First visit to the group home

Well it's been a while since my last update so I will have to decide the most important things to write about.

The biggest thing that happened was on Saturday I visited a group home in El Alto for the first time.

The home is called Munasim Kullakita. It's one of the main places where we will be filming over the next couple months so we went to meet the girls and do a sort of introduction to what we will be doing. We went with Yasenia, the young theater teacher who will run the classes. It was pretty incredible to be there. It was also intensely sad. It made my heart hurt in a deep way that I can't even begin to explain. The girls were all so young, so full of life, so beautiful. But they have been through so much. More than I can even imagine. They are between 13 and 19 years old, the majority around 16 or 17. There are 16 girls living in the house right now and of those five have babies. Almost all of them have lived on the streets of El Alto for some amount of time and have been abused, addicted to drugs and alcohol, and many have worked as underage prostitutes.

When we first got there the girls were just coming back from a group outing. They ran up to us (some with their babies on their backs) and greeted us in typical Bolivian fashion, a cheek-to-cheek kiss. They introduced themselves and introduced their children, asked who I was, what I was doing, what that weird thing I was holding was (it was a boom pole and microphone). I immediately felt welcomed to the home, something I was definitely not expecting.

We went inside and talked for a while. Yasenia had them go around and introduce themselves and she talked to them about the theater classes and the plan for the program.

Yasenia. This young woman is absolutely inspiring. She is only 22 years old but absolutely commands the room. She is from El Alto and has been through her share of troubles but now works for Teatro Trono doing theater classes like ours and also working with the audio visual section of the group to teach video classes and help kids in different communities make documentaries. She is so wonderful with the girls and has an intelligence and a confidence much greater than her years. I was pretty amazed to watch her interact with the girls. We are lucky to have her helping us and as a character in our film.

Anyway, they were all pretty excited about the theater classes. One of the biggest reasons they wanted to participate was to help them forget. Forget all the horrible things that have happened to them.

Afterwards, we gave them some juice and mingled and talked a little bit. One of the girls knits wristwarmers (They're gloves with no fingers. Maybe they're called wristwarmers.). I asked if I could see them and told her I really liked them. They're quite well made, I was very impressed. She offered to make me a pair and then asked me what color I wanted. We settled on blue and white. She was so excited and happy that I actually wanted a pair of them. She wanted to make sure they were ready for the next time I visited which is not for a few weeks because I'm traveling. Her face fell a little when I told her that. These girls want affection, want affirmation, want love so badly. You can see it in their eyes when they look at you.

I asked her how long it takes her to make a pair of them. She told me she can make 3 pairs in a day, if she does it all day long. Then she told me sometimes she does. You see, she needs something to keep her hands and mind busy. When she doesn't have that, she remembers the horrible things her uncle and her father and other men did to her. And she gets sad, starts to cry. So she knits. And she's doing better.

When you meet a group of people, sometimes you really feel a connection with one of them right away. I felt that with this girl. I wanted to give her a hug, to help her in some way. But right now, there's nothing I can do. Hopefully I will see her again in a few weeks. And hopefully she will enjoy the theater classes, hopefully they will help her work through some of her past, be a sort of therapy for her. That's really all I can hope for right now.

And then a complete change in people, place, feelings.

That night I went out with my friend from Cochabamba who was visiting for the weekend. She likes gringos so we went to this crazy party hostel in La Paz. Sometimes I have trouble with this sudden turn; going from a place like the group home to a party hostel. This place was absolutely crazy. Absolutely full of men from all over the world with very few women. So, you know what that means. It doesn't matter what you look like, dress like, smell like... the men will swarm. It was overwhelming. Kinda neat to meet people from Brazil, Spain, Australia, the USA, England, and tons of other places. But when they started removing their clothing and dancing on the bar I was ready to head out.


I've been a little sick since the weekend. I have a cold and had an upset stomach (okay fine I admit it I ate some street food when I was drunk and I can probably pretty safely blame that). But I'm starting to feel better.

AND

I'm traveling for 2 weeks starting tomorrow! My friend from Northwestern came to Bolivia today. Tomorrow we leave for Copacabana, then head to Cusco to climb Macchu Pichu, then we're going to Salar de Uyuni, the biggest salt flats in the world. So that's all very exciting and I'm psyched for the trip.

So that's it!

They Say a Picture is Worth A Thousand Words...

...unfortunately today I did not bring my camera.


Today, January 6, was Reyes Magos. I am not Catholic and this whole idea was completely new to me. The first sign of the holiday I saw was when I was rushing back home from the gym at 9:08 to shower and get ready for my Spanish class at 9:30. I was haphazardly speed walking down the street, avoiding pedestrians, broken sidewalk, puddles, and minibuses, when I saw a small old woman carrying a little cradle with a fancy looking doll inside. (Please excuse my ignorance in these religious matters.) "That's funny," I thought. "I'm late!" I thought.

After my Spanish class I met up with my friend (yes, I have a friend) and we ate some salteñas before heading to the San Francisco Museum which happens to also be the San Francisco Church. We took a tour of the museum which was cool but pretty much your standard tour of an old monastery/church. (I also realized that I need to brush up on my Bolivian history. Does anyone have an old Bolivian history textbook?) One of the cool things was that since it was built on a hill, there is a garden in the middle of the second floor, the top of the hill. Then we went up to the bell tower and saw a really incredible view of the city. We were by no means in one of the highest buildings in the city but something about the silhouetted bells, the slanted red roof, and the stone walls with the city in the background made it all pretty amazing.

Anyway, back to Reyes Magos. The tradition here is that you bring your baby Jesus to church and pray. So people buy these very fancy looking baby Jesuses (according to to spell-check Jesuses is not a word so what's the plural of Jesus?) and little clothes and shoes and baskets and hats and blankets and all kinds of accessories and carry them very delicately through the streets to church. We were at the San Francisco Cathedral during Mass so the whole plaza surrounding it was full of waves of people carrying these baskets. And the streets nearby were lined with vendors selling these dolls and clothes and shoes; all different colors, different sizes... it was really incredible.

Next to the Cathedral is a street called Sagarnaga. It's the Witch Market, the part of La Paz where they sell the sacramental and religious items (such as dried llama fetuses and all sorts of ceremonial things that you burn like fake money, miniature food, and other symbolic items) as well as the touristy hats and bags and scarves that you have all seen before. Today, the street was overflowing with people selling the baby Jesuses as well as Indigenous shamans performing ceremonies, people burning incense and money and coca leaves... the smell and the smoke and the noise and the colors and the crowd was overwhelming and really amazing. The mix of the Catholic religion and the Indigenous traditions never fails to fascinate me.


And now some important important points from the past week where I did not post anything:

Today I also went to my friend's parents' house for lunch. It was in a place pretty far out in the Zona Sur, the southern part of La Paz. It was very nice of them to invite me and make me a nice (vegetarian) lunch. It was quiet there, away from the noise and the smog. It was a nice change.

People here are generally really really warm and welcoming and friendly. This is not only true about Tupac's family and friends and my direct contacts, but about many people I've met. They are quick to invite you for lunch (see above) and really try to help you out. I contacted a few friends of friends in order to meet people here and they are always very willing to talk to me and meet up, take me around the city. Much more so than I've ever encountered in the United States.

Last Thursday I went to a market in El Alto. WAIT I have a picture of the view from this one.

It was crazy. You can buy anything there. Clothes, sleeping bags, toys, books, pots and pans, food, plants, chickens, puppies, car parts, cameras, DVDs... I could go on. It's a maze of streets lined with tents where people are selling things. There was so much to see. I'll probably be back.

Pizza in La Paz: surprisingly awesome. 
Chinese food in La Paz: maybe skip it.

Last night I saw Hunger Games: Catching Fire (in Spanish it’s called Juegos de Hambre: En Llamas someone explain that one to me) for the second time, dubbed in Spanish, and it was still awesome. 

Speaking of which, I want to go watch a movie so I'm going to stop blogging now. 


Oh! New Years Update!
1. They really did dance all night long.
2. There was a couch.
3. When I woke up it was light out and they were still dancing.