Bolivian Dreams, Day 1- Santa Cruz


This is my first day in Bolivia and quite a relief after a full day of travel.  Since we arrived in the morning after only a few hours sleep on a red-eye flight I was tired, but used our short break to shower and change and was ready to roll.  Our first visit was to BO-361 where my mission was to find a child named Luisa Vaca for a friend of mine and give her a letter.  I thought this would be easy, but as soon as we entered the center we were whished into a large room for a presentation from the children.  They were so excited to perform for us and at one point even gave us all little hearts with our names on them to wear.


One of the teens giving me my heart with flair.

  I kept scanning the crowd and then suddenly I turned around and Luisa was there.  I was able to snap a quick photo and give her the letter I brought from her sponsor and we were separated again.



Shy little Luisa getting her picture taken.  She knew at this point that her sponsor would be able to see this photo.
 

I was able to get this video during part of the presentation.  In it you can see Luisa with her letter.

 

After the presentation and singing we broke up into child groups and I was able to go on family visit with a member of our group, Susan, who sponsored a little girl from this project named Reyna.  Reyna's mother and sisters were at the house when we arrived so we gave them a bit of privacy to visit after touring the home.  The house was not overly small as many in the area but each room entered into the courtyard area instead of being connected to each other which was a bit odd to me.  As soon as the neighbors learned that we were there people seemed to come out of the woodwork to see what we were doing.  Stray dogs also seemed to show up in droves.  One of the neighbors brought all of her children with her including an adorable little boy age 4 or 5.  He apparently was registered at the project but did not yet have a sponsor.  I didn't dare even take a picture of him as he is exactly what I usually look for in a sponsor child and I didn't need to be adding to my group.  At the end of the group visit I was able to take a photo of Susan with the family, all of whom were very shy but cried when we left.

Susan with her sponsor child Reyna(in the blue shirt)