Querida Cochabamba:

Well, the time has come for my last blog post. Tomorrow is my last day of work. I can hardly believe it. I miss my family and friends, but I also wish I had more time with the children. It’s such a mix of conflicting emotions. My task for my last blog post is to discuss the connection between this experience and my life in the United States.

It is going to be very difficult to do so and please my Dad (if you are confused, please read my previous blog post 🙂 ).

So, I will keep this brief for now and then perhaps update this once I get back in the States.

As many of you know, I came into this experience very very conflicted about whether I want to be a teacher or a doctor. One thing that I was hoping to gain from this experience was a better understanding of in what direction I should head. Practically from the beginning, I decided that I wanted to do something with children for sure. I’ve already explained in previous posts how much there is to learn from them (and one of our goals in life should be to never stop learning, right?) and I really enjoy working with them.

For many reasons that I can’t explain right now, I am very much leaning now more towards becoming a pediatrician. My dream would be to become a pediatrician and then serve communities much like the one I have been serving for the past two months. Without this experience, I’m not sure if I would have been able to come to that conclusion.

Also, I have been inspired to do some more research into the various forms of childcare and their effectiveness, so I will be doing that once I return to the States as well.

I really want to be able to write more, but I’m afraid this is all I can say for now. Thank you all very much for following my blog, for skyping with me, for praying for me, for giving me your love. It really means a lot to me. I can’t wait to see all of you again soon. 🙂

Chau for now!

Laurel Bingman

I’ve been thinking about this next post for about 2 weeks now. It’s a difficult and more complicated question than it seems. Whose responsibility is it to alleviate the conditions caused by this social issue and what can they do? Responsibility. They say, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Does that mean that the responsiblity lies with those who have the most power? Well, that would seem to make logical sense given that they are most likely to have the means to alleviate it. So, who has this power?

Currently, the Bolivian government addresses a large portion of this responsibilty. The two orphanages that I work at are both goverment owned and run, complete with an appointed director who is a member of the appropriate party. Once again, it makes sense that the government try to address this issue. After all, a society is only as strong as it’s weakest members, and if weakness is interpreted as “most vulnerable” or “most in need of support,” then who is more vulnerable or more in need of support than a child? However, an argument could easily be raised about the fitness of a government to run such a system. For fear that the Bolivian government is monitoring my blog, my father has asked that I do not go into detail about my opinions about this government’s ability to run such a system, so I won’t. If you are interested, we can sit and chat about this once I get back.

Let us for a moment hypothetically assume that the government either refuses to address the issue or does not have the resources to address the issue properly. Who then has the responsiblity? Well, oftentimes the responsiblity falls to private organizations. One former volunteer actually started her own halfway house for the girls at La Ciudadela who have turned 18 and must leave the orphanage. It’s been a blessing to those who formerly had to live on the streets (and you can guess where that might lead them). Yes, private organizations like this can really do a lot to help and often assume much of the responsibility.

However, I would argue that anyone who is made aware of the issue has a certain level of responsiblity that is proportional to their means. It can really range from donating specific items to donating time to raising awareness to simply taking a moment to learn more about the issue of childcare and how it is handled throughout the world. Basically, anything other than ignoring its existence, or seeing pictures and saying “Oh that’s sad…” and then moving on without another word, without a second glance. All of us, including you since you have now been informed of this, have the responsibility to do something. The only thing I might recommend against is donating purely money to an orphanage or organization. Unless you personally know the person who is going to be handling and using the money, you never know where it might end up…

Overall, this is truly a very complicated question, one that shouldn’t be taken lightly, and one that after two weeks I still don’t completely know the answer to.

Chau!

Laurel Bingman

P.S. We, the people, the individuals, have a lot more power than we think.

It’s crazy to think that I have only one week left here in Cochabamba, Bolivia. In a way. I feel a lot like how I felt after my first semester in college. That paradoxical feeling of having just arrived here while at the same time knowing the place and people like you had lived there for years. You’re excited to be back home with your family, but you know you’ll miss the people you leave behind. Your one consultation is that the goodbye is not forever, you’ll come back. Although, this time it might be a little longer before I return.

For my last week’s journal entry, I’ve been prompted to think about the differences between the local approach to solving the social issue and the approach used in the United States. In thinking about this, I realized that I actually don’t know that much about the state of “orphanhood” in the United States. It is definitely something that I will research once I come back.

one big difference that I do know of,however, is  the difference in preference for orphanages versus the fostcare are system. In the United States, foster care is pretty standard. Rather than gathering 60-100 children in one facility, they are instead scattered into many foster homes. The idea behind this system is that this will give the children a semi-normal life in which hey can participate in a family environment just like any other child. However, perfect stability is rare and often children are moves from family to family and thus, the stable family influence aspect is lost.

in Bolivia, on the other hand, foster care is extremely rare and even thought of as bad for the children. Instead, orphanages are the preferred form of care for the children. This, by all appearances, seems to be a more efficient option even though it may not be the healthiest. Of course, when you have 100 children, illness is beyond commonplace, it’s basically constant. And many foster care advocates would argue that it affects the mental health of the children as well as they do not grow up in a “normal” family environment. Yet, I would argue that it is too extreme to say that they are completely without a family structure. In La Ciudadela, the children are placed in “casitas” and have a “mama” during week days and a “Tia” on weekends that help. Provide some family structure. Additionally, they have eachother. They look out for eachother like siblings and many actually live there with their biological siblings. You could say, in fact, that orphanages actually provide a more stable environment than the foster care system. That is, of course, assuming that the director of this foster care system. That is, of course, assuming that the director of the orphanage does not frequently kick children out of the orphanage due to “lack of space.”

There is still plenty for me to learn about these two systems and I can’t wait to in more research once I get back.

chau!

laurel Bingman

P.S. I wrote this on my iPhone so please forgive the typos 🙂

La tía…la tía, la tía. (1000 points to whoever gets the reference :))

Anyways, I’ve been meaning to write this for so long, but I’ve instead written other things, prioritizing official journal entries over this one, but really it’s been kind of a good thing that this has been put off because now I’ve gotten to see more sides of being a tía, and after writing my last post, I’ve gained a new perspective on it too.

To be a tía is by far the most rewarding part of this experience. More rewarding than teaching is simply loving and being loved by the children. From the beginning, the little ones love you. It’s that pure, unconditional love that I talked about before. They may not like you too much when you have to punish them for misbehaving, but in no time they’re back to hugging your legs saying, “Tía! Tía!” And this kind of love is exactly the kind we must give in return. How can you not when they give you their love so readily? In just the same way, you may not like them all the time when they are misbehaving, but you love them all the same. At first it was more difficult, but it has definitely gotten easier as time has passed. It’s not just that I’ve gotten used to their rambunctiousness. No, they have really taught me a lot about love, reminded me of many things that I had forgotten.

I remember the first time I really realized that I was a tía. I was in the music room cleaning up when at the door pop in Roxana and Danes, two 3 year olds from the guardería “kindergarten.” I look over and as soon as I made eye contact with them, their faces lit up and Roxana shouted, “Tía!” with the happiness of someone who hadn’t seen a friend in years and with the surprise of someone who thought they would never see them again. I will never forget her face, her voice. They both came running over to me and tackled me with big bear hugs. I tickled them and they let out the most beautiful sounds of pure childish joy. I told them that I had to clean up but that I would see them tomorrow, and they went running off to the playground. It was the briefest of moments, but it was definitely one of the most memorable.

As I mentioned before, I witnessed this same pure love in the hearts of the children at the special needs orphanage. It’s something that I really admire in them, the innocent unconditional love. I started thinking about it some more and I realized that this is something that I wish we did not grow out of. Once we grow older, the conditions start coming. In order to love someone, I need them to do this and this and this for me. And they must be like this and this and this. Oh, and if they ever do this or this or this, they have lost my love forever.

Why do we do this?

Why do we limit our love in this way? Why must we grow out of the way we loved as children? Why do we let prejudices or differences in opinion hinder our ability to love one another? Why do we create mental checklists of the pre-requisites of our love? At what point exactly do we lose our ability to love like a child?

Obviously, I’m not the only one to observe this difference. In the Bible, Jesus points it out multiple times. It is one of the main themes of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. It is present in the distiction between how Forrest loves and how Jenny tried to find love in the movie Forrest Gump. Clearly, I have not made a new discovery in the history of mankind. Yet, sometimes we look down upon this love, saying that they are too young to understand what true love really is. Perhaps the truth is that we have forgotten what true love really is. Maybe as we get older our vision gets clouded by the hatred that exists in the world. We learn not to trust for fear of being hurt. Maybe it’s time for all of us to take the time to rub our eyes and view the world anew as children do. If we could all remember what it means to love as children, without judgment, without pride, without fear, many of our problems could be solved, conflicts resolved, faith in the future renewed.

Oh Lord, give me the heart of a child so that I might be able to fulfill my purpose on this Earth, to Love.

Laurel Bingman

P.S. A few more things I have learned from being a tía:

-There is nothing more enchanting than a child’s laugh.
-There is nothing more beautiful than a child sleeping in your arms.
-There is nothing more pure than a child’s love.

Earlier this week I had the most emotional day of service thus far.

I had my first day of teaching at the orphanage for children with special needs. Just to give a little background: According to my supervisor this orphanage is home to about 60 people of ages ranging from 9 to 50 years old (from what I can tell from going there a few days, most are in their teens). All of them have some sort of mental disability, but some are also blind or deaf (or both) as well. Ninety percent of them have limited or no speech capabilities. When I asked my supervisor about how they come to be at this orphanage and what kind of future they have, he said that basically their only choices (although they haven’t been given the choice) are to live in government run orphanages like this one or to live in the insane asylum. In fact, some of them come from the insane asylum if it has run out of room or if they are deemed to be better suited for the orphanage. I can only imagine what the conditions must be like in the asylum because the conditions in the orphanage are quite dismal. There ‘s one building that holds their bedrooms, the dining area, and the offices for the people who work there. It almost looks like a little jail with bars on all of the windows. In the back there’s a large open area for them to run around in. It has a jungle gym (that I’ve never seen used), a laundry area, bathrooms, and a couple “classrooms” (which are basically just rooms with some chairs and mattresses that are falling apart). In these “classrooms,” the caretakers just try to keep them all settled down and stop them from hurting eachother. My supervisor informed me that there’s no such thing as Special Education training here in Bolivia. Instead, the caretakers just learn from experience. Apparently, the common practice is for a caretaker to do this kind of work for about 3 years and then move on to something else. So, you can imagine exactly how “experienced” most of these caretakers are. The “children” (I feel weird calling them that because most of them are closer to being adults, but that’s what they call them) all have a wide range of mental disabilities, but they don’t seem to diagnose them specifically. Instead, they are grouped into classes, I guess based on how high-functioning they appear to be. The groups I’ve worked with have been the “moderados,” “semi-profundos,” and “profundos.” Even within these groups, you have what appears to me to be a wide range of mental disabilities. I highly doubt that any of them are receiving any sort of specific treatment, if any treatment at all (and I don’t mean just medication, even psychological counseling). However, I did just start working there, so it’s possible that I just haven’t seen it yet. They don’t have enough money to pay for a music teacher. That’s where I come in.

Perhaps you can already see why this was such an emotional experience for me.

Even with just that very clinical description of the orphanage, you can start to understand the challenges of working in that environment. I hope after reading that you don’t think I’m a very cold person. I just needed to distance myself a bit before diving into the emotions. Buckle up. It’s quite the rollar coaster.

What actually struck me instantly about the place was…one of the children. Literally. He came running around the corner screaming, “Tía! Tía!” and ran right into me. I was taken aback. Not only because he was immediately smiling at me and greeting me like an old friend, but also because of how much taller than me he was, at least four or five inches. I had been so used to working with little children that seeing a big teenage boy come running at me like one of the five year olds was shocking and honestly, a little scary. I’ve gotten much better at understanding Spanish since I’ve gotten here, but his speech was so slurred and fast that I had absolutely no clue what he was saying. My supervisor told me that he wanted me to touch his arm where they had tested him for chagas (a disease common in rural areas around here. They were just routinely testing all of the children that day). So, I did, and then he let out the loudest scream of pain. I had barely touched him, so there was no reason for him to scream so loudly, but he found it to actually be a fun game. He asked me to do it again, and again, each time followed by the same scream. Eventually, my supervisor told him to go off with his friends, and so he did. As we walked away to the back space, I saw him and his friends poking eachother, screaming, and laughing.

Ok, so technically that story wasn’t from my first day of teaching. It was from my first day of ever visiting the orphanage. But it is important nonetheless because it sets up my first emotion in this experience: overwhelmed. My previous experience with people with special needs is extremely limited, so even just that little interaction was a bit overwhelming for me. I was very confused and unsure about whether I should be laughing or worried, and I immediately became acquainted with the fact that if any of these “children” misbehaved, I would not be able to pick them up and put them in time out.

Yes, this experience was certain to be very different.

I know that this next emotion I felt is one that can be very dangerous, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t help but feel sympathy for them. I couldn’t help but pity them. As I walked around the grounds, as I watched them struggle to communicate with their caretakers, I couldn’t help but think about how with a few changes in their circumstances, their lives could be so different. If their parents hadn’t abandoned them, if they lived in a wealthier country, if they hadn’t been born with mental disabilities to begin with, oh how things would change. And soon after sympathy followed helplessness with the knowledge that ultimately, I could do very little, practically nothing, to change their situation. I had no medical experience to heal their wounds, no piles of money to give them a more comfortable home, no psychiatric experience to try to ease any psychological pain. All I had was my guitar and book of songs to sing and the hope that even just that might make their day a little better.

My first day I worked with the “profundos,” those with the most severe mental disabilities. As soon as I walked in, I was nearly tackled to the ground (in a loving way). Though they had never met me in their lives, they smiled when they saw me and my guitar and were quick to bombard me with hugs and kisses. I was overwhelmed once again, but this time with a happier emotion. Simply I could call it love, but really it’s more complicated than that might suggest. I was inspired by their enormous capacity to love so unconditionally. I had literally done nothing that could possibly warrant this response from them. I simply existed and was standing in front of them. It’s exactly the same kind of love that I have experienced with the kindergarteners at the other orphanage (which I will blog about later. I’ve been meaning to blog about it for so long, but keep putting it off). All of them were trying to pull me in different directions. Each one of them wanted me for themselves. I felt so loved, so needed, although I didn’t completely understand why. One of them, the oldest who is about 50 (they sometimes call her abuelita “grandma.”), succeeded in pulling me off to the side. Then, with tears in her eyes, she gave me a great big hug and said, “Mama!”

I almost cried.

Eventually, though, I had to actually start doing my job. I managed to hold them off just long enough to get out my guitar and start playing the songs that my supervisor told me were their favorites. The orphanage itself has some tamborines and drums for them to play. The idea was that I would play the song on guitar and sing while they beat along with their percussion instruments. Woah were my expectations waaay too organized. I should have learned by now that nothing is organized here. At some moments it was honestly like I wasn’t even there. They just banged on their instruments so loudly that you couldn’t even really hear me. Compounding that, there was one girl who just wanted to dance with me and kept taking one of my hands in hers. I tried to explain that I needed two hands to play guitar, but she just didn’t understand. So, I tried to have her “help” me strum, but that eventually turned into her wanting to do her own thing and almost breaking the strings. Finally, I decided that maybe it would be best for me to just go around and try to help them play their instruments correctly and get those who didn’t have an instrument to clap along. Even this proved to be nearly impossible and I could barely hear myself think. At this point, the love kind of faded for a moment and I mostly felt extremely frustrated. I felt that my one accomplishment in that period was that I successfully taught one of them how to properly play the tamborine.

But then I looked around at the chaos. Were things loud, crazy, and unorganized? Yes. But were the children happy? Oh, yes. I looked around and saw smiles. I even noticed that one of them in particular actually had great rhythm and had been keeping a steady beat to whatever song I played. Although I didn’t really feel like I “taught” very much, the children were happy and that lifted my spirits a bit because that’s really what this is all about.

Even though I’ve really only worked there 2 days, I have even more stories that I could tell. For now, I’ll end it here and update more later.  Will all of these emotions change the nature of my relationship with any of the individuals, community, or host agency? Of course. How could it not? Do I know the nature of this quite yet? No, I’ll admit that I don’t know yet. However, I’ve already noticed one thing. Whenever I start to slip into pity for them, it converts more to compassion than helplessness. I recognize that I can’t change their situation, but I can try to do whatever I can to change their lives for the better through love and through music.

That’s all for now. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. Keep ’em coming 🙂

Chau!

Laurel Bingman

At the risk of sounding cheesy, I kind of had a revelation the other day while I was teaching guitar.

Learning to play the guitar is a lot like life. When you first start, it’s exciting, but not as easy as you thought it would be. In fact, it’s actually quite painful. And the bad news is that the more you play, the more is hurts. It’s just so embarrassing because when you look around, everyone else makes it look so easy. Often you feel like you’re the only one in pain.

And then you ask for advice and the best morsel of wisdom given to you is simply that you’ve got to keep trying, that even though it’s painful right now, it gets better. In the end, it will be worth it. But that’s not what you want to hear: “It gets better. Just keep going.” No. You want something more concrete. You want a quick fix, a magical piece of advice that will make the pain go away instantly and the reward come along faster. And so, people try to advise you: “Tweak this a bit. Try it this way,” but ultimately, even with all of the best techniques in the world, what it comes down to is practice, an investment of time and effort, an endurance of pain and embarrassment.

But guess what? Eventually, if you just fight through it, the pain goes away. Sure, there are times when the soreness comes back and there’s the occasional broken string that brings you down, but really, in learning to keep going in spite of the pain, you’ve made it through the worst part. Yes, there are still many challenges to come, but now you’ve got the tools to conquer them.

Then finally, after years of practicing, it’s your turn to pass along your wisdom to a new beginner. You see them struggling, you feel their frustration. They come to you asking, begging for your advice. Strangely, you actually chuckle a bit to yourself because now you realize the best advice you can give is exactly what you despised when you were a beginner. Now you realize that the best advice you ever received was not a fix it all recipe in five easy steps. Not at all. You realize that even though this may not be what they want to hear, the best advice you can give them is: “Don’t give up. Just keep practicing. It’ll be worth it.”

Or as a little fishy once said, “Just keep swimming.”

Chau!

Laurel Bingman

P.S. A special shoutout to my beautiful mother for her birthday! Happy birthday, Mom! I love you so much! Thank you for always being there to remind me to just keep swimming 🙂

Well, I’ve reached the midpoint of my experience. It’s weird saying that because it kind of feels that way while at the same time it seems to have flown by so fast. Has it been what I’ve expected? Well, yes and no. Mostly no. Now that doesn’t mean that all aspects have been worse than what I expected, in fact many have been better. Truthfully, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect when I first came here. I had done some research, sure, but there’s only so much you can know without actually experiencing it yourself. Reflecting on this would probably be easiest to tackle in smaller chunks.

The Location

Just generally, it has been about what I expected since I had seen pictures beforehand. There are more modern things available to me than I had thought there would be. Many restaurants have wifi and advanced technologies can be found all over the place. The public transportation system is completely different than what I expected. As far as the quality of the micros (buses) and trufis (usually more like vans), it’s about what I expected. What is weird is the way it works. There are no bus stops, there’s only pre-designated routes that they take. You can get on and off literally wherever you want on that route. In many ways, this is more convenient because it cuts out a lot of walking. However, it is more inconvenient in that there’s no regular schedule. In fact, this is pretty much in keeping with the Bolivian mentality of approximate time (very approximate in some cases) rather than punctuality. The food is generally good. In fact, I’ve learned how to make a couple dishes myself that are really quite delicious. Perhaps I’ll blog about that some more later.

The People

The locals here are really friendly and helpful. There have been multiple times when I’ve been unsure of the best place to get off of the trufi and people have been more than willing to help me. Some have even just offered without me asking when I’ve looked confused. The volunteers are generally nice. I’ve become friends with a lot of them. However, I will admit that with some of them, the service is definitely more of a secondary priority. As more of a means to an end of their traveling the world. I was warned about this before, so I expected it, but once again, it’s still a bit of a shock once you actually experience it. In the next month, I’m planning on trying to focus more on hanging with the volunteers who make the work a priority for themselves since now I have a pretty good idea of who that is.

My Placement

The orphanage that I work at is pretty run down, but I was expecting that. The things that have shocked me the most is actually the prioritization of the orphanage. They threw this large party and hired so many acts (many of which really were not appropriate for children and actually angered me a bit) and yet refuse to pay for proper medical treatment for some of the children. One volunteer who has been here for almost a year has told me countless stories about sick children simply being ignored. This prioritization of the spending really surprised me. Overall, though, the adults that I work with have been really helpful and seem to really care about their jobs. I will actually be starting at another orphanage soon, so we’ll see if that one is any different or if this is a problem across the board. In the next month, I want to learn more about the inner workings of the orphanages and see if there’s anything I can do to help. I realize that changing the management of the orphanage may be impossible, but maybe there are little things I could do to make some change.

My Job

As I’ve said in previous posts, my job has had its ups and downs, but overall I love it. I will admit that I expected there to be more organization. That is probably the one thing that has bothered me the most about being here. Organization just seems to be nonexistent much of the time (which is ironic given their incredible ability to organize so many strikes and protests). I expected to have a specific time that all (well maybe not all, but many) of the children would come in and then I would have a structured class time;however, as I have said before, that is simply not how it works. Perhaps the other volunteer and I can try to enact more structure in the coming weeks. The children have been really great. I love working with them. Honestly, just singing with them all day is basically a dream job come true. Working in the kindergarten (which I do once or twice each week) is a bit different. There is more structure, but much less teaching than I would have expected. Also, the children are so rambunctious. I’m not sure if I expected this, but I had hoped that they would respect me more than they have. I’m not sure how much I will be working in the kindergarten in the next month, but if I do, I will try my best to be more stern with them (while still being fun) and hopefully they will start to listen to me.

Overall, the past month has been an amazing learning experience and I can’t wait to see what the next month has in store!

Chau!

Laurel Bingman

P.S. Happy Father’s Day to my wonderful Dad. He is truly the best person I could ever dream of having as a father. Thank you, Dad, so much for always supporting me and for always being there to make me laugh. Love you!

So, after another day of working with this new dynamic of having another volunteer with me am I still questioning the value of my service? Yes, but not in the same way. In looking at the children, I could see my purpose. I could see it in their eyes, hear it in their voices. My presence at the orphanage does make a difference, but now questioning the value of my service is about improvement, not about whether or not I have any value at all. And that makes a huge difference. Now it’s time to evaluate myself in the way of how best can I help, and not only that, but how best can I contribute to this team. Mac gave me some great advice suggesting that I focus more on collaboration rather than division of duties. Collaboration still requires a recognition of strengths and weaknesses, but its much more about building off of one another rather than allocating separate jobs. We actually already started this yesterday. We were both the teachers and both at the same time, but we expanded on what the other one said (and she helped me find the words I was looking for sometimes). It made for a great lesson and I can’t wait to do it again today.

Until next time.

Chau!

Laurel Bingman

P.S. I apologize to anyone who worried about me after my last post. Please don’t worry! I’ve been encountering many challenges, some more difficult than others, but I am in no way unhappy here. This is just a way for me to organize my thoughts and share them with you. So, no worries. With my job, I basically get to sing and play guitar all day. I’m doing just fine 🙂

Last week was a bit difficult for me. I came face to face with the fact that I’m new to this. New to this language. New to this place. New to this teaching business. Teaching the chorus to We Are the World/Somos el Mundo was easy enough, but the verses proved to be much more difficult and harmonies were next to impossible. There’s one girl here that I’ve become pretty close to because she comes in every day, but everyone else comes in so sporadically that it is really difficult to have any kind of continuity in the lessons. That is probably the one thing that has bothered me the most about Bolivia in general, the lack of organization. With the one who comes in every day, I was able to teach harmony, but with the others, the lessons are too intermittent to stick. Compounding this problem is the fact that while I know more Spanish than most of the volunteers here, there are many things that I try to teach that I just don’t know how to explain well in Spanish. And even when I should know, when I think “C’mon, Laurel. You know how to say this. You know how to teach this.” I just freeze up and my mind goes blank. I’m not even sure I know what music is anymore. What are these note things? What are the words to this song? What am I doing?

But even with all of these problems, I still thought I was making some kind of progress, that it’s still a good thing that I’m here, that I am still helpful.

Until Thursday.

A new volunteer showed up. She is really nice and super helpful. She’s from the United States, but her family is from Mexico, making Spanish her first language. She is actually a music major in violin at her school, so she is also really knowledgable about music. In fact, she got her start in a mariachi band, so she also knows a lot about singing. Even more than that, she can actually communicate it really well to the children. She’s a natural. We made so much progress, but I hardly feel like I even deserve to attribute myself as part of the “we.” I could play some of the chords for the song on the guitar and I told them to open their mouths more and breathe with their diaphragms. That’s it. She actually got them to sing out more. She was able to get them to jump the hurdle of self-consciousness. I mostly stood there, singing along sometimes, playing along sometimes, but mostly standing there, trying so hard to smile. I feel so obsolete.

I know I need to change my attitude. I know that she is here to help, just as I am, and that if we work together, we will do so much more than either of us could do alone. But I can’t help but wonder if that second part is true. I know it’s true on my side. Thursday already proved that. But, does my presence here actually help her, or am I just getting in the way? Am I a valuable addition to this teaching team? Why am I even here?

I felt so positive before. What happened? Before, I felt I was making such a difference. What has changed?

And then it hit me.

Before, I measured my success by looking at the children. Now, I’m measuring my success by looking at myself, by comparing myself with someone else. This may seem like a weird tangent, but the other day I was watching Friends with my host family and Joey actually said something profound: There is no such thing as a selfless act. Even when we do things for other people, we do them with the reward of feeling good about ourselves. From the beginning, I’ve recognized that this service trip is just as much for my sake (if not more so) as it is for the children. I’ve known that it would be naive to consider this completely selfless. Yet, never had the benefit for myself been so much of the focus as it was last week. In focusing so much on how I was feeling last week, I completely disregarded the children. I had been asking myself over and over, “How can I change my attitude about this? How can I feel needed again?” Now, I know. To change my attitude, I must redirect my focus back to the children. Whenever I feel like I’m not doing anything to help, instead of thinking “Woe is me. I am not needed anymore,” I need to think, “Hmm…what is something else I can do that will help the children? What is something that would need an extra pair of hands?” or even “I should ask the other volunteer what she needs help with.” Only then can I not only stop feeling so useless, but can I also start really helping again.

I will try this today and then I will be sure to let you know how it goes.

Chau!

Laurel Bingman

P.S. Shout out to my cousin Mitchell who just graduated this past weekend! Woo hoo! Congrats! Sorry I wasn’t there to see it.

P.P.S. Sorry for all of the questions in this post. I kind of just wrote in as I was pondering and decided to leave it that way.

For all you foodies out there, the time has come.

One of the first pieces of Bolivian culture that I experienced was the food. In fact, that is currently the majority of the photos that I have uploaded to facebook as of this moment. In fact, Cochabambinos specifically are especially known for their food (and love of food). Now, I would like to take some time to actually explain a little bit of the food I have experienced thus far…

My first impression:

Now, this really isn’t much. Just a cookie and some juice. BUT this was my first taste of the first of my favorite Bolivian food items: Juice. Not only do they have choices of juices that you don’t see too often in the U.S. (peach, mango, guava, etc.), but most of the time when you order them at restaurants, you can expect to receive real freshly squeezed juice (complete with pulp for you pulp lovers out there). Infinitely better than the juice from concentrate that we’ve complacently accepted as standard in the U.S. It is something that I can already tell I will miss.

Next, something else I have loved from the beginning: Salteñas

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151466706842901&l=8480328541

My host mom bought me this on my first day in Cochabamba. It is pretty similar to empanadas except juicier- much juicier. In fact, it’s basically another form of soup in a bread bowl. Delicious.

My last picture for this post is one showing my daily breakfast (yes, I’m actually eating breakfast. My host mom won’t let me leave the house without eating something haha).

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151466709497901&l=89cd1bf8e3

Simple, yes, but perfect for me. As many of you know, I am a big tea fan, so I’ve got my cup of tea (black with cinnamon, a very popular choice here) and I’ve got some bread. This is actually the second piece of Cochabamba cooking that I will miss when I’m gone, homemade, oven baked bread. It’s really quite a yummy start to the day.

Well, I’m almost out of time, but never fear! I will be sure to update the food section more as time goes on.

Chau!

Laurel Bingman