Other Projects

I've mentioned before about meeting people and hearing of their own work here in Cochabamba. Finally in the past few weeks I got the chance to visit a couple of them.

Gwen and Marcus are a lovely couple who I think I've told you about before - about how they met. He was the Youth Pastor at Calama, she was 18-19 on a missions trip similar to mine, they fell in love, got married and lived happily ever after. Well, they've bought a big empty house on quite a large site and are in the process of turning it into a community centre. Gwen showed me, Emma and Dave Barbon around one Saturday and I got goosebumps of excitement about the place! She pointed out bare rooms which will be the offices, the medical attention room, dentist room, gym, and upstairs the childcare centre. It's got huge painting of Noah and the ark and a rainbow taking over one whole wall. It's class, and we painted a red wall in one of the rooms adjacent and the other rooms will have one wall painted one colour from the rainbow too. We also sanded the bannister in the morning that we were there. I hope to get the time to helo out a bit more with any painting or cleaning needing done before I leave. They hope to open in November, the childcare bit anyway cause they want it to be open in time for the school year to start.

There's a man called Peter, from Australia who comes to Calama. He runs an orphanage with his wife Dehlia. They've been here for 10 years but only in November they bought their property and have been developing it since. The inside is pretty much finished except the kitchen needs torn apart and re-done as it's a big space but not well used it's not very practically designed. I had to be repetitive but I got goosebumps of excitment here too. Perhaps even more so! There is a huge garden with a multipurpose playing court, a half finished swimming pool and an animal coop with ducks and rabbits, and Peter wants to have goats too. The grounds are a mess. The builders he had were really untidy and left loads of dirt just piled at the bottom of the garden and everything. Peter says that there is no steady income to the orphanage and they can't afford to do anything more at the minute. They rely on donations and volunteers. He had some fantastic stories for us I can't tell you them all, maybe when I'm home you can ask for more! For example.. The swimming pool was sitting useless for months it wasn't in a useable state but they couldnt afford to do anything. Then a 65yr old woman from Canada came to volunteer who happened to have been an interior designer in her youth and she knew how to tile. So she actually just bought all the tiles they needed and started last week to work on tiling around the pool. Another one.. Peter's minibus broke down and he couldn't get it fixed. About a week later he got a phonecall from one of a group of volunteers who had been with him a while ago saying that they still had some money and was there anything he needed. So he was able to buy a new minibus. Two weeks ago a man was passing by Cochabamba and visited Peter's orphanage for a day. After being there he really wanted to help in some way. This man happened to be an Optician and so he offered free eye tests to Peter for all the kids and free glasses and any treatment they needed. So last Monday some of the kids got their glasses and that was all free. I really could go on and on with these kinds of amazing stories.
There are about 25 kids at the home at the minute. Most of them are referred to Peter from the Government. There are, however, some exceptional cases. One heartbreaking story is of a boy who was abandoned on the steps of the church. A woman found him and brought him up to Peter and asked could he take this boy. So Peter did. The boy didn't know his name or his age. After some research over a period of a few months they finally found out that this mother was a prostitute and had another young baby as well. She would often leave her children behind while she went away with her clients sometimes for a few days. When Peter brought the nameless boy home he asked the other kids what they should call him. They suggested 'Peter Pan' because they'd watched the film the night before, haha, but then they settled for 'Jack'.
Adoption is tricky here and not very popular. So the turnover rate of the home is very slow. Most of the kids there at the minute have been with Peter for about 6 years. He's adopted 3 himself. He ecnourages the kids to learn English. There are no classes at the home but Peter and Dehlia speak to them in English and bring them to the English service at Calama. It's really paying off because the kids are actually speaking fantastic English just from being around it so much, watching English films etc as well. There are no jobs in Bolivia anyway, but if you know English, especially starting from such a young age, you can go far.
The kids are fantastic I love them. A couple of boys in particular have stolen my heart I want to bring them home with me! Don't worry mum, I won't, but I´m definately going to try to spend some more time at the home before I leave too. There just isn't enough time to do everything I want to do here. I'm not ready to leave yet :-( I don't want to say goodbye..