They Called her “Choltia of the Sea”

After I got back from Tarija things really started to pick up in my site. June was a tremendous month for Ag. First of all I decided to take a cue from the moscos and just started constantly hanging around the women from the centro de mujeres, showing up at their houses or at their garden, going around with the president trying to get them to have a meeting so we could talk about ideas. And well, like any good mosco I got some bites. First, I made orange-banana marmalade with Doña Eva and Doña Heidi (even though it was only 2 out of the 11 women it was 2 more than I had expected to actually show up and it was a delicious success in my book.) Then we went to the garden and planted a seedbed. My boss had sent me a whole ton of seeds and they are sprouting beautifully. That same day we were machete-aring the land to make way for yet more sugar cane and the women were “cleaning” the debris from the peanut plants by burning the left over leaves. I saw this as a great opportunity to implement behavior change. I told them that they were burning money and that my boss would die when he saw this and I took a picture. Then we talked a bit about composting and how since the land was right by the river and very sandy it could really use some organic material to improve it. Why don’t we make a compost pile here instead of burning our organic waste? So right then and there we started stacking an enormous pile of organic matter. The next week I went back (I now know how to get to the garden on my own and whenever I just show up by myself the women are impressed) and we restacked the pile into a neat rectangle, watering each layer as we went and then covering it. It’s the most beautiful compost pile I’ve ever seen, don’t you agree? Actually, we had so much organic material that I made a second pile and I have great hopes of getting worms from a volunteer in NoTa who works with a university that does worm composting.

Then, I show up at the school for English class one day and see that they are doing a garden. There are a ton of projects going on in my town, generally called “The Plan” and a bunch of people here are working on these projects. Apparently they were supposed to work on the plaza but the cement didn’t show up so they decided to do the school garden instead. At first I was like, why didn’t anyone tell me, but this is kind of how things go around here, we do things by the seat of our pants. Plus they start work at 6 in the morning and I was most definitely asleep. So the next day I woke up at the butt crack of dawn and brought my seeds and people were actually asking my advice on seedbeds and intercropping, since you know, I’m the “expert.” This made me feel better and somewhat useful. And on top of that Don Hector, Doña Clara and Doña Gloria asked me if I could teach them orange banana marmalade and peanut butter, so in the afternoon I went to Don Hector’s house and we made marmalade, they invitared me to fish for dinner and we chatted into the evening. The whole strategy of seeking people out and making my presence known totally worked because now I have people seeking me out and wanting me to teach them, what more could I ask for? Next up on the Ag agenda is peanut butter. Everyone says they want to learn how to make it and I would love to have a ready supply at my fingertips (there is no peanut butter in Tarija!)

In other news, one Tuesday I get a note from Aaron saying that it is his town’s anniversary on Wednesday and that I should stop by and check out the festivities. I asked the teachers at my school that live in his town what the plans were and they said a velada with all the traditional Bolivian dances was scheduled for that night. I debated if I should go or not, after all I was pretty “busy” with English classes to plan and compost to check on. But since anniversaries only come once a year I decided I should check it out. I got the 3pm trufi and found Aaron in his house, kind of surprised to see me a day early. Aaron had recently returned from the States so he didn’t know exactly what the plans were. We confirmed with the locals that the dances were indeed happening that night. Aaron explained that he had originally planned on doing a dance for the festivities but that his partner had only recently arrived from Tarija and that they hadn’t practiced or planned anything. And that’s when it started. I convinced him that there was still plenty of time to practice and that he had to dance. It was only around 5pm and the dances wouldn’t start until 8 or 9. That’s plenty of time; let’s face it you can probably learn any Bolivian dance in about 3 minutes, I said. We went to his friend Blanca’s house to see if she was interested, we convinced her and his original partner Judith that they should dance and then I got roped into it. “You have to dance too, you know.” Okay, but now we had 3 women and 1 man and Bolivian dances are all couples so we had to find 2 more guys. Poor Aaron ran around recruiting while Blanca went around finding us all costumes, because you can’t perform a dance without the right costume. The song we were doing was called “Cholita Marina” which I would translate as Cholita of the sea. I learned the steps easily enough but hadn’t realized that Aaron is a terrible dancer (it’s okay, he admits it) but he eventually got it. Blanca came back with her arms full of cholita wear. This is something I absolutely love about Bolivians, the fact that everyone will lend anyone anything at anytime. All you have to say is “Prestáme” and they do, I’ve tried it on several occasions and it totally works. I tried on a couple of polleras (the traditional cholita skirt) and the classic button up blouse that they wear. I felt and looked ridiculous. Blanca braided my hair with these tassel things that cholitas wear (I need to find out what those things are called) and I really looked the part. I borrowed sandals from Judith’s mom and the look was complete. Aaron wore a brightly colored vest and a white button up shirt. I danced with Blanca’s brother Primo, and Judith danced with the dance teacher Raúl. The 6 of us didn’t go on until 1 in the morning, we were among the last performances which I was grateful for because most everyone was drunk by that point and after we finished they were shouting “otro, otro!” and we got an impressive round of applause. I was absolutely frozen though and we ran back to change and then had some more Diana, which is a drink made from hot milk and Sengani, a grape based alcohol that doesn’t taste like grape at all. This may sound disgusting but it’s not and it was so cold that it felt great to drink something hot.

On Wednesday there was more parading around the plaza, a soccer game and that night there was a dance in the multipurpose room where the town meetings are held. It was a “modern” dance that reminded me of junior high but with drunken Bolivian men lining the walls instead of pre-pubescent boys. There was a smoke machine, laser lights and a band from Tarija playing all the faves: chacareras, cuecas, cumbia, etc. Not bad for the campo. Now, there were some decent looking, young guys hanging out and drinking, but who do you think asked me to dance? Drunk middle aged men who are such ridiculously bad dancers that I actually am laughing in their faces as we’re dancing, convinced that I am on a Bolivian hidden camera show and that any minute someone would pop out yelling “Surprise, you’re on campo camera!” And it only got worse from there. My next dance partner was a 19 year old who looked like he was 12 and was exactly the same height as me. Now, admittedly I hadn’t showered in a week and I was looking pretty campo but come on! I had had enough and after some drunken campesinos started fighting I decided I’d pack it in early, it was only around 1am.

The great thing about Aaron’s site is that he’s been there for almost a year and he’s got some great Bolivian friends who on principle treat me as a friend. They also really want me to cook with them since that really isn’t Aaron’s bag and whenever I’m there they ask me when I’ll be coming back. That feeling of being wanted is really nice when you’re living in a country far from friends and family and I think it’s great to have this network of volunteers and Bolivians that I can rely on. I’ve got work and a social life and I just can’t believe how fast time is going. Before I know it I’ll be back in Cochabamba for the 3-month reconnect where we present our diagnostics and I’ll get to see all my fellow B-47ers and hear all their crazy stories. Speaking of that diagnostic, I should probably be working on it instead of my blog. I’m out.

Good Eats

I am in love. Not with a Bolivian or even an Argentinean as was expected, but with a Brazilian! When we first met I was a little hesitant, things were complicated and I was worried that I might get hurt but after a while I got used to having him around and things really started heating up between us. In fact, things are so serious that we are living together. His name is Dako and if you haven’t figured it out by now, he is my stove, and this entry is all about food.

So yes, I was afraid of my Brazilian made stove. Once I finally acquired a gas tank and hooked it up I was convinced that I was going to blow myself up somehow. It took many attempts to light it the first time and when I didn’t blow up I felt reassured. The first meal I made was pasta with an oil, garlic and lemon sauce. I didn’t have olive oil at the time so I had to use vegetable oil, but still, I was so happy to have cooked something that it tasted just fine. Thankfully I have acquired olive oil and my Italian ancestors can stop rolling over in their graves. Speaking of travesties against Italian cooking you would not believe what my friend Elliot told me about Bolivians and pasta. I already knew that Bolivians don’t cook pasta correctly, it is usually way overcooked, soggy and sometimes burnt and for some reason they fry it first, just like they do when cooking rice. Well it turns out that just like rice they also cook the water off of it. My jaw dropped and exactly half of my blood curled when I heard that. Pasta does not absorb as much water as rice; you can’t cook the water off of it! Anyway, they mostly eat it in soup or with a little oil as a side along with rice and potatoes; it is never a main feature of the meal. For me, it makes up a large part of my diet and I think I’ve nearly perfected my tomato sauce recipe. I even channeled a 1950s housewife and made a casserole one day. I didn’t even think I knew what a casserole was, but I had this leftover cream of asparagus soup that wasn’t very good and I had to do something with it and hey, it turned out pretty good. A high point in my Italian cooking was when I made pizza in my landlady’s clay oven that she uses to make bread. Even with campo cheese instead of mozzarella and tomato extract instead of my own tomato sauce it tasted delicious and everyone liked it. None of them had tried pizza before and my dueña was convinced that I was making some kind of bread and I kept explaining that yes, there’s dough but it’s more than just bread. I’ve also made pizza in my Dako, which turned out really well and was equally enjoyed by Bolivians and me. I’m also learning to make all kinds of bread which is great, who ever has time to make bread in the states (except for you Jessalynn)? I made tortillas and pita bread so far and would like to give bagels a try…oh bagels…

I thought that my lack of a refrigerator would really limit my dairy options but they don’t refrigerate campo cheese and I think it’s unpasturized anyway and I haven’t gotten sick so while it’s cold enough to just keep it in my room, I do. I am also totally addicted to powdered milk. I was skeptical at first but it’s actually really good. A mug of warm milk with a spoonful of sugar and a piece of bread is a typical campo dinner and it’s totally delicious. Plus, I need milk for cooking and baking so it’s super convenient. It was around the time that I discovered the greatness of powdered milk that I became addicted to Oreos. I had a 2 pack a day habit (4 cookies/pack) for a few weeks but I’m glad to say I’m recovered. It was just the only snack that was delicious and relatively cheap. Luckily I discovered some quality Bolivian dark chocolate that I can get in Tarija and I got some packages from the states with some quality US of A candy (thanks Mom, Jessalynn, Michelle and Vishu for that!) Bolivians especially enjoyed the sour patch kids I got, they were like whoa, first it’s sour and then it’s sweet. Okay, this makes me sound like a junk food junkie but actually I am eating super healthy. Oatmeal almost every day for breakfast, rice and beans, tons of fresh organic veggies, quinoa, lentils and trigo (a wheat grain that is delicious and super healthy, I don’t know why we don’t have this in the states) and so on. The crazy thing is that all this incredibly healthy food is super cheap here. You can get a kilo of flax seed for $1. A kilo of oatmeal is also $1 and Bolivians don’t eat oatmeal the way we do, they blend it and drink it. One volunteer told me how her family cooked oatmeal, then drained it, threw away the oatmeal and drank the water. One time Peter and I were contemplating all the fresh veggies that they sell in the markets and the typical Bolivian diet. Bread and tea for breakfast, soup for lunch, meat, potatoes and rice for dinner and not a vegetable to be found. “Who’s buying all those peppers?” we wondered, could it just be us? Then I remembered that Picay Machu has peppers in it, but still. I’m hoping to have some nutrition and cooking classes at the women’s center, when they’re done constructing it.

As for Bolivian food, well there remains much of it that I can’t eat, although I am guiltily enjoying fish that comes from the river over here. I did find street food in Bermejo that I can actually eat, these papas rellenas, which are bits of fried goodness, potatoes with campo cheese almost like a knish in consistency. The only problem is that I seek them out at every empanada stand and I seem to have a quota and must eat 5 of them every time I’m in the city. But like I said, I’m eating healthy at home so I don’t feel too bad about it. There’s also one empanada lady that has cheese and onion empanadas instead of the ubiquitous chicken or meat ones but she is like the big foot of empanada stands, you think you know where to find her but then she’s never there and then one day when you least expect it you find her again.

One of my favorite Bolivian meals was cooked in the campo in between the river and the women’s garden. They had been watering the potatoes all morning and still had a lot of work to do and no one had brought food or was going to cook. I said I could go back and get food if they wanted so they sent me with this girl named Estella and we did this thing called “mercado” where we went to all their houses and had their kids or whoever was home give us rice, vegetables and plates. We put all the stuff into a huge pot and carried it back to the garden. We started a fire, heated some water from the river and Doña Aleja started peeling and cutting everything in that magical way that Bolivian women can peel and cut, super fast and completely in their hand, it’s really incredible. If there is a Bolivian skill I hope to learn it would have to be that. So we ended up making a pretty tasty soup out of what we had and everyone ate lunch and at the end of the day when we had finally finished watering all the potatoes, we finished off what was left of the soup.

I have to say I’m very proud of how pretty much none of my food goes to waste. With the incredible humidity down here (both hot and cold) I was really worried about things getting moldy and going bad super fast. I usually play 2 games when it comes to food. First, “Will Michelle eat it?” I have to stay my standards on what is acceptable to eat have changed now that I don’t have refrigeration and yet still have leftovers. But if it so happens that something is past due even by my campo standards I play a new game, “Will a chicken eat it?” Whatever food item is in question is thrown into the yard where my dueñas chickens are hanging out and then I watch to see if they will eat it or not. For those of you playing at home, the answer is always yes, a chicken will eat it, and it doesn’t matter at all what “it” is. But now that I’ve started an indoor compost bin I’m playing that game less (yes, I’m that into composting.)

Well, I know you were all dying to know what I’ve been eating so there you have it. Dako and I are very happy together. At times he can be temperamental and I know it can’t last, when I go back to the states he will have to stay here in Bolivia, but we’re enjoying the time that we do have together. My friend Elliot is a hardcore veg and an excellent cook with his very own Dako and he is going to teach me how to make tofu and soymilk and I can’t wait! Provecho!

Speaking of Chicken Related Fun…

The other week I was helping the women harvest some peanuts when a couple of girls from my 7th/8th grade class invited me to go swimming in the river nearby. I didn’t have a change of clothes on me, but why not, I thought. It was a rare warm but pleasant day to break up the cold autumn days we had been having. Jimena, a tiny 11 year old lent me a pair of shorts with a big rip in the crotch, my pasty white legs covered in mosco bites were on full display, and Mirta lent me a shirt that was basically a soccer jersey. I knew I looked totally ridiculous, but I didn’t care. The water was amazing. It was cool and refreshing and is the closest thing I’m going to get to a beach in the next 2 years so I took full advantage. I felt like a kid, I felt alive and totally uninhibited. I wanted to remember the feeling, the scene, the first impression of being in that place for the first time and this is what I wrote after I returned from that first trip to the river: The view devastated me. The sun scorched earth, the trees lining the riverbank and the land eroded away by the fast flowing water, the endless blue of the sky above the trees, the light seeping through it all, like a river flowing through a desert. So beautiful it hurt to look at, so I turned away, looked down at the dirt path and at the sugarcane fields to the left. Raised my head again to be shocked by the tragic beauty of the landscape. Couldn’t look away again. Breathed in deeply and tried to breath in the view. Felt like I was home, longed for the ocean, the sound of the ocean only. We made our way over the rocks to the salt less water where I was appeased, refreshed, cleansed.

I realized something kind of ridiculous while we were swimming that day. Basically, living in Bolivia is the closest I’ll come to being a rock star. I mean whatever I do these kids want to imitate. If I do a belly flop they want to do a belly flop, if I do a cannonball they do a cannonball. They want to know everything I know: songs, dances, games, what have you. And then once they learn something they can’t get over it. They want to do it over and over again. And the great thing is that it doesn’t matter the age of the kids, they all have this innocent curiosity and excitement. I played duck, duck, goose with kids aged 5 through 13 and they were all really into it. It’s kind of bizarre and kind of awesome. It was swimming with the girls that I got the idea to teach the first graders the chicken dance for Mother’s day. We were dancing on the riverbank, just messing around, Jimena asked me to show the chicken dance to Mariela and Mirta so I did. Earlier that day the first grade teacher had asked me to teach an “American” dance to his class for the big Mother’s day celebration on May 27th. The girls thought it was a good idea and starting talking about how the kids could have their moms pluck chickens to make wings for them to wear. Luckily that didn’t happen. Instead we had wings made out of cut newspapers and red construction paper crests attached with bobby pins to the kids’ heads. They looked so fricken adorable. Since I didn’t have the music to the chicken dance we used this Spanish song called “La Gallinita Turuleca” and since this song is about a chicken that lays eggs all over the house the kids also had little balloon eggs to drop as they entered. I stood in front guiding them and the professor would blow a whistle for them to change to the next move (the dance was modified to be even easier for them.) The timing was all off but I think they did an awesome job and they were definitely the cutest of the day.

Mother’s Day is a pretty big deal here. It seems like the school had been preparing for weeks. Each class performed songs and dances, most of them traditional Bolivian dances with costumes and all. You pretty much can’t have a dance without some specific clothing to go along with it. The 7th/8th grade girls wanted me to teach them a dance as well. We had about a week to prepare and originally I started teaching them a simple salsa step. That got Bolivianized into a very slow, kind of rhythm-less and repetitive motion, it definitely wasn’t salsa. I don’t know how well the dance turned out, it wasn’t what I had originally envisioned, but it was definitely a lot of fun rehearsing with the girls at my house, it gave me something to do in the afternoons. After all the dances the moms played games, decent ones, with prizes. There were musical chairs, a potato sack race, spoon in mouth potato relay, find the coin in a plate of flour using only your mouth among others. My favorite was definitely the one where the women had to race around all four corners of the cancha and finish a glass of something at each corner. The stations had beer, wine, soda and Sengani, which is a grape liquor, and they had to go around twice. Seeing cholitas run in their polleras is priceless.

After the games there was a lunch, which had been cooked by the men of course, and then the real festivities began. There was drinking and dancing from the afternoon on into the wee hours of the night. The teachers, the moms, the grandmas all got wasted. Drinking in Bolivia is a tricky thing because you are invited to a drink (te invito) and then in turn you have to invite someone else, if you don’t you have to drink more. So there was a lot of invitaring going on and a lot of drunk mamas. I was constantly being invited to drink and to dance and as the night went on and people got drunker I kept making up excuses to escape, saying I would dance “en un ratito” or I would leave for a bit saying, “ahorita vengo.” I mostly danced with the women and children. One of the mothers every time she saw me would stumble towards me and say “LA PROFESORA MICHELLE!” At one point she also asked me to be the madrina of her daughter’s first communion but I’m not sure that she’ll remember that she asked me. I’m sure her 6 year old will though. Another woman, one from the group I work with, would constantly grab me just as I was about to make my exit, insisting that I dance one more song. They all seemed to be thrilled that I was there participating in the festivities and I felt like it was important for me to compartir, to share, in the happiness of the day. The advances of some stumbling drunks I could have done without, but I held my own, hell I’m from NY and I know how to take care of myself, plus I really felt like all the women had my back, sensing when I was in an uncomfortable situation and pulling me out of it. When I had had enough of box wine and soda, cumbia music and drunk campesinos I called it a night. It was still early so I left saying I would be back in just a minute. I heard people coming back from the festivities around 1:30am and in typical Bolivian style they scheduled a parents meeting at the school for 7:00am. Not sure how many mamas made it, I´m sure they were all with ch´aqui (hungover.) ¡Feliz día de la Madre!