I'm New in Town

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I successfully made it to my new town of La Paz. There are two capitals in Bolivia and La Paz is the governmental capital and has a population of 2 million people. La Paz is at the highest elevation for any capital in the world at almost 12,000 ft. The topography of the city puts San Fransisco to shame. The streets are extremely steep and narrow. But about 5 years ago they put in a cable car system which is a game changer for the citizens.

The city above La Paz is El Alto which is the 'poor' area of La Paz. The population is 1 million and looks very different than La Paz. The organization I am working with is in the outskirts of El Alto. While it takes me about an hour to get to it, they said it is not safe for me to stay in the El Alto area alone as a foreigner, especially in the evenings. So I make my commute between walking, cable cars, and two mini buses.

The organization I am working with is called Emilia Wojtyla Shelter. For the past 10 years it has been a shelter for abused women and children. At the end of the year the shelter is being forced to close due to some regulatory issues. Fortunately they already had a desire to change their mission to skills training for the women to give them the skills to support themselves and their children. Since this is similar work to what I was doing in Uganda I agreed to join them to help with this transition.

They have 4 local volunteers from the university of La Paz who are studying social work. Two of the volunteers speak quite good English so that is helpful. I also found a local translator who can join our meetings via video calls.

Update on the protests: they are not letting up in Santa Cruz. The city is completely shut down: roads, restaurants and businesses. So far the other cities have not joined in on the fight to any great degree. Santa Cruz is threatening to 'make them' join in. No one really knows what that means, so I am keeping an eye on it.

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