Navidad en Bolivia

I spent the last week and a half in Sucre. Sucre is a really beautiful city full of white colonial buildings and a main plaza, with cafes, restaurants and small shops on every corner. It`s more or less small enough that you can walk everywhere, and there are many secrets hidden in small courtyards. I decided to stay here for a while and take Spanish classes, because although my Spanish is more than efficient to “get by”, I am still far from being satisfied with my language skills when it comes to the use of different tenses. Because it was Christmas season it was impossible to enroll into a group setting, so I took private classes, 4 hours a day with two different teachers. One of them made me talk about everything you can think off, and the other one went through all grammatical tenses that you can imagine. I am still far from using all of them correctly, but at least I know what they look like and recognize them, which is I guess the first step when learning a language. I liked the communication classes of course more than the grammar classes, because you can only enjoy a language when you actually speak it, and especially when you talk about things deeper than just the weather, such as cultures, books, education, social systems and of course my favorite: la sistema immunologica!  So we did, and with great success! I believe I got over the level of basic Spanish and can say with confidence that I speak intermediate Spanish, although of course this is the result of the last 4 months and not only the last week.

While studying Spanish, also Christmas was passing by, and Sucre got very quiet. I was happy to spend these days in a hostel with many other single travelers. The whole hostel went out for dinner on Christmas Eve, and we were very lucky that one of the travelers was a professional cook who prepared a huge Christmas dinner on the 25^th. So although it was hot and sunny during the whole Christmas weekend, there was some Christmassy mood and comfort. The Bolivian Christmas is however very different to ours, people celebrate a big fiesta for three days in a row with lots of music and alcohol. Of course, Christmas is also for the children, who usually get new clothing and a toy. However, many people in Bolivia live in poverty and cannot afford any presents for the kids. There are a few social institutions in Sucre, who gave out small toys for the poor kids. So hundreds of mothers and children came to Sucre from the countryside to line up for hours and hours and receive a toy. All the kids had dirty feet and faces, a sad view on Christmas. On the 25^th, I went to a famous market in Tarabuco, a small village 65km outside Sucre. Also there you could see most children living in poverty. Sucre is one of the better places to live for Bolivians. Generally wages and living conditions are better here and there are not so many people living on the street. But my Spanish teacher gave me a lot of insight about life quality and family life here in Bolivia, and the truth is that most of the people are living in very bad conditions with no hygienic standards (no bathrooms), no social system or health care, very little to no education and very little money to feed themselves. And as if these factors are not burden enough, families additionally have to deal with domestic violence, abuse and no preservation which results in the birth of many children that cannot be sustained. I find it hard to wrap my head around why we are so privileged and can enjoy all the treasures that this planet offers to us, while so many others have to suffer so deeply.