I forgot to mention in my last entry the massive massive fires I witnessed on the horizon in Santa Cruz. At the orientation camp at night, the Bolivian volunteers seemed generally unphased by the massive, walls of flame burning the large fields in the distance. The wind there is really strong too. We were told that farmers, instead of paying hired-hands to remove the remnants of their previous crops, set fire to their land to make way for the new ones... which produces a pretty cool-looking effect at midnight. Metal.

So anways. I´m still at work 4 times a week at the orphanage. In the mornings I teach basic english conjugation and vocabulary. It´s usually by request. As I draw/write a fruit or animal on the board, all the children yell it out in spansih. So it´s also an extremely loud spanish lesson for me. Usually Julio and I teach a group of boys but now and again we get a group of girls who have a trifling interest in learning a new language. I also help the teacher translate brief descriptions of dinosaurs for pictures she´s posted around the room.
In the afternoon I teach addition, subtraction and multiplication to Mario while Julio teaches handwriting to Benito. These one on one sessions are two and a half hours but usually end up being around 2 because of short attention spans. The orphanage doubles as a catholic school, so all the kids take part in prayer, readings and help with all the chores within the building. The other day we helped them remove dried kernels from corn. There was a ridiculous amount. The entire inner courtyard was filled with bags of the stuff.

That reminds me. All the houses in Camiri are all one level. They all have an inner courtyard and open doorways/screen-doors to all the adjacent rooms of the house. There are no seals to conserve heat because it´s warm enough all year around to wear regular clothing and be comfortable. And if it does actually go down to 11, everyone´s dressed for winter. I get asked if I´m cold a lot. I respond by saying I´m Canadian. I like to remind all the Bolivian volunteers that Canadian winter goes down to minus 35. The 9 bolivian volunteers will be coming with us to Canada in November by the way. If you haven´t heard about my program, we´ll be going to Perth, Ontario for volunteer work placements until February.

The only exercise I´ve gotten so far was a volleyball match in a raquetball court and playing soccer against a high school. Volleyball works for me because i´m relatively tall here in bolivia, but there´s no way I can keep up in soccer. No hands is a stupid rule.

Our group has had a few food problems over the past little while. A supervisor and 2 canadian volunteers had a stomach infection for a couple of days while one of those three also had salmonella. So that´s super fun. They were in the clinic for a bit but their fine now and running around. I had, what appeared to be the onset of, a stomach infection but it was just a light fever for a day and it passed.

I swam in the river again and figured out why it´s called rio de la muerte. The legend is that a woman was waiting for her husband to come back from the war on one of the bridges they have crossing the river. When her tears fell into the water, the river flooded and washed away anyone along the shore. And that´s why flash-floods kill 20 men (only) men each year... a spiteful widow who´s condemned my gender. I won´t be swimming during rain. It hardly rains here anyway.

I´ve been hanging out with Julio´s family a lot. They like to drink. Everyone´s been getting a kick out of the flashing LED turtle lights my Dad gave me to give as gifts. The bolivians use them as rave lights in their cars at night while blasting their music. I´m officially sick of top 20s and michael jackson. I desperately need my ipod. Need slipknot. Need killswitch. I was asked to translate beat it into spanish. madness.

My spanish has been improving dramatically. I have a good foundation for learning the language as I know french. The two are shockingly similar.

We´ve been getting to know another group of volunteers in the town as welll. There are four germans doing a similar exchange and they have their own place. Nico, Hannah, Ronja and whatserface. Hannah and Nico speak fluent English while the other two are just learning. We´ve gone out with them a couple of times. Nico is easily the most massive person in the entire town. 6´´ 4 is an unheard of height here.

So i´ve been enjoying the sun, the fresh fruit and the company. I´ll be heading to the city of Santa Cruz for a couple of days at midnight tonight for the anniversary.

If you guys have any questions let me know. More importantly tell me about yourselves and Canada.

hasta luego
Connor