The Coopers Meet Bolivia

Even though we spent a great holiday season with adopted family and new friends in Bolivia, it was a welcome sight when my parents finally walked through the gates at the Cochabamba airport!  They came for a two-week visit in January and needed a vacation from their vacation by the time they boarded their plane to return to the U.S.  We kept them very busy!

We spent the first week and a few days of the second week of their visit showing them around Cochabamba.  We started by taking them down to La Cancha (the market) and riding every where on trufis (public bus/van transportation).  They found out quickly that we hadn't lied about the smell at La Cancha, and they both had immediate panic attacks when out on trufis and taxis in the crazy Cochabamba driving.

We made multiple stops at one of our favorite places to spend time, Casa de Amor.  We spent plenty of time playing with and cuddling babies.

We took them to a few restaurants to try some local dishes.  At Casa de Campo, they got to try a Cochabamba favorite, Silpancho, that includes rice, potatoes, fried beef, eggs, onion, tomato, and locoto peppers.  Silpancho will be something we miss when we return to the Unites States!

We also took them to a local favorite, Kabobs, which is owned by an Iraqi man who has been living in Bolivia for years.  It was delicious!

We took them to a local Saturday market, which is where we buy a lot of our groceries for the week.  It blocks off a few streets every Saturday, and we can buy fruits, vegetables, potatoes, pasta, dairy items, and beautiful flowers for the week.

We took them to the Cristo statue, one of the most popular tourist attractions in Cochabamba.  We took the gondola up after waiting in line for over two hours in the hot sun!  We got to go up inside the statue, so the wait was worth it.  After, we opted for the stairs on the way down... and all had very sore calves the next day!

Mom and Dad in front of the statue

Looking out from inside the statue

Mom and Dad with the city in the background

Mom and Dad got to see the work that we are doing, and spent time in each of the ministries we help with.  They came to homeless ministry on Thursday night, where we went down to the plaza and handed out bread to homeless people, mostly men, who sleep at the plaza every night.
They got to visit Carachi and watch me teach 11th and 12th grade English, which I started in January.  I am still tutoring a second grade student every morning at the same school, too.

Dad spent a day in Kewina with Scott doing construction where we are building two new orphanages.

Dad and Scott even got to take a day to play some golf with Scott's friend Jose Luis.

Walking on water at the golf course

While they were here, we decided to visit a different ministry in Cochabamba that Scott and I had wanted to check out for a while located south of the airport, which is one of the poorest areas in the city.  Our friend Chris joined the ministry, run by a local Christian church, which runs a kids club each Saturday. As he and his wife and daughter have spent time in the community, they have gotten to know people there who are currently without a home or are living in scrap metal and cardboard.  

Chris took us around and showed us the area.  The community is primarily sustained by the production of mud bricks.

Mud bricks and the ovens used to make them in the background

One of the houses in the area

Another example of a house (in the background) and the condition of the neighborhood

As we walked around the neighborhood, we handed out some stuffed animals and dropped off some food supplies at a few of the houses.  We found two little girls playing a game jumping over string.  They were so excited to have new dolls!

 Chris took us to one house in particular, where a woman named Karina lives with her two siblings and her two children.  She is 21 and her parents are no longer living, which has left her with the responsibility of herself and the other four.  They currently live in a shack made of corrugated metal and cardboard.  One wall is mud brick that contains dangerous beetles.  If a person is bitten, the bite will cause a fatal medical condition where a person's heart swells.  Her house is located in the middle of a "lake" of dirty water, and every time it rains hard they are at risk of their house washing away.  The house they had in the same location before was washed away during the last rainy season. Chris and his wife are raising funds to build houses in this area, the first of which is for Karina and her family.  Scott is helping to design the homes, and we will be posting about the progress.

Karina's house

Scott and Dad pulling out food supplies and toys to give to Karina (tan shirt standing behind), her sister (dark shirt to the right), her brother (blue shirt), and her children (brown and red shirt).  Chris is in a black shirt and gray shorts.

Living in Cochabamba, Scott and I are no strangers to seeing dire poverty, but this experience was really powerful for both us and for my parents.  

That same day, we left the neighborhood south of the airport and headed to the plaza for baby washing.  Mom and Dad both got to wash precious street kiddos, and Mom even got to do some hair and nails after the washing was finished.

After a whirlwind tour of Cochabamba, we jumped on a flight to La Paz and took a bus to Copacabana to see Lake Titicaca.

Our tour guide, Vladimir, took us to various places around Copacabana the first and third day of our three-day trip.  We hiked "Calvary" which was actually a difficult hike and was lined by the stations of the cross.  We were all completely winded and exhausted by the time we made it to the top, but the view was beautiful.

Starting the Calvary hike

The view from the top of Calvary

We toured the huge cathedral in the middle of town, and it happened to be a weekend where people were having their cars blessed outside the cathedral.  They were decorating them with fresh-strung flowers, paper decorations, confetti, and spraying champagne all over their cars.  Some were even lighting fire-crackers underneath their cars.

Vladimir explaining the various decorations and tourist items for sale around the cathedral

We also hiked the mountain behind the village, where we could look out across the seemingly endless lake.  It almost looks like the ocean!

Check out those guns!

The second day, we took a boat out to Isla del Sol (Sun Island) in the middle of the lake.  We stopped at various Incan ruins, and ended the day with a hike through a small village and into some larger ruins.  It was beautiful!

Enjoying the fresh air on top of the boat

Mom and Dad walking up the dock from the lake toward Incan ruins

The fountain above is a natural Incan spring.  Vladimir told us that the three openings represent the three Incan rules for living:  Don't lie, don't steal, and don't be lazy.  Both Mom and Dad, along with Vladimir, took water from each spout, put it to their face, and repeated the three rules.

Our trip to Copacabana was great.  It was nice for Scott and I to get out of the city, and we had great meals, conversation, and adventures together.

We had one last adventure when we returned to Cochabamba.  We took my parents with the Ross family, another family on our team, into the Chapare (the rain forest) on a hike to a beautiful waterfall.

We hiked through the rain forest to the edge of the river, where we stopped to have a picnic lunch.

The hike back up was quite the adventure... muddy, slippery, and over-grown!  We crossed a steel-cable suspension bridge (I got that information from Scott, of course), which was a little disconcerting, but finally made it to the top.  

Mom and Dad crawling their way through the jungle

Having my parents visit was a huge blessing.  It certainly made home feel a little less far away!  It was amazing to get to share our lives here with them, and I think they enjoyed the experience and are very glad they made the trip.  They certainly saw and experienced things that are not part of many everyday American lives.  We will be very thankful, too, when we go through our period of readjusting to American life, and we have people to talk to and process with that have been here and understand just how special Bolivia is to us.