Help Bolivia Receives Welcome

It was a bit of an emotional day as we visited the centre Help Bolivia supports for the first time. 

We traveled there from our AirBNB by Teleferico, the public transit system here. It’s a series of cable car lines, a la Sulphur Mountain, that spirits passengers across the city. Spectacular views and almost no waiting.

 

We traveled there from our AirBNB by Teleferico, the public transit system here. It’s a series of cable car lines, a la Sulphur Mountain, that spirits passengers across the city. Spectacular views and almost no waiting.

We arrived at the centre in Tahuantisuyo and waited outside the gate to be let in. It wasn’t immediate; we realized that the children were assembling inside to welcome us. We entered to rousing cries of ‘Gracias’ and hugs from the adults, educators and parents. A group held up a banner of thanks. The children sang and danced; their dance turned to a ‘ring’ holding hands, then to our surprise they grabbed us and pulled us into the ring. It was such a joyful experience it was hard not to cry. The older children gave speeches and eventually the younger ones ran over and hugged us.

 

We were led into the main hall of the centre and served the morning snack. It was baked quinoa with cheese, like rice pudding and quite delicious. Matt and I walked around taking pictures of the children as they ate. It was fun – the little ones were so excited, but they wanted to see each photo as it was taken.

Then there were songs and dances, the older girls danced dressed as Bolivian women with a large hump on their back, where babies are carried. Then two young (4 years old) couples danced.

 

Hot lunch was served; a cream soup followed by a meal of potato, corn, beans, fried soft cheese and meat. This hot lunch was the genesis of Help Bolivia – Lydia and Matt met children here 5 years ago and realized that they were attending school hungry. Children here go to school half days, so our program has expanded to include an educational program for the other half of the day. The centre contains four classrooms and staff and after lunch we visited them, Carol was in her element as she joined the class learning through dance and song.

Despite the language barrier, Carol and I speaking no Spanish and the children speaking no English, there was no shortage of communication. The children left and it felt like the energy (and noise) had been sucked out of the building, but the joy remained!