Feliz Cumpleaños

Janaina´s youngest child, Stefania, turned 2 on Tuesday and we had a family celebration at our house. The table was beautifully laid with all types of pastries one could desire. We had one vanilla cake for Stefi and a chocolate one for Janaina, whose birthday was on Sunday.

Me with Juan Ramon...he looooves taking pictures, I have about 25 of his nose :)

Jani and the birthday girl!

Ramon, Jani, Berni, me and Tia Roxanna.

Everyone singing Happy Birthday :)

Just to let you all know I will be in the jungle and Santa Cruz for a week, so my next posts should contain some interesting stories. Missing you all!

El Chapare

I´m not sure how I went from sipping wine on a Houston rooftop to trekking through the jungle with a machete, but it sure happened! Rodrigo and I drove 4 hours through the mountains to arrive in El Chapare. It´s surprising how much the climate changes in such a short distance, because here in Cochabamba it´s dry and temperate, while in El Chapare it´s humid and hot like any other rain forest. Here´s a picture from the drive: breathtaking.

Rodrigo´s family owns 40 acres of land in El Chapare where they plan to raise cattle for meat. During our 3 days we cut through the rain forest to define the perimeter with barbed wire and picked the leaves of the coca plant, which is used to make the cheap cocaine that is exported to the US. No, I did not try any :) While trekking we came across beautiful flowers, bananas, and monkeys.

One of the workers went hunting and killed a pig-like animal called "jochi."

Here´s Rodrigo gearing up.

Here´s me with my huge boots and machete.

Un dia sin autos

I´ve started my volunteering position at an orphanage, where I work two days a week. I help take care of 35 infants, all under one year old. They are really sweet, but it´s hard to see the living conditions of abandoned children. The full time employees take care of the basic food and cleanliness needs, which I help out with, but what I really try to do is make the kids smile. They seem to enjoy music, so after eating lunch we all listen to music and I dance around to make them laugh. I´m sure I could make anyone laugh, since I look like a complete fool prancing around the orphanage....but the babies smile so it´s all good :)

This past weekend we had a party at my friend Rodrigo´s house that consisted of playing the guitar, singing songs, barbecuing meat, watching futbol, and all in all having a fantastic time. Here are a couple pictures of my friends and me at his house. No pictures of Rodri yet, but we´re going to be exploring the jungle Wednesday-Friday so I´ll have some soon.

Left to Right we have Paola, Denis, Alberto and Frani

Yesterday, Sunday, was an environmental cleansing day and no cars were allowed on the roads of Cochabamba. It was really cool, Bernardo, Alberto, Frani and I all walked into town to shop and grab some food. The streets were packed with pedestrians and bicyclists. Here´s all of us on our day´s adventure.

The manly men (Los hombres hombres)

Me with Tio Berno, it´s very rare to see him smile in a picture....next to impossible!

Las chicas at Tuesday (a restaurant that looks suspiciously like Fridays)

Frani with her bike, getting ready to hit the road.