Final update

I'm writing this blog from the comfort of my parents dining room, to tell you the tiny little last bit of my journey in Bolivia and where I go from here. I had a very enjoyable, if very sad, last few weeks in Bolivia the highlight of which was having a wonderful Hawain themed surprise party thrown for me by the staff and all the girls. I also had the opportunity to take all the girls out for a nice dinner, and the privelidge of attending school celebrations for mothers day. It was very difficult to me to have to say goodbye to so many people I have grown to love, especially to the girls, but I left in the full confidence that things are very much changing for the better in El Alfarero.

This time in Bolivia has certainly been one of many ups and downs, and while sometimes the downs have felt quite a lot more dramatic than the ups but overall this has been an amazing journey for me. I have learned many amazing things through the privelidge of being able to stay in a different culture and do things I have never down before. I feel like I have grown a lot in personal authority and leadership, as well as having learned how to take more initiative: if I see the problem, I am the one who must try to solve it! The experiences I have had are almost too overwhelming to sum up, but I look foward to doing that when I see some of you individually.

I really am looking forward to seeing all of my friends and family again - if I don't get in touch within the next week or so to arrange some kind of social engagement (!) then please get in touch with me! Anyone who is interested in hearing more about the ministry and my experiences in Bolivia, either on a personal or a group level, can also feel free to get in touch, either via this blog or through facebook or email.

As most of you probably now know, I still have two years on university to complete, studying french and spanish at Glasgow. I am very excited about getting stuck into honours, but I will have to wait till September to do that! My plans for the summer to remain quite vague, with various notions about getting a job, making visits and possbley going to France for a bit are all in the pipeline. Anyone with exciting things I could potentially do or help out with... please tell me!

Thank you very much again for being faithful in reading this blog, it is so amazing to me that there are this many people who might actually be interesting to so many people! I doubt that I will be updating it again, but it has been incredible, and I am pleased to have been able to share it with you.

Overdue news.... again

Well, this is very possibley going to be the last blog that I ever get the chance to write while still in Bolivia as I am almost down to counting single figures to the amount of days before I go back home again! I must apologise for the long time without any updates at all, while there is no real excuse for this behaviour, there have been a great deal of changes going on in the ministry which has resulted in a very busy, sometimes stressed out, me!

The most significant change in the home has been the rather sudden departure of the house parents for various reasons, which, while having been an understandabley difficult time for both the girls and the staff (and myself) has brought us the chance to bring some necessary change into the way the home is run, and some new perspectives. The timetable of the home has seen an overhall, having the girls spending a bit more time in class, and having a new worked out timetable of practical activities including computing, English and drawing classes replacing the time spent doing handcrafts. Changes have also taken place physically in the home, including a new living/tv room for the girls to use, a classroom for the teachers, floodlights for the basketball court and a huge amount of things in the kitchen have been replaced. All of this has required a lot of practical work both by the staff and the girls, as we work to make the home the best possible place for the girls to live in. These changes are all exciting and good, and the girls are thriving with a little bit more freedom than they used to have, and a lot more space to learn.

I continue going out on the street once a week which is very interesting. Recently the other team took one of the boys who we see regularly into hospital after having been beaten up badly by the police. Sadly, his girlfriend was injured so badly that she died but the boy himself is doing really well. I was able to go visit him in hospital to check on how he was doing and pay for any necessary medication or tests, and he seemed to be getting a lot better. The story ends up very happily, as the staff at the hospital went above and beyond the call of duty in taking care of hime during his stay, and have offered him a job in the hosptial. He plans on moving back in with his parents, and we would really appreciate your prayers for him that he can have success in his efforts to turn his life around.

Another new experience for me over the last couple of weeks was the chance to go to the palace of justice with one of the girls for her to testify at the trial of the couple who prostituted her and other minors. In the end she was unable to testify because one of the accused did not present himself. This is possibley one of hte most ridiculous situations I have ever been involved in, as the accused is in jail, so it seems that what happened is not that he was trying to escape trial, but just that the staff from the jail didn't bother to bring him in! Again, I would really appreciate your prayers that this situation would be resolved the next time she has to go in, as its a distressing experience for her every time, and ridiculous for it to have been prolonged as much as it has. On the plus side, I was really pleased that she asked for me to go with her, as I felt like it was a sign of her trust in me, and I have always really wanted for the girls to be able to trust me.

On a note aside from the ministry, I had the fun experience of going on a wee trip with the two girls I've been working most closely with. We went to visit La Paz, Lake Titicaca and the salt flats at Uyuni. I really enjoyed going to the Island of the Sun on Lake Titicaca which was unbelievabley beautiful, even if we did have to trek up what felt like a giant mountain with our backpacks on to get to the hostel. The salt flats were an incredible sight as well, 12 squared kilometers of pure salt which feels incredibley other wordly, a little bit like being on the moon. I really appreciated the chance to get out of Santa Cruz and seeing a bit more of the country before leaving here!

On a sad, or happy note, it really is just about time for me to leave Bolivia. I come back to Scotland on May 28th which is now less than 2 weeks away. I'm finding the thought of this really difficult, especially as I can see so many of the wonderful changes that are taking place in the girls home that I would so want to be a part of. Please pray for me that I will be able to leave her with peace of mind, and that I would be able to settle back in well to Scotland when I come home, and be able to find a nice job to last me over the summer. I'll try my best to get one last blog in before I go! Love to you all.

Easter Joy

Well, I would like to begin this blog by wishing a happy Easter to everyone, I hope that you have a great, meaningful Easter weekend as we remember the tumultous events of this weekend several thousand years ago. :-) As we remember on Sunday the new life created by Jesus rising from the dead I have another exciting story about new life... Yesterday and 10am the new entrant at El Alfarero was born by Caesarean in a local hospital and despite some initial resistance by his mother, the operation went well. His name is Samuel, he weighs 3.5 kilos and he is absolutely beautiful! I went to visit his mother and him last night at the hospital, which was really amazing for me. He is so tiny and beautiful. His mum is in quite a lot of pain from the caesarian and it bothers her that this pain won´t let her pick up the baby, but overall I would say that she´s doing a good job as a first day mum. It is all very exciting.

However, in this kind of work every joy does seem to come with some measure of sadness. Unfortunately, last week another two girls left the home. On the plus side, however, neither have gone back to totally impossible situations. One girl had to be asked to leave the home due to consistant bad behaviour and the level of bad influence that she exercised over the other girls, but has gone to stay with her aunt, a good woman who visited regularly and whom I know will take good care of her and help her on the road to recovery. Perhaps more upsettingly, our other home mother made the decision to leave the home with her baby, in part due to constant clashes with the other girls. After a very brief stay in a catholic home, I believe that she is now working with a family and I hope that she will get on well and be able to continue taking good care of her son.

Last week in the home was quite fun, as two days in a row the home teachers were not able to come in to give classes: one days because of protests and blockades, and another day because they both had to go and have a health check. Because we had the extra free time, and didn´t want to spend the whole day doing handcrafts, we made the most of the free time to play some more sports with the girls, and one day we took them all out to the village for ice cream! Ok, it wasn´t the most exciting, fancy of ice-creams, but it was still a lot of fun for everyone to get out and about for a bit.

Today when myself and the other girls go back to the home, the home directors leave for two weeks holiday so it would be really good if you could pray for us as we look to being in the home without them, although with the support of other members of staff who do not normally spend as much time in the home. I am sure that all will go just fine, but as I am sure you can all imagine, it is not easy for the girls to spend a significant chunk of time without their parents.

This week in first contacts was good, although we only managed to get out on the streets once because of all the other things we had to do ie visit pregnant woman! It was very interesting the one time we did go out though, as we met a little boy who was living under a bridge, totally alone, who seemed to be completely deaf. It was really sad to see him living there, and frustrating not really to be able to communicate with him but he seemed to have a really sweet personality, if a little shy. And slightly nervous about all these stange people coming into his home! I´m enjoying the experience of goign out on the streets, although I don´t always feel like the most useful person when I am there. Although, at the end of the day, its not really about me feeling useful, is it.

Thanks again for all your thoughts and prayers. I´ll see you in 7 weeks!

Overdue News

I fully expected to be able to update this blog quite a long time ago, but was not able to as my schedule was a whole lot busier than I actually expected it to be so I did not find the time. But I’m pretty sure that better late than never! Unfortunately, I have to start this blog with a piece of news that has been extremely distressing for me and for everyone at the home. The girl in the home who I previously mentioned as having had major head injuries after being assaulted has had serious health problems in the last week. After some time of mistreating her head, which is extremely delicate after an almost total skull reconstruction on one side of her head, various falls resulted in what seemed like a week long headache climaxing in a seizure one night that Yany was sleeping in her room. They rushed her to the hospital in the middle of the night, and after some scans discovered two lesions on her brain. They say that she will probably have seizures like this for the rest of her life, and she is notably mentally imbalanced, talking like a child. The anti-convulsion medication that she is taking has left her feeling ´drunk´ as she describes it, she has double vision and isn’t able to walk very straight. It has just been a terrible experience, as all the girls in the home are so worried about her, and I’ve been feeling really down as I feel like a lot of the hope that there was for her future life has just gone. It’s a really difficult time for the home directors as well as the doctors’ recommend that she goes home to live with her mother and son, so we are not sure what the best decision to take is. We would really appreciate your prayers for her right now, she is asking for them.

In other news, I have realised that I haven’t actually posted any blog updates since we first started working with the first contacts team every second week. This has been really interesting for me, to be able to go out to the streets and see how things work in the boys’ home. It has also been a lot more sociable which is really nice, as one of the things that I was suffering from previously was a lack of fun things to do.

This last week I spent in El Toborochi, the reception house for kids coming off the streets and entering the homes. We had two quite young children staying there for four days: a girl of eight and a boy of eleven. A brother and sister from Tarija, they were sent to us by the same project that one other girl in the home comes from. It was interesting again for me to see an aspect of the ministry that I’m normally not involved in. The girl is settling into the home with some difficulty, as she is clearly not used to the kind of discipline that is expected from the home timetable. She is also, to put it in a nice way, extremely disobedient, one of those children whose first answer to every instruction is always ´no´. This did not make my life any easier this weekend, but she really is still very young, so I am sure that she will continue improving!

However, on the plus side, my greatest fear was not realised and there was no birth at El Alfarero this weekend when Salustio and Yany were away and we had no minibus! This does however mean that the poor girl is still pregnant and actually looking ready to explode any day now: it is noticeable that she is now beginning to feel very uncomfortable. On Saturday night I slept over in the room that has her, the new girl, the girl who recently suffered a head injury AND one of the other girls had a bad stomach. It is fair to say that I did not get very much sleep at all that night, partly just because I was opening the day for her to go to the toilet, but partly just because I was so nervous that something would happen and I would sleep right through it! Other than the lack of sleep, and small disobedient children, the weekend did go fairly well though.

This week I am back in the girls home which I do love: I feel like only being there every second week now makes me realise how much love and affection I do feel now for the girls. I really do care for them so much, and am beginning to realise just how much I am going to miss them when I eventually do leave. It has been good as well to be able to spend some time on the streets to be able to see the way that my girls used to live, which is so very different from the way that they are living now: it has enabled me to appreciate the change in their lives more.

Well, thanks for still reading! I hope to be able to update with more news from the girls home as some point this weekend, and I hope that even those of you who do not pray so very often will find some time to pray for the girls this week. I hope that you are all well.

Back to the world

Well, as you have all probably guessed, I have now returned from Peru, hopefully refreshed, destressed and ready for my final three months with Operation Restauration! My holiday ended really well, it was wonderful to feel part of a family again, and it was a great time to relax in. I did manage to see some of Lima, as well as reading nine books in ten days: I saw the city centre and went to a really impressive water display park. Despite how much I love living in Santa Cruz, it did look awful dirty and bleak in comparison with Lima which had much more of a big city feel about it: Santa Cruz kind of feels like a small town of several million inhabitants.

I arrived back in time to cover my weekend shift at the home, although thankfully I was able to stay at Casa Alfa on Friday night at head back to the home early on Saturday morning. (I was out of the house by 7, my previous student self wouldn´t recognise me. I even make my bed every day!) Thankfully, although I did find the thought of going back into the home a little bit of an effort by Saturday afternoon I felt like i had never left, and my fear of having lost all authority with the girls over my time off did not come to pass! It was a fairly uneventful weekend, and in many ways, those are the best kind!

The biggest change in my life, which I believe I have not yet mentioned was in the pipeline, is the new timetabling for all the young female volunteers. Because there are now five, possibley soon to be six of us (hard to believe not that long ago I was the only one!) we will not be spending all of our time in the home. Rather, we will spend one week working in the home and another week in the first contact teams. I have mixed feelings about this, as while I am excited about getting the chance to get out and about in the city, I have always felt (despite how difficult it has been) that the things that I am good at fit better int he home. I am basically going to see how it goes this week, and then get back to the directors about how I feel.

There is one very good piece of news from El Alfarero this week: the neighbour has given us a nice bit of his land to grow vegetables on, so the girls have been spending a good part of this week clearing it all to put seeds in. This is particularly good, as the finances of the minsitry are in a much more precarious state than I mentioned before. Roger is saying that unless something dramatic happens, the ministry, after about 15 successful years, will be completely out of money. This is an extremely serious situation that everyone involved in leadership and finances, and, lets be honest, everyone else, is stressed out and worried about. If anyone does feel that they would like to give something to help out, either one off or regular (like sponsoring a child) PLEASE get in touch with me.

The most tragic decision that had to be taken this past week was to pull the two youngest girls out of school as they confessed to having developed sexual relationships with several of the boys from school. This was obviously extremely distressing news from such young girls, and shows that the restoration process is nowhere near complete with them. Our psychologist is trying to work out a process of rehabilition for them, to try and help them recover and be healed from the countless bad experiences they have had in their lives so far that lead them towards these kinds of activities that are so unnatural for children there age. But then, so many unnatural activities have already been forced on them. For me, this was one of the most distressing things to happen so far as it reminded me of how messed up they are, plus forcing us to take a decision that will put them even further behind in their studies. But at the moment, it is certainly better to keep them out of temptations way and within our protection.

Anyway, thank you all very much for your continued support and prayers. I am sure that the next three months will bring continued challenges and hopefully some excitement. I am even starting to build up a social life! (Thank you Caitlin and Emily!)

Dengue and holidays

I'm writing this blog post from a very different location to the last few, as I have, for the last week, been spending my holidays with the Heron family in Lima, Peru. I think that it was certainly a needed break,as I had been in the home for 5months before taking any time off, which is a long time to be working those kind of hours. So it has been much enjoyed, and a very relaxing time so far.

Before I left for my break, we did have some very exciting incidents at the home which, as ever, happened on the weekend that Yani and Salustio were taking there weekend off. Our home was not, as it had seemed, spared the dengue fever epidemic that has been sweeping the whole city. On Friday, one of the girls had a fever and one was complaining of stomach pains. By Saturday, the little girls fever had totally gone away but was complaining of a stomach ache: now, bearing in mind that this is a girl who makes the most of every sniffle,every mild cough to try and work her way out of everything, i didn't take much notice. However, by the next day, while at church one of the other girls took a major fever in the middle of her sunday school class, and I had to send her home with one of the older girls in a moter-bike taxi. I ended up taxi-ing back all of the girls, as the pregnant girl began complaining of dizziness and pain in her belly! Slightly concerned by now about all this (having thought that all complaints were mild!) I went into the village to look for a taxi to come to the home, and pick up the girls to take them to the clinic (I didn't want them walking in the sun). I couldn't find one, so Ihad to go to the next town on the bus for 15 minutes to find a taxi to take me all the way back to the home and then to the clinic: needless to say, that while I did find one, I was grossly overcharged!

On arriving home with the taxi, I heard one of the other girls had begun vomiting, so she got in alongside the pregnant girl and the two little girls, and Esther, who spent a few weeks volunteering at the home. The idea was that she (who doesn't speak Spanish!) would wait with the other girls while I went in with them for their appointments. Unfortunately, it didn't end up being that simple! The problems started when the taxi driver ran out of petrol, and had to go by foot to buy more, while my little girls are suffering and moaning in the back.

When we got there, the second problem came when the 50B I had been given 'in case of emergencies' didn't quite hold out, and so I had to go find a cash machine to get out more money. Being at the clinic was certainly a different experience to my normal experience of hospitals: every time they needed anything, they sent me out to the pharmacy to buy out, which meant leaving Esther surrounded by people telling her things she didn't understand! I did not find the nurses to be particularly compassionate individuals, probably because they have so many people with dengue coming through. We were instructed to give the three girls with high fevers cold showers, which I would normally have expected the nurses to at least help with, but they just pointed us to the shower. When one of the little ones dind't want an injection, the nurse just made some kind of a crass remark about her not being very brave and sat on her legs to hold her down! Not very impressive.

The other major cause of my stress was the pregnant girl, as no one seemed to want to tell me what was wrong with her, and they got distracted from her fever, dizziness, headache to deal with her apparent yeast infection. (Is there anyone in the home who doesn't have a yeast infection?!?!?!?!) The doctor really upset her by telling her, in quite a brutish way, that if she didn't get her fever down the baby would die. Eventually things calmed down a little, I sent two of them home with Esther, and stayed with one as she had to go on a drip, and the pregnant girl who had to wait to have her temperature taken again. The incompetancy of the nurses was reflected yet again when: as I was sitting watching all the patients on drips sleeping, a nurse came in and despite my protestations that 'they are all sleeping' turned all the lights on as 'they can't just stay there sitting in the dark'.... why oh why? Eventually I managed to leave after having been in the clinic for about six hours. Considering that Sunday was supposed to be the day I had to get through before going on holiday, it was quite a day!

I managed to escape on Monday, with a day to sort things out before flying out to Lima on Tuesday. Lima seems to be a lot more westernised than Santa Cruz: it has mcdonalds, pizza hut, kfc and starbucks! I haven't seen a great deal of it, but from what I have seen the streets are a lot wider, a lot cleaner than in Bolivia. And youc and you can the mountaints, which I like!

I have mostly just been doing a lot of relaxing, a lot of reading books, a lot of chatting. I got a bit of an upset stomach which put some plans on hold unfortunately! We may be going bowling tonight which should be much fun. its also been really good to be able to see where such good family friends have been living for the last 16 odd years.

I think thats all i have to say for now. I have officially been in South America for six months now, which is a bit terrifying, my time here is actually drawing to a close. Thank you for continuing to read my blog, and I really will see you in not too long a time!

February post 1

Well, thank you to all the people who are still reading this blog after it being going for five whole months now! I now officially have more time in Bolivia behind me than in front of me, which is a very scary thought. I'm hoping that you're all still thinking about me and praying for me, as I certainly still am doing for all of you!

For all of those who read last weekends blog, the week that Yani and Salustio went on holiday was not as insanely stressful as I thought it would be, but it certainly did have its challenges. We managed to keep the timetable pretty much going, and there were no enormous behaviour challenges, although some of the little ones did need pulling in line some of the time. Probably the biggest problem was that one of the older girls got Dengue Fever (there is a massive epidemic in the city at the moment) and so that meant a lot of trips to and from the clinic, and even one night slept outside under a mosquitoe night because her fever was way to high to be able to sleep inside. It was just unfortunate that there happened to be a major storm that night! In other health related emergencies, I had a slight scare when I found one of the little girls, who is booked in to have a hernia removed, crying on the toilet because she said a white liquid was coming out of her hernia. Not knowing what to do about a situation like this, and being alone in the home, I called Roger, who came and picked her up to take her to the clinic. It turned out that her hernia had not exploded (apparently they're not in the habit of doing that) but was just a run of the mill vaginal infection. This probably came about from a habit of masturbation with dirty hands, started hideously young because of a background in traumatic sexual abuse. Yours truely landed the lovely job of administring her treatment, which is certainly something that I never thought that I would do. I hope to be able to take more of them to the gynacologist some time this week to have a general check for infections, because some of them are just so used to having them they wouldn't think to point it out, and one girl has actually told me she thinks she has an infection.

The final week of the counselling teams teachings went really well, and they were also some chances for them to do some one on one counselling sessions with the girls. The session that they taught on the father heart of God, a teaching that encourages the girls to identify the ways in which their own fathers have failed them, and try to accept the concept of God as a perfect Father, was particularly interesting. A lot of the girls just got really angry, because they didn't even want to think about their dads - most of whom raped them, abused them, or just plain abandoned them, but at least one girl who confronted the hatred that she felt towards her father for abandoing her was able to find some kind of healing.

Traumatisingly, the day that Salustio and Yani were due to come back, one of the members of the counselling team had to change the gas canister which is used to give energy to the oven. Something went wrong with it though, which resulted in fire leaping across the kitchen wall. It is quite honestly a miracle that the entire kitchen didn't blow up, and the girls remained a little bit shaken afterwards. It did mean that we had to cook lunch outdoors on the fire that day, which was quite an adventure! That day the counselling team organised an afternoon of silly games, which was much fun for all!

Since they got back things have calmed down quite a lot, although I am still a bit tired from having so much extra work to do. The boys at El Camino sold us 20 chickens from the vast collection that they had been rearing, so there was a mass slaughter, plucking and general bowls of chicken insides lying around the place. Yuck! Thankfully I did miss most of the slaughter because i was at the dentist with the little ones, but it still smelt terrible when i got back.

Excitingly, the schools have officiallyl gone back, but disapointingly the mini bus chose this time to decide to break, so the day has been filled with lots of going backwards of forwards from the girls schools. Its been good to fall back into a familiar new routine, although it definately take a bit of effort to get back up that bit more early in the morning!

I spent this morning with Caitlin, Esther who is spending three weeks here, and Suzette, a Dutch girl who is starting two years with first contacts. We went out for a late breakfast, then went shopping, and then had ice cream. It is fun to have friends! On a sad note, Sandra moved all her stuff out of the home yesterday, as she'll be moving on to work full time with first contacts. I will still see her, but it does kind of feel like the first friend I made here is leaving me!

I think thats probably all the update that I want to give for now. THanks again for reading. Not sure when I'll upate again as my next free weekend I will be in PERU! So exciting! I am sending you all lots of love.

More News

Hello wonderful friends and family. As I'm sure all of you are aware from watching the news, the pound has been dropping like a stone in the last little while, with it now being at 1.35 to the dollar. It used to be two! So for all those who were jealous that i was living in a cheap country, while everyone else is struggling with the sky rocketing cost of living, I am beginning to feel the pinch! It hasn't left me penniless, but it does me that the university bursary which way back when I worked it out was supposed to cover all my accomodation costs and leave me with more than enough spending money is now not quite covering my accomodation on its own! I came here with a lot of savings so there are no problems, but it is extremely annoying. I would appreciate continuing prayers for the finances of the ministry which are really feeling the problem, and for the British missionaries here who have essentially just lost a third of their support through a poor exchange rate.

Last weekend the girls had the great experience of going to Kids Games, an event where various homes and churches come together to do a mini sports championship. Because there are not very many girls in the home who come in the under fourteen age bracket, four girls from the area came to play on our team, and it was lovely to have the girls interacting with different people. Despite not haivng done a great amount of training (we weren't sure until the very last minute if we were going to be able to go or not), the girls managed to come first overall in basketball, and second in football! I really liked seeing them encouraged by the knowledge that they can do something well and are able to win something through their skills!

Another enjoyable thing has been the presence of an outreach team from a Chilean school of counselling. Every morning they have been taking the girls through workships on inner healing, which is an obvious necessity for people who have gone through such difficult things in their very short leaves. It looks like they are learning a lot of things, and hopefully they will be able to talk more deeply with some of the counsellors in the week that comes. It has been really nice to have other people around, as ever, and on top of that having Emily and Caitlin settled into the home is really good. I don't know how to cope with having people about all the time to speak English with! But it has been wonderful having people to spend this weekend off with, and to be able to do normal friend-like things such as cook together. (Even if I did kill the macaroni cheese....)

I haven't been going to the dentist at the moment because we are now taking turns as staff to help out in the kitchen, and this week was my turn. It meant that I wasn't leaving so much, but it wasn't a problem as I enjoyed being able to learn a little bit more about how to cook Bolivian food. It also reminded me that I did learn how to manage a kitchen in Firestarters, and that I'm not as incompetant as I thought I was! Being there in the mornings also means that I've been able to help with their homework, which is another of my favourite things today: I have gone through the tables many times this week!

A piece of kind of sad news is that one more girl has left the home, putting us down to nine. However, it is not nearly as bad as the other times, as this was a thought through process and she has been reinserted into her family. She is going to live with her brothers in La Paz: who haven't seen her or her other brother since their parents died when she was very young. Prayers would be appreciated for her, that she will be able to use this as an opportunity to start again on a clean slate with people who don't already know her character faults.

I am aware that the week coming si going to be quite a stressful one, as Salustio and Yany are (finally) being forced to go on holiday, so I will essentially (with extensive support, obviously) be staying in charge of the home. Its always that bit more difficult when they leave, because the girls decide that that would be a good time to misbehave, but hopefully between the four of us we will manage to hold the fort well. I would really appreciate your prayers for this week though - I know that God is wanting to challenge me in more areas of leadership, but it is not a particularly easy challenge to take on. However, I do walk in the knowledge that God has always been faithful to me and will not leave me in the times when I need him most.

The most exciting thing that I have to look forward to is going to Peru next month! Much as I love being here, I am really looking forward to being able to take a bit of time off, and to be able to see the Herons again, and in their own land! Only twenty-four days to go. :-)

THats all for now, but keep in touch, and it shouldn't be too long until I update agian.

Oops

Well, I would like to start this blog by saying that I accidently left my last blog in draft form and didn't actually publish it - sorry about that, just in case some of you thought that I had been eaten alive by some kind of monster unique to Bolivia. On that note, this week I saw my first snake in El Alfarero! It was a green one, so it wasn't poisonous, but it was cool! It was slithering across a bush. On another interesting cultural note, I have eaten two new things: sopa de pata de pollo (chicken foot soup) and sopa de nervios (nerves soup). The figure is... the soup that comes with the chickens foot is amazing, the chicken foot less so. Its just really skin and cartilidge on the bones, so its not particularly tasty. Nerves soup was a different matter: its a soup made of the juices of cows feet with all the nerves still attached to them, with the foot left in the soup and a couple of onions added. Its not that great, and frankly made me want to vomit a little bit, but I ate it all up like a good missionary! Apparently its extremely nutrisious because its such an intense dose of calcium, but that does also mean that it made me incredibely sleepy.

Interesting news from Bolivia land is that we have two visiting teams at the moment, a DTS outreach team from England (Marjolein, I love you, you're the best person in the whole wild world!) and a team from a school of counselling in Chile. I helped Gabi make majadito (ricey meaty cruceño speciality) for the dts team today - I fried the bananas, which is always fun. It is also always nice to have a few more people around who speak English!

Its been another week of going to the dentist, probably the most traumatising experienc was having to sit with one of the girls through what looked like an extremely painful root canal, which still remains unfinished due to the complication that are added because of her pregancy. I feel like I'm beginning to know slightly more what I'm doing when I help Sergio, which always helps to make me feel like less of an idiot. Occassionaly I even know what he wants before he asks for it! But that doesn't happen that often.

Sandra and I did have one really bad day last week when Salustio and Yany left for the day. Not only did the water cut off the evening before so that we had to go to the neighbours to collect water in buckets to wash, but the girls where a total nightmare the next day. They were filled with the most unbelievable laziness which is always quite difficult to snap them out of, especially when I know that it only seems to come on when Yani is not there... Funny that. They started to get extremely mouth, and after managing to go almost four months in the home without this happening, one of the girls made me cry. Still, I think that four months is a sign of some level of strength of mind, as they do have a habit of saying reasonably horrible things when it takes there fancy. But I still believe that love is something that goes beyond all the horrible things a person can say or do, I still have huge amounts of compassion for my girls: who knows what my character would be like if I had grown up in the same situations that they have. She asked my forgiveness the next day (with a tiny bit of coersion!) and we are certainly friends again - at least until the next time she loses her temper.

The rains have started in a major way here: its making me glad that I decided to fly to Peru instead of get the bus, as it seems that all of the bridges on the moterways to Cochabamba have fallen down, and a similar situation on the way to La Paz! My room-mate just travelled to Oruru (another department of Bolivia) and they were waiting for a full day on the side of a river with no way to cross, and no way of getting anything to eat. Being here makes me realise how incredibely destructive that rain can be, but it does always amuse me that even the slightest amount of rain seems to make life stop, and no one leaves their homes!

Yani and Salustio went to visit a few of the girls who have left the home recently. Yani told me that when she went to visit the girl who was smuggling drugs into the home (to give her her 'libretta' the sheet proving that she passed the year of school), she was so angry that she couldn't even look at her, just gave her her sheet and left. However, the good news is that she is still living with her mother, and has not left to go to the street. They also went to visit the young girl who was living at the home with her son, again good news, as she is still living with her grandmother. There have been conflicts between her and her aunts, but her son appears well cared for. One of the other girls who left in the middle of the drugs scandal, is attending the church of an English minister who used to be the director of the home, which is great as it means that she's still staying in contact with the ministry. However, the location of the last girl who left, as I mentioned before, is still a ministry. One of our neighbours thought that he saw her in San Jose (the village we live in), but her family are following some kind of a lead to try and find her in Cochabamba.

Well, thanks for thinking about me enough to have kept reading this blog after being out of the country for four months! I hope that you are all still praying for me and for all the people we work with her in Santa Cruz de la Sierra.

Happy new year!

Well, its very exciting to be writing a blog post on the very first day of 2009! I love new year, with all the hope and fresh startiness that it brings. I hope that this year is a wonderful one for all of you: if 2008 was a bit rubbish, that you can put it behind you, and if it was great that you can continue in that vein!

I spent last night, once again, at the girls home, and it was certainly a really good way to see the new year in. As with Christmas, it involved the most enormous amount of work in terms of getting the place decorated and food prepared for the night. Because we were doing a talent show to celebrate, we had to put up a stage and set up the sound equipment, and use all kinds of balloons and streamers to make the area look beautiful.n One of the things that always impresses me about Yani and Salustio is that whenever they do anything, they do it really well! In terms of food, the girls prepared a whole bunch of delicious desserts! For the main meal, we had barbecued meat which was AMAZING. Seriously, probably the best meat I have ever tasted in my whole life. Our lovely neighbour gave us vast quanities of limes and passion fruit to make juice with, which I did also enjoy.

The church that we go to in El Torno (nearest town) joined us for the evening, which did mean that there was 15 more people to cook for, but it was really nice to have guests, and the girls really enjoyed it too. I had to judge the talent show with the minister of the church, who is really quite a scary shouty person, which was frankly a terrifying experience. He took it all very seriously, and obviously wanted his daughter to win! I took it all a bit more as a joke, and it was hilarious! Three of them together did one of the funniest dramas I have ever seen, which they wrote themselves and everything. One of the little ones whom I would always have described as being really quite slow has the most fabulous comic timing. There were also songs, including a few from members of the church, and a couple of dances. The entry of the new year was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life though, as people began to set off fireworks seemingly without thinking about age or place. We started eating at roughly one o'clock in the morning (I was absolutely starving) and it was great! Mmmm food. I didn't get into bed until half past three though, which possibley explains why my grammar may be failing a little in this blog - apologies for that!

Other than new year, things have basically been continuing on as normal, although I would like to fill you in on a few of the problems that have become more notable in the last week. One of them is quite simply, a problem of lies. I'll give you a quick example of what this may look like, with the little ones who are especially prone to lying. They have to do some constructive activity every morning, and I told them that they couldn't go and play until they had made at least one bracelet. I later found them playing basketball, and they told me that Sandra had said they could go because they had finished: this was a lie, and when I went to check it with her they ran away and hid in the mango tree. This would probably be funny if it was just the once, but its all the time! They lie about anything and everything,, and there is absolutely no way to tell by there faces and voices that they are lying. Lately, even the older gils have started to lie, which is extremely irritating as it means that I have to check up on everything they say. Its a problem, and it is definately something to work on.

Well, thats all the news I can think of for now. Happy new year once again, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Christmas Fun

Well, I'd first of all like to take the chance to wish all my blog readers a very merry Christmas and, hopefully, a wonderful 2009. This is officially the second Christmas I have spent far away from home, and it was very different from teh last one that I spent in South Africa. Salustio and Yani offered me the chance to take either Christmas or New Year off, but as all the people I know have either gone home to be with their families or will be in the homes over both festivals, I decided that it would certainly be better to spend both holidays working than to spend one of them alone, potentially watching television!

Christmas here was different in the sense that it didn't really seem to get mentioned until the week of the 25th, there were no Christmas parties or any of that, bairly even Christas music on the radio. Probably the strangest thing for me, was that even on the last Sunday of Advent, Christmas was not mentioned at all in church - not a Christmas song, or even a Christmas reading. That meant that I really have felt a bit distant from the whole 'birth of Jesus' shenanigans this year, which was a real shame, as thats normally such a special thing for me, and God almost always teaches me something new about his character. I think its probably just an effort on the part ofthe church to distance themselves from the commercialism of Christmas, but it was still really strange for me. I also really missed advent candles.

We had one very exciting trip out in the evening to see all the lights that have been set up around the city. Typically, they were totally hideous (not much different from George Square last year!) and one of the light displays was essentially just a massive piece of Coca Cola advertising, but the girls absolutely loved it, if only for the chance to get out and have a wander around the city. I now have an enormous collection of pictures of girls with Santa, girls with giant light up snowmans etc. Which are obviously exactly the kind of pictures that I want!

We also decorated the home for Christmas day, there was no tree or anything like that, but we wrap lots of shiny ribbon around the pillars and put up lights so it was really pretty. The main prepartion for the day itself just involved a massive amount of cooking. We made panetoni which, to my huge disapointment, didn't rise and is really hard, but it was a lot of fun to make and smelled really good in the process so I'm not too upset about it! There were other desserts that had to be made, and we had to prepare the pork and turkey for being roasted (the pork was amazing mmm).

As with I think most of the countries in South America, the main part of the Christmas action happens late on Christmas Eve - celebrations started at about 10pm, by the time all the food was done with being cooked and the table was all decorated and everything. All the girls put on the clothes that they bought at the market for Christmas day, and then we put on music, mainly salsa, for dancing. I'm not going to lie, I didn't do a huge amount of dancing although I did participate, but some of the girls just dance so well so it was amazing to watch them. At about 11.30 Salustio got back from visiting his family in the city and we got the food out which was extremely tasty. At twelve when the fireworks started going off around the city (slightly dodgy, dangerous fireworks that are sold on street corners) I gave the gifts that I bought for the girls (mainly sweets and hair things) and opened my very exciting package from my family. As exciting for some of the girls as it was for me, especially when I split up the chocolate coins!

Christmas day was interesting as it felt a lot more like boxing day than Christmas day itself: we got up late, we had a lot more visitors, we ate Christmas leftovers, quite a lot of the day was spent watching films and having naps. All in all it was an interesting Christmas - not the best one I've ever had, but it is always a great experience to spend Christmas in another culture.

Things weren't qutie as difficult on the 24th as I had thought it would be, or even as I had been warned it would be. There were a few tears as people began to think of their families, and some girls isolated themselves from the group at various points but nothing too dramatic happened. Its funny as the vast majority of them (not all) will never have particularly celebrated Christmas with their families, especially not something quite this flamboyant with food and presents. But seeing what can happen in a family of people who love each other makes them start to miss what potentially could have been, awakens their knowledge of how their parents have failed them and so they get sad. But as I said, it wasn't too horrific although a few hugs were needed.

Things have greatly settled down in the home, and even though our numbers have gone down to 10, things just feel so much better. When Salustio and Yani leave things don't just go crazy like they used to, and the vast majority of hte people who used to pick all the fights have now left. The main concern at the home is now the financial situation. The director has said that the whole ministry has only got 3 months in which it can survive unless the financial situation starts to improve, and we are certainly not taking in any more girls for precisely that reason. Anyone intersted in helping with this potential horrific situation should go to the new Operation Restoration website http://www.ywambolivia.org.uk/ where you can also see the new sponsorship program that has been set up for both the girls and the boys. This will hopefully be an amazing way of bringing in more support for the wondeful work that goes on here.

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope to hear from you all soon.

FUN things

Well, I know that like the terrible person that I am, I did not update my blog last weekend. However, there is a good and rather exciting reason for that: I was out having FUN, with people I know!! So definate progress there. So I thought that I would place this blog rather around that theme, of the various things that I've done in the last couple of weeks which have been enjoyable, all of which are helping me to feel a lot more happy and settled here.

One of the things that I am going to mention just in passing is that I am fully making the most of mango season. :-) Our friendly neighbour lets us pick up the mangoes that fall off his trees and there are absolutely millions which makes for a joyous time! On the downside, I do find that they really are quite difficult to eat, and according to my last (fairly poor quality) attempt at hand washing, mango stains don't actually come out of clothes. I'm not going to lie, that is disapointing, but it was worth it!

Another enjoyable event was going out with the other girls who work in the ministry, for what was supposed to be a hen afternoon at a swimming pool. The bride to be (the social worker in the ministry) didn't actually turn up which was a little bit strange, but it was still so good to be able to spend time with people that didn't involve working, and I felt so much more relaxed afterwards.

That same evening, we went out with all the girls, as my boss, Yany graduated from high school! She has been studying at night school for the last year or so to finish up the education that she wasn't able to do before because she had her daughter so young. It was an extremely boring ceremony (these things always are!) but an incredible achievement for her, and for adult education in general! It was also really good to see the way that the girls, especially the older girls who are really behind in their education reacted to what they saw, because it really confirmed their desire to do what she did and graduate from high school. What we're trying to work on a lot right now is to help the girls think about their future and w2hat they're actually going to do with their lives when they leave the home.

That weekend that Sandra and I spent alone with the girls went a lot better than all the other weekends we'd spent together, because somehow we just managed to have such fun! The girls weren't allowed to go to the wedding, so instead we put on a mock wedding, and everyone got dressed up and played around with it. We then spent the whole weekend (once we'd done all the things that had to be done) playing ridiculous games, and we just laughed so much. It is so good to me to be able to see girls who wasted their childhood prostituting themselves and abusing drugs, being able to take advantage of some kind of a second childhood. It makes me so happy! Because even though some of them can be absolute terrors at times, they all have beautiful things about their character.

One more fun thing before I move on to serious matters! Last weekend I went out with Sandra to the countryside where the American woman who teaches her English lives, and we stayed the night there. I must admit, when I first arrived I was reminded of how irritating Americans can be but that feeling quickly passed! It was quite a hilarious weekend, and really interesting as the family are incredibely self sufficient: they have cows, chickens and horses; they make their own butter and cheese; they even have coffee plants! The first day we made sonso (BOlivian dish involved mashed yuka and cheese) and then the next day we made sweet and sour chicken! I went horse riding, and only had a mild allergic reaction, and it was so good to be able to get out and go to different places and do different things.

Moving back onto a serious note, the construction work is still going well, there are even walls and everything. The only major thing that happened, and it was really awful, was that one of the builders burned his foot horrifically. Salustio and Yany went with him to the hospital, and they had to cut off the main part of his foot. Obviously he's not been back to work since then, and this is going to have major repercussions for his family if he's now not able to do any building work.

I feel like every time I've written a new blog I've had to say this, the only different is that this time I didn't say it right at the start: one more girl has left the home, so now we are down to ten. It was a really horrific situation where things had been uncomfortable with her for a while, and she had been developing some hugely innappropriate relationships with some of the other girls, especially int he way she touched them. Last Saturday when I was on my free day, she just blew up over something totally ridiculous (she didn't like the food) and insisted that she had to leave the home,a nd couldn't wait for her parents to come through from Beni to get her. The horrible thing is, that now no one has any idea where she is: her parents are calling all the time just frantic because she's totally disapeared in a city that she doesn't really know. But this is not your average girl we're talking about, this is a girl who has charges against her for narco traffiking into Brazil when she was 13 years old. There is no doubt in my mind that she will find a way to survive, and there is also no doubt that if she doesn't want her parents to find her they won't. Perhaps the worst thing is, that for me there is no doubt that she was the most difficult girl int he home, and that its much easier here now that she's gone, but of course I wouldn't wish the life that she's left for onto anyone. Its confusing mentally, but every day I want God to teach me more and more how to love people whom it would appear are almost impossible to love.

It has also been quite a dentistry filled couple of weeks, which I love not only because it means i get to leave the home a lot more often, but also because I really like helping Sergio, especially now that I know slightly more what he wants when he asks me to pass him something! I like it because its interesting, and because it feels like I'm doing something more specific, if anyone understands what I mean by that! It does still astonish me when I have a wee pick in their mouths and see that they really only do have half of some of their teeth, but at least we're doing something about it now!

Finally piece of news that I'm going to write, as this blog is outrageously long and its past my bedtime, is that today we went to the river to baptise five of the girls who have been taking baptism classes. It is a little unusual as while the home has been shrinking in size, so have the class who have been taking baptism classes: but in some ways that made it more special for me because it emphasised the commitment of those who stayed. It was really a great day, because we made a whole day of it: we went to the river early in the morning, and had a swim (even though the water is BROWN with earth) and cooked lunch out there. Then when we got back we had a special meal in the evening and we took communion together. It was really lovely, especially for one of the girls whom I know took the committment to get baptised really seriuosly.

Well, I'm going to leave this here. I'll do my wee best to reply to emails etc tomorrow but I can't promise anything as I have to go to immigration. Not my favorite way to spend my day off, but at least I think that this is the last time!

All the chat

First of all, I would like to give many apologies for not updating my blog in a while, I promise to try and write something extra special for you all today! In one piece of amazing news, this morning i finally managed to send a christmas package to my family! After having to jump through all kinds of hoops: leave the packet open, provide us with four photocopies of your passport, we need your fingerprints etc I eventually managed to do it this morning with a lot of faff around but ultimate success. I have possibley never been so proud of myself in my whole life. It was quite strange though, because there was a Christmas tree and a Santa Claus in the post office, and i don't really feel like its Christmas as it seems to be passing with so little comment. I am very interested to see how Christmas is at El Alfarero, but I do always think that there is nothing like having a Christmas that is the same as every other Christmas you've ever spent.

Things do seemed to have calmed down a bit in the home, although unfortunately one more of the girls who was involved in the drug taking has now left the home, taking the numbers down to eleven: its hard to believe that there were seventeen at one point! In some ways this is a good thing, as it feels like the less girls there are, the more attention that we are able to give them, but my heart does also stay with the girls who have left the home, as the chances are I will never find out how their lives end up.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how the lives of the girls will be when they leave the home, because as well as I get on with some of them, I just can't imagine them in any other context: studying, with jobs etc. There are a few whom it is obvious have the capacity to go far, but what of the rest? What of the girls who already have two children before they even turn eighteen? Obviously they are studying and starting to equip themselves for the future, but I just really hope and pray that they will all genuninely be able to do something with their lives, something that they really want to do.

One piece of news is that the handcrafts the girls are constantly doing are finally coming to some kind of a purpose, which excites me as it did all seem a little bit pointless! All the little cross stich designs that they have been working on, we are now turning into cards for Roger to take to the States and sell when he goes there for Christmas. They look really really nice which is great, and its great for the girls to be able to see that people are willing to buy something that they have made. Its also good as the whole minisitry continues to suffer in terms of finanaces, so it would be really good if you could pray for that. Also, the house parents who have lived at the boys home (El Camino) for the last two years, are leaving at the end of the year on fairly short notice, so it would be really good if the praying types could pray that we will be able to find new people for that demanding job in a short space of time.

Other than these pieces of news, it does seem that things have just chugged along the same here, with the same kind of daily challenges. On a personal level, I'm feeling much more settled here this week than I was last week when I was quite itchy to get back to Scotland and see you all again. But realisitically, I know that I am only here for another six months, which is not really that long in the grand scheme of life and I have to make the most of it, and try to make the biggest different possible in the lives of these eleven girls while I am here. I still don't have millions of friends here, but I am going to a hen 'afternoon' tomorrow, as the social worker is getting married on Saturday. Thank you for continuing to think about me and pray for me, and hopefully I'll have more news for you next time!

Troubles

Well, even though I was only back at El Alfarero for four days, I think that it is fair to say that it was not an easy four days. The Saturday that I was gone was a particularly dramatic day, as after the girl who left on Friday (lets call her Jane) confessed that she had been bringing drugs into the home a lot more confessions came up. Salustio and Yany found drugs stashed in at least five places around the home, including in the rooms and on the volleyball court. It turns out that four girls had been taking drugs up to three times a day, one of them ever since she arrived in the home over a year ago. Jane had been selling drugs on for her dealer in school, and exchange for this he gave her drugs for her own personal use which she then shared with the four other girls. It turns out that even on the nights when one of us was sleeping in their room they were smoking drugs, completely without us ever noticing - the drug that they were smoking has no particularly distinct smell, and if we were sleeping then they were careful not to do anything to wake us up. Although looking in retrospect, there were nights in that room where I woke up every hour seemingly for no reason: I'm now beginning to think that there may have been a reason for that that I didn't quite twig in my half asleep state. Basically what Jane has done is jumped ship, leaving four drug addicts behind her: it all becomes even more poignant when you realise that she has not yet turned fourteen, and also left ten habitual drug users in her class at school.

It is unbelievabley disapointing, especially for Yany and Salustio who have been here for so much time, because despite all the time and energy that has been put in for them, the girls quite consiously deceived us. One of the girls who was using would literally be dead if the ministry hadn't paid for her operation and taken care of her during her recovery. Jane had been in the home for two years, and Yany and Salustio had placed quite a lot of trust in her, which she just threw back in their face. Although I obviously still do really love the girls and want to help them, this has left us all with little desire to organise activities and do things to help them. Especially since despite the fact that only five girls were taking drugs, its fair to say that all of the other girls knew about it, and some of them actively helped them to hide the drugs and conceal their behaviour.

Obviously, all actions have consequences, and the discìpline for the three girls that remain is quite strong: none of them will go to school next year for the entire year, they will only learn from the teachers that come to the home. The reasoning behind this is obvious: the ones who were already in school were taking drugs in school, and the ones who weren't are not trustworthy to go to a place where there will be temptation to take drugs. As a discipline for all the girls, we as a home are not going to go to Kids Games, a sports day event that they normally go to every year.

In other news (sorry that I can't bring you anything happy!) Another girl (we'll call her Val) left the home on Tuesday with her one year old son, to go to live with her grandmother. In some ways it was actually a good thing that she wanted to go, because if not we were going to have to throw her out of the home because of her unbelievable manipulative behaviour with the other girls. But on the other hand, we are not sure how long she will stay with her grandmother, as she alawys struggled to control Val, and was the victim of her manipulative behaviour. What Val used to do, was if her grandmother told her to do something she didn't want to do, like wash her babies nappies, she would go tell her uncles (her grandmothers sons) that her grandmother was beating her and wasn't giving her anything to eat, which they would react to by going to her house and beating her grandmother. Clearly not a great situation for her, but she's willing to take Val back, if only to ensure that her son is well taken care of.

To close, I would like to tell you all that I am sick! This has not been the happiest of blogs, so I might as well finish on a piece of unhappy news. I've had a stuffed up cold for the last few days, and I had a fever last night. It is rubbish, but don't worry, I am taking plenty of paracetomal! It does make everything seem a little more rubbish though, when having a cold takes away all your enery. You need to send me loving messages to cheer me up!

New things

Well, I seem to somehow have built up quite a collection of things to say, a mixture of good things and bad things, in the eight days that have passed between my last day off and this one. Before updating you all on the rather long list of things that have happened in that reasonabley short space of time, I want to share one more wee thought. I was thinking of the normal perception of what is missions, what is development work overseas, and what the average British person would think of when they imagine what I am doing here. What the images would be that would role through their mind. So often what we associate with 'charity' work are those kind of videos that they show every year for Comic Relief, with smiling African children who are ever so grateful for all the help that they have received. You know, they receive a pencil and a toothbrush and keep them in some treasured place, thanking God for them every day and bein affectionate and loving with the person who gave it to them. And perhaps nothing could be further from the reality of working in a home for street girls. The truth is, that just as we are not always super grateful for the unbelievable help that we receive from our families and from our governments, neither are the girls who live in the home always grateful for what they have received. They can be aggressive and incredibley rude to the people who live with them 24 hours a day without pay, they lose the things that we give to them (especially pencils!), they demand and expect more than what is already given to them. Of course they are wonderful girls with many gifts and talents and good points, but in no way are they easy - but I don't believe that help should be denied to them for being ungrateful when I have had everything I needed without even thinking to stop and write a letter to the government to thank them for paying for my education and health care.

Well, enough of the semi-deepness and on to other things! One of the biggest bits of news is that the construction work which has been being planned for a while at the home is finally started. If I remember correctly, the new building will have a kitchen, a food store, bigger classroom and a new toilet block, office and dining area. The dormitories are also going to be extended, and the old classroom and office will be there as more mother and baby rooms. The work seems to be getting on fairly well, as they start with digging the foundations. The main challenge comes from having men around all the time, and trying to stop the girls from flirting with them.

The main piece of sad news, is that of the three new girls I told you about last blog, two have already left. The one who is still here is getting on reasonabley well, she has quite a strong personality with a huge dislike of being told what to do, but her faults are correctable. On top of these two girls having left, two of the older girls also left. One left after being extremely unsettled when her brother ran away from El Camino (the boys home): she has gone back to her mothers home, but it is not an ideal situation that she has there. Probably the worst departure took place just before I left for my day off on Friday, when I girl who had been in the home for two whole years suddenly decided that she wanted to leave, and on top of this confessed that she had been bringing drugs into the home and giving them to the other girls. After two years, you would generally think that she was going to be ok, and would stay until a time that it was appropriate for her to return to her family, or to move on and do her own thing. But this is something that they've learned over the years at El Alfarero, that incredibely quickly the girls will be willing to throw everything away: the years they've spent at school, all the things they have at the home that they won't have if they return to their troubled families or to the streets, the friends that they have made, the things that they have learned. She threw it all away for drugs and boys, and she's only thirteen: that makes me sad. Another girl almost left that same morning, because she was so angry at one of the other girls for telling Salustio that she'd been making herself throw up in the toilet.

The weekend that Sandra and I spent alone when Yanyt and Salustio went away for their free day was as difficult as it normally is, but not too unbelievabley dramatic. The real drama began on Sunday evening when most of the girls went to a special service in the city to present a dance, and I drew the short straw to stay with the four girls who had to stay as a punishment for fighting over the weekend. They were unbelievabley badly behaved! As part of their discipline, they had to clean up the birthday meal that we'd had before that, and two of the girls just flatly refused to help so i had to force them. The four girls formed themselves into two groups of two who were fighting against each other, two of whom were actually behaving reasonabley well, and two of whom were not. So after all their anger and bad behaviour I left them to calm down for a bit, I spoke to both of them individually and then there were tears because they both missed their families! (I really don't understand why on earth they miss their abusive families, but there you go). Just when everything had calmed down nicely, the two other girls developed horrific stomach pains (too much birthday cake.....) and one of them was sick twice! When I had finally managed to put them all to bed, I went into the kitchen and found a poo on the worksurface! So there was all the drama in the space of a few short hours. :-) I'm thinking that the poo was the stray cat that has been wandering about the home lately.

Well I think that that was all the main news really. Yesterday I went over to the reintigration house to spend the day with Erica and her family, and went to see her son play football. It was all very jolly but I still can't understand why other people get quite so excited about sport! I can never bring myself to yell or anything, and I get quite easily distracted! Oooh, I forget, there is one other piece of big news: there is now officially no school until February... Terrifying! Any suggestions for things that we could do would be greatly appreciated!

I hope that everyone on the other side of the world where I used to live are doing really well, and I would love to hear some of your news. I'm sending love to you all. :-)

Thoughts

I thought that I would centre this blog, as well as telling you about the recent events in El Alfarero, to focus more on what I have been thinking about and what I have been learning. To put it another way, what God has been teaching me. Theres two bits of the Bible that have come to have a greater significance for me in the last few weeks:

‘Enter through the narrow gate. The gate is wide and the raod is wide that leads to hell, and many people enter through that gate. But the gate is small and the road is narrow that leads to true life. Only a few people find that road.’ Matthew 7v13

‘Sell your processions and give to the poor. Get for yourselves purses that will not wear out, the treasure in heaven that never runs out, where thieves can’t steal and moths can’t destroy. Your heart will be where your treasure is.’ Luke 12v33-34

One of the things that I’m being reminded of, as things are not always easy for me living here, is the importance of sacrifice. This life is really not that long in the light of eternity, and I don’t want to fritter it away. A lot of the things that I have been missing from home are essentially shadows and dust when compared with what it might actually mean to build up treasures in heaven. Mining gold and silver from the earth, as many Bolivians know, takes much sweat and toil, but the end result is worth it. Treasures that you don’t have to work for, that don’t involve sacrificial love, are almost never as powerful.

So many people, Christians or not, spend their whole lives avoiding the narrow way because it is just so much more difficult. But the narrow way is the only way that will lead to true life – Jesus said that those who give up their lives for him, will find true life – I left my whole life behind in Scotland, and I like to think that what I’m doing is finding true life.

Anyhoo. Enough of the (hopefully) wise thoughts, moving on to another wee update on how life is chez El Alfarero. One of the main changes that there has been in the home over the last week no more, has been the arrival of three new girls! Unfortunately, none of the three girls made it to the reception house because it was always been occupied by boys at the time, but it has still been very interesting for me to see how things operate when new girls arrive. The three girls have very distinct personalities – one of them I really don’t know anything about yet as she arrived late on Friday night, and I left for my free day early on Sunday morning. So I shall find out when I get back how the weekend went: please try and remember this in your prayers, as we’re up to 17 girls again now, and Salustio says that whenever the home starts to fill up people start to leave again.

One of the good (great) things about the last week has been that I am beginning to feel a little bit more connected with the other people who live at the home. I’ve had a few good chats which allowed me to open up slightly more to them, and I’m beginning to feel that we are working more as a team. On top of this, after having been at the home for six weeks now, I feel that I’m ready to begin making comments about the way the home is run. I’m glad to have stayed fairly silent for so long, because there are things that at the beginning I didn’t understand or disagreed with that I know understand the reasons for and can see are for the best.

The main issue I can see with the home, and I’ve discussed this with Sandra, is the lack of actual consequences when they do something wrong. This came up particularly one evening when Sandra and I were on our own with the girls, and during the reading the girls were just horrifically badly behaved. Sandra ended up having to pull the youngest girl away because everyone was hitting her – and despite the older girl’s conviction that she is the root of all the problems at the home, their behaviour did not improve when we took her away. About an hour after all this, two of the older girls started fighting over practically nothing – fists and all! It is the first time in my life so far that I have had to pull one grown woman off another one – although I did have some help in it! And what were the consequences of all this misbehaviour? Essentially nothing, except for a lecture in the morning. So I have begun to think of potential things that we could to discipline the girls, privelidges that we could withdraw that I can suggest to Yanyt and Salustio: after all, real love is not afraid to correct bad behaviour.

I have had a fairly good weekend off so far, I’ve been avoiding my slightly horrific habit of spending all of my time off sitting about in Casa Alfa, as it is quite tempting to be lethargic! I went to Sandra’s house yesterday to visit her family, which was much fun, and then we went out for ice cream with her friend. Mmm. On my days off I try to sneak in a little bit of western food, as I really am eating very traditional things at the home. Despite the fat and carbs content of this food, I have somehow managed to lose half a stone since arriving – very weird. In other good news, I have an extra day off this weekend as Monday is a national holiday for the day of the dead.

Another highlight of the week was going to Patty’s house for the meeting of the senoritas (hee hee I am one of those!) who work with Operation Restoration. It is definitely making a difference having people around who I feel like I can start to call friends: because it is not good for man (or woman) to be alone.

More girls

Well, as promised, I'm back on my next free day (I do love them) to give you more wee bios about the girls I'm working with. Someone did point out to me that it might not be such a good idea to give out so much information about people, so rather than giving you their actual names, I'm going to call them girl number 1, girl number 2 etc. Slightly more impersonal but hey-ho!

Girl number 1 (!) has been at the home for coming up to two years now, and is so one of the girls who might be seen as having been more settled. However, often it seems to only take one thing to shake everything up and for a lot of issues that seemed to have been resolved to come back to the fore. Because of various issues that have been going on at school, that I don't really know about, she's been feeling a bit shakier lately. This is the main reason why the girls are kept out of school for a bit when they first arrive at the home, because of all the things that come up there which are precisely the challenges they are facing: mainly things like drugs and boys. These are not, after all, girls who have managed to have any kind of healthy relationship with the opposite sex. She does get on well in school, and seems to be really intelligent: I was helping her with her English the other day. She has some of the character defects that thirteen year old girls everywhere have i.e. the tendency to be a wee bit of a whiner, but then, didn't we all have that tendency at some stage? Or was (is) that just me? She is also one of the three girls who sometimes goes out in the afternoon to accomplish various things. They're not allowed to go out alone, for obvious reasons, so sometimes its been left to me to go with them when they go to study with their friends and things like that. I do understand the reasons why they don't want to leave them alone, but it is also slightly awkward being in a situation where you know that nobody wants you to be there.

I recently had the challenge (!) of helping girl number two with her school work when the school was closed for the day. Another one of the younger ones, she’s probably the one I have the most difficulty understand: not only because she speaks Spanish at quite such top speed, but also because in so many ways she is so closed off. The teachers who come into the home are really close to refusing to teach her anymore because she is so disrespectful to them and, as I learned, when she doesn’t want to do something, she will just close off entirely and refuse to do it. When I was working with her, she refused to admit that she even knew how to read (she does) or that she remembered anything of a story that we read less than a minute ago. Like the other little girls, she has a background in sexual abuse, although in her case I’m not sure if it was in the family or in school. She has a great sense of fun which is always a good thing, but, like some of the others, she doesn’t seem to have the capacity to know when to stop. For me it is very difficult with all of them to know where playing stops and fighting begins! I would really like to be able to talk with her more, because I hate the idea that people are already giving up on her when she is still so young, even though I understand how difficult she can be.

Girl number three recently wanted to leave the home, to the extent that Salustio took her all the way back to her parents house before she decided that she wanted to come back. She told me a bit of her life story when we were washing clothes together – I can’t say that I understood all of it, but enough to know that she used to regularly run away from home to go to the street, where she was part of a prostitution gang. It’s always hard for me to imagine the girls as prostitutes, minus a few, because it just seems so unlikely! She was in school previously, but she was pulled out because her behaviour was so unstable. Shes a lovely girl, very affectionate etc, but I would say that her main real flaw is a tendency to be lazy and to form cliques that exclude other people – certainly a strong sign of insecurity in a young girl.

Girl number four has one of those ‘bright lights big city’ stories that will be familiar to anyone who has ever watched television: she came to the city to get away from her family and to find a job, and ended up being forced into prostitution. Her pimp was unhappy when she fell pregnant, and so sent some thugs to beat her up, to get rid of the baby. It was so bad that she ended up having to have an almost total skull reconstruction and can now feel nothing on one side of her head. She’s only just stopped wearing headscarves because her hair has started to grow back in. Like many of the others, she does have a front of just getting on with life and being happy, but you can occasionally see that her past does come back to haunt her and bring up issues in the present. She also has a four year old son who presently lives with her mother, and may at some point be coming to live in the home.

Significant events of the last week:
1. I have a friend! News indeed. A Bolivian girl called Sandra has also come to work at the home, and I already feel like its making a difference to have someone my own age around. Well, she is eight years older than me, but it still kind of counts as my own age!

2. There was a meeting with the girls relatives (some of them) last weekend, which seemed to go pretty well, and its always good to touch base with them.

3. I went to my first staff meeting yesterday and the chat was mainly centred around the problems that are coming in finances through the lowering value of the dollar, and the poor quality pound to dollar exchange rate. They’re losing a huge amount of money not because their support has gone down, but because the support that they have is worth less. On top of this, because of the credit crunch in the uk, people are becoming much less likely to give. So, for those of you that are into prayer, it would be really good to pray about that!

The girls

Well, now that I've been in El Alfarero for a month it seemed a good time to introduce you to the fourteen girls who live here in the home, so you can get a better idea of who it is that I am spending all my time with!

The challenge of course is deciding which ones I should introduce you to. I'm going to start with girl a, because she's one of the girls whom I have a particular affection for - I know that I'm not supposed to play favourites, and I don't, but I think theres always going to be some people who your hears goes out to more. Although shes twelve, she only looks about 10, and she varies between acting slightly young for her age and much older. Shes one of those girls whos on the cusp of childhood and adolescence, so is still playing kids games but is also interested in the things the older girls too. Its funny how even though cultures and places change dramatically, some things about people, especially children and teenagers, are the same everywhere. One of the most tragic moments I've had while being here was when Lupe accounted her life story to me, because its just so horrific. She was abused sexually by her stepfather (as was her sister, who was raped by her step father when she was eight)and went on to work as a prostitute and take drugs, all before she arrived at the home when she was eleven or twelve. The vast majority of the time shes a complete pleasure to work with, and is very affectionate and always wants to play. But like a lot of the girls, she does have an anger problem, and when she gets angry tends to lash out rather, especially with the other younger girls. The thing that always surprises me is that when the girls get aggressive with each other, they hit each other really hard! The kind of kicks and punches that hurt you just to hear about them.

GIrl b is the youngest, whos only nine, and she was sent here from Tarija (a southern province of Bolivia) by a day centre she used to go to there. Her family situation was pretty bad, her mother and her stepfather are both drunks, and although she doesn't like to talk about, she was probably abused by her step father also. Tomorrow Yanyt and Salustio are having a meeting with the girls parents, and noteabley shes the only one without some kind of family member coming - a representative from the day centre is coming instead. Theres been quite a few problems surrounding Lidia at the home lately, as she does have a tendency to not want to do her chores etc, and (especially when she thinks no one is looking!) is really rude to the older girls. In response, this means that a lot of the aggression of the older girls is directed towards her, and we are stuck between wanting to help her improve her behaviour and repeatedly telling the others that under no circumstances are they allowed to hit her, regardless of what she said or how annoying she was being! Plus, as far as I can see, occassionally the things that irritate the other girls are as much to do with her being nine as her saying horrible things to them! Other than that, although she can be lazy she is also extremely smart: she put it off for ages, but when she eventually sat down to learn the nine times table she had it conquered in one day! Her reading is a lot better than that of some of the other girls.

Girl c was pregnant when I arrived, and gave birth before I moved all my stuff into El Alfarero. Her baby sone is tiny and extremely cute, but it amazes me how fast he is growing already! I have already learned how to change cloth nappies - although that was on the bigger kid, Marcos. She always impresses me by her commitment to her son, which does rather vary from the other mum, who inclines towards letting the other girls take care of her child. I was joking with ehr that she never stops washing clothes, because every time I see her she seems to be at the washing sinks. She is genuinely a really nice girl, whom I know had drug problems before she came to the home, and I hope that we can be friends. Shes had a few health problems lately, as the people who stiched her up after her cesaerian left some thread in there (very clever) which meant that it kept opening up and getting infected.

One more girl and then I'll leave it there for now! I may do some more tomorrow and on Thursday when I have another free day. I'm going to go for girl d, as shes perhaps one of the most unusual girls at the home. Shes extremely dyslexic and can barely read or do her times tables, and doesn't really have the motivation to overcome her dyslexia, nor do there really seem to be the facilities to help her. It looks her parents just gave up on her learning because she found it so difficult, and as a result of this shes reached the age of 17 barely literate. On top of this though, I think that she must have some kind of other learning difficulty, as she is extremely young for 17, doesn't have a very good sense of boundaries and has no idea of when to stop. I can't really explain it properly, but if you met her, you would know what I meant! On the plus side, she is extremely capable in other ways: shes really good at taking care of the little ones, for example, and cooks really well. Shes quick to apologise whenever she does something wrong.

On a personal note, this last week wasn't really easy for me, although things are looking up know after I had a chat with Salustio. I was feeling quite strongly the isolation at the home, where i don't see that many people my own age, and I only speak English when we have visitors. (I know that technically that is a good thing but it doesn't make it easy!) I was also feeling slightly unsure of whether or not I was doing a good job or not, which always makes me think that i'm doing a bad job, because if I wasn't, they would say! However, I spoke to Salustio who says that I am doing fine, and on my part, I'm going to try to make more of an effort to be friends with them as a couple. Its funny, but it never actually crossed my mind to do that - maybe because I'm not used to having friends who are so much older than me!

Until next time!

Paula

A day in the life of me

I thought it would be a good idea to run you, dear reader (I've decided to go all Charlotte Bronte on you all) through a day in the life of me as that way its easier for me to give some details that otherwise I would probably forget. I've decided to go for this Wednesday past, and I'll give you all the details that I can possible remember! It may just begin to resemble a rough outline of what happens in a normal day but hey ho, I'm sure that will still be interesting.

Tuesday evening was my turn to sleep in with the little girls so I was woken up at 5.45 (it no longer feels as horrific as it did to begin with) by Salustio knocking on the window to say that it was time to get up. I called out to wake up the girls, shook a couple of them, and then padded over to the other block where my room is to brush my teeth and change. Most people here seem to sleep in the clothes they wear during the day and then change after showering, but I'm still a defiante fan of pyjamas.

At 6.10 we have devotionals which either one of the girls or one of the staff members does, where they read out a little bit of the bible and give there thoughts on it. After that we have breakfast, which is occasionally suspiciously deep fried to count as morning food! After breakfast the girls do chores, and I normally go and do my quiet time at this point. Half of the girls, who are in school, leave at about half seven quarter to eight, and I stay with the ones left behind.

The first task of the day is generally for the girls to do the homework that they've been set by the teachers who come to the home in the afternoon. A lot of them are really quite behind on their education, and one girl is so dyslexic that at seventeen it is almost impossible for her to understand the concept of tables, let alone be able to learn them. I'm remembering a lot of the maths that I had forgotten (especially long multiplication!) but a lot of the things they do I learned how to do a different way, so I try not to help them to avoid any possible confusion!

When they're finished their homework there's not a huge amount for them to do, which is why I sometimes wish the teachers would give them more work to do! But they do have reasonabley short attention spans so its probably a good thing. They do handcrafty things, making bracelets and cross stich. Theres normally some kind of exciting Christian reggueton background to these activities - yes, you are jealous, my cool music loving friends. Normally everyone (or almost everyone!) helps with cooking lunch as well, and it is quite a lot of work to cook for about 20 people every day. Its interesting to see all the different things that they eat here though, and to get to help making them. I did slice my thumb open the other day though, as they don't really use chopping boards.

We eat lunch when the girls come back from school. (In case you haven't already noticed I haev completely forgotten what happened on wednesday and this is just turning into a specimin day!)After lunch they go to do more cleaning, and I normally go take a nap. I do love napping! Especially when I have to get up at such a ridiculous time of the morning. :-/ The afternoon is normally pretty quiet, the teachers come and take different groups of the girls at a time, and the rest of them play sports or do more cross stich activities. The way I'm writing this makes it sounds like every day is so perfect and calm, but as with every family, each day brings its challenges, especially if the girls are feeling particularly aggressive. Probably the first time I've ever had to pull someone off someone else was here!

The girls go to shower at about six o'clock, and then I have to do exciting things like go fetch shampoo for the little ones from the store cupboard. Quite a lot of my day does seem to be spent locking and unlocking doors, and fetching soap, shampoo, sanitory towels, pens, paper and numerous other things from various places! After that we eat our evening meal which is normally something quite small, like bread with a cup of tea. The tea they drink here, along with the coffee and hot chocolate they drink, is mainly just sugar and water but, you know, theres definately worse things you could drink!

After dinner, Yanyt goes with two of the older girls to evening classes in the next village. In the evenings we either read the Bible or an extract from a book, and sometimes we spend some time praying or singing. Concentration levels vary! After that, and before bed (at 9)is just relaxing time, listening to music, maybe watching a film. Yesterday, partly in an effort to combat the total lack of exercise I've been getting, I played a game that I forget the name of with the little girls. The one where you have a long piece of elastic that you have to jump in and out of. It was much fun, and they thought it was hilarious!

Good news that I've now reached a stage where I'm not so tired when the girls have gone to bed that I feel the need to go to bed straight away as well. This is defiante progress. :-)

Now away and leave me comments! It makes me feel like people are actually reading my ramblings....

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.