Last Friday, Sophie and I bought stickers on our way to the hospital and distributed them amongst the kids on the pediatric floor. There was a tiny girl with nephritis, a boy named Marco with rheumatic fever, Edgar from the Yungas with Leishmaniasis on his leg, and Hugo, a 13 year old boy who presented with splenomegaly (enlarged spleen) but no one could figure out what was wrong with him. Some doctors suspected Munchausen syndrome because the mother is an alcoholic, and I think he was going to be released on Saturday. You can’t really fake splenomegaly though but I never figured out what they were planning on doing with that. The stickers were a big hit with everyone. It’s always interesting to see how different children’s personalities are, starting from when they are babies. Some babies smile back at you while others stare at you with inquisitive eyes, asking you to prove yourself worthy of being their friend. The older kids also reacted differently to the stickers – Edgar jumped right in and demanded 2 and then kept asking for me till we ran out, while Marco sat quietly by his bed and waited for us to approach him. Hugo was somewhere in between the other two. I wish I had taken pictures of them because today we actually had a lot of free time with the kids, but I didn’t bring my camera that day. I promise to post some pictures of La Paz very soon.
That afternoon, I went with a couple other people to Happy Api – a Bolivian chain restaurant that serves traditional Bolivian food, such as Api, chicha morada, and buñuelos and empanadas. Api and chicha morada are drinks made from purple corn that is grown around Peru and Bolivia. Chicha morada is cold and tastes like bubble gum, and Api is hot and tastes like apple pie according to Siobhan, another girl in the program. Since its pretty chilly at 6pm when we get out of Spanish class, we stop by this place and get a mug of Api for 4 bolivianos (around 50 cents). This time, we decided to try the buñuelos as well because I told Annie that they were similar to donuts. I was sooo wrong. Here, a buñuelo is a large piece of fluffy fried dough that is neither very sweet nor very savory, but somewhere in the middle. Halfway through eating ours, we realized everyone else poured either powdered sugar or something similar to maple syrup on theirs, adding flavor. Oops – for next time I guess. Then, some people went to a popular anticucho place nearby. Anticucho is alpaca heart, usually grilled and served on a skewer, sometimes by itself and sometimes with vegetables or potatoes. My stomach nor my head were feeling up for any meat at the moment but everyone who had it definitely recommended it so I will make sure to try it before I leave Bolivia. Afterwards, Annie and I tried to find cinemateca boliviana, which is an art-film cinema near our house that shows foreign and bolivian films, with each day of the week dedicated to films of a specific country. Since it was dark, we weren’t able to find it but our host mother recommended us the bolivian movie “Los viejos” (translated as “The old men” or the “Olds ones”) so we will try to go see that later next week. That night, everyone went out but I stayed in my warm cozy bed and slept 12 hours. It was really really nice!
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