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Published: December 14th 2011
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At the disgusting hour of 7am, David (Pablo´s mate) and I turned up in the city centre to meet one of his friends, Juan (who used to volunteer at the orphanage) and two French girls who are living in La Paz. The guys like to visit the kids every couple of weeks and take them stuff, and today it was blankets and toothpaste. We got into a mini-bus taxi (possibly the most environmentally unfriendly vehicle on the planet), and headed for a small village by Lake Titicaca. There the guys were immediately swamped by older kids who were running a restaurant on the lake to learn skills. In the restaurant for lunch, I was assured that the fish soup was amazing, so obligingly ordered it for a starter. After realising that I was the only person picking the vegetables out of a sloppy pile of fish intestines and bones, I happily found that the main fishy course was amazing.
We enjoyed a post-lunch siesta in a friend´s house, with the windows open enough to hear some men playing music outside, before walking to the top of a hill to see an amazing view of the lake and surrounding subsistence farming
villages. I walked back down with one of the French girls, having possibly the most ridiculous conversation of my life. Neither of us spoke much Spanish, but this was the best we had as I realised that my new minimal Spanish has replaced any French I learned in school. I couldn´t even remember "merci"!
Next, it was time to see the kids. The French and Swiss funded project operates in 11 poor communities throughout Bolivia.
Voix Libres gives the kids an alternative to the mines, fields, garbage dumps and streets. They receive training and education, and direct their own projects (´micro-enterprises´ such as the restaurant that we ate in).
The guys were greeted by 34 children climbing all over them. The sweetest little girl came straight up to me, arms outstretched. She told me that her name was Natalie and that she was three, and I couldn´t help but immediately wonder what could have happened that she´d ended up there so young. The guys doled out the blankets and toothpaste; and I can safely say I´ve never seen under 12s so excited about Colgate! To undo the good work, we´d brought lots of sweets and treats which were handed round
on plastic plates. Little Natalie went round trying to give all of hers to the others! After I chatted a bit to the ladies who worked there (actual saints), we all headed out to play football in the sunset, surrounded by local people fetching water and tending to crops. In India, I couldn´t help but notice that every subsistence farming village had a cricket pitch full of happy faces playing every night before the sun went down; with families and friends standing around chatting and laughing. In South America, every village has a football pitch filled with the same happy faces; they´re mad for it here!
The restaurant is just one example of how the project gives responsibility to the kids. It originated in Potosi, a poor mining area in the south of Bolivia. Titicaca is heaven in comparison. In Potosi, the schemes aim to reduce child labour in the mines. To give the project the widest reach possible, each child who has the chance to leave the mines must help another child to go to school and receive a
scholarship. The kids themselves identify the poorest families in their neighborhood, organize meetings with them and inform them about
the micro-credit program ($30; enough to leave a miserable job and initiate an independent activity in trade or handicrafts. Then when the loan is reimbursed they can receive a larger one). On leaving and gaining a diploma, the older children are asked to work in for their community for five years where possible.
If you want to be Christmas spirited, sponsor another child by making a donation of your choice
here (bottom left).
After chatting with a lot of the older kids who are about to leave for the big, wide, unsupported world, and the boys prised themselves away from their friends; we all headed back to where we´d set up camp, where we met two more Bolivian guys and two more Bolivian girls. A campfire was lit, beer was bought, a coca infused alcoholic hot drink was made and we all chatted and played music until it got too cold. A bus had been arranged to stop for me on the roadside in the morning. Tired, hungover and looking like an absolute tramp, I re-entered the tourist world and got on a luxury bus to Cocacobana, crossing the beautiful lake on a boat. I checked into the nearest hostel
to the bus station before falling asleep for a few hours and waking up wondering whether to head to the famed Isla del Sol that day or the next. Looking in my diary to see how many days I had to play with, I realised that I needed to be in Cusco to check in for the Inca Trail the next day! After promptly booking a bus, I had just enough time to eat a strange, cold interpretation of a vegetable lasagna before crossing the pretty border to Peru.
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