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
Saturday 16 January 2010
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