Hola

It's hard to keep updating the blog every week because I keep forgetting what I've done! Our days are so packed with little bits 'n' pieces rather than big events. I'm going to have to buy a diary to help me keep track of my days. I wish I'd brought my filofax, right shaz?! haha

Last Saturday I was sick in the morning and couldn't do the apoyo escolar (homework club) at the community centre. We all went yesterday and it was just as well because the regular teacher didn't turn up. So we just let the kids on in and took the class ourselves. We hadn't anything prepared because we'd expected the other teacher to be there so we could only encourage them with their homeworks and try to keep under control those who apparently had no work to do. There were only 6 kids so it wasn't too stressful. Next week we'll come prepared with colouring in or puzzles for those with no work.

On Tuesday night Hannah and I took our first English class at the community centre. I've no teaching experience although I have a TEFL qualification from a 40 hour online course I did - this did not prepare me! haha People often think that to teach English the only skill you need is to be a native speaker but this is not the case, there's a lot more to it! As chalklenging as I found it, (and as much as I played the classroom assistant under Hannah who has experience, confidence and no stupid N.Irish accent to deal with..!) I'd never felt more alive! haha how cheesy does that sound?! But I loved it and have been looking forward to next week's class ever since. The class was advertised to be 7-8.30pm but in typical Bolivian- style the students arrived at 7.45pm so we started at 8 and taught until 9. There were 8 students all of different ages and levels and all from the surrounding barrio.
One of the students is called Winder. He's the only one of the students we knew before the class and he's 'supercool'! He another leader of the holiday bible club that we've been planning together. He's a christian who attends Marcos's church in the centre. He actually lives with his 2 brothers and his mother in the centre grounds. As you've gathered from previous posts and photos, theft is a huge problem here. Despite the graphic deterents and the high metal fences surrounded each property, the leave the centre empty each night would be unthinkable. So, this lady lives in a little house out the back of the centre as a sort of care-taker of the property. Marcos can't afford to pay her a wage but providing her and her family this place to live free of charge is her payment.

On Thursday night we had another planning meeting for the holiday bible club. We had dinner together and got the chance to get to know each other a bit better. There are only 8 of us including us girls and Marcos, then Winder (21), Milly (30), Emma (14) and Ramundo (16). During the night, Marcos told us more about how him and Gwen ended up in this barrio, and some events that happened. This community centre is completely run on faith. They aren't supported by any charity or organisation, nor do they have a build up of funds to work through. They simply take each day at a time and see what they can do with what they've got. It's incredible. I really encourage you to follow their progress, find out more about them, get in touch, support them, check out their blog..

I'm beginning to feel that the more time I spend at this community centre on the outskirts of the city, the more time I want to spend there. I love it, I really feel something special each time I'm there. Tonight we went out there again because the community church's service on Sunday evenings is always held in somebody's house, and this week it was in the home of a couple we had visited last week with Marcos. You wouldn't believe the place they live.. they have quite a large piece of ground, with just a little brick shed in the corner, like one or two rooms. The size of a car garage. And tonight the church of about 25 kids and 15 adults met around a campfire in their garden with Winder playing guitar - the only musician. I have never seen a church that is such as a family as these guys are. Being invited there to join with them was such an honour and each of us, me, Hannah and Lois all loved it so much. I can't even express how I feel about this church, this centre, this group of people.. everyone I've met here.. I just absolutely love it. I would like my Spanish to reach a level (asap) from which I could properly converse and get to know the guys more and be able to create proper relationships. I would ask that you pray for this for me as I'm struggling a bit with the language at times and I become frustrated with myself.
This Wednesday coming is San Juan which is a national holiday and a pretty big deal. It's supposed to be the coldest night of the year. The community church is meeting again in the same place around a bonfire again, so we'd love to go there for that!

We've been in touch with a volunteer who is working at Free Hands, which is the organisation supporting disadvantaged women and thier children, most of whom are freed or on probation from the women's prison in Cochabamba. They've moved premises and we visited the new cafe which is much bigger and better than the previous. Also there is an adjoining unit which will soon open as the shop from where they'll sell their handicrafts. We're going to arrange to meet with the volunteer, Laura, this coming week to see if there is any aspect of the project that we can help with.

Also we will be visiting El Refugio (The Refuge)- a home for disadvantaged girls and boys who come from either living on the streets or from abusive or neglective families. My Bolivian friend Julio works here as a psychologist hoping to provide the help these kids need. So on Friday he will show us around and introduce us in the home so that the following week we will volunteer in the afternoons and do some activities as it's the school holidays soon so the kids will be in the home all day everyday with not much to do! Any ideas for activities with these guys would be welcomed.

Ok that's all my news for now..
Thanks for reading, leave a comment if ya like..sometimes I think I'm writing to nobody on here..
:o) hasta proxima vez... chausitos x

Photos!2

Guess who! Haha ok it's me and my friend Ever..
Having a sing-song with some church friends at Ever's birthday party!
My fav photo so far.. This figure hangs from a lamp post in the sumumpaya barrio, just a couple of blocks from the community centre.
Dice: ''todo ladron sea atrapado sera quemado'' In spanish it has a sort of rhythm and rhyme to it.
In english it simply says: Every thief that is caught will be burnt.
This is the noticeboard of the community centre.
I got given a rose :o)
This lady is a Cholita, she's one of many women you'll see around the streets dressed like this, normally selling sweets, fruit, or juice.
Amazing setting for the concert..
We went to a Christian music concert in the footbalkl stadium, check out the background scenery!
In our apartment - Hannah taught me how to make omlettes!

Photos!

Hostel-bound for a long time, we stocked up on snack food and learnt new phrases..
The view from our bedroom in La Paz
El Alto, La Paz, Highest city in the world i think.. La Paz airport being the highest airport in the world. They say the planes have to adapt their landing methods because they can't dive down in to land as much because the airport kind of meets them half way haha
This is the view from the taxi journey between La Paz airport and our hostel.. breath taking..
We first arrived into Miami airport, where Lois and I had a full day to kill so we hung out at South beach!

Well, unfortunately due to minor sickness, I am missing out on our first community centre task :-( Hannah and Lois went this morning to help out in the Saturday morning homework club. This is something we've offered to do every week. We had a planning meeting on Thursday night for the holiday bible club and met the rest of the team. Everyone's lovely and I'm looking forward to it, it'll be the second week in July I think..! Next meeting is this Thursday inc a BBQ at Marcos yummmmmmm
This barrio (or community, but even when we talk in english we refer to the 'barrio') in which Marcos and Gwen moved into is crazy! haha Seriously, the stories that Marcos has told us about some of the people, their backgrounds, what has happened there, *cough* how many of the kids fathers are in prison *cough*, it's unbelievable. And if im honest a little scary, but it's great, because obviously this place has such a need for this centre, for this church, for this opportunity to change the way of life here! Already in the community Marcos and Gwen have established themselves and have obtained a level of respect, although Marcos admitted how difficult it was at first! 'Who are you? What you doin here? What you buildin there?' He talks about this project with such compassion and enthusiasm, and as he gave us the tour 2 years on, we couldn't quite believe the progress and the potential still building! Their blog address is http://quinterosclan.wordpress.com/ if you'd like to follow their progress..

Last Sunday hannah and I went to our old church Calama. We were gutted to discover that there is no longer an English service here! We were so looking forward to getting involved and it being a great meeting point for other foreign missionaries and travellers. Entering Calama for the first time in 2 years was strangely not as strange as I had anticipated.. It just felt 'normal'. We were warmly greeted at the door and throughout the service and after :o)

We enjoyed the Spanish service although to be honest by the end I was exhausted from concentrating so hard on the spanish sermon etc! After the service I got to hold my friends 4 month old baby ignacio who I was sooooo looking forward to meeting! I held him for a couple of minutes before he started crying hahaha! I think he was hungry though, nothing to do with me..

Normally on Sunday evenings in Bolivia we went to the Portguese service then out for a bite to eat after. This day we didn't feel brave enough to go, so we just agreed to meet our friends from the service after! We swapped stories and filled each other in on the last 2 years, and just like that it was just like the good old days and no time had passed. They've invited us round to their place on tonight to play guitar hero, can't wait! In all seriousness, these guys are class. They've always been like big brothers to us, looking out for us and checkin to see if we're ok, lettin us know to ring them if we need anything at all. I mean, where we live is safe, but it's nice to know we got people like that nearby :o)

I had Spanish classes every morning this last week. I don't feel I've learnt anything new, but it was good to refresh and I had a lot of talking and listening practise. I also got to meet the amazing teachers and some other students. Last night a few students and teachers got together at one of the students house for a games night. It was really good craic! The girl whose house we were at is called Laura and she's out here with Latin Link Stride working at Free Hands - www.freehandsbolivia.org (it's worth a look)
We had tried to find the new Free Hands building during the week but couldn't find it, so hopefully now we'll be able to meet Laura this coming week and offer her any help she needs with that work.

I've just imported my photos from my camera so I'll try and get some pics up asap...!

Well hello there! It's been a while since I've written to this blog.. about 2 years!! Wow. Who would have thought after that last one there would be another RackersInBolivia entry in 2010.?!

I just thought a blog is the best way to keep everyone up to date with what I'm up to and how I'm getting on, I know ya all worry :o) haha

If you're coming onto this blog then obviously you'll know that I decided to come back to Cochabamba, Bolivia again for 2 months this summer. I'm not with a church or charity, it's just me, Hannah Woods and Lois Browne. We've all been in cocha before and fallen in love with the place and so decided to spend summer 2010 hanging out, seeing all the friends we left behind, brushing up our Spanish and offering help to various charity and church projects in the city.

Our collective journeys to Bolivia were pretty awkward..
I did successfully avoid the ash cloud over UK airspace by flying to london a few days early and stay with my brother who then brought me to heathrow airport on thurs morning ( 27th may).
Here I met up with Lois. Due to the BA strikes, we had been transferred onto a different flight to miami pretty last minute. Lois had already checked in so I went to the desk where they told me I didn't actually have a ticket.. but it turned out the Expedia lady who transferred our tickets over the phone had messed up, and it was all ok. The BA woman disappeared with my passport for about 15mins and then came back with my ticket.
Arriving in Miami, we learned that Hannah's flight in from Texas was delayed and so she missed our flight down to La Paz. Poor Hannah took it well and set up camp in Miami airport until the next available flight to La Paz the same time next day!

Meanwhile, Lois and I checked us into a hostel in La Paz for the next few days. Little did we know that the annual street festival El Gran Poder, was happening that weekend and our hostel was pretty much right in the middle of it. So the streets were closed for 2 days and we couldn't really go anywhere. We had to grab Hannah from the airport and come straight to the hotel before the roads closed and we'd be blocked out. The festival itself wasn't even enjoyable.

Lois and I had a few things we wanted to do in La Paz, hence the reason for staying there rather than go straight down to cochabamba. However these things didn't take as long as we'd anticipated, and after spending 2 days pretty much in our hotel room we were a bit disheartened. However, we all get along great together and enjoyed hanging out, getting to know each other better (as we all live in different countries, weird!) and it's amazing the fun you can have with a deck of cards!
Monday and Tues were good days in La Paz. We went to see San Pedro prison, without going into all the details of how much this meant to me, and to Lois, i can just advise you to read 'Marching Powder', by Rusty Young. Real life story of a Brit drug smuggler's time in this prison. As we sat and watched the hustle and bustle at prison gates, a young man approached us and offered us a tour of the prison - 2 and half hours inside, seeing all 7 sections, and a bodyguard would be provided. Unfortunately his tours weren't operating that particular day and we were leaving the next..

Wednesday we had an 8 and half hour bus journey from La Paz to Cochabamba. It was long, uncomfortable and hot. But we were heading to our cocha so we didn't care, it was great!
Arriving in Cocha we met the lady who would take us to our apartment. It's lovely! We got the keys, threw down our luggage, sprayed a bit of deodourant, and went for a big feed in the poshest restaurant in town hahaha and had a two-fold toast.. to us in cochabamba, and to me getting into queens for nursing in sept!

From Thursday until today (Sun) we have taken a few days to relax, buy in some essentials, adjust to being back in Cocha, and settle-in really.
Thursday morning some of Lois's friends from her church here which was nice. They're lovely and it was a nice first experience of spanish!
In the evening, something very special happened... I finally met someone who I've been facebook friends with for more or less one year! hahaha
This guy, called Ever, and I have been really good friends chatting all the time online, but we never met each other the last time I was in Cocha, it's kinda weird. Anyway after so long we can finally be proper friends in real life -yay! He dances in a Bolivian folklore group and he invited us to a show. It was amazing! We loved it. The dances, the costumes, the atmosphere.
Hannah and I also bumped into our brazilian friends William and Renato at this show - completely by coincidence, so that was cool!

We met with our old Spanish teachers at the language centre and Hannah and I have signed up to Spanish classes next week from 8-10.30am Mon-Fri. I'm only planning to do the one week as I'm hoping this will be enough just to kick-start my Spanish into gear.
We also met with Marcos who is a Bolivian guy married to a Scottish lady called Gwen. Just over a year ago they opened a community centre in a very needy area on the outskirts of Cochabamba. They have also started their own communtiy church within the centre which Marcos himself pastors. At the minute Gwen is back home in the UK so we are planning to help out at the centre. We've agreed to start English lessons one night a week and to help run a holiday bible club for 2 weeks in july.

I'm sorry this update was rather long. It was a quick decision to start writing this blog and I felt there was a lot I needed to get you caught up on!
To sum up.. I'm in Cochabamba, I'm safe and well and really really enjoying myself, and looking forward to '' stop messing around and do something useful'', to paraphrase the words of my brother, Peter. :o) hahaha