Bienvenidos a Bolivia!

El Christo, Cochabamba, Bolivia. I had to stand in a crowd of about 500 high schoolers chanting "U-S-A" and "I love you" to get this photo.

Plaza Principal Cochabamba, Bolivia. Where the riots took place in early January.

Sorry if anyone has been worrying about me. It´s not so convenient to get on the Internet over here. At least, not out in the campo where all of us are living now. But I´m here and doing good. We arrived in Bolivia a little over a week ago and so much has happened I don´t really know where to begin. Humm.. let´s see...

We are living in the suburbs of Cochabamba. It´s considered the campo (country) and that´s a pretty accurate description. Although this is pretty tame campo living. My host family has a couple cows, pigs, chickens, guinue pigs (which is considered a delicacy over here, have not eaten one yet...that I know of) and a couple of flea ridin dogs Chile and Chubi. They are my favorite, probably because I do not have to speak in Spanish to them. And they love me because I am the only one that pays any attention to them. There is apparently a big plot of land in the back of the house where they grow guess what! Potatoes (papas) which are some how incorporated into every meal. Everyone says that the women gain about 10 lbs and the men lose about 15 lbs. Which I hope is not always the case because we have some pretty skinny men in our group! We are going to have some dead gringos over here! ha...ha...

View of Tunari, the tallest mountain in Central Bolivia, from my neighborhood.

And I have a latrine and outdoor cold shower. There are only a few of us that got that honor. I was a little bit bitter at first, but actually it´s really not that big of a deal. I can always brag about it and I feel pretty tough after taking a cold show at 6 o´clock in the morning. The latrine is actually amazingly clean and rarely smells. It´s piped to the gutter, not the pit kind. We´ll see how I feel about it when I get sick and have to use it 10 times a day...I guess I will have gotten broken in early if nothing else.

My family is pretty mellow. They don´t shove food down my throat or anything... which some people have had some trouble with. Generally, they want to see us eat a lot and get fat. But my host family had already had 8 volunteers so I think they are used to us Gringitos. I have been having a pretty difficult time understanding them. The accent is pretty different than what I was used to in Costa Rica. They actually speak Castillano which I don´t know what exactly is the difference, but it definitely is different. And it´s kind of a slurred speech. So it´s been kind of frustrating, but it gets a little better everyday. ¨Poco a poco¨ they say. They also speak Quechua amongst each other. I have three brothers and one sister. They are all 15 to 21 years old. There quite, but friendly. I know as my Spanish gets better we´ll all talk more.

The neighborhood is pretty traditional. The short, round cholita women all wear long braids in their hair and this kind of dressy blouse, many times with a checked apron and a skirt that falls past their knees. And I love it! All the women wear hats (the style depending upon what region they are from). I really want to get one at the Cancha (market) soon, the sun is fierce over here! I will take a good picture and post it soon! My description is not doing them any justice.

I´m pretty exhausted right now. Training is intense! We have language classes from 8 30 to 1 00 then lunch, and a moment to catch our breath, then various technical, cultural, safety training from 2 00 till 6 oo. Bye the time dinner´s over I´m pretty wiped out and ready for some lite studying than bed. I think I´ve been going to bed at 9 30 lately, it´s pretty pathetic. I think I´m still getting used to the time change (actually we are one hour later than EST over here), the schedule (not waking up at noon everyday) and trying to understand the language is freakin´exhausting. So it´s like this for the next 11 weeks. I was talking to some current volunteers are they were saying if you can make it through the next couple of months you´ll be alright.

Chillin' at the training center.

That´s all for now.... Ciao!