Alright just a week till I begin this little adventure. Perfect timing too...apparently there have been some pretty violent protests in Cochabamba, Bolivia. This is where I'm scheduled to be in about 10 days! Leftist Evo supporters have been protesting, calling for the resignation of the conservative governor of Cochabamba. It started out peacefully, but got pretty outta hand when protesters tried to storm city haul causing a violent response from police. Tear gas canisters were flying... fires were set. At least one person has died and many others were injured. Evo sent in the military and more police and it appears that things have settled down. However, Evo supporters have vowed to keep up protests until the governor resigns. I guess the situation was bad enough to evacuate the all the Peace Corp Volunteers (PCV's) living within the city.
So it's a big mystery how this is going to affect our training group. We are supposed to spend the first three months living and training in Cochabamba. Hopefully things will cool off by the time we arrive... or this situation could throw a big ol' monkey wrench into our plans.
It's an unfortunate situation. However, I am not personally very worried about it. I don't plan on picking up a machete and joining the protests or anything. People have the right to protest and should when they are not happy with their leaders. It' s just unfortunate it had to escalate into violence. This is a very critical time in the history of Bolivia and call me crazy, but I'm actually pretty excited about witnessing these changes (albeit from a safe distance!).
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