Challenging day...

Friday 8/8

Challenging day today, specially for Pat.He has worked from 830 am until 530 pm with only 30 min break.This must be borderline child labor?! He did not complain though.

When we got to the nursery we were told that Pat should not interact or play with his favourite girl,a very shy 2 year old called Sophie, we don't understand why and only God know what her mum got in her head to demand this. Ultimately Patrick felt sad and confused as why it was wrong to try to make this girl laugh and give her all his attention...and although I tried to explain it as best as I could to him the morning was not the same for both of us.I felt terribly protective of my son who is trying so hard to help and maybe was misunderstood due to a different culture.

Anyway in the afternoon we walked to the horse centre with the hope of maybe a ride to cheer us up but......no luck today! We ended up doing a whole inventory of the centre... from reins to toilet rolls!!! Oh well that goes with the territory of volunteering.As I reward we both went to the local pizza place were we eat a full meal for £11!!!

Tomorrow will be better.

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Joseph

Joseph wist my hair clip!!

 

Emma,Patrick and Fergus !!

To the toilet...

 

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Morning coffee in the Bolivian sun...

 

 

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Nothing feels better then showing the locals how we play football!

 

 

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Wednesday

It is a bank holiday in Bolivia and we are off to a birthday party from a 94 year old gentlemen, he is the father of our host Rolando and I feel very honoured to have been invited.

It is beautiful to see how the family respects and carers for their elderly, the family bond here is sacred and goes a long way. The wisdom of the older generation is sought after and cherished.

We had some kind of barbecue cooked under ground covert with earth and stones. Based mainly of meat and potatoes. Oh no vegetarians struggle here... Fruit and veg has to be disinfected for 30 minutes in disgusting stuff and rinsed with long boiled water....why long? Something to do with altitude and taking longer to boil??

Water drains the other way too!? And maybe the sun comes up in the west??.......No just checked that, it is east!!

Drifting of here, one lesson to be taken home is the way the families look after each other and how they look after their elderly !! We had a great afternoon and we got to know some of their traditions: when it is your birthday you have to dunk your face in the cake!!! 93 year old was excluded tough but another family member wasn't. This will be a new tradition for Patrick I am sure.

 

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Monday

First day at nursery

We went to the children centre with lots of excitement but a fair amount of apprehension too from my part. How was my 11 year old going to cope with 9 kids between 2 till 3 years? Well 50 % got there in tears after sAying goodbye to their parents and Pat got straight in there to console them. We got assigned a class with a "Tia" who is the carer and us both. She was rather distant at the sight of a mum with her son on a volunteering journey but after seeing pat being so proactive and caring and me interacting in Spanish things got of to a good start. We sang, feed, cleaned, played, stopped them fighting and put them to sleep at 1:30...... And we were both exhausted, I forgot how hard it is!!! But as you can see they are lovely, and very receptive to us, looking forward to tomorrow's session.

 

In the afternoon we went to the local school to do a after school class, the children are from 8 till 12. We decorated pots and planted seeds in them to grow.

 

In the evening Emma invited everyone to her house for a tea party since 2 valued volunteers are leaving this week, it is very nice to see the bonding what goes on between all of them.We are all here for different reasons but with the same aim!!!

 

 

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Spectacular scenery!! Extremely dry and dusty, with the bluest skies I have ever seen.

 

 

 

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