Note to Bolivia

Most of my time in Cochabamba is now spent volunteering in Ushpa-Ushpa, a community on the outskirts of Cochabamba.  I’m working for Proyecto Horizonte which has been based in the community for six years and aims to develop it into a sustainable and desirable place to live.  Six years ago the community was just make-shift shelters and there were no local services.  Now there is electricity, shops, a school, a kindergarten, a medical centre, microfinance and most recently the World Wide Web has stopped by for good.  There is still no running water or many employment opportunities but I think people’s lives are slowly improving in small ways each year.

My first month at Ushpa-Ushpa was spent in the guardería (the kindergarten).   Here I was fully immersed in the day-to-day activities and was able to see and learn firsthand about the community, the kids, the staff and the project as a whole.

Each day was spent with a class of three-year olds helping out where I could while my Spanish improved.  For me, this was an eye opening experience, but not in the way one would expect when working in a poor community on the outskirts of Cochabamba.  For me, it was the first time I had spent any significant amount of time with kids in my life!  And I can only say it was a treat to hang out with these neat ninos.

Brisnet and un gato

In terms of improving my Spanish – it is pretty hard to understand what a 3-year-old is saying in any language, especially through tears or a tantrum.  And getting 3-year-olds to actually do something that you want them to do doesn’t have a whole lot to do with what you say to them!

Aside from Spanish, in just a month the kids did manage to teach me a lot and at the same time, do all things people say kids will do to you: made me feel young, made me remember how to ‘play’, showed me the power a smile, taught me patience and proved to me that kids really do say the darnedest things in the cutest ways.

The cheeky one!

In return I did my best to act as silly as possible to get a laugh each day.  My favourite was when the girls would laugh so hard that they would topple over, and because they were holding hands they would tug down all the other girls into one big pile of giggling three-year-olds.  I miss hanging out with them, brushing their teeth and scooping some more of the home-cooked lunches into their little mouths.  To them I was ‘Sala’, the funny gringa with the weird short hair.

No, that's your nose. And are you about to spit on my feet?

What a world away from corporate ‘Sarah’ I am now.

Who said you can't wear jandals everyday for a year