Esto es Bolivia...

During our placement here we carried out 37 workshops and 3 public events to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS.  We had about 1000 young people attending the workshops in total.  We carried out over 800 knowledge surveys (with improvement of up to 48% over the groups), over 600 behaviour surveys, and over 500 public surveys. In addition to this we spent many days helping at the compassion centre.  The team are really going to miss our friends in Sucre and it was hard to say goodbye.

First team has gone home so I wanted to reflect and share different experiences that became very normal to us but, on reflection, I know they wouldn’t be normal back home in UK!

• -          Being a group of eight and therefore knowing that one taxi is enough… having two in passenger seat or more if they’re children… or two in the boot playing uno :-)
• -          Seeing cars have near misses every day
• -          Being surprised to see a car without a cracked windscreen.
• -          Being surprised to see a new car (i.e. less than 10 years old)
• -          Being the loudest people on the bus due to having a conversation at normal UK volume.

• -          Paying 1B (10p) for the bus ride.
• -          Paying 3 times the price that nationals pay to enter tourist attractions.
• -          Tripping/falling on the uneven pavement… all the time, often resulting in bodily harm.
• -          Helping kids in the compassion centre to focus on their homework, which consists of writing out pages of “ma – me – mi – mo – mu”
• -          Having no work because of strikes and lorries blocking all the main roads.

• -          A woman walking a herd of a sheep and pigs through the city.
• -          Eating fried food every day

• -          Talking about bowel movements every day, often in public, saying everything in English except “caca” or “caca agua” so those around us would have no doubt of the subject.
• -          Being pleased to discover your lunch has a few bits of carrot in it and is therefore a healthy meal.
• -          Wanting to eat healthier food and yet snacking on copious amounts of dulce de leche.
• -          Not being able to fully identify every part of the chicken that was served to us.
• -          Buying super mini bottles of fizzy drinks and asking for them to empty it into a bag with a straw so that you don’t have to return the glass bottle.
• -          Everything being sold on the street… often by children.
• -          The customer is always wrong.
• -          Bargaining to get a final two bolivianos discount despite that being less than 20p.
• -          Going downstairs to go to church on Sunday evenings… still arriving late.

• -          The one indigenous lady in every church who claps out of time… good for her! :-)
• -          Indigenous women wearing skirts pinned together so that they don’t quite close and never understanding why.
• -          Our Hong Kong team member being a major celebrity in the workshops.
• -          The internet being so slow that it was often unusable.
• -          Failing to make any cake, other than flapjack.

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I know that it won’t be easy to adjust to life back home… once we were back in the guesthouse in Cochabamba, Laura referred to the toaster as a “toast oven” and Lucy stood looking at it, then asked: “how do you turn this thing on?”

Bye girls!! Really going to miss my first team! ... New team arrives tomorrow!