el Rey Leon and valle de la luna

Quite alot has happened since I last wrote, we have now been here exactly a month today - it's scary how fast it's gone!  Last Saturday we went to the theatro Municipal La Paz to see the lion king for 30 bolis (3 pounds!), maybe not comparable to the west end and it was interesting hearing the songs in spanish, but it was really good!

Me, toby and su outside theatro municipal

the cast of the lion king!

us and some of the germans with camoon

me an lukas at valle de la luna

 This week has been good at work, there was drama on sunday when Jonathon, a 10 year old in casa esperanza fell off a roof and landed on his head.  He went to hospital Arco Iris (run by Arco Iris), fortunately he only broke his collar bone and has to wear a neck brace, which means he wonders round like a robot, but he's making a speedy recovery.  We're getting to know the kids better and most of the time it is a laugh to be with them, however we had an incident this week:  we we're sitting watching football when a coin fell out of someone's pocket, Osman then grabbed it straight away, but I was so sure it was mine as I was missing 5.  So after many strong words, with him still refusing to give it back, we went to the coordinator who said he had until lunchtime to give it back or there would be serious consequences.  Just before lunch me and lukas went to go and pick up the guys from school when I realised i'd been a massive idiot and had brought water before work for 5 bolis - i ran back and told the coordinator and massively apologised to osman, i then took him to eat an ice cream which I think made him forgive me!  Apart from that though it has been a good week and my spanish is improving: we are having 4 hours of lessons a week with a tutor.

Lukas with some of the boys

 On friday we also had the day off to go on a group trip to valle de luna - moon valley - which is where rocks have eroded to make a really funky landscape.  After that we went to a park with Sebastian and Johanna (the volunteer coordinator people) and had a meeting about how the first weeks have gone - it's wierd to think that this isn't a big holiday anymore and we are here for the year, but also exciting.  In the evening I went to a german restaurant with some of the germans to drink some proper Deutsches Weizenbier and eat schnitzel, which tasted soo good and was a nice change to the food we've been eating this week as we've had no gas - i've pretty much been living of the toasty machine.

ein richtiges gutes Weizenbier

 Luckily the crises is over and 'we' once again can cook, i am actually learning from the house chef (mainly toby) and can now make a pretty good salad with dressing- (joke, although it is true, i can rustle up a tasty salad now).  In the evenings I've been keeping myself busy this week, with spanish lessons, going with the germans to play football - mostly against the 13 year olds who play near our house, and going with Lukas to the gym, we've made good friends with the guy who owns it and he likes to train/torture us.  Afterwards we normally go and buy many burgers from a stall nearby - which probably destroys all the hard work we have just done - lukas has now eaten over 25 burgers at the stall since we got here, he's been keeping a tally.  We havn't done alot today, just went shopping and looked around the shops near the cathedral San Fransisco, I/toby brought myself a canjon, thats like a box you sit on and play like a drum, i've been practising quite alot but I think it's going to drive my house-mates crazy... Anyway I'll hopefully have more to talk about next week as we are going with the Fundacion and 1000s of children to copacabana, which should be pretty crazy!  Until then - adios :)

me and su in luna valley