Outside My Southern Comfort Zone: Los Proyectos

Friday:

Today we began our tour of the projects. After breakfast (scrambled eggs), all 19 of us hoped on a charter bus and began our voyage. The place we went to was honestly right behind the house. Well behind and up a good ways. I don’t know why we had a charter bus but we did. I am still trying to figure out how the driver was able to make it up to the top of the mountain. Those roads were not made for a bus that big. I wanted to shake that guys hand after we got off because I was impressed. But anywho, the first project we viewed was Casa Betania. It is a place where kids from the community of Betania can come and get assistance with their homework and in their studies. Betania is a poorer neighborhood in La Paz. It is where many people who were farmers move to on the outskirts of the city. Many children, in the attempt to help the family, drop out of school to work and support their family. The goal of the project is to help the children want to stay in school and get an education. It gives them a safe place to go and also feeds them a good meal that some may not get if it weren't for the project. Also at Betania is a kindergarten. There are many kids from 7 months to 5 years old there. We walked into a little room and there were about 20 kids watching Sponge Bob. My heart melted when I got to talk to these little kids. As I was sitting on the floor with them, I was bombarded with questions and hugs. I gave one kid a high five and next thing you know everyone wanted to give me one. It was amazing. I honestly didn’t want to leave. I wish I could have stayed there and played all day.

Me with all the kindergarten kids

The kids getting ready for lunch

Later this evening we went to Hogar de Niñas Obrajes. It is I girls orphanage that supports around 100 girls from the age of 6 to 18. Many of the girls have suffered inter family abuse or sexual abuse. After we learned about all the things the project does, we had dinner with them all. Jean Phillip and I ended up having to help many of the other volunteers finish their meal. It is not good to leave food on your plate because it sets a bad example for the children in the projects. So we had to tough it out. Two of the volunteers in my house ended up getting sick from earlier and had to leave. So far I haven’t had any problems. Hopefully I will not get sick but it’s probably just a matter of time. After dinner, the girls and some of the boys from the boy’s orphanage put on a show for us. They danced some traditional dances and they were pretty amazing. Afterwards the girls dragged us all out on the dance floor and proceeded to teach us to dance. It took me a while to catch on but I picked up a move or two. We were supposed to celebrate Mathias’ birthday tonight but…. he happens to be one of the ones hugging the toilet. I can only imagine what it is like to be sick on your birthday.

Sunday:

Not much happened yesterday. We celebrated Mathias’ birthday and I cooked 4 very amazing pizzas again. It’s as if it’s a gift or something. Today after church I met up with all of the German volunteers at the Stadium for the “El Classico”. It was a matchup between two of Bolivia’s most famous teams. Soccer or “futbol” is very big here in South America. It’s a bit of a rivalry. Kind of like UNC and Duke back at home. The teams are “Bolivar” and “The Strongest”. Of course all of us were pulling for Bolivar. Their Jerseys just happen to be CAROLINA BLUE. They already got that going for them!!! The game was a blast. Of course being with a bunch of crazy Germans how could it not? Before we entered the stadium, we had a news crew videotaping us and people taking pictures of us like we were famous. It may have been because we were decked out in jerseys, hats and face paint. During the game we were cheering like crazy because Bolivar held The Strongest off for a 2-0 win. After the game the Germans began a chant which attracted our own fans. People flocked to us to take pictures with us as we were cheering. The whole time that we were trying to exit, people continued taking pictures with us. It was ridiculous. And if that wasn’t enough another news crew interviewed us and videotaped us doing the chant again in front of the stadium. I have a feeling we all will be famous before we leave Bolivia. In one day we were taped by two news crews, posted all over facebook and the official Bolivar page, photographed for the newspaper, and interviewed on the radio. The funny thing is this is not the first time cameras flocked to us…..

Waiting on the game to start

Our picture from the Bolivar Facebook page

Monday:

Today we continued our touring of the projects. We started this morning out at Casa Esperanza. It is a boy’s orphanage with about 70 boys from the ages of 6-18. The project feeds the boys and provides all their health and legal necessities. It also helps them in their schooling and development as a young man to eventually be able to provide for a family of their own. We also visited Centro Juvenil which is in the building directly behind Casa Esperanza. It is a program for children in the community to develop and pursue a sense of art. They have music lessons to learn how to play guitar and other instruments. Also they teach theater, dancing, drawing, and painting. There are also classes to help with math and marketing. For lunch we went back to Casa Esperanza to have lunch with all the boys. We had soup and spaghetti. It was actually very tasty. It was a lot of fun to talk with the boys at lunch. We asked them all kinds of questions like, “what do you like to do?”, “how old are you?”, and of course “who is your favorite team, Bolivar or The Strongest?” After lunch many of the volunteers left to go do some things but a few of us guys stayed and hung out a bit with the boys. We talked about all sorts of things. Played some chess and of course a little bit of soccer. It was a good time.

Our next stop was Casa Refugio. It is a house where girls live with their babies. These girls may be the result of rape or just sexual abuse. They range from 12 to 25 years of age in this house. These young ages are very common in Bolivia. It is sad that these girls are so young and haven’t even had the opportunity to be a kid. They have to grow up all of a sudden and take care of this child. Many of the girls are still in school and the program wants to make sure that they finish their education so they babysit so that they can attend their classes. Also they help train them how to raise this child as well as assist them in their studies. We got to tour the facility which is not very big. We had pizza with them and got to talk to them and get to know them. I even got to hold one of the girls’ babies which was only two months old. It just kept staring at me and smiling. I didn't want to give it back but I was sure it would eventually poop and start crying so I figured it was a good idea.