Another amazing day

The day started out beautiful here in Cochabamba. I was up early enough to enjoy some great cafe con leche while the rest of the city began to awake. We began with a tour of the largest public library in Cochabamba, and were given a personal tour of their archives that date back to the 1500´s. It was very impressive, but not housed in the way you would think. We climbed several flights of stairs to get to the archives section. It was the only room in the building with air conditioning and even then the temp. was 68 degrees. All of the books, papers, pamphlets, etc. were piled on shelves and wrapped in brown paper. Very sad that such history is not preserved in a protective area, but once again the infrastructure does not exist to support them. The head librarian was so proud to show off his library. But again, not the kind of library we are all accustomed to. It had fewer books than our library at WMS and children were not allowed. No one was allowed to walk among the stacks and select their books. Even so, there were so many people there reading and studying.

What an afternoon! The counseling department and the twelve of us delivered about a 1000 Spanish books to the children´s library here. When the children arrived their expressions were priceless. It was so moving to hear the appreciation and love the workers of the library have for Dr. Veltze, Appalachian State and all the friends that have contributed to this library. Thanks to the students in Miss Lynne´s class that bought the llama pockets, the money was donated to this library.

We did take another harrowing ride in the taxi cab. It seemed everyone had the right of way at an intersection and all the cars were moving through!! Oh my!

One last note, there was a political protest right outside the library this morning. The majority of the protestors were indigenous peoples and they were protesting the decision of Congress last week over the sale of natural gas from this country and all the agreements. We were all a little concerned when we heard people yelling and loud sounds like guns, but it was only BIG firecrackers. We probably would have gone through the entire incident with no more excitement, except one of the ladies with us decided to take a picture of the protestors as we walked through the square. The lady that was protesting began fussing at us and started toward her. It happened so fast! We all put our cameras away as quickly as possible.
Thank you for following our travels through Cochabamba. I wish you could experience how generous and kind the people here are.
Karen K.