Aldeas SOS

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Ok, so lets go back a few weeks. I am writing from the mountains in Coroico, but I havent really had a chance to update until now. So apologises if it sounds vague, or incorrect, or exagerated (!). I met Lisa and Galen in La Paz, on around the 28th May I think, and in the morning we got the bus to Cochabamba. After going for what was promise to be, and perhaps was, the best pizza in Bolivia, we went to the agricultural school that they work with (called Aldeas SOS). Slightly ambivalent about cochabamba seen at night, I crashed out in one of the student rooms (after putting up my tent on the bed to make it feel more like home!) When I woke up, I felt slightly better. The school is quite incredible. It is run by a very charasmatic and dynamic man called Alberto. In the middle of houses and roads, it is a portion of countryside. There are animals, donkeys, horses, goats, guinea pigs (for selling and eating...I dont like guinea pigs so thats ok), everything is organic, the students have plots of land to plant trees and veg to practice, they cook with bio gas (made from cow poo), its pretty amazing. I wouldnt mind going to a school like that! We arrived on the day of their monthly prayers, so when I woke up i was taken down the the bottom of a field, and watched as they burnt coca leaves, alcohol and various sacrifices to pachamama, and said some small prayers for the month to come. Then we went to have a good organic lunch, and then lisa and galen taught a class on the projects that they had just been to, and what was coming next. What was coming next was a trip to two more projects with about 12 more students. The situation was that the students had writen proposals, stating what their village/homes needed, like water, a shower, a kitchen etc, and then four were chosen according to need and location. Whilst I was doing my Spanish course, Lisa, Galen and Tristan went to two villages north of La Paz. Now it was time for the next two. So, we collected all the materials (which included about 90 trees, toliets, tools, 12 students and one teacher!) and loaded everything onto a tiny bus for the 7 hour drive to the first location (slightly scary, we were told after...not sure if joking or not...that the driver had been seen adding shots to his tea when we stopped for dinner...eek, although not unusual in bolivia).

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