Newly Arrived in Bolivia from United States

by Shantel
(Santa Cruz, Bolivia)

My family and I moved to Santa Cruz on January 2, 2016. Its been a month and are finding some things very difficult, such as navigating through government offices and fairness when going to offices to pay for a service. We have a 5 year old boy and were just told by the American School we need to know/ name 3 families if we want him to be considered for the American School. My question is how is that possible when we don't know anyone? we've had many other issues since we arrived and really wish I would have thought about doing more research prior to moving as I am a lover of blogs and pride myself on doing research. This time I left it to fate and what a disaster that has turned out to be. I enjoy meeting people and networking but as of yet, have not met or run into any other Americans. I would very much like to get involved with the community and hopefully get some answers to my questions as well as make new friends.

Kind Regards,

Shantel

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Jul 09, 2016
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Newly Arrived in Bolivia from US
by: Marjorie Mindel

You may want to broaden your search for English-speaking schools in Santa Cruz. The Santa Cruz Cooperative School (SCCS, known as The American School) is very expensive. Some alternatives are:
Santa Cruz International School (SCIS, also all in English), Cambridge College (all English, but more British than American), but I'd refrain from Eagles' School as it is more a family business, than a true educational institution.
English-intensive schools (more Spanish than English) are St. George and St. Thomas(Colegio Mayor Santo Tomas de Aquino) schools. I believe that St. George is still 95% English in elementary, and English-intensive, but not exclusive in secondary. St. Thomas is a bilingual school with different levels in each grade, depending on knowledge of English. I'd suggest a visit to these schools to see which might be a better fit for your child/children. St. Thomas has classes from 2-year-olds up with English and Spanish. (I'm the English Coordinator at St. Thomas.)

Jul 09, 2016
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Monthly expat meetings
by: BoliviaBella

There is a group of Americans and other foreigners that gets together just to socialize and have fun once a month. See this page for ways to meet other foreigners in Santa Cruz and sign up at Internations in the Santa Cruz, Bolivia group to be sure you receive the invites each month.

You can also join our BoliviaBella Facebook Group.

Please also click on the green Living in Bolivia button on the left side of every page of our website. There you'll find dozens and dozens of pages that may help answer some of your questions or help guide you around the city. Hope you find this helpful.

I'm very sorry to hear that the American school has changed so much. It really doesn't seem logical or fair.

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