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.
Santa's Helpers & Christmas Present Shopping
It rained for a fair bit of the night, and again this morning when we first got up to go to El Jordan. When it rains here, it comes down in a hurry and then stops for a while, and then comes down in a hurry again. Its somewhat different from the way we get rain at home. When it comes down in a hurry, the streets get flooded and then they drain and then repeat the cycle all over again. Here is a picture from the drive over to El Jordan this morning to give you an idea of what it looks like.
We got to El Jordan and started on wrapping the little gift that each person on the street will get with their food. The gift is simply a plastic cup and a cola flavored sucker. It doesn't sound like much but having their own cup is a big deal to someone who has nothing. Melody had spent most of the evening last night cutting Christmas wrap into the right size to create "pockets" to put the cup and sucker into. We took everything she had cut back to El Jordan with us and set about wrapping the 3000 cups. They don't seem to grasp the idea of an assembly line here, after an hour of everybody sitting at 3 tables and each doing whatever part of the task they wanted to, I decided I couldn't take it anymore. I got up, took a table and filled it with plastic cups and started putting a sucker into each one, then had Melody take charge at a table and had them tape the pre-cut paper into the little pouches and had the 3rd table become the sealing table. So, my table got cups and suckers ready, stuffed them into the pouches, and then had runners take them to the sealing table while the pouch table continued to make packets and bring them to my table for stuffing. WAYYYYY more efficient than each person doing a little of everything.
By the end of the day, we had completed 2000 packages and will finish off the other 1000 tomorrow with some luck. All the packages were put into the boxes that Logan and Heidi went to get. As you can see, they stuffed the car as full as possible. That meant the only room for Logan was on top of the boxes on the way home. (cue overprotective parent comments and emails now). Lukas and I will not be helping out on that item tomorrow however. Lukas was invited to go along with a local doctor who works for money 1 day a week and then works for free the other 4 days a week to provide basic medical services to the street people. I figured it wasn't prudent to send him off by himself, so I will be going along with him tomorrow and will hopefully be able to snap a few pictures as well.
Later in the afternoon Andres picked Lukas, Logan and I up to go downtown to get the kids Christmas presents. We had a family talk and the kids all agreed they didn't really NEED much for Christmas so each of them said they would be happy with a soccer jersey of their choice. Since it was there choice, I took the boys along so the sizes would be right and so they could pick their own jersey. Logan of course chose a Barcelona jersey with Messi on the back, Lukas chose a Bayern Munich jersey with Robben on the back and Jordan had asked for an Argentina jersey which was quite difficult to find for some reason. Luckily we managed to track down a Di Maria jersey for her in the right size. Lukas also spent some of his own money on a German national team jersey with Goetze on the back. We will be wrapping them up so they have something to open on Christmas when the rest of the kids at the home open their presents up too.
By the end of the day, we had completed 2000 packages and will finish off the other 1000 tomorrow with some luck. All the packages were put into the boxes that Logan and Heidi went to get. As you can see, they stuffed the car as full as possible. That meant the only room for Logan was on top of the boxes on the way home. (cue overprotective parent comments and emails now). Lukas and I will not be helping out on that item tomorrow however. Lukas was invited to go along with a local doctor who works for money 1 day a week and then works for free the other 4 days a week to provide basic medical services to the street people. I figured it wasn't prudent to send him off by himself, so I will be going along with him tomorrow and will hopefully be able to snap a few pictures as well.
Later in the afternoon Andres picked Lukas, Logan and I up to go downtown to get the kids Christmas presents. We had a family talk and the kids all agreed they didn't really NEED much for Christmas so each of them said they would be happy with a soccer jersey of their choice. Since it was there choice, I took the boys along so the sizes would be right and so they could pick their own jersey. Logan of course chose a Barcelona jersey with Messi on the back, Lukas chose a Bayern Munich jersey with Robben on the back and Jordan had asked for an Argentina jersey which was quite difficult to find for some reason. Luckily we managed to track down a Di Maria jersey for her in the right size. Lukas also spent some of his own money on a German national team jersey with Goetze on the back. We will be wrapping them up so they have something to open on Christmas when the rest of the kids at the home open their presents up too.
Closing the Loops, Children's Home and Chinese Food
This morning, we returned to El Jordan to finish off bagging the giant fruit loops which pretty much took until noon. We headed back to our place and waited for Ken to pick us up around 2:00. Luckily, the cleaning lady had been through in our absence and tidied up a bit which is a nice bonus. Ken showed up at 2:30 which is pretty much on time for Bolivia, and we headed to the market to pickup some additional Christmas decorations to donate to the children's home along with an artificial Christmas tree that Ken had to donate. While we were there, we finally found some nice shoes to replace the somewhat funky ones that Lukas has been wearing for the past year and a half.
We met with the director of the children's home and made plans to cook for them on Christmas Day, and as a bonus, we will pick up some fireworks to blast off after supper. We also left them 3 soccer balls for the kids to play with. This home is a somewhat special since Andres (one of Ken's boys) two sisters spent 11 years with the home until Andres graduated and took them in along with his younger brother. It is also a very nice place with lots of trees and greenery since they rent space out on the property to a greenhouse business.
By the time we were done, it was getting close to supper time, so I offered to take Ken and the 3 of his boys who were home out for supper. We are getting a little tired of chicken, so I suggested we try something that they wouldn't normally have the chance to have. We ended up at a Chinese restaurant (they are everywhere aren't they?) that was empty but looked promising. As we proceeded to order, other customers started coming in and the majority were Chinese, so we figured we had picked a good spot. Turned out we were right. The food was quite good. As we ate, we watched the food that was coming to the other tables, and it looked quite elaborate and very different from our food however. After we paid, we asked the waiter what the other tables had ordered and he explained that they have one menu for "normal customers" and one menu for Chinese customers that had more exotic items on it. The exotic items are the exact kind of things I would have wanted to order. Maybe next time...
We got back to the apartment around 8:00 and now we have to cut a few hundred sheets of Christmas paper down to size for wrapping day tomorrow.
Here are some pictures of the day.
We met with the director of the children's home and made plans to cook for them on Christmas Day, and as a bonus, we will pick up some fireworks to blast off after supper. We also left them 3 soccer balls for the kids to play with. This home is a somewhat special since Andres (one of Ken's boys) two sisters spent 11 years with the home until Andres graduated and took them in along with his younger brother. It is also a very nice place with lots of trees and greenery since they rent space out on the property to a greenhouse business.
By the time we were done, it was getting close to supper time, so I offered to take Ken and the 3 of his boys who were home out for supper. We are getting a little tired of chicken, so I suggested we try something that they wouldn't normally have the chance to have. We ended up at a Chinese restaurant (they are everywhere aren't they?) that was empty but looked promising. As we proceeded to order, other customers started coming in and the majority were Chinese, so we figured we had picked a good spot. Turned out we were right. The food was quite good. As we ate, we watched the food that was coming to the other tables, and it looked quite elaborate and very different from our food however. After we paid, we asked the waiter what the other tables had ordered and he explained that they have one menu for "normal customers" and one menu for Chinese customers that had more exotic items on it. The exotic items are the exact kind of things I would have wanted to order. Maybe next time...
We got back to the apartment around 8:00 and now we have to cut a few hundred sheets of Christmas paper down to size for wrapping day tomorrow.
Here are some pictures of the day.
Giant Popcorn and Giant Fruit Loops
We were back at El Jordan this morning by 9:00 to start repackaging the popcorn and fruit loop like snacks into smaller bags to be handed out with the the meals that we will be handing out on the streets. When we started, we gave them a taste and the popcorn tastes like sugar crisp but with a little less sugar, and the fruit loop looking ones taste like....well, like fruit loops with a bunch more sugar added to them. This is going to be a pretty short and boring blog post, because the ENTIRE DAY was spent repackaging the giant bags into smaller ones. I stopped counting when we passed 3000 bags. The end result of the day's work was a very sticky floor and a large mess to clean up. Jordan's feet basically had sugar socks on them by the end since she decided to go barefoot today.
Sunday Soccer Highlights
The church service was held at the potluck last night, so there was no church this morning. That meant a good opportunity to sleep in, which of course we did. After getting up, Jordan and I walked to the store and picked up some cunape and empanadas for lunch and then we killed the afternoon doing school work and reading books.
Ken and the boys picked us up at 4:00 to get to the big soccer game between Oriente Petrolero and Sport Boys that started at 5. There were 12 of us going in total, and we had bought tickets just far enough away from the Oriente club section to be safe, but just close enough to be a part of the party as well. Oriente was in second place at the start of the game with only 2 games left in the season, and the 1st place team was playing at the same time so lots of people had radios with them to listen to the other game during the one we were at. I have no idea how they could hear the radio over the constant singing, drumming and fireworks in the stadium.
The first half was all Oriente and ended 2 to 0, but it could have been 4 or 5 if the Sport Boys goalie had not played so well. Every goal brought a shower of cut up paper, fireworks, loud yelling and the lighting of a few small fires for dramatic effect. In the second half, Oriente scored again to complete the 3 to 0 victory. Close to the end of the game, the entire stadium erupted in the loudest roar of the day when the radio announced the 1st place team had lost 1 to 0, putting Oriente into first place with one game left in the season.
At the end of the game, the boys surrounded us and got us out of there quickly explaining that we needed to get out before the "Club Hooligans" from either side made their way out of the stadium. We did as we were told and made our way to meet Ken for a chicken supper. All in all, a good evening.
Ken and the boys picked us up at 4:00 to get to the big soccer game between Oriente Petrolero and Sport Boys that started at 5. There were 12 of us going in total, and we had bought tickets just far enough away from the Oriente club section to be safe, but just close enough to be a part of the party as well. Oriente was in second place at the start of the game with only 2 games left in the season, and the 1st place team was playing at the same time so lots of people had radios with them to listen to the other game during the one we were at. I have no idea how they could hear the radio over the constant singing, drumming and fireworks in the stadium.
The first half was all Oriente and ended 2 to 0, but it could have been 4 or 5 if the Sport Boys goalie had not played so well. Every goal brought a shower of cut up paper, fireworks, loud yelling and the lighting of a few small fires for dramatic effect. In the second half, Oriente scored again to complete the 3 to 0 victory. Close to the end of the game, the entire stadium erupted in the loudest roar of the day when the radio announced the 1st place team had lost 1 to 0, putting Oriente into first place with one game left in the season.
At the end of the game, the boys surrounded us and got us out of there quickly explaining that we needed to get out before the "Club Hooligans" from either side made their way out of the stadium. We did as we were told and made our way to meet Ken for a chicken supper. All in all, a good evening.
Lizards & Spiders & Food
As promised, we went to the market and got all the ingredients for a giant batch of stew for the potluck tonight including 3kg of meat. While Melody and I made the stew, the boys showed Jordan how to make strawberry juice to drink. Surprisingly, it only takes 10 strawberries blended with ice, water and sugar to make a full jug of juice that tasted very nice.
The potluck was scheduled to start at 7:30, so Ken dropped us off at our place around 5 to get freshened up and changed, then picked us up at 6:45 so we could finish cooking the potatoes, carrots and pasta for the stew. By the time Ken came back from showering at his place, to pick up all of us, it was 8:00. Then we drove through heavy traffic and arrived at the potluck location at 8:30. Ken was not worried about the time at all however and was apparently right because less than half the people were there and it wasn't until 9:00 that everybody showed up and started to play music. We finally ate around 10:00. Time is completely irrelevant here and nobody means the time that they say something will start. Normally this would drive me crazy, but I learned my lesson back in 2010 when we were here he first time.
About half way through supper, a little girl in a dress was walking between tables and came towards our table. She was walking somewhat oddly and once she turned the corner, we saw why. She was walking behind a rather large spider. Each time she took a step, the spider sort of skipped a bit forward. The girl was quite pleased with her little game. Melody on the other hand was not so amused by the spider being driven towards our table. Luckily for Melody, the girl lost interest and the spider skipped off into some musical equipment.
The potluck finished up around 11:30 and we headed back to our place after a good fill of many different foods. Lukas of course only had the stew we made and some cake along with a bunch of pop. Now is where history replays itself....
If you have followed our blog from 2010, you may remember the night where we saw the big spider in the hallway of our apartment and it was quickly followed by a gecko on the wall. Well, we got home, opened the door and a green blur went across the wall. ANOTHER GECKO!!!
Lukas tried to catch it with a cup like last time, but it made its escape under the door to our apartment to the great outdoors. That's correct, the gap at the bottom of our door is enough for a lizard to crawl under. The gap is 2 cm which allows for any number of possible visitors to come in day or night. All part of the fun. Its midnight, so we are all headed to bed now. Good night all. Here is a picture of our lizard friend and our Bolivian Christmas tree.
P.S. I was checking the blog stats. Would the 2 people in Ireland reading our blog please identify themselves? They make my favorite beverage there and I need a connection if I ever get there.
The potluck was scheduled to start at 7:30, so Ken dropped us off at our place around 5 to get freshened up and changed, then picked us up at 6:45 so we could finish cooking the potatoes, carrots and pasta for the stew. By the time Ken came back from showering at his place, to pick up all of us, it was 8:00. Then we drove through heavy traffic and arrived at the potluck location at 8:30. Ken was not worried about the time at all however and was apparently right because less than half the people were there and it wasn't until 9:00 that everybody showed up and started to play music. We finally ate around 10:00. Time is completely irrelevant here and nobody means the time that they say something will start. Normally this would drive me crazy, but I learned my lesson back in 2010 when we were here he first time.
About half way through supper, a little girl in a dress was walking between tables and came towards our table. She was walking somewhat oddly and once she turned the corner, we saw why. She was walking behind a rather large spider. Each time she took a step, the spider sort of skipped a bit forward. The girl was quite pleased with her little game. Melody on the other hand was not so amused by the spider being driven towards our table. Luckily for Melody, the girl lost interest and the spider skipped off into some musical equipment.
The potluck finished up around 11:30 and we headed back to our place after a good fill of many different foods. Lukas of course only had the stew we made and some cake along with a bunch of pop. Now is where history replays itself....
If you have followed our blog from 2010, you may remember the night where we saw the big spider in the hallway of our apartment and it was quickly followed by a gecko on the wall. Well, we got home, opened the door and a green blur went across the wall. ANOTHER GECKO!!!
Lukas tried to catch it with a cup like last time, but it made its escape under the door to our apartment to the great outdoors. That's correct, the gap at the bottom of our door is enough for a lizard to crawl under. The gap is 2 cm which allows for any number of possible visitors to come in day or night. All part of the fun. Its midnight, so we are all headed to bed now. Good night all. Here is a picture of our lizard friend and our Bolivian Christmas tree.
P.S. I was checking the blog stats. Would the 2 people in Ireland reading our blog please identify themselves? They make my favorite beverage there and I need a connection if I ever get there.
Cooking Lessons
As planned, we headed to the market to pickup groceries to teach Ken's boys a new dish. We decided that given the somewhat limited ingredient options, we needed to do something fairly straight forward but that would offer a new flavor and teach them a technique of some kind. The boys always cook their meat in a frying pan and regardless of the cut, it always comes out like shoe leather, so Ken asked that we teach them something that would end up being tender. The best option with those requirements was Hungarian goulash. Basically, all we needed was some onions, a few cloves of garlic, cubed tough meat (not a problem here), tomato paste (much less of a challenge than expected), paprika and water.
The goal at the end of the day was to teach them to braise the beef slowly for a longer period of time so it turns out tender and the connective tissue breaks down like in a stew. That was the plan anyways. I showed them how to sweat the onions and garlic (which they already knew), and then we browned the beef and added he rest of the ingredients to a big pan with a lid. Then we threw that in the oven on what I estimated to be about 300 degrees. Sounds easy right. It isn't always so. After about 20 minutes, and for every 10 minutes thereafter, the boys insisted the meat was cooked and should come out. We kept assuring them that no, it wasn't ready yet and needed more time. I told them repeatedly that it would take 2 to 2.5 hours to finish properly. It was a long two hours of assurances.
We normally serve the goulash over pasta, but we had lots of rice on hand, so the boys made their usual batch of rice and we served the goulash along with a salad of cucumbers, lettuce and tomatoes sprinkled with salt. They don't really do dressings here other than oil and salt unfortunately. After a few hesitant bites, the lights went on and they realized how tender the meat can be after braising, and poured the sauce all over the rice. We had thought that 2kg of beef would be plenty with the rice and salad but we of course ran out.
We then drilled the boys on what they had learned and asked them to go over the steps again with us. I am pretty sure they will be braising their meat quite often from now on.
After the cooking lessons, Ken dropped me and the kids off at the store to grab some needed essentials like bottled water, and took Melody over to El Jordan to bake banana breads for the next week in prep for the big push to get Christmas on the streets ready.
Last night was the first comfortable temperature evening since we got here so we spent a large part of the evening sitting outside reading books.
The plan for the rest of today is to cook a big batch of stew for a potluck supper that Ken got us invited to this evening, and then tomorrow we have church and we managed to grab tickets to the last pro soccer game of the season tomorrow night. Set us back a pretty penny however. 30 Bolivianos a ticket. That's just over 5 bucks a piece. We could have splurged and got tickets in the expensive area for about 10 bucks each, but we are buying for our family, Ken and 8 boys from his home. Should be a great night tomorrow.
I didn't really take any pictures of the cooking lessons yesterday, so here are a few random shots from the last week. The first is Ivan from Ken's place, the second is a picture of the juice they make and sell in the market, the third is a guy selling somo (corn juice drink) and a lady selling fresh squeezed orange juice, and the last is self explanatory.
The goal at the end of the day was to teach them to braise the beef slowly for a longer period of time so it turns out tender and the connective tissue breaks down like in a stew. That was the plan anyways. I showed them how to sweat the onions and garlic (which they already knew), and then we browned the beef and added he rest of the ingredients to a big pan with a lid. Then we threw that in the oven on what I estimated to be about 300 degrees. Sounds easy right. It isn't always so. After about 20 minutes, and for every 10 minutes thereafter, the boys insisted the meat was cooked and should come out. We kept assuring them that no, it wasn't ready yet and needed more time. I told them repeatedly that it would take 2 to 2.5 hours to finish properly. It was a long two hours of assurances.
We normally serve the goulash over pasta, but we had lots of rice on hand, so the boys made their usual batch of rice and we served the goulash along with a salad of cucumbers, lettuce and tomatoes sprinkled with salt. They don't really do dressings here other than oil and salt unfortunately. After a few hesitant bites, the lights went on and they realized how tender the meat can be after braising, and poured the sauce all over the rice. We had thought that 2kg of beef would be plenty with the rice and salad but we of course ran out.
We then drilled the boys on what they had learned and asked them to go over the steps again with us. I am pretty sure they will be braising their meat quite often from now on.
After the cooking lessons, Ken dropped me and the kids off at the store to grab some needed essentials like bottled water, and took Melody over to El Jordan to bake banana breads for the next week in prep for the big push to get Christmas on the streets ready.
Last night was the first comfortable temperature evening since we got here so we spent a large part of the evening sitting outside reading books.
The plan for the rest of today is to cook a big batch of stew for a potluck supper that Ken got us invited to this evening, and then tomorrow we have church and we managed to grab tickets to the last pro soccer game of the season tomorrow night. Set us back a pretty penny however. 30 Bolivianos a ticket. That's just over 5 bucks a piece. We could have splurged and got tickets in the expensive area for about 10 bucks each, but we are buying for our family, Ken and 8 boys from his home. Should be a great night tomorrow.
I didn't really take any pictures of the cooking lessons yesterday, so here are a few random shots from the last week. The first is Ivan from Ken's place, the second is a picture of the juice they make and sell in the market, the third is a guy selling somo (corn juice drink) and a lady selling fresh squeezed orange juice, and the last is self explanatory.
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