Friday

Friday was our last full day in Bolivia and our last day visiting CEOLI. The team at CEOLI intended for our time there today to be a celebration of the work that we have conducted and will continue to pursue. We exchanged gifts with the children and staff and played with the children as they enjoyed the new coloring books that we brought for them. Then, the whole school was brought together for to dance and celebrate our time together. We cherished our time with the children and were moved by their expressions of joy and friendship towards us. In addition to our time spent celebrating, we had the opportunity to meet one of the talented artists of the CEOLI cards. An alumnus of CEOLI, he had an inspiring story about how he found his way to art and his painting process. We departed CEOLI inspired to continue our work and help them continue support these children far into the future. In the afternoon, we headed to Aha Bolivia for another site visit, this time involving a discussion on marketing in Bolivia and in the United States. Discussing marketing concepts and techniques, we also got into a substantial discussion about Aha Bolivia and how to improve their brand in the US. Into the evening, we went to our farewell dinner. We enjoyed a terrific meal of pasta and exchanged thanks and gifts with all of our wonderful partners over the last week: Jean Carla and Allison, our tremendous Amizade leaders, Nataly and Adri, our kind and patient translators and friends, and Rolando, our special driver and guide. For our last night in Cochabamba, we went out with Nataly and our Amizade friends from West Virginia to continue celebrating an amazing week.