First week and a bit…

We arrived in Santa Cruz and were met at the airport by William and Liz Moscoso. Liz has been our friend for about 14 years, since she spent a year in Britain and stayed at our house.

It felt strange being back. Familiar in so many ways, yet so totally different to life in England. The noise, dust and how the cars literally swim through the streets like fish in the sea. There do not seem to be any rules of the road. The bigger you are the more space you need. But cars literally weave and honk their way, wherever they want to go.

We visited their church (La Roca) for a four hour service.. yes, a four hour service!! It went surprisingly quickly and we enjoyed meeting people there. We met up with Juanita who came to England a few years ago to volunteer with Care-force. They took us to a small town outside of Santa Cruz where we saw sloths in the trees on the plaza. These animals are soo funny and move really slowly, a bit like Dean in the mornings. It was so sad to see people drunk on the streets and so much rubbish everywhere.

Liz invited us to the La Roca school to share our testimonies with the children and do some drama and games. She is an English teacher, so we knew that if our Spanish was a bit rusty she could step in and translate for us. It was great because we spent time with 13 year olds, 16 year olds, 6 year olds and 11 year olds. We introduced ourselves in English… a basic name, age, likes, dislikes, what we do in our free time and they understood that. Then we explained in Spanish why we are here and showed some dramas. We were able to explain them in Spanish – amazing how the words just flooded back!! The younger ones enjoyed seeing the puppets and playing parachute games.

We were sad to say goodbye to the family in Santa Cruz, but we flew to Cochabamba to start Spanish classes with Serve Abroad. This is the mission organisation that we are working with here. The language school is based in a house in the centre of town and has cultural classes and organises events / volunteer projects for the students. We will be having classes together for about a month.

We are currently staying at a house on the outskirts of town that belongs to a friend of ours. She and her Bolivian husband and 2 children lived here for about 9 years working with a community, building a community centre and pre-school. But now they have returned to Scotland – so it feels kind of quiet without them here. We are hoping to help there in the next few weeks, painting a mural or doing something practical.

We spent time with Rodrigo and his family yesterday. They are running a youth church here in Cochabamba for Brazillian students. He has already booked Dean in to preach at the end of the month. Tonight we are meeting a church youth group on the edge of town to teach drama and spend time with them. We are also invited to their Church service tomorrow morning. Really looking forward to meeting them… vamos a ver!

If you would like to send us some goodies through the post please send your items to the address below. Parcels could take up to 3 weeks to arrive. Thank you:)

Dino & Ruth Such
Connexiones Entre Mundos
Cassilla 15
Cochabamba
Bolivia