Marshmallows, Stones and Cement

The search for high speed internet that works with my laptop (where all our photos are) continues.  More boring text for now.  Pictures will come, some day.  Maybe tomorrow...

Sorata is the birthplace of Bolivian Quakerism.  In 1918 some Evangelical Quaker missionaries came here, to this mountain valley, to spread the good news in this entirely Catholic country.  They did a good job.  There are now more Quakers per capita in Bolivia than in any other country in the world.  Many of them still live in Sorata (though not as many as in the Mega Churches of La Paz and El Alto).  One of their projects is a small internado (boarding house) just a few blocks off the central square. 

We arrived at the internado Thursday night after checking in at our nearby hotel.  The plan was to hang out with the 18 young people who live there, along with Magaly (the director) and Eusebio (the dorm sponsor/facilities director/everything else).  There are many high school age students in this valley, but only one high school.  Some of the students are a six hour walk away, so it’s impractical for them to go to and from school each day.  Hence the boarding house.  Students stay here during the week and walk home on weekends. 

We were first struck by three signs in their small dining area.  One was a daily schedule.  They wake up a little earlier than we do at Scattergood, but otherwise it’s pretty similar.  Another sign was the list of crews: each student helps in the kitchen a couple times each week.  The third sign was a list of faltas graves (major rules) that looked quite a bit like our list of major rules.  One rule that seemed hard to enforce: “don’t fall in love with any other boarders.” 

We built a fire that night, and we thought we might like to go out and get some marshmallows to roast.  Neal, Magaly and I went from small corner store to small corner store looking for gomitas.  Eventually we found some, but they were of the tiny variety: one centimeter cubes.  What the heck?  We bought them, and as a joke I said that we should buy some toothpicks to roast them with.  Magaly thought that was a great idea, so we went ahead and got some toothpicks also.  The ensuing hilarity did a lot to break the awkwardness of the language barrier. 

The next day we came back to do some work.  The students were all at school, but Magaly and Eusebio had plans for us.  We had thought that we were going to do some planting at a nearby garden run by the school, just from ten to noon.  It turned out that they were no longer gardening, so the job was instead to fix a large section of the patio floor.  There were many cracks in the rock and concrete where water was getting in, a vicious cycle.  The fun part of the job came first: smashing up the existing bad area (Neal was our MVP here).  After that, we needed to wash the stones, mix concrete, replace the stones, and cement it all together.  This turned out to be quite a painstaking process (Annie was the best at the detail work).  We arrived early, a little after nine, and ended up working until nearly four (including a break for lunch).  There were moments of tiredness but at the end we could admire a job well done.