Ok, so this is a picture of my fellow B-45 Basic Sanitation Voluteers. It was taken outside the airport in Cochabamba. The older guy in the bottom left corner is Tim, the guy who does technical training. I´m not sure what his title is exactly. Probably yet another acronym. Peace Corps is all about the acronyms.
So, I’m an awful blogger. I haven’t updated in such a long time. Lo siento mucho. Since I last posted, we’ve started training and have been living with our host families for almost a week. I live in a suburb of Cochabamba called Lorocalle/ Matenda. I’m not really sure which since the zones aren’t well defined. Either way I’m about a 45 minute bus ride from the city. My host family is very small (just a mother and her daughter) and very hospitable. The house reminds me of those I’ve seen in India. There’s a courtyard in the middle and all the rooms surround it. I’ll try to post pictures so you can see what I’m talking about. The house is surrounded by gardens. These gardens are HUGE! There’s spinach, roses, pomegranates, mandarinos (no sé la equivalente en ingles), and many other fruits and veggies. It’s great fun. Also, the mountains are so close and they make the perfect backdrop for this lovely community. My fellow volunteers are all living pretty close. In fact, two (a married couple) live right across the street with the brother of my host mother and another lives next door (no relation). Of course there are several gardens and a flower farm between our houses. I have a hot shower that’s heated by solar panels and a flush toilet. I really enjoy this since it’s quite unlikely that I will have either at my work site. I also enjoy having my fellow volunteers close by. We are able to talk in English once in awhile and chat about our homes and how things are going.
Training is also going quite well. Me encanta mi clase de español. My teacher, Liesbeth is excellent and very adventuresome. We went to La Concha on Tuesday, which is the giant marketplace in Cochabamba, sort of like Ranganathan Street in Chennai. We went by bus. I bought a present for my mom, which I will not disclose here since she reads this, and some laundry soap. Yes, we wash clothes by hand. It should be fun (I think). Lisebeth is a kindred spirit and took us for ice cream at Dumbo’s (as in the Disney character) and then made us panqueques yesterday morning while pointing out the kitchen things in Spanish. My class consists of Anna S., Anna O., and Sarah N., who, incidentally, is my neighbor. They are also all Basic San volunteers. We knew class would be excellent when la maestra gave us chocolate as a reward during the first class.
We also have culture, safety, medical, and technical classes. I have to say I was not so enthusiastic about my first technical class. We made flycatchers with plastic bottles and raw meat (ewww!). The other project was to make a worm bin. This was kind of cool in theory. What you do is you start a compost pile in a trash bin with worms. The worms produce humus which can be used as fertilizer once you harvest it. This is particularly useful since most of the people here have gardens. Again, it’s kind of gross. Our assignment for technical training during these three months is to convince our family to make worm bins and then help them do so. We also have a recycling project which is less important since the majority of the community already recycles. I hope we discuss more projects with education since that’s what I’m interested in.
Medical classes are fun since we’re learning about all the different diseases we can get. One class was all about diarrhea and dysentery. Sounds fun, right? The other class we learned about Chagas and the vinchuca bugs. These classes are the reason that we sleep in giant mosquito nets. Safety classes are kind of scary. They tend to make everyone paranoid and I think no one feels safe walking out at night, even in groups. It’s seems unjustified since everyone is really friendly and everyone is related to everyone else. Chances are that if you walk down your street, your whole family will be watching you from the windows. Hopefully this will go away since it gets dark around 6 pm because it’s the beginning of winter. Moreover, most of the host families are very protective of their volunteers. I know Sarah’s host mother calls her ‘mi bebe’. Speaking of winter, it gets pretty cold during the night. I sleep in a sleeping bag that’s rated for 30°F and under two heavy blankets. It’s pretty crazy. What’s even crazier is that it still gets to ~90°F during the day. Culture classes are a bit of a joke. They’re interesting and the teacher is wonderful, but we learn so much more by just interacting with our families. One interesting thing here is that you have to greet everyone, everywhere. Even random people you pass on the street need to hear a ‘Buenos dias’ or at the least ‘Hola’. And for the people that you greet you have to touch cheeks and do an air kiss – like they do in the movies. It takes some getting used to but I’m getting there.
This past Saturday we got a tour of the regional Peace Corps office. Of course we had already seen the training center for our placement interviews (language and host family). The training center has latrines, or ‘baños ecologicos’, which is the pc term, I guess. I find it funny that my host family has a better bathroom than the Peace Corps training center. It’s also funny that it took me till yesterday to figure out that ‘Cuerpo de Paz’ means Peace Corps in Spanish. Anyways, the training center, aside from latrines also has several offices and classrooms for the trainees. There is a medical office and that’s where we get our weekly vaccinations. I’ve gotten Hep A, rabies, and the flu vaccine so far. There is also a lounge with one (1) computer. The competition for this one (1) computer gets pretty fierce. The training center also has several gardens and a couple of worm bins. Most people in Bolivia (including the training center) grow most of the foodstuffs that they need. They also raise the animals, and not just on the farms. The regional office looks like an office building you would see in the US. It has four floors and is very plush. It’s also got a book exchange and a shower for volunteers to use. Most of the non-training staff and third year volunteers work from there.
The day before yesterday (May 16th), I went to a fiesta. It was accidental actually since we were just supposed to pick up Sarah’s host mama. It was like an Indian party. You can’t just go in and out in five minutes. We went in and the hostess made us sit and gave us giant plates of food. It looked delicious but unfortunately every single thing on that plate had meat in it. Luckily, Doña Nora (Sarah’s mom) was able to take it all home as leftovers. There was also traditional Bolivian dancing which was very beautiful. Sarah’s mom is a fantastic dancer. She also enjoys it a lot. There’s a dance called the cuenco where the dancers all hold handkerchiefs in their hands and make graceful gestures with them while they dance. It was fun to watch.
One other fun event that happened was a saint parade (on the 15th). It was exactly like the ones we have in India. Some people carry the deity around the streets, stopping at houses for donations. They have a small parade with music and dancers. Here it was the same. The saint was San Isidro labrador (worker, not the type of dog). It was a Catholic saint. I have pictures of that as well which I will try to post.
Well, this post has been extremely long. I will try to avoid such long posts by posting more regularly. I have to go into town to get to an internet café though, so it might be a weekly thing. Hope all is well with everyone else. Look forward to hearing from you!
Training is also going quite well. Me encanta mi clase de español. My teacher, Liesbeth is excellent and very adventuresome. We went to La Concha on Tuesday, which is the giant marketplace in Cochabamba, sort of like Ranganathan Street in Chennai. We went by bus. I bought a present for my mom, which I will not disclose here since she reads this, and some laundry soap. Yes, we wash clothes by hand. It should be fun (I think). Lisebeth is a kindred spirit and took us for ice cream at Dumbo’s (as in the Disney character) and then made us panqueques yesterday morning while pointing out the kitchen things in Spanish. My class consists of Anna S., Anna O., and Sarah N., who, incidentally, is my neighbor. They are also all Basic San volunteers. We knew class would be excellent when la maestra gave us chocolate as a reward during the first class.
We also have culture, safety, medical, and technical classes. I have to say I was not so enthusiastic about my first technical class. We made flycatchers with plastic bottles and raw meat (ewww!). The other project was to make a worm bin. This was kind of cool in theory. What you do is you start a compost pile in a trash bin with worms. The worms produce humus which can be used as fertilizer once you harvest it. This is particularly useful since most of the people here have gardens. Again, it’s kind of gross. Our assignment for technical training during these three months is to convince our family to make worm bins and then help them do so. We also have a recycling project which is less important since the majority of the community already recycles. I hope we discuss more projects with education since that’s what I’m interested in.
Medical classes are fun since we’re learning about all the different diseases we can get. One class was all about diarrhea and dysentery. Sounds fun, right? The other class we learned about Chagas and the vinchuca bugs. These classes are the reason that we sleep in giant mosquito nets. Safety classes are kind of scary. They tend to make everyone paranoid and I think no one feels safe walking out at night, even in groups. It’s seems unjustified since everyone is really friendly and everyone is related to everyone else. Chances are that if you walk down your street, your whole family will be watching you from the windows. Hopefully this will go away since it gets dark around 6 pm because it’s the beginning of winter. Moreover, most of the host families are very protective of their volunteers. I know Sarah’s host mother calls her ‘mi bebe’. Speaking of winter, it gets pretty cold during the night. I sleep in a sleeping bag that’s rated for 30°F and under two heavy blankets. It’s pretty crazy. What’s even crazier is that it still gets to ~90°F during the day. Culture classes are a bit of a joke. They’re interesting and the teacher is wonderful, but we learn so much more by just interacting with our families. One interesting thing here is that you have to greet everyone, everywhere. Even random people you pass on the street need to hear a ‘Buenos dias’ or at the least ‘Hola’. And for the people that you greet you have to touch cheeks and do an air kiss – like they do in the movies. It takes some getting used to but I’m getting there.
This past Saturday we got a tour of the regional Peace Corps office. Of course we had already seen the training center for our placement interviews (language and host family). The training center has latrines, or ‘baños ecologicos’, which is the pc term, I guess. I find it funny that my host family has a better bathroom than the Peace Corps training center. It’s also funny that it took me till yesterday to figure out that ‘Cuerpo de Paz’ means Peace Corps in Spanish. Anyways, the training center, aside from latrines also has several offices and classrooms for the trainees. There is a medical office and that’s where we get our weekly vaccinations. I’ve gotten Hep A, rabies, and the flu vaccine so far. There is also a lounge with one (1) computer. The competition for this one (1) computer gets pretty fierce. The training center also has several gardens and a couple of worm bins. Most people in Bolivia (including the training center) grow most of the foodstuffs that they need. They also raise the animals, and not just on the farms. The regional office looks like an office building you would see in the US. It has four floors and is very plush. It’s also got a book exchange and a shower for volunteers to use. Most of the non-training staff and third year volunteers work from there.
The day before yesterday (May 16th), I went to a fiesta. It was accidental actually since we were just supposed to pick up Sarah’s host mama. It was like an Indian party. You can’t just go in and out in five minutes. We went in and the hostess made us sit and gave us giant plates of food. It looked delicious but unfortunately every single thing on that plate had meat in it. Luckily, Doña Nora (Sarah’s mom) was able to take it all home as leftovers. There was also traditional Bolivian dancing which was very beautiful. Sarah’s mom is a fantastic dancer. She also enjoys it a lot. There’s a dance called the cuenco where the dancers all hold handkerchiefs in their hands and make graceful gestures with them while they dance. It was fun to watch.
One other fun event that happened was a saint parade (on the 15th). It was exactly like the ones we have in India. Some people carry the deity around the streets, stopping at houses for donations. They have a small parade with music and dancers. Here it was the same. The saint was San Isidro labrador (worker, not the type of dog). It was a Catholic saint. I have pictures of that as well which I will try to post.
Well, this post has been extremely long. I will try to avoid such long posts by posting more regularly. I have to go into town to get to an internet café though, so it might be a weekly thing. Hope all is well with everyone else. Look forward to hearing from you!
1 comments:
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