A Word Concerning Donations and a Visa Update.

Hola!

As most of you know, we came to MAP Bolivia as volunteers.  While MAP has provided us with housing and a few house-related amenities, we cover every other living expense ourselves. When deciding to come here, we had faith that God would provide us supporters both spiritually and financially, and there is no doubt to us that God has provided.  We feel the prayers coming in from the US and around the world daily. We believe our time here has been blessed from said prayers. We also have had our prayers answered through the continual financial support of our home church, West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship (WPMF).  Their initial support for our time here is a reminder to us how God provides and continually will provide as we serve those in Bolivia and beyond. We are incredibly thankful for those who have already supported us; and since many have asked how to support us we would like to share with you how you can…

Our church, WPMF, has set up a fund for us so that anyone can donate to our time in Bolivia. Anyone who wants to donate can write a check out to West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship with BOLIVIA FUND written on the memo line (NOT our names).

Then mail the check to:

West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship

Calvary Center

4740 Baltimore Avenue

Philadelphia, PA 19143

Having a fund through them ensures that we will receive every donation and allows every donation to be tax deductible.  Your donations will be used to provide us with our food and daily expenses as we work with MAP Bolivia. Donations will also be used to help provide the school with recreation and classroom materials that are lacking. Let us know if you have any questions and once again, thank you for all the support! Our time here would not be possible without your continued spiritual and financial support.

We would also like to give you a quick update about our visas.  Unfortunately, our first attempt at receiving longer visas was unsuccessful. Right before our arrival to Bolivia, the laws changed concerning foreign workers and extended stay visas.  Under the new laws, any organization desiring foreign workers needs to complete an application process and receive government clearance. While this is bad news, MAP Bolivia now has this information and has gained clarity regarding what they and we need to do. We are unsure about what this means regarding our stay in Bolivia, but we are working with MAP Bolivia in this process. We believe God will provide for us in this matter, and now need to be patient and wait for this new application process to run its course over the next couple of months.  We appreciate your prayers specifically regarding our visas and will keep you updated.

On a lighter note, we took a video of our house for you all, BUT the Internet is not fast enough to upload it. So, we are going to take some pics & post them soon! 

Peace, Daniel

Please say a prayer for our VISAS!!!

Whoa two posts in one day. Crazy! Just want to quickly ask you all to be praying for us and our visas. One of the Directors of MAP Bolivia, Stella Luz, is going to the immigration office in La Paz tomorrow. She will be applying on our behalf for visas that will allow us to stay here longer than three months. This is incredibly important since we hope to stay until the Spring. It's hard to explain, but suffice it to say immigration laws here are not always clear and for this reason, we have no clue if we will be accepted or denied.... so PLEASE SAY A PRAYER FOR US, OUR VISAS, & STELLA LUZ TOMORROW! Thanks!

P.S.-Check out the post below for the good, the bad, & the whaaat!? of Bolivia. AND stay tuned for a video SOON! :)

The Good, The Bad, & The Whaaaaaat!?

With today marking the start of our third official week in Bolivia we are finally starting to feel adjusted. We thought it’d be helpful to share a little more about our life here so I made three categories: The Good, The Bad, & The Whaaaaaat!?. 

The Good

TIME- We have had plenty of time to dedicate to getting organized, getting adjusted and learning what it is like to live in Bolivia and to be married. We are grateful to not have been thrown right into a ton of work.

THE KIDS- Dan loves playing with the kids. We see them every day since the school is right across the street. Dan participated in his first soccer game this past week. Also, he has been helping the kids with their garden. 

OUR HOUSE & DOMESTIC LIFE- Our house is finally organized.  We have groceries and are learning how to cook “Bolivian” or at least with Bolivian ingredients. 

FRESH PRODUCE- Speaking of food, every Saturday we go to a local market to buy fresh veggies, fruit, cheese, and flowers. It is AWESOME! Our lesson from our first visit to the market was if the fruit is really cheap that is because it is about to rot! Lol!

HOT WATER- Our shower has hot water and for this, I am grateful. It comes out through a device called a widow-maker and is a little temperamental, but hot none the less. 

CHURCH- This Sunday we attended church in Cochabamba & received a warm welcome. It was a Methodist church someone recommended to us. We tried to go our first Sunday here, but there were no taxis because it was election day. A whole other story… 

ALEJANDRO- Dan & I both are taking Spanish classes with a private tutor named Alejandro. He is an older gentleman who is trained as a linguist. Alejandro is an amazing teacher, but very challenging and sometimes he makes our heads hurt. He is awesome though and definitely a PRO. 

SOY!- Sometimes it’s the small things…. Being lactose intolerant I was dreading going without soy milk for months. Lucky for me, one of Bolivia’s main crops is SOY BEANS! So, soy milk is in abundance & really cheap! YAY!!! :)

 

The Bad

READY TO ?- We have been observing, meeting people, attending meetings, having conversations & studying Spanish. It has been good, but we are antsy to do more especially when everyone else is doing so much. I, especially, have been anxious about this. 

SOY OIL- While having an plenty of soy is great for some things, cooking with soy OIL is not so great… :( But we have to use it since it is the only affordable cooking oil. 

BUGS!!!- Every day is a bug massacre. Sometimes it feels like we are camping. We have screens on our windows, but somehow they just get in. 

CRYING BABIES- We live right next door to a day care. It’s part of the school and is for young kids and babies not old enough for Pre-K or Kindergarten. The kids are very cute, but there is almost always one or two that are crying. It’s what we wake up to and what we hear every day. Also, sometimes they run into our house when we aren’t looking and grab random things. 

DAILY LIFE- Washing clothes by hand, drying them in the sun. Cooking with gas (we have to turn on the gas tank and light a match), no microwave! Or George Foreman. Having to boil all of our water. All of these little things make things that would take minutes in the States take way, way longer. 

LONELINESS- Having been here only two weeks we have yet to really become friends with anyone which makes our down time here pretty boring. With the language barrier and everyone being so busy it’s hard to make friends, but we are trying! This is definitely something you can pray about for us. 

 

The Whaaaaaat!?

TAXI-TRUFIS– That is the name for the main way of transportation here. They are small cars or mini-vans that only take one route. Luckily, we have our one route down, but we have yet to explore much beyond that. We have been wondering if there is a map or something of the taxis & their routes…? But we are not holding our breaths. 

GARBAGE TRUCK- It comes around once a week with a loud bell. Now, this isn’t door to door service. The truck comes up the main drag (approx. 150 feet from the entrance to our compound) and you have to RUN out to the truck with your garbage. Fortunately, we have already learned that it doesn’t always come at the same time…. Last week Dan heard the bell and took off with our trash, but the truck was long gone so poor Dan had to chase the garbage truck with garbage in hand for three blocks! 

UMBRELLAS- Something I find amusing is that women use umbrellas here not for rain (it hasn’t rained for 6+ months), but to shield themselves from the sun. I think I need to buy one because you know if Bolivians are concerned with sunburn I should be!

NO CAMBIO (CHANGE)!- I shouldn’t be surprised about this since it was the same in Guatemala, but here no one ever has change! For example, the other day this guy tried to pay a taxi-trufi with 10 Bolivianos (a little less than $1.50) and the driver was so annoyed. He said he didn’t have change & ended up having to pull over to find enough “cambio”. LOL! This is sometimes a problem for us since we get our money out of ATMs and it usually comes out in 100 or 200 Boliviano bills. 

To close, I want to recognize that life here isn’t as black and white as good and bad categories. There is good mixed into the bad and vice versa, but I simply wanted to tell you a bit more about life here in an easy to read manner. Thanks for caring about us & our adventures here in Bolivia. Please keep praying for us & our work here. Also, feel free to comment below or to email us. We'd love to hear from you! ;)

-Rachel

Our time at the escuela.

I want to spend some time to talk about the school (Comunidad Educativa Para la Vida), as much of our early time in Chilimara for us was spent at the school observing and working with the children at the school.  The school in Chilimarca is the only one in the town that provides schooling all day. Schooling can be hard to come by for the impoverished Quechua children, and one could say they government has no problem with this.  To give some background, the indigenous Quechua are generally seen as the working class of Bolivia. They seemingly have no real place in the city, and their purpose is to work in the farmlands and any other more menial jobs, according to those in power. I doubt these sentiments would be expressed verbally, but the underlying tones of the country seem to represent this line of thought. Since formal education is not needed for these positions, there is no pressure on the government side to provide more adequate education. This is how at least I understand it.

This is why this school is so important. It goes up to 6^th grade and has nearly 200 children if you include the pre-K and daycare children. The children come from Chilimarca and the surrounding communities.

What is unique about this school lies in its teaching techniques and philosophy.  Teaching responsibility to their students is incredibly important. The students are taught to those younger than them (not only the older 5^th and 6^th graders, I’ve seen 2^nd graders helping with the kindergartners). All the students at some point in their stay here learn about gardening and farming through working in their large garden.  They are also given other responsibilities each given day. The intention behind this is to give the youth a sense of purpose from a very young age. Teaching formal education like reading, writing, and math here is important and has its place here, but teaching practical living is just as important: how to be sustainable in your community, to be responsible, techniques to be healthy in living situations that can be challenging to do so.  Here the children not only gain an education, they learn how to live better and smarter amidst their community. They are taught the importance of using their beautiful brain God has given them by being creative and learning to use what was once useless objects like trash (newspapers, bottles, etc) and turning them into things used in the home (bowls, decoration, etc) Much of the practical learning is hands on, the teachers are not simply teaching the children, but interacting and working with them.

This ties in with the schools philosophy that children are the most important part of a healthy community.  Communities without education will continue to fall into the cracks of a society that marginalizes those who are thought of as having no power. The power to change, to be healthy, to fight through violence and oppression, to be sustainable agriculturally and economically, all stem from ones education. Therefore, education creates power against marginalization better than anything else. While MAP International as a whole desires to focus on maintaining healthy communities through health clinics and promoters into the community, MAP Bolivia hopes to show the rest of the organization that health clinics, while necessary, are not fully adequate for a communities health.  They desire to show that the heath of a community must start at educating children. This is one of the reasons why we are here. We hope to write out documents for MAP Bolivia to MAP International explaining the importance of the current funding and future funding of this school.

Even though this post does not show it, this school is not perfect. It has its flaws like any other. But with this post we want to show that this school is necessary for this community, why it is necessary, and why it is important for us to be here and express its necessity.

We will write more about our first 1 1/2 weeks soon :)

Peace, Daniel

The pains of travel with the joys of arrival

Timing it out, we were in the traveling flux for around 33 hours give or take. Everything was smooth sailing until La Paz though. After a 7 hour flight from Miami and having barely eaten, we arrived exhausted and weak, not the combination you want to enter a city nearing 12,000 feet in elevation. It took us about 30 minutes or so 'til I could barely stand from being lightheaded. We found a cafe as soon as we could to drink the local remedy for elevation issues, coca tea.

Coca leaves  in Bolivia are commonly used for tea, which to me tastes similar to yerba mate, or a grassier tasting green tea. It is also used like chewing tobacco for the native Bolivians, normally the men I believe. Unfortunately, the misuse of coca leaves to make a concentrated paste which then can be used with other chemicals to make cocaine, is what coca is usually known for in the US. But coca in its natural leaf form is very good for you. Coca tea (mate de coca) helps digestion, fights against altitude sickness, and gives you a light calming boost of energy similar to green tea. It should be a common drink for us here.

So after drinking the tea, things were a little better, but only to an extent. Every time we attempted to walk around, or even walk up one flight of steps, we would be out of breath and need to sit down! We have been told that the Bolivian soccer team always wins at home because the other country teams can't handle the altitude. After 6-7 horrible hours in La Paz, I understand this much more. Eventually though, we took the short flight to Cochabamba and met our friends Brisa and Parker who took us to Chilimarca and the MAP headquarters.

After 12,000 feet, 7,500 feet elevation was nothing! We both felt much better. Brisa and Parker gave us a tour of the MAP compound, clinic, and school. My first impression of MAP was a little intimidating. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming, but at the same time everyone had something to do. It will be interesting seeing how we can get plugged into daily activities these first couple of weeks. Brisa, Parker, and Jose Miguel (the country representative for MAP-Bolivia) were on top of everything and very informative, but all the information was a good deal to take in. I wonder if it would of been better to receive a tour after a good nights sleep! I also cannot wait to get started with our Spanish tutor. It is really hard to fight the feeling of being discouraged and feeling useless when everyone around you is talking and you can barely understand them and it's difficult to respond. The more time I spend studying Spanish, I know the more this feeling will start to dissipate, hopefully.

Lastly, we have our own little house! It is a little nicer than what we expected. Many small things to get used to, like boiling all drinking water, but overall everything so far in Chilimarca is great! The people here are very friendly. It is a nice feeling to receive a hola or buenos dias everytime you walk by someone. While the language barrier can be discouraging at times, I am encouraged by all that is happening here and how much it seems everyone is happy for us to be here.


We look forward to giving you a more information about working and participating here after we become more situated. Thanks everyone for your prayers and support.

Peace, Daniel

And we're on our way!!!

It's been a whirlwind week of moving out of Philly, putting our things in storage, and simultaneously packing for Bolivia. I definitely DO NOT recommend moving and packing all at the same time, but for us, it really couldn't be avoided. It was a crazy week for sure. And in true Dan & Rach style we were up very very late last night (past 2 am! yikes!). But, it is all good because WE ARE ON OUR WAY! :)

This morning we flew out of JFK airport where Dan's family sent us off with hugs and prayers. After our final goodbyes we headed to Washington D.C. which is where we are now. Next, we will take a 4:30 pm flight to Miami, Florida. Then, tonight (Sunday) at 10:30 pm we fly out of Miami and to La Paz, Bolivia. We arrive very early tomorrow morning (Monday) around 5:30 am. Then, we will spend many hours in the airport until we take a short flight from La Paz, Bolivia to Cochabamba, Bolivia around 2:00 pm. Lots of traveling! I know for my friends in Africa & Asia this long trip is normal, but for me (who is used to traveling to Central America) it's A LOT!

Right now, I am feeling all sorts of emotions. Excitement. Nervousness. Disbelief. It's kind of unreal to see something that we have spent so much time preparing for actually being realized. It's an experience that is hard to describe.

Since this most likely will be our last post before our arrival I want to share with you how you can be praying for us. First though, I want to tell you how thankful we are for all of the wonderful people in our lives supporting, loving, and encouraging us. Thank you for caring so much about us & our passions!
So how can you be praying?

• Health- I have been fighting a cold the last couple of days & am still feeling under the weather. Please pray that I feel better quickly! For good health for us both and calm stomachs.
• Safe Travel- Everything from bags not being overweight & arriving safely in Bolivia to our flights going smoothly.
• Peace- We are definitely feeling a mix of emotions as this is a new thing for us. Please pray that we can take comfort in each other & the Lord. And that we can just enjoy the experience! :)

Other concerns include:
Altitude- We are flying into La Paz which has an altitude of 12,000 feet. Please pray we are able to adjust easily! This is something I am concerned about. Cochabamba is high too, but not as high. Oftentimes, people get altitude sickness so please pray that we adjust quickly.
Visas- As we have mentioned briefly, we have some concerns about our visas. Right now, we plan to enter on a tourist visa and then apply for a long-term visa. Please pray for us as we start this process. We will keep you posted.

Thank you so much! Hugs to you all! ;)

We will post as soon as we are able to let you know we arrived safely!


-Rachel