Welcome Home

              Well I have safely arrived in Bolivia, and it has already been a week full of new experiences! I was picked up from the airport by one of the religious sisters and two of the girls. I definitely knew that I was not in America anymore when we got to the truck that they had arrived in, and after loading my luggage in the cab, Sister Anna asked the girls if they wanted to ride in the cab with my luggage or in the backseat of the truck for the hour-long ride to Montero from Santa Cruz. That situation has been fairly representative of my time here thus far. Life at the hogar (which means “home” in Spanish) is crazy – over a hundred girls coming and going to school at different times, as well as four dogs, a handful of cats, three kittens, a parrot, some parakeets, rabbits, chickens and roosters, and, oh, did I mention the ostrich?!? Even outside the hogar, the most common form of transportation here in Montero is mototaxi, which is just what it sounds like, a motorcycle taxi. My first time on a mototaxi, I went with Natalie, the volunteer that has been here for a year and is leaving in a couple of weeks and has been showing me around. So there were three of us including the driver on a small motorcycle, which I thought was a lot. But I was informed by the girls’ music teacher that he had seen SIX people on one mototaxi before! Also, the day after I came here was the day of the anniversary of Montero, so additional craziness was added by elaborately-costumed dancers in the street and a full-sized brass band playing in the central plaza.

                Even with all of the transition and cultural adjustment, the girls have already brought so much joy and laughter to my life here and welcomed me like family. When I first arrived at the hogar from the airport, Sister Anna pulled the truck into the complex and said, “Welcome Home,” as multiple girls ran up to give me a hug and excitedly help me carry my ridiculously heavy luggage. And as I thought about this statement, I realized that I have been lucky to have multiple homes throughout my life. Obviously, there is St. Louis, where I grew up and where my family is from. But there is also Nashville, where I lived and went to school for the last four years, and only realized my senior year how much I was going to miss the city and the people. I would even consider Sydney a home because even though I only lived there for less than five months, the people I met there and the way they helped me to see Christ through them made it a home for me. And now I have a new home: Montero, Bolivia. Yes, it is completely different from all of the other places that I have lived, but I can already tell that I will be a home for me. Because of the girls that follow me around, begging me to sing “Let It Go” for them, always just ONE more time! Because of one little girl falling asleep on me as another one reads me a story. Because hearing their laughter as we dance to Elvis’ Jailhouse Rock definitely shows me Christ in them, as does one of the girls reminding me to say my prayers before I go to bed!

                The fact that this hogar will be my home for the next year also doesn’t mean that my previous homes are any less of a home for me (don’t worry mom and dad!). But I am happy to make Hogar Sagrado Corazón my home for the next year because unlike me, these girls aren’t fortunate enough to have multiple places to call home. There is just the hogar for them. And I know that just as I am doing my best to help make the hogar a loving home for the girls, they are doing just as much to make sure that I have a loving home here for the next year. So here’s to a new place to call home because of the experiences and place, but most of all the people. I have taken a LOT of pictures thus far, and I couldn’t decide which ones to put up, so here are a lot of pictures of adorable Bolivian girls (Warning: multiple of the pictures have both baby bunnies and adorable children in them, so their cuteness factor might overwhelm you). Enjoy!