Sunday, 11/01/2015
The 11th cohort of International Citizen Service volunteers arrives in El Alto, a city which is connected to the capitol of Bolivia, La Paz. We had arrived in Santa Cruz after a long-haul overnight flight from Madrid.
El Alto looks completely different to La Paz. It is completely flat. There are many shaby and unfinished buildings, and it seemed quiet (it was  a Sunday morning). We were met at the airport by the head of the ICS programme at Servicio International Britanico and one of the Bolivian volunteers.

We stopped to look at the view and I picked up a 20 Boliviano note from the floor! (about 2quid)

We arrived at the office, met everyone, had coca tea, then were met by our host families. Joe and I went by car with our host mother to her home in Bolognia. There we met the rest of the family; her husband, their three sons, 17, 12 and 5, and their 2 dogs and 2 cats. We all went round the corner for dinner in our host father´s mother´s house where our fellow volunteers, Lloyd, Myles, Jules and Taylor live. We met cousins, aunties and uncles. The food was good too. Pasta, rice, potatos, some new root veg, plantain, chicken and a small amount of veg. The qunatity of veg in meals has since gone up. It was low at the start because the host families had been told we should avoid fruit and veg for the first 2 weeks. Despite following all the advice, I still got ill in the first week and was in the clinic on Friday! Most of the other volunteers got ill too. My roommate Joe is the only volunteer in Bolognia, our little area, not to get ill! Our mate Myles got appendixitis of all things and was in the clinic for 3 days!!!
But I´m jumping ahead...

Day 2, Monday

We had an intense day. Some rather heavy intro stuff about why we´re here and what there is to do. To me Bolivia looked pretty sorted on paper, but there are infact a lot of problems (unsuprisingly, why else would we be here?) I realised that the problems here and elsewhere in the world were mainly the result of human ineptitude. This is not a fact, it´s just how it seems to me. And it´s quite annoying to me to think that if only people were thoughtful and considerate, then the world would be a much better place. We had a cracking lunch of chicken, rice, potato and plantain, then more important training and induction stuff. After leaving the office we went to the Blueberries cafe. I sat outside and sketched with Myles and a beggar came and asked us for money. I said I´d give him money if he´d let me sketch him. He kept trying to look at the sketch, which made it hard. So I asked to photograph him. But as soon as I gave him the money he ran off. Cheeky bugger. I gave him a wopping great 20Bs. (I was still thinging in British money, and I had picked up 20 the other day, so what goes around comes around. He needed it more than me.)

Bolivian smoking outside Blueberries Café

It had gotten late, and the rain caused the teleferico to stop. So we had to find another way home. Raquel and Eric from the office helped us to get the right bus. After waiting for a while for a Bolognia bus I remembered Adri´s instructions that actually a direct bus was rare and we had to change. After I remembered that I managed to lead out group home.

I had five leaving do´s: 

1. Sunday 4th at the Blue Bell open mic in Conwy. Absolutely cracking as ever, and many of my North Wales friends came. My guitar was out of tune and the electrics were faulty, but nevertheless, the house band and I gave the audience a little bit of a latin-flavoured pop-rock dance party (Manu Chao, La Bamba, Livin´ La Vida Loca etc).

2. Wednesday, Sessiwn Fach at the Ealges, Penmachno. Great fun as ever, with great people.  
The good people behind the Blue Bell, Eagles and Cross Keys open mics all helped me with my fundraising, thank you to all of you, organisers and punters!

3. I set off early on Thursday morning with a big suitcase, medium backpack and guitar, to catch the train to Birmingham (I cheated slightly and got a lift to Junction with my Dad). There, I saw more wonderful friends and we had lunch in a social enterprise vegetarian cafe, the Warehouse Cafe. My brther-from-another-mother Mr G came down from Sheffield too. After lunch, went into a cathedral and then to explore the amazing new library, designed by the Dutch architect Francine Houben (and an excellent team of course). It was really wonderful. My friends and I had loads of exciting ideas about starting social enterprises, hippie/artist world changing commune/organisations/bands....its all a bit messy and unclear in my head to be honest, but I´m going to do it somehow! Birmingham is well and truly on the list of possible places to live after coming back from Bolivia.

4. In the evening I went to see my brother and relatives in Hemel Hempstead. On Friday, my brother and I went to London and met Paul and his sister in Elephant & Castle (you know him, he  co-writes and co-fronts the band Timestealers with me). We played music and entertained some people who were having a party in one of the bars in Artworks UK (a kind of artsy retail place for independant businesses made out of shipping containers, its our new London hang-out). 
         There are a lot of neat conicidences in my life (I guess there are in everyone´s). Thas night, I added one to my theoretical book of coincicences:
The party-goers were mostly doing the "National Citizen Service" which is related to the scheme I´m doing. One of their team leaders had previously been a team leader for International Citizen Service in Bolivia, working with exactly the same charity as me!

5. Rather last minute, I had arranged to meet up with my friends in Madrid. I met them in terminal 1 and we played guitar, sang, danced and chatted. It was a lovely end to a great week. Madrid went on my list of places to go after Bolivia.