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| View out one of my families windows |
Not much
happened this week so I’ll give you a quick overview of things. I visited a few families this week which was
a little difficult because many of them were crying as they were telling me
about their challenges in their lives.
It is always hard to hold back the tears while listening to them. Many of the volunteers have been sick this
week with food poisoning, colds, sore throats, and parasites. The food here can be interesting at times in
the project. Monday I had Panza de Vaca
(I’m not going to tell you what it is.
Just Google it!). I’ll eventually
do a blog post on food here in La Paz but first I need to take some more
pictures and try some more things. I
have been pretty lucky lately since I haven’t been sick (knock on wood). I pray that I can continue to stay healthy
because being sick does not look very fun from what I have observed this
week. This week in Doña
Maria’s cooking class we made the most incredible cake I have ever eaten! I am eventually going to try to recreate it
soon, but a little bit different. We had
a work shop this week for the parents of the families in our project. The topic was sexual abuse. Did you know that every day 20 kids are
sexually abused in the La Paz area? It
is very sad that this is so common and that it severely damages the kid’s
lives. What I greatly appreciate about
the efforts of Fundaćion Arco Iris is that it is
attempting to empower these people and the kids to break the cycle. We have the same cycle in the United
States. People who are uneducated and
cannot get ahead in life and constantly drag their kids down the same road with
them. They live in extreme poverty
because they cannot find jobs because they have no skill set. Here in La Paz, many kids drop out of school
to work and help support their family or get away from the poverty of their
family. The foundation encourages the
kids to stay in school and get that valuable education so that they can in turn
break the cycle. Also the foundation
helps the parents to learn valuable skills and ways to better the lives of
their kids.
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| Amazing Cake!! |
Friday,
a husband and wife (Kay and Bill) from the church in Florida came to help a
family in our project. They are spending
about a week here in La Paz to see the work of Fundaćion
Arco Iris and Hope Worldwide here in
the city. Justus and I took them to El
Alto to one of our families who need help.
The mother stays pretty busy raising five kids and washing other
people’s clothes and cleaning to make money to provide for those kids. When we arrived to the place where they lived
we didn’t know where to start. We began
by picking up the trash that was scattered around in the yard area. We helped to organize the piles of clothes
that the children had received from donations.
We continued to clean out their one bedroom home. Afterwards we gave the kids a bath. The kids were very dirty. Many don’t bathe regularly because they don’t
have bathrooms. We warmed up some water
on the stove so that they wouldn’t freeze.
After the kids were clean, I had the job to help comb the tangles out of
the little girls’ hair. I am not a
professional at this but she was so patient.
She said oww a few times but when I asked her if she was ok she just
shook her head yes. It’s amazing what a
little shampoo and coming out the tangles will do. They all seemed pretty happy and
grateful. I think it is great that many
people will take the time to come down here to visit and to want to help a
family in need. I look forward to many
more visitors willing to do the same thing.
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| Kay and Bill |
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| Me very Concentrated trying to comb out those tangles |
So all
of us volunteers are about to begin a cooking competition. We are dividing up into groups of two and
three and are planning our dinner ideas.
We have two brackets. One bracket
is the volunteers here in the house and the other bracket is the volunteers in
Niñas
Obrajes. We will cook dinner for all the
people in our bracket. Each team has one week and one meal. The others in the house will vote on a scale
of 1-10 to get the final score. The
winner of the house will compete against the winner of Niñas Obrajes. I am really looking forward to showing off some
more of my cooking skills because I still have some tricks up my sleeve. Also I am looking forward to eating a bunch
of good meals, but most of all I am looking forward to winning…. It will be no easy feat but I am always up
for a challenge. If anyone has any good
ideas be sure to let me know. I could
use a bit of inspiration to perfect our meals and take home the gold.
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| One of my beneficiary |
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| Guinea Pigs. I'll let you figure out why I have a picture of them for |
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