Volunteering in La paz, as my last blog I spoke about my volunteering, I wanted to give it its own blog.
When I arrived in Mallasa from Copacabana I was overwhelmed with hospitality in casa Mendoza. Emma, Rolando and their 2 great energetic kids welcomed me with tea and wet doggy kisses from Fergie and Tilly. I remember sitting there and feeling wow this is the first time I have felt really comfortable and at home since I’ve left Aus.
The next day got settled into the nursery and introduced how to go shopping without looking too gringa and putting myself at risk of being robbed. Hahahah I was soo excited to be finally getting into my volunteering.
The nursery on my first real day was fun the kids greeted me with their beautiful lill faces and their cute little teeth shiny with their dark skin. “hola Tia” “como se llama?” then they came and gave me hugs and kisses, whilst dragging me down to my classroom there I met the actual tia’s which is the name given to the teachers who were quiet and lovely with the kids.
After getting to know the routine in the nursery it all ran like clockwork all because of the diligent work of the tia’s knowing all the kids and their personalities. It was amazing the tia’s knew so much about all the kids. The tia’s all mum’s of 2 kids each approximately hahaha were really inspirational in that they made looking after 15-20 kids look easy an d were always able to laugh when things were hard.
After 1 or 2 wks being with the kids and them getting used to how tall and strong I am, all the kids wanting to be lifted up to touch the ceiling. I was asked to see a little boy who couldn’t walk or crawl to see if I could help him from a Physio perspective.
In short I worked with a little boy who initially couldn’t craw or make any changes with getting around his classroom, the tias used to have to move him into every position, which made things really hard because he was 1 ½ yrs old. So initially I thought ok I don’t know how to tackle this because I had very limited experience working with paeds but after many facebook msgs between me and Esther Gan I felt like ok I can only try to help this lill fella move as best as he possibly could.
So we started out with assessment usual physio business except my lil boy couldn’t speak English/Spanish or any native dialect so I was a giant white woman sitting on the floor next to him he had every right to freak out. We started with his legs the tias had said he had weak legs, I went to check I lay him down on a mat and he started kicking so hard nearly put me through the wall so I discovered that wasn’t the problem. I had to spend a few days bargaining with him with toys and walks outside to get him to let me assess him properly it was really fun for me. Reminded me of when I worked in gen med and youd have to find some incentive for them to want to do your assessment at times. So we got to work 2hrs each day walking, playing, visiting his sister, playing on the playground, throwing water on the bathroom floor ( that was definitely treatment I kept telling myself)
Then after 3 wks he was not walking but was crawling everywhere, pulling himself up on furniture, playing with other kids, eating by himself, I tried to teach him as much as I could so he could continue to improve and the best thing of all was that everytime he was nodding off to sleep he’d be talking to himself and trying to run away. He was so much more confident and happy in his class and the tias saw him as an independent strong lil fella after all this. I wanted to steal him at the end he was so inspirational. His little sister even changed from being a bit afraid of her brother because he didn’t move or talk to being proud and showing him off to all the other 4 yr olds it was beautiful.
When I left I was so sad not to have the opportunity to help more. I really found a passion volunteering so im off again in a few wks to Cusco.
Miss you all if you are ever thinking of doing volunteering definitely just do it.
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