English it is

I decided to switch
some texts to English, shocker right?! I mean, I might attract more readers which
is my goal essentially (selfish as this writer´s website is). But no worries, I
will never be able to write the true poetry and short stories in anything but Dutch!
So here we are again, you will be reading this very old-school blog in which I
will tell you what I have been up to. Vloggers do it all the time and people
seem to love it so I figured I go back to the ancient profession of blogging.

School has begun!

School has started and I am happy to be back in class with the students. Time flies in the mornings while teaching and in these first weeks my only focus is to learn 75 new names. I had given my new students the assignment to write down the letters of their names and with each letter make up a word that describes him. They presented it in front of the class and that way I could start getting to know them. I felt kind of bad afterwards because I always forget how long these Latin names are. José Ernesto, Luz Camila and so on. They complained it was too difficult but in the end they managed.  

In the weekend I went to visit two prisons in the village where I live. It was the first time I have ever been in a prison anywhere in the world. But I will write about that a lot more in another article, though I must say it was really impressive and devastating at the same time. And trying to take some pictures while we were walking around in the garden I awkwardly posed as if I wanted to be an Instagram star. I bought a beautiful new wallet there though, made by a prisoner. The handmade products they sell there are of much better quality than anything I have seen on the local markets here, how ironic.

Somehow it is always an excuse to connect to other passengers and the driver. We discuss the weather, Holland, education and Bolivian politics.

Party hardy

My second week of work
has been marked by road blocks. It is a daily reality, I lose so much time with
these freakin´ road blocks! Instead of getting home within the hour it takes me
somewhere between 2-3 hours. The only upside is that I see a lot of the countryside
around town while we try to find a backroad getting us home and that is always
a good distraction. And somehow it is always an excuse to connect to other passengers
and the driver. We discuss the weather, Holland, education and Bolivian
politics. But still I am happy when it is Friday and I don’t have to worry
about roadblocks anymore. At night me and my friend (maaike!) work on the plans
for a website that we are setting up, called Boliviastories. Stay tuned for that,
we are very excited!

On Saturday we have a birthday party and as always things go very different than expected. The house where the party takes place is almost an hour out of town and there is no reception. But it is a beautiful countryside house with a swimming pool that has the jungle view of endless palm trees. Late at night we make it into the small village nearby where a band is playing, it is a pre-carnival party! We camp in the garden and somehow stay the next day as well hanging around the swimming pool. As a result I never got to putting this up on my website which explains why now it is Tuesday night when posting this! Hope everybody has a wonderful week!

Veel liefs, Adinde