I now have only 9 months left here in Bolivia; I’ve been
here 4 months already. A lot of people tell me; “wow it feels like you’ve been
gone forever, almost for the whole year” well it’s not the whole year just yet,
guys and gals, but it sure does feel like it’s been going really fast for me.
In the beginning I must admit, I was kind of skeptical if I would survive the
whole year and I was having trouble adjusting, but now I can’t see myself
anywhere else but here. There is no way I can leave home just yet. Right now we are preparing for the new school
year. We start our classes on Monday, Feb. 4th, 2013. As Salesian
Lay Missioners we teach English to the elementary school students at Colegio
San Francisco Xavier. I will be teaching for grades K, 2nd, 4th,
and 5th. I will admit that I am a bit nervous being that I’ve never
taught a class in my life. I mean, I’ve done retreats but being a teacher and a
retreat facilitator our completely two different things. I will agree that both
are educators, and that’s what I know how to do. I am also excited to finally
have my own kids because when I was at the retreat center where I worked before
coming to Bolivia, I would only get to know the group of kids for just one day
and sometimes you can’t really have a relationship as much as when you have
your own group of students. So I am both excited and nervous.
This past month, Marcos, Stephanie, Vivian (she is another
SLM from Montero, which is 45 minutes away from Okinawa) and I travelled around
Bolivia. We got to see so many different things, and some were pretty amazing.
First of all, I will say that travelling around Bolivia requires, courage,
patience, energy and lots of faith in God that you will get to your destination
safely. It really is something else. You ride big charter buses, that here in
Bolivia they call “flotas” and some of them look somewhat legit (hence the
‘somewhat’) and others, well, not so much.
For our first trip we headed out to the beautiful white city
of Sucre to meet Judy. Judy is one my site partners here in Okinawa. She had
gone to Sucre to take Spanish courses so that she can improve her language
skills. She was there for about 5 weeks. Heading to Sucre was an adventure. We
went to the bus terminal in Santa Cruz to find bus tickets from Santa Cruz to
Cochabamba (we decided to take the long way because heading straight to Sucre
is rather treacherous, which we later found out for ourselves). We couldn’t
find any tickets what so ever from Santa Cruz to Cochabamba, so we tried Santa
Cruz to Sucre, but no luck as well. We ended up taking a Trufi car from Santa
Cruz to Yapacani ( a city in the department of Santa Cruz) from there we found
tickets to Cochabamba. Most all buses here in Bolivia travel at night. We got
to Cochabamba at around 4:00am and the bus station didn’t open until 5:30am, so
we had to wait on the bus until it opened. Once the doors were opened we raced
inside to find tickets to Sucre, but again no luck, so we had to buy tickets
for a bus to Oruro, about 4 hours away. When we arrived to Oruro, we stopped to
eat some breakfast because for one, we were starving, and two, the height was
affecting us (especially Steph and I, she got a headache and I was having
trouble breathing). We were having trouble (again) finding tickets to Sucre; finally
we got lucky and found some at around 11am. The bus line was one that we did
not know so we took a chance. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a very good choice, the
bus kept breaking down every couple of miles and the driver kept on stopping
for gas. It took twice as long to get to Sucre than it should. We were joking
around saying we were going to kiss the ground once we arrived to Sucre. We finally arrived and stayed in the house
Judy was staying at. The family that owned the house was the sweetest family I’ve
ever met so far in Bolivia. You could tell they were a type of middle class
family; they had a beautiful home, 3 stories high, with a beautiful view of
Sucre’s hills and they fed us breakfast and lunch everyday, it was great!
Sucre is such a gorgeous city!!! I absolutely fell in love
with it! It was one of my favorite places in Bolivia. While in the city we went
to a castle that was owned by a Bolivian prince and a Bolivian princess, they
were made royalty by the pope because they adopted 50 orphans from the local
areas around Bolivia. The castle was pretty neat. My favorite though was when
we went to a restaurant called “Origenes” (Origins), we had dinner there and
the best part is that they also have dancers that dance Bolivian folklore, OMG,
it was so gorgeous!!! Bolivian ‘danza’ (dance) is so beautiful! So much culture
and tradition! It’s an experience I won’t forget! Now, travelling back home
from Sucre to Santa Cruz was interesting. Steph and I had an appointment to get
our ‘carnets’ (identification card, the absolute last step of our Visa process)
in Santa Cruz so we had to head back as soon as possible. At this point, we didn’t want to risk what
happened to us heading to Sucre, so we had to take the treacherous rode from
Sucre to Santa Cruz. It was mostly all cliff, one lane and worst off; it was
not paved so it was a very bumpy ride. I did not enjoy that ride back home one bit;
I was praying the whole time. Luckily, we did arrive safely to Santa Cruz at
around 5:00am.
We stayed in Santa Cruz for about two days before travelling
around some more. Sor Nora invited us to go the Yungas (where she is from) in
La Paz. We had to first get a bus to Cochabamba again and then from there to La
Paz. From La Paz, we took a little van to the Yungas to a little town called
Yanacachi. The rode was even sketchier than the rode from Sucre to Santa Cruz
and much higher. I saw my life flash before my eyes. Oh man! It’s nothing like
I’ve ever seen before. While driving up there, besides being dangerous, it was
such a beautiful place and sight to see. It was like driving up to the clouds.
The mountains are so high up you can almost touch the clouds. And there are
little waterfalls everywhere you look. They all lead down a huge beautiful
river but besides its beauty, I did see a car and a bus that you could tell had
fallen off the cliff we were taking. SCARY! That seriously made me even more
nervous. I couldn’t see down after that.
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| Young man playing some beautiful Bolivian tunes and with his Tinku outfit...I wanted to steal the outfit. |
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| In the Isla del Sol |
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| Salar de Uyuni, my favorite |
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| The Yungas...that's me. |
Heading back home to Santa Cruz from Uyuni was an adventure.
We really got to see what people go through here when they travel. It can be
very frustrating and it can make you really annoyed. We bought a ticket from
Uyuni to Oruro so that from there we can take a bus to Cochabamba and from
there straight to Santa Cruz (it is a long trip any way, even without the
annoyance that we went through). Our bus was scheduled to leave Uyuni at around
10pm. We arrived to the bus station and the lady who works there told us that
the ride had been cancelled because the bus had broken down. We were stuck for
another night in Uyuni, and we had just checked out of our hotel and by that
time it was going to be hard to find a hostel or a hotel to stay at. There was
another option, taking the train to Uyuni, but we didn’t know at the time how
lucky we would get to find tickets. We had to wait until midnight to even buy
tickets and the train left at 1am. Eventually, we were able to find tickets and
we headed to Oruro on a train. It was pretty neat, but the seats were so
uncomfortable and it was freezing in there (Note: Uyuni is colder than Santa
Cruz, most other departments have a much cooler climate than Santa Cruz. Santa
Cruz is just drastically hot!). We finally arrived to Oruro. We took a taxi to
the bus station. Once we got there we began looking for tickets to Cochabamba.
We found tickets, but unfortunately (again) when it was time for us to leave,
the bus was cancelled because there was a “bloqueo” (blockade, Bolivia is
famous for these, it’s usually the peoples way of protesting, and these happen
all the time. They can last for hours and hours, sometimes days, they can be
really annoying when you’re travelling.) Now we had to figure out a different
way to get to Cochabamba, we ended up taking a Trufi over, which can be a bit
more dangerous. Thieves can easily stop the Trufi and steal from us and it was much
more expensive because the driver goes around the blockade. In the end, when we
arrived to Cochabamba, we did find tickets to Santa Cruz, and finally got home.
At the end of the month, we headed back to Cochabamba, this
time, not to pass through but to actually stay. All the SLMs, that are in Bolivia
(mostly girls, and just Marcos) had a retreat in Cochabamba in the orphanage
that some of the SLMs work at. It was so good to be altogether again, and
especially on retreat. We prepared our own talks, activities and meals. It was
so spiritually fulfilling. I loved seeing everyone, and it just was a good way
to reflect on why I decided to become a missionary.
After that, it was nice to get back to Okinawa (I was
beginning to miss the place, not the climate though, just the people). The
people around here said they missed us, and to be honest, I missed them too,
especially the kids. I love walking around here and everyone wishes you hello,
and the kids run up to you and hug you. It’s the little things like that, that
really make my day and my work so much easier. Those kids have no idea how much
they really affect me in a positive way and I hope I am affecting them too. I
have fallen in love with these kids so much =). (They warned me that was going
to happen =)).
Even though I’ve never taught a class in my life, I know I
have one talent, and that is to love and care for these kids. I want to have a
positive impact in their lives, and loving them like Don Bosco loved his boys,
is the way to go. Only because they are young…=)
I love you all back home, and I miss you dearly. I will
continue to pray for you all while on my journey. Take care and God bless.
Lorena
P.S. If you would like to send me anything, like letters
and/or packages (this would make me smile) you can send them to:
Atte:
Lorena Zamora, Voluntaria
Hogar
Sagrado Corazon
Casilla
#4
Montero,
Santa Cruz, Bolivia
South
America
If they are packages, wrap them up really well with duct
tape!!
