Desolation & Christmas Shopping

Note: This was typed up and ready to go last night, but the internet decided not to work so here it is bright and early this morning.

Lukas and I were up and in a taxi by 7:30 this morning so we could go with the doctor to the Aymara community that the doctor volunteers in.  It was a bit of a ride out there through some pretty rough roads, and to make things even more challenging, it rained quite heavily all night.  We pulled up to a walled in area next to a pretty new looking hospital.  Inside the walls, were a series of small huts that were made up primarily of a combination of wood, mud bricks and some plaster.  The roofs were mostly made of corrugated tin and weighed down with old tires, broken bicycles or other heavy items to keep them on in case of rain.  They were all one room buildings.

There were many young children running around in pretty poor clothing and a few adults walking about as well.  Several adults came up and greeted us as they all knew the doctor.  The doctor explained that there are 27 of these communities around Santa Cruz of various sizes, but that this was one of the largest ones.  There are several hundred people living here at any given time and while the population doesn't fluctuate much, the people come and go.  The doctor explained that most of the girls in the community are involved in prostitution by the age of 11 or 12 and that what used to be cases of syphilis or other diseases, is now quite often HIV.

I was introduced to the pastor of the community who lives in a small house with his wife and children.  He tries his best along with the doctor to teach healthy lifestyles and right from wrong.  The doctor explained that the community is very close knit along their ethnic background and even introduced us to a woman who works for the government and makes approximately 7000 Bolivianos (a decent wage here) a month but still chooses to live within the community.

Throughout the community was a fair amount of garbage, along with various chickens and dogs walking about.  There is only one bathroom at the far back, but while we were there, we saw a small boy going to the bathroom along the side of the path we were walking on, which makes one wonder how many other individuals don't bother to make the walk to the washroom.

In the past few years, there have been some improvements however.  They now have a small school house where they try to teach the early grades, but they have great difficulty getting teachers to work there.  They also have built a nutritional center to try and teach proper nutrition and eating habits to the adults.

Before we arrived, I had asked if it was appropriate to take any pictures and out of respect, we decided that it was best not to, so there will be no pictures today.

After the time with the doctor, we returned to El Jordan and finished wrapping up the presents.  Melody and Jordan stayed until 8pm and did some baking.  The boys did some of their home work, and I went with Ken and Andres to the market to help them with their Christmas shopping for their boys.  After several hours at the market, we managed to buy the boys presents for the most part.

We were also discussing as a family whether or not it felt like Christmas, and we have decided that although we are doing a large amount of "Christmas" work and prep, it doesn't feel like Christmas very much.  Other than the plaza downtown, you don't see very many Christmas decorations or light displays since a fair number of people can't afford displays, there is no Christmas music playing and since we don't have television, we aren't seeing the usual signs of Christmas there either.  It is quite strange.