¨Home¨stay

I am now in El Alto (outskirts of La Paz). As a group we have started spanish classes and our first urban homestay.

As it turns out, my homestay is not actually a home. Haley Rose and I are living in a spare room in Teatro Trono, sharing a bathroom and common area with two Argentinian film volunteers.

Our ¨mother¨ is Doña Taña, the daughter of Doña Alba who lives in an apartment two floors below us. (Two other students are living in the apartment with Doña Alba.) Doña Alba cooks for us and we eat downstairs in her apartment.
We actually dont know where Doña Taña sleeps, or if she has any children or a husband. We´ve only spoken to her a few times, because lately she has been very busy with work at the Teatro.
I am a little sad that I dont have a real ¨family¨ or a real ¨home¨ for my homestay.

BUT I cant complain too much because Teatro Trono is the coolest place ever. Teatro Trono is an artist collective dedicated to making art accessable for youth and using art for political activism. There are film, radio, computer, and dance studios all over the building. The six-story building has a gutted, open elevator shaft that connects all the floors and makes yelling from top to bottom a breeze. It is decorated with all sorts of interesting, eclectic items, from bust statues, to stuffed dinosaurs, to old hats, to vintage posters, to live chickens (the awkward adolecent kind) that live on the terrace. From the roof you can climb a latter onto a suspension bridge which circles the building. From it, you can get a beautiful, unobstructed view of El Alto and the snowy mountains behind La Paz.