First Impressions of Bermejo

So everytime I told mentioned to somebody in Tarija that I was headed to Bermejo they would cringed their face and complain ¨Oh it´s so hot!¨ then they would add something about the bugs. Seriously, by about the twentieth time hearing this I was about ready to tell people to just shut up and let me figure it out for myself. Honestly, who wants to hear that. But every now and then somebody would say how pretty it was. And that´s what would keep me feeling positive.

Pretty doesn´t do Bermejo justice. It´s is absoluetly gorgous! Ok maybe not the actual city itself, but the surrounding area is tan bonito! We´re settled in between lush tropical mountains and two big rivers with white sandy beaches. It´s the jungle down here. I really had no idea before. I saw a tucan (a tucan!) on the bus ride back to Tarija.

Apparently I was pretty lucky in terms of the weather... it´s was cool the whole time. Everyone kept mentioning how refreshing the weather was. I´ve never considered overcast and slightly drizzling to be ideal weather conditions, but I have a feeling my sentiments will soon change.

Bermejo is a typical hustling and bustling border town. Tons of Argentinians travel over here (I guess) mainly for the ropa usada (used clothes). When you donate your clothes in the states you think you´re helping the poor or homeless, but the majority of it (the nice stuff anyways) finds it´s self in third world markets. There are lots of little marcados with a wide variety of fresh fruits and veggies available. The area grows mainly sugar cane, citrus, and bananas. And we can get fish from the local rivers, which is kind of a big deal in Bolivia.

Apparently, the population of Bermejo has exploded in the last ten years. Now the population is around 50,000 to 60,000 but varies considerably depending on the time of year. There are a lot of migrant workers that move across the border to harvest the crops in Argentina. I´m guessing that there are more poeple here now, because the city seems to be pretty lively.

My site mate has been showing me around the city (so happy I have a site mate) and introducing me to people I´ll likely be working with. She is really great. Super friendly and easy going. I can tell were going to have some good times together.

I will be living in a sort of complex with 3 other women above my host mother´s house. Apparently two of them are hardly ever there. We each have a bed room, a share a bathroom and ¨kitchen space¨. I will be transforming the patio to a kitchen. I was hoping for a little more space. If it turns out to be a little too cramped I can always look for a new place in a few months. But the upside is that the family is really friendly and apparently the mother throws little music festivals in her back yard, which is huge! So there should be some fun stuff going on around he house.

It´s so nice to be so close to the border. In adition to having all the random crap you could ever want at your fingertips... we´re only four hours from Salta, Argentina. Which is supposed to be an amazing city. It´s as easy to travel to Salta as it is to Tarija. And Buenos Aires is a 24 hour bus ride, the same time it takes to travel to Coch by bus. I´m already excited about future trips to Argentina!

to be continued...

Parte 3

So after escaping the kook with the glove... we head on to another current volunteer's site in the Chaco. We spent four days in the little town putting on two environmental fairs. One for the town in general and another for the school in the older part of town. It was kind of crazy, but overall I'd say it was a success. I painted faces, which was a total hit, and helped put on a puppet show. Other's in our group played environmentally themed games, recycled paper, had informational booths...

We spent two mornings in the school presenting a lesson on biodiversity and human impacts to a class of 7th graders. That was probably the most rewarding activity of the entire tech week. First off, kids love having gringos in the class room, so no matter what you do... they'll love it. But we really tried to make it interesting for them with lots of little games and outdoor activities. The teaching methodology in Bolivia is archaic to say the least. Mostly consisting of the teacher talking at the students and the students regurgitating the information back to them. There is virtually no creative, independent thinking going on. It's actually quite sad. These kids are really being cheated of a decent education. To be fair their, are good intetioned, hard working teachers out here. But talking with other Bolivians it doesn´t seem to be the norm. We spent virtually no money on supplies for the lesson. So lack of funds doesn't necessarily have to prevent teacher's from creating more interesting lesson plans. Which is a good thing to know. It´s more of changing the ways in which teahers teach. Which is no small feat, but part of the reason we´re here.

Even when presented with a simple activity (like draw your house and what you do with the trash) they just have this blank look on their face. Like they don't quite believe that's really what you want them to do. They are extremely reluctant to do anything on their own. It takes a lot of encouragement to get them going. But once they get started they love it.

The classrooms in Bolivia look straight out of 1950's (or what I imagine the classrooms in the 1950´s looked like). There's a chalk board and desks, nothing else. Just bare walls. Nothing at all for the kids to look at. I drew this poster of a mini ecosystem with plants and animals and one of the kids in the class actually brought it to his house to show his family! It's the kind of thing that is so sweet, but breaks your heart at the same time. It goes to show you how big of a deal a simple hand draw poster is to these kids. It makes you realize how good you had it in the states.

My part of the lesson was to explain biodiversity and why it's important. That everything is connected...when one species disappears, many others are affected. There was a perceivable moment where it all clicked. When the kids were like "oh yeah...if the lady bug disappears, then their will be more little bugs that will eat all the flowers and the iguanas will die" And I was like YES! (Ok... maybe not an "actual" food chain, but it got the point across.) To actually teach somebody something is a great feeling. One of the volunteers in our "teaching team" was actually a teacher back in the states. It was very encouraging to hear from him that I should definitely pursue teaching as a career.

By the time we were finished we were convinced that it was perhaps the best ever lesson taught by PC trainees ever. And our trainer agreed with us...ha.

Parte 2

Alright... so now I will attempt to write about some of the actual work we did during tech week. We stooped by a current volunteer´s site and filmed a little tv spot with the local school kids about environmental issues. I was really impressed with the kids. They were ready to go with scripts and had all of their lines and roles ready. The kids in the Chaco were also a lot more outgoing and extroverted that the kids we have spent time with in the valle of Coch. I know now I´ll never have a problem finding school boys to practice my Spanish with! It´s really great to practice with kids. You definitely feel like less of an idiot.

So we spent the afternoon going through a couple of practice rounds and filming. Then we spent the rest of the evening madly scrambling to edit the film in time to air it that evening at the school with the kids. We had some frustrating technical difficulties and unfortunately had to cut a lot of the footage, but we managed to include the most important parts (the kids skits). Luckily, nothing really ever happens on time in Bolivia so we didn´t feel to bad about the spot airing about an hour later than we had originally planed. But all the kids came back to the school and we all watched the spot together... 3 times in fact. In small towns there´s basically one tv station that is controlled by one guy and he pretty much decides what the town gets to watch. So we took over the station for the evening. The kids loved seeing themselves on tv and didn´t seem to mind that we had to cut some footage. We learned an important lesson - that it doesn´t have to be perfect to work.

The whole time we were in this little town this crazy guy always seemed to be where ever we were. Right as we walked into the hostel this guy comes out of no where introduces himself, shakes peoples hands, except for me... I got a sloppy kiss on the cheek. Then he walks into the bathroom, soaks himself under the shower. He walks back out and rambles on about something. Then we start to realize he´s kind of koo koo. Anyways, he was everywhere! As we were filming footage around town, in the school (no teacher ever told this kook to get out of there, why I can´t understand), standing by our table while we ate. After the screening of the spot with the kids we´re all clapping and getting up out of our seats ready to wrap things up and leave when he comes up to me shakes my hand and I can tell he´s going in for another kiss so I back up, but he´s still holding my hand so he awkwardly manages to kiss my shoulder. And everyone is watching this totally awkward scene. All the kids laugh and I try to get away as quickly as possible. Even as we where packing the car getting ready to leave town he appears again! This time with a latex glove on one hand and a stethoscope around his neck. I got into the car and closed the door. Man...I always manage to attract the nut balls.

My Site!!

We just found out all of our sites!! I´ll be headed to Bermejo! I figure it´s safe to disclose the location of my site on here since it´s a pretty big city (population of 60,000) It´s not like a little tiny pueblo where if some weirdo asks ¨Where´s the gringa?¨ someone´s going to show them my house. It was my first choice of sites so I´m pretty happy right now. All I really know about it is that it´s hot...real hot...like regularly in the 90´s and humid. Which means its very green. And there are siestas! Apparently, it´s just way to hot to try and work in the middle of the day. I´ve been told it´s a pretty area with rolling hills and lots of rivers. It´s the very most southern tip of Bolivia, right along the Argentinian border. There´s supposed to be great Argentinian wine and beef. I meet the other volunteer living there and they love it. Apparently there is plenty of work to be done. I´ll be working with the school district incorporating environmental ed. into the curriculum and holding teacher´s work shops. I´ll also have the opportunity to work with the local tree nursery, holding work shops with school kids, which I am really excited about. The only down side is that it´s probably one of the most remote sites. It´s not going to be easy to visit a lot of the other volunteers...but I get to fly to Coch whenever we have conferences and whatnot. A lot of people are stuck with 15 hour bus rides. My regional city (where we have the PC office) is Tarija, it´s about a four hour bus ride and is supposed to be a really cool city.

Semana Tecnica - Parte 1

On the road...notice the bull horns from the sweet skull we had attached to the land cruiser.

We just got back from the madness of semana tecnica (tech week). It was only about 9 days but felt like a lifetime. But it was mostly great. We started off our trip headed to Villa Tunari, a cute little tourist town in the Chapare region. As a PC volunteer we are normally not allowed to stay in the Chapare region, merely to pass through it. The reasoning being that this is the area where the vast majority of coca is grown and well... it´s just not a good idea for gringos to be wandering around the coca fields. But don´t worry, the town of Villa Tunari is safe. It´s actually a tourist destination for a lot of Bolivians. It´s kind of a shame we´re not allowed to stay there because it is a really beautiful area. Very lush and tropical. Steep mountains and winding rivers. You could tell how beautiful is was just passing through by moonlight.

We were allowed to stay the night there because there was a landslide a few weeks before and a big chunk of the highway was only open for travel in our direction late at night. And when I say there was a landslide I mean like half a mountain collapsed onto the highway. It was a very impressive sight! There was a stretch of road about 100 yards long completely covered in mud. When we passed they had cleared enough for one lane of traffic to pass through. And the line of trucks and buses on the other side of the road block was incredible! Seriously, the longest line of traffic I have ever seen in my life. It must have been over 15 miles long. I have no idea how long those people were waiting there or how long they would have to continue to wait, but our trainers were guessing that it would be a two day ordeal for the ones in the back of the line. Imagine spending two days on a bus! Bienvenidos a Bolivia! That was actually the reason they flew all of us back to Coch from Santa Cruz yesterday. It´s not clear whether there was another problem with the road or the same, but they didn´t want all of us to be stuck in the middle of the jungle...which I appreciate.

Parque Nacional Amboro.

We spent the afternoon in Buena Vista and sat in for a talk about Parque Nacional Amboro and the tourist attractions in Buena Vista. I not sure whether the guy giving the talk understood that we were volunteers, not tourists... but it worked. It would be nice to spend a weekend there. Then we spent the night in Santa Cruz a big cosmopolitan city. I got to go out with a few current volunteers and chat about their experiences. It´s really nice when you find positive enthusiastic volunteers.

Then we were off to visit two future sites of ours. One was a tiny little town with about 600 people. As we passed through it it looked like a ghost town. There was absolutely nobody in the streets. It turned out they were all in a town meeting at the school. All I was thinking was ¨Oh my... I think I could go crazy in a site like this¨. I´m just worried I´d be bored out of my mind, sitting in my room reading book after book. We also visited another site a relatively large city which was definitely more my speed. I´m keeping my fingers crossed for one of the two larger cities among our list of future sites. There´s more structure to the work and there´s always plenty of work to do. No excuses to be bored. And besides that I´d like to be able to eat out at a nice place once in a while, take guitar and dance lessons, have a toilet and shower...ya know those modern conveniences. You lose that small town everybody knows you (and your business) feel, but overall I think it would be a better fit for me. Well see where I get sent. There doesn´t seem to be a lot of competition for sites within our group which is good. We find out where we´ll be living for the next two years tomorrow! Exciting times!

To be continued....