Do something beautiful.

So the soccer game wasn´t too terrible. I tried some Bolivian beer called Huari. Pretty strong, not sure if I liked it or not. For being strong, there weren´t a lot of hops. Then I had something that I saw Jean Carla drinking called an Alexander. It´s coffee liquer, and I thought it would be more bitter, but it was just incredibly sweet and I couldn´t finish it. We played a Bolivian dice game called Cacho. It´s a lot like Yahtzee. I´m trying again to include a photo... this time of the group at dinner. Our waiter Dennis was very friendly and offered to take the shot. They don´t rush you out the door here like they do in the US. That was nice, but I don´t know if I need a repeat experience of being in the same restaurant for eight hours any time in the near future. OK, so I just had the pic on here and it deleted, so I´m just going to leave it at the top of this entry for now. Sorry.

This morning we didn´t have much to do. We got up, had breakfast and coffee, and then we did our own things until noon. Mine including some reading, journaling, and a really good hour of yoga. I would like to go do it under the banana trees, but I don´t want to be in people´s way. So... inside will do for now.

My other pic just uploaded, too, the one I´ve been dying to get on here. That´s Bellen (think I was spelling it wrong before) with the pigtails and pouty face. I´m gonna try to get Mariana on here, too. If it works, she is the one in red. I spent about two hours straight holding her on Friday, which is real progress considering she hid from me under a high chair on the second day we were there and wouldn´t even eat for me. Apparently she is a very good eater once she trusts you. Well, she might try to throw a fit and bury her nose in the wall in defiance, but if you threaten to take her food away for good, she comes around. Bellen eats well, too. She looks a little scared while eating, though.

I´m hoping I can get one last pic on here. If I can, it´s the view from the statue of Jesus on top of the mountain. Like I said yesterday, we were able to walk up inside and take pictures out of the holes. I still don´t know the story behind the statue, but the view was cool anyway.

Today Jean Carla picked us up for lunch. I had lomo borracho, which means drunken tenderloins. There´s a big chunk of tenderloin steak at the bottom with an egg and some onions on top and it sits in a broth of wine/beer broth. We also tried some different juices, one was papaya and the other... I don´t remember the name but it´s a fruit you can only get in Bolivia. It was good.

Then Jean Carla took off for the afternoon, and Cari, David, Daniel, and I walked to a theater to catch a movie. David and Daniel went to see Angels and Demons while Cari and I watched the Che movie. It was really sad. I sat there and just cried... haha, Daniel´s book this morning suggested crying in a cinema. The landscapes were so beautiful... all of the Andes, and yet all the people could focus on was blowing holes in each other. I know there´s war, but every now and then it hits a little harder than it does usually and I just have to have a cry. It´s just such a stark contrast... all the beauty around us in love and nature and then... just total destruction. You would think humans in all our intelligence would have figured out a way around this. Sometimes I wonder if it´s our intelligence that gets us into these messes. I mean, you have to be smart to plot out a war. Anyway, those are just some thoughts. I´m going to go for now, because I´m in the internet cafe, only one computer is working, and I think Cari would like to use it now.

Peace. Blessings. Do something beautiful.
Casie