Beth Update

¡hola todos! hello everyone!

happy birthday to my grandpa walega and grandpa meray. happy anniversary tomy parents. happy birthday to all of the september birthdays. and happybirthday to the october birthdays (in case i do not get a chance to emailagain soon)

primero, quiero pedirles disculpa por no escribir en tanto tiempo. yo hesido bien ocupada.first, i want to apologize for not writing in such a long time. i have been pretty busy

antonio, liliana, y familia, voy a pedirles disculpa for escribir todo eningles en este mensaje. ojala que este funcionando bien su traductor. voy aescribirles un mensaje con todito en castellano cuando yo tenga un poco mastiempo. gracias y espero que todo este bien alla en argentina.

ok, so here we go. i know you all have been waiting a long time for thisupdate. i believe it has been about a month since i have given an update onmy life here in bolivia.

i`ll start with the basics. yes, i am doing well. yes, i love my site. yes,i have started to work. and no, i have not contracted any crazy diseases.

i have been recieving lots of questions and requests for information. i willdo my best to cover all of your questions and fill in the missinginformation.

since you last heard from me a lot has been going on. i stayed in my site inthe middle of the jungle for an entire month straight. i did not even straymore than a couple kilometers from my house.

i will start at the very beginning. in my last email i shared the story ofmy trip in the micro bus to santa cruz. now i will share with you the nextinstallment of my crazy bus stories....here is what happened on my way backinto my site from the city of santa cruz.

i already shared my "and a tree fell in front of my micro" story...but now imust tell you what happened on the way back to my site on the very samemicro bus. the name of the micro bus is "el 20 de enero". by the end of myservice i will probably be able to write a book entitled "the top 20adventures on the 20 de enero".so we get a late start and leave santa cruzabout 8:00am. everything seems to be going fine until we get to the bigbridge and get stuck waiting to cross for about an hour. that was no fun. itwas hot, dusty, and the micro was overflowing with people. i had some manwith giardia standing about 3 inches from my face the entire time...forthose of you who do not know what giardia is, it is a gastrointestinaldisease caused by parasites. it causes issues such as lots of gas, sometimesdiarrhea, and burping. (the burping and gas smell like sulfur and rotteneggs, ewww!) we cross the bridge and are moving along, but then the motorstarts to make some funny noises. we pull over and the driver messes withthe engine and checks the oil and whatnot. and then we go on our way, butthe motor continues to make strange noises. the micro starts to goprogressively slower. we are probably only going about 25 miles per hourwhen we reach the town of san ramon, the last populated area before headingstraight into the jungle. we have lunch in san ramon, and supposedly someonefixes the problem with the bus. so we all get in and head into the jungle. ilive in a region called lomerio, which is known for its hills. so here weare going up and down up and down these hills...about about 20 miles perhour. sooooo slllllooooooowwwwww. the motor starts making an even strangersound... like it is going to explode at any minute. gray smoke starts topour out, but we can not stop. we are in the middle of no where. we keepchugging along until we get to the village of san pedro, where they luckilyhave a public phone charged by a solar panel. we stop the bus in san pedro,and the driver announces that we can go no further on his bus. he says thathe will have to call back to san ramon and tell them to send another bus. wewere already about 2 and a half hours away from san ramon, so we were stuckthere for awhile. we waited by the side of the road next to some mud hutsand a herd of cows for 3 hours, until a new micro bus showed up. then we hadto unload all of the cargo from on top of the first bus and put it on theother one. finally, we all got on the new bus, with the new driver. but mystory does not end there. so this new driver has never made this trip, hehas no idea where he is going and is unfamiliar with the roads in the hillyjungle. anyways, we start off. it is getting dark and the bus driver refusesto go over 35 miles per hour because he has no idea how to drive on therocky jungle road. so we move along slowly until we encounter a sort ofsteep hill. this driver does not think the bus can make it up the hill withso much weight, so he makes us all get out. so we all get out and walk upthe hill while he makes the bus chug up the incline slowly. the whole regionis hilly like that, so we ended up having to get out about 5 or 6 times towalk up a hill in the dark... in the middle of the jungle. it was not fun,and the people were getting cranky. then we ran into a final obstacle...afallen tree in the road. we had no saw, or axe. we had nothing to cut itwith. it was too big to move by ourselves. most of us were convinced wewould be spending the night in the micro in the middle of the road. thensomeone got the brillant idea to try to go off roading...to make a new patharound the tree. so we did just that. all of the men walked around theshorter end of the fallen tree and stamped down the tall grass, threw asidestones, and moved branches. and then, the bus drove through with no problem.it was a miracle. i was sure it was going to get stuck or pop a tire, but itdid not. so finally, at 9:30 pm, i arrived at my site. that´s right, i wason a micro from 8am until 9:30pm, constantly having to smell giardia man and sweating too death. but i survived haha. that is my micro story. hopefully ido not have another one for awhile.

so now onto some more mundane things. my work load is increasing. i havetaken on a few high school students for private english lesssons in theafternoons in addition to the classes i co-teach 3 days a week in theschool. teaching english was not something i originally thought i was goingto be doing, but that is all everyone talks about here. everyone wants tolearn. my abuelita (host grandma) told me that if i teach her some englishshe will teach me some of the indigenous language, besiro. besiro isawesome, let me tell you. whenever someone speaks it they sound like the areslurring all of their words together. i was excited to discover that a lotof the sounds are similar to the english vowel sounds...and there are a lotof sh sounding words. it is going to be tough, but i have decided that imust learn at least 100 words this year. right now i know and can pronounce4 words, a good start right? haha

back to teaching english. it is hilarious. it is rewarding to see theirappreciation and enthusiasm. and i love when they try to greet me in englishwhen they see me around the community. i have taught them to do the highfive and to say "what´s up?". i find that they pay more attention to themore boring aspects of english grammar as long as they know that i willteach them something funny or interesting before the class is over. theyreally enjoyed my lesson on the words for clothing items. their favoritething to say is flip flops. my kids think it is the most hilarious word inthe entire world. and pretty much no one can say it correctly. it soundsmore like flishps flaxsh when they say it. i love it.

some of you were wondering about the weather down here. it is hot here, veryhot. the thermometer on my alarm clock told me that it was 93 degrees in myshaded room at 7AM the other day. and because we do not have electricity,there are no fans here. in order to combat the heat the people here haveseveral survival tactics. the children strip down until they are nearly ortotally butt naked and hang out at the water pump splashing eachother. theadults bathe as many times a day as they have time for between getting theirhouse work down and keeping track of the kids. when they have to workoutside, everyone, men and women, will take off their shirts. thats right,yesterday i saw a woman chopping wood in her bra and some really shortshorts. i wanted to take a picture, but i didn´t. haha. the rainy season hasnot yet started yet, but we have had a few good downpours. the landscape isturning greener and flowers are starting to come up. i will have to updateyou all on the bolivian rainy season in future updates, because i am toldthat those few storms i have seen are nothing compared to the downpours i amgoing to experience.

some of you have been concerned as to whether or not i am making enoughfriends to not feel lonely as i did in the beginning. no worries, i ammaking a lot of friends. i am pretty close with a few of the high schoolgirls. they come to check on me and to hang out in my room. it is like beinga big sister. they tell me their problems, dreams, and aspirations. i washappy to find out that the majority of them plan on going on to study in theuniversity after high school. there are not that many girls in high schoolin my community. many of them drop out because they get pregnant or becausethey need to work as house maids to make money for their families. thecurrent senior class only has 3 girls in it. many of my friends are alsoreally young children. there is a 2 year old boy named fabio he has reallytaken a liking to me. whenever i walk by his house he waves to me and says"hola guapa" (which means more or less "hey good-looking" or "heybeautiful"). it always makes me laugh. my first and best friend though is awoman named Maria. I am not sure how hold she is, but she is probably in herlate 30´s. she owns one of the communities few stores where you can buythings like rice, candles, toilet paper, and sometimes candy. she is crippedand does not have use of her lower body and legs. she gets around prettywell though. she has a bed set up in her store that she sits on and she usesher arms to pull herself up the shelves to get what you want to buy. shealso has a wheelchair to leave the house with everyone once in awhile. sheis a very friendly person and has a great personality. she tells me storiesabout her children and keeps me informed on community gossip. she hasrecently started to make bread to sell and always makes sure to save somefor me, because bread sells out quickly. she is really interested in mywork, and i think she will be someone who can help me organize events andworkshops.

many of you have also been asking about what i am actually going to bedoing. for now, i am teaching english along with professor pedro in the highschool. i plan to continue the private english lessons and turn them into asort of english club. in the near future i also plan to start working withthe government sponsored program to teach the older community members how toread and write. i think it would be fun to work with the little grandpas andgrandmas. they are very enthusiastic about learning to read and write. inaddition to that, i would like to start a nutrition campaign. i am hoping toteach in the elementary school, put on workshops for the parents, and have acommunity nutrition and health fair. i am also hoping to put on some cookingclasses and perhaps start a town garden. originally the school said theywanted to make a school garden to use for the school breakfast program, butnow they do not seem as interested. the school director told me that he isnow more interested in having the school children raise chickens to selleggs. i do not know much about raising chickens, but perhaps i will helpwith that.

i am also planning to create and workshop on health, excercise, andnutrition to take on the road. a few of my fellow volunteers have expressedthe desire to collaborate on this project. what we plan to do is create aprogram and presentation that we can implement in various places. we takeour show on the road to other volunteer`s communities as a way to inspirethose communities to get interested in health and nutrition. this would givemy fellow volunteers and i the opportunity to have an impact on many peopleas well as the opportunity to travel around bolivia. and in the process wewill be able to help many volunteers get their communities excited aboutworking with them and learning more.

next topic, many of you were wondering what i have been eating. well, i willstart off by assuring you all that i am not withering away to nothing. i donot have a great variety of food to eat, but i am getting enough to eat. ieat a lot of oatmeal, powdered milk, tea, peanut butter, tomato sauce, andcrackers. when fruits and vegetables are available, i devour them. myclosest peace corps volunteer neighbor has been supplying me with grapefruitand veggies from her community´s garden project. unfortunately, she will beending her service at the end of october and leaving bolivia. when i travelinto the city i am able to buy fruits and veggies to take into my site withme. i usually can buy mandrin oranges, bananas, apples, green peppers,onions, and peaches. the only problem is that bananas, green peppers, andpeaches do not stay fresh very long in the hot climate. since i only travelinto the city once per month, i do not have fruits and veggies most of thetime. i am probably going to have to start to make trips into one of thelarge towns are not quite as far from my site as the city of santa cruz is.i will probably end up visiting my friend laura in her site a lot. she livesin a town called concepcion which is about 4 hours away from where i live.her site has electricity, running water, internet, cell phone reception andmost importantly...a fruit market!

you all will be happy to know that i have read a crazy amount of books inthe past month....because that means that i was out doing other things. ihave tried really hard to get out of my room and be more social. my sociallife consists of attending the community soccer matches, visiting doñamaria`s store, going to the youth activities at the evangelical church, andusing the internet...yes, internet...let me explain. in my community we havethe office of an indigenous rights group. they have computers and all ofthat sort of office equipment. they get electricity from a smallmotor/generator that is run off of gasoline. recently they some how recievedfunding to put in satellite internet. there are 3 computers currently hookedup to the internet, but only 1 of them really works. i am able to get on theinternet for a few minutes every couple of days. it is hard to get a chanceto write any long emails or do any work because ALL of the children want achance to use the internet. the high school teachers even have started toassign internet research assignments. whenever i go to try to use theinternet i am usually surrounded by dozens of children trying to read overmy shoulder and asking me tons of questions while i am trying to check myemail. so that´s right my friends, el puquio has communication with themodern world. it still boggles my mind that they have somehow hooked up asatellite in the middle of the jungle. thats right, we do not haveelectricity, running water, a reliable public phone, radio, or cell phonereception...but we do have high speed internet! so when you think of elpuquio (the pook) imagine a quaint little village in the middle of thejungle where women carry water on their heads and children run aroundnaked...but then add a noisy little motor and huge satellite dish hahaha. ilove it.

here is a funny story for you all. it is funnier if you have seen the benstiller movie "zoolander". here we go...so one day i am in the office tryingto help some of the teenagers set up email accounts. they think it isamazing that they can sign on and send instant messages across the room.they think that i am magic because i can work on a compute well and becausei can type quickly. so, one day one of the computers was acting up. it keptturning off for no apparent reason. since i happened to be hanging aroundthe woman in charge of the computers asked me if i could help her. so, ichecked it out and discovered that the fan inside the computer was notmaking noise and that the computer was really hot. there were a lot of kidsaround so i was trying to explain to them what the problem was. they did notunderstand me so i took the panel off the side of the computer to show themthe fan inside. when they looked inside they were shocked. they all startedasking "where are the files?" "why are there no files inside the computer?"and "where is the internet?". i wanted to bust out laughing, because it wasjust like the scene from zoolander. i never even considered the fact thatthey had not ever seen the inside of the computer. it had slipped my mindthat these children have not been exposed to technology and would thereforenot understand the concept of things like the computer and the internet. iam still trying to figure out a simple way to explain to them how theinternet works, but it is hard to explain such an abstract concept.

let`s see...what else can i say? i have been doing well. i am enjoying mywork and i am loving the climate. the hot sunny weather makes me happy. ilove the fact that i have been wearing nothing on my feet but flip flops andsandals for over a month straight. i have not felt cold at all in the pastmonth. some people say they would rather been cold than sweaty and hot...iprefer to be hot and sweating to death then have cold hands and feet, butthats just me. i am looking forward to the approaching summer season. i amanxious to see exactly how hot and humid it is going to get. i have neverlived in the jungle before, so i have no idea what i am in for.

well, that is all for now i guess. perhaps i will have time for anotherupdate tomorrow before i leave the city. i will be here until wednesdaymorning, so i may have time for a few more stories. if not, i will try mybest to put out some mini updates from my site. but as i have explained itis hard to get much done when there are dozens of people around trying toget your attention or make you hurry up so that they can have a turn. youcan all expect to hear from me at least once a month though, because i comeinto the city every month to buy food, get my mail, and see my friends...soi can speak some english!

i hope that you all are doing well and that you are enjoying the beginningof fall up there in the northern hemisphere. i love and miss you all.sending hugs your way.

and i repeat...i am fine. healthy. happy. and i do not have malaria or anycrazy jungle disease.

and i again, i miss everyone. send me emails. and for those of you who wantmy mailing address to send letters or anything you can fit in a box (under 4lbs)...here it is

(I took the address out)

until next time...take care, be happy...life is good.paz, amor and hugs, beth