High, Low, High

I haven’t played this game in a long time, but it seems to fit with describing my week. For those unfamiliar, you name a high, a low and then end on a high.

 

High: Saturday in Cochabamba was the big day to celebrate Carnaval, which meant that they shut down a bunch of streets in the center of the city in order to have a day-long parade of bands and dancers. They call it Curso de Cursos. People can rent an area along the street from city hall. They either build stands or put up a tarp cover and plastic chairs, and then charge individuals to have a spot there for the day. Some people get there by 10am and stay till 8pm, but I chose to go for two hours and to stand which meant not paying for a seat. One, I didn’t know how to pay for a seat. Two, it was super crowded by the time I got there around 3pm and I was happy standing just slightly more protected from “cross-street water-fire”.

 

I got hit a whole lot by water balloons, water guns and foam sprayed out of aerosol cans. That was probably my least favorite because people would spray it right in my ear. Seeing all the traditional dances, along with the costumes and music made it worth all the hassle. Some of those dances are just incredible and it’s obvious people put a lot of time and effort into preparing for it.

 

Low: Monday was the day I experienced the most culture shock so far. There were several factors but one of them included waiting. I don’t know many people who like waiting, and I’m generally not a big fan either. A friend and I went to an orphanage to start volunteering on Monday at 3pm when we were told to be there, but weren’t even seen by the woman until we’d been sitting waiting for 1 hour and 45 minutes. She told us to come back on Saturday. At the time, I just laughed, hearing all the voices of people telling me I’d be doing a lot of waiting in Latin America. Later I was able to realize that this waiting time, in addition to waiting till 10pm to eat dinner, actually bothered me.

Who knows why it happened – there’s always more to a person and a situation than what we see. We had a good talk on Wednesday about culture shock and at its root, it involves adjusting to change and the anxiety around that. Above all, we’re supposed to withhold judgment and maintain contact with local people. I’m being challenged through adjusting to life here, trying not to judge too quickly, and I hope you will please do the same. This was one day. I’m going back Saturday and will let you know about that next week.

High: Tuesday I went to my first weekly dance class here at the institute. We’re starting with salsa and will move into other dances like merengue and traditional folk dances as well. I loved it and I’m looking forward to learning more in the weeks to come.

Since Bolivia doesn’t have any representatives at the Winter Olympics, I haven’t heard or seen much of it except a little in on-line newspapers. I hope you all are enjoying it!

5 Things I’m thankful for today: hugs; movies with happy endings; the joy of dancing; really really tasty papaya; and conversations with friends I haven’t talked to in a while.
For more pictures, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/nora.pfeiffer

Carnaval and Carmen Pampa

In case you’ve been wondering since my last post, water-ballooning was a huge success. I missed a lot of people because I forgot that my velocity in the car required me to release the balloon early in order to land in the right place. Alas, it’s a lesson for next time, and I still had a lot of fun trying. Once we ran out of balloons and I got my hands on the super soaker, ohhhhh, those people didn’t know what him ‘em. Before you get upset, you need to understand that this is expected and practically everyone participates in the revelry. Also, we had rules: no older people, nobody in professional clothing, no parents with babies, and I primarily aimed for “chicos” aka males between the ages of 12 and maybe late 30’s or so. Wish you could have been there!

Carnaval. In Bolivia, the heart of the traditions around Carnaval is found in a town called Oruro, which at one point in time was the center of mining. I still don’t feel like I understand it, but I will share a little of what I have learned. Carnaval is not something that one can learn about but one really needs to “feel” it. It’s all about relationship, harmony and balance. By taking part in the celebration, you’re taking part in the same public space and thereby entering into new relationships and making amends. It’s like a weaving because just as there are thousands of strands coming together to create a much larger more beautiful piece, thousands of people work on different aspects to make the celebration what it is, a microcosm for life.

This year I did not go to Oruro, but instead took a trip to a beautiful place called Carmen Pampa. I left at 11pm on Friday on a night bus with Clare, another person in my program. I had to choose between staying hydrated to help ward off my inevitable altitude sickness or not drinking much in order not to have to go to the bathroom as the bus will not stop and there’s no toilet on the bus…therefore I chose to be nauseous and dry-mouthed, but I didn’t throw up this time! We arrived in La Paz at 6am and took a large minivan from La Paz to Coroico, which took about 3 hours. We went from about 12,000 ft. in La Paz to 6,000 ft in Coroico, so I was happy as a clam.

The old road between La Paz and Coroico is notorious for being “the most dangerous road in the world” but there is a new road, which is the one I took and it runs parallel to the old road for much of the journey. People love to pay to ride bikes down the road and I saw many of these adventure-seekers on my return trip. People still die somewhat regularly as I hear through the grapevine, but I’ve also heard the experience is worth the money and the risk. While I didn’t ride down on a bike, I did get to see some pretty incredible views when the clouds were not completely gulping us up.

 

Our final destination was Carmen Pampa, a very small “pueblo” out in the country or “campo” in the region called the Yungas, which means “warm lands” in Aymara. As stated by good ol’ Wikipedia, the Yungas “is a stretch of forest along the eastern slope of the Andes Mountains from southeastern Peru through central Bolivia. It is a transitional zone between the Andean highlands and the eastern forests. Like the surrounding areas, it has characteristics of the Neotropic ecozone.” I think the part I was in is considered a cloud forest, and once you see my pictures, you can understand why.

We were met in Coroico by “a man in a yellow hat” who is a volunteer teacher at the university for this semester. He took us to a lovely little empty restaurant/café to have lunch/breakfast before taking the 30-40 min. drive out to Carmen Pampa. It had a gorgeous view and they served muesli, which is one of the foods I miss the most since living in Germany.

 

The dirt road between Coroico and Carmen Pampa is a bumpy one and runs along the edge of the side of the mountain, providing some awesome views of the valley when there’s a break in the tropical vegetation on both sides. We arrived on the campus to be warmly greeted by Hugh, an American who has been there for 10 years and is the VP of the university. His hospitality did not stop for a moment our entire visit – he even drove us at 6:30am on Wednesday back into Coroico so that we could return home to Cochabamba. They showed us to our rooms in the volunteer house and let us take naps since we hadn’t slept that much on the bus. I woke up to the sound of a coconut being smashed to smithereens.

As I entered the kitchen, both Hugh and David (the man in the yellow hat) were working on a delicious dinner, a chocolate cake, an apple cake and fresh bread. Wow! As it turned out, it wasn’t really for us necessarily, but taking advantage of having gas to run the oven. David had waited in line for about 2 hours to get gas that morning in Coroico before we arrived. While they were preparing dinner, we noticed these kids (both boys and girls) outside the kitchen window, hanging up barbie's clothing to dry on the line - so cute!

 

Before I share the highlights of our stay, I want to give a little background on the university and why we visited. The first academic year was 1993 with 54 students and now there are about 700. The university is “a joint effort between the Catholic University of Bolivia, the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, the Diocese of Coroico, and the sub-central Villa Nilo, the governing body of the Aymara Indian nation. Motivated by the inadequacy of secondary school education for lifting rural people out of poverty, this new college was founded to create skilled professionals who would become sensitive and impassioned leaders, addressing the most pressing needs of their rural communities. The College serves young people from rural communities throughout the Department of La Paz and from the massive urban slums surrounding the capital city of La Paz.“ ( http://carmenpampafund.org )

They have 5 majors: Veterinary Science, Sustainable Agriculture (Agronomy), Public Health Nursing, Primary Education (Teaching), and Ecotourism. While studying, the students reach out to the people in the surrounding area as well, so the immediate communities are served as well as the students. It’s a great place and I really enjoyed my visit. Because it was a holiday weekend, there were few students on campus but I did get to meet several and hang out with the kids of the some of the neighbors (about 40 families live in Carmen Pampa). Franciscan missioners have worked here in the past so that is how we got connected with them.

4 Highlights: 1. Screen on the green 4 nights in a row--Every night Hugh set up the projector to project a movie onto the side of the house. As my host-sister said, Bolivia is a country filled with very smart people and being such a poor country it is thereby also filled with imitations and contraband. Both of the Twilight movies had been pirated and were of pretty poor quality, but you get what you pay for I guess.

2. Surprise trip to the hospital—just as we were about to tour the upper and lower campuses on Sunday morning, a neighbor came over to Hugh and asked if he could help his daughter whose finger was smashed by a chair. We went along for the ride and ended up staying there for 4 hours. It was a good time for visiting, talking with other patients’ families, and with the nurses who were former students at the university. The girl is fine but the bone did get crushed so she got a nice bandage and was out playing with us a couple days later.

3. Monday Hike—we headed out into the forest down the valley and up the other side, walking past lots of beautiful plants and crops. There were many vegetables I didn’t recognize, but I got to taste a fresh coffee bean off the plant – quite sweet actually. We stopped for about an hour to pick coca with a family and then rested with them and chatted for a while. There were maybe 4 or 5 adults, both men and women, and maybe 6 or 7 kids skillfully and quickly picking coca leaves on this very steep hill. After the coca is picked, it’s dried for a few hours by the family and then has to go to a central processing place in La Paz…at least I think that’s where it is. Their clothing was rather worn and dirty, and yet so were ours. I mention that just to point out a sign that life in the “campo” is rugged and not easy. We hiked on for several more hours and it was great – I loved it and you can see pictures!

4. Tuesday/Carnaval—this day of thanksgiving and harmony-seeking started by taking an hour long ride in the back of a pickup truck along the very bumpy road to a pueblo closer to Coroico for the blessing of a new room in a boarding school and a tractor. The bishop of Coroico and his 3 priests (including the one who is the president of the university at Carmen Pampa) were there along with others. We followed the bishop (who must be in his late 60’s or 70’s) up this really steep hill through lots of long grass, mud and animal droppings to get to the tractor. I was shocked that he could do that with such ease! It’s tradition to take a bottle of beer (alcohol) and spray/sprinkle it as a way of asking for blessing and giving thanks for what we have, so that’s what they did with the tractor, along with water which was sprinkled using a rose. We proceeded to cover it with confetti and streamers.

 

Later when we got back to campus we went throughout the campus doing the same thing except without the beer – instead we used rubbing alcohol. THEN – I was ambushed with water balloons and foam by the neighbor kids. I wish I could show you a picture of me but I didn’t dare bring a camera near them. There are two pictures of them that I took with zoom hiding behind a door. They told me they’d been playing for 10 hours – not sure I believe that, but I am confident they were wet the whole day.

 

I made it back safely and soundly to Cochabamba on Wednesday night and after only two days of classes, am preparing for another weekend, lucky me! Tomorrow is the Carnaval party here in Cochabamba. I hope to go and depending on the amount of water, will hopefully get some pictures of the dances and bands.

5 Things I’m thankful for today: a safe return; my photo album of family and friends; receiving hospitality; being able to explore new places; learning Spanish.
For pictures, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/nora.pfeiffer

Water Balloons – the war continues. They’ve got it coming.

Just this morning at breakfast my host sisters were discussing a plan to go out water-ballooning (I just made up that verb) and asked if I wanted to go with them tomorrow. Like any person wanting to learn more about another culture, I heartily agreed. No, vengeance has absolutely nothing to do with it. How dare you even suggest such a thing! My motivation is purely to embrace the Bolivian culture…I’ll let you know how it goes.

 

Sunday was a big day for sports both in the US and here in Cochabamba. The final championship game between the La Paz and the Cochabamba (two major cities in Bolivia) soccer teams took place here in Cochabamba. People started camping out on the sidewalks surrounding the stadium on Thursday and the tickets didn’t go on sale until Saturday. It came down to a tie and then a shoot-out (where each team gets 5 shots – sorry if I used the wrong term). I watched the last part on TV and it was so intense! Unfortunately, the Cochabamba team lost and as I walked to the city center afterwards, I passed many a sad face. Lucky for me, I was rooting for the Saints so it wasn’t a day of total loss. Way to go New Orleans!

Before the soccer game I accompanied my host mother and uncle to the Cochabamba Cemetery to visit their father’s grave. It’s very different from any US cemetery I’ve seen. They use mausoleums for most people. If you have the money, you can have a little building built just for your family. Some people had plots in the ground but that was very rare to see. Their dad was in a war so his body is in a special section for veterans. As we walked through the section open to anyone, I saw some pieces of paper taped to some of the “spaces” and asked what they were. Apparently, people have to pay a tax every 5 years to keep the space for their family member. If it’s not paid, out you go.

 

A part of the Maryknoll Language Institute that I really enjoy is their philosophy of teaching culture alongside language. Last week I asked why every house has walls or a fence around it with either spikes or barbed wire lining the top. Here are some of the reasons I was given: fear of burglars; protect people’s savings that is usually all kept in the house; more privacy; it’s a tradition from Spain passed down during colonization.

I also asked about the Bolivian concept of privacy and my teacher responded that it’s very different from the American concept. Take this with a grain of salt because this is one person’s explanation, but here are the qualities/factors she gave: strong sense of a need to protect the family; there’s no need to call or plan ahead before visiting someone—you’re welcome to just stop by (people do plan visits but if not, it’s ok); within the family, individual space does not exist—it’s all communal space; it’s very common to know one’s neighbors; a grandmother is able to greatly influence the life of her grandchildren and has a big say in what happens with them.

Up till this point I haven’t written much about the social needs here, but that is about to change. The Institute encourages everyone to volunteer somewhere once a week while in language school and on Saturday we visited five different possible volunteer sites. Three of the sites are part of a foundation called “Amanecer” (sunrise), which “was founded in 1981 by the Daughters of Charity to serve abandoned and mistreated boys, girls, women and babies living on the streets of Cochabamba.” They have a total of 12 sites and went to Madre de Dios, Casa Nazareth and Salomon Klein.

Madre de Dios had two homes next door to each other: one for women and their children and the other for adolescent girls. These women and teenagers have been physically or sexually abused, abandoned and/or forced to live on the streets. While living there, they get counseling, legal help, academic tutoring and work on their plans to become independent (for example, there’s a kitchen on-site where the women can work from 3-6am baking bread to sell each day and thereby gain that skill). Sometimes seeking justice can be very difficult for the girls because if incest is the case, the male relative may be protected by the family, which makes reunification more complicated. There were only 4 teenagers there but about 20-25 more will be arriving next month.

Casa Nazareth is a home for boys between 5-12 years old. Not all the boys are orphans—some have parents who couldn’t take care of them. They try to reach out to the families and make sure the boys and their siblings are going to school after the boys have been reunited with their families. I was welcomed very quickly by several boys who showed me around the place. My favorite moment was when they put a little green flower bud in my hand and told me to pinch it. Out popped all these seeds and I was totally surprised, which they found pretty funny.

 

This next place was the most overwhelming in terms of the apparent need. Salomon Klein is a home for 150 kids between birth and 7 yrs old. Just a couple days prior the police had brought a premature baby to their door. The baby had been found in the trash. The Daughters of Charity don’t turn anyone away so sometimes other institutions will bring children to them as well. We were told that coming to simply hold babies is a great need because the workers don’t have time to sufficiently hold each baby. As we exited the big cafeteria (that had hundreds of little pieces of clothing hanging to dry on the banister above) into a giant playground-backyard-area, we were all swarmed by probably 50 or 60 kids between 3 and 5 years old. One moment one boy takes my sun glasses right off my head and the next moment I’m struggling to walk as I have a child sitting on each of my feet wanting to be taken for a ride. These kids were STARVING for attention. I don’t know how the caregivers manage them all.

The public hospital serving those with lower incomes was our second to last stop. They said it would be great if we could come to help feed the kids who’re there for malnourishment and the nurses don’t have enough time to feed everyone sufficiently on schedule. There was an oncology unit we passed and saw a little 3-yr-old boy whose parents used to come but don’t anymore because he’s been there for a year. So there he is, in the hospital alone, with cancer, and he’s 3.

The last stop was a home for girls who’ve been abused. As we got to share lunch with them, I sat at a table with three girls, aged 13, 14 and 16. Since my vocabulary is somewhat limited, we talked about what they do on the weekends and during the week, our favorite foods, our brothers and sisters, and what they want to be when they grow up. Listen to some of these answers given to me with such energy and not a moment’s hesitation: architect, teacher, doctor, the President! How exciting. One of the men in our group commented that he didn’t think the girls acted like other abused females he’d worked with as a nurse in a mental health hospital, because they accepted the men being there. We agreed that it was quite a testament to the people in charge of the home, that they provide such a structure of safety and security. The girls know they are safe there – what a gift! I was particularly amused by their infatuation with Korean soap operas and the posters of the Korean actors/actresses on their bedroom walls.

 

I’m not sure yet which place I will choose for this short-term volunteer opportunity (not to be confused with my full-time placement after language school). I’ve got to think about it more, but I’m sure wherever I go, it’ll be a rich experience. Stay tuned. Until then, I’ll continue to study, make lots of mistakes, get pelted by water balloons, study some more and keep going.

If you want to see more pictures relating to this post, please go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/nora.pfeiffer

5 things I’m thankful for today: I didn’t get hit by any water balloons yesterday; papaya seeds (good natural preventative medicine for stomach problems); my parents had the resources to raise me and additionally they wanted to; ESPN so that we Americans could watch the super bowl; earplugs (to block out the rockin’ birthday party last night at our neighbor’s house).

Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Bolivian-Style

In reflecting on the last week, I’ve noticed a trend and it relates to one of my favorite parts of the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s. In case you haven’t seen it, the two main characters decide to have a Day of Firsts, in which they spend the whole day doing things they’ve never done before. While I did not go into any costume stores and try on different masks, I have experienced a variety of things from drinking a hot purple drink at breakfast to getting hit by multiple water balloons while walking down the street.

#1 First: The Cancha
This is an area in the city of Cochabamba that spreads for many acres and is filled with vendors selling anything from food to ovens for your kitchen. Some roads are wider and cars can drive (very slowly due to all the people) on them and some pathways are very narrow and only for pedestrians. I went with a list: tape, paper, notebook, envelopes, mouthwash. On the way to find these items, I walked past lots of clothing, both used and new; canteens; guns; produce; little carts of random items like toothpaste and locks; stereo systems; farm equipment; mattresses and beds etc. I didn’t see even half of it! At one point I felt just like I was in the rabbit’s hole of Alice and Wonderland, except instead of being surrounded by dirt, I was surrounded by a never-ending tunnel of clothes…ahhhh, it was frightening.

#2 First: Pre-Carnival in Cochabamba
One day last week I am walking to the institute from my house (about a mile away) and I feel something hard and then suddenly cold and wet hit my back. I let out a little yelp and once I realize it’s a water balloon, I start smiling…this is all part of my enculturation into Cochabamba. Despite the fact that my jeans were wet for the remainder of the day, I was happy to be that much more included in the normal pre-Carnival-life of a Cochabambina. It’s the custom here to throw water balloons and squirt people with water guns beginning in mid-January through Fat Tuesday (Carnival) and even a couple weeks beyond. Apparently, young women are the prime targets—lucky me! Actually I am lucky because I’ve had several balloons just miss me and once my back was skimmed by a poor-shot from a water gun, so to make it till late January to be really hit, I consider quite lucky.

#3 First: Cleaning the bathroom & Vacuuming
Just when I think there are agreed-upon ways to do a given task, I am very quickly put in my place. I’ve never seen or imagined cleaning a bathroom like my host-mother cleaned mine. I wish I could re-enact the scene for you, but I’ll do my best to use words. The bathroom is tiled on the floor and the walls with no separation between the area where one showers and the rest of the room—just all open, not even a shower curtain. My host-mom sprinkled soap on the floor, the toilet and the sink and then filled up a recycled coffee tin with water and starts throwing it on everything—the walls, the toilet, the floor. I wanted to sweep beforehand to get the dust and dirt out but NO, “this way is much better and easier,” which I found out to be true. She used the broom to scrub the wet floor and then used a very large squeegee to push the water towards the end of the bathroom with the shower drain. Fascinating.

Afterwards, I used a little vacuum with just the hose to vacuum my industrial-carpeted bedroom. I had to laugh while I was tediously trying to cover this large area with a mechanism that only had a 2” diameter. I have to admit, at this moment, I did think “Wow, if only I were at home, I could get a simple attachment that would make this process so much easier.” I’m sure they exist here, we just don’t have one.

#4 First: Food and Drink
I learned that “tunas” are the same as prickly pears. The same day we picked and ate the tunas, we also made fresh coconut juice. It was delicious! Also, I’m not very good at spelling in Spanish and the corn-mush dish I made with my family is actually called “humintas”. This morning for breakfast I had “api” which is a drink made from purple corn, sugar, cinnamon and another unknown spice. It was a little too sweet for me at breakfast but had a good flavor. Never drank anything purple beside a slurpee before!

#5 First: Creatures
I rolled over this morning to look at my alarm clock and for some reason happened to also look down at the floor. Directly beneath my head was a scorpion. I try to take the Buddhist approach of respecting all life, but I failed this morning because I didn’t want to risk picking it up. So, I killed my first scorpion.

Yesterday as I was walking down the road, two dogs started coming at me growling, so I bent down to the ground and the turned away in fright—it worked!

I can’t picture Audrey Hepburn in any of the situations I was in, but I love the concept so much that I just had to borrow it. Here’s hoping you too find some “firsts” of your own this week. Life is full of them!

5 Things I’m thankful for today: sun coming out after days and days of rain; drinkable water; going out to eat really good food with new friends; being able to run; the grace of not being sick.