Broken Bones, Crashing Cars and Bye Bye Bolivia

After 20 months away in Bolivia we have safely returned home and are enjoying the comforts of hot showers, supermarkets and sensible drivers.

We returned to the park at the end of April for a somewhat eventful last couple of months. Matt returned to work in the office and I returned to working with the spider monkeys, however Matt, keen to have a final stint of working with Roy, filled in for a day. Whilst training other volunteers how to safely work with a large, wild feline, managed to get the rope caught around his hand and quite spectacularly fractured his second metacarpal (hand bone between index finger and wrist). After being patched up at the local hospital, one of the doctors (qualifications questionable) did suggest that he may want to be seen by a surgeon in Cochabamba. So off we went to go and see Cochabamba's finest surgeon (who has treated many a wounded volunteer) to go and have half a dozen screws and a plate inserted into his, now bionic, hand. After a couple of days in hospital Matt was allowed out but instructed to stay in the city and not to return to the park for 10 days to avoid any swelling, and so we went and stayed with some good friends of the park. Me being a somewhat unsympathetic wife (physios are known as 'trained bullys' with good reason!) decided that instead of helping to nurse Matt back to good health, I would head back to the park without him.

I got a private car from Cochabamba to Villa Tunari on May 28th as I was transporting a rescued sloth to the park. I thought the driver was driving pretty fast, but then they always do and so I decided not to say anything, when we swerved to one side of the road, and then the other, and then everything went black. I woke up in the car with the sloth on my lap, with no memory of where I was or why I was there or anything that happened over the last few days, especially not why I was holding a sloth!

To cut a long story short, we had a head on collision with a truck. My driver was killed instantly and I know that the truck driver was taken to hospital but am unaware of how he is. I tell this story not to be dramatic but to share that when people say 'wow you were very lucky' I have to reply that it really was not luck but a series of miracles that saved both me and prevented not more people from being hurt in the accident. Firstly the driver wanted to pick up another passenger in the front seat which is a common line that drivers use to make more money on a private contract. I said that that was fine but that I would not pay the full amount, so he decided not to bother. If he had, they most certainly would have died as well. Secondly, we stopped one metre infront of a 100m cliff drop, after having slid at least 15m to the other side of the road. Thirdly I only had enough battery and credit to call one person before my phone died, and the only person who I could remember at the time was our friend in Cochabamba who was looking after Matt and able to come straight to the hospital where I was treated. And finally and maybe most dramatically I was sitting less than a metre from the driver who was killed, and yet I was let away with minor concussion, whiplash and a few scratches.

I know that people may think there is a technical explanation for this, but I know that I was saved by a miracle, and that God is giving me a second chance. So thankyou so much for all of your concern, but please be reassured that we are both fine, and if anything this has brought Matt and I closer together and more determined to make the very most of our very fragile lives.

So after returning to Cochambamaba and staying in the same hospital that Matt had been discharged from a few days earlier, we eventually made it back to the park for the last couple of weeks of work before many tearful goodbyes. Living and working in Bolivia has been an eye opening and humbling experience and we have been lucky enough to meet some incredible people and make some wonderful friends, most notably Nena, the park director and now President of Inti Wara Yassi, who is without doubt the most inspiring woman I have ever met. We will look back on the time we spent in South America with many happy memories, but it will also be a time that has taught us to really appreciate what we have here. And so it is that the Brimbles Bolivian Blog ends and we enter a new chapter in our lives invol

ving 9-5 jobs, council tax and cooking at home which is still about 8 times more expensive than eating out in the nicest restaurant in Villa Tunari! But it also involves spending quality time with friends and family and each other.

With all our love to everyone still reading and apologies if we haven't been in touch yet but we will do our best,

Matt & Sarah x

Long Overdue

Despite promising to do a better job of updating the blog more regularly in 2009/2010 I am fully aware that there has only been oneblogentry in 2010, due to the usual excuses of rubbish internet connection and being ridiculously busy. I think after last year in Bolivia we were under the impression that because we knew what we were going back to, it would be much easier to cope with, and therefore I would make more time to keep in touch with people and do the blog etc, but sadly that has definitely (evidently) not been the case!

As you know I arrived back in the park in October and Matt followed on in early December after finishing a job with Raleigh International in Borneo. It quickly became apparent that the problems we had to deal with in the park last year were just a warm up to what was to happen this year. Without boring you with all of the details for quite a while now there has been a growing rift within the internal management of Inti Wara Yassi - the NGO that we work for. This came to a head this year when the president of the organisation launched an unpleasant and personal attack on both the vice-president and Matt (the administrator), and so the first few months of 2010 were taken up with endless paper work and meetings with lawyers on how best to move forward for the benefit of the community and the animals. It was decided that this would sadly involve removing the president. It was a really tough and draining time for Matt (largely due to the presence of death threats and an ensuing restraining order taken out against said president), and so it was almost a blessing that at the same time we were very short on volunteers and so Matt had to escape to the jungle most days to walk with Roy – the puma he has been working with off and on since 2006.

I continued to work with the spider monkeys until January when I left the park to start working with a group of Quest gap year students, who I have been with for the last 3 months. It was my first time doing the full three month stint and I have to say that I was more than ready to relinquish control to Matt half way through, when he joined us to become the expedition leader. The three months involved 2 and a half weeks of Spanish classes in Sucre followed by a 4 day tour of the Salt Flats in Uyuni, and a trip to the mines in Potosi. The students then did a months work of volunteering in the parks which is broken down into 2 weeks of construction work in our newest park, Jacj Cuisi, and 2 weeks of working with animals in our oldest park, Machia. The final part of the trip is the expedition which Matt was in charge of and involved trekking and activities in Bolivia and Peru, culminating with walking the Inca trail to Machu Picchu dressed as super heroes.

We finished with the group 4 days ago and were looking forward to a few day of relaxing and time to ourselves, but work seems to have taken its toll on us and we both came down with illnesses the day after all the students left! As I write this we are on our way to La Paz for a final day of relaxation (or recovery) and shopping before returning to the parks for our last stint of work. The current plan is to return to the UK around the end of June... and then who knows? It is both sad and exciting thinking about leaving Bolivia. We have made many friends here and feel that we have truly become part of the community, but at the same time we have given all we have to give, and are both more than ready for some home comforts!

Sorry that this blog entry has been so totally boring – it is difficult to know where to start when so much has happened, but hopefully who ever has taken the time to read this will appreciate it’s nutshell like character and be happy going on with your day.

Lots of love ‘The Brimbles’

Matt and Sarah go there separate ways

So when we left you last time Matt was working in Borneo with Raleigh International and I was in the UK about to return to Bolivia. Matt´s group went well, no lawyer-murder and one fully functioning gravity water-feed system in place. The trip finished with the lawyers taking Matt and one of his best mates Jim (technically his boss at that time) to a five star resort for two days. They fully made the most of the happy hours! Once finishing with Raleigh Jim and Matt went to the Philippines for a spot of diving, biking and kayaking before returning back to the UK for some Bolivian visa fun (straight off the plane), quick family visits and Quest training weekend.

During this time I was sweating in the jungle in Bolivia, where I was back into the role of coordinator and in charge of the spider monkey park within 2 hours of arriving. It was a tough time as the park director was away for a lot of it and matt wasn´t there so I was stuck with all the income and expenditure, idiot volunteers to deal with and 30+ monkeys to look after. In addition to all that fun I was elected as Guinea pig of how to get a 12 month temporary residence visa in Bolivia, involving 5 24 hour return journeys to La Paz, only to find that all the documents I had got in La Paz were invalid and I had to go through it all over again in Cochabamba. A chance to see Bolivian Bureaucracy atits finest!

Fortunately 5 weeks passed relatively quickly and Matt and I were reunited at Santa Cruz airport (deja vu as that is where we first met 4 and half years ago... ahhhh). Throughout December our feet barely touched the ground as we worked all the hours that God sent, regardless of chrsitmas or new year, wknds, evenings etc sob sob violin music. On a more serious note though it has been a tough few months as there have been very low volunteer numbers (we have hit the lowest ever recorded number of volunteers - 16) which has met that matt has been working with two cats, as well as being volunteer coordinator, cat coordinator, accomodation coordinator, administrator etc etc (basically he is just trying to get the largest number of titles he can - and according to him, holds the current record).

So we find ourselves standing on the edge of another separation. Gazing into the gorge of loneliness but happy in the thought that we will still bask under the same sky of love that will keep us together and unite us despite the distance between us(yes - matts words not mine) . Matt and I have left the park and we arrived in Sucre on Thursday for a mad couple of days of getting things organised for the first Quest groups arrival on Monday. Our hard work has paid off though and so Matt and I are enjoying a whole day of relaxing together today - the first we have had in many many months! Sucre is a beautiful city and quite compact so you can walk everywhere. The main square is lovely and there´s always lots going on. There´s lots of good food and the climate is mild, so it is a welcome change from the steamy heat and torrid rain storms of the jungle. I will be in charge of the group this year, so we will go our separate ways for the next three weeks whilst I stay with the group during their language classes in Sucre, and Matt returns to the park. We will briefly reunite in La Paz before another 4 week stint apart: 10 days of construction work in the new park followed by 2 weeks working with animals in the old park, whilst Matt is off doing a wrecky for the new expedition route. Finally on March 8th we will be reunited with the group to run the expedition together. Hopefully we will fill you in around then!

Sorry for the lack of updates... we don´t expect to improve in 2010.

All our love,

Matt & Sarah x