over and started talking to her and telling her when and where we usual play games and also about this place called Mosoj Yan where she can come to spend her days. On that Wednesday she was chatting to one girl at a stall and was writing down the phone number etc. of Mosoj Yan. Meanwhile I noticed a man selling shampo and deodourant out of his wheelbarrow pull up and stop nearby. I thought this could be the girl's dad and he was going to tell Gladys where to go. Lots of kids can't come to Mosoj Yan or even to play for one hour because their parents don't let them leave their stalls. La Cancha is a scary place too, I would love to take some pictures to show everybody but I daren't even carry my camera with me nevermind take it out and get snap happy. Anyway, Gladys finished talking to the girl and the man called her (eek!). He actually turned out to be the loveliest man ever. Just looking at him while he spoke to Gladys was heart-breaking. He was quite old and had obviously had a very hard life. He'd overheard Gladys talking about this Mosoj Yan place and he wanted to find out more about it. He said he has daughters himself and was very interested. It turned out that his children were too old for Trabajadoras at Mosoj Yan but Gladys was able to give him the name and number of another similar organisation in the city. After their chat he brought Gladys over to another woman and told the woman to listen to what Gladys had to say. The woman had a 5-6 yr old daughter by her side as she sold some horrible brown juice. As Gladys told her about Mosoj Yan it touched me just how much hurt and longing was in this woman's eyes. She listened to Gladys and she looked at her daughter and it was clear that she didn't wish the life that she had had on her own daughter as well. We continued aruond la cancha for an hour, stopping to talk to any young girl venders or woman with children. Gladys does this four times each week and every Thursday night she does the same thing (playing games and promoting Mosoj Yan) but in the main plaza in the city, not la cancha. I'm hoping to go down with her next Thursday. The first Wednesday that I went down with Gladys was possibly the best day of work I've had here. It opened my eyes to so much and I had a miracukous injection of the Spanish language that enabled me to learn more about Nuclues, Cochabamba, and get to know Gladys.

When my Tearfund contract ends on 7th August, Hannah Woods and I will hopefully try to get more involved in the Nucleus project. We've now confirmed we will be leaving Bolivia on 23rd August. Staying the extra couple of weeks independently. Woohoo!!

Now and again when we arrive at the centre at 9am we see the girls' mums dropping them off. We don't ever talk to them or anything, but yesterday the mother of two very sweet (but they know it and use it to their advantage) girls was there. She was sitting with Emily, her youngest daughter, and I walked past and said hello. Then Emily ran at me with a hug and kisses - score! I look good in front of their mother!haha Then her mum called me over and asked did I speak English. Then she shoved this phone to my ear and asked me to translate what it said. It was ringing for ages and went onto a voicemail answer service. So I told her what that meant. I thought this was a good opportunity to chat and I was feeling a little more brave that morning so, without knowing what to say, I sat beside her. She started telling me that that was the father of her daughters she was trying to phone. He's been working in the States for 5 years as a mechanic. He always said he would return to them but he hasn't. She tries to call him all the time but he never answers her. What do you say do that? This hurting woman, mother of two girls who are in a centre for working street girls and whose father has taken himself off to the States and won't take her calls. I don't even know the right response to that in English. I sat and had a really good conversation with her for a good while, whilst playing with her girls. It was nice. I'd quite like it if I got to see her again.

That same day, feeling now even more brave, I made a big effort to talk to Luidmila, the Argentinian volunteer. She's hard to understand because of her strong accent. We were doing a British evening that night so we talked about that. Then I did it. I made that universal connection that bonds woman everywhere. I mentioned boys. Haha. I mentioned the rather "guapo" young man who was at the centre two days previous and that opened up a good old girlie gossip and totally changed the atmosphere between us I think. She's such a lovely girl, only 18, and I think that if she spoke English or I spoke Spanish we would probably be quite good friends. Which is a pity because there is the huge language barrier.