HOL-AR . Que tal…estamas bien, just to throw a few of our many Spanish phrases out there.
Monday, we got the privilege to spend some time with local school children, playing stuck in the mud amongst other games and they all seemed to enjoy it a lot. then we learnt about “full shroom” and “half shroom” haircuts – basically the equivalent of a pudding bowl, whilst watching the “devils miner” – a film about the mines which were going to next week in Potosi. They explained how important it was to worship the TITO……a scary looking devil that they give cigarettes to in order to keep them from danger in the mines. Later that night Alice and Nico ended up building their own version consisting of flip flops and Pringles…. oh dear.
Tuesday was foetus day. We visited a grimy witches market…..Mette was not keen on the toucan beaks and dead owls being a vegetarian. This was followed by a scavenger hunt in the evening which involved doing salsa with locals. Everyone got keen on the fancy dress, especially the los banditos and Harry’s potheads (team names), which caused a few turned heads, particularly when a team member … ALEXXXX was caught breaking the rules by being alone, and three bizarrely dressed gringos ran down the street to capture evidence. Sarah imposed what has probably been the best game so far, everyone was given a person, place and object and in order to “kill” your person you must give them this object in the place. Boys being boys, we had to remove some of the objects that were suggested i.e. head. very funny. alex for example had to give bash a cheeky kiss at the dinner table. Anyone that was sad to be “killed”, turned their sorrows to feliz horra at florine. The next day we were split into groups and had to buy, prepare and cook the food for a traditional Bolivan dish of meat and chips – the group designated to potato peeling enjoyed working on 80kg.
After lessons the next day we went to a beer factory- sampled some coffee flavoured beer and stood in a freezing fridge. Completely unrelated to this vist..ahem…we all dropped like flies later in the afternoon, and left the football team for the match later that night rather depleted. A major loss for the girls was the shchumeister, football champion. As a surprise we were given shirts with our recently gained nicknames on the backs, some of the highlights include Alice – “el ratona” i.e mouse, and also Tyler – “the candycane”. The girls were previously not very enthusiastic during morning practice, but actually got really into the football match against the teachers, and we drew (even though Celina actually scored the teachers goal). The boys as always were extremely competitive, and there was much discrepancy over goals and many fowls that so much so, the next day at the professional football game, the boys decided they were qualified to play in the Bolivian league!