MY SANTA CRUZ EVERYDAY

Would it be at all offencive to a 1,5 million population Santa Cruz - the third largest city in Bolivia if I said that it looks very much like Väike-Õismäe - a tiny part of Tallinn, my hometown? Well take a look yourself then:


Aside from that I guess they have nothing else in common. Santa Cruz is big. I do not even know how how big it is. Yet I can walk to most of my everyday destinations. From the old folks` rehabilitation home I now live in to the hospital it is about a fifty minute walk. And that is my route from Sunday to Friday. A few times a week I make a ten minute side-trip to Claudia´s office with whom we prepare for our prison class. On Saturdays I leave with her for the outskirts of town where the prison is in a taxi. It is really expensive - for 20 bolivianos that the taxi costs you could travel 13.3 times in a mini-bus. But Claudia´s organisation pays for it, so that is that and the good thing about it is that we get there early. From the prison I travel back in a mini-bus around three PM, go straight to the hospital (a half an hour walk from where it drops me off), and from there I take another mini-bus to journey to one other distant part of town to meet my friends Neida, her husband Greko and their two daughters Wendy and Yuvinka. I met Neida at the hospital when she was visiting my young friend Maria Fernanda. I only learned much later that she too had cancer. Her husband Greko, before I knew that he was her husband, once started a conversation with me in front of the hospital and then gave me 20 bolivianos as a donation. He did not want me to walk. Yet I said that I walk to have a break, if I would not walk I would not be able to have one. Anyway now this family has become good friends of mine and they make my Saturdays feel a bit different than other days.

Aside from that every two weeks I take a break for a day. I get a bus from the old terminal of Santa Cruz and go out of town about 100 kilometers to a place called Angostura. It is a spot of paradice I discovered not so long ago that has friendly people, a river to swim in, a hidden bridge hanging above the waters, hundreds of butterflies and beautiful nature.

And that is my everyday. For now.

Here are some images from my first trip to Angostura:



If your PC does not show this slideshow click HERE to see the pictures in my web-album.