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!