The Big Move

Once again, sorry for the delay in updating this blog, its partly because I am useless (sob) and partly because I haven´t had much access to the internet. Mainly the later. I have now been officially living in El Alfarero home for a week and two days and it has so far been an up and down ride of challenges and good times, which I imagine is the way that it will continue.

I thought I'd begin by just telling you a little bit about my living situation. I'm sharing a room with the daughter of the people who run the home, which is extremely nice of her, and together with Yanyt (who runs the home along with Salustio) I sleep one night on, one night off in the room where the younger girls sleep just in case anything happens during the night. Probably the most challenging thing about that so far has been my epic attempts to lock the door: its so stiff that I managed to turn it so hard that the head of the key came off, leaving the rest stuck in the door. Possibley the most embaressing moment of my life so far (of which there have already been many!). I've resorted to asking one of the girls to do it for me - there really is nothing like asking a ten year old for help to make you feel good about yourself!

The daily routine is reasonably quiet, although it does involve getting up at a heinously early quarter to six. I can honestly think of no reason why that could possibly be necessary! I'm going to come back to Scotland superdisciplined and an early riser. I got up at seven today and actually felt like I'd had a lie in - weird timess. We have devotioals at ten past six, then chores and then breakfast. Most of the girls go to school in the morning, and the ones who stay in the centre do a mixture of handcrafty stuff, tasks set by the teachers who come in the afternoon and cooking lunch. The food is reeeaaally good, but I have lost all my previous capacity to cook as everything is so different here. Hopefully I will become super cook!

I'd say that we have time for a few highlights and lowlights now! Yesterday was the day set aside for celebrating santa cruz, so we went on a trip to the sand dunes which was lots of fun until it came to be time to go home and the car got stuck in the sand, and then again, and the again, so it took us several hours just to move it - but everyone was extremely nice and so many people offered to help us which was lovely!

I spent some time with Yanyt talking with the younger girls so that they would be able to tell me some of their stories, and I would actually be able to understand. I wouldn't say that it was a highlight, as its never good to hear such distressing stories, but it helped me to understand them a little better. One of the girls, who is now 12, has already been a prostitute, and it just makes me sick to think about it. I feel so much love for them that I can't really put into words, and that love is enough to cover an awful lot of things, because they do have a tendency to be quite aggesive when they're not being extremely affectionate. Its understandable really.

Monday I went with Sergio to help him with his dentistry, because most of the girls have fairlly horrific teeth. I felt very important, and I did all the sunction things that dental nurses normally do. Future career? Possibly not, but it was lots of fun!

Low lights since the last time I wrote basically just involve me being tired all the time, as I am working quite long hours and I'm only beginning to get used to getting up this early! Sometimes I feel a little bit useless bcause I'm still not that sure how everything works, but hopefully that will pass in time.

THe poltiical situation here is still not great, I forget if I mentioned that in previous blogs or not. The only way hat its really affected me has been that some of the roads are being blocked off by protesters, and I haven't been able to continue applying for my visa as immigration is closed. But Bolvia could really do with your prayers right now!

I fully intended to put up some pictures this time, but like a dunce i remembered my camara but forgot the lead for the computer. Whoops! So sorry about that, and hopefully there will be some there next time.