A Day for Emily and Irma

With the Sanchez family gone to Cochabamba, Irma (the house helper) and I took the day off and headed to the big city of Santa Cruz. Irma has been evasive of my camera, I thought I could capture her when we were riding the bus and I sat in front of her, but all I caught was her blue shirt and long shiny ponytail.

We went to the zoo. This is a really large guinea pig animal, about the size of a real pig.

Here is Irma in the aquarium area. Irma is the same age as I am. She has lived with the Sanchez family for eleven years. She always has a quick joke or clever comment ready, although you wouldn't know it from her serious expression in this photo.

this is the monkey island.

this little guy wouldn't let me take a picture of his 12 brothers and sisters sleeping next to him because he kept poking his sneaky nose through the fence. Rather than risk a snot encrusted camera lens I didn't get a picture of the slumbering siblings.

After the zoo experience, Irma and I went to the movie theater. Irma said she didn´t care what movie we saw, so I picked Robin Hood. I'm still having one of those hit your hand to your forehead moments repeating to youself, 'stupid, stupid, stupid.' It dawned on me while we were in the movie, the plot revolving around conflicts with distant France and England, swords clashing and people dying by arrow wounds, Irma falling asleep and the spanish subtitles flashing by on the screen so fast that there was little time to comprehend them, that this was a terrible choice. It was Irma's third time in her life to go to the movies and I took her stupid Robin Hood, a story she had never heard of, in english with spanish subtitles, and furthermore, the character Robin Hood, played by Russell Crowe, wasn´t even a fully developed character. I should have payed attention to the way her eyes lit up with familiarity when an option was to watch Toy Story, a movie she had heard of and it would be cool for her to tell her friends she saw it. But of course, I didn´t want to watch a Disney movie. All in all, Irma said she had a good time, and I think she did, but sometimes I'm embarrassed at how much I take for granted and how I think about myself all the time.

Random Peoples:

Here are some new friends from a nearby orphanage. I met the two Americans randomly in Montero and they invited me to come visit. The orphanage has 17 boys living there. They were kind of wild, but see how tame and trained the dog is!
Lastly, here is a woman that took out a loan from us so that she can cook food every night and sell it in front of her house. These are all her kids. We come by everynight to collect money from her because her husband will spend it on booze if we don't come get it, at least that is what I am told.