The New Deal, or how Everything changed so quickly

I got back from Santa Cruz on a Tuesday. I set up my new plastic shelves, arranged my stuff, and felt like my situation and outlook were a lot better. The next day, Wednesday, I got my kitten (more about that later). Wednesday night I was informed, not by my host family, but by a niece, that I had to move out the next day. I had no choice. She said she had just spoken to her aunt (my host mother) who is in the city, and apparently the son is coming from Spain to stay (not today, but sometime in the future, we’ll see just how urgent this was), so they needed my room. A week later, I haven’t seen any evidence that the son has arrived, I really can’t be sure what the real motivation for me getting kicked out was, it’s not always the case that people are straightforward and honest here, it’s just a cultural thing. Perhaps that excuse was a neutral way of having me leave, when the reason was something that would have upset me. It frustrated me a lot to have no choice and to feel like I wasn’t getting the straight story. However, I saw the niece the other day, and she seemed like she had perhaps orchestrated a lot of it for my benefit (she said my rent had been too high, and asked if I was happier). And I am happier, now living in the big house with my friend and the 6 kids. I feel more comfortable because the house itself is more comfortable, with a big kitchen in which I have been experimenting and baking bread, etc. The whole place is indoors, so it just feels more like a home. Plus mealtimes, although I do get frustrated/annoyed with the constant fascination and questions from the kids (kids will be kids though, it’s my problem, not theirs), are more fun, since there is a lot more talking, and the chance to “culturally exchange” and because I feel like I’m doing more than trying to finish my food as quickly as possible so I can go back to my room.

An on-a-whim recipe with vegetables seemed so good to all the kids (who constantly ask me if my food tastes good, which seems obvious to me since I made it and I wouldn’t make something that I didn’t like), that the next day they ate that for lunch. It had enough Bolivian-ness (the vegetables were cooked inside something, there was a bread component and a fried component) and a healthy aspect (it’s full of vegetables) that it was a huge success for all involved. The “recipe” if you could call it that, follows at the end of this blog entry.

I also feel like I have been “working” more, though I still have a lot to learn before I could possibly write my diagnostic assessment or plan a project. I learned of a meeting of agriculturalists, so I went. Man, that was a long confusing meeting, but I had sort of expected it to be that way (though had hoped for the opposite). Although they were the potato growers, I was glad to be introduced to a group, and I got to explain that I wanted to learn about all the agricultural activities in the community. The response was positive, they agreed to invite me to all their meetings, though I do want to have my own meeting (because adding an hour of activities to an already 3-hour long meeting does not appeal to me). I tried to use some of our “participatory community assessment tools” (like drawing community maps and using the omissions and inclusions to draw conclusions about the particular group) with the third, fourth, and fifth graders, with limited success—but I had figured they were a little young to really do that activity. In short, behavior was a big issue, though I was reassured that the kids aren’t always much better for their normal teachers. Like, some just refused to do the activity (I tried to explain that it wasn’t optional, that didn’t mean much to them though), others were wrestling, some were sneaking out of class, etc. I’ve strangely lost my ability to really raise my voice (at least in Spanish)…which didn’t make things easier. I counted a small success with the 3rd graders however. I asked them to draw all the things they thought they should eat in a day, and how many times. Turned out that was a good way to see that they don’t really have an understanding of what they do eat every day (since some put down you should eat this thing 10 times a day, this thing 5 times, etc.). We definitely will be doing some food groups/basic nutrition work in that and other grades. Then I decided the time had come to talk to the directors of the intermediate and high schools. That went very well, since they actually teach agriculture starting from 7th grade. The director of the middle school is totally on board (the high school director was out of town), she wants to expand the amount of vegetables they grow, as does the agriculture teacher. They want to do a small terraced area, so hopefully I can invite one of my natural resources buddies to do a tech exchange, since they learned all about terracing. I’ll be observing a class/activity about germination tomorrow. I made it clear that I want to help, but not distract the class (good luck!) or substitute teach. We are also hoping to start a compost pile. I’m thinking of making it into a competition. As much as I hate having a prize be the motivation for the sort of thing which I think should be done for its intrinsic goodness, I’m making concessions since this is Bolivia, and you have to work differently to get stuff done.

So I guess one of my bigger work frustrations recently is that I’m learning that university students and government organizations come out here for like, a half a day, order people around to get them to do something without telling them WHY, and at the same time do things FOR people (i.e. plant some trees or build a compost pile) without giving them knowledge or understanding of how or why the community should continue it. For example, they planted banana palms, but we’re coming up on a season where we get frosts, which is why we don’t have tropical fruit trees here. Another example: someone came to look at the worm compost well, gave the market a compost trashcan for food peels, and then I was ordered to empty the bin into the well every three days. I’m pretty sure that worm well has no worms in it any more. I want to ask them, “oh, so you’ve learned sufficiently about this community and their needs and wants, and that’s why you’re doing this? Oh, no? You’re just doing it to say you did it? Ah I see.” So this sort of work is really getting in the way of me doing anything, since it’s like, oh the ingeniero (engineer) from the university is coming next week to do that thing that you would like to do for your 2-year project. But they’re coming for a day to do it poorly and without context, to tell YOU what to do, and then you’ll have to deal with the fact that they don’t have any idea about the community and all the community leaders will listen to them and not you, and think you agree with this plan and that you’ll carry it out fully. In short, I’m having trouble fitting a much slower, thorough approach to development in with a system that appreciates rapid, visible and not necessarily correct or sustainable changes to a community.

Ok, what you all really want to know about is my kitten. Her name is Dracula. I originally thought it was a boy, but in a week she’s grown sufficiently that I actually think I can tell she’s a girl, and the name fits perfectly regardless. She has huge ears, and likes to creep around at night with her eyes all dialated, giving her a very vampiric/batlike appearance. Plus, how awesome is that name?!? She’s often very cute, very affectionate, but I realized I have no idea how to deal with a kitten of 2 months (all my cats were received upwards of 6 months of age). She meows a lot, it’s as if she wants to tell me about things. She eats a lot, and I feed her as much as she wants, since she came to me dirty and underfed (not the owners’ fault, they just really couldn’t take care of kittens…one day spaying/neutering will be seen as a good thing here). She sleeps curled up next to me, which is great but since I move a lot in my sleep, I am worried I’ll crush her. And then we have what I call “crazy hour”…which can be entertaining or REALLY annoying, depending on what I’m trying to do. I guess at this age, kittens think everything is something to be pounced on. She runs around the room, pouncing on air, my shoes, my sheets, pillows, whatever is in my hands, and me (especially my hair…ouch). She also chews and scratches any cardboard, wood, or cloth surface. She cannot be stopped. So at 2am, when she wakes up and wants to protect me from the evils of my own feet, I just have to wait until she gets so tired that she wants to sleep again. This can be like, an hour long thing…if anyone has tips about crazy kitten syndrome, I’d be glad to hear them because I’m losing a lot of sleep. DO NOT SEND CATNIP, she does not need it. Good news is that she took to her sand-bin litter box very quickly, only had 2 or 3 incidents of her forgetting where it was. The other issue is the fleas. I’m sure she’s too young to use flea products on, so I have just been trying to comb out the fleas as I see them. I have bites EVERYWHERE, it’s gross and very itchy. However, with the frustrations of the past week (university “engineers,” moving, 6 very curious kids), I’ve been glad to have her unconditional love, and of course the protection from all the evils that my room possesses.
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Here’s the recipe for Panqueques de Verduras:

Grate or chop finely a selection of the following vegetables:
Eggplant, spinach, swiss chard, carrots, green peppers, garlic, onion (I also see this working well with zucchini and anything else that cooks fairly rapidly, experiment away!)

Eyeball the amount of flour you will need for a pancake-like batter to cover these vegetables thinly. Mix this flour, in a separate bowl, with a proportionate amount of baking powder, salt, egg(s), and milk. Add in spices and/or ground pepper. It should be like pancake batter—but the science isn’t exact. Look in any cookbook for a real pancake batter, and just omit the sweet ingredients, if you don’t do well with approximations.

Mix the pancake batter into the veggies.

Heat a small amount (or a lot, if you want to do more Bolivian style) of cooking oil in a skillet. Have a plate with paper towels ready, for putting the finished pancakes on.

Drop large tablespoons of the veggie batter in the oil, spreading out the veggies to an even (but still fairly thick) layer. Cook as you would cook pancakes, flipping when the batter appears dry around the edge of the pancake. You choose how browned to make them—crispy and soft are both delicious, though this is also a function of how much oil you are using. Note that these will take longer to cook than regular pancakes, and you should test your timing to make sure the veggies are softened/cooked through).

I served with soy sauce, but I imagine sour cream or yogurt would be excellent choices as well.
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