Sunday, November 23, 2014

More Pictures

And here are some more pictures about my experience in Bolivia:


With RenĂ© and Angelina - the two children I´ve been supporting 
With Claudia, another volunteer, and some of the younger children

The two houses of the orphanage
Angelina is getting a hair cut
The children at House 1
On a mountain tour

At the nearby zoological garden

Monday, November 10, 2014

Life at Fundacion el Sauce

I'm living in the orphanage for several weeks now and I'm enjoying my time here. There are about 20 orphans distributed in two houses. In the house I'm staying, most of the children are already between 13 and 16 years old; there are only two younger girls age 8 and almost 3. The youngest, Angelina, is one of the children I've been supporting. She is here with her mother Virginia who had her at age 13. Most of the orphans went through very difficult times in their young lives. When I read about some of their backgrounds, tears came into my eyes. These are very sad stories - stories of abandonment, abuse, and neglect. Usually, they all do have parents, but have been left behind by them. But this place is a true refuge for them, where they can thrive and grow.

The "parents" in this house are Merce and Lito, a couple from Spain. I haven't met Lito yet though, as he had to go to Spain for a while for family reasons. But from what I can see, they have been doing a great job with the kids.

In the mornings, I usually help out on the farm. Lots of produce is groing here, especially vegetables. The project has a base of customers in Santa Cruz, and every Wednesday, the produce is being delivered there. Although it's sometimes getting strenuous when the sun is shining hot, I appreciate that I can work in the garden. In the afternoons, I spend time with the children. My little friend Angelina likes to go for walks and look at books. I've also been teaching English to the children. The level is very low here, and they are obviously having a hard time with this language, nevertheless they seem to like it.

Last week, I caught a belated "Welcome-to-Bolivia-Bug", which put me out of order for three days. I made the mistake of eating an unwashed fruit at the market, and I think this is what caused my misery. It wasn't pleasant indeed, but Merce took great care of me. Other than that, we had to deal with mice in the house, and at one point I even had one in my room. You may imagine that I was not amused! But these are minor nuisances. All in all, I'm glad to be part of this little world, and I hope I can make a difference in the lives of these precious children.

Below are some every day life pictures of the project. I will upload more in a later post.

Angelina & Ximena - the two youngest in House 1
Angelina with two of her friends of House 2
The children are always discovering something
Jhonny & René
On the farm
Long rows of vegetables
Beautiful views