Monday

On Monday, our first full day in Cochabamba, we started off our project with CEOLI. We arrived at the school early in the morning and were shown around the facility. For the first time, our team had the chance to see the incredible children and dedicated staff that our work would support. They took us from classroom to classroom, introducing us to all the people making CEOLI run including the teachers, physical therapists, and even our West Virginia Amizade counterparts, who are completing a semester-long study aboard program in Cochabamba. We could see the excitement and the joy of the children being given a supporting and inclusive environment to grow into the world at CEOLI. Following our tour, we had a briefing with Ronald, the Director of CEOLI. He discussed with us the vision and operations of CEOLI, giving us a great deal of information with which we could move forward on our project. After our meeting with Ronald, we closed out our time at CEOLI some more time spent with the children, watching and helping as they made cards and jewelry. An inspiring first day at CEOLI has set us up well for the rest of the week. After lunch at a Brazilian buffet and a short break at the hotel, we prepared to visit La Cancha, a sprawling market complex in Cochabamba that is one of the largest in Latin America. I delivered a brief presentation based on my prior research and experience into markets, and Jean Carla and Allison gave information about La Cancha specifically to help prepare us for our time. We visited the handcraft market, explored all the tremendous products available, and practiced some bargain skills as we all found items of interest for purchase. La Cancha was a very exciting, fast-paced, and culturally intensive place to visit, and a great way to continue the immersion into Bolivian culture. In the evening, we had a lecture by Dr. Vivian Schwarz, a professor of sociology and political science in Cochabamba, on the contemporary issues of Bolivia. Dr. Schwarz's talk was extremely fascinating and provided a great amount of depth and detail into the issues that we would find in our project with CEOLI and our experience within Bolivia in general. Later in the evening, our group went out to see more of Cochabamba and cap off a great first full day.