hola todos! hello everyone!
feliz dia de los padres atrasado! happy late father´s day!
escribi este mensaje ayer, pero la computadora mala lo comioi wrote this message yesterday, but the bad computer ate it
lo siento mucho! i´m so sorry!
ojala que todos esten bien y que hayan disfrutado el dia de los padresi hope that all are well and that you all have enjoyed father´s day
bueno, no voy a escribir muchas cosas interesantes, pero tengo una historiade mi visita a la sala de emergencia el viernes
well, i am not going to write a lot of interesting things, but i have astory about my visit to the emergency room on friday
primero, hay que decir, ESTOY BIEN! no te preocupes!first, i have to say, I AM FINE! don´t you worry!
es muy dificil escribir en los dos idiomas, y solo voy a escribir en inglesahora, lo siento. espero que tus traductores esten funcionando bien!it is very difficult to write in both languages and i am only going to writein ingles now, i´m sorry. i hope that your translators are working well!
here we go, all during the week i was feeling funny. i was up a few nightsmaking exciting trips to the wonderful smelling latrine, but nothing tooserious. i always felt better in the morning. on wednesday i was not feelingtoo well, i had a headache and my stomach felt hungry even after i ate. butafter a few taking a few aspirin i was feeling good. thursday i was feelingjust fine. i only felt a little funny after i ate and drank a lot. thursdayevening we had a cooking class and i learned to make a bunch of quinoasalads and home made peanut butter. the food was so good ,and allvegetarian. i thought all of the good food would make my stomach feelbetter, i think i was wrong. then friday came along...
friday morning i woke up with a funny feeling in my stomach. i felt like ihad not eaten in days and there was a hole right through my belly. i atesome bread and drank some warm chocolate milk, which made me feel better. myhead felt a little bit funny, but i made it through my spanish class whichwas held at my house. for lunch doña willma served my professor and i saladand fried swiss chard. it was not anything unusual, but i felt sick to mystomach right after eating. so i took some pepto bismol and started to feelbetter.
friday afternoon we had a presentation on nutrition at the training center.it was going pretty well but then the lady started talking about oldbolivian remedies for sickness, such as bathing children in urine to lowertheir fevers. i started to come down with a case of nausea. i thought it wasjust because the lady was grossing me out, so i went and got some water todrink. the water just made my stomach feel even worse, but i made it throughher lecture.
after the lecture we had another round of cooking classes. we were learninghow to make squash bread, dried fruit in a special oven, and home made jellyand preserves. i was in the group in charge of making the papaya andpineapple jelly. so i was just standing there chopping up the papaya, whenthe smell of the papaya started to make me nauseous. i tried to continue,but then the papaya started to look like raw meat to me, which reallygrossed me out. the waves of nausea came over me and i had to leave thekitchen.
once i was sitting outside i felt better for a little while. i talked tosome of my friends and they brought me some rolaids to make my stomach feelbetter. then after about 15 mintues, i started to have intense pains in mystomach. my entire stomach felt like it was trying to jump out of my mouth,but i never did actually throw up. the pains got worse and i started havingreally loud rumbling noises in my stomach. it felt so strange. my friend puther hand on my stomach and said she could feel everything moving around.
i decided to go lay down in the training lounge on the couch. it felt niceto lay down, but after awhile i ended up curling up in the fetal positionbecause i could not handle the waves of pain that were coming over me. ifelt like i really needed to vomit, but i could not. after i layed there forawhile i started to get scared, and therefore started to cry. some of myfriends came in and found me and told the technical coordinator that sheneeded to call the peace corps doctor for me. she she called and i talked tothe doctor. she didn`t know what was wrong me with so she said i needed toget to the clinic as soon as possible.
so my whole training class piled into the peace corps bus and my friendserin and tristan helped me get on to the bus. i curled up again in the fetalposition on one of the benches and could not move. i was pretty scared,because i knew i must be pretty sick. so of course i was crying the wholetime and my awesome friends were singing me little children´s songs andrubbing my back. i do not know what i would have done if i had not beenaround so many great people. the ride to the clinic was sort of long andbumpy, which did not help my stomach at all. erin and tristan agreed to staywith me at the clinic, which made me very happy. i did not want to be therealone.
by the time we made it to the clinic, my entire right leg was asleep frombeing curled up. when i tried to get off the bus i could not walk, andtristan, being the great guy that he is, pretty much had to carry me off thebus. i am sure it looked pretty bad to everyone on the bus, because i don`tthink they knew my leg was asleep. it just looked like i was too weak towalk.
since i had been crying so much, i had given myself a really bad headache, amigraine in fact. so i could not bear to look at all the bright lights. ispent my entire time in the emergency room with my eyes shut tight and mysweatshirt over my face. i do not even know what the place looked like orwhat any of the doctors and nurses looked like. it was pretty scary
immediately when i got there they began to poke at me and ask me questions.i impressed myself and was actually able to answer all of their questions inspanish, i guess my spanish is good when i am in pain and under stress. theytook my temperature, which i was completely unaware of at the time. tristanand erin had to tell me to hold still because there was a thermometer undermy arm. all of the poking and proding hurt my stomach, and they could notdetermine what was wrong with me. so they took me in for an ultrasound. ihad never had one before, and i wish i had been coherent enough to check outmy organs on the computer screen. erin got to be in the room and assures methat they are all there and look good haha. they determined that myappendix, or however you spell it, was not going to burst. that made mequite happy because i did not want to have surgery in the middle of thenight in a third world country hospital.
of course they still had no idea what was going on inside of me. apparentlyi told the nurse at one point, in spanish, that there was an alien inside ofme that was trying to escape from my belly button. it must have been prettyfunny, but i was so out of it that i do not remember what i said.
they guessed that i had salmonella, but i do not know how accurate of adiagnosis that is. they wanted to put an IV in me, but i refused. my intensefear of needles made me strongly oppose the idea, plus they had no reason tobelieve i was dehydrated. i was not throwing up, and it was not coming outthe other end either. and if i took the IV, they were going to make me staythe night. and i really did not want to spend the night there.
for the pain i was given 2 options. they told me i could get a reallypainful pain medication shot in my arm or i could get a painless injectionof pain medication right into my vein that would be quick. of course i chosethe quick and painless option. come to find out, it was neither quick orpainless.
first the nurse tied my arm really tight to find the vein. then she jabbedwhat felt like an 8 foot needle about 8 inches up my vein. it hurt more thanthe pain in my stomach. then she said it was giong to burn a little. wellshe was wrong, it burned A LOT! i laid there waiting to feel her take theneedle out, and i asked her if she was done yet. she said she had to do itslowly...so much for a quick and painless procedure. they she told me i wasgoing to feel hot. she was wrong again...i was ON FIRE! my whole body feltlike it was burning up and the heat came over me in waves. i was cryingthroughout the whole ordeal. at one point i felt like i was naked, as if theheat had burned my clothes off. at that point they let tristan and erin backin the room. and i think i asked them if i was wearing clothes, which wasalso probably pretty funny for them haha. when the shot was over the meannurse didn`t even put a band-aid on my arm. so i had to lay there with myarm bent until the blood stopped oozing out.
thankfully, after about 10 mintues, i felt much better. the pain was gonefrom my head and from my stomach. the only thing that hurt was my arm wherethe mean nurse stabbed me with the needle.
so then, they wrote me up some prescriptions and sent me on my way. i wasgiven 3 pain killer pills, not sure what they are really. and they alsoprescribed a pill i have to take 30 minutes before i eat to protect mystomach, which is probably quite irritated and some antibiotics. i am notsure what the antibiotic is called, it starts with cipro something. in thepeace corps we call this antibiotic the "cipro bomb", because it pretty muchkills everything in your system that could possibly be there. the only badthing is that it destroys the good bacteria in your system as well as thebad, which means that you are more likely to get sick right after you stoptaking the pills before your system has had a chance to recover. i will makesure to take good care of myself though. i have 1 more pill left.
anyways, so they sent me home with my medications in a taxi with erin andtristan. we had to pay 25 bolivianos to get back to the host communities. iwas so completely out of it that i did not know where i was going or how toget back. thankfully erin and tristan were able to guide the taxi driver tomy house. they are truly my heros, i do not know what i would have donewithout them.
erin and tristan got me out of the taxi and made sure i got into my house,and then they left. doña willma was very worried and she thought that it wassomething she had cooked that had made me sick. i told her that there is noway of knowing and to not worry, the peace corps will give her anothergringo to look after. after about 20 mintues, the taxi driver showed up atthe door again. erin had left her bag in the back seat and he kindly came toreturn it. i was shocked that he came back, and that nothing was missingfrom the bag. but of course i had to pay him 10 bolivianos for the extratrip he made. so at least we had some luck that night, which made me feelbetter.
after that i just went to bed, and after the pain medication wore off...icould not sleep. i ate some pepto-bismol to stop the nausea, but stilldidn´t really sleep. the rest of the weekend was better, i started to feelless pain and less nauseous. as of know i only feel sick to my stomach wheni eat, so whatever i had really messed up my digestive tract. but noworries, i am getting better and everyone here is taking good care of me. iwill be just fine. i am on good medications and a strict bland diet, so ishould feel better soon.
thanks for listening to my story. i hope you enjoyed it, some parts wereactually kind of funny now that i look back.
this week i will be leaving wednesday to travel for our technical week,which is actually more like 11 days. we leave early on thursday morning anddon`t return until the following saturday. we are going to the department ofsanta cruz to visit a few sites. we will be putting on a health fair,nutrition workshop, and a teacher workshop. it should be fun and i shouldhave a lot of stories to tell about that. hopefully no one gets sick,because it is an 11 hour bus trip...on a bus with no bathroom! ahhh! lol...iguess that is why they call the peace corps "the longest vacation you´llevery complain about"
the monday after i return we are having a big bbq and they will announce oursites. so get ready for that, it will be awesome to finally know where i amgoing!
i hope that you all are well, thanks for reading my babble. i love and missyou all and i send lots and lots of hugs. take care! write back when youcan!
note...mom and dad and sara...please forward to the kent´s, mrs gaydos, andanyone else that should be under the "friends" contacts
ps. if anyone knows what pain medication caused me to feel like i was onfire, let me know!
ok bye bye for now, i will write again when i return from my trip!
*all you need is love, love never fails*
paz y amor y hugs, beth in bolivia...dont worry, i am doing fine!
Monday, June 18, 2007
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Beth in Bolivia #4
hola todos!
lo siento que yo no he escrito ningun mensaje en tanto tiempo!
sorry that i have not written any messages in so long!
espero que todos vayan bien. i hope that all of you are doing well.
ok, first before i get into the advenutures of beth in bolivia i must clearup all of the false things that were printed in the news herald newspaperarticle that was in the paper yesterday.1. i did not attend MSU as it says in the title...i went to CMU2. i never called the lifestyle here primitive, i would not use a word likethat in reference to someone´s way of life or culture3. i did not work in a bilingual head start classroom, nor did any of thechildren speak spanish. i told the reporter about how we posted words inspanish around the class room, nothing more.here is the article link in case you still want to read about it, sorry forthe confusion. i feel really bad having those un-truths printed about me insomething that many people will be reading. if anyone feels like emailinganne sullivan at the news herald, please do. though i doubt you´ll see aretraction.http://www.thenewsherald.com/stories/060807/loc_20070608001.shtml
ok, now i need to explain why you have not heard from me in so long. last weekend i went on a tech field trip to tiraque to work in a children´s home.it was awesome and i wrote an hour long email about it earlier this week...and then the computer proceeded to eat it. so i got pretty angry and left the internet place without sending anything. now i´m going to try to re-cap last week.
last friday the whole integrated education group took a bus 2 hours up intothe andes to a place called tiraque. in tiraque there is a children´s homeowned by an evangelical church. we went to put on a self esteem, teambuilding, and leadership workshop along with various computer classes. wearrived at the home on friday night and were given a very warm welcome bythe children and staff. the center is home to about 120 children rangingfrom 5 to 19 years old. not all of the children are orphans, some come fromlarge rural families that can not afford to feed them and send them toschool. those children live at the home during the week and go home to visittheir families on the weekend. so when we were there, there were probablyonly around 70 kids there. the center is pretty large and has its ownsoccer/basketball area. the children work pretty hard, because the center istrying to become self sufficient. they raise pigs, bees, and fish to eat andsell. they also have 2 green houses, one was built by a peace corpsvolunteer. the children take turns doing the chores and taking care of theyounger children. the children sleep in bunk beds and each have a smallwooden cupboard with a lock to keep all of their things in. the latrines aresquat latrines, though pretty nice compared to some of the other ones i haveseen. we spent the time before dinner playing with the kids, and thebolivian boys challenged the gringo boys to a game of soccer. the bolivianboys beat the gringos to a pulp, it was pretty funny. the bolivians reallyseemed to enjoy watching all of the gringos get frustrated and get the ballstolen from them. i spent the evening playing with a group of smallchildren. we played some of the games i learned in argentina and we sangsome songs. when it was dinner time the bell rang for the children to lineup. they all stood in lines and the peace corps trainees had the opportunityto introduce themselves. the children sang us a welcome song and said aprayer before we ate thanking god for the food and for the gringo visitors.dinner was simple and nice. we had a potato, some rice, a fried bananaslice, a fried egg, and a piece of sausage. i happily gave my egg andsausage away and traded a gringo meat lover for his fried banana slice.after dinner we were served tea, which was really nice because the weatherhad turned really cold really quickly. after dinner was cleaned up we put onour workshop. i was in charge of the ice breaker activity. we played a gamewhere everyone stands close together in a circle and one person stands inthe middle. the person in the middle says something about themselves, liketheir favorite food, and anyone who agrees or feels the same has to movefrom their spot quickly and find another spot. the person left without aspot has to stand in the middle and share. the point of the game is todemonstrate that although we are different, we still have a lot of things incommon and can all be friends. after my activity we played severalleadership and team building games. the children really seemed to enjoy itand were not happy when we had to leave.
after leaving the children´s home, we went to the hotel...that was notreally a hotel. there were not locks on the doors, no running water, andthere was garbage under the beds. we finished setting up our travel mosquitonets on top of the beds and went to sleep. the travel mosquito nets arehilarious, you set them up like mini tents and climb in through a drawstringhole. i´ll have to try to send some pictures.
in the morning we had breakfast, bread and tea, at the hotel. we went backto the children´s home and spent the morning playing and giving computerclasses. the center has 5 computers which were part of a past peace corpsvolunteer´s project. we worked with them on how to type a document, save adocument, use paintshop, where to put your fingers on a keyboard, and thatsort of thing. the kids were really excited about it. my group worked oninserting clipart and wordart into microsoft word documents. i had a reallygood time and i learned a lot of computer terms in spanish by working withthem.
when i was not giving a class i was playing with the children. it is soheart warming and heart breaking at the same time to be with them. they havesome much love to give and all they want is love and attention. we had ablast playing a variety of tag games and singing songs. i learned a lot ofnew games and songs that will come in handy when i´m at my site. it isamazing how happy these children are, although they have next to nothing. itreally makes you appreciate what you have, and it also makes you feel kindof guilty. these children have been neglected and mistreated by the world,yet they are some open and willing to reach out to others. we could reallyall take a lesson from them. it reminded me of the children i met in braziland those i worked with in argentina. it really opens your eyes.
while i was playing with the children i met an amazing little boy. his nameis evo, which is the name of bolivia´s current president. he is a 5 year oldorphan that was picked up off the streets of cochabamba. no one really knowshis story, but he says his name is evo and he is 5. this little boy is oneof the kids who lights up the room with his smile and energy. he reminded meof the preschoolers back in mt. pleasant (who did not speak spanish asstated in the newspaper article lol) for some reason he really clung to meand was interested in playing with me. he was full of smiles and hugs. icould not stop hugging him and singing with him. i really had never had anexperience which both warmed and tore up my heart at the same time until imet little evo. you could tell that he had been neglected and deprived ofaffection, but he was determined to make up for lost time and make sure thateveryone around him felt loved. all he wanted to do was hug everyone, dance,and ask 1000 questions about your life and why the gringos were there toplay. i had such a hard time leaving him. he had clung to me in what seemedto be a never ending hug. i just wanted to put him in my backpack and takehim with me. i´m sure that i´m going to have a lot of children touch myheart in that way while i´m here.
after that trip i am now more sure than ever that i am in the right placeand doing the right thing with my life. now i can´t imagine doing anythingelse.
so that was last weekend...now on to the rest of the week.
monday was boring, i worked on my project and finally got it all typed up toturn in. we had tech class in the afternoon and we had interviews with theassistant peace corps director. we talked about site placement, which wasreally exciting for me. the 2 sites i´m most interested in are both in thedepartment of santa cruz. they are called el puquio and la embocada. elpuquio has no electricity, but they bought a generator to run a fewcomputers and the internet. they are just finishing a town library and wouldlike a volunteer to work on promoting literacy. literacy is definitely oneof my favorite development areas. la embocada has never had a peace corpsvolunteer. the town has no electricity or internet, but the peace corps istrying to find some form of communication for emergencies. the town is about15 mintues outside of concepcion, which is a pretty big city. they arelooking for a volunteer to work on nutrition and to train teachers in newteaching styles. i think it would be an awesome challenge to be the firstvolunteer at a site, and i love the idea of working with nutrition, that issomething they are really lacking here.
tuesday was relatively boring. i went into the city and bought some peanutbutter, soy nuts and honey for my little host brother joel. he loves it. i´mso happy that he will eat the peanut butter and soy nuts because i have madeit my personal goal to get him out of stage 1 malnutrition. doña willma isexcited that we found something he loves to eat and that will fatten him upa bit.
wednesday was another day at the training center. we had a presentation onmental health and had our midtraining langauge evaluations. i got a prettygood "report card". we also changed language professors, which means thatnext week i will not have classes with carla on fridays and wednesdays, wehave a new teacher named vicky. she seems pretty nice, but also sort ofstrict. after the meetings and presentations the bus driver roque took us tothe supermarket to buy food for the party on thursday. we made plans to havean american style bbq pool party because it was a bolivian holiday, whichmeans no classes or meetings!
thursday was awesome. first i got up early and went for a run with mathias.we didn´t make it very far, it was cold and the lack of oxygen was hurtingmy lungs. i had breakfast with his host family and then we took a walk tothe cementary. we were told it was close by, but it took us over an hour towalk there. it was beautiful and creepy. the earth was so dry and there wasdust blowing all over the place. almost every grave had fresh flowers, whichwas such a stark contrast to the desert like surroundings. it was a goodexperience to have.well, thursday was a holiday here. so no work and no school. george´s hostuncle has a house with a pool and a sauna. we paid him 3 bolivianos each touse the pool and 5 bolivianos for those who wanted to use the sauna. i didntfeel much like swimming, although it was quite hot out. i hung out in theshade and at the delicious guacamole, french fries, and chocolate chipcookies that we had. of course some of the gringos got a bit crazy and a bitdrunk, but for the most part it was a relaxing party. some of the littlebolivian host siblings came to swim, and they were too cute. they basicallyswim in their underwear or these funny sweater material swim shorts. we allhad a good time goofing around, doing silly yoga poses and gymnastic typestuff. the food was awesome, and it made us all feel like we were at atypical american pool party. it was like being on vacation, but with a bunchof bolivian babies running around.
friday i had my first class with vicky alone at my house. it was kind ofoverwhelming. she is very intense and makes way too much eye contact for myliking. we did a lot of worksheets on grammar, so i feel like i learned alot. i´m just not a big fan of the one on one type learning, it sort ofmakes me nervous. i got through it though and doña willma made us a goodlunch. we had fried swiss chard, carrot and tomato salad...and of coursesome kind of soup with the meat taken out of my bowl. she cooks better whenthe professors are over for lunch lol.
and today is saturday, another wonderful day in bolivia. laura, mathias andi went into cochabamba to go shopping at the cancha. the cancha is this hugemaze like open market where you can get anything from used american clothesto fresh cuts of meat. it is a very confusing and interesting place. youhave to be careful because the child robbers will slice open your bags andtake your stuff without you even knowing. we went looking for the prettyblankets that the bolivian women use to carry everything from babies topotatoes. we found some pretty nice ones, but they were expense. so we endedup buying the cheaper lower quality blankets. laura and i want to carrystuff like the bolivians do. mathias found a cool hat and i also bought somesmaller pieces of colorful fabric to make head bands. i´ll let you all knowif my joann fabrics skills and my mini sewing kit are able to produceanything worthwhile.
after we left cochabamba we came into quillacollo to eat lunch and use theinternet. we ate at an ice cream place called moby dyck´s. it has ahilarious picture of two little gringo kids and a whale on the front window,so we had to check it out. i had a cheese bread type thing and a peachyogurt smoothie, it was so good. then we all ordered ice cream. it wasn´t ahealthy lunch, but it was a nice change from rice, potatoes, and mystery soup.
so that is my life up until now. this week i don´t have much going on. i´mstarting my independent study of spanish grammar and i´ll be doing a lot oflaundry by hand. it should be fun.
well, thanks for reading my endless babble. i hope you enjoyed it.
i want to say happy graduation to emma wagensomer, who graduated last weekand i totall missed it! sorry!
i also want to say thank you to those of you who have sent me emails. i´mgoing to try my best to get back to all of you as soon as possible. thanksfor your patience, and remember that i really do appreciate getting thoseemails! it makes me feel not so far away and out of touch with the states.
i sent love and hugs to all...i´ll try to write again soon.
*all you need is love, love never fails*
paz y amor, beth in bolivia
lo siento que yo no he escrito ningun mensaje en tanto tiempo!
sorry that i have not written any messages in so long!
espero que todos vayan bien. i hope that all of you are doing well.
ok, first before i get into the advenutures of beth in bolivia i must clearup all of the false things that were printed in the news herald newspaperarticle that was in the paper yesterday.1. i did not attend MSU as it says in the title...i went to CMU2. i never called the lifestyle here primitive, i would not use a word likethat in reference to someone´s way of life or culture3. i did not work in a bilingual head start classroom, nor did any of thechildren speak spanish. i told the reporter about how we posted words inspanish around the class room, nothing more.here is the article link in case you still want to read about it, sorry forthe confusion. i feel really bad having those un-truths printed about me insomething that many people will be reading. if anyone feels like emailinganne sullivan at the news herald, please do. though i doubt you´ll see aretraction.http://www.thenewsherald.com/stories/060807/loc_20070608001.shtml
ok, now i need to explain why you have not heard from me in so long. last weekend i went on a tech field trip to tiraque to work in a children´s home.it was awesome and i wrote an hour long email about it earlier this week...and then the computer proceeded to eat it. so i got pretty angry and left the internet place without sending anything. now i´m going to try to re-cap last week.
last friday the whole integrated education group took a bus 2 hours up intothe andes to a place called tiraque. in tiraque there is a children´s homeowned by an evangelical church. we went to put on a self esteem, teambuilding, and leadership workshop along with various computer classes. wearrived at the home on friday night and were given a very warm welcome bythe children and staff. the center is home to about 120 children rangingfrom 5 to 19 years old. not all of the children are orphans, some come fromlarge rural families that can not afford to feed them and send them toschool. those children live at the home during the week and go home to visittheir families on the weekend. so when we were there, there were probablyonly around 70 kids there. the center is pretty large and has its ownsoccer/basketball area. the children work pretty hard, because the center istrying to become self sufficient. they raise pigs, bees, and fish to eat andsell. they also have 2 green houses, one was built by a peace corpsvolunteer. the children take turns doing the chores and taking care of theyounger children. the children sleep in bunk beds and each have a smallwooden cupboard with a lock to keep all of their things in. the latrines aresquat latrines, though pretty nice compared to some of the other ones i haveseen. we spent the time before dinner playing with the kids, and thebolivian boys challenged the gringo boys to a game of soccer. the bolivianboys beat the gringos to a pulp, it was pretty funny. the bolivians reallyseemed to enjoy watching all of the gringos get frustrated and get the ballstolen from them. i spent the evening playing with a group of smallchildren. we played some of the games i learned in argentina and we sangsome songs. when it was dinner time the bell rang for the children to lineup. they all stood in lines and the peace corps trainees had the opportunityto introduce themselves. the children sang us a welcome song and said aprayer before we ate thanking god for the food and for the gringo visitors.dinner was simple and nice. we had a potato, some rice, a fried bananaslice, a fried egg, and a piece of sausage. i happily gave my egg andsausage away and traded a gringo meat lover for his fried banana slice.after dinner we were served tea, which was really nice because the weatherhad turned really cold really quickly. after dinner was cleaned up we put onour workshop. i was in charge of the ice breaker activity. we played a gamewhere everyone stands close together in a circle and one person stands inthe middle. the person in the middle says something about themselves, liketheir favorite food, and anyone who agrees or feels the same has to movefrom their spot quickly and find another spot. the person left without aspot has to stand in the middle and share. the point of the game is todemonstrate that although we are different, we still have a lot of things incommon and can all be friends. after my activity we played severalleadership and team building games. the children really seemed to enjoy itand were not happy when we had to leave.
after leaving the children´s home, we went to the hotel...that was notreally a hotel. there were not locks on the doors, no running water, andthere was garbage under the beds. we finished setting up our travel mosquitonets on top of the beds and went to sleep. the travel mosquito nets arehilarious, you set them up like mini tents and climb in through a drawstringhole. i´ll have to try to send some pictures.
in the morning we had breakfast, bread and tea, at the hotel. we went backto the children´s home and spent the morning playing and giving computerclasses. the center has 5 computers which were part of a past peace corpsvolunteer´s project. we worked with them on how to type a document, save adocument, use paintshop, where to put your fingers on a keyboard, and thatsort of thing. the kids were really excited about it. my group worked oninserting clipart and wordart into microsoft word documents. i had a reallygood time and i learned a lot of computer terms in spanish by working withthem.
when i was not giving a class i was playing with the children. it is soheart warming and heart breaking at the same time to be with them. they havesome much love to give and all they want is love and attention. we had ablast playing a variety of tag games and singing songs. i learned a lot ofnew games and songs that will come in handy when i´m at my site. it isamazing how happy these children are, although they have next to nothing. itreally makes you appreciate what you have, and it also makes you feel kindof guilty. these children have been neglected and mistreated by the world,yet they are some open and willing to reach out to others. we could reallyall take a lesson from them. it reminded me of the children i met in braziland those i worked with in argentina. it really opens your eyes.
while i was playing with the children i met an amazing little boy. his nameis evo, which is the name of bolivia´s current president. he is a 5 year oldorphan that was picked up off the streets of cochabamba. no one really knowshis story, but he says his name is evo and he is 5. this little boy is oneof the kids who lights up the room with his smile and energy. he reminded meof the preschoolers back in mt. pleasant (who did not speak spanish asstated in the newspaper article lol) for some reason he really clung to meand was interested in playing with me. he was full of smiles and hugs. icould not stop hugging him and singing with him. i really had never had anexperience which both warmed and tore up my heart at the same time until imet little evo. you could tell that he had been neglected and deprived ofaffection, but he was determined to make up for lost time and make sure thateveryone around him felt loved. all he wanted to do was hug everyone, dance,and ask 1000 questions about your life and why the gringos were there toplay. i had such a hard time leaving him. he had clung to me in what seemedto be a never ending hug. i just wanted to put him in my backpack and takehim with me. i´m sure that i´m going to have a lot of children touch myheart in that way while i´m here.
after that trip i am now more sure than ever that i am in the right placeand doing the right thing with my life. now i can´t imagine doing anythingelse.
so that was last weekend...now on to the rest of the week.
monday was boring, i worked on my project and finally got it all typed up toturn in. we had tech class in the afternoon and we had interviews with theassistant peace corps director. we talked about site placement, which wasreally exciting for me. the 2 sites i´m most interested in are both in thedepartment of santa cruz. they are called el puquio and la embocada. elpuquio has no electricity, but they bought a generator to run a fewcomputers and the internet. they are just finishing a town library and wouldlike a volunteer to work on promoting literacy. literacy is definitely oneof my favorite development areas. la embocada has never had a peace corpsvolunteer. the town has no electricity or internet, but the peace corps istrying to find some form of communication for emergencies. the town is about15 mintues outside of concepcion, which is a pretty big city. they arelooking for a volunteer to work on nutrition and to train teachers in newteaching styles. i think it would be an awesome challenge to be the firstvolunteer at a site, and i love the idea of working with nutrition, that issomething they are really lacking here.
tuesday was relatively boring. i went into the city and bought some peanutbutter, soy nuts and honey for my little host brother joel. he loves it. i´mso happy that he will eat the peanut butter and soy nuts because i have madeit my personal goal to get him out of stage 1 malnutrition. doña willma isexcited that we found something he loves to eat and that will fatten him upa bit.
wednesday was another day at the training center. we had a presentation onmental health and had our midtraining langauge evaluations. i got a prettygood "report card". we also changed language professors, which means thatnext week i will not have classes with carla on fridays and wednesdays, wehave a new teacher named vicky. she seems pretty nice, but also sort ofstrict. after the meetings and presentations the bus driver roque took us tothe supermarket to buy food for the party on thursday. we made plans to havean american style bbq pool party because it was a bolivian holiday, whichmeans no classes or meetings!
thursday was awesome. first i got up early and went for a run with mathias.we didn´t make it very far, it was cold and the lack of oxygen was hurtingmy lungs. i had breakfast with his host family and then we took a walk tothe cementary. we were told it was close by, but it took us over an hour towalk there. it was beautiful and creepy. the earth was so dry and there wasdust blowing all over the place. almost every grave had fresh flowers, whichwas such a stark contrast to the desert like surroundings. it was a goodexperience to have.well, thursday was a holiday here. so no work and no school. george´s hostuncle has a house with a pool and a sauna. we paid him 3 bolivianos each touse the pool and 5 bolivianos for those who wanted to use the sauna. i didntfeel much like swimming, although it was quite hot out. i hung out in theshade and at the delicious guacamole, french fries, and chocolate chipcookies that we had. of course some of the gringos got a bit crazy and a bitdrunk, but for the most part it was a relaxing party. some of the littlebolivian host siblings came to swim, and they were too cute. they basicallyswim in their underwear or these funny sweater material swim shorts. we allhad a good time goofing around, doing silly yoga poses and gymnastic typestuff. the food was awesome, and it made us all feel like we were at atypical american pool party. it was like being on vacation, but with a bunchof bolivian babies running around.
friday i had my first class with vicky alone at my house. it was kind ofoverwhelming. she is very intense and makes way too much eye contact for myliking. we did a lot of worksheets on grammar, so i feel like i learned alot. i´m just not a big fan of the one on one type learning, it sort ofmakes me nervous. i got through it though and doña willma made us a goodlunch. we had fried swiss chard, carrot and tomato salad...and of coursesome kind of soup with the meat taken out of my bowl. she cooks better whenthe professors are over for lunch lol.
and today is saturday, another wonderful day in bolivia. laura, mathias andi went into cochabamba to go shopping at the cancha. the cancha is this hugemaze like open market where you can get anything from used american clothesto fresh cuts of meat. it is a very confusing and interesting place. youhave to be careful because the child robbers will slice open your bags andtake your stuff without you even knowing. we went looking for the prettyblankets that the bolivian women use to carry everything from babies topotatoes. we found some pretty nice ones, but they were expense. so we endedup buying the cheaper lower quality blankets. laura and i want to carrystuff like the bolivians do. mathias found a cool hat and i also bought somesmaller pieces of colorful fabric to make head bands. i´ll let you all knowif my joann fabrics skills and my mini sewing kit are able to produceanything worthwhile.
after we left cochabamba we came into quillacollo to eat lunch and use theinternet. we ate at an ice cream place called moby dyck´s. it has ahilarious picture of two little gringo kids and a whale on the front window,so we had to check it out. i had a cheese bread type thing and a peachyogurt smoothie, it was so good. then we all ordered ice cream. it wasn´t ahealthy lunch, but it was a nice change from rice, potatoes, and mystery soup.
so that is my life up until now. this week i don´t have much going on. i´mstarting my independent study of spanish grammar and i´ll be doing a lot oflaundry by hand. it should be fun.
well, thanks for reading my endless babble. i hope you enjoyed it.
i want to say happy graduation to emma wagensomer, who graduated last weekand i totall missed it! sorry!
i also want to say thank you to those of you who have sent me emails. i´mgoing to try my best to get back to all of you as soon as possible. thanksfor your patience, and remember that i really do appreciate getting thoseemails! it makes me feel not so far away and out of touch with the states.
i sent love and hugs to all...i´ll try to write again soon.
*all you need is love, love never fails*
paz y amor, beth in bolivia
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