Sorata Sum Up: Day 29 (Oct 5)- Day 47 (Oct24)

My family:
Mom: Angelica
Dad: I don’t know his name because he works in the mines all week
Lurdes: 22 year-old sister who is awesome and my favorite in the family. She works a lot though so isn’t around so much unfortunately. She is a good dancer and gave the group and I a couple lessons.
Llovana: 19 year-old cousin. She is really nice but shy and spends a lot of time cooking and cleaning. I don’t really know much background on her.
Rosemary: 15 year-old sister. She is kind of quiet and I think she has a hearing disability. You have to talk really loud in order for her to hear you. She might have some other social issues because she stares a lot and is kind of odd. In all she is nice though.
Juan Carlos: 14 year old brother. He is obnoxious and very rude to his mom (I guess like all 14 year old boys). He yells a lot and is not that fun to be around. He is nice to me though and we arm wrestle every once and a while haha
Gina: 13 years old sister and I really don’t like her that much. She is very rude and always asks for gifts and doesn’t have a nice personality. I try to get along with her but it is hard to. She also always says my name… “Nataliaaa” over and over again and I can’t stand it. She also cheats in every game we play.
Jose: 9 year old brother. I like Jose and he is fun to play with but sometimes is hard to handle. He also yells A LOT in the morning and always wakes me up at 6:00am. I can’t stand that---they all yell to each other. He always wants to play cards but constantly cheats as well, which I cant stand.
In all I don’t really like my family but luckily I love my town.

Tutuacaja
Tutu is the town I live in and I love it. The town is slightly outside Sorata and is known as the “campo” or rural part. It is about a 20 min walk from the program house and 30 min from the main plaza of Sorata. Chris, Sam, Annie, Becky and I live there and the rest of the group lives in Soarata near the Plaza. What I love about Tutu is that all the kids are always out playing and the landscape is just gorgeous. I have a perfect view of Illampu and the other surrounding mountains. It is hard to describe but it is just so pretty. Almost every night or day we play in the cancha (soccer field). When the kids and I want to play in the cancha we say… “A LA CANCHA!” which means “to the field!” Everyday I came home from classes they would always say that to me. I ended up actually creating a after school “sports program” for the kids. Sorata and the schools there have more organized teams and activities so I thought I would organize our own in Tutu. I made t-shirts that say Tutuacaja Deportes on the front and on the back it says Bolivar (a popular Bolivian soccer team). Around 2:00 every day we would all gather in the cancha and play different games. I taught them some of my favorite but we would always end with soccer and snacks. We actually worked on skills and did different drills, which I was so siked about.

Independent Study Project/Working in the schools
For my ISP I decided to work in two different schools. I first worked in the local campo school in Tutu that had 101st-3rd graders. The second week I worked in a school in the city of Sorata and taught English to 20 7th-8th graders. It was SO much fun! I taught English to both ages but the older grades were fun because I taught them songs like Mary Had A Little Lamb and Twinkle Twinkle. It was also amazing to see the difference between the two schools. The school in Tutu was a lot more disorganized and to volunteer there all I had to do was walk in. In order to volunteer in the city school I had to talk to the principal and teachers and set up exact times a week before. Both schools were a great experience and I hope to volunteer in more schools in different towns. In addition to working in the school in Tutu I set up that after school program and made the t-shirts. Every day I had a great time playing with the kids and was so glad it worked out!

Spanish Classes
I loved my Spanish class! I was with Emily and Chris and had an awesome teacher named Chela. We met four hours each day but I never really got bored. We reviewed grammar but also just talked about different things. The four of us got really close and it was so sad saying by to Chela! I was really happy about my Spanish class and learned a lot.

Program House
The group spent a good amount of time in the program house when we weren’t with our families. We worked on different projects around the house and had group meetings here. Every once and a while we would have movie nights or other activities. IT is also a great place to just come and relax when I got sick of my family or work on things. I am going to miss the program house—it is so pretty!

Café Illampu
Café Illampu was only open during the first week we were here but the people in Tutu would always go and eat here on the way to classes. It had delicious fruit drinks and amazing bread. A Swiss man who was a previous baker owns it and my sister Lurdes worked there so I would always get free stuff, which was awesome. We loved going there and sad it closed for the season! One day there was also two circus clowns to perform for the kids. It was absolutely hilarious!

River/Cave
A big river runs down the side of Sorata and is just below the gorgeous mountain of Illampu. One day a couple of us hiked down the river and “swam” or dipped in. It was so pretty because Illampu was in the background and it was a gorgeous day. Another day Chris, his siblings and I went to the San Pedro cave. It is a huge cave that also has a crystal clear lake inside of it. The cave is 480m long and the lake is 400m long. It was awesome!

Aymara Ceremony
One afternoon the group got to experience another indigenous ceremony somewhat similar to the Quechua ceremony minus the sacrifice. It was really cool to see the difference between the two. I liked the concept of this ceremony better but it wasn’t as powerful I don’t think, maybe because it was miday. It was nice though because there was only one leader and he explained everything we were doing unlike the other leaders who just set everything up.

Food
I have been eating a lot of the same thing. My family isn’t that good at cooking and I usually have the same tasting thing every night whether it be soup, pasta or chicken. Every morning I usually have rice and eggs but sometimes they give me full out meals and there is no chance I can eat it. In those cases I usually tell them I will eat it for lunch,.