...Welcome To BOLIVIA

What Is This?

My name is Rob Radencic. I lived in Bolivia for a year as a Foriegn Exchange Student through Rotary International in 1988/1989. I returned in 1993 for a two month trip accross the country. This website is a collection of images from those trips. Ever thought about hitch-hiking your way accross South America? Maybe something you see here will inspire you!

During my one year stay as an exchange student, I lived with a Bolivian family in Santa Cruz. This is where my "host-family" lived. The house is much larger than it looks because much of it is hidden by trees and such.

You can see one of the family dogs wanderring around outside.

There was often a monkey in the tree in our front yard... or on the roof as the case may be. He wasn't very photogenic though. It's funny how after a while, a monkey living in your front yard is no big deal. Now I wish I'd gotten a better picture of him.

My best friend's family was actually where I learned the most about Bolivian family life. This is their home. I wish I could say enough kind things about how well they treated me and how they made my time abroad absolutely amazing! Bolivians are wonderful people who open up their homes and their hearts. There's a part of me that would love to live there forever.

And this is the outside of their home - and their business as well. They own a hardware store called "Progreso." Their home is more or less built in a circle with rooms on all sides and a courtyard in the middle (pictured above). Honestly, if I lived in a warmer climate, I'd love to own a house just like theirs... but it was really the people that made that home feel the way it did.

And here they are - a picture of the Justiniano family - Mother, Father, and daughter - inside their hardware store in 1989. If you can't tell by now - I love them dearly.