Bienvenidos a Bolivia!
As Elizabeth said, we’ve finally made it to Bolivia!! After a full two days of travel we are safe
and sound at the Hospitals of Hope guest house in Cochabamba. After our midnight travel from Miami to Santa
Cruz, we had a long layover until the extremely quick afternoon flight to
Cochabamba where Neco Polo, our host and volunteer director for Hospitals of
Hope, greeted us. We all piled into the
big white van awaiting us and sped off downtown to pick up the other volunteers
who were just finishing visiting a Children’s Hospital. Heidi, Kirk, Nicki, Elizabeth and I all
marveled over the beautiful landscape of Cochabamba; a dense city full of old
buildings dated back to the Spanish reign, all encircled by the breathtaking
Bolivian mountains and rolling clouds. Despite
our fatigue, we were soon greeted by 11 of the smiling volunteers who we will
be living with for the next month (give or take a few groups that will come and
go as we are here). Friendly welcomes
and introductions were made and the van took off to pick up dinner and head
back to the Hospital. I feel as if I
have already made new friends with these people who we will be living and serving
alongside. They are all so kind and
friendly and it helps me remember the kind of character it will take to truly have
a servant’s heart here in Cochabamba. All
of the volunteers are from the United States and most are college students
interested in a career of medicine and health.
Our host
family, Neco and Rosemary Polo and their two young sons are amazing
people. They live here and serve the Hospital
as volunteer coordinators, which means they plan out all our activities and
make sure we are fed and taken care of.
I still
cannot believe we are in South America; it’s my first time and I am blown away
by the richness of the culture and the beauty of the landscape. But what little I marvel in now is nothing
compared to the journey to come.
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