Dear Dan...

6 – June – 07

Dear Jammers,

Well, I will tell you first that this was supposed to be a drunken hand-written letter. Kind of like a third-world drunk dial, only probably much longer. But instead, it has turned into a sober blog entry, doubling as a letter to you. You see, I’ve been trying to write a letter a week, and I am behind this week. I also haven’t blogged in a while, and I knew most of the things I wanted to write to you about would work nicely into a blog entry, so here I am killing two birds with one stone. Efficiency, that’s what I’m all about nehhh (pushes glasses up nose). Now, I’m sorry you’ll miss out on the fun of getting mail, and for that I apologize, but on the other hand you get a personalized letter that all the world can see, plus this will be much easier to read since my handwriting is similar to that of an semi-intelligent chimpanzee. That was a really long run-on sentence.

Ok, back to why this was supposed to be a drunken letter. About two weeks ago, it was mother’s day in Bolivia, May 27th (also Doug Gillespie’s birthday, in case you were wondering). As always with any sort of party, celebration or anniversary, there is a dance in town. This time it was at the concrete soccer field/basketball court about 4 blocks from where I live. In true Ben Ranz style, I decided to sleep for a little while before heading over there and got there around 11pm, walking over with some of my host cousins who live next door. I was happy to find some of my friends were back in town from the city to celebrate Mother’s Day, meaning I’d have some people to dance with. We chatted for a while, and threw back a few glasses (tiny little Dixie cup sized glasses) of beer and hit the dance floor. Now, a few things about Bolivian dancing: Number 1 – The music is awful. I’m not even talking about gangsta-rap awful, but extremely repetitive drum beats and lame sound. I’m not sure if you are into or have even heard of Cumbia or Regueton music, but that’s the majority of it. I’ve come to accept this fact and do my best to blend in with the rest of the dancers. That brings us to Number 2 – All dance moves are extremely repetitive. This is good for me, because if they were not simple and repetitive, I would be unable to do them. Let me see if I can explain one to you…you hold hands with your partner, facing each other. You come together, bending your arms with your hands coming into your chest, then you pull away from each other, releasing one hand and sort of swinging it back behind you, opening up your body. You then come back together with both hands, do the close chest thing again, and pull apart, only this time letting go of the opposite hand and doing the same thing. You can try to shake your hips too, but let’s be honest, I’m not really there yet. And you just keep on doing that throughout the entire song or medley of songs. I try to incorporate a couple spins here and there to mix it up, but that’s about it. The truth is, it’s kind of fun, but it pales in comparison to dancing around like idiots in the living room of KDBB with Katy Poth (Endsley) slamming out every word to “Baby Got Back.” Our type of “grinding” dancing isn’t really accepted at these kind of parties.

So anyway, in between dances, we go and sit down at the table…make some small talk about a few things but we are for the most part silent. And this isn’t strange for them, to sit there without really saying anything. At first I thought we weren’t talking because I haven’t honed my talking to female skills enough, then I thought it was because I’m not quite an expert in speaking Spanish, but it’s really because that’s just what they do…they just don’t talk that much. And this is when I thought of you, and in that moment, I wished you were there with me, just so I could have someone to talk to and really enjoy the conversation, if anything just to show my Bolivian friends how much fun I have simply talking to my friends. I’m pretty sure we’ve never run out of things to talk about or not enjoyed a conversation we’ve been having and I just wanted my Bolivian friends to see what it’s usually like for me. And I couldn’t get it out of my head…”man, if Dan Jaynes were here, this would just be so much more fun!” And I wasn’t having a bad time, but nothing like the old days at Thirsty Scholar or Mama’s or road trips to Wisconsin or Cleveland. And that’s when I decided I needed to write you a letter. But that was also before many more glasses of beer and I was ready to crash by the time I got back to my house.

Then something funny happened tonight. I was hungrier than normal so I decided to opt out of bread for dinner and go and get some fried chicken across the street. I usually do this about two times a week…it’s pretty good chicken for sure, and it comes with a plate of rice and French fries, which I douse with watered down ketchup and mayonnaise. Sounds gross I know, but once you’ve eaten as many plain flavourless plates of rice as I have, you’ll do anything to add a little sabor. I was pretty full and decided to head down the street to my pal Pedro’s house. Today was “Teacher’s Day” and in addition to being my good friends, Pedro and his wife Gladys are both teachers. So I wanted to simply just go and wish them a happy teacher’s day and perhaps chit chat for a bit. Well I got there and Pedro was headed out to a dinner his students were having for him…each teacher is sort of in charge of a class, kind of like the advisor. Pedro is in charge of one of the two senior classes, and they were cooking dinner for him and some other teachers. He invited me along, partly because that’s what Bolivians do and partly because I kind of teach the students English sometimes, so I am kind of their teacher. So we got to the student’s house and had a good talk with Pedro about a few random things and then they served us dinner again…a big plate of cheesy rice, a hunk of meat, some yucca (potato-like food) and a “salad” made up of some cut up tomatoes and onions. I finished about 75% of my plate. Then they started playing the bolivian dance hits I’ve come to recognize and we did a little dancing. Rule 3 of Bolivian dancing (at least for me) is be prepared to dance with people much younger than you. But it’s cool, the students always dance with teachers and it’s not creepy or weird. Plus, I feel being 17 or 18 here is really much older than it is in the states. That’s a whole other topic though.

We only danced a bit, and then they took me to another party, this one for ALL the teachers and some more of the seniors were there too. What’s the first thing we did? Sit down to eat. Another huge plate of cheesy rice, yucca, “salad” and a big ol’ piece of meat. The meat was a little salty but otherwise pretty good, I finished this whole plate. There are nights when I don’t eat dinner at all…this night I ate not one but THREE hefty dinners. When it rains it pours I guess. Once again the Bolivian music fired up and at this point I thought about leaving and started thinking again how much fun it would be if you were there to chat with. Before I could sneak out though, I got asked to dance some more…which was ok I suppose…more of the same repetitive stuff with 18 year old girls. But then my pal Llingo who was working the music put on an old school rock and roll sort of medley, with a bunch of old swingy type ‘50s rock…it was amazing how much this picked me up, just knowing the beat better than everyone. I grabbed one of the teachers who I knew was a pretty good dancer and started swinging her around and tossing my huge fro back and forth, which made EVERYONE laugh. I strained to remember the few swing moves I learned my freshman year at OSU in Social Dance class but nothing was coming back…but it was alright and I’d say it was worth sitting through all the lame music just to be able to dance to that one…that one moment of real fun made the rest of a just ok night all the better. This was also the only Bolivian party I’ve ever been too where everyone wasn’t rip-roarin’ drunk and seemed like everyone was still having a good time…which made me feel good because before I operated under the impression that without alcohol, Bolivians can’t have fun…but they definitely were. It was a nice sight to see.

I have been back in site for three weeks now and regular school classes have been cancelled twelve times in that time period. Twice for rain, once for mother’s day, once for Corpus Christi holiday (whatever that is), 4 days of celebrating the anniversary of the school, three for teacher’s day and once because the mayor came to town for a meeting. And that really isn’t all that uncommon…they cancel school on a whim here. It’s crazy. The education system here really is in a pretty sorry state. I wonder if education systems anywhere will ever be to the level they should be. I guess we do ok in the states (at least in places like Dublin with dancing rabbits) but we are still far from perfect. After spending some time as a quasi-educator in Bolivia, it really is disheartening to see how crappy the system is…some days I feel like these kids will never have a chance, won’t ever really be challenged and therefore very few will go very far. There are like 2 kids in each class that I think really show some promise. It’s sad. On the up-side though, hanging out with high school kids makes me think of my senior year in high school and how much fun it was, how carefree you feel, knowing you’re about to graduate and move on to something bigger and better…not really wanting to leave the comforts of Friday night football games and staying out past curfew but at the same time feeling ready for a change. I had a hell of a good time my senior year. I really liked high school while I was in it…although after leaving I was glad I did…not that I had another choice. Anyway, to take me back to my high school days, I am listening to Creed right now, which was basically the big thing my senior year. I bet you hated Creed from the beginning and still do. Well, I can’t say I blame you but I will confess they are a guilty pleasure of mine.

So I’ve been eating a lot of fish lately. My host dad goes fishing all night long and brings back all kinds of yummy stuff. Have you ever eaten piranha? My guess is no…and maybe it’s because it’s so fresh but I’ve grown to really like it. We even eat fish for breakfast. Right now there is a HUGE fish in our freezer…seriously not much smaller than Tynan, it’s a monster! We’ll get some good filets out of that for sure. Not to be wasteful though, I have to tell you that after they cut the heads off, they go into a soup, aptly named Fish Head Soup. Bolivians are in general not very creative. I know it sounds disgusting but it’s really not. They boil the heads all morning long in chicken broth with some other stuff and you basically just suck out all the meaty parts…lips and eyes included. It’s a little work, but it’s not bad. Always the fool at the table, I pulled the piranha teeth out of my fish head and stuck them in my mouth like they were mine, which got a big laugh from everyone. I suppose it’s better to be a fool at the table than someone who brings up inappropriate things to discuss, like my sister. Remember when you came to El Vaquero’s with us after I graduated and smack dab in the middle of the meal she somehow got on the topic of pubic hairs? Well, that was not an isolated incident. I do love my sister though, she just misses the tact train every now and again. She is getting big too! That wasn’t an insult, she’s pregnant…I’m due to be an uncle July 25th…which is going to be awesome! Except that I won’t really be there for a bit. It’s kind of weird…one of my host sisters who is always over has a little baby who is about to turn one (the little one that I named after Tahira…crazy) and I was thinking the other day that the stuff I am missing with my little niece is the same stuff I’m getting from her…so I suppose I can be an uncle to her until I head home and get to be the real deal.

It’s been cold here! The day I got back from the states it was hot and sticky and gross like normal but then two days later the wind blew in all these clouds and it was rainy and cloudy for like 2 weeks! And COLD! Well, actually more like 50 degrees with no sun, but for us that is freezing! I have become a cold wimp too I think. It’s not so much the cold as it is the lack of heating. I walk into my room from the outside and it is not any warmer. So there’s no escaping it. It has finally started to warm back up these past couple days, but for a while there I was only man enough to shower once a week…go ahead and tell me I’m gross, but next time it’s 50 degrees outside, go and try and shower in freezing cold water while you are outside. No big deal though, no heat, no sweat, no stink. My hair was pretty ick though. Anyway, because of the cold (I think) my nose has been stuffed up pretty badly for the first time in Bolivia…so guess what I broke out?? That’s right, the ever dependable snot-rag! Instead of a t-shirt though I’m using a handkerchief, which I’d say is a little more acceptable. I thought of you the other day too because I am trying to start a plastic recycling project in my town and I think one of my first steps is going to be to make a poster board just like the one you brought to all of those USG cleanups…with samples of the recyclable stuff taped on there…quality. I remember the first time I went to one of those things, Rick Barga introduced you and me like we didn’t know each other. Ha! In other work news, they have me working on a project where we are replacing a lot of our water system in town, so I am kind of sort of doing some engineering…which is pretty cool I guess. But stressful at the same time because I think they think I’m actually really qualified to do this stuff, when I really just have sort of a general knowledge…they think I have all the answers, so I’ll either have to figure them out or just fake it…yeeeha!

So have you got any trips planned this summer? I know you are finishing up your thesis so perhaps that’s putting a damper on things but hopefully you are taking advantage of all that cool stuff up in New England before you leave…I heard through the Strohman-vine that you are trying to get out to Portland? That would be sweet dude. Wherever the wind blows you I suppose, haha! I am sucker for a bad joke. But you knew that.

Well, I had better shove on. I hope you enjoyed your virtual letter! Good luck with that thesis business and be sure to tell Ellen Jeanne hello for me. Hope all is well my friend, be well.

Ranz

p.s. I just got my Alumni Football Tickets order form in the mail (surprisingly, they ship stuff all the way here)…too bad the date it needed to be in by was last week! Asi es la vida en Bolivia. Go Bucks!

Note: For those of you blog readers who don’t know my friend Dan “Jammers” Jaynes, below is a very flattering photo for your viewing pleasure: