Sorry for the delay in posting our first
update, we have been very busy and with limited internet access!
We were all reunited in Cochabamba on 2nd
Feb and then went to a camp for our orientation week. This was a great chance to get to know one
another better and also the Bolivians on our team, whilst doing a variety of
outdoors activities. The camp was at
3,300 metres and the sun did not come out much so we did spend a lot of time
cold and wet unfortunately!
One night we held a British cultural evening where we prepared Cottage Pie and Banoffee Pie (apparently American?! …oops!) for everyone and taught them some Ceilidh dances and then presented some information about our country including photos of where we each come from. Our Bolivian audience were highly entertained by our examples of different regional accents, the height of our tallest mountains, the times of day when it is acceptable to drink tea (anytime) etc.
On the Friday evening we returned to Cochabamba and said our goodbyes to the Cochabamba teams, which was a sad time as everyone had bonded so well. After a 2 hour delay on Saturday we took our 30 min flight to Sucre where we were welcomed by our host families.
We’ve spent the last week working out what we’re doing here with Patsida, being trained in the different topics that we’ll be teaching, planning activities, buying resources, folding boxes, creating and learning a dance about HIV transmission. On Saturday evening we had our first event; we were trying to recruit more local volunteers from a church in Sucre. We performed our dance, challenging the young people to work out what the myths and realities of HIV were and giving a short message about God’s love and loving others. Our biggest event will be on Monday the 24th of Feb where we are taking part in a public HIV/AIDs convention. Hopefully our tent with its wheel of fortune ‘get your facts right’ game and our beautiful bunting will attract lots of people and raise awareness of the realities of HIV/AIDS.
Sucre is a beautiful and generally peaceful
city with many students. The weather here is extremely up and down and the
whole team agree they haven’t brought enough clothes (except for Laura). We
have explored this historical city and we’ve already bought some traditional
clothing so we feel like proper Bolivians. We have tried a variety of local
dishes (some being better than others)!
Unfortunately, this has also resulted in most of the team getting ‘ill’…
if you know what I mean… Thankfully we are now all starting to get accustomed
to the local cuisine!
That’s all for now. Please be praying for us
over these next few weeks for: -health
-productivity
-confidence in speaking Spanish
-supernatural knowledge in Spanish of HIV/AIDS.
