Day 5

This morning the three of us went with Chi, Pato (the Kaya director), and Guisella (one of the Kaya psychologists) up to the Ceja in El Alto. The Ceja is basically the downtown area where there are a lot of shops and street vendors. We met up with Michael, a former street kid, and he took us around to show us where the kids usually sleep and also pointed out where some have died recently. We were told not to bring any bags or to put anything into our back pockets and to try to keep everything in our inside pockets if possible. Chi always stayed in the back to make sure we were safe.

At one point we saw a girl inhaling paint thinner which is their drug of choice because it´s cheaper than alcohol and keeps them warm and makes them ¨fly¨or get high easily. Michael and Guisella also talked to a boy, Christian, who followed us around the rest of our time up there and agreed to come off the streets and into one of the houses on Monday next week. Please pray that he does so.

We also ran into Emma, a medical studnet volunteer from the UK that had been here for several months already. She had treated a kid who had a stab wound in his neck, and while we were there this time she checked up on him. Our last stop was under an underpass where there was a mattress on the bare ground on which 10-15 kids would sleep surrounded by dogs who would guard them. We returned to the hotel via two mini-buses (one from El Alto to downtown La Paz, and the other from downtown to Calacoto).

That afternoon Jane taught one of the classes how to play ¨Mary Had a Little Lamb¨on the recorder. Some of the boys picked it up really quickly! Thanks, Peggy, for donating them. After the class, there was a birthday party for Vladimir, the youngest boy in the Center. He turned 6! There were balloons and goodie bags, and a small cake for him. Apparently one of the birthday traditions is that after the kid blows out the candle, they all chant, ¨Bite the cake¨and when they do, someone behind them pushes their face into the cake. This time Chi just picked the cake up and smooshed it into Vlad´s face. It was awesome. Then some of the boys made speeches to say goodbye to Emma and Anthony, who had been doing a 1 month rotation here are part of his 4th year at BU med school.

After all that we went up to a soccer field near Renacer House where the older boys were playing soccer against another school team. I´ve never been so invested in a soccer game before! The boys came from behind to win 6-5!

Lastly, we came back down and had dinner with Kristin at a Peruvian restaurant. Now that I had experienced a lot more, I had a lot of questions to ask her about the future of the program and how we could best support them when we returned to Boston.

Tomorrow is our last full day here in La Paz, so please pray that we could use it to its fullest. So far the plan is to interview Chi and Kristin and then maybe do some souvenir shopping before going to a Bolivian food festival to thank Juan Daniel for making us dinner on Tuesday night. Thanks for reading and praying for us! Love,

Joy