Roosters: They’re not just for mornings anymore!

I live in a sub-tropical paradise where you could eat your weight in citrus fruits if you wanted to. Every time I turn around someone is giving me an orange to eat. The dueña of my house gives me 2 or 3 pieces of her fresh baked bread every day, probably the best bread I’ve had in Bolivia, along with avocados and papayas from her trees. This being said it is incredibly hot and humid and the bugs are eating me alive. They have these little tiny bugs that they call moscos and they are the sneakiest little bastards. You don’t even know that they are biting you and the next thing you know your arm is covered with these little red dots. It kind of looks like I have the chicken pox and I know you’re not supposed to scratch them but I have so many on my feet and sometimes you just have to scratch and when you do it feels so good, so wrong, but so good. I started using some repellent and that helps a bit. Plus I retreat to my mosquito net cage at night, aka my bed and I am safe from the moscos. It is amazing how everyone you talk to comments on the heat and the moscos. I’ve had this conversation a million times in less than a week, we could be talking about anything and then inevitably this happens, usually a couple of times in the same conversation:

“There are so many moscos here.”
“Yes, there are.”
“The moscos are biting you.”
“Yes, all over.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“Yes, I’ll get used to it.”
“It’s very hot here.”
“Yes, it’s hot.”
“It’s hot today.”
“Yes.”
“It gets much hotter in the summer.”
“So I’ve heard.”

Let’s not forget that it’s fall here. I heard that in the winter it’s very cold, but that it’s a humid cold, how is that even possible? In the summer it is just insanely hot and nobody does anything, you just drip sweat and talk about how hot it is. The good thing about the summer is that it’s even too hot for the bugs to bite you, so at least I won’t have to expend energy trying to swat them away. That’s another thing I do now all the time, swat at bugs whether they are there or not, it’s just something to do. I’ve also discovered that bucket showers are amazingly refreshing. During those extra hot and humid mid-day hours you just need to pour water on your head and it feels great. We have water on a fairly regular basis, it usually cuts out in the afternoon but it’s going strong in the morning and evening. There is a really nice bathroom up here where my room is but no indoor plumbing. The bucket of water flusher works great though.

The one thing that is almost as annoying as the moscos are the roosters. I thought the dogs back in Cuatro Esquinas were bad but that was nothing compared to the chorus of roosters we have here every day. Now I was under the impression that roosters were an announcing the sunrise morning type of fowl, but not these roosters. They crow at all hours of the day and night. The other night I woke up to the usual rooster chorus (much like the dog chorus this is when one rooster starts crowing on one end of town, setting off a domino of all the roosters across the town crowing for a good ten minutes) so I assumed, the roosters are crowing it must be about 5 or 6 in the morning. I look at the clock and it’s only 2am! What kind of ass backwards roosters start crowing at 2 in the morning?! It’s like they’re talking to each other across town and this is what I imagine them saying:
“Hey, is the sun up yet?”
“No, it’s not but I think it will be up soon.”
“Fred, what about over there, is the sun up over on your side of town?”
“No, not yet. Is it up over there?”
“No, not yet, but I think it will be up soon.”
“Yeah, it’s going to be up soon. Let’s keep talking about it because I think people are trying to sleep and we hate it when people sleep, especially that gringa Michelle.”
Plus, my family owns some of these roosters so it basically sounds like they are crowing right next to my window, hell they might as well be in bed with me. I just want to sleep in for once, is that so much to ask? They’re crowing right now and it’s nighttime! Do they think the sun is coming up it just went down! What is the deal?

Coming from the rigorous structure of training to no structure at all is quite a challenge. I have a good foothold in the school and I’m going to start teaching English there next week and I’ve talked with the new director about the school garden. They have 6 types of seeds but I think we should get some more, or maybe some seedlings. It’s pretty much just past the planting season so I’m not sure if I should put stuff in the ground or wait until next March. I’m going to consult Pepe when he visits next week. Other than the school I’ve just been asking around, talking to people trying to get a feel for what people want and what they have. I went to Aaron in the next town, which turns out to be over a 2 hour walk so I’m thinking about investing in a bike or sticking with the public transportation, trufis, trucks that sort of thing when I want to go for a visit. His town is really nice, a booming metropolis compared to mine, like they actually have a finished plaza and most people run some kind of tienda, selling something out of their house. He introduced me to the president of his woman’s group and she is definitely interested in collaborating with my women’s group and I think it will be really great. All the women I’ve talked to are really interested in making marmalade and that’s definitely something I can set up for the near future. This great family that Aaron is close with invited us for lunch and afterwards we went to their orchard to pick grapefruit, mandarins, oranges and tangerines. Then we went back and ate some of everything! So much citrus, so delicious. I had to wait until after 6 to get a truck back to my site because there was a motorcycle race (why?) But it was definitely worth the trip; I met a lot of people, talked about possible collaborations with Aaron and just got a feel for volunteer life from someone who’s already been here for almost a year.

So, what can I say really? Things are slow but you set your own pace. It’s difficult but very promising. I feel lazy and productive. I feel lonely and welcomed. I kind of awkwardly hang around with Doña Santusa´s family and invite myself to do things with them, like planting a whole bunch of onions in their field. This strategy seems to be working for me. I am going with the flow and enjoying the things I can’t do anywhere else, like riding with 30 Bolivians on the back of a truck or eating freshing cut sugar cane. Afterall, TIB (This is Bolivia.)

So Official

Training finally came to an end with much celebrating and a few tears, as our group of 31 disperses throughout Bolivia. We can now officially call ourselves Peace Corps Volunteers. After 3 months of a fixed routine where almost every moment of our day was dictated by our PC trainers we are now free to make our own schedules, work however we like, live in our communities and just be. We had a wonderful despedida for the host families where they all got certificates and the volunteers also got prizes for training related activities. From the AG group 3 of the 5 gardens won prizes, my group obviously was amongst the winners and here is a picture of our prize-winning garden and our garden winning cake. My group (Rachel, fellow veg and Brandon, the joker) grew some mighty fine vegetables in Doña Carmen’s casa and we shared our prize with the family for all their help. Other highlights include: Pat cross-dressing as a cholita, Pepe, Carla, Andres and Ben performing Viva Mi Patria Bolivia with a special verse relating to our barrios, dancing the Cueca, a traditional Bolivian paired line dance which we had learned in Spanish class that week and Andy and Natalie swing dancing.

The few days we had in the city before swear-in were fabulous, they put us up in a swanker version of the hotel we stayed in when we first got to Bolivia and we all got to hang out and enjoy our last few nights together as a group. When it came time for swear in we were ready, people were decked out and I have to say this group can look pretty good when it wants to. About a million pictures were taken and then it was time for the real celebrating to begin. We had a theme of glitter and glam/fabulousness/all the guys wore ridiculously tight jerseys, so really no theme at all. But the way people committed to their outfits was incredible and it made me love this group of people even more. There were some amazing finds in the cancha (it’s like a Wal-Mart threw up,) including my all sequined 80s style shirt that I found for just 5bs! There was spandex and a blue wig, retro dresses from every decade and the most amazing shoes that Sarah found in the free stuff pile in the volunteer lounge, kind of like Dorothy’s shoes if Dorothy was turning tricks on the corner. Her husband John wore the tightest belly shirt that said “Little Miss Naughty” and they both proceeded to talk in these terrible Staten Island/Long Island accents all night. We had dinner on the PC dime at this buffet place that had a great salad bar and TONS of meat. Literally all night long they walked around with swords of meat of every kind slicing off pieces for those who wanted it. It’s the kind of place a meat lover like my Dad would die for. Cow udder and llama meat, he is so there. We announced superlatives during dinner (this was inspired by the Dundies of “The Office”) and I got most likely to marry an Argentinean, seeing as how I can swim to Argentina if I wanted to, I think it was fitting. Afterwards we actually got to go out dancing and it was so much fun! There is this one really small bar that plays the most random 70s/80s/90s stuff and we just took over the place. After that we went to the “fireman bar,” given this nickname because there is a fire pole you can slide down and we danced to some really good Spanish music. It was a great way to become official as PCVs.

The rest of the weekend was spent saying good-byes. Bill, the training director, invited us to his house for a BBQ and I got to go swimming in his absolutely freezing pool as we listened to records on his sweet sound system (he has an amazing record collection.) The jet setters of Tarija flew down on Sunday and after buying some of the “finest” furniture Bolivia had to offer I loaded up a taxi and headed to my site on Wednesday. Shopping was such a hassle, you have to argue over every price and it just gets to be exhausting after a while. My main purchases were a mini stove so I can cook for myself sometimes, my bed, which was the cheapest one there was, crossing my fingers that it lasts 2 years, and a dinky metal/vinyl ropero for my clothes. More about site to come…immediately above this post.

The Ag kids being silly B-47 Looking Good

Welcome to the Super Campo

I came, I saw, I drank wine.

Apparently trainees are not allowed to get off a plane here without a group of people cheering them through the gate. As we landed in Tarija most of the current Tarija PCVs were there to greet us. It was a really nice welcome. Tarija is an awesome city, it´s small, it´s clean, it´s safe and it´s the heart of Bolivia´s wine industry (which isn´t all that extensive, but still, it´s Grapelandia!) After a long day of orientation where I got to meet my counterparts for the first time (I have 2, lucky me) we traveled by bus to Bermejo. As it got dark and started to rain the bus seemed to stop every 20 minutes, the 4 hour trip took about 6 hours, but it was pretty cool because it was pitch black but there was a ton of lightning and it gave the trip a really surreal feeling, as if it wasn´t surreal enough to begin with. Also, they started to show the ¨Terminator¨but it cut out half way through, just when I was getting really invested. Anyway, we got to Bermejo around 10pm crashed at a hostel because apparently the only transportation to my site is the one trufi that leaves at 5 in the morning, still haven´t confirmed if there is a later trufi, but everyone I asked said that was the only one, go figure. So almost all the teachers who work at the school, including one of my counterparts in my site have to wake up at 4am everyday to get the 5am trufi.

So we get to the school around 6, I am introduced around to the teachers and then introduced to some community leaders and then I crossed a small river (no bridge, perhaps that can be a secondary project) to the health post where I stayed in the 3 bed room where patients stay when they have patients (nice digs!) It´s a small town and it´s super campo (the country) with only 500 people but I don´t know where they all were. We also saw the room where I will live, it´s probably one of the nicest houses in town, the only one I saw with 2 stories. There is basically one main road where you have everything you could want, the school, the health post, the 2 stores, the one restaurant that sometimes serves food. I was really happy when I convinced Doña Santusa to let me eat lunch at her fine establishment each day of my site visit. She´s a damn good cook and even accomodated the vegetarian thing. Plus we got to watch ridiculous telenovelas during lunch and her family is super friendly.

So I really didn´t know what to do with myself during the day, I didn´t really know anyone so the following day I decided to go to the school and observe a class. The kids are great but they are crazy about learning English. I wasn´t trained for that! However, I did teach 2 English classes during my site visit and they went over pretty well. When I told Aaron (the volunteer in the next town over) he joked that I already had more work than most PC volunteers. I have to say the one thing I love about my site is how much potential it has. Because it´s so small and there is basically nothing there my mind was just racing with possibilities. The health post has a great room where I could have self-esteem, yoga and nutrition classes for the kids in the afternoon. Oh yeah, about the education system here, it is a lot to get used to. The kids are in school from 7:30am-12:00pm, in that time they have breakfast, lunch and 2 recesses. The style of teaching focuses on copying from the board, dictation and memorization. It is so hard to get kids to participate and answer questions, even ones like ¨What is your name?¨ But the kids really want to learn and I have a lot of material on non-formal education and plan on making my classes as interactive as possible. There is also a great spot for a school garden which is my major focus, I will have to start with composting because the rainy season just ended and it doesn´t make sense to plant now.

There is also a women´s group and they were supposed to have their meeting on Thursday but instead my counterpart said we were going to Bermejo to meet with the Mayor (alcalde.) So me and about half the town all piled into this truck and went to Bermejo. Besides the one micro that passes through my town 3 times a day, trucks are the major form of transport. Apparently during the sugar cane harvest there are tons of trucks going to Bermejo so transportation won´t be as big of an issue then. But just thinking about having to buy a bed and then somehow get it to my site along with all my other stuff is really overwhelming. Luckily the current Tarija volunteers are incredibly nice and have already offered their help. I really have some of the best people in my region, which is important because it´s going to get lonely out in the super campo. I mean, I´m not going to lie, that first day was hard, no one knew me and I didn´t know anyone. But by the end of my visit I was feeling really good about everything. Francisca, one of the teachers who works in my site but lives in Aaron´s has already invited me to her house. On the way back from the city (it turned out the town was getting money from the prefecto, that´s like regional governor I believe, to invest in their town´s agriculture, which is sugar cane, but I´m wondering if I can put any of that money towards some of the ag projects I´ll be working on, this is a run on thought, sorry) we were riding in the micro with all the women and kids and this little girl came over and sat on my lap. When I got to my stop at the health post she had fallen asleep and I was like, uh, who´s is this? The next day I saw her at school and she kept calling me tía, which means aunt, it was just so fricken cute. Kids are definitely the key to integrating here.

Oh, I´m already collaborating with Peter, the Natural Resources volunteer from my group to coordinate some kind of watershed management for my town because apparently when it rains a lot the water cuts out, go figure. Yeah, I didn´t shower the entire time I was there and it was awesome. No worries, the hostel in Tarija has an awesome hot shower and I will probably hit that up like once a month (with bucket showers to supplement of course.)

Other Tarija highlights include: a trip to Max Ronald´s, a late night hamburger stand featuring Ronald McDonald´s evil Bolivian cousin; an amazing lunch buffet at a hotel overlooking the city; playing poker in the hotel with matchsticks, clove cigarettes, pieces of dove chocolate and a glass of wine as the ¨chips¨ and just hanging out with my Tarija crew, exchanging stories about our sites.

In other news I passed all my exams and wrote a commitment statement so I think I be allowed to swear in as an official PCV in just a few short days. There´s a postal workers strike here so I haven´t been able to recieve or send any mail. Another day, another strike, this is Bolivia afterall. Speaking of mail, my new address is posted on the side of this blog. Please send me things so that I may eventually recieve them. And speaking of social unrest, keep an eye out for news about the upcoming autonomy vote, happening just a week and a half after we go to our sites...these are some exciting times to be in Bolivia!

You get a site! You get a site! You’re all getting sites in Bolivia!

So you’ve probably heard the rumors by now that to make our site announcement day special Peace Corps Bolivia decided to get OPRAH to fly in from the States to give us our sites. That’s right, they helicopter-ed her in just to announce our sites. She also gave us all cars.

Okay actually, we had to play a game where you blow a plastic cup along a string and when you reached the end you run over to a basket of chocolate eggs, unwrap it and inside is a little slip of paper with a person’s name and their site, whoever’s site is announced then has to blow the plastic cup and announce someone else’s site. Yeah, I think the Oprah thing sounds cooler too, let’s go with that.

Site announcements: There was so much speculation and discussion in the 4 days between our interviews during tech week and the actual site announcements that everyone thought they had an idea of where people were going. But when it came time for the announcements they definitely shook things up and we had quite a few surprises. I think most people were happy with their sites although a few definitely weren’t. Some got their first choice, while others were sent to a site that for them was a “if you send me there I will go home” site. As for me, I can’t complain because I got my first choice! I was so sure that another volunteer was getting that site (mainly because our program director had told her she was getting it) and I had pretty much come to terms with going to my second or even third choice. I was so excited that I could barely blow the cup!

So about my site, all I know right now was written on a piece of paper and I’ll know a whole lot more after I return from the site visit we have next week. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to disclose the actual name of the pueblo itself for security reasons, so for now I will refer to it as Papaya Land. Why did I want this site? Well mainly because it is a region that produces so many papayas that they don’t know what to do with them! Besides that, I’ll be working with a women’s group, the school, a group of beekeepers and the community in general. It is a very small town, like 500 people small and very campo, so I feel like I’m getting the real deal Bolivia. It is in the region of Tarija (consult your map of Bolivia to see how close I am to Argentina and keep that in mind when you come to visit me!) It is subtropical which means hot, humid and full of bugs, but it was my region of preference so I’m obviously okay with that. Hooray, I get to take anti-malaria medication for the next 2 years! Aside from that this site is going to be awesome, they have never had a volunteer before, which means it’s going to be an even bigger challenge but there are an infinite number of possibilities. I get to lay the foundation and start projects that will hopefully be sustained by the community. I will have primary projects including product transformation (imagine all the things you can do with papaya!), starting a school garden and expanding the technical training of the beekeepers. There are secondary projects that are possible, such as teaching nutrition, English and computer classes at the school.

There are 7 volunteers form my group, B-47, in the region and a few others for previous groups who are nearby. Tarija is 24 hours by bus from Cochabamba so we get to fly for our site visit. One of the volunteers who got a neighboring site in Tarija really didn’t want this region but I’m hoping that after the site visit he will change his mind. We haven’t had anyone ET (early termination) yet and that’s saying a lot for a group of 31 volunteers, but when ET’s do happen it’s usually after site announcement/visit. Our group is really tight and everyone has been working so hard that to see someone go now would be really tough. Plus, since the Tarija volunteers are so far away from other regions they tend to form a support group among themselves so we would really feel the loss of that volunteer. In other semi-sad news my hyper twin, my media naranja, my partner in dance parties and mayhem, Lebo also got her first choice, which is awesome except for the fact that it’s in Sucre and we are really far away from each other. It’s okay though we are going to have tech exchanges and simultaneous dance parties across regions. Plus, her site is comprised of all male Swiss NGO workers, one of whom she will fall in love with and marry. There are also a bunch of Canadian oregano farmers. But don’t cry for me Argentina, because I’m your neighbor and I’m sure to encounter my half-Bolivian, half-Argentinean soul mate as we shop for jeans in Bermejo. If none of that last part made any sense don’t worry about it, I’ve had a lot of sugar today and I’m giddy because I get to visit my site!

Best Tech Week Ever

The AG volunteers had a whirlwind tour of the Santa Cruz department visiting several of our potential sites and sites of current volunteers. The road was bumpy, the road was long; many hours were spent in the bus with the master Don Roque behind the wheel navigating the twists, turns, dips, bumps, debris and the occasional fording of rivers. Over the nine days of travel our group of 15 trainees, 1 current volunteer, 2 trainers and Don Roque (el jefe) expanded as we picked up other volunteers in each of the 4 cities we visited. Bus time was fun but intense. We were loud, messy, tired, antsy, dance-y. Many bathroom breaks were taken on the side of the road and it’s not very often that you get to pee in a ditch in the dark with your teacher as your look out, but in PC it’s just another bonding experience. The views along the way were amazing, traveling through the valleys you are naturally surrounded by mountains and gorgeous views. Everyone was constantly snapping pictures trying to capture the scenery but it just doesn’t do it any justice, but as my friend Pat said, “A picture’s worth a thousand words right, so a thousand pictures, that’s like a billion words.”

We worked with bees…a lot. Hives were inspected, Queen cells and nucleos were made and transplanted, people were stung, honey was harvested and just about every beehive product you can imagine was consumed: honey, nectar, pollen, wax, propolis, royal jelly and bee larva (full of protein but the texture is awful!) We learned some more about product transformation, we made lip balm, wax for candles and beehive panels, a miracle mix of honey, pollen and royal jelly, which is actually really tasty and of course straight up honey. Bee keeping can actually be a profitable venture and it has been one of the most successful projects of Bolivia’s AG program so that’s why we do so much of it. Besides bees we also worked with a women’s group making peach marmalade and I was in a group that gave a charla to them on basic beekeeping. So many charlas were given during tech week that I coined the phrase “charla high” which is the feeling you get after you’ve given a charla because you were able to communicate in Spanish and now it’s over and you don’t have to worry about it any more. You can also get a “charla high” when listening to a charla where the speakers are obviously pouring their heart and souls into the charla and you are so moved by the experience that you just feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Other highlights include the passion fruit ice cream that we had in Villa Esperanza. The second night we were there we were invited (treated) by the site’s volunteer Armando (who hasn’t shaved or cut his hair since he got here almost a year ago and looks like Jesus, Moses or Papa Noel depending on which Bolivian your talking to.) But anyway there’s just something about sitting outside in a light rain under a passion fruit tree eating homemade passion fruit ice cream that made me stop and realize how lucky I am to be here.

Let me wrap this up before I get too sappy. I wanted to be brief but it was a really full 9 days. Our group was extremely lucky not to have anyone get seriously sick aside from the cold that went around from person to person. EE had some car trouble, NR had some altitude sickness and stomach issues and actually came home 2 days early, but AG stayed strong. Maybe it was all those bee products we consumed or maybe it’s because we’re just that awesome. Although I must say that after 13 hours in the bus on the ride home I was ready to be back with the host fam. So that was tech week: travel mosquito tents were assembled, disassembled and assembled again, many carbs, fried eggs and empanadas were eaten, karaoke was finally sung, showers were rarely taken, and I definitely learned a lot about AG and my fellow volunteers. On Monday we find out where our sites will be, we know most of them were decided during tech week based on our interviews and the opinions of our project director and trainers, but we still have to wait for the big reveal. Some people will be happy, others will undoubtedly be disappointed but this experience is what you make of it, your site is what you make of it and every site has the potential to be amazing. I just want to know and go! I was really hoping to upload some pics today but the internet gods were not smiling upon me and it just didn´t work. As a consolation prize check out the blogs of some of my fellow PCVs, 2 out of 3 of them have pics up on their blogs and you might even spot me in a few of them. The links are on the right hand side of the page. Enjoy!

Cochabamba Training Pics

The Cuatro Esquinas Gang / Drinking in a field on our last night in Cuatro Esquinas/ Joint Spanish class fun Cuatro Esquinas, my home during training / How many Bolivians can you fit in a van?

Lebo and I seek Christ

Our Christ is bigger than yours Brazil!

High-Fiving Jesus
Jumping for Jesus

We learned to make yogurt one day.
This is Tito with a hose of yogurt, or a
hosegurt if you will.

Another training center lunch full of carbs

Bolivians: MacGyvers of the South

One thing that PCVs and Bolivians have in common is there MacGyver like resourcefulness. What I´ve learned as a PCV(T) is that everything has a purpose, nothing goes to waste and don´t throw anything out ever...you might need that gum wrapper for something and anyway there are no garbage cans and little in the way of organized garbage pick up (a truck does come by on Monday mornings but most everything gets burned or used for something else.) All the scraps/leftovers from cooking or from the process of making something like quesillo are used to feed various animals, the dogs, cats, pigs, cows, sheep what have you. I was doing laundry the other day and Doña Juana was showing me what to do (it´s all by hand) and it turns out that the plastic from an empty detergent package is just the thing you need to put in the drain with the stopper over it so that the sinks hold the water but it´s still easy to unplug them, ingenious! Washing clothes by hand is actually not that bad, it´s a good upper body workout and in a way relaxing. We have this scrubber brush that works like a champ, it got all the mud out from the bottom of my pants and they were pretty filthy. I dried most of my clothes in the sun but if need be the lines from my mosquito netting also make great clotheslines/storage. The bag for my sleeping bag makes a great laundry bag and my sleeping bag makes a great mattress pad. It all works. My metal pill case worked great as a waterproof wallet during carnival. My friends who didn´t have towels at first discovered that their t-shirts worked just as well. It´s all about using what you´ve got and being adaptable to the situation. It´s actually really fun- think of all the things you could do with an empty plastic bottle! We learned to make these things called tippy-tops which is basically a ¨faucet¨made from an upside down soda bottle, they work really well. They also make really cool bags from the plastic of soda bottle wrappers. I´m hoping to learn how to crochet the plastic, one of the host moms said she would teach us.

By far the coolest thing that Bolivia has recycled are the 1950s school buses which are called Micros and vans which are called trufis and are used for public transportation. They only cost 1.50-2bs/ride and they are the best way to travel. They are pimped out so ridiculously, I will have to post a pic eventually to give you the full effect. They are painted red, white and blue on the outside, and inside they are filled with the most absurd pictures, stickers and posters. Each Micro or Trufi has a distinct personality. Some are plastered with teddy bear stickers, pics of Avril or other random celebrities, ones with WWF wrestling posters, spiderman stickers, barbie stickers, disney characters, lots of Jesus pics, goth posters with a skull gear shifter, fuzzy dice, the works. Also, they are bumpy and crowded, as crowded or more so than the NYC subway. You can not imagine how many Bolivians you can fit in a van, at times more than 20. Everytime I take one I feel like I´m in a clown car, just when you think there can´t possibly be space for another human being here comes 5 school kids and they all get in. It´s so much fun and I´m just glad that I´m short because most of my fellow gringos are seriously cramped when riding in the trufis or micros. One of my favorite micro experiences to date is a quote from my friend Lebo right after we board micro E: ¨Watch out, there´s a chicken behind you.¨

CORRECTION: Last post I said the blockade was because of gas but that issue was resolved, the blockade was actually because the drivers want the road to be fixed (it´s really bad, like they are often driving on the wrong side of the road to avoid giant potholes) and they were promised that it would be fixed but they´re still awful. There have been a few more blockades around the city but no more in my hood.

In other news we have tech week coming up. We will be traveling around to some sites of current volunteers, giving charlas (talks, presentations) working a lot with bees and deciding on our sites. We got the descriptions of all 15 and they all sound pretty amazing. It´s definitely going to be a tough decision but ultimately they are going to match the person with a site where they can use their skills most effectively. We are all going to be doing great work and hopefully everyone is happy with their placement. The next time you hear from me I might actually know where I will be spending the next 2 years! So exciting...til then.

paz