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