Day 5

After a good nights rest we did our personal devotions and ate breakfast with the rest of the team. At around 9:00 am we recived great news. The Bakers (who are some friends) just had two new baby boys.
At around 10:00am we got on two taxies and headed to the House of Hope, or Casa Esperanza, which is located in El Alto. El Alto is one of the poorest and most dangerous places in Bolivia. After an hour of driving and an hour trying to find the place we were finally greeted at the door and taken to the lunch area. The House of Hope is a mission organization from the Word Made Flesh and helps women in El Alto who work as prostitutes. In the lunch area we were greeted by a women named Cara who told us about what they do. At the home they have 3 different parts for the women that are on the streets. Step 1 - Get the women off the streets. Step 2 - have the women get comfortable with the house and finally, step 3 - to give these women homes and learn to do other jobs. Next Cara gave us a tour of the place. We went upstairs to the devotions room and the office. Then we went to the gym where they hold most of their activities and meetings. After that we went to lowest floor which Cara called the ´dungeon.´ Someday this area will be a work place for the women to start making a different living. We then all went upstairs to the lunch area, prayed and went back to the Hotel Calacoto.
In the hotel we ate our lunches rested and went to the Kaya Center. This was only our second time there but already we´ve made a ton of friends. At the Kaya Center we have a variety of different classes but I think the fuse beads and the lego was the most popular. Me and Josh Lee were running the class in the beginning but then we needed more people and more activities so it ended up being a lego and fuse bead class. The other classes we taught were on electricity and the solar system. When classes were over we cleaned up while the Kaya kids played volleyball.
After the Kaya center we had some awesome times. All the boys and men from our group had our own little night out and all the girls and women had their own night out. I´m not sure about the girls, but the boys had such a great time at a nearby restaurant called Charlie Papas which even had a little play area where me and Nathan Yee had a dance off.
Then we all went back to the Hotel and went to bed ready for another long day tomorrow.

- Ben Pu