Featured Dispatch
Bolivia :: Helping street children in Cochabamba
Bill Goeres ('77 Agriculture) and Jenny (Brown) Goeres ('78 Elem. Ed.) volunteered for Amanacer, which provides a home and a new beginning for the abandoned, abused, and orphaned street children of Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Who we are: Bill Goeres ('77 Agriculture) and Jenny (Brown) Goeres ('78 Elem. Ed.). I had traveled to Cochabamba, Bolivia, previously as a translator for a dental group and to take photographs for painting. Bill has previously traveled to Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Russia for USAID doing dairy reproduction projects, but has wanted to volunteer in a situation where he could make his own agenda. Since I have good friends living and working in Cochabamba and he has heard me rave about the place and people so much we decided to go there. Four other people joined us – three from previous trips with the dental group and one for the first time.
What we are doing: Volunteering for Amanacer (http://amanecer-bolivia.org/), which provides a home and a new beginning for the abandoned, abused, and orphaned street children of Cochabamba, Bolivia. They have around 10 houses and schools. We have chosen to volunteer with the infants at Salomon Klein and have raised money to be donated there for purchase of milk, and to visit the young men at San Martin, where the dental group had donated two cows two years ago.
Impressions of the place and people: 8500 feet, mild climate, a million people, beautiful gardens, clear bright air and colors. Friendly relaxed beautiful people - described as a city of eternal spring that has a Mediterranean feel (I however, haven’t been to the Mediterranean yet so I’ll just have to take “their” word for it). Bill describes it as “Bangalore light” a lot of the same smells and feel, without the extremes of India.
Sat. March 15
We are having sunny beautiful weather here and the gardens everywhere are beautiful. We wake up in the morning to the sounds of trees full of green parrots and the sun rising behind the statue of Christ on the mountain out our window.
Saturday afternoon: Therese, Bill and I spent the afternoon with the babies at Salomon Klein. We worked out the logistics of buying the formula in Spanish—always a challenge—and toured the facilities, which had been scrubbed spotless for our visit. It was wonderful to see all of the nurses I worked with in the past. We spent about an hour and a half holding the tiniest babies. We put the little knitted hats that had been so generously knitted for them on their furry little heads and they were adorable. Therese scooped up the tiniest one. He looked like a newborn but was two months old. One of the babies who was blind loved Bill´s big hand on his chest and would laugh and smile whenever Bill was close. Bill ended up with a baby on one arm—looking like he was in heaven. They all gave him their biggest smiles.
The home is full beyond capacity. They have had ten new babies a day some days. Of the 190 orphanages in this city only one other takes babies. Although it is wonderful to hold and play with them it also rips out your heart.
Sunday:We started the day with mass with Father Theo and the children from two or three of the children´s homes. Always such a joy to hear them singing, listen to their lessons and to hear Father Theo again. When it´s time to pass the peace, the room is abuzz. Fernando was there and it was great to see him (a young man I began mentoring last year). We had tea after mass with Father Theo and Sister Mary and met a volunteer from Boise Idaho, who is going to Gonzaga. She was surprised to see six people from Washington at mass.
Mid-day we decided to do Sunday like the Cochabambinos and walked to the main plaza and sat on a park bench and watched the pigeons and the people and ate some great food with Alfonso.
In the afternoon we met a bunch of friends and watched the local team play soccer against a university team from Sucre at the stadium a few blocks from the hotel. What an adventure! They sell squares of styrofoam wrapped in a plastic bag for a few cents to use as seat cushions then collect them after the game to sell the next time. Rianne stopped and we all decked out in souvenir team shirts and hats. She bought a giant red and blue team flag and marched ahead of us into the stadium waving it. One of the local team's players was red-flagged for kicking the ref, and at the half the refs had to be escorted off the field surrounded by police in full riot gear with plexiglass shields. The police arrived at the stadium in a pick-up truck with six German shepherds in the back that would bark and growl and strain at their chains on command. We learned many new Spanish phrases by listening to the shouts of the crowd. Everyone´s favorite was "It´s a ball, not your stuffed mother-in-law—stop kicking it so hard!" Game tickets, souvenir clothes etc, snacks for Bill and me plus Fernando and Alfonso, $25 total! Great way to spend a Sunday!
We had dinner with Father Theo and made plans for next week. He has new projects lined up and past ones for us to check on. We sat and laughed and planned and listened to his stories—he gets through some very difficult stuff around here by cultivating a lovely warped irreverent sense of humor.
SAN MARTIN
This facility takes boys between the ages of 11 and 15 years old. They continue their formal education, begin pre-vocational training at the home and take more responsibility for maintaining the house, including a relatively large garden, farm animals, a bakery, and music, welding, and carpentry classes.
Thursday, March 19
After a noon siesta Thursday, we went to San Martin with Father Theo to see Blanca y Negra (the cows our group bought two years ago) and their two calves. The ag teacher there was very excited to meet Bill and show him how healthy they are. The boys gathered around us to tell us how much they love to drink milk and eat the cheese they make. The calves are very tame and are like the boy´s pets.
The boy’s musical group played traditional Bolivian music for us - with pan flutes and charangas. The group is so talented this year that Father Theo is going to have them record a cd for fund raising - the cd cover will be made with the hand made paper from Fernando and Angel´s artwork. The facility is overcrowded with boys aged 10 to 18. It´s hard to imagine when looking around the room that there are so many children without a functioning family. They crowd around Father Theo to be lifted by their ears or hair and to climb all over him.
Saturday March 22
We started out Saturday by spending the morning with the babies. I brought along another bag of the knitted hats and the toddlers made a game out of taking the hats off and having us put them back on over and over again while they giggled at their game. Or pulling them over their eyes and crashing into things. Bill and Augusto, our favorite taxi driver, measured the windows, then went to buy a ventilation fan for the toddler room. Bill, with no Spanish, and Augusto, with no English, maneuvered around the market and bought two fans that will fit the windows exactly. When the toddlers had snack time we moved into the baby room and had a visit with all of the little ones, helping to finish off bottles and tuck everyone in for a nap—except for the ones who had already slept and were wide awake! Sister Mary was there and she sent us with a blessing for a safe trip home.
Tourist stuff:
To get to know the people and the area we went on a few tourist side trips.
Cliza Market: I am an artist and love to paint watercolors of the Bolivian people (www.jennygoeres.com), so we spent a Sunday morning at the outdoor market in the nearby small town of Cliza. My favorite market because of its small size and beautiful flowers.
Sunday March 22
We´ve had some cloudy warm days, but today was sunny so we piled into taxis and went to Cliza and walked around my favorite outdoor market so I could take photos for possible future paintings. It was muddy but the light was beautiful. Bill, my spotter for good photos, showed me a man walking a sheep on a leash and another one walking around with a live turkey under his arm. No one else in the market seemed to notice! It´s a local tradition to go to Cliza on Sunday and eat pigeon for lunch. The grilling pigeon smelled delicious but something about their little feet, beaks and heads still attached made me not order one.
In the afternoon we visited the statue of Jesus that dominates the skyline on a mountain above the city. The Cochabambinos claim it is the tallest statue of Christ in the world, but the Brazilians don´t agree. (The Brazilians include the base of the statue in their measurement.)
We have some meetings tonight to finish up our donations and tomorrow to tie everything up, then we start the long flights home tomorrow evening. Chau!
WSM Coordinates Archive
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Bolivia :: Helping street children in Cochabamba
2009.05.01
by Jenny (Brown) Goeres ('78 Elem. Ed.)
Bill Goeres ('77 Agriculture) and Jenny (Brown) Goeres ('78 Elem. Ed.) volunteered for Amanacer, which provides a home and a new beginning for the abandoned, abused, and orphaned street children of Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Read the dispatch and view the interactive map
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Read more in the Winter 2008/09 issue of Washington State Magazine.
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