What is there to say about Bolivia? I´m pretty much in love with this place. We are working with an organization called Mision Adulam in El Alto that has three homes for adolescents struggling with drug and alcohol addictions. They have three homes, one for boys, one for girls, and one for young couples and I have had the opportunity to be placed with the teenage boys. Even though it has only been about a week, I absolutely love this place. There are about nine guys between the ages of thirteen and eighteen in the house my three teammates and I have been working at and they are all so great. Just getting to hang out with them and getting to know them a little bit has been so amazing. The first thing I learned was that they love to play chess, which I am terrible at. This means that about half of them love to play against me because it´s an easy win and the other half hate it because they´re looking for a challenge. They’re all also super great at playing the guitar and the pan-flute and there’s always music blasting through the speakers in the house. Even though these guys have had hard lives, they are all the sweetest teenagers I’ve ever met. They are always excited to talk to us and try to help us with our Spanish and have us help them with their English. So far, my team has mostly just been working on sanding down doors so we can varnish them and we haven’t really gotten to do any set activities with the guys, but getting to know them these past few days have been a blast. We’re hoping to get to help the German intern, Benjamin, with their English classes next week and we’re working on getting them a basketball to use since they have a court but no ball. I’m so excited to see how the rest of the month goes and to get to know these guys better!
On another note, I am still in need of $4,000 to meet my April 1st deadline in order to stay on the Race. Please consider donating to me! Just click the ¨Support Me¨ tab on the left of the screen. Thank you!
