DAY 1: No more altitude sickness!!
Hermana Anna was unable to pick us up with Angela in tow (bummer), so I reenacted the welcome I got when I arrived. We arrived by taxi with Angela at the door to welcome us!
They moved Angela downstairs to an empty girl´s room and my family occupied all 3 rooms ¨upstairs¨ in the first house! Tour, then the girls had made breakfast for us (grilled cheese! heck yes) so we ate breakfast #2 . Then I gave out my Bolivian Christmas presents and my mom even had one for me and Angela (Divine Mercy Chaplet on cd and a book on St. Faustina). Love my mom!
Then we went outside and played with the girls! My family was so cute with them. My dad and Katrina looked at Spanish books with the little ones on different animals and foods in spanish, so they learned a few things, and others played jump rope with the other girls. One time Ines (one of the 4 year olds) crawled onto my dad´s lap and gave him a kiss on the cheek. it was really cute. I think he misses having little girls haha. Before lunch, we did some laundry outside, and then sat down to a yummy lunch! Then we all played Pelota Quemada (Bolivian style dodge ball, but literally it means ¨burn ball¨or ¨dead ball¨). Even my mom got into it, she actually did really well, and all the girls played. My team with Scot just could not win so Maggie´s like otra vuelto tenemos que ganar, so we played til we won basically. When the sisters came out to greet my family, they leaned in to give a kiss on the cheek (how they welcome here) so my brother was like uh uhh what´s she doing hahah and like i had to tell him . the older girls were laughing so hard.
Before dinner, we went to visit Nilda and family and I showed them the church and school the girls go to and a little of the neighborhood. It was nice. After dinner, the sisters came down to chat with us and we had such a fun chat, plus Angela was there to help me out, this English spanish thing was hard haha, a few times i translated wrong i am like man i am going to be making up stories, i hope i never become a translator for real haha. I just speak mostly english with family and then have to translate for them and such...okay as a newish speaker it´s hard. But it was nice to have time with the sisters and I know my family enjoyed it too. We got to know them better and vise versa and ask them about a few plans for the following day.
Day 2: A la ciudad!
We spent all day in the city. 1st archeological museum..I guess it was interesting, learned more about Bolivian indigenous. then off to the main plaza and Cathedral and down to La Cancha. I got a little uh well, we just meandered our way to where we wanted to get souvenirs, but it wasn´t like i was lost it was just a scenic tour of the place...
Dad snagged a Bolivian belt that he put on right away (must´ve really needed that) and an alpaca sweater, Scot got the last supper in bronze and an Incan thing for his house, Victoria found a bolivian doll and a purse and a couple gifts for friends, Katrina a couple souvenirs for work ppl and friends and a poncho, mom got scarves for aunts and a couple other things,they were also all about the chess sets so they got a couple of those and a few bottle of wine to give away. It was a little crazy tho bc we spent a lot of time there and I had to keep moving down the aisle to help my family translate. Katrina did pretty good on her own and dad´s sweater guy spoke english so that helped me out. Then we walked back to the main area to find some bolivian food to share. My brother decided he wanted to buy a couple things he was looking at, so I showed them my fave corner shop, exchanged some money with the purse ladies and then while I sent him and Rob back in cab with all of our goodies, we did one more stop at la cancha. Came back just in time for the rest of us to catch a dance performance of traditional Bolivian dances. I decided not to go since I´ve seen plenty of dancing, but i´m glad they had that going on this week, that was lucky and my family really enjoyed seeing the diff. costumes and such (even my dad thought it was nice)!
I sat in the plaza nearby breathing and having some God time. I was so tired for the traveling, translating and not getting enough sleep and not having any time to write in my journal or just be, so it was actually nice. Then I walked to theater to meet Hermana. We had a fun chat on our way home and ate our yummy lentil and rice dinner that was awaiting us! It was a loong day!
Day 3: Cristo, dress up, soccer, and fruit pizza!
Hermana said she´d take us to Cristo, she loves the view and it´s better by car. PLUS the president had just changed gas prices to stop illegal exporting of gas, so there was a big strike that day in the middle of the city so only private cars and a few taxis were actually working! It was crazy, we heard there were smoke bombs and military and herds of people. Luckily Cristo is at the edge of the city, so we snuck around and went on up! Since we didn´t go too early, we were actually able to climb up to his arms inside (side note, it is actually the largest cristo statue in world, tho not the most famous)! It wasn´t as cool inside as i hoped, but we had fun anyway. Then we took pictures, saw the lake, the city, and the other side of the mountain where the hogar is. I am always amazed by the view though I´ve been up there many times now! Then after, to the chapel of the crying Jesus. He´s been in this tiny chapel for 15 years, but the last time he cried was a few years ago when Pope John Paul died and the Mary statue next to it cried as well. It was powerful to see and my mom´s been talking about it for awhile, so i´m glad it was open and we got to do that. Then off to the fruit market to pick up some for the hogar, that was also a site for my fam. to see!
Then everyone played futball...or should I say soccer with the older girls while Kat and vic and i went on an ice cream hunt, which we finished after Cristo actually. Then we had an AMAZING lunch of falso conejo (fake rabbit it´s called, it´s quite popular here in bolivia. I know how to make it now too, so just wait!!)
Dress up time! Victoria had learned about some trad. Bolivian dress in one of her TAM classes so I told her about the costume room we have here THE HERMANAS MAKE ALL THE DANCE COSTUMES!! I had no idea, they are gorgeous! So we got to play dress up and we even convinced rob and scot to join in on a couple of the outfits, they don´t have a ton of boy outfits but sometimes the girls do dress as boys for partnering dances. We even got to try on their tobas outfits! That´s my fave. The girls taught us a few steps of each of the 4 we tried on. While we were dressing up, I started helping my mom with a bolivian fruit pizza! YUm! we made it for the girls, it was sooo good with Watermelon, mango, bananas, and kiwi. Dinner, then some of the girls had our dessert. We saved the rest for another day.
It was then time for them to leave the following morning, arroz con leche for breakfast and off in one taxi this time, squished i would say but happy. The last time the family will be together for quite some time!
I was hoping a few of them would stay a little longer, even one more day would have been perfect! but it´s the way it worked out. We had a pretty full trip though and got to see pretty much the main parts we wanted to see in Bolivia, me, hogar, and lake Titicaca. We each had our fave part of the journey to bring back home with us and my family got a taste of what I am doing here (although many of the girls are gone right now), but yeah. I almost think it was harder for me to say goodbye than it was not seeing them for so long. I walked around the city from the airport to find a micro home and was able to cool off and pray a bit and realize how tired I was. Def. took a four hour nap the next afternoon to recover.
Phew! We´ll see if any of them want to come next year...hahah
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