time to redefine what it is to get lost...

When I come to the city, it’s wonderful and horrible.  Wonderful is talking to my parents and my brother and Zoe, seeing other volunteers, using wireless internet, eating stuff I can’t get in site (U.S.-style ice cream!), watching cable TV, taking showers that aren’t inclined to get freezing all of a sudden, the lack of kids kicking the ball (inside) into my door.  Horrible can be doing errands.  Santa Cruz has several large-ish markets, you can find any necessity if you look hard enough.  The problem is really how crowded they are.  The people with pirated DVD/music video stands set up in the most inconvenient places, so all the magnetically drawn-in shoppers create bottlenecks.  It’s not just the DVD stands though, there are no stores that you really go in, so if something interests you, you just stop.  For some reason I feel that I’m particularly bad at anticipating when someone will stop walking, I feel so clumsy having to dodge or ram (haha…like the truck) someone every 2 seconds!  Lots of times people either don’t look or don’t care where they’re going (usually have giant blanket-wrapped parcel on back or over shoulder).  I make sure to look, but there’s only so much I can do.  Someone crushed my toenail today with her sandaled foot, because she wasn’t looking and I couldn’t move.  And what an evil look I got from her then…but I’m the one with half a toenail that I have to be sure to disinfect!  Shopping is made more complicated when you have no idea about the layout of the market.  You either can wind yourself through and throughout the markets’ crowded and crooked alleys until you find desired section with what you need, ask directions which usually are wrong or just tell you to keep walking “al fondo” –deeper—till you get there, or you can give up.  Giving up is kind of silly, because you’re already likely to be deep and lost anyways. Well, you could say you're never really lost because you're sort of always on your way to finding something (philosophical, yeah, blah blah).  Also imagine carrying awkward bundles like a 30-m roll of hexagonal wire fencing through the unseeing, uncaring masses.  So until I figure out these markets’ layout, or until I stop needing to buy things for my site, these visits will continue long and tiring despite my efforts to be efficient.  But shopping like this is as thrilling as it is frustrating and exhausting, with all the colorful clothes, spices, vegetables and plastic bins of every size, with the brilliantly shiny pots, pans and kettles, with the loud music and dvds attracting customers at every turn, and vendors asking you what you want to buy.  It’s one-stop-shopping, but not for the weak of heart, short of time or poor of directional sense!

And the days go by…not just a line from a great Talking Heads song

I’m beginning to make a daily routine for myself, which is comforting.  My cat Dracula usually wakes me up (by biting my shirt or my hair) at about 6 or 6:30, which is before the family I live with.  I boil some water and coffee grounds and filter them through a tiny sieve, and drink my cowboy coffee to the sound of roosters, cows, barking dogs, wind (oh boy is it windy right now) and rustling corn.  Then I usually eat breakfast and read a bit while Dracula goes crazy around my room, biting and scratching things I’d rather he left alone.  By about 8:30 I go to the market to check if there’s vegetables or bananas (most likely not), and to see if I need to empty the compost (usually I do…too bad there’s no worms in the supposed worm bin).  The rest of my morning consists of activities in the schools (most days for about an hour right before lunch, lucky me!), preparing lunch, baking bread, visiting people, and occasionally checking in with my counterparts (they’re not usually there, but I think we are beginning to understand the others’ expectations a little more, so that’s nice).  After lunch is nap/relaxing time, Dracula can never keep his eyes open, it’s hilarious to watch him try to attack things but sort of fall asleep in the process.  Then I exercise (this I have found is my thinking/ideas time—so I guess we could call it “work”), maybe read more or write a letter, and/or play with the kids, or watch them play.  Lately I’ve also been preparing soil for my garden, but I try to leave that hard labor (it’s me and a pick-hoe type tool, ripping out grass and de-clumping the soil) until the sun is a bit lower.  By 5:30 or so I’m usually hanging out with the host family/kids in the kitchen or in our front yard.  I eat my dinner while the family has their milk and carb-cheese snack (I haven’t adapted this eating pattern, I doubt I will…I like real dinner).  Sometimes we read after dinner, but the kids go to bed by 8, and I’m not usually up much later than that because it gets cold and my bed is really the best place to be when that happens.

 

So to analyze this, I do still think I need to be working more, but as I’m learning more about the community, this is scaling up.  I’ll be getting much busier as time goes on, so I better not get too used to the chill-out routine.  It’s not horrible, but I know very well about myself that I like to have plenty of work to do, and thus have free time feel more merited.

 

My project director and the Ag project’s 3^rd-year volunteer (she helps us out with our projects) came to see me the other day, which really made me happy.  Not only did they bring me mail from home (it’s really hard to not open those packages until my birthday!) and mail from Peace Corps (2 whole Newsweeks to read…they were from April, but still!), but they reassured me about how I’m doing here.  The 3^rd year said that the first three months definitely feel lazy for many people, I shouldn’t feel guilty about it.  My director went around with me to see my counterpart and some of the people I’ve been working with.  Of course he spit out like a zillion ideas in front of them, and now I’m pretty sure they expect me to do all that stuff.  However, having him around for just the day really helped me be seen as someone who wants to do work, and who is accountable to someone to do work.  Both my visitors helped me out with how I can really get going on assessing the community, which I’ve been trying to do, without much luck.  It seems so obvious now, but the 3^rd year told me I should just start out really small, with even a group of 4 or 5, so now the task seems a lot more manageable, that I’m not thinking in terms of getting information on such a broad scale.  I did just have my first meeting with my "club de madres"--who were mostly teachers.  I would have liked more of the "campo" or less educated people to come, but I think the teachers know me and sort of trust me, so they were more enthusiastic.  We decided I could help a lot with starting a family gardens program.  SCORE!  Exactly what I want to do, so it was great to hear it from them.  Of course, I want to carefully plan (and I'm supposed to carefully plan and get suggestions from Peace Corps), and they are like, so when do we start???  Ah...love it!

 

Thanks for the letters, emails and packages…keep ‘em coming, I promise to respond to each of my many fans (joking…about the fans thing, not about responding).

A list of things I love or love to not love about being here:

Liberal interpretation of Spanish words so that in one sense, I really don’t need much vocab after all.

Mix of regional vocab and Quechua words so I do actually need a lot of vocab help.  Today I learned that there is a separate word for a bull calf that’s really too old for milk, but continues to drink its mother’s milk, thus leaving the cow dry for the farmer (you have to keep them separately in the afternoon and overnight to avoid this in the mornings).

Lunchtime/naptime is totally respected (don’t try to do anything between 12-2, or 3)

If it’s raining, you can take it easy; if it’s hot, you can also blame being tired on that.

Like I mentioned in the Dia de la Madre entry, the amount of variations on cheese and carbs that are eaten as very distinct foods here.  You have ground corn and cheese dough that can be shaped into circles (“empanadas”), doughnuts (“roscas”); flour dough with cheese inside (“empanadas” again), if fried, this is a “pastel”, if it’s a doughnut shape and fried it’s a “rosquilla”; yucca flour-and-cheese baked heaven a.k.a. cuñape…and I’m sure there’s more.  But nobody seems to eat grilled cheese or cheese sandwiches (except me).

The accent (who really needs the letter “s” or the ends of words anyways), which I’m apparently picking up, according to my friend a few hours away.

People don’t get too mad when you don’t do something until the next day.  “Later” can mean a few days later.

You write formal letters to people you know really well to tell them anything.  Like, when I leave site, I’m supposed to write a letter to my counterparts (though I’m not great at that, I’d rather just tell them).  The other day I got a letter to thank me for my letter of introduction.  Seriously, it contained no more information than, thanks, we appreciate your support and we’ll be sure to ask you for help.

Beautiful mountains.

Pigs and cows are hilarious animals-always make me laugh.

People tend to have their sweater, jacket or hat or outfit that they always wear, which makes it easier for me to identify them from a distance.  I definitely don’t feel weird wearing my purple Disney Tinkerbell sweatshirt (Bs. 25 = $3 in Santa Cruz, and it totally rocks) half the days of the week.

Dracula.  I actually think he’s a boy (he’s growing up a bit more so that’s becoming more obvious…but who knows).  I don’t know if this really fits into the list, but he is a Bolivian citizen, and is something I love, so it counts I guess.  (it’s my kitten, if you haven’t been reading along, not a boyfriend).  He’s super annoying (why must he bite everything, including his new favorites: books and the corner of my laptop) but super cute all in one!

The dairy products: even though I don’t eat much dairy here, I’m always impressed with the non-wasting.  The major dairy/beverage company is Pil.  They make powdered milk (for times like right now when most of the cows are far away eating grass in the Yungas mountains, and thus are not here for fresh milk), bagged dairy milk, bagged soymilk (which they render totally unhealthy by adding sugar and coloring and overdoing the flavoring-it ends up with very little protein and lots of carbs and fat), bagged chocolate dairy-soy drink (called Chicolac..yummm), cheeses, margarine (which is made extra special when they add milk to it…defeating the purpose of a dairy-free spread), yogurt (also made unhealthy with all those additives).  When I say non-wasting, I guess I refer to the fact that they use the whey from the cheese-making process to make another drink, called Pil-Frut (that’s pronounced “peel-froo” where I live).  It’s also very sweet, but actually has nutritional value from the whey and fruit juice—and kids (and adults) totally love it, but they don’t know it’s made from the very unappealing whey.  During training we would have debates (not very interesting ones) about whether Piña, Manzana (apple), or Durazno (peach) was the best flavor.  I drink/use the Pil fat-free powdered milk…Pil “Sbelt.”  When you consider that b=v here, they really mean to be calling it Svelte, and I just love that I drink Svelte milk.  I also now make my own yogurt…I got sick of the sugary stuff that was more like a drink than a solid food, oh the skills I’m learning!

Dia de la madre Boliviana

First off, I just love that there is the specification that this is BOLIVIAN mothers’ day, it could either mean that it’s here as opposed to Peru, or that we are celebrating Bolivian mothers’ bolivian-ness.  Either way, it’s a big deal here, and I had a lot of fun even though I’m neither a mother nor a child of a Bolivian mother (mandatory shout out to my U.S. mom, who continues to amaze me with all she does and how much she supports her daughter doing who-knows-what out here, same to dad).  So there were three “acto civicos” put on for the mothers.  The first two were by the schools, the last was at night, and more for an adult audience, but I didn’t go to see it because I was tired and I figured I’d gotten the gist of an acto civico for Dia de la Madre Boliviana.  An acto civico is basically a public performance.  The performers put on dances, recite poetry, sing, and do skits.  The elementary kids’ was in the morning, and with 6 kids performing, I was busy taking pictures.  I was really amazed at how much effort was put into this, down to the costumes.  Even though I wouldn’t say the kids really knew how to dance, they were totally into it, and they were genuinely into doing something great for their moms.  The kids prepare for about a solid week for this, taking up their precious half-days of school with learning poems and dances.  The middle/high school performance went all afternoon, and I think that I enjoyed the calibre of dance and drama a bit more, even if they weren’t as cute.  The skits were really interesting, clearly influenced by the telenovela style of story and acting.  However, I was impressed by the maturity of the actors and the audience, and by the fact that the students made up some intense skits about how poorly mothers are often treated here (from cheating husbands to kids who just don’t respect their mama).  I was quite convinced that people think mothers are of the most importance here; “si no hay madre, no hay familia”  (if there is no mother, there is no family) was a common refrain.  Of course EVERYONE comes out to watch, not just the mothers.  So on one side you have the group of grungy guys who kind of smell like alcohol and tend to be smoking and whistling at the gringa, but they do no real harm, and hey, they probably have kids too.  At the end of the acto civico, food is always served to the mothers, courtesy of the school.  Some sort of sweet drink and a bag with cake, bread, any type of cheese-carb combo snack (you wouldn’t believe how many variations you can make on that), or a sandwich was standard fare. I got to see my community as a whole that day, and be a part of it at the same time, just hanging out with whatever group of kids was watching, eating jello or some other random snack, and really having fun.  This is Bolivia, and I’m falling in love, despite the aforementioned and sure-to-come frustrations.