Samaipata

On Monday I went for a one-day 'paseo' with some of the girls and Madres. We went to a house up in the mountains of the Bolivian countryside, close to the town of Samaipata. The house and surroundings were very pretty and I managed to take nearly 180 photos in just one day..! (I think you'll have to set aside a weekend to get through all my photos by the time I get back...) Anyway, here are just three:

More snake talk

Just as an afterthought to the last post, it's a week since the 'snake incident' and I've just come back from taking one of the girls to hospital with a suspected snake bite.

At ten o'clock at night, Madre Micaela finds me and Sarah (the volunteer in charge of looking after the girls' medical needs) to tell us that María Rene has been bitten by a snake on her ankle. We took a look and it didn't seem to be a snake bite (i.e. two puncture holes), but we went to the hospital to check it out just in case. Despite there being a nationwide civil strike today, fortunately the hospital wasn't closed!

It turns out that it wasn't a snake bite after all, or at least that it wasn't a venomous one. The doctor did give Sarah some tips for the future though: if it were a venomous bite, it would be accompanied by nausea or a headache. Another test is to look at the eyes: if the pupils are pin-points and don't react to a change in light then there is venom in the body. Helpful hints there for you all, I'm sure!

The snake incident

A couple of nights ago, I was sitting outside playing cards with some of the girls just after dinner when a girl runs out shouting 'Simon, Simon, there's a snake, come kill it!'.

So I go and see what the fuss is all about. I find just inside the front door of the Hogar a dark green snake (quite thin, but I'd say just short of 2ft long) coiled up in the corner. I go up to it and start trying to usher it outside with my foot when one of the older girls warns me that it's poisonous. I decide waving my foot at a poisonous snake isn't a good idea and I take a few steps back...

By now the girls are getting very excited and are running around shouting. Madre Micaela comes running up, takes one look at the snake and gets all the girls a safe distance away. Then one of the teachers who was still working with the girls into that evening arrives with a broom handle. Without any fuss she bends down in front of the snake and then starts whacking it on the head repeatedly. (I apologise to any animal lovers - you may not like the way this story is going...).

Once the snake is well and truly concussed, the next thing I see is the Madre returning with a machete. Now it's her turn to bend down and have a go at what is soon an ex-snake.

It was then down to me to use a garden fork to pick up the remains and throw them outside. I get all the best jobs at the Hogar...

Quite an exciting evening, I thought.

Happy Thanksgiving!

So yesterday I celebrated my first ever Thanksgivings Day. The US volunteers were very keen to celebrate it in the appropiate manner. Rather naively I never realised what a big deal it is for the Americans...

So the three American volunteers and I spent the day in Santa Cruz city along with the director Madre Rosario. We ate some empanadas, did some shopping, had lunch and then chilled out at the house of the Madre's brother in Santa Cruz. I had a nap in a hammock for at least an hour and a half, and then watched Shrek 3 in Spanish. Then Thanksgiving dinner was the traditional Bolivian snacks of cuñapé, empanada (de pollo y queso), masaco de plátano and masaco de yuca served with lashing of Fanta and Coca Cola. Apparently this isn't the standard Thanksgiving grub in the US, but still I enjoyed it...

As luck would have it, the same taxi driver who had taken us to Santa Cruz from Montero in the morning also picked us up to take us home in the evening. The Madre got chatting to him on the way back (it turns out they had met before a few years ago) and he was soon telling us all about his job, his wife, kids, etc. He even invited us on a tour of his house when we got back to Montero. Before I knew it, the Madre and I were being introduced to his wife, his three kids, I was handed a glass of soda and the taxi driver was proudly showing us round his garden of fruit trees. A very friendly family, though an unexpectedly strange end to the day..!

One small step for man...

Some of you may already be familiar with this photo, so I thought it might be a good idea to give a little background to it...

The girl's name is Moira, and at 2 and a half years old she is one of the youngest girls at the Hogar. She is also one of the most recent additions, only arriving in August a few weeks before I did.

She was in quite a bad state when she arrived. She had been abandoned by her mother and was a very grumpy girl. In my first month, I don't think I saw her smile and she didn't get on too well with the other girls - often preferring to sit alone in the toy room than play with the others.

Having said that, things have changed rapidly for Moira. She is visibily getting better with every day. She now plays with the other girls, and it's not unusual to get a smile out of her - although she's still quite grumpy! She is prone to sitting down, throwing a fit and refusing to move, but this is happening less often (thankfully!). Although she does know a few words, she usually refuses to speak, but with this too we're encouraging her step by step...

Anyway, to get to the photo. Every Sunday morning all the girls from the Hogar walk to Mass at a church about 10minutes walk away (that 10minutes can feel a heck of a lot stronger in the burning sun...). Moira can (in theory) walk the whole distance there and back, but will often refuse to walk (she loves to be picked up and carried, and hates to be put down - possibly down to being abandoned by her mother...). After Sarah had particularly stressful time trying to get her to walk one Sunday (she threw a fit in the middle of the road that they were trying to cross), she suggested that I give it a go...

So, the following week, I took her by the hand and we walked. And we walked. And we walked the whole way to church. (Okay, so it took us twice as long as normal and we were overtaken by everyone else on the way, even the 'too cool for school' 14-year-olds who drag their heels at the back, but still we made it). In fact, we made it all the way back too! I was chuffed.

And, even more surprisingly, we managed it the following week too! We did have a minor problem when had a fit after Mass and just sat on the Church floor as everyone filed out, but eventually we were on our way... Once again Moira made it all the way back to the Hogar without being picked up. I was proud.

All we need now is to get her to start talking..!

Grumpy Moira.

Update

Sorry that it’s been so long since I updated my blog properly. Here’s a brief update of what’s been going on:

Fr Bob popped by to Bolivia. (As you do).

So did the Mother Superior.

(For Fr Bob we danced and sang. For the Mother Superior we sang and danced.)

My camera broke.

The Hogar truck was stolen in Santa Cruz city.

The summer holidays from school have started.

My camera was fixed.

Yesterday was a fun day. It turned into an impromptu art day which involved getting the girls to draw and colour pictures. The plan is to bring the best of them back to the UK and to sell them in order to raise more money for the girls at the Hogar. I will have plenty with me by the time I get home, so if you’ve ever wanted a picture painted by a Bolivian orphan, now’s your chance! Plus, with the current exchange rate over 15 bolivianos to the pound, every extra pound can make a difference!

For those of you who want to learn more about the Hogar and how you can donate money to the girls and the work of the nuns out here, then you’ll be pleased to know that you’ll be able to get involved. Fr Bob’s visit (which deserves a blog of its own, really) marked the start of an exciting project, details of which I will send to all as soon as possible.

That’s all for now!
Simon

P.S. One final note to all lonely male hearts out there:
In the last census of the country it was found that the ratio of women to men in Bolivia is at least 3:1. Just a thought.