New bedrooms for the children of Colonia Ecologica

After not visiting Colonia Ecologica for a while due to the christmas holidays,we went back at the end of January and saw all the children again. This year 54 children registered with Colonia Ecologica, more than last year. They also have one more boy living with them. His name is Abad and he comes from living on the streets with his (very young) mother. He is well accepted in Colonia and seems to be very happy there.


The orphanage they are building is progressing very well and some of the children have already moved in. This doesn't mean the rooms are ready - not at all. They don't have electricity, no tiles or carpet on the floor, no doors and no windows. So effectively only the walls and the ceilings are done, and only 3 out of the 4 bedrooms are occupied with beds, one of them being Kiko and Carmen's. The total price of all the 1st floor doors and windows is going to be US$600.- They already have US$200.-. They also have to pay for the other half of the 1st floor walls which the architect has already built but told them to pay for it whenever they had the money. This will roughly be US$1000.-.


These bedrooms are on the 1st floor which is where most of the children will be sleeping. There are also going to be 3 bedrooms on the 3rd floor just under the roof but they need a lot to do before they are ready to use -in the first place the floorboards and also dividing walls with doors and windows.


So, it is going very well but there is still a lot to do. You can see the progress of the orphanage on the website of Charity Bolivia by clicking on the link: Building Progress and then on 'ORPHANAGE' at the top of the page.

Carnaval at Colonia Ecologica

Carnaval in Bolivia is over now, so hopefully we will not be getting wet anymore. You probably think: "Getting wet, what does that have to do with carnaval?" Let me explain. Carnaval in Bolivia involves a lot of dancing, drinking, streetcorsos, etc. - the normal things at carnaval. But in Bolivia there is more involved with carnaval, namely waterfights. These originated from when the Spanish first came here and tried to convert the indiginous people, baptising them with holy water. Throwing water balloons and spraying each other with foam seem to be the biggest things these days. Luckily it is summer in Bolivia at Carnaval!


When we visited Colonia Ecologica they were doing some games with water balloons (globos de agua). Because there are very small children, Kiko and Carmen take a lot of care so that the bigger kids don't just bomb the small ones with globos. They invented a game where the small ones have to hit the small ones (from a small distance) and the bigger ones have to try to hit the bigger ones (from a greater distance)-whereas in town, everybody hits everybody - and often as hard as they can. We joined in and luckily didn't get hit that much. Than Kiko started a big waterfight and we were soon soaked. Buckets of water got emptied on everybody. If that wasn't enough the children smeared mud all over us and everybody was soon covered in mud. Even Kiko and Carmen. After a wash in the stream we all changed in dry clothes and the last day of the carnaval weekend was over. The children really enjoyed themselves, as did we of course.


Unfortunately we won't be able to join the carnaval next year or maybe ever again. It is a really great experience and we will miss it a lot.