the monkey, the fat lady and my wallet

Hi everyone,

We are having a great time here in Sucre. For those that don´t know we came here to visit some missionaries (Graham and Debbie Firth). They have set up a student cafe in Sucre for the masses of university students that come here from the country. It proides cheap food and a free counceling services and a whole range of other services for students including help for young mums. The cafe is run by volunteers and poorer students can work to get points to eat for free. But basically it is a great, safe and friendly place that uni students love to hang out. It is supported by the local chuches here and is now completly run by Bolivians. Many people have become chrstians though the work here.

We have been doing a lot of washing up in the cafe as it is one job that we can do easily without knowing too much spannish (waiting tables is definitley past our level of espanol). We also have been into the cafe in the mornings to help prepare some of the meals - that is, we chop up potatoes and have a great laugh with Daysei and Marta -the cooks.

We have been invited to many homes for dinner with some of the missionaries here. It has been so nice to have home made meals again. Not only that, we went for lunch at Lawerence and Lilin´s house and Lilin gave us a big jar of vegemite for the week! They have been workin training doctors in the bolivian campo (countryside) and are from Dundas in Sydney.

Any way I know you want to know about the monkey - basically I was in the market one day and was quite amused by a man with a pet monkey dressed up with a dress and a hat. Moments later, still marvelling at the bolivian comic relief, I got stuck behind a large pregnant local, a building and some street carts selling who knows how old meat. She then turned around and push passed me quite strongly. Not sure if the monkey was in on it but a second later I noticed my wallet was gone.

All they got was our key card which we cancelled an hour or so later (another expensve call to OZ to listen to hold music). So we are down to the credit card now - no probs - only 4 days left before we board our epic plane flights home.

Will try and blog again before we are back - probably from an airport lounge - got a few photos too we should put up.