Sat in a chilly hostel room in La Paz (it is at 3'500m after all), 4 days and 2 cities away from our time in the Aldea and it already seems so long ago!!
Our first day at the charity started in true Bolivian fashion, late! We said our goodbyes to Simon and headed to the Casa de Niños bang on time for our 10 o'clock meet. Some cheery faces met us at the gate and showed us into the main office, where a very friendly lady, who had never heard of us, informed us that our contact wasn't expected that day. A short phonecall and a longer wait later we were finally on our way. Only an hour or so late!
Our first impressions on arrival at the Aldea were twofold; what a beautiful place... and where are all the children!! We found out later that they were all either at afternoon school or in 'apoyo' doing homework (which apart from the odd maths problem almost exclusively involved copying up that day's work into neat, and to think kids in the UK moan that their h/w is boring!) After a spot of lunch (rice and potato soup followed by rice with potato and some Arroz con leche for afters) and a short tour of the place (it isn't very big after all) we were introduced to our Cabañas, where we would be eating the rest of our meals and spending much of our time. Lucy got the eldest girls whilst the eldest boys got stuck with the linguistically challenged volunteer, which their educator seemed thirlled about!
We soon settled into life at the Aldea and whilst the first week and a bit were tough at points, as we often felt like we weren't doing anything constructive (when the kids spend most of the day either doing chores or copying up classwork there is little one can do to help at these times!), this was interspersed with many positive moments and everyone was very welcoming. I think I can honestly say I have never played quite as much 'football' as I did that first week (Bolivian football, at all levels, mostly just involves kicking the ball AT each other rather than any sort of tactical passing!) We also made some good friends in the other volunteers and often spent the later part of the evening all unwinding together.
After what felt like a very short weekend break in the city the second week started with a special treat for the volunteers. All the staff would be in training from 9-5 Monday and Tuesday so it was up to the volunteers to run the show. This is great especially when no-one tells you what is supposed to be done and half the volunteers don't get back from their host families until Monday afternoon! 3 volunteers 5 cabañas, woop!! I was lucky enough to be in charge of the little ones for apoyo (having spent the previous week doing this, they knew me and I knew them!) and my limited spanish 'trabajo', 'vamos' and 'basta' being the keywords! Followed by lunch with the awesome boys of Cabaña A made this a dream compared to the nightmare time the girls had with the rest of the kids and the naughty eldest girls for lunch! The rest of the week passed without much to note, apart from being asked to leave apoyo with the little ones on Wednesday and not come back as we were 'distracting them' (despite having been left in charge of them for the previous two days! Ah well!) The week ended with the decision to paint one of the old empty Cabañas so that we could move the younger girls out of the one that was falling apart and sprouting clouds of mould!
The director of the Aldea approved our painting plan without hesitation - it is amazing how quickly things can get done in Bolivia when you have the precision time-keeping of two english volunteers and the headstrong decision making of a german volunteer! A short mototaxi ride later (obviously with full safety gear... eh hem!) and a little bit of help from Hermano Carlos and we had paint, sand paper and pigment to get started. The next 10 days involved a lot of hardwork and there were several times when we thought we had bitten off more than we could chew, but we plodded on. By day 6 we started to get a little cocky and decided that we would also paint motifs on the walls in every bedroom (each one had a different theme) By day 9 we were regretting the decision and even resorted to help from the children (not our best idea!). By day 10, it was as if we had never doubted ourselves and it was great fun to see the girls moving in and getting so excited - what a fantastic start to our last week.
In our last week we were also priviledged enough to celebrate the 15th Birthday of Pedro (one of Tim's boys - sorry Annie, he's mine now!), 15 is a big deal at the Aldea as it is the last birthday you celebrate before moving back to the city and is almost a right of passage (including a graduation teddy!). The celebrations included a traditional dance, some not so traditional dancing, some homemade empanadas and one hell of a home made birthday cake - it's also tradition to smash the birthday boy's head into the cake, and with 13 boystrous boys, you can imagine what was left of the cake! Needless to say, we'll be bringing that tradition back to England with us... cream cakes give the best result!
It was a great night to end our month with and Pedro seemed touched by all the attention and the special birthday shirt that the volunteers gave him. It gave us a real high and left us dreading the thought of leaving the next day.
Friday dawned and the goodbyes started in ernest at our weekly friday meeting with the staff. Later on in the day we were summoned to a goodbye presentation from the kids and lots of hugs. As a thank you to them for being so welcoming we baked a banoffee pie, which we hope they enjoyed! (We even put in plenty of extra sugar to account for Bolivian tastes)
We left the Aldea later that evening and were chased up the road by girls giving us pictures to say thank you for painting their cabaña. While we were excited about the next part of our trip, there was definitely a part of us that could so easily have stayed behind and shared more happy memories with the children!
