Mila S. from Waldsee spends her voluntary year 2017/8 in the “Centro Cultural Masis” in Sucre. Music and dance have been part of her live for a long time and in different ways. Thus, the “Centro Cultural Masis” is a place where it can support the music education work there well with their skills and talents. 

An excerpt from her first report on her daily routine at the “Centro Cultural Masis”:

“The ´Centro´, where I’ve been working for five weeks now, is a place where kids from different parts of the city can get lessons in instruments like guitar, charrano, piano, panpipes and vocals.  Additionally their homework after or before school gets supported.

An ordinary day of the week starts like this: I wake up at 7:20, get dressed and go down for breakfast. Mostly Roberto, my host father, and Elsa, my host mother, sit with me at the table and we drink tea and eat rolls with “Dulce de Leche”, jam or cheese and tomato pieces. At 8:20 I run down the hill and arrive after about ten minutes in the “Centro”.

The first group of children arrives and Fabi, a student from the University, Samuel the psychologist of the ´Centro´, and I look after them while they are doing their homework. Often they have no homework on Mondays and we cook something. The last time I taught the kids how to make pancakes and how to throw them up and pick them up again. It did not always work! After an hour, they have panflute lessons with Jorge. Very often I’m attending the lessons and learn to play the songs, too.

At 10:30 the lessons are over and I’m either in the office with Carla, in Roby singing lessons or playing the piano.

In my lunch break, which starts at 12:00, I walk up the mountain again and have lunch with my host family. The food that Elsa cooks is always delicious and healthy, so I always eat so much that I need a siesta and sleep until 14:45.

At 15:00 I go back to the “Centro” and there are two other groups with the same schedule as in the morning. At 19:00 then the “Q’arapanzas”, children advanced in the playing of the panpipe, arrive. But I’m not playing, because I still have to learn the songs by heart. In the evening I often have dinner with Fabi, we go to a concert of the “Masis” or I fell exhausted into my bed.”

Further details and beautiful photo impressions from the time she spents in Bolivia can be found in her current reports (in German language). It is definitely worth reading them and/or at least looking at the pictures.

The fourth report mentions on page 4 the music group “Masis”, which toured Germany for three months. In the following video the group plays on the occasion of her return at a party and students of a befriended dance school spontaneously give a dance performance: