Hope you are all well. Firstly sorry for the big delay from part 1. Have been spending the last few weeks in Peru sorting out this faff of a visa. After just about collecting all my documents together, solving passport problems and getting through a memorable hour of police custody on the Bolivia/Peru border I finally got there. Was an interesting situation to test my Spanish in! The police were very friendly. I tried to get a photo with them before hitching a lift the rest of the way to the border but they declined, however they did give me a banana.
Anyway, after Oruru we took the four hour bus ride to Cochabamba. We rested for the remainder of the day. We were all quite tired after our excursions at our first Bolivian wedding the night before. The week ahead we spent visiting projects that are all a part of the Red Alert Cochabamba program which is part of the Toybox/Viva Latin American partnership. Again, like Oruru, it was fantastic to get a great outlook on how these connected projects across Cochabamba are doing; which areas they are serving in and the effects each are having on children and families. It was a very overwhelming week, arriving at projects and meeting such wonderful people and being introduced to the children and then moving on to another. While it is very emotional to see the scale of children with such scarred histories across all the projects, it is massively encouraging to see the work and commitment staff are putting into caring for these children. We visited such a range of projects. Some projects had considerably better facilities than others – more books, better equipped kitchens, cleaner environments, better tables and chairs, etc – however all the children were so happy with what they have and where they are. While quality facilities are important, nothing beats having quality staff. When giving towards projects we are often pleased when we see results with projects receiving more facilities, which of course is great, however we often overlook the staff and volunteers leading these projects and the work they do. It is important that as part of our donating we recognise we are also giving towards the lives and well-being of the committed workers and volunteers at these projects. They too have needs to feed their families, to take breaks to recharge and focus. I remember an afterschool project in Oruru running on minimum facilities, however the children there were absolutely having the time of their lives. They look forward to their time there every day and they are sad when they leave. They make the most out of the little they have and they learn and play and rest. Results like this in children’s lives at a project occur most certainly first and foremost due to the loving, committed and caring nature of the staff.
One day in the week we spent an afternoon playing football with a group of street children. These children spend their lives living in a drainage ditch that runs under a main road (see http://www.youtube.com/alastairwelford?gl=GB&hl=en-GB#p/a/u/0/04RzpRQwttk ). This group of children is now 9 but in the past has been up to 25. Every day in the week they spend their time washing car windscreens on a busy road towards the centre of town earning whatever they can. This is very dangerous with traffic passing very quickly and with these children often under the influence of drugs or glue-sniffing to help get them through their physical and mental pain throughout the day. This is obviously something no child should spend their lives doing. To spend an afternoon with this group of children, aged about 8-17, giving them the opportunity to have a kickabout for about an hour or so, to have a laugh, drink coca cola, to chat, get up to a bit of mischief and just be what they want to be is huge for them. One of the boys, aged 17, who made a real connection with Dad when he visited a year and a half ago was visibly overwhelmed to see him again. It clearly means a huge amount to these children to not just meet a foreign person from far away visiting for the first time, but to actually see them again returning means a whole lot more.
It was great to see Mum and Dad and sad to see them go. They then went on to Guatemala for 10 days so if you’re interested to know more about their excursions there ask them or you can read their blog at http://www.makinglifework.co.uk/BlogRetrieve.aspx?BlogID=2939 (scroll down).
Since arriving back from Peru we have been moving offices to a more central location in the city so we have been busy with that. This week I am starting work with a project called Casa De La Amistad (house of friendship), a project that schools children who live in Cochabamba’s prisons. In many Latin American prisons if a parent gets sentenced then the whole family are allowed to move in, which often happens, as this is a more affordable situation. Obviously a prison is a horrific place for any child to be in. Children and wives/husbands (whichever are not convicted) are allowed out in the daytime and have to be back in by 5pm. I am going to be doing prison visits, meeting with the parents, helping them and assisting with Bible Studies. Will report about how it goes in my next blog.
Thanks for reading.
For photos see facebook or http://www.flickr.com/photos/82329049@N00/
