The first few days

Well, I´m sure that you'll all be glad to hear that I have arrived in Bolivia basically intact. There was a rather horrific five hour delay in Miami which brought the total time of the journey up to an even more horrific thirty hours but after you've past the twenty mark I'm not really sure that it makes a difference! Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I'm not coming home: its too far away.

Everyone has been very friendly and welcoming since I got here, and my Spanish has not let me down as much as I expected that it would (!) although it is still quite difficult to communicate, and I do already have that feeling of being a complete idiot that you get when speaking another language rather imperfectly! And that equally disturbing feeling of not being quite sure what it is that is going on....

Communication aside, I would say I have had a successful, quite restful first few days. Although I must say that it already feels like longer than that since I left home! All my stuff is now in Casa Alfa, where I'll be staying for the next few weeks. Today I met the couple who run the Operation Restoration home for girls just outside of Santa Cruz, as it looks like i will be placed there due to them now having more girls and less staff! Never a good place to be in. It sounds like fascinating, if difficult work: most of the girls come from backgrounds of drug use and prostitution from a very young age which sounds extremely intimidating and i only pray that God will give me just a smidge of the love and compassion that he feels for them so that I can pass that on.

The city itself is quite a lot how I expected that it would be, and it seems vibrant and exciting, with lots of very colourful and busy markets. (Or maybe that was just because today is Saturday....) Even just being here two days I've already had the chance to experience many of the joys of local transport - very crowded, but also very cheap, so that seems to make up for it!

Well, I'm going to sign off now, but you can expect more updates soon!

xx

Blogging beginning

Hi everyone. I'm hoping to use this space as a way of keeping people updated of whats going on over the nine months that I'm spending in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. I leave in two days - so watch this space for news!

Thanks for reading. :-)