It has been about two months since I became an honorable Cochabambina and volunteer with Ninos con Valor and it feels surreal that so much can happen to one person in such a short period of time. I am only here until the end of June, but even just two months in, I cannot really imagine the day that I go home.  If your life ever comes to a parallel with the Madeline books, but far better and in Spanish, there really is no going back.

The past little while, has been super exciting. We have had two teams from Canada come and help out, one which is here right now, doing a lot of great things. We also have had two quinces, on two weekends back to back, which was a lot of excitement for the girls. The two newly crowned 15 year olds looked beautiful, and everyone seemed to have an amazing time. And we cannot forget the amazing job the tias do with both the food and decorations.

At Pedecito, one of our babies has been chatting up a storm, solely with 3 different words, but chatting nonetheless. Two of his first words are in English, look and up, and ofcourse the fan favourite and an important word, caca.

All of the children at both Pedecito and at Corazon have their own stories, their own personalities, their own names.  When I was younger, I always used to wonder what the other girls names were in the Madeline books, and why instead they were only referred to as the girls.  I never thought this to be fair, and so I would often take it upon myself to name them and have my mother pencil their names in.  In pencil ofcourse, because I would often change my mind.  But given if the author of Madeline one day decides to come to Cochabamba in hopes to write a new book, she will find that each one of our girls and boys are so memorable and special in their own way, that it is a hopeless situation for her to be able to choose just one of them for this new Bolivian Madeline.  They will never in their lives fall into the shadow of some girl, who always seems to get them into serious trouble.  And so for this reason, it will never be possible for her, or anyone else for that matter, to refer to them as just… “the chicos”.