Yesterday we went on what the Mission group called a “Reality Tour of Bolivia”.  They essentially took us on a tour of what the Real Bolivia is like and how the children go through stages of:

• Their original home life
• Their life on the streets when they run away (from abusive homes) or become orphaned
• The kids who get caught up in Drugs (mostly glue sniffing) on the streets (the hardest to bring back)
• The kids who find their way to an orphanage (stage 1, stage 2, stage 3) orphan homes for boys and girls.
• Families living in extreme poverty outside of the city

The tour bus drove us through areas of town where the street kids hangout – we were not allowed to get out for safety reasons.  ironically,  the worst area is a park in front of the local jail house and behind the theater.    When there is a big event the police round up all the kids and jail them for the night so that the locals are safe going to the concert event.  Then the police just let the kids out the next day.

We then went to an orphanage run by the Sisters of Charity.  Sister Mary runs the place for stage 1 girls when they first come off the street.   Ages 3-13.  She has been here for 40 years and i’m guessing got here when she was 60 (she is from Virginia).  She reminded me of Mother Theresa.  A very sweet and loving lady who brings joy to all 69 children in her orphanage.   We were not allowed to take pictures here but i can say it was amazing how happy these kids were and how much love Sister Mary brought to the place – all the kids hugged and touched her – amazing sight to see 69 girls hanging around her and then opening up to us.  There were 4 bedrooms organized by stages.  Stage 1 had 17 or so girls/room and is where the kids first stay when they come off the street, then when they earn it and show they are ready, they move up to the 2nd floor where there is more personal space and then to the 3rd floor with even more personal space.  The idea being that going from the street directly to the third floor is too much and the girls don’t know how to handle it so they gradually change the environment as the girls show they are ready.  And of course if they misbehave they go back down a step.   She told us a story about their newest girl. Age 6,  came in yesterday and is blind.  Child services brought her to Sister Mary saying they don’t know what happened to the girls mom.  The little girl says she use to be able to see but then went blind.  She also says that to keep warm her mother put her to bed with the goats.   Theory is that the girl picked up something from the goats that made her go blind.  Sister Mary is arranging for Dr.’s to help but will likely require a trip to the USA.

We then went on to a boys orphanage – very very different as you can imagine a group of 80 boys living together – much rougher playing, but still a lot of happiness.  Most of these boys have been on the street for 4-6 years and they have to decide they are ready to get out to join the orphanage.  Then they stay there for about a year before moving on to a nicer facility (they have to earn it).  They have a teacher on sight who educates/prepares the kids for the next stage and eventually a real school.  The Teacher has both 6 year olds and 12 year olds all taking 1st grade courses.   You can imagine a 12 year old does not want to enter the public school system at 1st grade.

After lunch we went out to The Campo, the countryside to visit four families.  The Campo is an interesting blend of extreme poverty mixed in with some nicer homes.  It is common for homeowners to rent their lot to a family so the family will keep an eye on the main home and then live in a portion of the home or in an outer building.  The families each had between 5 and 8 children.  Many of the homes had no running water, either bringing in portable water or using well water.  The ovens were mud ovens outside.  And in every case the children were full of smiles and happy to see us.  We were able to bring a large bag of donations and lucky to see them receive these gifts.  Most of the children received a small toy.  We learned how resilient these families were – they have nothing but were full of joy.  Amazing.  

For dinner,  we went on to the Girls Orphanage, Corazon del Pastor (Heart of the Shepherd) that is run by our Mission hosts.  They work with all these organizations to help find the right place for children at the right stage.  At this orphanage, they originally started with a max capacity of 14 in the home,  they are now up to 22 and about to add one more for 23.  An amazing site when all 22 girls are playing in a house.   It took about 20 minutes for the girls to get used to all of being there – and then came the hugs and smiles and challenging communication with our limited Spanish.  The home is beautiful, the staff is so loving and these girls were stunning!  At the end of the night we got to hand out the dolls made by the ladies of our church.  It was a fabulous way to end the day, after witnessing such extreme needs among the children, to see a group of girls where there is so much hope.

Our Mission Hosts Moto is “One child at a time” and as much as I thirst to find a scalable way to really help all the children, it is clear that these organizations are making a difference one child at a time.

As part of my quest to truly understand and see how we can make a broader impact, i have been asking many questions about the economics and the role the govt plays.  I’ll likely write more about this later, but the net is that these organizations would not exist without help from outside Bolivia.  The govt. provides 5 bolivars/day per child ($.35 us cents) which according to Sister Mary is about 1/3 her total operating costs.  And the Govt is looking for ways to cut.  They recently came by and did an actual kid count of Sister Mary’s orphanage to verify she really did have 69 children.  We have also come across 7-10 women (all females in 20’s) that are here on a volunteer basis (from USA, Canada, and Scotland).  they work every day in these organizations helping for free.  One of these girls, Jessica, told me last night what it is like to put 22 girls to sleep at night across 4 bedrooms.  At the end, she said she can barely talk after reading stories to each room in serial order.