1 Week Anniversary

Written Wednesday, February 5

Wednesday February 8, 2012--Una Semana!

Today was my third day of school and my one-week anniversary of coming to Bolivia.  I go to la “U” (university) at 9, come home at 12:30 for lunch, and go back to la “U” from 3:00 to 6:30.  It seems like that leaves me a lot of time for lunch, but it takes about 35-40 minutes by micro (bus) to get from home to school, so I end up having about an hour for lunching.  Today, we ate yellow rice, little purple potatoes, lentils, fried banana, and salad from my family’s garden with guacamole.  That lunch was a little bigger than the norm, but lunches here are always a lot.  The whole time I’ve been here, my mamá makes juice in the blender with fresh fruit, and then strains it into a pitcher.  It’s fun to try all these different fruits—Bolivia has such a variety (I think because of the variety of climates and altitudes).

So for my morning class, I had my globalization seminar with our guest speaker Rafael Puente.  Yesterday and today we learned about Bolivian history (in Spanish—it was hard!)  It has definitely helped to have some background about Bolivia, like knowing that they lost access to the ocean in the war with Chile.  A lot of my life in Spanish is about knowing the general topic of conversation and then guessing what the person is saying.  I know my Spanish will improve, but for now it’s just pretty tiring.  (Not in a bad way, just that it literally tires me out.)  Just listening is a lot of work, not to mention talking.  My family and professors are really great, and help me with my Spanish a lot.  (Spanish class is in the afternoon, and all the profesoras are super-cool and fun.)

Today we went to an organization of Household Workers as a Spanish class field trip.  It was really interesting to learn a bit about their lives.  One former household worker is now the Minister of Justice in Bolivia.  There are a lot of problems with domestic workers because they usually come to the cities from the country, so they are often maltreated and don’t know their rights.  One of the women we met said that she worked without pay or vacations, working from 5am until midnight (until she joined the organization). 

I have lots of cool conversations with my Bolivian family. They really are the best.  The family members usually get off school/work for lunch at different times, so someone is usually missing.  But at dinner everyone sits and has tea, French fries (homemade), or leftover lunch. My brother Bruno is 21, and we today talked about our mutual love of books (especially Harry Potter.)  I asked if he knew the Hunger Games, but he didn’t.  He’s studying to be a civil engineer and is really smart.  We talk about politics and sociology and lots of interesting stuff (some of which I didn’t understand, but he’s pretty good at explaining things and using small words).  We talked about the troubles with poverty in Bolivia and the USA.  Bruno told me that people here usually don’t die from hunger; they die from malnutrition.  In the country, the campesinos (farmers) produce only a few crops (to eat, not to sell), so they don’t get certain nutrients.  These people don’t use money, so it’s not worth it for anyone to come sell them other foods.  I told him that in the USA poor people also have worse nutrition, because the cheapest foods are processed.  We talked about Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia.  It’s pretty cool how many parallels there are between Evo and Obama—they both are from marginalized racial/ethnic groups and both represent hope for many people.

After dinner, I played pick-up sticks with my 3 siblings and my papá.  Then I taught them how to play Go Fish (A Pescar).

And here are the pictures I've been promising.

Here's my family's neighboorhood.

This restaurant lets me know it's almost time to get off the micro (bus).

Cochabamba