English version : Nathan in Bolivia -new pictures
Door: Nathan van Dongen
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Nathan
12 Oktober 2006 | Bolivia, La Paz
Hi to everyone who´s only speaking Enlgish,
I am in Bolivia for almost six weeks now and I have no regret at all about the choice I´ve made.
The reason of my stay is volunteering in a project called ´Helping Hands´. The object of the Helping Hands Project is to assist marginalized Bolivian youth in their efforts to become responsible, productive and ethical members of their society. My occupation is giving English classes, tutering in the lenguage, and giving driving lessons(next week).
It´s so much fun working with these Bolivians, And all the people I work with are as kind as possible.
I am being lodged in a sweet family with another volunteerer, one of those many other Dutch volunteering girls. We see eachother often for lunch, dinner or trips that we do in the meantime, like extended weekends.
La Paz, the (only political capital) city I live in, is located in the extremly high mountains with an average altitude of 3600 meter. This city is during daytime nicely warm, unless the sunshine disappears.
There are an incredible lot of things that I discovered to be very very different and I don´t really know what to mention first.
As there is al lot of poverty like rubbish being researched on the corner of the street and people bagging me every day, it makes you thinking.
Dealing with a different mentality brings up surprises every day. The way of communication is not the same. People take their time to make contact, as the culture seems to be apeallingly friendly.
The country has many difficulties. Strikes are going on as they are struggeling with improvement by aiming for more prosperity. Presidents fail up til now to get the state more stabilised which would be good for economical reasons.
So a living for us as foreigners is amazingly and inproperly cheap. Going out for food is as commun as mailing or updating (unfortunately not Enlglish) my diary.
From the beginning on I found it quite easy to adapt to habits and the lifestyle. Surprisinly but surely, traffic can be a chaos, but still very few accidents occur. You get used to the non-structured crazy traffic, to the rule of toilet paper in a bucket, to the fact that every single banc has a safetyguard holding a huge gun, to whistling traffic police on crossings.
Obviously I can go on for hours, but this should hopefully give some impression of my life here.
All the best, don´t miss my photo´s (and its update now) on www.nathansfotosjohojournal.mijnalbums.nl
Kind regards from sunny La Paz,
Nathan
I am in Bolivia for almost six weeks now and I have no regret at all about the choice I´ve made.
The reason of my stay is volunteering in a project called ´Helping Hands´. The object of the Helping Hands Project is to assist marginalized Bolivian youth in their efforts to become responsible, productive and ethical members of their society. My occupation is giving English classes, tutering in the lenguage, and giving driving lessons(next week).
It´s so much fun working with these Bolivians, And all the people I work with are as kind as possible.
I am being lodged in a sweet family with another volunteerer, one of those many other Dutch volunteering girls. We see eachother often for lunch, dinner or trips that we do in the meantime, like extended weekends.
La Paz, the (only political capital) city I live in, is located in the extremly high mountains with an average altitude of 3600 meter. This city is during daytime nicely warm, unless the sunshine disappears.
There are an incredible lot of things that I discovered to be very very different and I don´t really know what to mention first.
As there is al lot of poverty like rubbish being researched on the corner of the street and people bagging me every day, it makes you thinking.
Dealing with a different mentality brings up surprises every day. The way of communication is not the same. People take their time to make contact, as the culture seems to be apeallingly friendly.
The country has many difficulties. Strikes are going on as they are struggeling with improvement by aiming for more prosperity. Presidents fail up til now to get the state more stabilised which would be good for economical reasons.
So a living for us as foreigners is amazingly and inproperly cheap. Going out for food is as commun as mailing or updating (unfortunately not Enlglish) my diary.
From the beginning on I found it quite easy to adapt to habits and the lifestyle. Surprisinly but surely, traffic can be a chaos, but still very few accidents occur. You get used to the non-structured crazy traffic, to the rule of toilet paper in a bucket, to the fact that every single banc has a safetyguard holding a huge gun, to whistling traffic police on crossings.
Obviously I can go on for hours, but this should hopefully give some impression of my life here.
All the best, don´t miss my photo´s (and its update now) on www.nathansfotosjohojournal.mijnalbums.nl
Kind regards from sunny La Paz,
Nathan
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13 Oktober 2006 - 13:11
Wim Maas:
It's realy nice to read your description of live in Bolivia. Aber es wird dir doch bekannt sein das "meine" Sprache Deutsch is. Hast du auch schon etwas sprechen hören in einer Indianer-Sprache?
Allez mon cher Nathan, j'espere que tout va bien.
Alle goeds voor jou en je plannen. -
13 Oktober 2006 - 21:33
Nathan:
Querido Wim,
Me allegro mucho que estás tant cerca de mis historias y experiencaciones. Nunca voy a olvidarte. Eras mi proffesor muy sympathica y agradable.
Por eso quiero decir otra vez gracias por todo! -
18 Januari 2007 - 01:23
Judy:
Nathan: It was certainly good to meet you at Bill's. I enjoyed reading your journal and seeing the pictures. Hope you had a good trip home.
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