hola everyone!i hope that all of you are doing well and that you had a good weekend. ithought i´d take the opportunity to let you all know what i´ve been up to.things have been pretty good here, although the cold weather and lack offruits and veggies is sort of getting to me.
this past weekend i pretty much stayed at my host family´s place and helpedtake care of the baby and joel, who is still kind of sick. he has a prettybad cough and an ear infection. fortunately i convinced my host mom to takehim to the doctor´s last night. now he is on amoxicillin (however you spellit lol) which is an antibiotic, so he should start to get better. nothingreally exciting happened, i did a lot of homework and i hung out with myfriends on saturday for a little while. sunday i stayed home all day,because i was feeling sort of sick. i thought i was coming down with theamoebas, but it was a false alarm. on sunday i also learned which bananasare used for what purposes, honestly they all look the same to me but iguess there is a difference between the ones that are good fried and theones that are not. i guess there is a slight size and shape difference, butat a glance you would never know. as a result of my banana studies... i´maddicted to fried bananas.
on monday i went into quilacollo to use the internet and printed out someinterview questions in order to interview a local dentist for my project. inquillacollo i also bought some listerine, which makes me feel ten timesbetter about my dental health. the peace corps only allows you to see adentist 1 time per year on their insurance, and i thought that governmentinsurance was supposed to be awesome...it is not.
while i was in quillacollo i saw a few interesting things. first a herd ofburros crossed the street in front of a bus with a little old lady. i wish iwould have had my camara. it was such a contrast between the modern andtraditional ways of life here that continue to coexist. then i saw a manwith a monkey on his shoulder. the monkey was sort of dancing and he wantedpeople to pay in order take a picture with it. i felt bad for the littlemonkey, because i´m sure he is over worked and poorly fed as are all thepets here in bolivia. most people just give their cats and dogs tablescraps, like rice and tomatoes. and then they complain that the cats anddogs aren´t eating their food. people also are very violent with their dogs.people are constantly throwing rocks at dogs or kicking them. i have no ideawhy some of the dogs stay with their owners at all. this violence makes thedogs pretty mean and you have to be careful when you walk down the road.some dogs will ignore you but others will bark and start to follow you.unfortunately the only way to make them stop is to pretend to pick up rocksand throw them. what i really don´t understand is how they can have solittle information about animals when the bolivian vet and livestock schoolis located about 5 mintues from where i live.
anyways, on to my adventures today. today i went to the big expensivesupermarket in cochabamba. i left my house at 8 am and arrived about 9 am.the supermarket is called ic norte. the first step at all larger stores hereis locking up your bag. you have to turn in your bag to a guard who watchesthe lockers while you shop. he puts the bag in a locker and gives you thekay on a long wooden stick you have to carry around with you. i was soexcited when i got in there...because i found peanut butter! they had igabrand peanut butter and all sorts of american brands. i found kit kats,milkway, oreos, smuckers jam, coca cola zero, quaker oatmeal and many otherthings. so of course i racked up a big bill buying peanut butter, somecandy, crackers, soy nuts and a few other things. the peanut butter alonecost 22 bolivianos for a pretty small jar. to me it is worth it. being avegetarian...or trying to be a vegetarian...is extremely hard here inbolivia. to them eating well means eating a lot of meat and potatoes andusing a lot of oil. in fact, i found out last night that my host mom hasbeen putting extra spoonfuls of oil in my rice because she thinks i´m tooskinny. now that i have my peanut butter i´ll have to let her know that i´mgetting plenty of fats in my diet lol.
today i have a culture class at 2pm. we are going to talk about traditionalbolivian customs and have an overview on the politics. i´m not really intopolitics, but it is important to know what is going on here. in the largecities there is some anti-american sentiment. the current president, evomorales, is a coca leaf farmer. coca leaves are used to make cocaine, butare also used in many teas and native dishes. people in the andes have beenchewing the coca leaf and drinking tea made with it since the time of theinca empire. chewing the leaf or drinking the tea supresses hunger and givesenergy. it is also an altitude sickness treatment. you can buy coca leaf teaat any supermarket all packaged up like you would find any other type oftea. the peace corps however prohibits the use of coca leaves in any form.apparently a former peace corps worker applied for a CIA job and put on herapplication that she had used coca leaves in peace corps bolivia. she didntget the job and blames it on the fact that she had used coca leaves. shecaused a huge mess and the peace corps has recently had to ban the use ofcoca leaves by peace corps workers. coca leaves are by no means cocaine andare a huge part of the culture here. not using coca leaves or drinking thetea offends most bolivians and is making it hard for peace corps workers tointegrate into their sites. i am however glad it has been banned, so now ihave an official excuse not to use it. i heard it tastes bad anyways lol.anyways, back to the anti-american sentiment....i got off track there a bit.ok so the president of bolivia claims that in his youth an american militaryhelicopter came down on his village of coca leaf growers and killed somepeople and caused damage. there are many different versions of the story,but most of them go something like that. so now people here think americansare here as government spies to bring down the coca leaf growing industry.
training is going well and all this week we are preparing to go on our techweekend trip. we are going to visit a boarding school and do a workshop andpresentation on self esteem, leadership and computers. i´m in charge of theice breaker and review games. i´m also in a group that is supposed to teacha group of kids how to create and save a document on microsoft word. itshould be fun. we are going up into the mountains and it is going to bepretty cold at night and in the mornings. i didnt bring a hat and gloves,but i think i´m going to have to buy some.
well that is about it for now. check for another update later this week,i´ll try to write one if i get a chance. i hope you all are doing well andhaving a good summer. dont worry about me, some of the things i writeprobably sound a lot more scary than they really are. i´ve been treated wellby all the bolivians i have met, they are a friendly and helpful people.and i have not come down with any weird disease. i´m taking really good careof myself and plan to come home healthier than when i left.
ok well take care and write when you can!
paz y amor, beth in bolivia
