When taking a new path with our friend Fatima to her home in nearby Trinidad Pampa we met the man pictured above. The path actually took us through his yard where he was working when we passed. As we approched he asked if we were Americans. I was kind of nervous because we were sort of far away from anything and I have been told that lone gringos have dissappeared in the past (realistically there wasen't anything to worry about). Anyway Sam says he saw him smiling, and when we answered yes we were Americans he got REALLY happy. He said, "you must have a camera" which I did, and he had me photograph him infront of his house. This was bizzare because usually campesinos of his age don't like cameras at all.


He was drying coffee when we arrived. He took us over to see it, and as it turns out he sells it to the processing facuility on campus.


He was barefoot and it looked like his feet were tougher than most of the shoes I brought down here. A lot of the campesinos and children go barefoot, when people do wear shoes they usually don't ammount to much. But they can play sports really well in whatever flimsy peice of discarded tire tred they are wearing.

We went to Coripata, where the big attraction is the artificial soccer turf. Fatima said that more professional soccer players come from this city than any other place in Bolivia.





Obviously they live in a soccer culture. This sign says it is prohibited to urinate, presumably in the streets.



My friend Tanya says that everytime you go to a new country one of the first things you should do is go to a cemetary. We went to one on Saturday and it was good. They let everything get overgrown all year and then around All Saints Day they clean everything and throw a big party amongst their departed family and friends.





I liked this mausoleum, there was like a little street lined with these. I felt sort of like I was shopping because there were so many brightly colored trinkets behind glass all around me.

One of the many tourist destinations near Coroico are the Vagantes which is a part of a river that forms pools to swim in and a little waterfall. We hiked there, 7k each way, coming back was all up. We passed this church along the way. I like the horse on the side, he looks like the other animals here, droopy and grey.

Most of the churches in small communities look like this. They are very simple, both inside and out, and they are in every town.

Here is a bridge we crossed along the way. Typical of small footbridges, it is made of logs covered with dirt and rocks, naturally there is no hand rail.

Personal Safety is not quite a priority here. It shouldn't be suprising to know that the transportation doesn't have seatbelts.

Buildings, including our house, have exposed 220V wires, another vlunteer touched some because they were hanging right wher a light switch should be. She's okay.

Once the computer lab was locked and we didn't have a key. So a student climbed outside the building on the 2nd story and went in through an open window.

I raked my knuckles one of my frist days here when I was working wth the IT guy, tearing the grounds out of powerstrips by bashing them against the corner of a table.

I'm still happy, take care everyone.

LOVE

andy