What am I doing?

Some of you are probably wondering what exactly I´ve been doing over here. I´ve been pretty vauge in my explanation because I myself am still trying to figure that out. This past month I´ve been meeting with a lot of directors and teacher´s trying to get going in some sort of direction. Some of these meetings have been super easy. I just explain who I am and that I want to come into the schools and talk to the kids about trash and recycling, play some games and do some fun activities and they´re like ¨alright when can you come in?¨. And others haven´t gone so smoothly. I´ve had people get defensive saying that they already talk about that stuff and what am I going to do that´s any different. What are my methodologies? Umm... to have fun. Methodologies? That´s a question I can barely answer in English, let alone Spanish. Let´s face it, I´m not a professionally trained teacher. I was given a bunch of ideas for creating interactive dynamic lessons conserning the environment. I have no doubt that the teachers are addressing some of the same issues in their classrooms, but Bolivian classrooms are not exactly known for there creativity. I don´t know how to say that to teachers without insulting them. Some times I just seriously want to say look- the kids love me, we´ll have fun and I´m making your job easier. What more do you want? Whenever I walk into a school the kids surround me asking me my name, where I´m from and if I´m going to be their teacher. And when I saw yes they all cheer. Ok well maybe this doesn´t happen every single time, but it´s happened enough to tell me that the kids will enjoy whatever I have to say. It´s worth the frustration with the teachers knowing that the kids want me to be there.

Even if I am covering the same topic at least it´s coming from another person in a different way. Maybe because I am a gringa, an outsider, it´ll have more impact. I may be being a bit too optimistic there, but you gotta be to do this job. Bermejo has serious trash problems. And telling the kids about it more than once certainly can´t hurt. Even in the schools there´s trash all over the place which tells me the teachers a not enforcing the theme enough. It´s definitely a difficult job. How do you get people to care about their environment? What are the tangible benefits for them? You can tell them over and over again about how trash attracts mosquitos and rats that can harbor disease, that batteries pollute water sources with heavy metals, that burning plastics releases toxins in the atmosphere, a plastic bottle will still be in the landfill 500 years from now...but these are things that are hard to actually observe. They´re too abstract to be really effective reasons for changing behaviors. For me it´s more about respecting the place you live and doing the right thing, not because you´re directly benefiting from it, but it´s the right thing to do. In the states I felt rediculous amounts of guilt not recycling everything that was possible to recycle, leaving the lights on when I wasn´t home, if my sink had a leak. Where did all this guilt come from?? That´s what I will try to tell the kids. Not the guilt part, (actually that maybe more effective) but to respect where you live. I know I´m not going to work miracles over here, but if nothing else I have helped plant a little seed for future action. Environmental Ed. is a relatively new subject in Bolivia and hopfully this generation of kids will be the ones to make big changes.

My Kooky Doña

My new ¨Host Mom¨ is an interesting lady. I feel kind of wierd calling her my Host Mom, because she´s more like my land lord that I ocasionally hang out with than anything else. But PC Bolivia requires us to live with a host family (to live within the same walls/compound as a family). Don´t get me wrong. She´s a fun lady. She deffinitely likes to have a good time and make sure those around her are having a good time too. She´s the first one to pass around the wine at parties and trying to hook people up and make them dance together. But she´s kind of umm.. how can I say this in the nicest possible way...a bit ditzy.

She comes up with these completely random ideas. One of the first days at the house she tells the other girls renting rooms that I only eat vegetables, nothing else. And they look at me and ask ¨Verdad?¨ with surprise. And then I have to set the record straight ¨I eat everything. I eat meat. I ate pork yesterday WITH YOU!¨Hello! That actually was the first meal she offered me so I felt obligated to eat it. It was a thick chunk of pork. Consisting of a thick layer of skin (with a few hairs poking out) and fat. There was virtualy no meat to be found on it. Me and Julia just kept digging in with our knives searching futilely for the meat. ¨This is so disgusing. Are we really going to have to eat this?¨I keep thinking to myself. Thank God Julia was there to explain that usually we don´t like to eat the skin and such...just the meat. ¨Oh...I eat everything.¨ My Dona replied with a laugh...clearly. Of course I could have said this myself, but I hardly knew the lady at that point and didn´t want to seem rude not eating what she offered me. So we choked down a few forkfuls of fat saying ¨¡Que rico!¨ (how delicious!) all the while thinking of the brain worms that we´ve been warned uncooked pork can give you. While I´m on the subject of strange foods... I´ve actually been pretty lucky so far. The strangest thing I´ve eaten was guinea pig at my host families house which is actually like a fattier chicken. Not really that good, but not that bad either. I´ve managed to steer clear of the intestines, chicken feet, tongue and stomach offered to other volunteers.

But back to my Doña. The other day I was making cookies in the kitchen. She asks ¨What are you doing?'¨. ¨Making cookies¨ I reply. Then in the next minute she asks the lady that helps out around the house (the empleada) what I´m doing. The same answer ¨Making cookies¨. Ok maybe she didn´t understand me... yet again. Then thirty seconds later she aks her son. ¨She´s making cookies¨ he tells her. ¨Cookies?¨ she asks again. ¨Cookies.¨ says the empleada. Am I in the Twilight Zone or something? What is going on here? Oh yeah, and another time I asked her if there was a hot shower downstairs that I could use. I was sick and it was freezing cold and I was dreading the thought of using my cold shower. She yells back into the house to her son ¨Is there hot water?¨. ¨No only cold¨ he replies. What?! Did she really not know if she had hot water or not in her own house? I was baffled. Hot water is not something you have from one day to the next. You either have it or you don´t. They don´t have hot water heaters down here. It´s pretty rare to see them. What most people do is buy this contraption they put over the shower head. The water passes through an electrical current and quickly heats up. You know how we were always told water and electricity don´t mix? We´ll aparently down here in the southern hemisphere it´s all right.

Also she´s partaily deaf and doesn´t annunciate very clearly so our conversations have been pretty rediculous. So not only can she not understand me, I can barely understand her. Just the other day I was walking to the market with her. She asked when I got back to town and I told her yesterday at about five. Short and simple answer. Then we run into her friend and she tells her ¨Allison got back from Tarija this morning¨. I didn´t bother to correct her. Things like that happen all the time. But at least she has stoped introducing me to people with ¨This is Allison. She doesn´t understand spanish.¨ There´s nothing like being told you can´t speak spanish to help your confidence. Especially with someone you´ve just met! I got kind of pissed after several times with that introduction and told her, obviously aggrevated, ¨I understood that! I don´t undstand every word, but I generally get the idea. I´m still learning.¨ Muchas gracias!