Deadlines and Haikus

Hey know what’s cool?  I changed the default on Microsoft Word to Spanish, so everything I’m typing has a wiggly line!

Anyway….so the last few days have been pretty crazy, because our ISP (independent study projects) start Thursday (aka tomorrow).  So all our class notes, reflections, and reading notes/reflections were due today, not to mention our ISP proposals and the Human Subjects Research form (a legal thing we fill out to ensure we’re not harming anyone physically, emotionally, etc.)   So lots of late nights and cups of coffee later, I’m DONE with that and ready to start my ISP tomorrow!  All the kids on my program were feeling particularly united by the massive amount of work we all had, and because some people are leaving Cochabamba for their ISP.  So we started writing haikus on our facebook page…here are a few ones I wrote while delirious:

Writing I.R.B.
I wanna do some sleeping
And eat salteñas.

I smell really bad
Fifty points from Gryffindor
For not showering.

I so sad today.
Host fam never eat pancakes.
I gon fix dat hoy.

(My host family told me they never had pancakes, they just saw them in movies!!  I make them pancakes and French toast for lunch yesterday.)

Sleepy SIT babies
Can't stop thinking in haikus.
Procrastination.

Groups projects are no fun

So yesterday, we had class in the morning to talk about our independent study projects.  WHICH START A WEEK FROM THURSDAY!! AHHH.  After that, our group went to lunch at a cafe instead of with our families (a rarity) and worked on our project/presentation about Colegio Bolívar.  For. Six. Hours.  Yes, that did include eating an omelette, a salad, and a dulce de leche (caramel-y sugar-y goodness) crepe, but STILL I was so fried by the time we left at 7.  Then we emailed back and forth until 2am that morning, editing the paper.  Then the next morning I got up at 6 to run to let out some of the stress.  (That was literally ALL I wanted to do that afternoon/night, but we still had work to do and then it was dark).  Our presentation was today, and it went well!  We talked about our interviews with the principal of Colegio Bolívar, the Jurídica para la Mujer, la Defensoria de la Niñez, and the principal of the high school next door to Bolívar.  The 4 main reasons these people (and the articles we read) gave for the resistence to letting in girls were:
1. Tradition of being all boys/ that the school is 99 years old and wants to turn 100 as a boys' school
2. That the girls will distract the boys and/or not be able to keep up with the rigorous academics, thus lowering the school's prestige
3. The law mandating that all public schools be mixed gender was poorly implemented, and the Bolívar community and the literal building were not ready for the entrance of girls
4. The girls cut the line to enroll in Bolívar, and weren't respecting the process of enrolling.  (In actuality, the girls were skipped in the line when the enrollment list was made, so the girls protested to the authorities.  Then Bolívar was forced to allow the girls to enter, cutting out people who were further back in the line and only enrolled because the girls were not included.)

We ultimately said that these four reasons don't hold up, and that they are all symptoms of a wider machisto system (male-ruled/male-centered/anti-female).  We also talked about how these four reasons are not good strategy, because they could have cited some sort of academic reason that girls and boys learn better separately, and at least have had more support from the Bolivian public.  (I believe most people took the side of the girls.)

So WOOOO for being done with that!  Now I just have to plan my independent study project....

Summary of the Week

I’m going to try to sum up Monday through Friday in one post, since I’m obviously struggling to keep up the 1-post-per-day thing.  So Monday, I had no school in the morning, so I worked on the large amount of homework I had due Tuesday.  I also didn’t have school Wednesday morning, as a last minute change.  That ended up working out perfectly, since I had to schedule a last-minute Skype interview Wednesday morning for a summer job.

This week in Spanish class, I saw a video about cargadores, or carriers.  Cargadores are men who you hire in the market to carry goods.  The video was particularly about potato carriers.  They carry 45 pound sacks of potatoes.  Cargadores always work in groups, and have regular customers they carry for.  Most of them are from the country, and moved to the city to help their families.  But the cargador culture is that they go out to a bar and drink alcohol with their coworkers.  When the men were interviewed about this culture, they (individually) said that they were torn between their family and their new friends.  They could not survive without their “brothers” or the men that they worked with, so they felt they couldn’t refuse to drink with them/ buy them drinks.  The cargadores sleep on the street, or if a bar-owner takes pity on them, in the bar.   Part of cargador culture is not going to the doctor for sickness or injury.  The video was really sad and showed how important culture and community is—aren’t we all products of our culture and friends?

The Spanish classes also went to the cemetery, and talked to the kids who work there.  This cemetery was made up of little drawers in the wall, where the bodies go, and the kids are paid to clean the glass front.  Some of the people have tombs, but it costs more money to be put in the ground.  The people in the little drawers are removed after 5 years (after they’ve decomposed) and their bones are then burned.  In the cemetery, we met 4 kids who showed us around—Kevin (11), Walter (13), Julio César (13), and Joseina (14).  They told us about the important people buried there, and showed us the tombs of a girl who was kidnapped and killed and a boy who was killed in the water war.  People always leave them flowers and pray to them because they have good souls.  Kevin and Joseina are brother and sister, and both started working in the cemetery when they were 5 years old to help their family.  Kevin goes to school in the morning and works from noon to 6pm on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.  Joseina works every day in the cemetery and goes to school at night.  Walter started working when he was 10, to help his 6 siblings and his 2 nieces.  He also goes to school at night, and wants to be a mechanic.  Julio César has an older brother who works in the cemetery too, as a guard.  His brother is 15.  The kids told us that they make 30-60 Bolivianos a day (US$4-9).  They sing or pray for people as well as washing the glass.  They said some people are nice and give them a lot of money, and some people are bad and don’t want to pay them.  When people ask what they charge, they say, “depends on what you want to pay.”

We saw another movie about “cleferos,” or glue-sniffers.  These are kids who come from bad homes or are abandoned, and live in the street.  A former student on this program did a documentary on them.  All of them said they didn’t want to sniff glue.  A lot of the young women had babies, and wanted a better life for their kids.  They all had cuts and scars from the violence in the street.  Many of the women were hit by their husbands, and the police was very violent towards them.  There are some homes for the street kids, but a lot of them lock the kids in and don’t let them leave, so the kids know not to go there.  Even while they were being interviewed, the cleferos were sniffing glue.  It was so sad to see—and once they get addicted and become part of that community, it’s so hard for them to stop.  It’s hard to imagine living in that much violence and hardship.

So finally caught up on my blogging!  I actually stayed home sick from school today, since my stomach keeps cramping up like someone’s twisting it around.  Not fun.  But I got to sleep 4 extra hours, and my host mom made me tea and maizana, which is like thick, clear soup.  My friend Ali just told me what it is—corn starch.  (She called me to see how I was doing—isn’t that nice?)  I ate it with crackers and sugar so it was pretty good.  I’m hoping to be better by Monday, when I leave for Sucre and Potosí.  This will be my third day feeling crummy, so if I’m still not better by tomorrow I’ll go to the doctor.  Hoping it won’t come to that!

Yes, I Do Go To School Here

Lest you all think Bolivia is just fun and games, here’s a rundown of my typical day, without being on an excursion.

7:15 Wake up, eat breakfast with my mom, shower

8:20 Catch the micro to the university—sometimes I catch up on readings on the micro until I get nauseous

8:45 Get off the micro (MEE-crow) and walk to school

8:53 Wonder if I have time to get coffee, get coffee regardless at Café Vivaldi

9:00ish Get to class, wait 5-15 minutes for class to start since Bolivian time always runs a little late

10:30 Descanso!  Thirty-minute break for chatting with friends or getting a snack

11:00 Back to class

12:30 Class lets out, unless it runs late, which it often does

1:15 Arrive home by micro and eat lunch with my family

2:20 Take the micro back to school

3:00ish Start Spanish class with Chichi and Beba (our Spanish profs)—sometimes we watch a movie or go on a field trip

4:30 Break!

6:30 Go home on the micro, which is usually full because of commuter hour

7:30ish Arrive home and eat a little dinner with my family

8:15ish Hang out with my family-- chat/play cards/sing Selena Gomez with my host sister

9:30 Start homework/email people/blog

11:00 Bed

So to review:

6 hours in class

2.5 hours on the micro

2.5 hours eating with my family

1 hour of breaks during class

½ hour showering/brushing teeth, etc.

8 hours sleeping

1.5 hours doing homework

1 hour hanging with my family

1 hour that always disappears—the time that just slips away …when I stay in class late to talk to a friend, or the micro comes late, or I talk with my host mom about organic farming/climate change instead of starting homework

I know most people probably don’t get 8 hours of sleep every night.  I work really hard to get sleep, because it’s physically exhausting to be surrounded by a foreign language all the time.  Every time I listen to someone speak Spanish, I have to concentrate and actively think about what they are saying.  We don’t always realize it, but when someone speaks English, we can’t always here every word (if there’s background noise, they talk funny, etc).  But in our native language we can fill in the gaps.  In Spanish I can’t fill in gaps, I need to literally hear every word to understand the sentence.  A lot of effort!  But with a combo of 8 hours of sleep and coffee, I’m succeeding!