Tour of Cochabamba on Sat. 1.16.10

Paseo de Cochabamba: On Saturday I went on a tour of Cochabamba with others at the language institute here and it was good to get a little more orientation. The pictures start with our first stop at a plaza. Keep in mind we saw some really nice parts of the city – there’s a LOT of poverty here but visiting some of those places will come in a couple weeks.


 
 
 
 

After we went to a couple plazas including one where the cathedral is, we went up to the Cristo de la Concordia, the big statue of Christ. It is on top of a mountain and overlooks the valley. It was beautiful but my body just doesn’t like being so high. One day maybe.

Afterwards we went to this beautiful place to eat lunch and relax for the afternoon. The restaurant/place of refuge is called Tolavi and is in Tiquipaya, just 20 min. east of where I’m living. Can you believe the gardens and the beautiful buildings??? The guy who started it used to work at the institute.





Afterwards, we came back to the language institute and I took some pictures around the campus, also very beautiful. I feel like I’m somewhere else when I’m here because they take such good care of the grounds and make it a very comfortable peaceful place. For more pictures, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/nora.pfeiffer

A couple other thoughts to share: for my host family, Saturday afternoons are the big extended family lunch gatherings after they get back from church (they’re Adventists). It’s a wonderful meal and this upcoming Sunday we’re going out to Anita’s brother’s place.

So, tell me, when was the last time you went out on a Friday night and only spent $7? A group of us went to the movie theater and out to eat afterwards plus 2 taxi rides and it all cost me $7. I of course will not be doing this every day, but not too shabby when the occasion does arise. I learned how to play “chaco” – a common game played in Bolivia, generally while consuming beverages but not always the case, very much like yahtzee. When we crossed over the “river” to go to dinner, there were lots and lots of soap suds in at the points where it dropped maybe a foot or so…don’t see that every day either.

Our friend here, Iggy a Franciscan priest, told us on Sunday that he got to do something pretty exciting that morning. After months of planning he went out to the country to bless the plots of 32 families who will build their homes in a coordinated project of Habitat for Humanity, San Anthony OFM Missionary Province of Bolivia and Saint Vincent De Paul Foundation. They are all families with no land or house. They will build their houses into homes together over the next months. It has taken them over two years to get the whole project in order to begin. The way Iggy described the absolute joy in these families to see where they’d have a place of their own that wouldn’t be taken away because someone else claims to own the land or they can’t come up with enough money for rent…he said it was incredible.