Vallegrande

This past weekend I got the opportunity to travel with my family to a small town in Santa Cruz called Vallegrande.  Rotary Grigota was going there in order to help the Vallegrande club get some projects off the ground. It was a great trip filled with fun, adventure and rain. We left on Friday morning and drove the entire 6 hours through the mountains to get to Vallegrande which is on the border of Santa Cruz and Cochabamba...that pretty much means that it is in the mountainous region of Bolivia but fortunately not as bad as La Paz. The trip was a lot treacherous, the roads were a little less than idyllic, they wind and climb through the mountains and they are pretty narrow, at least for the most part it was paved and if you didn't look over the edge it was not that bad. My Host dad does not understand the concept of taking corners slowly so as a result my 7 year old host sister was a little green and Sarah (my friend from New York who went with us) and I weren't feeling to great either. When we finally got to Vallegrande, we went with all the Rotarians to a home for children with mental disabilities and we gave them an oven so that they could finally cook for the children there. It was actually heart breaking to see how little those children had and then to top it all off they all had disabilities, it felt great to be able to contribute to something that can make them smile.
Sarah and I were a little unprepared for the weather in Vallegrande, we thought that because it was in Santa |Cruz that it would be hot, so the both of us only brought shorts and t-shirts, unfortunately it was cold and raining the entire time...on the plus side everyone thinks we are super hardcore because we told them that we were not cold because we are from up north...we decided it was better to tell them that than to have them think that we were idiots for forgetting to pack warm clothing.
Day 2 of our trip Sarah and I got almost the entire day to go out and explore on our own because all the rotarians had a meeting that we were not invited to; that was not a problem for us though. Vallegrande is the grave sight of the Cuban revolutionist Che Guevara. He was hiding in Vallegrande when he was captured brought to the hospital  (ironically) where he was executed.
 Anyway Sarah and I went out to see where he was originally buried after his execution. It took Cubans 7 years of digging up a HUGE field in order to find his bones but then they were brought to Cuba where they are now. It was a cool thing to get to go and see, we also got to explore the town and check out some of the markets. In the afternoon we went with the Rotarians to a Bolivian equivalence of a soup kitchen except it is specifically for seniors who have no way of supporting themselves. We distributed blankets and food  were welcomed by them with tears and besos and they even sang to us. Weekends like this make me really happy but at the same time they make me feel overly privileged.
We went to the grand opening of the first PUBLIC school in Vallegrande which Rotary funded and then we headed back to Santa Cruz exhausted and content...and very terrified, the roads are not a joking matter, it was terrifying.