Parties and Productivity II

The following photos will make a great deal more sense if you read this first, so I'm posting it again:

The photo I'm beginning with is from September 14 - Catorce de Septiembre - an annual holiday in Cochabamba celebrating independence from the Spanish and the city's official founding. Most of the city was off that day for parades, parties, and heaps of good food sold, given away, and pushed on revelers and passers-by.

On parties, the students' Spanish professor was recently discussing generalizations, saying each person has un nombre y un apellido - a name and a last name. Each person is an individual, she was saying, so much so that people should avoid stereotyping Bolivians or people from the United States. At that point our local coordinator interjected to say, si, but it's "a little bit true that people from the US work too much and Bolivians like to enjoy life more."

Last Monday we celebrated Catorce de Septiembre, this Monday we celebrated Dia del Amor (the first day of spring, students' day, and lovers' day, all wrapped into one), and one service-learning semester student and one volunteer just had birthdays - and each one was celebrated multiple times. Despite - or perhaps because of - all of this festivity we have been quite busy and productive.

The semester students are whizzing through Spanish and complaining to anyone who will listen that there's too much reading in the politics and history courses (that I teach), but we all took off Monday to serve with the current Amizade volunteer group. Eight people from all over the US - Colorado, Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, North Carolina, and New York - came to volunteer with us and are helping add an additional bathroom and some living space at the orphanage we've completed outside Cochabamba. Twenty-two children stay there, and at the end of a hard day of painting, ditch digging (for plumbing), plastering, and tiling, they gave home-made birthday cards to each of our celebrants, sang happy birthday, and proceeded with the very Bolivian tradition of then putting confetti in each person's hair. (The photo upload function is not working very well right now, so I'll put these pictures at the end).

This Monday end-of-work-day celebration followed a Sunday cake for Laurie and a separate weekend celebration for Hannah. The volunteer group protested our early work stoppage to no end!!! (Particularly those who didn't know of the coming children's surprise party). Those are the kind of volunteers that Amizade regularly sees on programs. These folks decide to give up some vacation or retirement time to support a community effort somewhere else around the world. While they're here we're sure to take them on some excursions, introduce them to local cultural events and opportunities, and do our very best to be sure they have a good time. But they see the community projects we're working on, they connect with the kids, and they learn about their lives - and they just want to work. That's part of the beauty in being here for an extended amount of time - it's possible to see all of Amizade's effects over the past twelve years of working with volunteers in Bolivia.

There is an entire orphanage that houses twenty-two children and their caretakers. Before the Amizade orphanage they lived in buildings constructed of corrugated tin and cardboard. There are five new school classrooms improving educational opportunities for kids in Viloma. We support an orphanage for newborns in Cochabamba called Millennium, and we also provide volunteers for a center for children with disabilities called Ceoli. All of these organizations struggle to build a better world, and all of them are strengthened through the goodwill of Amizade volunteers. It's great to see in person, again and again.

And of course, the volunteers are great and incredible people. The last photo I'll post is of Judy Haaste and Jim Williams, who reminded us early on Monday that you're never too old to work hard - and on a break reminded us that you're never too old to play hard either.