Day 3

(Top Left: A women selling clothes in El Alto, Top Right: The team walking down the street on a tour, Middle: Two of the children at Kaya, Bottom: Some of the kids at Kaya.)

The third day of our stay in Bolivia was the first time when we actually experienced a little of the poverty and what we would actually be doing for the week. In the morning we ate a quick breakfast and took a taxi into the outskirts of La Paz for a tour. Since our hotel was located in the middle of La Paz (the richer part), we hadn´t really experienced how poor the city really was. Dr. Huang led us around showing various buildings and people. The first place we stopped was a large Catholic Church. Outside there were many beggars and people just sitting around. Inside were detailed statues of saints with benches in front where several people kneeled praying to them. Afterwards we walked over to an alley known as “Witches Lane.” Along the sides of the street there were small stands with witches sitting next to them. They were selling things like different teas, “potions”, and small wooden idols. I didn´t think those were too bad until I saw the dried out baby llama fetuses that had been extracted from thier mother´s wombs before being born. Along with the witch stands there was a man fortuntelling to a woman. He used coca leaves and dropped them on a mat and told the future based on how they fell. As we continued our tour shoe shiners lined the sidewalks and other people selling things to make a living. Dr. Chi said that most of what they were selling were pirated goods off the black market. By about noon we decided to stop by a small coca museum which went through the history of coca leaves and use of cocaine. At first the drug was thought as a good anesthetic for surgery, and other useful things, but later became illegal and many were addicted. They would either inhale it or inject it into themselves for pleasure. Across the street from the mueseum was a small family owned restaurant where we ate lunch.

Our tour was over so we headed back to the hotel to rest, and at 4 o´clock went to the Kaya International school, the place that we would be helping at for the rest of the week. We walked through the rooms and met the various children and staff as they cleaned up from their daily activities. One of them, named Javier, had just been taken off of the streets several days ago and seemed to be having a great time. Once we had taken a group photo we returned to the hotel for dinner and daily devotionals.

-Nathan Yee