By Faye Stickings, Programme Advisor

Considering Bolivia borders Argentina to the north, it surprisingly still took the best part of a days flying to get to my next destination after Cochabamba, the province of Cordoba in Argentina.

I must admit to being incredibly surprised to begin with as to how European and modern Cordoba was. Its grid system of roads had a very distinct New York feel to it and coupled with the yellow taxis on every corner, I had to check I had reached the correct destination! I only had four days in Argentina to assist our staff team in their quest to secure a new office and view our medical programmes. Our teaching and care projects are based in and around Ville Allende, a small town (and now where we have a brand new spanking office!) about a 40min bus ride from Cordoba. For volunteers taking part in a medical programme, you will be based in Cordoba city where we work with a number of private clinics, as well as various departments in central hospitals.

The surgeons and doctors are incredibly keen for more volunteers, although a slight word of warning, make sure your Spanish is up to scratch first! Teaching & Projects Abroad also welcomes a new member of staff to our Argentinean team, Ines Marianni, who will be our Assistant Country Manager. I did feel for Ines, it was only her first week of work and she was thrown in at the deep end having to work with me for the week!! After four very hectic, busy days I was extremely pleased on the last night to finally get my chops around a real Argentine steak – bliss!!

Yum!

I went on to Cape Town and met up with Dana Myers, who’s due to take over as Director for South Africa when he’s released by the American International School on 15 June.

Dana has a complex family history. He’s in his late twenties and has an interesting history, including working as a schoolteacher on the edge of a volcano in Hawaii – apparently, you had to be careful when you breathed in case you swallowed a bit of floating lava – amazing! Then he did his Masters at a university in Montana and joined one of our programmes. He’s ideal for the Cape Town job because he loves the city and also knows all about the background and expectations of Western volunteers (particularly, I suppose, if they happen to come from the edge of a volcano in Hawaii or from Montana).

Dana says that Cape Town is the most complete city he’s ever known (although, when you think that his experiences may be limited to Honolulu and Montana, this may not be saying much). But I can see what he means. Cape Town is a big cultural centre and is visually amazing with Table Mountain behind and a general feeling that the city is built on a series of narrow strips between a wild mountain range and the South Atlantic. For years and years, I was an anti-apartheid campaigner so it was great to see a complete racial mix in all the hotels, shopping malls, restaurants and so on – but depressing to see the dreary monoculture of the townships thirteen years after apartheid had been swept away. I am inclined to think that the Mbeki government has probably got the balance of positive discrimination about right, but it must be very tough for those who expected more and who are still living in poverty.

I did the usual placement tour and there are some really good ones. The Salesian School takes in street-children and is totally brilliant – “Salesian” as in monks from France and not “Silesian” as in coalmines in Poland. The print-journalism placement is at Cape Town’s own Big Issue – the editor is very energetic and he’s keen to have volunteers to do real broad-ranging and tough journalism in a new-look fast-expanding magazine.

The original inhabitants of Cape Town were bushmen. They’ve been battered over the centuries by the Portuguese, the Zulus, the Boers, and the British and they’ve retreated to the Kalahari. If you climb Table Mountain or go to the Cape of Good Hope, just look around and imagine what it would have been like if they had just been left alone…

Dr. Peter Slowe

Faye and child in Cochabamba, Bolivia

By Faye Stickings, Programme Advisor and intrepid South American traveler

I have just returned from a trip to Bolivia and Argentina to meet our staff, view our projects and work on a new job role that is under development.

After three flights via Brazil and Paraguay, 16hrs in the air and numerous cups of coffee later I finally made my way out of Cochabamba airport (with my bag intact!) to meet our Director Dani. Cochabamba, where our office is based is renowned for it’s year round warm climate and I was not disappointed. The city has a very Spanish colonial feel to it, with large central squares that are perfect for sitting with an espresso and reading Los Tiempos (one of the national papers where Projects Abroad places out journalism volunteers) in your downtime. Our new office is right in the heart of Cochabamba and always full of volunteers taking a free Spanish lesson or catching up with our crazy staff team (I do believe on a few occasions I witnessed Carmen and Alejandra singing along in Spanish to Jon Bon Jovi…..that puts a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘whistle while you work!!’)

Central Square in Cochabamba

he majority of our projects are in and around the city. Along with Eric, our Medical Supervisor, I spent some time with the doctors and volunteers at The Burns Unit, which cares for severely injured children. Volunteers are assisting in surgeries, helping with the dressings as well as doing a great deal of one-to-one physiotherapy. I also managed to visit volunteers working in the Centro de Salud hospitals, orphanages (I managed to resist pulling the adoption papers out – just!!) and day-care centres in the province of Cochabamba. Maria Christina is an orphanage for mentally challenged children, which Projects Abroad took adopted from the government in 2005 to re-develop. The work our volunteers have done and continue to do is astonishing, and we have recently built a new block specifically for physio and intensive therapy.

Read more about our new community development program after the jump

Volunteer lodge in Puerto Villarroel

Our new community development project is based in a small pueblo on the banks of the river Ichilo in Puerto Villarroel. Dani and I took the 5hr bus drive over the mountains to stay in the village and see how the developments are coming along at our Yacami Farm Project and in our volunteer lodge. Bolivian’s (and especially long distance bus drivers) tend to chew on the Coca leaves when crossing the mountains as they are known for curing altitude sickness. I don’t think I can find the words to describe the taste, but they sure did work (apparently they make a good tea as well, but I didn’t run the risk of smuggling a few leaves back….I didn’t want to end up in the Heathrow ‘something to declare’ section!!). My time in Bolivia was extremely constructive and it was good to see so many of our volunteers making such a difference (and learning Spanish and Quechua incredibly quickly).

More to come about Argentina!