Christmas in Sucre

After a rather bumpy overnight bus ride on cobbled roads we arrived in the Bolivian capital Sucre where we would be spending Christmas day. Arriving in Sucure early in the morning of Christmas eve we went into organisation mode to get supplies (drink and some food) for the following day's celebrations. Eventually we ended going to a flash restaruant for lunch then prepared a mini feast from ingreadients we could get and cookin the hostals limited facilities (nachos, bruchetta, antipasti). All in all it was a pretty good day with some memorable partying!

The highlight of Christmas 2008 for me came on Boxing day (though not the testmatch), on Christmas eve our fearle guide, Eva, managed to get us permission to visit a government run orphanage. Opon reciept of this news and getting a list of the children and their ages,

Roschine, Zoe and I went on a marathon shopping spree to get small Christmas presents for all 39 of them at the markets in Sucre on Christmas Eve. In between the fetivities on Christmas day the others pitched in and wrapped them all so they'd be ready for distribution on boxing day.

We arrived at the orpahage which was a pretty stark walled building near the center of town which from the outside looked more like a prision. Once ushered through the gate, we could see all the children looking a bit confused by our presence being lined up in the courtyard. When we finally started handing out presents it was quiet neat with many of the little munchkins expressions of disbelief changing to smiles as they tore the wrapping off with trueChristmas morning gusto and started poking and prodding (and squeaking) their new toys. In the end the biggest hit was a couple of ball that we got for all the kids in the orphanage to play with. One little girl, Cynthia, who was all of about five years old, immeadiately adoped my to play with a ball. She took great delight at throwing it at me as hard as she could and laughing when it knocked me off my haunches......at once stage she was laughing so hard at my antics in trying to catch the ball that I thought she was going to pee her pants. After about half-an-hour of this Cynthia grew bored and went off to play with some other presens she had got from us. I got a couple of minutes to catch my breath before I was press ganged by some older girls into playing volleyball with them. This was fun and I was reluctant to leave kids an hour or so later when we had to make our goodbyes. It was a great morning, a great experience and a lot of fun giving these kids a good time and hopefully a Chritmas that they will remember.

Feliz Navidad