Casa De La Amistad

This morning we went for a walk to see another one of the ministries that CBM is taking part in called Casa De La Amistad. It is about two blocks away from where we are staying, and is within sight of two of the men's and women’s jails here in Cochabamba. Jails are much different here than in Canada in many ways, first the guards are all outside and the inmates on the inside fend for themselves.

third floor of men's prision across street

Also if a mother or father goes to jail, and there is no other family member, the children go with them. They also have to provide their own meals and basic necessities of life. The Casa is a place where the children from ages 3 and up to 18 can go for tutoring, mentoring, counseling and meals. In Bolivia many times you are considered guilty until proven innocent, and it can take years before you case is tried. We were taken on a tour of the place and asked to continue to pray for this ministry.

It is summer here so the center is closed until school goes in again in 2 weeks

(this is the inside of the center, the main play area and dinning area, there is also a medical clinic and many class rooms)


For dinner today we met up with Isabel who owned the hotel we stayed at in Mizque. We were told that we could not have a true Bolivian experience until we had eaten Saltenas, much like kissing the cod in Newfoundland. They were very good, you could either have beef or chicken and were much like a pie.

This afternoon we visited the market which was very interesting, and extremely different than anything we had seen before. We headed to the market, taking one of the local bus systems, which was an experience in itself. We arrived to find it was a very large market, with many isles, each about 200 feet and only 4 feet wide. Each isle had approximately 80-90 shops. The great thing was that today there were not many people around, making it much easier to explore and shop . We all were able to find a few things for loved ones, and was a very different experience for most of us.

this is a photo is taken from google images, we were advised not to take cameras to market