The day began with an early start and a lot of last minute preparations, Lorena in the kitchen cooking rice and cheese, Secondina running around like a headless chicken making sure everyone had everything they needed whilst Harry and I were more concerned with getting some sort of food in our stomachs before we set of for the river. After the madness had calmed down and we had everything on top of the minibus we set off for ´Rio Llena´. Leandro, Secondina, Angie, Amalia, her baby, Lorena, Ana, Indiana, Harry, myself and of course Camillo set off on an hour drive to the river.
On our arrival we didn’t wait long till we were in the river… washing our clothes and bed sheets. After what seemed like hours of scrubbing and rinsing we were finished. In this time Chef Leandro had fired up the barbeque. DELICIOUS. The simple fact that all barbeque around the world are similar was a great moral booster as Harry and I spend a lot of time discussing the food we will eat at home. We then headed upstream Ana, Angie, Harry, Indiana where we began a crash course swimming lesson for Lorena. It wasn’t long till we headed back to Secondina and the others to begin the journey home.
The rest of the weekend was used to relax and reminisce of the times we have had here. Sitting in front of the shop, which before was boring and a tedious way to pass the time, was the norm for us now. Glass of fresco and laughs with friends was what we all looked forward to. Came the Sunday market and of course Harry and Ana bought their coconuts as per usual.
Monday came and with it came the visit of Eric, which meant only one thing: our allowances, as well as the company of an admired person like Eric. Everyone had come back from their ventures at the weekend so we were joined again by Conor, Kelsey, Francesca and Chloe. With the team back together we began preparation for our English classes. The Monday class consisted of teaching more greetings in English and the seasons of the year, whilst Harry, Dilan and I planned the final class for the kids on Wednesday and Kelsey with Marcelo planned for the adults class.
Tuesday began with the usual early start for Coscoma although only half of us were going the others still went to the plaza to see them off. They were heading to Coscoma to collect stories from the 3 men we had met in our times helping there and to give them their lunch. The others were in the office making a start to the mountain of paper work we had been given to complete before leaving Bolivia. Preparation began as well for the children at our closing event. We prepared different games and set up a route for a scavenger hunt with different activities at each.
Wednesday came with Harry, Dilan and I making the final alterations to our class and making material for the children, nothing too difficult just writing up one 5 questions to ask them to assess their progress in English and writing out answer sheets. In what seemed like no time at all we were at the plaza with our smaller class than usual which was a relief to us as the children can be a little crazy. We began by giving a short crash course in all the English they had been taught during our time here. We received good responses all around from all of the class which made us confident they could do the exam with ease. How wrong were we! We gave the clear instructions of writting only their answer and not to use their books or to talk to anyone else during it, if they needed help we would assist them. After the first question they began to shout out the answers and asking each other the correct one. This continued slightly till the end of the exam but they caught on eventually after stern talking by each of the teachers. As a goodbye to the classes we played a game of ice and sun with the kids: a game they play in Bolivia. It was worth seeing the kids running, screaming and having fun with us.
We got woken up on Thursday to Eric coming in and saying goodbye and Secondina shouting that the bin man was here. Conor and I woke up to see that Harry had cooked us French toast, a big difference from the usual scrambled egg and bread breakfast we have grown accustomed to. We headed to the office to begin the tedious task of the team debrief. It wasn’t all so bad this time as we all worked together well as a team and listened to what others had to say. The day went by quite quickly with a lot of reminiscing emotion. Both happy and sad emotions were in the air as we neared the end of our time in Bolivia.
