I need to walk for 20 minutes and catch the bus number 38 to the charity and walk for another 10-15 minutes.
Luz del Mundo is a nice place and home to 80 kids. Gabry, the founder of the charity is an amazing lady and I admire her so much for her kindness, her strenght and her unconditional love.
The area is poor and rough. A couple of days ago I was terrified but my eyes have seen so much in the last couple of days that I´m now kind of used to it. Can someone get used to poverty, crime and death ?
Before walking in these shoes, I would have said no but living in poor and "dangerous" areas made me see things from a different perspective and sadly my eyes "accept" the reality around me.
I spend the entire morning with the kids, Peggy the dog and her puppies. They run all over the place and have no names so I decide that we gotta find names for them . If you don´t have a name , you don´t exsist so I find that quite sad and name them: Shakira, Ricky Martin and Hanna Barbara..
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| dancing loca, loca by Shakira - Bolivia |
I teach them few games including the game la bomba and I found already a mini Milady.
Milady was a ten year old girl at Intiwawa (Peru´) that I did like straightaway cause she was different and standed out like a sore thumb.
She was short and about 180 kilos, every time I gave her a piggy ride I couldn´t move for a week and needed physiotherapy. Francine is a photocopy of Milady but she is five years younger.
She´s bossy, she holds my hand really tight and doesn´t want to let go. I like her straightaway.
We give them milk and rice and I get a chance to sit with Gabry and chat a bit.
Someone from UK wants to make a donation so she asks me if I can contact this guy through facebook as she hasn´t got internet. I leave LDM , catch the bus 98 and head to the city centre to contact this good samaritan.
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| dressing up for a play with the kids |
I get a text from Veronica asking how things are going at Luz Del Mundo (LDM) and buy myself 2 big empanadas de arroz ( dumplings of rice) and take the bus home.
I nearly get killed about 10 times in the space of 3 days cause the bus drivers are nutters. On my second day in Santa Cruz, the driver lost control of the bus, we ended up in a ditch and then they pushed the bus onto the road again and off we drove. I was in shock, I was asking people if they were ok and they all looked at me as if I had 2 heads. It was normal to have accidents . It was normal to catch a taxi when 10 people were already on board and you had to sit at the front with other 5 people with the side mirror sticking out of your uterus ! This is Bolivia.
No health and safety rules like UK, 4 people riding a bike without wearing an helmet or if the father was thoughtful, he would wear the helmet and let his wife and kids ride without it. Don´t you love husbands like that ? Tosser !!!
The bus drivers make me smile, the mirrors are the size of the mirror nana had in her bedroom. It was so big that she could see what people in Albania were up to and the chair of the drivers is often a plastic chair. My mum had those plastic chairs in the garden once . I sit behind the driver so I can be the first person to see our accident. Every time the driver breaks in a sharp way, my foot pushes the chair so much that the driver ends up sitting on the steering wheel .
I reach home and Señora Alsira and her hubby are fighting like cat and dog.
I go to my room and see Hardy with his eyes closed probably thinking if he had what I have between my legs , she would be damn quiet jajaja
Who said that size doesn´t matter , eh ?
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| in front of my Bolivian home |
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