“Some Days, You Just Can’t Get Rid of a Bomb...”

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