Baby washing (July 7 Post)

The start of our day third full day here in Bolivia brought us to the local market with Bonnie in search of supplies.  We were free to explore the market for an hour and purchase souvenirs.  This was a new and eye-opening experience for many of us.  While we are used to the abundance of produce, flowers, and baked goods at Michigan farmers markets, Bolivian markets have some …unique items.  Some of the students have referred to the experience as “emotionally scarring” when remembering the butcher’s block area of the market.  Not everyone was expecting to see various animal parts hanging on meat hooks.  We have deemed this one of our most interesting forms of cultural emersion. J

After the local market, the group split once again and the group that stayed to continue painting the Sacaba’s house were able to go up to the nutrition center to feed the babies.  They echoed the first group’s emotions about how moving the experience was.  The other half of the group ventured into La Concha, the world’s largest open air market, in search of some gently used clothes for baby washing that afternoon.  While this too was an interesting experience, I will wait until the entire group goes on Monday for a longer period of time to shop for souvenirs to explain the dynamics of this market.   Juan Carlos picked up the group from the nutrition center and the group from La Concha and brought everyone back to the Timmer’s home to sort the baby washing clothes by size. 

We left about half an hour later to help with baby washing.  Baby washing is something the Timmer’s do every Saturday afternoon.  They provide baths and clean clothes for children small enough to fit in a large storage tub and hair washing for the older children.  We also were able to provide a dental clinic for the children there with the dental supplies we brought with.  Some of us also played jump rope, painted nails, or colored with the children there.  This ministry was one of our favorites as the team.  So many mothers bring their children every week knowing that even though they live on the streets they can at least get a bath once a week.  There are many touching pictures from this ministry which will be posted on the blog at a later date when we have more reliable internet.