Swimming with the Chicos :)

October 2, 2011

Today was one of the best days I’ve had so far since I got to Bolivia.  Usually Sunday’s are long days, no school and we have the kids all day long.  Today was different – we took the kids to town with us!  The boys are in love with swimming, they ask us every day if they can go swimming in the river.  We thought it would be especially fun for them to go swimming at the nice, clean pool in town.  They absolutely loved it!  For many of them it was their first time swimming in a pool.  We played there for most of the afternoon, it was amazing to swim in clean water for the first time since I’ve been here.  The boys are quite playful and sneaky.  When Erin and I were taking a break from swimming, sitting on the side of the pool they snuck up behind us and pushed us over the edge – thus beginning a massive water fight in which we had a hard time catching and throwing them in because they were so slippery!  It was a fun, carefree time with the boys.  After swimming we took them across the street to Cherries Ice Cream, the Ice Cream shop that Erin and I go to pretty much every time we are in town.  Then we headed to the Sunday market.  On Sundays the street by the river is full of different booths and little shops.  There are all sort of different stands, fruit, veggies, meats, spices, clothes, shoes, shower and cleaning supplies, and random trinkets.  We got the boys one of their favorite treats, Rice Balls.  They are round balls of rice with an egg in the middle.  I had some things I needed to find, it was an interesting situation trying to explain to the different stands that I need Bleach.  I used the Spanish word for it but maybe I wasn’t pronouncing it correctly or something because all I got was blank stares.  The boys tried to help me out but they couldn’t figure out what I was trying to find.  Eventually Jose, one of my oldest boys realized what I was looking for and he helped me find it.  It was fun having the boys along and taking them around town, it is very seldom that they get to go to town.  It was also stressful to keep track of all 8 of them going in between all the crowded stands, luckily we didn’t have any mishaps in the market.  Erin and I stopped in a little shop on our way back to meet the truck, they had Oreos and peanut M&M’s there… immediately reminding us of home!  I got some peanut M&M’s, I don’t even like them much but they are one thing here that look and taste like home so I just wanted them. Once we got back to the orphanage I could tell the kids played hard, they were all quite sleepy even before they had their dinner.  As soon as they finished dinner we put them in bed and in no time all 8 were asleep.  It was such a treat to get away for a day and spend time in the pool, it’s definitely been marked in our heads for many return trips in the future!