“A Day In The Life” (2006.09.26)

So let me tell you about my day today. I am going to spare no details, in order to give you a full and accurate impression of what it’s like to work in Bolivia. I’m only going to do this for this entry, and you can assume that every other time I write about work, this sort of stuff is going on, it’s just a hassle to keep writing about it every time. While this was a pretty different day from what I’ve had so far, the tiny nuances of how it went are exactly what happens in Bolivia constantly. It’s part of why working here is such a challenge and why it’s such a big task to actually get something done. This is the stuff that I’ll skip from here on out, because if I wrote about all the little things that went wrong every time I tried to do something, there would be no time to write about actually doing things. There will be times when you wonder to yourself, “Why is that the case?” or, “Why didn’t they just do this or that?” or, “Who thinks like that?” or, “Who thought that was a good idea?” and my only answer is that this is Bolivia. And I really do not mean to knock Bolivian culture. I’m not. It’s just a different world down here. Believe me, these are all things I wonder every single day.

First, an introduction to a few of the characters and settings of today’s story.

Montero – a small city which is three hours south of Hardeman. There is a really big market in Montero, some decent restaurants, plenty of internet access and pretty much everything else I might need to get without taking the extra hour taxi ride into Santa Cruz city. It is often a lot easier to make a day trip to Montero for internet use or to get supplies. I don’t need to stay the night and I can get pretty much everything I need.

San Pedro – a much bigger and much more urban town than Hardeman, San Pedro is located one hour south of Hardeman, on the same road to Montero. San Pedro is where the municipal government is located for the area, and so they are the ones from whom we will be asking for money. It’s might be similar to the “county” government, but it’s hard to make a really good comparison.

Jeff – Jeff is a Peace Corps agriculture volunteer who works in Montero (that’s his site). He is in the group that arrived right before us, so he has only been in his site since April, so he is relatively new as well. Jeff was born in Ohio but raised in Maryland. Nice fella.

Riley (or “Miguel”) – Riley was a PCV in the group that just left Bolivia. His site was also Montero, and he was the one responsible for developing the three sites north of Montero for my group mates and myself. He was the “well drilling expert” that worked all throughout where we are all placed now, drilling wells as well as laying a lot of the groundwork for what we are supposed to be doing. Riley is from Florida but went to school at Notre Dame and is big into the Irish. A hell of a nice guy, Riley was extremely helpful before he left about a month ago and has been very supportive answering questions via email since he’s been back in the States.

Aldo – Aldo is a Bolivian in his mid 40s or so and works for a development organization called Bibosi. He is working exclusively in Hardeman building dry latrines, and he and I are collaborating with a lot of health and hygiene education work in town. Aldo is very friendly and an enormous help in Hardeman. He has been working here for a few months now and has gotten to know a lot of people as well as what the community needs. He also speaks nice and clearly, which is a huge bonus in my book.

Andy – Andy is a fellow PCV who is working one hour south of Hardeman in San Pedro. Along with another PCV, Bryan, who works an hour south of San Pedro in Chané, the three of us make up the Santa Cruz well drilling team, all replacing Riley who was in Montero. Andy has a hard site to deal with because his work partner has not been very cooperative. Also, Andy is not the world’s greatest Spanish speaker by any means, which is another reason why it’s tough. He was originally partnered with a guy from the alcaldía (mayor’s office), but that guy quit to go and work on his farm. His name is Adrian and he is also a player in today’s game.

Adrian – Andy’s ex-work partner. He lives in San Pedro and drilled a bunch of wells with Riley while he was here and is perfectly capable of drilling a well on his own. He was supposed to work with Andy to find people around San Pedro who needed wells and help them drill. But, the alcaldía didn’t want to pay him more for being their well drilling guy, so he quit, leaving Andy stranded with no one to work with.

Julio – Julio also works for Bibosi. I had never actually met him before today. Julio is Andy’s new work partner, although he doesn’t live in San Pedro. He comes there fairly often though. Julio has worked with Peace Corps volunteers before and is a very helpful guy, although since he hadn’t planned on working directly with Andy, it has taken some time to figure out what their work relationship is going to be.

Isac Bedia – I do not actually know this person. But he lives in Hardeman and somehow got in contact with Julio from Bibosi and told him that they needed a well where his farm was, way up north. Most people that live in Hardeman have farms that are a couple of hours up the road. They men often go to the farm and work during the week and come home on the weekends or just whenever. Julio then told Andy about this guy who needed a well and who was willing to pay. So Andy and I have been trying to organize this drilling as best we can. We were originally supposed to drill tomorrow. That’s not going to happen.

Some quick background:

One of my first jobs has been to do an inventory of the well drilling rigs in the area. I know right now all of you NPI folks are laughing…there are no Emeters down here but I still can’t get away from doing inventory! According to Riley, there are four rigs in the area, one for each of us well drillers and another to lend out to communities. He gave me rough locations for all of them…mostly places where they drilled last. The rigs are kind of a hassle to move around because they are made up of a 6 meter long metal tube (for you non-math majors, that’s about 20 feet), a 3 meter metal tube, and about 20 PVC pipes, each 3 meters long. No big deal to move this stuff around if you’ve got a F-250 or something to cruise around the treacherous dirt roads of the Norte Cruceña, but most folks around here have nothing but a bicycle. So you have to lug the rig to the closest bus stop and load it all on top of the bus…plus pay for the transportation. So “moving the rig” is much easier said than done. That being said, last week I set out to find our rigs and the tools that accompany them. Last week I took a bus ride an hour north to a town called Colonia Pirai, where Riley had drilled two wells and told me that my rig was there. However, when I got there, all I found was the remnants of a hand pump, one of the tools we use. I dug up the mayor of the town (a tiny little man of about 4’ 8”) who proceeded to tell me that there was no rig in Pirai, it just disappeared one day. He said that a guy named Adrian should know where it is. I was a little bummed I wasn’t taking a rig back with me to Hardeman, but I called Andy in San Pedro to get him to ask Adrian where the rig was. Adrian had told Andy there was a rig at his house but that there were no tools. The tools had been left in Villa Rosario, a tiny little speck of a town where Riley had drilled a well with Adrian. Adrian also told Andy that he had no idea where the rig from Colonia Pirai was, and that “Miguel” should have all that information. So before today, here was the information I considered to be true: Bryan’s tools were at Riley’s house in Montero, his rig was MIA. Andy’s rig was in Adrian’s house in San Pedro, but his tools were in Villa Rosario. And my rig and my tools were nowhere to be found. Now back to today.

So I came into Montero last night and stayed with Jeff with his host family. Jeff lives in Riley’s old house, and Riley had left two sets of tools in his room, so I got those accounted for. I also got a much needed phone call from my good friend Steph Woody that night…it was superb chatting with Steph. After a restless rooster-filled sleep, Jeff and I got up and headed to the school where he works, called Muyurina. It’s really more of a compound and is very spread out…they do a lot of agricultural education, so they have a lot of land dedicated to different types of farming, etc. So, the campus is pretty spread out, much bigger than say, David Libscomb University in Nashville. This school is where we drilled 2 wells during our training, and the rigs got left there after that back in June. Jeff hadn’t seen the rigs since then, but hadn’t really been looking for them. We first found Don Armando, who told us to find Don Pablo, who supposedly had the keys to the place where the rigs supposedly were located. To find Don Pablo, we went to the office and asked the secretary Pilar where we could find Don Pablo. Pilar then sent her assistant María to find Don Pablo. We waited for about 20 minutes, when the friendly Don Pablo showed up. He walked us over to a closet, where we found all the plastic tubes for both rigs, and one of the 6 meter tubes. Not bad, but we were still missing two 3 meter tubes and another 6 meter tube. We went back to Pilar’s office to get the keys to the elementary school compound, where we had drilled one of the wells. Pilar assured us that there were absolutely no pipes there. “I went and looked,” she said, “definitely nothing there.” We went anyway and found a 6 meter tube and a 3 meter tube, directly contradicting what Pilar had said. We lugged them over to the closet and put them with the other tubes. No we were only missing one 3 meter tube. We went back to Pilar’s office and she miraculously remembered that she had brought over a pipe a while back and put it in the file room down the hall. So we grabbed the keys to the file room, and Pablo showed me into a tiny room that was a huge mess of papers and books. Sitting amongst all the mess was our 3 meter tube, who knows why on earth they put it there. I took it over to the closet and thanked Pablo for his help. So now, 2 rigs and 2 sets of tools were accounted for. Yee ha!

At this point, I left Muyurina to go use the internet to let the other well drillers know that I had located 2 of the 4 rigs. While I was at the internet café, Aldo called me and said he was in Saavedra and had a truck if I wanted to ride back to Hardeman with him. A faster, less bumpy, less smelly, less dusty, less crowded ride back was very appealing. I asked him how to get to Saavedra and told him I’d be there as soon as I could. For most of the small towns around Montero, there are express taxi services that do nothing but run taxis back and forth to each city. They just wait for the taxis to fill up and then are on their way. I haven’t spent enough time in Montero to know where all of them are yet, so I hailed a taxi and asked him to take me to the stop for Saavedra. He agreed, promptly drove around the block and pointed it out. He then charged me full price for the cab ride. As opposed to just telling me to walk a block that way, he thought he’d make a little money. And then he got all pissy when I didn’t have exact change to pay for his bullcorn cab ride, so I had to go the nearby juice stand to get it. I wasn’t too upset about this because I was pretty thirsty and the fresh squeezed Bolivian orange juice leaves nothing to be desired. Still a little miffed at the cab driver, I headed over to the taxi stop and bought a seat in the next cab. I had a little time, so I bought a nice juicy piece of watermelon to eat for lunch and sat on the curb for about 5 minutes before the cab filled up and we were ready to rock. Fifteen more minutes in the cab and we were in Saavedra. I followed Aldo’s directions and showed up at Bibosi’s headquarters. Aldo told me that he and Julio had been in touch with Isac Bedia about the well he wanted to drill and that this truck was to carry a rig to Hardeman that we would use to drill the well. Initially, this seemed like a good plan because we could just pick up Andy’s rig from Adrian’s house in San Pedro and swing by nearby Villa Rosario to get the tools. Provided all of that was true, we could take it all up to Hardeman to be used in the well drilling for Isac Bedia. Right.

We got to San Pedro and ran into a guy from Hardeman who had been there meeting with the mayor. His name is Don Martin…nice fella whom I had met before. We also called Andy to come and join the adventure. Andy told us that Adrian wasn’t in town, that he had left yesterday, so we couldn’t get any more info from him. We decided to figure out how to get to Villa Rosario to get Andy’s tools. We talked to a motorcycle taxi driver or “mototaxista” to get an idea of how to get there. He told us that it was a mere 20 minute trip, there and back, and that it was no big deal. We hired him to take us there, and we followed in our truck. We stopped when we got to the bridgeless river. He told us to just drive across and that Villa Rosario was on the other side. Some kids were crossing the river, and it didn’t look that deep, so Aldo hopped out and locked the wheel hubs and threw it into 4-Wheel Drive. We made it across the river without incident and kept going down the “road.” We had passed the mototaxista’s 10 minute mark about 20 minutes before this, and the “20 minute there and back easy ride” turned out to be more like 40 minutes one way and included fording a river. We got to a fork in the road and weren’t sure which way to turn, so we asked a local campo woman who was walking with some sheep where Villa Rosario was. She kept saying “no hay, no hay” and doing the little hand motion that goes along with “no hay,” which means “there isn’t any” or in this case, she was telling us that Villa Rosario didn’t exist. It was pretty evident she didn’t understand what we meant. So Don Martin hopped out and saved the day, speaking to the woman in Quechua and figuring out that we should go left. How this woman got to be her age, living in Bolivia, without ever learning how to understand something as basic as “Donde está Villa Rosario?” in Spanish is beyond me.

We got to Villa Rosario and had two choices. Riley had told me in an email that the tools were at the church next to the school, and Adrian had told Andy that they were in the hospital. Well, all of these things were right in a line next to each other, so it didn’t matter. However, there was no one around at any of these institutions and they were locked. We asked around and someone directed us to Don Maximo’s house. Don Maximo was president of one of the neighborhood organizations and a very helpful fella. But since he was newly elected, he didn’t know anything about the wells that were drilled around there 6 months before. He was pretty sure the ex-president, Don Gregorio, would know more. Unfortunately, Don Gregorio wasn’t home because he was out working on his farm. We asked if there was anyone around from the hospital and Don Maximo told us they were on vacation. “So what do you do if someone gets sick?” we asked. Never got a really good answer to that question. According to Don Gregorio’s wife, he would be back later that day or sometime tomorrow or the next day. That’s a fairly specific answer down here in Bolivia. We asked a few more neighbors and they all agreed that Don Gregorio was the man to ask about the well drilling rig. We wrote down the phone number to the town’s calling center and gave them my phone number so we could hopefully get in touch at a later date. We asked Don Maximo about the whereabouts of the person that ran the hospital, and he told us that he lived in a town called Sagrado Corazón, which was back on the main road from Montero to Hardeman, we had driven through it to get to Villa Rosario. His name was Don Valentín. Don Maximo also informed us that there was a town meeting tonight and that he would make sure to ask around about the rig to see if anyone knew anything. We thanked Don Maximo for his help and headed back towards Sagrado Corazón. On our way out of town, someone flagged us down and asked for a ride to the same place to go to the hospital because their child was sick. Of course we agreed, and a young couple and a baby joined us in the truck. I guess this was the answer to our previous question of what they do when someone gets sick…they wait for gringos to drive into town and hitch a ride to the nearest hospital.

So at this point I was worried that we wouldn’t have any tools available to drill when we needed them, which was a little disheartening. I could always go back to Montero to pick up the tools that were at Riley’s house, but that would mean taking another whole day to go to Montero as well as splitting up the rigs, which I did not want to do. We got back to Sagrado and asked where Don Valentin lived and headed to his house. It’s nice being in small towns because everyone knows exactly where everyone else lives. But Don Valentin wasn’t around, he had gone into the city. His young daughter told us that he had a cell phone but that she didn’t know the number. But her mother did, but she wasn’t home either. She was at work at the high school. So we got some directions to the high school and headed over there. We pulled Doña Emiliana out of class to ask her if she knew how we could get a hold of her husband. He didn’t have his cell phone with him right now, and she didn’t have the number memorized. She remembered him talking about the gringos that came to drill the wells but didn’t know anything herself about our equipment. She wasn’t sure when her husband would be back, but assured us that she would give him my contact information. So, Aldo and I walked out of the school a little defeated, but sick of dealing with “oh he’s not here, he’ll be back I don’t know when, no I don’t remember any of that,” so we decided to kind of give up. We drove back to San Pedro to pick up the rig we were hoping was actually at Adrian’s house. Andy assured us that he had actually seen the rig there, so that gave us a little confidence. But we still didn’t have any tools. We were hoping that something with Don Valentin would work out and we’d be able to get back to Villa Rosario to get tools.

We got to Adrian’s house (who Andy had said was not in town, that he had left the day before) and asked for his wife, who knew Andy. Well, to go along with the theme of the day (bad information), Adrian walked out of the house and greeted us. This was the first time I actually felt some relief today. I had wanted to talk to Adrian myself because he supposedly had information about the Colonia Pirai rig as well. I told him we were going to take the rig out of his house so we could drill in Hardeman. When I asked him where the Pirai rig was, he told me Riley knew. I then told him that Riley said that he knew. And then he all of the sudden changed his story and started calling the Pirai rig “Miguel’s rig” and said that it was the one at his house…and that not only were there still tools in Villa Rosario, there was a whole rig too. “So then where are the tools that accompany Miguel’s rig?” I asked. Oh, they’re right here he said, and walked back into his house and pulled out a complete set of drilling tools. My jaw dropped…this was the last thing I expected. From all the information we had gathered from Andy, Riley, and the mayor from Pirai, the last place I expected the tools to be were sitting right under our noses in Adrian’s house. Aldo and I were ecstatic, because now was it not completely urgent to get the tools from Villa Rosario, but also because we were now ready to drill provided all of the tools were in the bag. We loaded up everything onto to Aldo’s little Ford-Ranger size truck, including tying the 6 meter metal tube to the undercarriage of the vehicle so it would fit, and headed back to Hardeman. The sun was going down by now, and we were exhausted. We unloaded the rig in the cooperative and said we would get in touch with each other tomorrow and figure out the details with Isac Bedia, the mystery man for whom we would be drilling.

I know this wasn’t the most exciting entry, but as my mom always said, not everything in life is exciting. But, I hope it illustrated a little bit of how things tend to work down here in Bolivia. It can be frustrating, but it’s just a part of the job. It’s a good indicator of why it is such a challenge to get things accomplished down here. And you can’t try to change it, you just have to dig in and take it, or else it will drive you crazy. Basically, many of the things that are easy to do back home or work well back in the states are non-existent here. People really can’t be trusted to give you accurate information, but since it’s all you have, it’s what you have to go on. Just keeps it interesting is all.

Update: Since writing this, I met Isac Bedia and we are planning on heading up to his town to drill this Thursday the 5th…this will be our first well on our own and I’m a little nervous because I would hesitate to call us “qualified” yet…but I guess this is what being in the Peace Corps is all about. Rock and roll.