I guess this is what passes for fun around here

Okay, I’ll admit it, my social life is a little lacking at the moment. A fun filled Saturday night involves me dancing in my room, sometimes by myself, sometimes with a few Bolivian kids that live in my house or near it. Okay, let’s face it, that’s pretty much every night, I have brought the dance party to Bolivia and I feel good about it. You see Bolivians have a unique way of dancing. They do the old school, traditional paired dances with certain passes and movements assigned to the male and female dancers. They are not complicated dances because, well, despite my belief that all Latin American blooded people were born with an innate sense of rhythm, it turns out that Bolivians are missing this crucial gene. The idea of free form dance is really unheard of here, as is Justin Timberlake. It’s the Cueca and Chacarera and countless other two step numbers, which I enjoy because they’re easy to learn and anyone can do them. Thank god for my I-pod and Shakira (they know who Shakira is here, but I don’t think anyone in my town has seen an I-pod before so I tell them it’s a kind of radio.) I’ve done every dance move I can think of from the twist to the Macarena and they eat it all up. I’m thinking of starting up some kind of weekend dance/exercise/self esteem class for the girls, we could meet in the health post and dance like lunatics. I don’t mind looking ridiculous every chance I get, I love to make these kids laugh.

I had the chance to visit my fellow SoTa volunteer Natalie in her site the other week. (That’s Southern Tarija, yes we gave NYC style neighborhood names to the regions of Tarija, the other volunteers are in NoTa of course, Northern Tarija. B-jo is what we call the city of Bermejo.) The town was having a big anniversary celebration and May 1st was labor day here and they have a big to do about the Chicago union activists who fought for the 8 hour work day. I was real confused because here were Bolivians telling us the history of labor day and it’s US history that I was definitely hazy on. And our labor day is in September anyway and then we’re just selling TVs and back to school supplies so I don’t know. Anyway, the point is we went to this festival where there were a ton of musical groups and traditional dances and food. It “started” at 6pm but bands didn’t start playing until 8 or 9pm. It was absolutely freezing as it has been for the last few weeks, the cold front has definitely moved in from Argentina and it’s not going anywhere. So for hours the Bolivian audience is just sitting there. Clapping politely and what not but no one is dancing. I couldn’t believe it, it was freezing so you would think they would want to move around a bit, but no, they sat there like frozen icicles. I lied down in the grass for a bit with a couple of kids using me as a pillow, I seem to be a comfortable resting spot for many Bolivian children. Natalie, Elliot and I wandered around with nothing to do but eat all night. We had these crepe pancakes and soy milk ladled from a big bucket and some egg sandwiches at about 4 in the morning. Elliot and I also got a drink we thought was going to be wine and soda but turned out to be hot white wine. As if cheap box wine isn’t bad enough, they decided to heat it up. It was nasty but I was cold so I drank it anyway.

The festival lasted all night and into the wee hours of the morning. I just wanted to go to Natalie’s and go to bed but we kept thinking this must be the last band and then we’ll go, but there was always another band. We were huddled around one of the cooking fires when the last band came on around 4:30am. This is when the Bolivians decided they wanted to dance. I guess they had drank enough puro (rubbing alcohol mixed with hot water or soda or some other thing, no joke, rubbing alcohol isn’t poisoned here so people can drink it.) As I stared in amazement at their hypnotically simple movements Natalie’s family finally came over to tell us they were leaving after this song. It was around 5 when we headed back down the highway to Natalie’s house. Yeah, her town is right off the highway, and she is terrified that she will get hit by a bus or truck, especially when trying to ride a bike in the 3 inch shoulder. It makes me very grateful to be out in the sticks.

Incidentally, I found out about this festival from Elliot who had a message delivered to me by a passenger who was on the trufi heading to my town. I was having warm milk with sugar and bread over at Doña Santusa’s that day when we had planted the onions and this lady comes to the door asking for me, I’m not hard to find in this town, obviously. She did the Bolivian hand motion to come, which is the same motion we use to mean go away (I still can’t associate someone with their wrist down waving their hand at me to mean “come here” and not “go away.”) The note was addressed to Mitchelle, la gringa de cuerpo de paz. This is a totally valid way of sending messages to other volunteers. If I wanted to get a message to Elliot and his phone was down or something I can simply go to his taxi stop in B-jo and have one of the drivers give him a note when he goes by his site, they all know who he is and where he lives. It’s just how it is. When I went to visit Aaron I had no idea where he lived, I just asked the first person I saw and she told me. You know the Cheers theme song, “you want to go where everybody knows your name,” well if that’s the case don’t go to some dive bar, come to Bolivia. One interesting trait that Bolivians have is that they have to say your name when they see you because they are acknowledging your presence and it would be rude to not say your name. So everywhere I go it’s a chorus of “Michelle, Michelle, Michelle” or more like Misha, Misha, Misha.

The next day was the big Agricultural festival in Natalie’s site featuring products from her women’s group. It was slated to start at 9am, which was incredible considering the previous night’s activities had barely ended. The women had made some marmalades and even peanut butter which they had stopped making because peanut prices went insanely high. There were all sorts of delicious goodies and we snacked all day long and hung out with Peter and his family who had come down that day. Natalie had a lot of work in her first weeks, getting ready for the festival, which is a project that the previous volunteer started. I finally met with my women’s group and they have some festivals coming up in July and August as well so hopefully we can get started on some marmalades. There is a beautiful building that was being built for the women’s center, but it has no roof, windows or doors and the work has stopped. So we have to write up some kind of project proposal and meet with the mayor to get them to finish it. It would be a great product transformation center for them when it’s done. I have grand visions of ecological ovens and solar panels for electricity. My APCD (aka boss) Pepe came down to check things out and is going to send me a whole bunch of seeds for the women’s garden. There is also an NGO working with the women here and it seems like another great opportunity for collaboration since they share a lot of the goals of the PC AG project.

Back in my part of SoTa we had a little festival called Fiesta de La Cruz. This involved carrying a big cross made of flowers from one part of town to another. They lit candles around the cross and drank a whole bunch of chicha. It also involved a rather, um, interesting game that was like a cross between pin the tail on the donkey and whack-a-mole. So you have a guy and you blindfold him, spin him around and give him a stick. Then he has to go and find this chicken head and give it a whack dead on. At first when the 14 year old that lives in my house whose name is Leidy (pronounced just like lady) explained it to me and pointed out the chicken head I assumed that it was just a dead chicken’s severed head, and well that’s gross but whatever, TIB. Then when the contestant almost hit the chicken head and it moved I got closer to get a better look and discovered that it was indeed a live chicken that was buried in a hole in the ground with just it’s head sticking up through the hole (like when you bury someone in the sand at the beach…and then take a stick and try to hit him on the head.) So yeah, this is what passes for fun in my town. Live whack-a-chicken. Being a vegetarian and feeling naturally inclined against cruelty to animals I was pretty horrified but wasn’t sure how to react. I mean, you can’t really expect people who are treated like they are nothing to treat animals like they are something. It’s evident from the way dogs are treated that even animals that are valued for companionship and protection aren’t worth humane treatment. You get kicked around all day and when you come home you kick the dog to make yourself feel better. That’s how it is here and I’m not here to start an animal rights movement, I’m here to help people not get kicked around so much, to improve their economic and social situation so maybe eventually they won’t need to kick the dog. That’s a lot of wishful thinking on my part but what can I do? When someone finally did manage to bop the chicken on the head they poured some chicha on it’s head and that seemed to be the end of the game and the festival. I don’t know what the fate of the chicken was, maybe the guy who hit it won it as a prize or something, I mean, it’s going to get killed and eaten eventually, I know that, but still…hit the chicken on the head with a stick, this is the best you can come up with?

So now I have assigned myself to be an ambassador of fun here. I’m racking my brain and the internet for every children’s game and song I ever knew. Pato, pato, ganso, a.k.a. duck, duck, goose is already a big hit as is pretty much anything I introduce to kids here just because it’s something to do that’s new and different. So if you were a camp counselor or just remember a lot of fun childhood activities that are easy to translate into Spanish and teach to Bolivians please help me out. Oh, that reminds me, there was this game they played at the AG festival where you throw this half metal, half bone object into a pile of mud and if it lands a certain way you get a point but if it lands another way your opponent gets a point. Seriously, they have the worst games here. Is that too culturally insensitive to say? I mean, I’m not trying to say that horseshoes or pin the tail on the donkey are cultural gems or anything, they probably evolved out of throw the bone in the mud and whack-a-chicken so whatever. The point is that my idea of fun and the Bolivian idea of fun are very much at odds at the moment and I’m trying to do my best to rectify this. Thus the nightly dance parties and trying to reconnect with the simple fun from my childhood. I think I can get a town wide game of Manhunt organized. But how to translate Olly, olly ox in free…?

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