Anniversery of Cochabamba

Yesterday was the Anniversery of Cochabamba so it meant another long weekend, I swear there is at least one a month. To celebrate at the orphanage we rented Cholita outfits for the girls and the kids had learnt to dance the cueca, it was so cute. We had to make fake plaits for the girls out of wool because they always get their heads shaved to get rid of the lice (not very successfully I might add). Anyway the older ones danced and the younger ones just dressed up, they looked so so cute.

On the weekend it was the 3rd birthday of my niece in Cochabamba. Now the preparation that goes into birthday parties for children up until the reach 10 is about the equivalent of what we do for an 18th or 21st. Not kidding, I cannot believe the trouble the parents go through for a party the kids wont even remember in years to come. And seeing as though the family consider me to be something similar to a queen of chocolate when it comes to cooking things such as slices and cakes and so forth it was yours truely that had the pleasure of 2days of cooking for the sweets part of the party. Now the only person I have to blame for me having to do that is my dear mother, if only you could of been one of those mothers that never cooked for her children and never had food in the cupboards and certainly never taught her children to cook. Thanks mum, thanks for the love!

This is Maribell and yours truely, she is basically family, she is the same age as me but has 4 boys-- yep not a spelling error 4. The oldest is 9 and the youngest is 4months and they all won my heart at first glance, especially the baby, it is the happiest baby I´ve ever seen in my life. Gorgeous, gorgeous family.

This is Johnie, he is my favorite boy in my class, he´s got the fattest stomach I´ve seen on a kid his height, he loves to eat more than anything else.

These two girls are my absolute favorites, Elena and Brenda, they are a pair of cheeky monkeys.

So unfortunately this entryis going be a fairly short one as I´m not really willing to sit in this internet cafe for too long as the there is a group of boys playing games and the constant smell that they are producing from there nether regions is too much to handle even for me. But most importantly everyone needs to know that I am now the proud Aunty of baby Annabelle, my dad and my uncle sent me some pictures and the first thing I thought was crikey she´s pale, clearly I´ve seen too many Bolivian babies recently with cocoa skin, I need a little reminder of what Australian babies look like, what else can I say, obviously she´s a cutie, I mean she is a Catterall afterall:) So congrats to my big brother and Amy, I cannot wait to meet that little bundle of joy.

Otherwise there really hasn´t been too much to update you all on as I´ve had a fairly standard few weeks in Cochabamba. I´ve exchanged my weekend traveling for more and more family time here and I´m determined to improve my spanish to a level that I will feel comfortable travelling with in 2 or so more weeks, so no doubt I´ll have alot more to write about then.

I´ve just been to the hairdressers as I thought I´m going to have to bite the bullet and have a haircut at some stage. She is a very cute tiny little bolivian girl that gave me a 2 1/2 hour pedicure 2 weeks ago, the poor thing was horrified at the state of my feet and was determined to make them smooth (impossible task) so it was hours of soaking and scrubbing. Anyway considering it cost me the equivalent of $4 I thought I´d return to pay her a visit for my hair. Now as you can imagine there was always going to be something lost in translation but considering it only cost me the equivalent of $3 I was willing to take the risk. What can I say, I think its ok, there was definately alot more hair on the floor than I was wanting, besides its only hair right, it´ll grow back ;) On to bigger and brighter things, tomorrow I think I´ll return for a facial, either that or shopping for a wig.................................