Well, first things first, if you don’t understand the title of this entry, I suggest you take a couple of hours and watch the original Batman movie...no, not the Michael Keaton/Kim Basinger original Batman, I’m talking the one made in the 60s or 70s with Adam West...quite hilarious. Perhaps only it was funny for me when I was a child, but you just can’t beat the corniness of the jokes and acting. I think I liked Batman better when he was less of a badass and more of a comedian.
The point I’m trying to address is that some days are just rough and there’s nothing you can do about it, aside from accept it and roll on. Fortunately, since the first week I haven’t had many days where I couldn’t get rid of the bomb. However, a lot of my fellow trainees have begun the month 1 blues. They say that we will experience the hardest hits of culture shock at one month, 3 months, 6 months and again at 1 year. And damn if they weren’t right on...we’re right about at the one month mark and people are starting to get homesick and others are just emotionally unstable in general. Some can’t sleep and others just downright feel like crap. A couple guys have even have friends pass away back home…which I can’t even begin to imagine. I almost feel a little guilty feeling really good about everything here, although I’m thankful I’m not in some others’ shoes. The point is, we’re all going to have rough times and we’re here to take care of each other. We all know each other pretty well at this point and can tell when things are upsetting our friends. And since we’re all pretty much in the same boat, we are a great support network for each other. But who knows what it’s going to be like once we get out to our sites and the closest english speaker is a 4 hour busride away? The fact of the matter is, it’s going to get emotionally harder long before it gets emotionally easier. Lucky for me, I haven’t had any strong bouts with homesickness (or physical sickness either) since my first week here and the more time I spend here, the more strangely comfortable I feel. I have found that it’s very rewarding to spend some quality time on my own in the cities and towns, without a zillion gringos around loudly speaking english and lugging backpacks. I get the strangest feeling like I belong, which is sort of a happy surprise.
My mom has always stressed the importance of being able to spend quality time alone to balance out the time spent with others...whether it be at parties with family or friends or at work. An hour or two spent just relaxing alone in a plaza with a book or walking around the city, exploring new streets and occasionally going in and buying a postre or something is quite refreshing, and I’m beginning to feel myself turning a bit more Bolivian every day. I can’t tell yet if people still think I’m a gringo, but I’m pretty sure they do...I’d love for some Bolivian to come up to me and ask directions or something, thinking I was an actual Bolivian. Not too many men have curly hair here, so I think I’m pushing my luck. My month-plus beard also isn’t something I’m too sure is prevalent here…we’ll see how long it lasts.
Tomorrow we depart for our Technical Week, where we will begin to put all the skills we've been learning in training to work. We are giving presentations as well as building things...like a ferrocement tank to catch rainwater, a dispersion system for grey water as well as a dry latrine. And we'll be drilling a well. I'm looking forward to not being lectured at for 10 days and actually getting some work done. We are driving to different parts of the country, so I'm looking forward to learning more about the areas in this country. And then when we get back we get our site announcements, which is pretty exciting. We got profiles on all the sites tonight and I have had a good time going through them all and trying to figure out where will fit me best.
All in all, life is still good...health is good, beard is good, it's all good.
Cuidense todos,
Ben
21 June 2006
The Girls Who Have Won My Heart (6/20/06)
I know I’ve talked a ton about my sisters and cousins, but they really are a big part of me being happy here. So I’m going to talk some more about them. We spend our evenings playing basketball in our crappy little courtyard at our house, and I always win, despite their blatant disregard of some key rules such as “dribbling,” “passing” and the rule that says you’re not allowed to hang on your opponents arms like craps when he is trying to shoot. Despite their being all of 11 years and younger, it still feels good to swat their shots into the stands. And people tell me I’m not competitive enough.
It’s actually gotten to the point where they feel comfortable actually bothering me like little sisters do when they’re that age...they steal my stuff and don’t give it back...they play this “no hit backs” game where every time a truffi drives by they get to punch me in the arm...and they even start tickling me when I’m trying to do my homework. Sometimes I get stern and snap at them to leave me alone, which makes them stop but doesn’t scare them off.
On Friday night we were playing a silly game where we sit in a circle and sing a song and whoever messes up has to get in the middle and do a dance or something, and I got my videocamera out and they just had a field day. At first they were a little shy but soon warmed up to it and I even let them tape me doing a little dance. Sometimes I feel bad “showing off” the nice things I’ve got but it’s always worth it to see the smiles on their faces.
Whenever I have to walk to someone’s house to pick something up, they tag along like my little fan club, pushing and playing and sometimes I put the smaller ones on my shoulders for a bit, which makes them all laugh uncontrollably. And the other morning, they were sent to get chicken and asked me to accompany them...for whatever reason that morning the neighborhood dogs were more riled up than usual and barking at growling at each other...which made all the girls scared and start screaming as well as digging into my forearms with their fingernails, until I explained to them that dogs can sense fear and the more they do that, the more upset the dogs get, and the more band aids I have to use to stop the bleeding on my forearms...just kidding. It worked though, and now they don’t act so scared around dogs and the dogs are way more chill, and it’s a better situation for everyone.
But they did something the other night that took the cake. After a quick review of the numbers in English, I sat down to do some work and they continued playing with the dry erase board we use for “classes”...little did I realize they were writing a little poem for me...they presented it to me, proud as can be and read it aloud. Here’s what it was:
Para Ben
Buen Profe,
Eres Tú.
Nunca Te Olvidarémos.
Jamas Nos Olvides
A La Familia.
Mi unico amigo fuiste tú
Í Te llevarémos en nuestras corazones.
Nunca Te Olvidarémos, Ben.
I was kind of at a loss for words. They keep asking me when I’m leaving and whine every time I tell them that it’s in about a month...but I reassure them that I’ll come back to visit...perhaps when some of my family is in town or for a fiesta or two...the older sister is graduating from college next June, and I’d love to come back for that. Only time will tell I suppose, I can only hope there are some fun kids in my host family once I get out to my site.
It’s actually gotten to the point where they feel comfortable actually bothering me like little sisters do when they’re that age...they steal my stuff and don’t give it back...they play this “no hit backs” game where every time a truffi drives by they get to punch me in the arm...and they even start tickling me when I’m trying to do my homework. Sometimes I get stern and snap at them to leave me alone, which makes them stop but doesn’t scare them off.
On Friday night we were playing a silly game where we sit in a circle and sing a song and whoever messes up has to get in the middle and do a dance or something, and I got my videocamera out and they just had a field day. At first they were a little shy but soon warmed up to it and I even let them tape me doing a little dance. Sometimes I feel bad “showing off” the nice things I’ve got but it’s always worth it to see the smiles on their faces.
Whenever I have to walk to someone’s house to pick something up, they tag along like my little fan club, pushing and playing and sometimes I put the smaller ones on my shoulders for a bit, which makes them all laugh uncontrollably. And the other morning, they were sent to get chicken and asked me to accompany them...for whatever reason that morning the neighborhood dogs were more riled up than usual and barking at growling at each other...which made all the girls scared and start screaming as well as digging into my forearms with their fingernails, until I explained to them that dogs can sense fear and the more they do that, the more upset the dogs get, and the more band aids I have to use to stop the bleeding on my forearms...just kidding. It worked though, and now they don’t act so scared around dogs and the dogs are way more chill, and it’s a better situation for everyone.
But they did something the other night that took the cake. After a quick review of the numbers in English, I sat down to do some work and they continued playing with the dry erase board we use for “classes”...little did I realize they were writing a little poem for me...they presented it to me, proud as can be and read it aloud. Here’s what it was:
Para Ben
Buen Profe,
Eres Tú.
Nunca Te Olvidarémos.
Jamas Nos Olvides
A La Familia.
Mi unico amigo fuiste tú
Í Te llevarémos en nuestras corazones.
Nunca Te Olvidarémos, Ben.
I was kind of at a loss for words. They keep asking me when I’m leaving and whine every time I tell them that it’s in about a month...but I reassure them that I’ll come back to visit...perhaps when some of my family is in town or for a fiesta or two...the older sister is graduating from college next June, and I’d love to come back for that. Only time will tell I suppose, I can only hope there are some fun kids in my host family once I get out to my site.
15 June 2006
Six People, Five Tents and Three Bottles of Rum (2006.06.14)
This past Saturday, some friends and I took our first venture away from Cochabamba on our own to a National Park...really not too far from the city but a trip on our own nonetheless. There were originally supposed to be ten of us, but four people ended up being sick so it got cut down to six. But we didn’t find out about the sicknesses until the morning we left, so everything was all packed up, so we had way too many tents. But it was a good thing there were only six of us because we would have had to start eating peanut butter and jelly out of the jars if there were any more.
I made some trail mix out of M&M’s, granola and peanuts, we packed in two loaves of bread with PB&J and the morning we left we bought a boatload of fruit (25 bananas and 20 oranges for about $0.65 US) and three bottles of rum that were about $2.50 US each. It’s pretty ridiculous how cheap things are here.
We are all currently living at an altitude of about 8500 feet and we still get winded when we run. So as soon as we started hiking up the mountain, it became evident that it was going to be a slow day. It’s amazing how much it really affects you when you need to breathe. So we took a lot of breaks and tried to drink a lot of water. Our goal was to hike 25K to a really plush lake on the other side of a mountain, but at about 12K in we took a wrong turn and took a footpath instead of a road. There were some really beautiful views of the city and of the mountains and it was nice to take frequent breaks and just take it all in. One of the most refreshing things for me was the smell. Living where I live, there is essentially poop everywhere and it’s no secret that it’s quite stanky. Coupled with people burning ALL of their trash and dust producing truffis that drive by constantly, the air I get at home isn’t the freshest. But once we got up on that mountain and there were a million pine trees and no cars, the scent was just amazing. I appreciate smells because they’re something that can’t be photographed...you actually had to be there to really understand what I mean.
There was a little bit of an Oasis about halfway up...a playground with a water spicket and also a zipline that we had a lot of fun playing on. We stopped and filled up our waterbottles and enjoyed a nice lunch of peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Mmmmm!
Katie from DC...nice hat!
Dan from Michigan swinging on the zip line
Katie & Justin at one of the Many Vistas
We spent about three hours climbing up and down, criss crossing over the same mountain a couple of times until we finally found the road again. We tried to bust hard and make it to the top but it became evident that we were too tired and night was coming too quickly to make it as far as we had hoped. So we found a really great camping spot and started unpacking. It was really fun...we all kind of broke down into teams and got some work done. Katie and Dan took all of our waterbottles to the stream and filled them up with nice clean filtered water thanks to my hand pump, Justin and Phil put up the tents (we only used 3) and Noah and I gathered firewood. Luckily I brought along my Ecuadorian machete, which I used to chop up a fallen pine into logs to burn all night long. Once again, I felt like a badass.
Don't make a man angry when he's got a beard, a Gandalf like staff and a machete ...he might start quoting Spaceballs or something...
Our campsite was at about 12,100 feet and was pretty chilly when we first arrived with the wind blowing. But it was protected a little from the wind with trees and by the time night really fell, the wind had completely stopped. We found some logs to sit on around the fire and spent the evening eating tuna with a pocket knife, passing around some rum and recounting stories of previous trips, our families and our Peace Corps hopes and aspirations. It was a really incredible group to be with and was the first chance we’ve had to really chill out and not be around 30 other gringos yelling and shouting at some restaurant in the city. I like our whole group well enough, but I’ve always preferred smaller groups of people I like more. We all brought something different to the table and it made for a really great dynamic. Noah is from New Mexico and has done Peace Corps training before a couple years back in English speaking Guyana (not sure if I spelled that one right) but decided not to serve for personal reasons, so he’s got a pretty interesting perspective having been through this whole process before. Justin grew up in Iowa and spent some time in Berkley being a hippy more or less and has some pretty interesting ideas about...pretty much everything. Phil’s dad was a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal many years back and Katie was born and bred in DC and went to UVA...she did a good job of bringing just the right amount of estrogen into the trip. She had never been backpacking or camping before and was pretty excited to be hanging out with such a cool group of dudes. And finally there’s Dan, who grew up outside of Ann Arbor and went to Michigan. He’s an eagle scout and we have a good time giving each other friendly crap about the greatest rivalry in college history. It’s been fun getting to know someone from the darkside. We even (gasp!) shared a tent that night.
We danced around the fire, sang some songs and had a jolly old time. I’d put the whole night in my top 10 fire experiences of all time, which is saying a lot ‘cause lord knows I’ve been around a lot of fires!
We broke camp about 9 am and took about 3 hours to get down (we took the road the whole way)...it had taken us about 7 hours to get where we camped...had we stayed on the road the whole time on the way up we would have easily made the lake...oh well there’s always next time. We got down and the whole hungry sweaty stinky lot of us went to probably the nicest restaurant I’ve been too since being here and all got steaks. Oh man it was so good. And it’s great ‘cause the food was excellent and cost us only about $3 US. Seriously, you could live like a king here on a pretty meager US salary.
The whole trip was a great bonding experience and gave us the opportunity to really get to know each other in a setting we hadn’t previously had. I consider myself lucky to have met so many people that I think I can learn from and who want to spend time with me too. New friends have certainly made the transition easier.
The Camping Crew...from left to right: Dan, Phil, Katie, Me, Noah, Justin
I’m not sure how much more camping I’ll get to do during training, but there is certainly a lot to see around here. A lot of our weekends from here on out are pretty packed, but something tells me we’ll find the time to do something like this at least one more time.
All for now. Hasta Pronto
Ben
P.S. Happy Flag Day to all of you in the US...and of course Happy Birthday to the Best Damn Plasterman in the Land, Joe Ranz. Love you Dad.
I made some trail mix out of M&M’s, granola and peanuts, we packed in two loaves of bread with PB&J and the morning we left we bought a boatload of fruit (25 bananas and 20 oranges for about $0.65 US) and three bottles of rum that were about $2.50 US each. It’s pretty ridiculous how cheap things are here.
We are all currently living at an altitude of about 8500 feet and we still get winded when we run. So as soon as we started hiking up the mountain, it became evident that it was going to be a slow day. It’s amazing how much it really affects you when you need to breathe. So we took a lot of breaks and tried to drink a lot of water. Our goal was to hike 25K to a really plush lake on the other side of a mountain, but at about 12K in we took a wrong turn and took a footpath instead of a road. There were some really beautiful views of the city and of the mountains and it was nice to take frequent breaks and just take it all in. One of the most refreshing things for me was the smell. Living where I live, there is essentially poop everywhere and it’s no secret that it’s quite stanky. Coupled with people burning ALL of their trash and dust producing truffis that drive by constantly, the air I get at home isn’t the freshest. But once we got up on that mountain and there were a million pine trees and no cars, the scent was just amazing. I appreciate smells because they’re something that can’t be photographed...you actually had to be there to really understand what I mean.
There was a little bit of an Oasis about halfway up...a playground with a water spicket and also a zipline that we had a lot of fun playing on. We stopped and filled up our waterbottles and enjoyed a nice lunch of peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Mmmmm!
Katie from DC...nice hat!
Dan from Michigan swinging on the zip line
Katie & Justin at one of the Many VistasWe spent about three hours climbing up and down, criss crossing over the same mountain a couple of times until we finally found the road again. We tried to bust hard and make it to the top but it became evident that we were too tired and night was coming too quickly to make it as far as we had hoped. So we found a really great camping spot and started unpacking. It was really fun...we all kind of broke down into teams and got some work done. Katie and Dan took all of our waterbottles to the stream and filled them up with nice clean filtered water thanks to my hand pump, Justin and Phil put up the tents (we only used 3) and Noah and I gathered firewood. Luckily I brought along my Ecuadorian machete, which I used to chop up a fallen pine into logs to burn all night long. Once again, I felt like a badass.
Don't make a man angry when he's got a beard, a Gandalf like staff and a machete ...he might start quoting Spaceballs or something...Our campsite was at about 12,100 feet and was pretty chilly when we first arrived with the wind blowing. But it was protected a little from the wind with trees and by the time night really fell, the wind had completely stopped. We found some logs to sit on around the fire and spent the evening eating tuna with a pocket knife, passing around some rum and recounting stories of previous trips, our families and our Peace Corps hopes and aspirations. It was a really incredible group to be with and was the first chance we’ve had to really chill out and not be around 30 other gringos yelling and shouting at some restaurant in the city. I like our whole group well enough, but I’ve always preferred smaller groups of people I like more. We all brought something different to the table and it made for a really great dynamic. Noah is from New Mexico and has done Peace Corps training before a couple years back in English speaking Guyana (not sure if I spelled that one right) but decided not to serve for personal reasons, so he’s got a pretty interesting perspective having been through this whole process before. Justin grew up in Iowa and spent some time in Berkley being a hippy more or less and has some pretty interesting ideas about...pretty much everything. Phil’s dad was a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal many years back and Katie was born and bred in DC and went to UVA...she did a good job of bringing just the right amount of estrogen into the trip. She had never been backpacking or camping before and was pretty excited to be hanging out with such a cool group of dudes. And finally there’s Dan, who grew up outside of Ann Arbor and went to Michigan. He’s an eagle scout and we have a good time giving each other friendly crap about the greatest rivalry in college history. It’s been fun getting to know someone from the darkside. We even (gasp!) shared a tent that night.
We danced around the fire, sang some songs and had a jolly old time. I’d put the whole night in my top 10 fire experiences of all time, which is saying a lot ‘cause lord knows I’ve been around a lot of fires!
We broke camp about 9 am and took about 3 hours to get down (we took the road the whole way)...it had taken us about 7 hours to get where we camped...had we stayed on the road the whole time on the way up we would have easily made the lake...oh well there’s always next time. We got down and the whole hungry sweaty stinky lot of us went to probably the nicest restaurant I’ve been too since being here and all got steaks. Oh man it was so good. And it’s great ‘cause the food was excellent and cost us only about $3 US. Seriously, you could live like a king here on a pretty meager US salary.
The whole trip was a great bonding experience and gave us the opportunity to really get to know each other in a setting we hadn’t previously had. I consider myself lucky to have met so many people that I think I can learn from and who want to spend time with me too. New friends have certainly made the transition easier.
The Camping Crew...from left to right: Dan, Phil, Katie, Me, Noah, JustinI’m not sure how much more camping I’ll get to do during training, but there is certainly a lot to see around here. A lot of our weekends from here on out are pretty packed, but something tells me we’ll find the time to do something like this at least one more time.
All for now. Hasta Pronto
Ben
P.S. Happy Flag Day to all of you in the US...and of course Happy Birthday to the Best Damn Plasterman in the Land, Joe Ranz. Love you Dad.
No Se Preocupe, Sea Felíz (2006.06.12)
Greetings All,
I would apologize for my lack of blogging, but you may as well get used to it...I currently have access to the internet with only going through a little bit of effort to get to town...chances are in a couple of months it will be a few hour busride to the nearest locale with access. However, truth be told, I haven’t even written anything at home to be uploaded later for over a week. The fact of the matter is, they keep us pretty busy here. Our days are pretty filled with training and I enjoy spending time with my family in the evenings. Toss in homework and a usual bedtime of no later than midnight and it’s tough to find time to blog or even journal. While I thoroughly enjoy keeping all you folks at home updated on my travels, it doesn’t make too much sense to me to put so much time into recounting things that I don’t have any time to experience anything. Before I came here I received some sage advice from a person into who’s opinion I place great amount of trust: “Don’t not experience it in exchange for remembering it.” I have taken some photos, but I’m not here so I can tell people about it. Hopefully you’ll be able to see why I’m here when I get back and have perhaps changed a bit. Until then, I’ll write when I can.
I am also doing my best to reply to emails, which I love receiving. Please keep them coming. However, you can probably expect about a two week average response time. Rock and Roll.
I am certainly finding a niche here in Bolivia. I think comfort is relative and while living here isn’t really like anything I’ve ever done before, it’s my life now and I can either embrace it and roll on or pick apart all the things I miss about home and be miserable. Yeah I hate not being able to reach in my pocket and call friends I haven’t talked to in a while, but I also really enjoy having a cup of hot chocolate and fresh bread for breakfast every morning. I miss laughing with my parents but I really love cracking a joke in Spanish at the dinner table and having everyone erupt in laughter. I decided a while ago that I needed to stop viewing this as something I need to “get through” and embrace it as my life. If I’m here to just “get through” it then I may as well come home now.
Hiking at a Place Called Pairumani...getting away on the weekends like this with my friends helps keep me sane
My Spanish is improving every day and we’ve started to learn common slang phrases and there is even talk of digging into Quechua, which is one of the indigenous languages here, which is pretty exciting for me. Granted it won’t do me too much good later in life to know the language of the ancient Incas, but in my mind I’ll still feel like a badass. The beard is also looking pretty good. I trimmed it up a bit and got rid of the whiskers that were creeping down the front of my throat as well as the ones that are near my eyes and I even got an unsolicited compliment from one of our training directors named Sue today. “That beard really looks good on you, Ben!” she said. And since she’s from New Zealand, everything sounds cool coming out of her mouth.
I have spent a whole lot of time hanging out with my little sisters (Shirley & Jesica) and the cousins that live next door (Jeni & Liz). Their mom is currently in Spain working, so they spend a lot of time here, having meals, playing and what not. I started in on teaching the four of them the numbers in English on Friday night and we continued last night. It’s tough because vowel sounds in English are essentially impossible to teach to children who have been speaking Spanish their entire lives. But it’s an excellent practice in patience and really rewarding too. They walk around the house counting everything in English now and get really excited while I’m teaching them. I am going to try and get some materials from the Peace Corps that I can use to move them along as much as I have time for while I’m here...after all, knowing the colors and numbers in English is not going to get you very far. The coolest part is they really WANT to learn and are always asking to have more “classes.” I taught them how to say “teacher” in English and now when Liz comes over for breakfast she says “Buenos Dias, teacher,” and everyone gets a good laugh out of it. But, it kind of makes me feel like I’m the teacher from the Da Vinci Code since all they say is “teacher.”
We also play soccer with the neighborhood kids and my brother when I get a chance and I’ve learned a few of their games they play here which have different names but are essentially all the same as the games I played when I was a kid. Tag, hide & seek, Spud and even a different version of duck duck goose. They laugh at me when I screw up speaking Spanish but also help me when I need it. I’ve always had a knack for finding playmates, regardless of age. They crack me up all the time and I think they enjoy being laughed at as much as I enjoy laughing at them.
Three of my four english students having an evening coffee between lessons
I think training is treating me better. We have had more interaction with current volunteers telling us about their actual service and the problems they’ve run into and their projects, which has proved to be most effective for me personally. Instead of going around in a circle and having everyone say what they are expecting, we have a community discussion about it and actually get into some meaty conversations. Next Wednesday the 21st we leave for Tech Week, where we actually get to build a Cement tank to catch rainwater and build a drainage system for grey water. During that week we also interview with all of our training people and our project director and upon our return home, we all find out where we’ll be working for the next two years. So, 3 weeks from right now, I’ll be able to give you a new address that will be good for a longer time than any other address I’ve had since high school.
That being said, pretty much the biggest topic of discussion amongst us volunteers is where we all want to go. There are 15 sites and 15 of us, so they have to work hard to see who fits where. Santa Cruz has a hot beach like climate, Oruro is in the mountains and is said to be “cold” but I don’t think it’s going to be any colder than Ohio. Cochabamba and Sucre have fairly temperate climates...there are lots of options. I’m kind of torn between wanting to do some type of construction-oriented work like drilling wells or building dry latrines or working more on the soft side being more of an education/organizational worker. Ideally, I’d like a combination of the two, but since I have skills in both types of fields, I think I’ll have a lot of options, which is always a good thing. They say we have a pretty large voice in where we go, so I’m not worried about not getting a place I don’t want. The reality of it is, regardless of what you are sent somewhere to do, your service will be defined by you and there is always more to do or changes to be made. I would really enjoy, however, to be in a fairly close proximity to a good friend. Some places are so far out there that it would just be a pain to see people or have people come and visit. So we shall see. More to come on that.
This was the first morning I saw clouds in Bolivia...made for a nice sunrise
Life is good. Keep the emails and letters coming, they really do keep me going.
Peace And All Good Things, (sign off stolen from a very wise woman, thank you)
Ben
P.S. I added some good photos to my previous post, so if you have a chance, check it out.
I would apologize for my lack of blogging, but you may as well get used to it...I currently have access to the internet with only going through a little bit of effort to get to town...chances are in a couple of months it will be a few hour busride to the nearest locale with access. However, truth be told, I haven’t even written anything at home to be uploaded later for over a week. The fact of the matter is, they keep us pretty busy here. Our days are pretty filled with training and I enjoy spending time with my family in the evenings. Toss in homework and a usual bedtime of no later than midnight and it’s tough to find time to blog or even journal. While I thoroughly enjoy keeping all you folks at home updated on my travels, it doesn’t make too much sense to me to put so much time into recounting things that I don’t have any time to experience anything. Before I came here I received some sage advice from a person into who’s opinion I place great amount of trust: “Don’t not experience it in exchange for remembering it.” I have taken some photos, but I’m not here so I can tell people about it. Hopefully you’ll be able to see why I’m here when I get back and have perhaps changed a bit. Until then, I’ll write when I can.
I am also doing my best to reply to emails, which I love receiving. Please keep them coming. However, you can probably expect about a two week average response time. Rock and Roll.
I am certainly finding a niche here in Bolivia. I think comfort is relative and while living here isn’t really like anything I’ve ever done before, it’s my life now and I can either embrace it and roll on or pick apart all the things I miss about home and be miserable. Yeah I hate not being able to reach in my pocket and call friends I haven’t talked to in a while, but I also really enjoy having a cup of hot chocolate and fresh bread for breakfast every morning. I miss laughing with my parents but I really love cracking a joke in Spanish at the dinner table and having everyone erupt in laughter. I decided a while ago that I needed to stop viewing this as something I need to “get through” and embrace it as my life. If I’m here to just “get through” it then I may as well come home now.
Hiking at a Place Called Pairumani...getting away on the weekends like this with my friends helps keep me saneMy Spanish is improving every day and we’ve started to learn common slang phrases and there is even talk of digging into Quechua, which is one of the indigenous languages here, which is pretty exciting for me. Granted it won’t do me too much good later in life to know the language of the ancient Incas, but in my mind I’ll still feel like a badass. The beard is also looking pretty good. I trimmed it up a bit and got rid of the whiskers that were creeping down the front of my throat as well as the ones that are near my eyes and I even got an unsolicited compliment from one of our training directors named Sue today. “That beard really looks good on you, Ben!” she said. And since she’s from New Zealand, everything sounds cool coming out of her mouth.
I have spent a whole lot of time hanging out with my little sisters (Shirley & Jesica) and the cousins that live next door (Jeni & Liz). Their mom is currently in Spain working, so they spend a lot of time here, having meals, playing and what not. I started in on teaching the four of them the numbers in English on Friday night and we continued last night. It’s tough because vowel sounds in English are essentially impossible to teach to children who have been speaking Spanish their entire lives. But it’s an excellent practice in patience and really rewarding too. They walk around the house counting everything in English now and get really excited while I’m teaching them. I am going to try and get some materials from the Peace Corps that I can use to move them along as much as I have time for while I’m here...after all, knowing the colors and numbers in English is not going to get you very far. The coolest part is they really WANT to learn and are always asking to have more “classes.” I taught them how to say “teacher” in English and now when Liz comes over for breakfast she says “Buenos Dias, teacher,” and everyone gets a good laugh out of it. But, it kind of makes me feel like I’m the teacher from the Da Vinci Code since all they say is “teacher.”
We also play soccer with the neighborhood kids and my brother when I get a chance and I’ve learned a few of their games they play here which have different names but are essentially all the same as the games I played when I was a kid. Tag, hide & seek, Spud and even a different version of duck duck goose. They laugh at me when I screw up speaking Spanish but also help me when I need it. I’ve always had a knack for finding playmates, regardless of age. They crack me up all the time and I think they enjoy being laughed at as much as I enjoy laughing at them.
Three of my four english students having an evening coffee between lessonsI think training is treating me better. We have had more interaction with current volunteers telling us about their actual service and the problems they’ve run into and their projects, which has proved to be most effective for me personally. Instead of going around in a circle and having everyone say what they are expecting, we have a community discussion about it and actually get into some meaty conversations. Next Wednesday the 21st we leave for Tech Week, where we actually get to build a Cement tank to catch rainwater and build a drainage system for grey water. During that week we also interview with all of our training people and our project director and upon our return home, we all find out where we’ll be working for the next two years. So, 3 weeks from right now, I’ll be able to give you a new address that will be good for a longer time than any other address I’ve had since high school.
That being said, pretty much the biggest topic of discussion amongst us volunteers is where we all want to go. There are 15 sites and 15 of us, so they have to work hard to see who fits where. Santa Cruz has a hot beach like climate, Oruro is in the mountains and is said to be “cold” but I don’t think it’s going to be any colder than Ohio. Cochabamba and Sucre have fairly temperate climates...there are lots of options. I’m kind of torn between wanting to do some type of construction-oriented work like drilling wells or building dry latrines or working more on the soft side being more of an education/organizational worker. Ideally, I’d like a combination of the two, but since I have skills in both types of fields, I think I’ll have a lot of options, which is always a good thing. They say we have a pretty large voice in where we go, so I’m not worried about not getting a place I don’t want. The reality of it is, regardless of what you are sent somewhere to do, your service will be defined by you and there is always more to do or changes to be made. I would really enjoy, however, to be in a fairly close proximity to a good friend. Some places are so far out there that it would just be a pain to see people or have people come and visit. So we shall see. More to come on that.
This was the first morning I saw clouds in Bolivia...made for a nice sunriseLife is good. Keep the emails and letters coming, they really do keep me going.
Peace And All Good Things, (sign off stolen from a very wise woman, thank you)
Ben
P.S. I added some good photos to my previous post, so if you have a chance, check it out.
04 June 2006
Time Flies when you´re...in Bolivia (6/4/06)
It has been quite a week. Honestly, it has really flown by…it’s hard to believe I’ve been gone a month already. Some days it feels like way longer than that, sometimes it feels like no time at all has passed. One month down, 26 more to go, right? Since something has happened every day this week but I haven’t had time to write about it, here are entries for each day this week:
Sunday, May 28 – So Dark the Con of Man…
After using the internet at the airport for a few hours, my friend James (from California) and I met my oldest sister, her friends, and a younger sister at the movie theater to see the Da Vinci Code. We didn’t go to the nicest theater in town, which I’m told puts some of the theaters in the U.S to shame, but it was still a pretty nice place. The seats weren’t the most comfortable but I wasn’t complaining. I liked the movie a lot and think they did about as good a job as they could have with a story as complex as that. My older sister liked it but didn’t get it all and my younger sister fell asleep. She’s only 10, I could have told her she wasn’t going to like it. It was fun to hang out with my sister outside of home for sure. I feel bad because her dad never lets her go out to parties or anything, even though she’s 22.
Monday, May 29 – Backstreet’s Back…to Bolivia That Is
After classes Monday evening, my friend Katie (from DC) and I met a group of other volunteers and went and saw a (Bolivian) relative of our friend Justin (from Iowa) who is in a musical group. They play traditional folklorica music…indigenous to this specific region of Bolivia…there were about 10 guys in the group and the music was pretty cool and the singer had a great voice, but after the third or fourth time he danced around in a circle and shook his butt for all the girls to scream at, it hit me that this was just a stinking boy band! Despite the fact that they played “traditional” music, they were all young, good looking dudes who danced around for girls to scream. Despite their misgivings, I thought it was really cool that a group of young guys could be successful playing nothing but traditional music. Party on Garth…I guess.
Tuesday, May 30 – New Things and Old Things
The biggest news of Tuesday was that I showered. Woo hoo! And I actually figured out how to get hot water...I think this was my fourth shower but first with hot water. Apparently the water gets heated by a coil right before it comes out, but there is a finite amount of electricity, so it can only heat so much at once...I had been turning it on full blast and hence the electric couldn´t keep up, so the water was cold. This time I turned it on as low as possible and the water was actually too hot, which was fantastic. Perhaps I´ll shower more often now...but probably not. Classes finished early on Tuesday and a few of my friends were sticking around to do Yoga…which I’ve always wanted to try. So we spent about 20 minutes doing this yoga routine to DVD a girl had brought and we played on a laptop. It was a little tricky but at the end of it I really felt relaxed. My friend Justin is really into meditation and natural healing and things like that, so I’ve dubbed him “Medicine Man” and after yoga I tried meditating with him for 5 minutes. It was a little tough for me but he said that it’s always tough at the beginning…he gave me a beginner’s book to check out, so we’ll see if I keep that up. Then a bunch of our group met up at the soccer field to play some ultimate frisbee, which I haven´t done in a very long time. Something else I haven´t done in a long time is exercise, with this altitude I was quickly winded. It felt pretty pathetic and made me want to start running in the mornings or something. But I never did that back home, we´ll see if it happens here. We´ll work out next quarter, right Coleman?
Doing a little yoga.
When I got home, my little sisters asked where I´d been and I showed them the Frisbee and they wanted to play with it, so we went out in the dark and I taught them how to play frisbee. They got the biggest kick out of standing in a line and me throwing it and then racing to see who could get it...after that we played tag and a bolivian form of duck duck goose called "huevo quemado" which I promptly lost. But it was so muchy fun to play with them...with screams and squeals of "throw it to me! throw it to me!" or "She´s a cheater! Cheater!!" Then they wanted to play hide and seek in the dark in the house, but I nixed that cause Mom was trying to sleep...they were disappointed but I promised we´d play again sometime.
Wednesday, May 31 - Cookies!
On Wednesday, something amazing happened. I got a carepackage! My grandma von allmen sent me hand sanitizer, tissues and most importantly, cookies! Two whole boxes, one of Chips Ahoy soft batch and another of peanut butter. My friends and I promptly killed the Chips Ahoy in a matter of minutes. Kind of gross, but soooooooooo good. Mmmmm. That night we went out to dinner in the city and later out to a really neat bar called Casablanca, which was really cool. They brought us cards to play with and some friends and I had 3 friendly games of Euchre going on, which was a great time. I´m ashamed to say that I lost to my friend Dan who went to Michigan, but I´ll get him back. Sad note of the day: I lost my brand new Nalgene bottle, which had my buckeye sticker on it...I left it at the restaurant where we ate...I´ve got another one but I was still kind of mad. Oh well.
Thursday, June 1 - How the other half lives
So a few years ago Peace Corps Bolivia started a little program where for one night, all the volunteers get to go to houses of PC employees and have dinner. The houses and communities we live in are pretty modest and for the most part, not that clean and I guess people began to think that´s how everyone in Bolivia lives. On the contrary, people with a little bit of money live very nicely. Fellow trainee Geoff (from Washington) went with a very nice guy named Gonzalo who does the finances for Peace Corps Bolivia. He took us to his house and we met his wife, who is mexican and had a really really good meal. They both went to Arizona State, which is where they met, and are planning on returning to the states in a couple of years. They are young, only 28 or so and they were super nice and we had a great talk with them. It was pretty crazy to be in a really nice, new, fresh smelling house and eat somewhat normal food...she made some sort of Roast (pot roast, perhaps?) in a wine sauce with a great salad and good potatoes this time. And they made it clear that they were allies and that we should spend more time with them if possible, which I plan on doing. It is really fun making Bolivian friens and relying less and less on my fellow trainees.
Friday, May 2nd - Michael Jordan never cut his hand
During our class break on Friday, my friend Josh and I were playing basketball at my house with a soccer ball and rim made of rebar that was about 7 feet high. I thought I´d be cool and jump up to dunk it, and didn´t count on the pointy piece of rusty rebar sticking out, which proceeded to slice my hand open in about 5 places. It was bleeding pretty good, but some gauze and white tape (seriously) cleaned it up nicely. I´ve been pretty good about cleaning and dressing it about twice a day since the chances of something like a cut getting infected are increased by about 11 million percent. So far so good.
After spanish classes on Friday, what was called Technical Weekend began. We (the basic sanitation volunteers) hopped in the Peace Corps land cruisers and headed out to a current volunteer´s (named Mike) site, about a half hour on a dusty dirt road from where we live. We first learned how to make and build with Adobe and made a composting bin for an organization there. It was really fun aside from me being paranoid that the dirt was going to get into my cut. A few more layers of white tape were necessary.
Working with Adobe. Please note the Scott Ranz Construction shirt as well as all the white tape on my hand.
That night we stayed in Mike´s house, which was surprisingly really nice and big. One of our trainers, Armando, cooked Mexican food for dinner and it was really good. We played some catch phrase and went to bed, pretty exhausted from working out in the sun.
Saturday, June 3 - Breakfast: my favorite meal of the day
That morning my friend Katie and I got up early and made my specialty, French Toast for all 20 people staying in the house and man was it stinking good. We heated up some milk and made hot chocolate too...needless to say we were the heroes of the day. It´s crazy how far a little good food will go.
French Toast Anyone?
After breakfast we loaded up and went to a place in the community and participated in an Operations and Maintenence Course that the volunteer Mike was giving to a group of people who were getting a new water system in their community. There were interactive activities and a lot of really good information for the community members on how to keep everything clean and why it´s important...it was really neat to see because one of us will be replacing Mike in July and to see what we might be doing where we might be doing it was exciting. After a long day, we all piled into the land cruisers and listened to Simon & Garfunkel´s greatest hits on the way back to our houses...an excellent end to an exhausting day. I went home, had a cup of hot chocolate and some bread with my sisters and hit the sack. Slept like a rock.
Sunday, June 4 - Getting ready for week 5
Like I said in the beginning, it´s hard to believe I´ve been here for about a month. I´m doing my best to integrate myself and become as "bi-cultural" as possible, which can get tricky some times when you´re hanging out with nothing but gringos. Some of my favorite times have been just walking around town by myself, wondering if people can still tell I´m an American. All in all, life is good and I´m happy here. Hopefully it lasts. Until next time,
Ben
Days since last shave:24
Days since last shower:5
Current Health Status:All good, doing my best to keep my hand from getting infected.
Current Book: "Travels With Charley, In Search of America" by John Steinbeck. Given to me by Laura Corry, I can´t believe I´ve never read this book. It´s about Steinbeck´s road trip across the country and the people he meets. So good. A must for any traveler...especially my fellow Road Trippers
Something I miss about the States: Mandatory Traffic Rules
Something I don´t miss about the States: People getting on my case about being late all the time. I´ve finally found a place where my constant lateness is not only not ridiculed, but encouraged!
Sunday, May 28 – So Dark the Con of Man…
After using the internet at the airport for a few hours, my friend James (from California) and I met my oldest sister, her friends, and a younger sister at the movie theater to see the Da Vinci Code. We didn’t go to the nicest theater in town, which I’m told puts some of the theaters in the U.S to shame, but it was still a pretty nice place. The seats weren’t the most comfortable but I wasn’t complaining. I liked the movie a lot and think they did about as good a job as they could have with a story as complex as that. My older sister liked it but didn’t get it all and my younger sister fell asleep. She’s only 10, I could have told her she wasn’t going to like it. It was fun to hang out with my sister outside of home for sure. I feel bad because her dad never lets her go out to parties or anything, even though she’s 22.
Monday, May 29 – Backstreet’s Back…to Bolivia That Is
After classes Monday evening, my friend Katie (from DC) and I met a group of other volunteers and went and saw a (Bolivian) relative of our friend Justin (from Iowa) who is in a musical group. They play traditional folklorica music…indigenous to this specific region of Bolivia…there were about 10 guys in the group and the music was pretty cool and the singer had a great voice, but after the third or fourth time he danced around in a circle and shook his butt for all the girls to scream at, it hit me that this was just a stinking boy band! Despite the fact that they played “traditional” music, they were all young, good looking dudes who danced around for girls to scream. Despite their misgivings, I thought it was really cool that a group of young guys could be successful playing nothing but traditional music. Party on Garth…I guess.
Tuesday, May 30 – New Things and Old Things
The biggest news of Tuesday was that I showered. Woo hoo! And I actually figured out how to get hot water...I think this was my fourth shower but first with hot water. Apparently the water gets heated by a coil right before it comes out, but there is a finite amount of electricity, so it can only heat so much at once...I had been turning it on full blast and hence the electric couldn´t keep up, so the water was cold. This time I turned it on as low as possible and the water was actually too hot, which was fantastic. Perhaps I´ll shower more often now...but probably not. Classes finished early on Tuesday and a few of my friends were sticking around to do Yoga…which I’ve always wanted to try. So we spent about 20 minutes doing this yoga routine to DVD a girl had brought and we played on a laptop. It was a little tricky but at the end of it I really felt relaxed. My friend Justin is really into meditation and natural healing and things like that, so I’ve dubbed him “Medicine Man” and after yoga I tried meditating with him for 5 minutes. It was a little tough for me but he said that it’s always tough at the beginning…he gave me a beginner’s book to check out, so we’ll see if I keep that up. Then a bunch of our group met up at the soccer field to play some ultimate frisbee, which I haven´t done in a very long time. Something else I haven´t done in a long time is exercise, with this altitude I was quickly winded. It felt pretty pathetic and made me want to start running in the mornings or something. But I never did that back home, we´ll see if it happens here. We´ll work out next quarter, right Coleman?
Doing a little yoga.When I got home, my little sisters asked where I´d been and I showed them the Frisbee and they wanted to play with it, so we went out in the dark and I taught them how to play frisbee. They got the biggest kick out of standing in a line and me throwing it and then racing to see who could get it...after that we played tag and a bolivian form of duck duck goose called "huevo quemado" which I promptly lost. But it was so muchy fun to play with them...with screams and squeals of "throw it to me! throw it to me!" or "She´s a cheater! Cheater!!" Then they wanted to play hide and seek in the dark in the house, but I nixed that cause Mom was trying to sleep...they were disappointed but I promised we´d play again sometime.
Wednesday, May 31 - Cookies!
On Wednesday, something amazing happened. I got a carepackage! My grandma von allmen sent me hand sanitizer, tissues and most importantly, cookies! Two whole boxes, one of Chips Ahoy soft batch and another of peanut butter. My friends and I promptly killed the Chips Ahoy in a matter of minutes. Kind of gross, but soooooooooo good. Mmmmm. That night we went out to dinner in the city and later out to a really neat bar called Casablanca, which was really cool. They brought us cards to play with and some friends and I had 3 friendly games of Euchre going on, which was a great time. I´m ashamed to say that I lost to my friend Dan who went to Michigan, but I´ll get him back. Sad note of the day: I lost my brand new Nalgene bottle, which had my buckeye sticker on it...I left it at the restaurant where we ate...I´ve got another one but I was still kind of mad. Oh well.
Thursday, June 1 - How the other half lives
So a few years ago Peace Corps Bolivia started a little program where for one night, all the volunteers get to go to houses of PC employees and have dinner. The houses and communities we live in are pretty modest and for the most part, not that clean and I guess people began to think that´s how everyone in Bolivia lives. On the contrary, people with a little bit of money live very nicely. Fellow trainee Geoff (from Washington) went with a very nice guy named Gonzalo who does the finances for Peace Corps Bolivia. He took us to his house and we met his wife, who is mexican and had a really really good meal. They both went to Arizona State, which is where they met, and are planning on returning to the states in a couple of years. They are young, only 28 or so and they were super nice and we had a great talk with them. It was pretty crazy to be in a really nice, new, fresh smelling house and eat somewhat normal food...she made some sort of Roast (pot roast, perhaps?) in a wine sauce with a great salad and good potatoes this time. And they made it clear that they were allies and that we should spend more time with them if possible, which I plan on doing. It is really fun making Bolivian friens and relying less and less on my fellow trainees.
Friday, May 2nd - Michael Jordan never cut his hand
During our class break on Friday, my friend Josh and I were playing basketball at my house with a soccer ball and rim made of rebar that was about 7 feet high. I thought I´d be cool and jump up to dunk it, and didn´t count on the pointy piece of rusty rebar sticking out, which proceeded to slice my hand open in about 5 places. It was bleeding pretty good, but some gauze and white tape (seriously) cleaned it up nicely. I´ve been pretty good about cleaning and dressing it about twice a day since the chances of something like a cut getting infected are increased by about 11 million percent. So far so good.
After spanish classes on Friday, what was called Technical Weekend began. We (the basic sanitation volunteers) hopped in the Peace Corps land cruisers and headed out to a current volunteer´s (named Mike) site, about a half hour on a dusty dirt road from where we live. We first learned how to make and build with Adobe and made a composting bin for an organization there. It was really fun aside from me being paranoid that the dirt was going to get into my cut. A few more layers of white tape were necessary.
Working with Adobe. Please note the Scott Ranz Construction shirt as well as all the white tape on my hand.That night we stayed in Mike´s house, which was surprisingly really nice and big. One of our trainers, Armando, cooked Mexican food for dinner and it was really good. We played some catch phrase and went to bed, pretty exhausted from working out in the sun.
Saturday, June 3 - Breakfast: my favorite meal of the day
That morning my friend Katie and I got up early and made my specialty, French Toast for all 20 people staying in the house and man was it stinking good. We heated up some milk and made hot chocolate too...needless to say we were the heroes of the day. It´s crazy how far a little good food will go.
French Toast Anyone?After breakfast we loaded up and went to a place in the community and participated in an Operations and Maintenence Course that the volunteer Mike was giving to a group of people who were getting a new water system in their community. There were interactive activities and a lot of really good information for the community members on how to keep everything clean and why it´s important...it was really neat to see because one of us will be replacing Mike in July and to see what we might be doing where we might be doing it was exciting. After a long day, we all piled into the land cruisers and listened to Simon & Garfunkel´s greatest hits on the way back to our houses...an excellent end to an exhausting day. I went home, had a cup of hot chocolate and some bread with my sisters and hit the sack. Slept like a rock.
Sunday, June 4 - Getting ready for week 5
Like I said in the beginning, it´s hard to believe I´ve been here for about a month. I´m doing my best to integrate myself and become as "bi-cultural" as possible, which can get tricky some times when you´re hanging out with nothing but gringos. Some of my favorite times have been just walking around town by myself, wondering if people can still tell I´m an American. All in all, life is good and I´m happy here. Hopefully it lasts. Until next time,
Ben
Days since last shave:24
Days since last shower:5
Current Health Status:All good, doing my best to keep my hand from getting infected.
Current Book: "Travels With Charley, In Search of America" by John Steinbeck. Given to me by Laura Corry, I can´t believe I´ve never read this book. It´s about Steinbeck´s road trip across the country and the people he meets. So good. A must for any traveler...especially my fellow Road Trippers
Something I miss about the States: Mandatory Traffic Rules
Something I don´t miss about the States: People getting on my case about being late all the time. I´ve finally found a place where my constant lateness is not only not ridiculed, but encouraged!
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