First days in Bolivia...

Saludos de Santa Cruz, BOLIVIA!
A relaxing Sunday afternoon gives us a chance to update our blog. It has been quite a whirlwind of a week—we arrived here in Santa Cruz on Wednesday morning after a night flight from Miami. We landed first in La Paz, Bolivia and glimpsed the snow capped Andes mountains before flying another hour or so to Santa Cruz. It was great to see some familiar faces waiting for us at the airport. Lizette Miranda and Cesar Flores are the MCC reps (directors) here and we’ve enjoyed catching up with them and seeing how much their kids have grown.

We are currently staying in a house about a ten minute walk from the MCC office. After some time to rest, our days have been full of orientation activities. Here is a sampling—learning to ride the “micros”—mini buses around the city; meeting and greeting the large MCC staff—both support staff, administration and other international volunteers; studying the map of Santa Cruz trying to get our bearings and learning about the different neighborhoods where we might be able to live; getting very sandy digging and building in the sandbox in the middle of the green and spacious MCC office compound (that would be Jesse!); tasting salteñas--a traditional Bolivian empanada-like treat filled with chicken, vegetables, and a sauce that can be quite messy to eat; following Doña Raquel around the local markets learning about where to buy fresh pineapples, toothpaste, birthday party supplies, and almost anything imaginable; learning about the political and geographic divisions in the country and for that matter, the challenges and changes underway in the MCC Bolivia program; the list could go on.

While we are in these orientation activities, Nathan, Maria and Jesse have been spending time with Juana, a veteran child care worker for MCC Bolivia. She is warm and caring and has connected well with the kids despite the language barrier. I think she is also winning them over with candy and popsicles, which wins her big points with our kids. We are very grateful that the first few days have gone well in that regard. I suspect this transition may be harder for me than for them and I do look forward to being more part time after our orientation is over.

Things we are pondering--- where to live and how to balance a reasonable commute to the MCC office (close to downtown) with a neighborhood that matches MCC’s style of living/working; how we can best enter into our roles here being sensitive to the large amount of change and restructuring that the MCCers have experienced in the past year; and finally we are hoping to make some progress on finding a school for Nathan. So we will attempt to relax and have faith that things will slowly fall into place.

Thanks for reading! We are grateful for your thoughts and prayers! Below are some picures of the house we're living in, and the central plaza in downtown Santa Cruz.
~Laurie





Also, here's a little video to show you around our kitchen: