15 March 2007

"My World Is A Flood...Slowly I Become One With The Mud" (2007.03.01)

So, they weren’t kidding about this “rainy season” Bolivia has, especially this year in the Santa Cruz region. The rains have been relentless and caused huge rivers to overspill their banks and flood out countless communities and families. All of the main highways leading to and from Santa Cruz are washed out, making all supplies pretty much impossible to get through without the help of a plane. Where I live, North of the city, was hit especially hard. When I went back to my site, at the bus stop they told me that there weren’t any busses that could get to Hárdeman because there was neck high water covering the road. They told me they could only get about 40 minutes south of town…from there I would be on my own. So I planned on wading through the water and hoped my toe wouldn’t get infected. I bought some apples and some water to build up some energy on the bus ride there and when we arrived, sure enough the road was under water. Along the way there were tons of families living in makeshift tents or trailers along the road, having been displaced from their homes. I was getting ready to head through the water, I saw a guy I knew from Hárdeman and asked him how he was getting back. He assured me someone would come by with a truck and that we could take “the back way” which really intrigued me. Some of my dad’s “back ways” in the states are interesting enough, so I was excited to check out the Bolivian version.

About 10 minutes later a truck arrived and the other guy and I hopped in back and hit the mud. It was about 2 hours of muck through which we had to push a few times (so much for the toe not getting infected) but we made it. What was even less exciting was that I had to leave Hárdeman the next day to go down to my friend Rudy’s site to help him with a latrine project for flood victims. I got back to my site, said hi to my family, picked up my clean laundry from my laundry lady, unpacked and packed up again for the next day. I did take some time to climb the water tower and take some photos of the flooding. Check it out.On the left is the road heading south out of town. If you look closely you can see that right at the edge of town it dives under water and stays there for about 25 kilometers.
This is my host brother Pepe on top of the tank. Behind him you can see the high water. Usually there is no water there.

Well, sure enough, it was raining when I woke up. Usually rain in the morning means no transportation for a while, and this held true. I went a found a guy that was leaving (with about 20 people in the back of his truck) and around 3pm we took off. We got about 200 yards out of town (going the back way) and got stuck…unable to get out. Most of these people just wanted to leave because they didn’t want to stay in town, but since I was going to help flood victims I felt like I really needed to get out of town. I thought about going on foot or on bike, but then the ambulance came by. I know the ambulance driver Julio and told him what I was up to and he agreed to take me with him. With four-wheel drive and a lighter load we made it through with only having to push and get my toe infected once.

I got to Rudy’s site at about 8pm that night and we spent the week heading out to a community about 40 minutes outside of town where there were about 200 families living in tents on the road. They were flood refugees and the local mayor’s office had commissioned Rudy to do something about the lack of sanitation and bathrooms where they were staying. So he came up with a quick and dirty (quite literally) latrine that could be built easily and cheaply that involved burying a barrel and leaving a hole for the poo to go into and burying a bottle next to the barrel for the pee to go into. Rudy has a lot of experience building latrines so it wasn’t that tough for him. But he needed us to help since there were about 25 latrines to be built in a week.
The tents where the families were living. Most tents were 3 or 4 families and made of cloth so they leaked water. Leave it to the Bolivian government to give flood refugee tents that don’t keep out rain during the rainy season.
Andy unloading the barrels that would be the latrines.
There was hardly enough food for the people, so this dog wasn’t getting his share of table scraps…yuck.

We had our hands full, organizing the people and distributing materials. The goal was not to build the latrines for the people, but to show them how to build them. This goes back to the idea of sustainability. If the people are just given the latrines, chances are they won’t take care of them. But if it is something that they’ve built themselves they are much more likely to use it properly and take care of it. They feel ownership. This is much trickier, especially getting the people motivated. It was a bit frustrating because the four of us could have built all the latrines ourselves without a problem in about 2 days. This is where the Peace Corps patience we learned about in training comes in. It was tough because it didn’t seem to make sense to us…there we were trying to help them live healthier and safer and they didn’t want to work…they’d rather sit in their tents and complain about everything they’ve lost. We tried to stay positive though and in the end we did an alright job. Here is Rudy having a little fun with a latrine-to-be.

And here’s Rudy educating the folks on how to use the new latrines

The rainy season lived up to its name and it continued raining all week, which did not help to motivate the people. I thought of how much David Krause hates working in the rain even if he’s getting paid, so it was hard to blame them for not wanting to work when they weren’t getting paid. But they were getting a nice new bathroom…but this didn’t seem to matter to them. But there we all were, getting wet and sick trying to help them out. Oh well. The sun did come out one evening on our ride home, which made us happy. Here’s a shot of Rudy and Bryan heading home on top of the water tanker truck the mayor’s office sent out to get us.
One bright spot of the week was the food. Rudy’s site is called Okinawa because it was actually founded by Japanese refugees in the forties trying to escape the war. The Bolivian government gave them this plot of land and there they stayed. There is still a huge Japanese presence there, and people who speak nothing but Japanese. Few have intermixed with the Bolivians and they stay pretty separate, but they live in peace nonetheless. Anyway, because of the Japanese roots, there is a Japanese restaurant in town that was so good we ate there three times. After eating rice cooked in oil with mystery meat cooked in oil topped with onions and peppers cooked in oil and boiled potatoes for 6 months in Hárdeman, some steamed rice with fresh uncooked veggies and amazing beef and chicken with delicious Japanese seasonings was enough to make me order two plates every time. I figure I need to take advantage of healthy food when I can get it.

On the fourth day the rain continued ALL DAY long and no one even paid attention to us when we went to their tents to talk about bathrooms, so we finally just said enough and stopped working. Here’s a shot of me after we “gave up.” Please note the toe protection on my left foot.Friday was the fifth day and it was raining as hard as ever. Bryan and Andy had already left and Rudy and I woke up with nasty colds, so we decided not to go out to the communities. We nursed our colds by eating some Ramen noodles and playing Monopoly with some other volunteers in town who are missionaries. It was a happy end to a long week for me, because I headed back to my site the next morning.

The rain all week had not helped the flooding, except this time when I got as far as the bus could go, there was a canoe to take people back to Hárdeman. It was about an hour and a half canoe ride, but we made it safe and sound. Check it out.This used to be the road.

I was glad to be back to my site, since I had in effect been gone for three weeks. I got back just in time for carnavál to begin, but that will have to wait until the next entry.

08 March 2007

A Pain In The Foot (2007.02.28)

Ok so the last blog before the wedding entry I enlightened all of you faithful readers to an unfortunate situation with my left big toe. I had just spent an afternoon unsuccessfully trying to dig out an ingrown toenail with my Leatherman tool. I was in Cochabamba for a couple of days to attend a conference on teaching English. I arrived in Cochabamba on a Saturday with plans on leaving Tuesday night. Well after looking more at my toe and starting to begin to limp a little, I supposed I needed to get it checked out. I called the Peace Corps Medical Office and they sent me to a clinic in Coch, where they cleaned it out and said that a tiny operation would be necessary at some point…it wasn’t urgent but needed to be done to prevent further pain and infection. I was hesitant to get the operation right away because I needed to get back to Hárdeman to drill two wells that weekend…and I wasn’t about to call them and say “yeah listen, my toe hurts, we can’t drill your well,” which would have definitely invited lots of gringo ridicule, enough of which I already receive.

After talking to the Peace Corps doctor some more and thinking that it wouldn’t be that big of a deal to get the operation, I decided to go ahead with it that Wednesday, hoping to get back to my site Thursday in time to start drilling on Friday.

My lovely Mexican friend Naya accompanied me to the emergency room so I didn’t have to go alone, which was super nice of her. I put my foot up on the little bench they had me sit on and the guy informed me that he was going to hit my toe with two shots of anesthesia, “little pinches” he called them. If you have ever had a needle the size of a fountain pen stuck into the top of your toe, you know that it by no means makes a “little pinch.” And I suppose after two “little pinches” that wasn’t enough so he went in for two more. This was to be the most painful part of the entire ordeal…I really really really don’t like needles. But then about 3 minutes later my toe was dead to the world and I had a good time flicking it back and forth without it hurting a bit. Then he started in with the knives and stuff…”the ugly part” he said. I watched some of it, but really didn’t enjoy most of it. I can’t even stand to watch the surgery channel, so real-life surgery being done on myself was not pleasing to my eye. I snuck a few peeks and it looked pretty gnarly, and I wish I had had my camera really. I suppose it was the news of the hour because no less than 4 other doctors and nurses who were passing by popped in to check out the gore…privacy isn’t a big thing in Bolivia. I didn’t mind really, it was just a toe.

When they were done they had sliced off about an eighth of my toenail and left a nice deep gash on the side. They bandaged it up and said not to walk on it for a day to prevent it from bleeding a ton. I got some crutches from the Peace Corps office to help out with that. I asked them how long I would have to stay in Coch and they told me ten days! I was shocked…I wanted to go back to Santa Cruz the next day! Guess that wasn’t going to happen. So much for drilling. I got some prescriptions for a bunch of stuff to help it heal and Naya and I were on our way. That night I took it easy and stayed at the hostal while most everyone else went out…I was chatting with the hostal owner (who is a bit of a talker) and she proceeded to tell me about every toenail or fingernail related injury she had ever had or any she knew had had, describing each one in detail. This is something I found to be a theme when I told people why I was in Coch. After telling them I had an ingrown toenail removed, they proceeded with a story like this:

“Oh really? Those really hurt don’t they? My brother had one once where he let it go for so long it turned green and grew this crazy mold and the doctor said they might have to remove the toe but it ended up that they just popped it and it squirted so much it got all the way up to my brother’s shirt! Can you believe that? Anyway, he was on crutches for 4 months, after which his circulation was so bad he was in a wheelchair for the rest of his life! Do you want to go grab some food?”

So now I know way more than I ever wanted to about ingrown toenails and similar injuries. I was kind of surprised to find out how prevalent they were. Here is a photo of the toe in question, but this is two weeks after surgery, once it started getting better. (Note to people with a thing about feet: Don’t Look)

As of now (four weeks after surgery), there is a nice tough scab over the cut and it doesn’t even hurt to squeeze any more. I’d say I’m back to 100%. However, this fun little experience has made me try even harder to break my terrible life-long habit of picking my fingernails and toenails. So far it is going well, but now that I’ve got these fingernails it is much more satisfying to scratch my bug bites…it’s a vicious cycle.

I thought it was pretty lame that I had to stay in Cochabamba for two weeks. As usual, things were just picking up at my site and now I would have to be out of it for two weeks, which always slows things down. But it turns out it was a good time to be there because there were a lot of volunteers coming through town for various reasons, so I got to spend some time with some quality people whom I usually don’t see because if I am in a city usually it’s in Santa Cruz. Plus it was nice to eat good food for two weeks. I saw two movies (“Flags Of Our Fathers”…pretty good but probably wouldn’t watch it again…and “Déjà Vu” which I thoroughly enjoyed and would recommend. Very well done) and caught up with our trainers, Armando and Sue. I even got a chance to go out and visit my Cochabamba host family, which was short lived but fun. Not everyone was home but it was kind of surprise and they told me next time to call a few days ahead of time so they can plan something, which sounds good.

The hostal where we stay in Cochabamba is pretty much always full of volunteers (the owners only give rooms to us and their personal friends) and completely self serve. It’s basically like a bed and breakfast…there is a kitchen and a fridge we could cook in, they give you a key to come and go as you please and there was even someone who cleaned the bathroom everyday. Combine all that with a hot-water shower, a big soft comfy bed (with good pillows!) and internet in my room (all for just five bucks a night) and you’ve got yourself a happy Peace Corps Volunteer with a nasty toe problem. I had a few meetings with my boss, during which we talked about some important stuff with my work and also attended the Volunteer Action Committee meeting…kind of like student-council for Peace Corps, which was interesting. We even got to go out on the town a few nights, which is always a good time. We found a bar that will sell us cheap beer (Coronas and Heinekens!) and plays American 80s music, which is pretty much plenty to satisfy this guy. Here I am with Kerby (from North Carolina) and Kates (from Long Island) celebrating Kerby’s amazing feat of balancing four bottles on top of one another.

It was a frustrating reason to be in Coch but by the end of my time there I was enjoying myself and really got a feel for what it might be like to be a city volunteer. It made me think about possibly staying another year once my service is up to be my boss’s assistant, traveling to all the Basic San sites and supporting the volunteers. That’s a long way off though. If you remember, this whole adventure started with a terrible, long and uncomfortable bus-ride. Well, due to the same reason that my bus took so long, the road was still closed at the end of my stay so I got to fly back to Santa Cruz! First class nonetheless, although I’m not sure why. Only in Bolivia does a 12-hour bus ride (on a good day) equal a 35-minute plane ride. Oh well, I was just glad to be on the way back to my site.

A Different Kind of Wedding (2006.12.20)

This entry is a bit out of order, and for that I apologize…it pertains to my host sister’s wedding, which happened back in mid-December (coincidentally the same day as my real sister’s anniversary), and I will tell it as if I were writing it when it happened. Hopefully I’ll remember how it all went.

About two months ago, my host-sister Bilma (23 years old, the youngest of the three sisters but with a younger brother yet) asked me if she should get married. She had been with her “boyfriend” Juan Pablo for a good while now, and they have a one and a half year old son together, Daúl. I use the term “boyfriend” loosely because it is common here in Hárdeman to refer to someone you’ve been dating for a long time as your spouse. I know plenty of couples here who live together, have children and share everything but who are not married. I’m not sure why, but that’s just the custom here. So I would consider Juan Pablo more of a boyfriend, although we don’t have a name in English for what we might call him. Bilma explained to me that they wanted to apply for a loan to build a house on the property they shared, but in order to get the loan, they would have to be married. I found this abhorrent and was tempted to tell her it was a bunch of crap and if it worked like that then they should just say screw the loan company. But then I remembered I was in Bolivia. There aren’t unlimited avenues for money here, nor are there laws prohibiting this kind of silly rule. Plus, after thinking about it, I figured it didn’t really matter. They already live together, they have their child…I was pretty sure they were sticking together for a while. So, as opposed to asking her if she loved him (something that seems to play a minor role in many marriages here anyhow) I told her to go for it.

Now, I’m pretty sure my advice wasn’t the tipping point of their decision, but they did indeed decide to tie the knot. The date was set for December 16th and preparations began immediately…well, kind of immediately. They did get some nice invitations made up and sent out, but other than that, all of the preparations were left for the week of the wedding. I helped Juan Pablo tear down part of our house and put up a new roof, covering the area where the old building stood, allowing for more shaded area and a bigger dance floor. They brought a cow in from the farm and killed it (yes, a whole cow), meaning the entire week leading up to the wedding we ate everything that wasn’t worthy of being served at the wedding. It started out with cow liver, which wasn’t that big of a deal…sort of a funny texture, but it tasted like all the other meat here…like it had been cooked too long in oil without any type of seasoning except too much salt. Then it started to get interesting. We had cow tongue and stomach sauce mixed with rice, cow lung and even cow head soup. The cow head soup was surprisingly good. I chose not to ask exactly how it was prepared though, in fear that they would actually tell me the truth. I just ate it and smiled, thinking how my dad was probably chowing down on a nice 3-way from Skyline at that same exact moment. They began preparing chicha, a corn-based beverage which they let ferment in big 55-gallon barrels for the entire week. Chicha is really unsanitary in the way it’s prepared and served (in little buckets, with one dried half-gourd called a tutumbo used as a glass to pass around between everyone) and I was not looking forward to drinking it at the reception. I had my share of chicha when I lived with my host family in Cochabamba, where they at least prepare it a little better. You see, chicha is from Cochabamba and the surrounding regions, and it’s not something people in Santa Cruz drink very often. However, when people from the Cochabamba areas (called Kollas) move to Santa Cruz to live amongst the Santa Cruz people (known as Cambas), they like to prepare chicha for special occasions, like weddings. Still, since it was made in our house, it is just dirty stuff. To my delight (and the relief of my stomach), 65 cases of beer arrived on Wednesday. Have I mentioned Bolivians like to drink?

I will now take this opportunity to discuss something that has been brought up by a few loyal blog readers. And that subject is “What’s the beer like in Bolivia?” Well, to sum it up in two words, not good. I am by no means a huge beer connoisseur (not to be confused with “consumer”), I couldn’t tell you the difference between a stout and a pilsner and a lager, and I really don’t understand what hops are. I do know that I enjoy a nice smooth Guinness Draught, the taste of Honey Brown is pleasing to my tongue, nothing a beats a nice cold Corona on the water and that Strongbow is amazing, but truth be told, at the end of the day, I’m pretty satisfied with a cold bottle of Bud Light. In my humble opinion, I don’t think the beer in Bolivia is all that bad. While there are those days I long for something smooth; the light, rough, extremely average tasting beer of Bolivia serves my purposes just fine. By my count, there are 5 kinds of beer in Bolivia. Huari is considered the best, Taquiña and Paceña are about on the same level, and Ducal is the Bolivian version of Natural Light…cheap and abundant. Then there is Bock, which is in a whole different category because it has more alcohol in it. In the city, if you know where to look, you can find bottles of Stella Artois (although no Press Grill) or Corona in bottles. They are pretty expensive compared to the Bolivian beers, though. Of the local brews, I’ve grown to like Ducal the best, even though the flavor is supposed to be sub-par. One thing about the beer here, it is always REALLY cold…which for me has more effect on taste than the actual flavor itself. On a good night, there will be some coca cola around to mix with the beer, which I know sounds gross, but you should try it sometime. Use something light and cheap, about 2/3 beer and 1/3 coke…you may be pleasantly surprised. One of my favorite parts of Bolivian drinking customs is the fact that beer is always shared. In the states, if we all go out to a restaurant, we all order our own drinks and enjoy them on our own. Here, the table decides whether it wants beer or soda, then orders a big bottle and a little gets poured into everyone’s glass. You usually wait until everyone’s glass is empty and fill them back up again before you drink some more. This way, everyone is drinking at the same rate and when you are with a group, it is hard to let someone get really out of control drunk since they are drinking at a slow rate. As far as drinking habits here, beer doesn’t differ much from soda. (Note to Mom, skip to next paragraph). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been riding in a car with someone on a hot day and the driver stops to buy cans of beer for everyone. At first I was a bit taken aback, but it wasn’t long before I joined in. And the funny part is, it’s totally legal to drink in a car (if you’re not driving) or on the street. So if you’re somewhere enjoying a nice cold beverage and all of the sudden everyone decides it’s time to go, you can take your beer with you out to the street, walk down the block, hail a cab, and finish the beer in the cab without even breaking the law. And even if it was illegal, you could easily get out of trouble by offering the police officer some of your beer. So, I guess you could say Bolivia has its perks.

Anyway, back to the wedding. After filling up on all kinds of yummy cow-part goodness (sarcastic), I was ready to see what the Kolla wedding was going to be like. My Camba friends had told me it would last three days, but I wasn’t quite sure what they meant. But the fact that everything but the mass was slated to take place in my house, I knew I would find out soon enough. Juan Pablo lives with us here in Hárdeman but is from another city called Camiri, a good day’s travel away. The night before the wedding about 30 of his closest relatives arrived in a rented bus and thus the party began. Before I knew it, there were about 40 people sharing the bathroom and shower and sink. Not having bought a wedding gift yet, I left early Saturday morning to go to Montero to get one. I found what I was looking for in a couple of photo albums and headed back to Hárdeman to see how preparations were coming along. Everyone was running around like crazy people setting up tables and music, decorations and preparing enormous pots of food. It’s not like there are any catering services in Hárdeman, so everything was done in-house…quite literally. When I got back (around 1pm) I was assigned to balloon duty with about 27 tiny children. Needless to say, they didn’t get much done…once all the balloons were blown up, my host cousin Inés and I made a huge archway out of them by using a thin length of PVC pipe serving as the frame. Everyone had something to do. Now let’s step back and think about this. All the relatives that are supposed to be attending the wedding at 4pm are running around like crazy people trying to finish the decorations. Since it’s Bolivia, I figured it wouldn’t actually start at 4, so I hopped in the shower line around 3:45 and made my way over to the church (about 2 blocks away). By the time the ceremony got started it was about 4:30. Not bad, really. Usually things are at least an hour and a half delayed.

The ceremony was a pretty straightforward Catholic ceremony, but the kicker about it was, only about 1/4 of the family members attended because the rest were decorating the house! The bride’s own brother and sister didn’t even show up. I was kind of appalled, to be honest. The parents were there and a few random aunts, uncles and cousins and a slew of little children that seem to show up whenever something important is going on in town. Bolivians don’t seem to have wedding attendants, but they do have padrinos or god-parents for lots of different things. The most important padrinos are the actual wedding padrinos, who are a married couple who kind of “endorse” the newlyweds. You can’t get married here without them, at least in the church. And as far as I can tell, eloping is just not acceptable here. There are also padrinos for drinks (who pay for the alcohol), padrinos for music who pay the musicians and padrinos for food. This way not one person or family is paying for the whole wedding. A huge cost like that couldn’t be handled by your average campo family. Anyway, the parents of the bride and groom along with the wedding padrinos are the only ones up on the altar. I was a little taken aback when they asked for donations to the church but then remembered that the word “tacky” really isn’t a part of the Bolivian vocabulary. I did kind of get a kick out of the fact that before the wedding was official, the newlyweds, parents, and padrinos had to go up and sign a form, making it official. I thought this seemed pretty tacky too, but they say if you want anything to get done in Bolivia to be sure to get a signature. I guess that holds true for weddings too.

After the ceremony the bells were rung and confetti was thrown. I was a little surprised to hear the head Italian nun in town commenting to my host sister Marina (the middle sister) how “even though Bilma is younger, she beat the other two older sisters to the altar,” insinuating to her that she needs to get married as well in order to make her relationship and child legitimate. Then I remembered “tact” really isn’t in the Bolivian vocabulary either. All in all, it seemed like for everyone the ceremony was just a boring 45 minute requirement that justified partying for 3 days. Kind of sad if you ask me.

Back at the house, all of the decorations were up along with not one but TWO oversized sound systems, one for the band to use and the other for the DJ to use while the band was taking breaks. My host brother drove the newlyweds, padrinos and the all the random children around in the family truck for about 15 minutes while everyone else made their way back to the house. Once they got there, Bilma and Juan Pablo danced the traditional first dance, the name of which is escaping me at the moment. Then they brought out big plates of food and bottles of beer for everyone, and the party began. At the outset, just the families were there (still a lot of people) but pretty soon a good portion of the town started to arrive. I was having a jolly old time chatting it up with some newly arrived family members at some of my friends who showed up. The food was actually pretty good, since we were eating the normal parts of the cow this time. A few hours into the party, a line began to form at the head table for everyone to give their gifts. I ran into my room to get mine and hopped in line. Gift giving at weddings is a bit different here…you don’t put your name on your present and you just hand it to the bride and groom, they shake your hand and put more confetti in your hair. Then the padrinos of drinks give you a shot of singani (a grape liquor made here in Bolivia), another shot of “puro” alcohol mixed with some sort of fruit flavor, and then another plate of food and bottle of beer to take back to your table. With the beer flowing like wine, everyone was having a pretty good time. My friends Ana, Maritza and Kristina (all sisters) showed up around 10pm and we had a good time dancing around to the music and I even showed them how to play flipcup, which they got a big kick out of. Lucky for me, dancing in Bolivia is extremely simple (and boring really) and it doesn’t take much for them to think you are a halfway decent dancer. Again, one of the perks.

By about 3am my friends had left and I was about ready for bed, despite the still-thumping music blasting literally 8 feet from my bed. No matter, I have become accustomed to sleeping through just about every other type of noise and was pretty sure with the help of the alcohol that I wouldn’t have any trouble sleeping. I was right, for a while. Around 7am, the music began thumping again (or maybe it never stopped, I really don’t know) and I was disturbed from my slumber. I made my way out of my room only to realize that they weren’t kidding when they said the party didn’t stop for three days. The alcohol was still flowing freely and while it was really only family members left, they were all still dancing and having a good time. I took special notice of my host cousin Milton, who is studying to be a priest. The night before he wasn’t drinking anything and helping clear dishes and stuff and I remember thinking “that’s good, at least one good example for these kids.” Well by Sunday morning he was as lit-up as anyone. Totally tanked. I walked right out of the house, avoiding several attempts to get me to drink and went out front to get my bearings. I saw some friends sitting out in front of their house, so I moseyed on over in my pajamas and took a seat, hoping my headache would go away soon. It didn’t.

Around 10am I ventured back into the house only to be assaulted and have some chicha shoved down my throat. While I was unwilling, I thought one little drink wouldn’t hurt. WRONG. Not 15 seconds after entering my stomach, the chicha was making a prompt exit, back out the way it came in. I must say I felt better afterwards, and headed back inside and did a traditional Bolivian dance called the cueca with my host sister Lidia. Everyone got a kick out of the fact that I knew how to do it (we learned during training) and there was a big applause at the end and of course the offering (mandating) of more chicha. I continued refusing, explaining to them that I just threw up the last tutumbo they gave me out front, and that I would show it to them if they didn’t believe me. Finally one of my host cousins Inés came up to the woman trying to persuade me and told her to lay off, that it wasn’t how we did it in the states. About 10 minutes later the same lady motioned for her to come over to where she was. She was sitting with Inés so I figured I was safe. She drunkenly explained how Inés had told her how she had made a fool out of herself and kept asking me for forgiveness. I said of course, not to worry about it and gave Inés a thankful look. And then, I swear to god she said (and I’m not making this up) “here’s some more chicha to bury the hatchet. Drink it!” Inés rolled her eyes and walked away, and in hopes of finally getting this lady off my back, I downed it and walked off…consequently to the same exact spot out front and threw up again. At least I knew all the chicha was out of my system. “To hell with this,” I thought. I went back inside, changed my clothes and left.

I walked down the road to the Jimenez household, another family with which I spend a lot of time. They are Cambas, and had been warning me all week about how Kolla weddings were. I showed up looking like hell, politely declined lunch and asked if I could lay in their hammock the rest of the day. They agreed immediately, and that is how I found myself dozing in a hammock on a Sunday afternoon, humming Jimmy Buffet tunes and waiting for my hangover to pass. I stayed in the hammock until about 5pm, when finally my headache had gone and my appetite had returned. I graciously thanked my friends and headed back into the lion’s den. The party was still hopping, and some of my host brother’s friends motioned me over to their table and drunkenly began assaulting me with the tiny bits of horrible English they have picked up along the way. I played along and told them they should start teaching they are so good, downed a tiny glass of beer to appease them and found some food. I checked out my host cousin Milton again (the priest to-be) and saw that he had successfully managed to get the red sauce from the food all over his nose and cheeks by just about passing out into his plate every time he bent down to take a bite. Later I learned that they call him “Padre Borracho” which means “Father Drunk.” Nice.

I went and got my video camera and used it as an excuse not to drink. I was up moving around, taping people dancing and taping all the passed out people who were just snoring in chairs or with the their heads down on the tables. My host family got a huge kick out of this later when I showed them. I fended off a few questions about where I had escaped to all day but before long I left again to go and meet a friend for some more food. When I came back there were even more drunk people passed out beyond belief (this time the groom included) so I got my camera back out and got some excellent footage, which my host family also enjoyed after the fact. After taping I did some more dancing and avoided the drink when I could. I had a couple people come up to me and attempt to communicate only through hand motions and facial expressions, which I found extremely entertaining, since I knew very well that they could speak just fine. But they refused to. They just kept motioning with their heads and hands and making faces like “that’s outrageous” or “that didn’t bother me a bit.” Then a glorious thing happened…it finally started to rain. It had been threatening all weekend, but the skies finally broke open around 1am. I used this as an excuse to go to bed, which worked fine because in Bolivia, the rain is a valid excuse for not doing just about everything.

Monday morning marked day three of the festivities. Things were definitely starting to die down, especially since the majority of Juan Pablo’s family had left late the night before. So at least we were back to normal amount of people in the house. Next door at my host uncle’s house (their house is essentially ours as well, there is nothing separating our yards) there were still about 3 or 4 really drunk people playing the charango, a little Bolivian ukulele. They were passing it around along with a bucket of chicha, and singing the same two lines over and over again at the top of their lungs. One of these lines was “don’t call me a drunk,” which I got a laugh out of…but I don’t remember the other one. Pretty awful. But people were starting to clean things up and you could tell there was some effort to get things back to normal. But Monday was the day of the gifts. To my surprise, they made me padrino of gifts, which means instead of buying something, I had to race against the madrina of gifts taking gifts from the pile on one side of the yard back to the other side in sort of a race. The madrina of gifts was my host sister Lidia, who I am the closest with, so it was sure to be fun.

I showed my host brother how to operate the video camera so I have some good footage of my participating in the wedding and got ready to run. They gave us the go ahead and off we ran…I was definitely the faster runner and could carry more, which is probably what prompted her to cheat. Not to mention everyone was rooting for her and helping her out. I loaded up a tv cart (one of the gifts) with a bunch of presents and she came along and stole and rolled it back to her pile…but not before I managed to knock off most of the gifts I had put on. Everyone got a huge kick out of us struggling back and forth between presents and I was having a great time, proof to them that you don’t need to be wasted to have fun. The kicker came when my host uncle and cousins loaded up the bed (another gift) with about 50 presents and carried it to her side. This I found extremely unfair since nobody was helping me. I stole a few off of the bed before they made it back, but it was no matter. I lost the contest, 80 presents to 40. And they all pretended like it was legit too. Ah well, it was fun despite the trampa.

Then the craziness of opening gifts began. The newlyweds ripped through the paper like 8 year olds on Christmas. Some of the bigger ones weren’t wrapped…besides the bed there were two stoves, and four dressers. Since nobody puts their names on their gifts, they don’t have to worry about keeping track because they won’t be sending thank you cards. I began to see why they don’t put their names on gifts because it allows all the gifts to pretty much suck. Ninety percent of the gifts were either a blanket or a dish set. Someone even wrapped up an old dusty set of dishes that you know they pulled out from under their bed after 10 years of dirt piling up. They got about three blenders and one shoe-shining kit. Which is why it was no big surprise that when Bilma opened my gift of photo albums, she looked right at me and said, “This is from you, isn’t it Benjamín?” I nodded my head yes and was at first confused but then realized it was just about the only gift that took a little thought which automatically pinned it on me.

The rest of Monday was spent cleaning up and watching the videos I had taken, which everyone enjoyed for sure. While it was a pretty fun weekend, I was ready for things to get back to normal around the house. I enjoyed how they were really into celebrating, but at the same time it seemed a little off to me that no one went to the mass…nobody seemed to care about the actual wedding but enjoyed celebrating the fact that they were getting married. All in all, it was a really cool experience that I won’t ever forget.