I have put up three pictures from my trip to Bolivia last April-May. This is
a typical home in the countryside, where this little Quechua girl lives with
her parents. This particular home is not in a town, but as far as I can
remember was probably at least a mile or two from their nearest neighbor.
They did live near a single-lane dirt road which is open for trucks and
four-wheel drives most of the year. So in that respect they were better off
than many others that we visited who lived several hours walk beyond the
nearest road.
http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=526528
The little Quechua girl looks to me to be perhaps two or more years old, so
is one of the more fortunate ones who survived to that age. Some things are
hard to verify, but I've been told that in the countryside many children do
not make it to the age of two, most of the deaths being due to poor
nutrition, diarrhea, and dehydration.
As far as I could see, these pictures pretty well take in all of the
family's personal belongings and their house. The doorway of the house was
only about four feet high, so I couldn't really get inside, but just pushed
the camera in and took 3 shots around the interior. This one interior shot
pretty well shows all that was in there. In spite of their poverty, they
insisted on sharing some of their food with us.
The little radio sitting in the window of the house is one that we give to
the people. It is tuned to the one and only station in the world that
broadcasts in the Quechua language that these countryside unilingual people
understand. It's not real hard to see why many of them could not afford to
buy a radio.
This adobe-block home is about an eight-hour drive from the city of
Cochabamba. We will be passing by this home again two weeks from tomorrow,
and going on to other homes and villages, several hours past the end of that
road, travelling on a dry river bed, then walking up the side of some of the
Andes mountains to reach the people. For some of the people we visit, we
will be the first non-Bolivian's they have ever seen. One of the towns (400
to 500 towns in that area), I was told, did have an outsider visit there
before, 60 years ago. So I suppose some of them have never had an outsider
visit them. These people are poor beyond description, and largely forgotten
by our world. We'll be taking children's clothing, radios, medicine (a
Bolivian doctor will come with us at our expense), etc., to give to the
people. I go largely at my own expense (my 8th time) and on my own vacation
time. Obviously I don't do it to get rich, powerful, or famous. There is no
money to be made there, which is one reason I suspect almost no one is going
there.
I'm saying this not just for interests sake (for those who might be
interested), but also to provide a bit of balance to all the negativity on
this list towards Christianity the last few days. Unashamedly, I am a pastor
of a church, and do this in the name of Christianity. Obviously, there are
many flavours of Christianity in our world, some of which disgust me as much
as they do some of you. But please, let's not forget that all are not the
same.
Wayne
==============================================
List usage info: http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies: olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================
|