Burzeltag pictures!

Yuppieee! Some pictures of my birthday lunch!!



My host family had bought me strawberry cream cake.. OMG so delicious!! as well as red roses, and a white Jasmin of their garden :) I was very happy.


Now this ... It shall suffice to say, Bolivian traditions keep surprising me. When my host mom told me to bite into the cake, I didnt think she meant it that literally. However, I didnt want to be impolite, so I lowered my head to take a small bite, when suddenly - BAM! - she pushed me right into the cake!!


I never had that much fun with a birthday cake even as a child! :p


Me and Dayana <3


Jorge and Rosemary, my host parents <3<3
We had chicken and mashed potatoes for lunch, one of my favorite foods here. If I hadnt been so sick, I would have probably enjoyed it more :/
In the afternoon, Dayana's cousin came and did our nails for the wedding this weekend.

Altogether, a pretty nice birthday :)

It's my birfday!!

Time to meet Mr. Right, get married and have plenty of children. And on a sidenote, also to decide about the future career path, where and what to study, and where to live!
Many things to do - let's get started! :p

Sick again..

For some reason, my stomach hates Bolivia. Or Bolivia hates my stomach, not sure yet. Ever since I went out on Friday, I've been with nauseas and a general stomach illness.. maybe it was the ice in the coke, who knows. So, naturally, the day out with the kids today wasn't too great for me. Pictures yet to come!

Also, I was very puzzled by something my host mom said today.. it seems people really think here that disabled women have stronger sexual desires, and see this as the reason for the fact that they have many children... and not rather the fact that disabled women here most of the times dont know either to read, or to write, dont find work and are at the mercy of their husbands who use and abuse them how they see fit. Weird.

First Night Out!!

...and it was truthfully the weirdest encounter I have had in a long while. I went out tonight with Fernanda and her boyfriend Rodrigo, and five of their friends. Who in hell is Fernanda?? will the appreciated reader probably ask now. Well, until this afternoon I didnt know either! It all started yesterday, when my host sister Dayana and I went to this little boutique "Mandarina" and bought some clothes. I bought a dress, and they had to change something to make it fit me. So I returned today to pick it up, and the vendor girl and I started a conversation, in the course of which I found out that she was called Fernanda, and that she was going out tonight. And as funny as it is, she invited me to come with her. The Latino-mentality is really different from everything I have known so far.

So we went out to this Karaoke bar, which was really funny, because everyone sang a song, and some even two. I had Hotel California and Winds of Change, but since they only had spanish lyrics, I had some troubles here and there fitting the lyrics to the melody haha!

After the Karaoke, we went to a discoteca called Deep, and it was also pretty fun. I should get some pictures soon, I'll be returning to the store tomorrow to leave Fernanda my number (As ridiculous as it sounds, I have no idea what my cell phone number is.. I have to look it up at home :P) and I'll also give her my email, so she can send me the pictures.

So, it is 2:15 am now, and I am pretty tired, after a whole evening on high heels. (Not used to dancing in Non-Dance-Shoes anymore, or to High Heels in general... sadly.) Tomorrow I'll go to a concert with Dayana, some Chilenean group is going to play.

These are my kids!

...of the Centro Infantil Estrellitas-Waritas, which translates into "Little Stars", both in Spanish and Quechua. Those are not all of them by the way, there are way more!


This is little Mateo, with his sister. (At least I believe it is his sister?? I have seen her for the first time today.)


Mateo, Reina, and two little stars I dont know the names of yet.



They adore being photographed :p They also love to do my hair. It gets almost scary when suddenly 9 kids jump you and start pulling on your hair in every possible way.. especially when you know that a couple of those kids have lice.. :s But they are just so sweet.. how could I not allow them :)




I really love working with them. Even though it is very difficult at times and I am only at the beginning of everything, I feel like this is something I could spend 40 years and more working in.

52 años Tiquipaya

Today I participated in the festival "52 años Tiquipaya" with INFANTE and about a hundred other grassroot organizations. I have to say, it is true what I heard: If we had not shown up for the "desfile" to walk in line with all the others, everyone would have had to pay a fine of 25$. Of course, I didnt bring anything for official occasions to Bolivia- I didnt think I'd ever need a suit over here. So I had to build something from scratch after yesterday's workday, and boy did I get lucky- the only store that was still open at that hour still had ONE pair of black pants in my size!!

Here are a couple pictures of the desfile.



Me before the desfile. Needless to say, my feet were killing me afterwards!!

This is our group from INFANTE. The lady with the red umbrella is the center coordinator and my supervisor, Maria del Carmen. The lady to the left of the kid is my best friend in the center, Soledad. Sadly I cant remember all the other names :(


Here I am standing in line, right before we entered the main plaza. The sun was burning hot, and I look like a fried baby right now. (Someone will probably smile right here.. yes, you know who you are ;) ) Oh, and today I learned that it is very normal for Bolivian people to sit in the trunk of taxis if there is no more space on the back or front seats. Every day something new..

Sunday we're gonna do a workshop and an outdoor activity for the families coming to our center. We're gonna go to a public bath, do some therapeutical games, play with the kids, fun stuffz. I will be going as well, and I am quite looking forward to it. On another note, there is a kid from the center, who is really giving me headaches.. little Mateo, who is one of the most difficult kids in the center. Yesterday all the kids went to their schools and got candies from their teachers, because it was Student's day, but Mateo couldnt go because his family wouldnt give him anything to bring and share, and the teacher wouldnt give him any candy if he didnt have anything to share with the other kids. All the other kids in the center are pretty ugly to him, and he is always the first one to be blamed for everything that goes wrong- sadly, mostly with reason. He also told me today that his teacher in school is beating him, something that is still very normal in Bolivia. It literally kills me inside, because he is only 6 years old. I hope I can contribute to making him a happier and healthier kid while I am here, and to help make the teachers rethink their pedagogy.

Its one of those days...

...when you should not ask just what actually IS this dish you are eating at the moment. You know it.. nothing good comes ever out of this question. Just eat it, worry about it afterwards.

It was cow tongue, by the way.

Today, the kids at Warita Centre did my hair.. and I award a full +2 points for creativity! Here are some pictures of how it actually looks.


Front side is way less spectacular than back side, imo!

Also, as promised, here are some impressions of the football game Wilsterman contra San José. It was quite funny to see the people insulting the players :> Idiota, Animal, Inutil and Chancha Embarazada are only a few of the names I recall from the top of my head :p


The Wilster Fancurve with the flag!


This is how it looked when the players entered the arena. Lots of smoke, flares and screaming fans.

All lined up for the national anthem.


A more or less spectacular ball contact. Truthfully, there is a reason why Bolivia hasnt even managed to qualify for the World Championships since 1973..

Te has hecho implantes??

For some obscure reason, people just cant seem to mind their own business when it comes to breasts.. o.0 Today my host mom asked me if I had implants in mine! Now, this question sounds awkwardly familiar, considering my dance group back in Canada asked me the same thing once.. -.-

I guess I have just been lucky!!

I'm so gonna die.

I am actually really tired after the workday today, so this shall be a very short post only to satisfy the curiosity of my mother :p

INFANTE has a capacitation workshop with around 80 kids on thurs and fri, and for some reason I got volunteered to do a presentation on constitutional changes in children's and youth's rights >< I am so gonna die.

On another note, I have a lot of new pictures, of a football game of Cochabamba's team Wilsterman against Oruro's San José. I will upload them once I have a little more time on my hands.

INFANTE

Today I was introduced to the work I will be doing for INFANTE during my year in Bolivia. I will be involved in two projects, el Centro Infantil Estrellita-Warita, as well as Comunidad. My area of expertise is public policy and advocacy, so I will be working mostly in violence prevention through capacitation workshops with teachers, parents and students, as well as with public authorities on the local and national level, and in an interinstitutional network with ONGs from other countries. My job is to push for a better public policy aimed at protecting the rights of children and adolescents, as well as helping women that have been victims of violence to take on leadership and assume a protagonist role in terms of human development, gender equity and rights restitution.

On a side note, I am sick ;( every single muscle in my body aches.. so I shall refrain from writing more today.

Kudos to Comteco

This is only a very short update, since I have spent the night awake and am dead tired now, after preparing my workshop at Atillka's tomorrow. I have finally ended up getting highspeed internet here. After talking to my host family and choosing a new service, we have gone and changed up the contract to something a little more viable. (Obviously it was me paying for it, but since there really isnt anything to buy down here, spending some money for fast internet to enjoy during a year really doesnt seem like such a bad idea to me.)

Kudos to Comteco, the company we bought it from: After we changed up the contract, the modem modifications didnt work, so we had to get a technician to fix it. It took a whole 5 minutes!! to have someone from the company come to our house, fix it, and even call us up later in the evening to ask how everything went and if we had any problems!

Truthfully, sometimes I wish German companies had that kind of customer support.