Aldeas Alalay

Yesterday was our very last day at the orphanage, and it was very sad to say goodbye to all the kids we have come to love so much. This means that we are soon going home, and our stay in Bolivia has come to an end. It feels weird, but at the same time I am really ready to go home to my friends and my family and my Torkil. Since we came here to work in the orphanage, I will end my blog by showing you pictures that represent my daily life there.

Not everything ing Aldeas Alalay is perfect. Some of the things there I will be quite happy to leave, like…

…the greasy soup we get for lunch every day, and especially when there are chicken feet in it!

…being afraid of lice all the time. (in the picture I am boiling the comb before I use it to look for lice. I wasd lucky enough to find eggs in my hair the very last week…)

…the dangerous pig Milagros who wants to eat everything that comes in her way, like our feet or our clothes…

But there are so many more things that I’m going to miss, that has made my life here in Bolivia worth living, like…

...the thursday evenings with the volunteers, when we cook and talk about all the crazy things the kids have done.

…all the educators. They are real everyday heroes, without receiving any glory for it.

…working in the kitchen while the kitchen lady makes us laugh by fighting with Leo (the only male volunteer).

…Alejandro, his cute smile and his need for us making him “puntitos” (dots), so he can do his homework (writing the letter “A” on whole page)

…Alex, our mascot, falling asleep in my arms (or while getting a haircut…)

…Blas and his cute laughter that always makes me happy.

…Brayan, always doing more than he has to, and always giving me a hug.

…Elvis (to the left), always coming towards me with open arms, looking at me with his beautiful eyes surrounded by the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen,

…Fransisco, always doing his tasks and his homework, and his charming hoarse voice.

…Israel, especially in his pajamas, when he is crying for his “zapatos” (shoes).

…Joaquin, and his excitement about everything from pianoplaying to my Elvis Presley-perfomances.

…Joel, and the way he runs smiling towards me while he shouts “Linne!”

…Kenny and his artistic performances, kisses and love. I am happy to tell you that he’s with his family now.

…Luis, always so happy and smiling. Here with Pablo, one of the best men I’ve ever met.

…Rolando, always so excited about my ring tone and taking care of little Alex.

…Jervis (to the left), who always looks out for his little brother (to the right), and has the prettiest smile in the world.

…all of my gorgeous boys, with whom I have spent a wonderful time, and who I’m going to miss a lot!

When we first came to La Paz and saw the big, snow-covered mountains, we said that we would try climbing one of them. Last weekend it was finally time to stop talking and start doing it.

Saturday morning we met the rest of the group – three British and one French guy, Lauriane (volunteer from Switzerland), Tonje and me – at the agency’s office. They gave us all the equipment we needed, like ice axes, head lights and warm clothes. I was so lucky that I got red pants and orange jacket, so I knew quite early that I was the clown of the group.

The clown of the group. And Tonje

We drove up to the first cabin, 4750 meters above sea level. From here we walked a bit further into the mountains in order to get used to walking with the special shoes and we also got to try ice climbing. It was really difficult, and I didn’t manage so much more than just hanging in the rope. But it was nice to try, and I had a good laugh, so it was okay. Additionally, I was so happy to see snow again that nothing could ruin my mood.

Tonje is showing how youre supposed to do it

Me showing how you just hang around

Enjoying the sun outside the first cabin

On our way to the second cabin

This narrow path we had to walk in order to get to the very top

At midnight we woke up, and I felt miraculously fine! We had some breakfast and put on all our equipment and were ready to go. Tonje and I went together with one guide, but now it was her time to feel sick. She threw up just before we started walking, and after half an hour or so, she realized that she couldn’t do this trip when she was feeling such a lack of energy. She therefore had to go back, while I continued with Lauriane. After a while, our  first guide came back after having followed Tonje to the cabin, so I continued alone with him. We walked and we walked, always uphill, and it felt like we would never get to the top. But I felt fine the whole time, and in the end – more preciselyat 6 o’clock – my guide and I were the very first people to reach the top. The other boys from my group came as well, and we watched the sunrise and tried taking some pictures without losing our frozen fingers before we went back down.

On the way down I realized how far we had been walking, and I was really glad that we had been walking in the dark. If had seen all along how far and steep it was, I would have given up straight away! In our group of seven, only five made it to the top, because the altitude definitely knows how to play with people’s health. That I was one of those who made it is definitely a miracle, because during the rest of the weekend I was clearly told that my body is not too fond of the altitude. I had to thank God for every step and breath I managed to take, and while I was walking towards the top, I was thinking about how to end this blog post: it was an amazing trip, which I will never EVER do again!

Me and my guide at the top

The beautiful sunrise!

View from the top.

Before, Aldeas used to have a carpenter’s workshop, but some time ago this one burnt down. Therefore, my beautiful friends Julissa and Su Mei and their organization Orkidstudio came to Bolivia to build a new one. They have both studied architecture and want to use their talents and their art to help other people, like the kids at Alalay. So, after a lot of hard work and back and forth, it was finally time to officially open the building, which will serve as an Art Centre.

The Wonder Women: Julissa and Su Mei

The brand new Art Centre!

These girls definitely know how to decorate in a creative way

Decorating the Centre for the grand opening. Leo (volunteer), me and Wendy (Su&Ju's host sister)

I love the way they have made decoration out of bolts! Tonje, Emma and me, by the way.

A lot of people working in Alalay, all the kids, Alalay’s orchestra, Great Britain’s ambassador and Su and Ju’s friends were gathered at Aldeas to take part in this event. There were speeches, Orkidstudio received their diplomas, the orchestra played and we got salteñas (meat, potato, eggs and sauce wrapped in a special dough) and cake. And of course the building was opened by the ambassador.

Some of the kids enjoying the opening. These columns are painted by the children (however, Su&Ju have done some damage control...)

The huge cake, made not only for the opening, but also for Su Mei's birthday, which was on Friday.

The orchestra playing.

The grand opening!

Admiring the nice building and its creative art.

To continue the celebration the Kairos church moved their youth service from the church to Aldeas, and thus a big bunch of youths came to the orphanage. We sang and danced, and it was amazing to see even the toughest boys jumping along and enjoying the praise. The sermon explained that we never have to feel lonely because Jesus is always by our side, and it was communicated in a really good way. I have never heard the kids being so quiet before! After this we did some more praising and dancing, before we split into small groups. It was touching to see how the people from Kairos grabbed a couple of kids each, so they all looked like small family units. In these groups we prayed for each other, and it was really a moving moment. Despite the fact that these kids don’t have normal families they can live with, they are indeed surrounded by people who care for them, and when it comes to parents, they will always have their Heavenly Father.

Everyone was dancing and praising...

...the small ones as well as the older ones

The view from or balcony! Gotta love it.

This time I want to give you a glimpse of Bolivia, the way I experience it. I say a glimpse because I would have to write a book if I were to tell you everything. If you’re wondering why there aren’t any pictures of the kids from the orphanage, I can tell you that it is because they are such a big part of my life that they will get their own blog post.

View from the most touristy street, Sagarnaga...

...where you can find the Bolivian guitar Charango in all shapes and sizes. The fabric we see is also typical for Bolivia. This country is so colorful!

One of the boys we work with, shining Magdalena's (Austrian volunteer) shoes. It is always very nice when we meet them on the street.

People on top of a truck like this is actually no big deal. It is worse when they are four people on one motorcycle, or three in the trunk of a car.

Brick buildings and streets filled with these small shops called "Your Friend" or "Angel Store" and other funny names. You cannot enter the shop, but you have to tell the owner what he or she should get you.

And of course the cholitas on the fruit market!

...or the cholitas and their donkeys!

In general the nice, quiet places on the countryside. I feel like I have gone back in time when I see houses like this!

Trip du Muela del Diablo (Devil's tooth). I never get tired of this view!

I have learnt to appreciate things I normally take for granted. I think I've eaten more Norwegian chocolate here than I do at home. And of course I have introduced it to my German friends

Makes me smile

My room in the house we live during the weekends.

...and the wonderful view from my room at the night. I could live without the orange house in the front, though.

From a Christmas party in my house. It illustrates that it always is full of sugar and nice people

Speaking of nice people; I have met so many here in Bolivia! My educator invited all of the volunteers to her daughter's birthday party (which is a BIG deal here!). Everyone are so welcomming to us!

And of course, my wonderful team mate Tonje is a big part of my Bolivian life. It is good to be two

Last weekend I went to Salar de Uyuni (salt flats of Uyuni) with Tonje, her sister and three other Norwegian friends of her. We took a three day tour with guide which included the salt flats, several coloured lakes, flamingos, hot springs, geysers, deserts and volcanic rocks. I will show you some pictures from this splendid trip, even though the best pictures - and the most important ones from the salt flats – are trapped inside a memory card and refuse to come out. Enjoy!

For some reason our first stop was at a train cemetery...

People working on the salt flats

Because of the rainy season the flats are covered with water. It therefore looked like the cars were driving on a huge lake.

Bolivia really has everything when it comes to nature! (Except for coastline. Thanks, Chile...)

The red lake with equally red flamingos. Neis!

Signe is showing us an important element in order to have a successful trip: toilet paper!

Me trying to jump in front of a so-called stone tree. Jiha!

Geyers...

...and hot springs are necessary in a cold desert.

You can’t travel around in Bolivia without seeing lamas…

...so drivers: beware!

We spent three whole days in this car, which could be felt in our feet, men de var alle enige om at det hadde vært en fin tur

The 5th of March was the day of carnival in Bolivia, and this is a big event in Oruru, a town 4 hours away from La Paz. Tonje, Magdalena (a volunteer from Austria who lives in our house), Emma (a master student from Sweden who also lives in our house), Laura (German volunteer) and I had therefore booked a full day tour with an agency in order to go to Oruru and see the carnival. We were supposed to be picked up at 3 a.m., but since this is Bolivia, we were picked up at 4 o’clock instead. Luckily, a drunken man in the house across the street entertained us while trying to unlock his front door, so our waiting time wasn’t that boring.

At 9:30 we were benched in Oruru, ready to watch the carnival parade. It was amazing to see all the people dancing in their different, colorful outfits. It was obvious that they had spent a lot of time and money in order to prepare for this feast! Still, not everything was perfectly organized, and we were reminded that we’re in Bolivia when we saw one of the dancers talking in her cellphone while dancing in the parade.

One of the traditions of carnival is to have a water fight with water balloons, water guns and foam sprays, and thus we equipped ourselves with foam sprays, which quickly proved to come in handy! All over the tribune people were shooting at each other with these sprays, and a bunch of Swedish guys were particularly interested in going to war against us. We took the challenge seriously, and you can see the result  on the picture below. We were wet to the bone, and the only way to keep warm was of course dancing. A lot of people looked at us and laughed, but as this maybe is my only carnival, I figured I should do it properly!

Result of foam fight... I wouldn't say I won.

The crazy Sweedish guys. As you can see, they didn't win either.

It looked like it had snowed on the tribune

After some hours of water fight, we were wet and could and went to get something to eat. On the way some boys sprayed foam in my face. As this is quite a normal thing to do on the carnival, I responded by spraying back. Suddenly I felt some hands in my pocket, and I realized that they weren’t interested in fighting; they just wanted my wallet. Luckily, I had blinded them with my foam, so they weren’t too quickly, and I managed to stop them before they got something. “Hey, stop!” I shouted as loud as I could while I grabbed their hands and got them away from me. They pretended not to understand, asked me what was wrong with me and walked away. I was so relieved they didn’t get anything, and we decided to go home while we still had all our belongings. We were supposed to be there until 18:00 p.m., but ended up going home at 14:00. Even so, we had a really nice carnival, and even the bus ride home was entertaining. We were accompanied by some talkative, drunken Bolivians, and along the way we saw interesting things like a bunch of cholitas sitting on top of a truck having lunch and a horse on top of a car. All in all, we were really satisfied with our carnival, and from what we have heard, we should be really grateful we didn’t lose anything.

The Sami people were there...

...the polar bears as well.

This is the way they transport horses in Bolivia!

The whole group, coald, wet, happy and ready to go home!

Last Friday we were told there would be a car strike the whole day, and that there would be no public transport. Apparently, this had been on the news. In our gringo-minds (white people) we thought that what they said on the news had to be true! As the orphanage lies more or less an hour by car away from the city, we thought it was a good idea to go back to town before it was too late. We therefore packed our stuff in a hurry, shouted good bye to our educators and ran to get a bus. And we did get a bus. At first I thought we were just really lucky, but it turned out to be a normal day regarding the public transport. So there we sat, in the city, with an extra day off, with a hint of bad consciousness. But in our defense we were fooled by the news. We’re still not used to everything being so unpredictable.

This Thursday we were told that this Friday there would be a strike, and they told us that this time it was real. The reason for the strike is that the bus ticket prices are way too low in order for the chauffeurs to make a living. Even though we were fooled last week, we were certain that this week it had to be true. As the schools were going to be closed because of lack of transport in the morning, we figured the safest thing would be to leave Thursday evening. However, our boss (who was not too happy about us leaving last Friday without reason) told us that she had spoken to drivers who had heard nothing of such a strike. We therefore had to stay, only to hear on the 9 o’clock (which is way too late to get a bus from the orphanage) evening news that there for sure would be a strike.

The buses we normally take to get to Aldeas. They were not driving this day.

The poor educators, who usually have turns from Friday to Friday, had to stay an extra day, as the new educators couldn’t get to the orphanage. We, on the other hand, were allowed to leave, and 5 o’clock in the morning we got up in order to get to the city before the strike started. However, we didn’t get as far the road, because the stray dogs are kings of the darkness, and we didn’t dare to challenge them. We therefore awaited the morning light and tried once again.

There was no doubt that this time the strike was a fact. We waited a long time without seeing any cars, but at last three of us were picked up by a private car and the remaining by a trufi (a normal car which serves as a bus). Along the way there were tons of people eager to get to the city before it was too late. Our driver was so kind that he threw a few passengers in the trunk when there was no more space inside the car. He drove as fast as he could in order to avoid the police controls that ensures nobody is driving during the strike, and which probably started later in the morning.

When we got to the city everything seemed quite normal. Strike or not: buses and taxis were driving around like always, and I have serious problems understanding the whole system. No they say there might be a new strike again Monday, but that we won’t know for sure until that day arrives. And even then we can’t be totally sure if there actually is a strike or not.

The traffic on a normal day. Or is there a strike going on? Hard to tell.

Once a week I am part of a team who work with some of these people you see around in the center of La Paz. We gather in a football field every Tuesday from 10:00 to 12:00. It is more or less the same people who show up every time, and they are aged from 2 – 25 years. You can see that they are street kids by the way they dress; countless layers of clothes in order to keep warm during the cold nights. For a couple of hours they put away their shoe shining boxes or chocolates, and play games, football, make bracelets or paint with us. The main goal of the work is to tell them about Alalay, that there is an option to the life on the street. But it is also important just to give them a break in a hard everyday life, and show them that somebody cares.

Su Mei teaching hip hop at street work

In the football field they are not allowed to sniff, something they do to forget the cold and the pain the street life presents. However, they do not always – or, to put it more correctly: it has never happened that all of them obeyed the rules. A lot of them are constantly high, and therefore hard to talk to. It is so sad to see that they are so addicted that they can’t even leave it for two hours once a week! And the ones who seem most addicted and lost are a few boys who are aged 10-12.

It is hard to see direct results in this kind of work. Some of them are too old to enter an orphanage, some too small. The smallest ones we work with live with their parents, and spend all day in the street with them. The parents are unwilling to give their babies away to Alalay, which is after all understandable. The ones in the right age for orphanage, are kids who have run away from their homes because of alcoholic and violent parents or because their parents died. For us it easy to think that “hey, of course they want to enter the orphanage, it is so much better than the street!” And if it was like that, our work would be easy. But the truth is that these street kids are already so used to life in the street, so used to live by their own rules and by themselves, that for them it seems like a terrible idea to get a life limited by rules, responsibility and obedience to anyone.

I like street work. It is interesting to meet these people. But I often feel that they teach me much more than I ever can help them. It sometimes seems impossible to help them, like they are beyond salvation. But when I come to the orphanage I am reminded that street work in fact helps, as some of the kids there were found on the street. In the end, those who live on the street have to choose to make a change themselves. Not everyone is willing to do this, but it is worth the effort for those whose lives in fact are changed. The important thing is to never give up, to always hope, always pray, and always hold out your hand. You never know when someone might grab it.

About 70% of the earth's surface is covered with water, but it still isn't for everyone...

A lot of people in Norway have cottages without water, and we all know that as long as you bring water (or in this case have access to rain water), it all works out. We manage; it is just that everything is so much more work. Also, it is different choosing to go your cabin, well-knowing that this weekend you will have to manage without water in the tap, and all of a sudden losing the water without preparing it. It is hard enough to manage with 60 kids if you don’t have to remember to collect, boil and save water as well.

The truck arriving with water, so a few times this week we could have tap water.

The kids drank much less than usual this week, obviously. All the toilets were stinking, as they didn’t want to spend a lot of water just to flush. The babies wet themselves (and me), and there were no possibilities to shower them properly afterwards, not to mention that they ran out of clean clothes. Surely their clothes were washed by hand, but as it is the rainy season, they never had time to dry before it started raining again. That I didn’t get to shower for four days was indeed the least problem of them all, but that also felt bad enough.

The everyday life on Aldeas goes on as usual.

What it makes me realize, is how incredibly lucky we are, who have access, not just to water, but to clean water, that we can drink directly from the tap without thinking twice about it. It also makes me aware of how many things we actually need water for, and that we should thank God every single time we open the tap and get clean water. To have a hot shower is not a human right, as we sometimes seem to think, but a luxurious privilege that we should be overwhelmingly thankful for. And that we take water for granted is obvious, I think, because our society would freak out if we lost the access to water for a week. At least I would! But in Aldeas the everyday life goes on as always, because they know that this is how it is. Sometimes they have no access to water, and they can do nothing else but to deal with it.

I’ve always loved the sound of rain                                                                                                                                                                                                               Touching so softly my windowpane                                                                                                                                                                                                                       And then the scent of dew at dawn                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Coming to greet me from my moist lawn

I always took it for granted                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             I never valued the drops I shed                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       I failed to see the relation                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Between myself and world’s starvation

Water’s for the chosen                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Water’s for the few                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Water’s for the chosen                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  But how can we expect us to be those few                                                                                                                                                                                                                Me and you                                                                                                                                                                                  

(Pain of Salvation, Daniel Gildenlöw)