h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In April last year I travelled out to Cochabamba, Bolivia, to work as a house-mother for a year. I looked after 5 girls aged between 5 and 14 years old and worked with a Bolivian house-mother, Adela, who cared for another larger group of girls.
Christmas Day was a strange but enjoyable experience...we ate traditional Bolivian food (picana de navidad) and opened our presents together (but not at midnight on Christmas Eve, as is traditional there). The girls played out in the sunshine in the afternoon and it felt like a fairly normal day, to be honest. Much more bizarre was going to a carols by candlelight service in the hot sun, singing about "In the Bleak Midwinter"!!
My mother and my sister both telephoned me during the day, which made me feel pleased and home-sick at the same time, and we played a tape of Canterbury Choir singing carols.
The part of the experience that had the most impact for me was seeing how enormously pleased the girls were with very small gifts, certainly compared to what my friends children in the UK would be receiving. A very humbling experience, if I'm honest.
And what did I miss most, apart from friends and family?
of course