Life in Coripata! by Kelsey Ashley

George, Ana, Ryan, Indiana, Kelsey, Conor, Fran, Éric,  Lorena, Harry

Coripata

Wow, the views on the minibus from La Paz to Coripata are amazing! You start of driving out of the city, you start to see more mountains/andies and then the jungle starts creeping in. Everything is covered in green moss, trees, grass and ‘yellow tailed birds’. After four hours you have arrived. Coripata is a small town compared to the capital cities of La Paz and Sucre. It all fits on about five roads and two hills. It has two plazas, a hotel, a church, restaurants, two Internet cafes, a cake shop, two banks and a market on Sundays. On the day we arrived we were given a welcome ceremony from the towns council people and a welcome cake from the in country volunteers – ICV’s. The in country volunteers are all really friendly and enthusiastic. Marcelo,  Dilan, Johel, Peter, Sergio and Angie. After meeting our host families and settling into our new homes for the next three months it was time to see the rest of Coripata. We walked to the local hospital and high school, both up hill and both rather tiring in the heat. The weather here is so warm, the sun is more or less always out, a very nice change from the UK. We have sat through a couple of tropical rainstorms and hailstones can be pretty big! We walk to Coscoma, the next town along from Coripata, to visit the primary school and to help out Tío Fidel and Tia Martha on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Most of the walk is uphill with little shade from the sun but the views and picturesque landscape make every minute of the walk worth it, the kids are so energetic and willing to learn you cannot wait to get started. On Wednesdays we hold English lessons and have action Fridays and guided learning on Fridays. The rest of our time is spent on team, presentation and lesson planning and language exchange classes. My favourite action Friday was collecting litter  from the streets and seeing what a difference it made. I also enjoyed giving English lessons with Francesca.  We have an office were we have set up camp. We even collected wood, hacked down tree trunks and carried wood from the woods to build our own table. It was a long and strenuous task but well worth it once the table was built and put up, the office definitely has our personal touch on it. As I sit here writing this and watching the rest of the team working on prep for the English lesson, I look forward to the next six weeks we have here!