My time in Cochabamba was spent eating at all my favorite restaurants, seeing the new Batman movie, twice, meeting new volunteers/catching up with those I hadn’t seen in a while, hanging around the office trying to be useful and impatiently waiting for news of my new site. After what seemed like forever but was actually only a little over 2 weeks of waiting in Coch I got a site change to a very small Northern Tarija town. The transition from my sub-tropical paradise to a valley desert was as difficult as I expected. I knew that no matter what my new site was like I would be disappointed because it wasn’t my old site. Plus I barely had a week to settle in before leaving for our project meeting and “All Volunteer Conference:” location undisclosed. Despite the strange timing I moved in and even unpacked a bit although it seemed a bit pointless with all the political stuff hanging over us right now and having to pack again for this week long conference. But I’m really trying to see all the positive aspects of being moved up to NoTa and I will list them now so you can share this view with me: okay first, NO MOSCOS, so I won’t constantly look like I have a terrible case of the chicken pox, also, this is the desert so it’s dry which means my clothes and everything I own won’t get moldy in the summer the way it does in SoTa because of the insanse heat and humidity, plus, there’s no malaria threat so I don’t have to take malaria meds anymore and my liver is surely going to thank me for that in the years to come, there are 2 volunteers who live super close to me and since they are also AG volunteers we can collaborate and share ideas and projects and I’m closer to the city so I can actually see more of my Tarija crew more regularly, and finally, this is my backyard, so yeah, I really can’t complain too much can I?
So I went from Papayaland to Grapelandia. I’m pretty much in the middle of Bolivian wine country, which is going to be amazing come March when it’s time to harvest. So my last site was pretty campo and pretty small but the NoTa site is even more so. I’m talking about 80 families dispersed over several miles of nothingness, the school has a total of 30 students with 2 teachers who each have 3 different grades in their classrooms. It’s so spread out that I’m lacking that real sense of community. The women’s group even wants to have separate groups, one up by where I live next to the school and the other further down by where my counter-part lives. I don’t mind having 2 groups but I’m definitely going to need to get a bike to cover the distance between them. They also want to learn marmalade, there are peaches here and tomatoes and I’d really like to start expanding on that, I’m thinking sun-dried tomatoes could go over really well in the Eco Sol supermarket in Tarija and in some of the snazzier restaurants. After the All Vol Call is over and I return to site (ojala!) I will start teaching in the school and working with them on their school garden, which is pitiful right now. I would love to start some worm bins at the school to improve the sandy soil and since the kids have pretty much nothing to do in the afternoons I was thinking of starting an Eco club or school newspaper, I mean, something, anything because having my host siblings just sitting around staring at me all afternoon until I teach them a new
card game or something is just driving me crazy. There are 5 kids in the house, 4 boys and one girl (ages 14, 12, 10, 8 and 2) and yeah, they’re pretty much awesome except that they look at me like I’m a total freak or zoo exhibit or something. I taught them a whole slew of card games and how to do cat’s cradle and thus we were entertained for the week but they need a whole lot more stimulation out here, it’s so empty and besides their farm chores (they have cows, pigs, goats and a horse) they don’t have a whole lot to do. When the sun goes down, forget it, there is no light outside, I’ve never seen a town so dark at 8pm. The blanket of stars covering the sky kind of makes up for it though, and just darkness with the mountains in the distance, it’s actually quite surreal. The sunrises and sunsets over the mountains are probably some of the best I’ve seen in my life and they’re not going to get old anytime soon, I can guarantee that. The thing that amuses me the most is that even though I am in the middle of absolutely nowhere and I barely have any transportation that passes through my town or any stores or people I have really good cell phone service. So I am totally within communication range at all time if you feel like, you know, reaching out and touching me…via the phone of course, get your head out of the gutter, don’t you remember those ads…whatever, just call me, but keep in mind I’m usually asleep by 9:00. So even though it’s a change and a bit of a shock I’m going to make it work. Here’s to new beginnings, I hope that this do-over pays off for my new community and me.
So I went from Papayaland to Grapelandia. I’m pretty much in the middle of Bolivian wine country, which is going to be amazing come March when it’s time to harvest. So my last site was pretty campo and pretty small but the NoTa site is even more so. I’m talking about 80 families dispersed over several miles of nothingness, the school has a total of 30 students with 2 teachers who each have 3 different grades in their classrooms. It’s so spread out that I’m lacking that real sense of community. The women’s group even wants to have separate groups, one up by where I live next to the school and the other further down by where my counter-part lives. I don’t mind having 2 groups but I’m definitely going to need to get a bike to cover the distance between them. They also want to learn marmalade, there are peaches here and tomatoes and I’d really like to start expanding on that, I’m thinking sun-dried tomatoes could go over really well in the Eco Sol supermarket in Tarija and in some of the snazzier restaurants. After the All Vol Call is over and I return to site (ojala!) I will start teaching in the school and working with them on their school garden, which is pitiful right now. I would love to start some worm bins at the school to improve the sandy soil and since the kids have pretty much nothing to do in the afternoons I was thinking of starting an Eco club or school newspaper, I mean, something, anything because having my host siblings just sitting around staring at me all afternoon until I teach them a new
card game or something is just driving me crazy. There are 5 kids in the house, 4 boys and one girl (ages 14, 12, 10, 8 and 2) and yeah, they’re pretty much awesome except that they look at me like I’m a total freak or zoo exhibit or something. I taught them a whole slew of card games and how to do cat’s cradle and thus we were entertained for the week but they need a whole lot more stimulation out here, it’s so empty and besides their farm chores (they have cows, pigs, goats and a horse) they don’t have a whole lot to do. When the sun goes down, forget it, there is no light outside, I’ve never seen a town so dark at 8pm. The blanket of stars covering the sky kind of makes up for it though, and just darkness with the mountains in the distance, it’s actually quite surreal. The sunrises and sunsets over the mountains are probably some of the best I’ve seen in my life and they’re not going to get old anytime soon, I can guarantee that. The thing that amuses me the most is that even though I am in the middle of absolutely nowhere and I barely have any transportation that passes through my town or any stores or people I have really good cell phone service. So I am totally within communication range at all time if you feel like, you know, reaching out and touching me…via the phone of course, get your head out of the gutter, don’t you remember those ads…whatever, just call me, but keep in mind I’m usually asleep by 9:00. So even though it’s a change and a bit of a shock I’m going to make it work. Here’s to new beginnings, I hope that this do-over pays off for my new community and me. 
