Funny but back in the UK, Easter Monday is a bank holiday, everyone is off work, praying for nothing more than nice weather usually. A lot of things are closed, especially schools… but here it is just another day. Bolivia is a very catholic country and the festive seasons are very important to the majority of people who practice Catholicism, however there is a huge indigenous population here, 26 different kinds of indigenous peoples, although there are really 3 main ones that represent most of the population. What we have realised is they really don’t care about any of this Catholicism and just ignore the idea of marking any special dates with holidays and rest days.

Roxanna´s son Antonio was looking very smart today in his school uniform and very proud to be wearing it too. We´ve been here over two weeks now and this is the 1st time we´ve seen him wearing it, maybe he´s moved schools or maybe the success of Wasi Masi means she can afford for him to go to day school now. Here in Bolivia the children either go to day school (usual back home) and for this they need a uniform and money for books in every subject OR they go to evening school (this is from the earliest age) and its usually the poorer children that go here because they don´t need a uniform and as long as they have something to write on its ok, it also means they can work during the day!!!!

We go on the search for a new compact camera again today, and actually find one that we were looking at online. The problem is that it is priced here in dollars (because Bolivianos are not that stable globally and they are trying to secure their major stock investments) and even though newer models are available in the UK and o this model is reduced, here it is still at list price. If we want it we will have to take the hit, ordering it overseas to be shipped here we would have to pay an import tax so it would end up the same anyway probably…

If we decide to go on the Condor trek it would be a nice to have, regain the ability to take panoramic shots again… but if we don’t go we buy ourselves more time to decide – not always helpful! As for the trek, they told us they needed a min of 3 people and it’s still only us two interested… We walk back to the office this morning and see if we would be able to go just the two of us and put our names on a list. They still say they need 3 min but are confident that even though we can’t find a 3rd, they will be able to. We are looking at going Wednesday, that means we can be around for the quiz tomorrow night (it runs fortnightly, see if we can redeem ourselves) and we will be back Friday, plenty time to get organised for the puppet show Saturday. Not confident it will actually happen though we leave the office and spend most of the rest of the day doing some Spanish practice and some blog fixing.

Bernice wanted to take photos of the old people in the street today but found it emotionally too hard. Philly had suggested giving them food in exchange for their picture which we are comfortable with, it’s just making that 1st step, approaching that 1st one and not getting a rejection… well maybe tomorrow.