Monkeying around

So the photos from the previous post are from my weekend in 'Conce' from a couple of weeks ago. It was a just a retreat out in the Bolivian countryside for a group of the girls with some of the nuns and yours truly.

The 'campo' (countryside) here is really beautiful. We went to the farm owned by the family of the director of the Hogar and we had a great time. Because it's Spring here, there were puppies, piglets and ducklings, as well as blooming flowers and a horse called Joaquin who gave me a ride. :)

We travelled miles and miles that weekend and found ourselves in proper rural Bolivia where the poor people really are very poor. We stopped off at one rural community called Encantado set in what appeared to me as the middle of a jungle. We parked in the centre of their small village and handed out bags of clothes to the townspeople who were so happy to see us. They thanked us and even posed for a photo with the Madre. I felt uplifted.

Then, two days later, when we took more bags of clothes to a poor community just the otherside of urban Montero here (which itself is just down the road from Bolivia's commercial centre Santa Cruz) and they were in even more desperate need for it. The experience was very much a different one with people snatching at clothes and walking off with bag fulls before their contents could be shared evenly. It left a bitter taste in my mouth, I have to admit. Can you imagine how poor these people are if they're relying on donations from a girls' orphanage? It was a visual demonstration to me that Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in South America...

Anyway, on a lighter note, this week coming is the last week of the summer term at school for the girls at the Hogar and so there have been lots of dance shows, contests and exhibitions put on by the schools to bring the academic year to a close. I've been along to as many as I could to support the girls, feeling evermore like a Dad in the process: cheering as they walk on to do their dance, getting them to pose for photos when they should be following the others, feeling a small sense of pride even when all they're doing is waving some pompoms in the air, etc. etc.

One night I got one of the girls to do an impression of Annabel as a monkey...

Veronica as Monkey Annabel :-D