Beth in Bolivia...the long awaited update

mi querida familia y mis queridos amigos,
my dear family and my dear friends,

lo siento que ha sido tanto tiempo desde que no escribi.
i am sorry that it has been so long since i wrote.

ahorita les voy a contar mis aventuras y historietas de los ultimos meses.
right now i am going to tell you my adventures and little stories from the last months.

primero quiero agradecer a las personas que me han mandado saludos, cartas y paquetes.
first i want to thank those people who have sent me letters, cards and packages.

es muy lindo leer sus palabras y recibir sus regalitos.
it is very nice to read your words and receive your little gifts.

ahorita estoy en la ciudad de santa cruz, pero manaña ya me voy a mi sitio de nuevo.
right now i am in the city of santa cruz, but tomorrow i am already going to my site again.

no se si voy a mandar este correo electronico ahora o desde my sitio en un par de dias.
i do not know if i am going to send this email now or from my site in a few days.

vamos a ver.
we shall see.

entonces ya voy a empezar, aunque realmente no se como ni donde comenzar.
well now i am going to begin, although i really do not know how or where to start.

i think i need to go way back in time...to perhaps around the 11th of december. after returning from my trip to cochabamba i stayed a few days in santa cruz. then there was a little political craziness here in bolivia (which i am sure you can read about on the internet), so peace corps wanted to get us all out of the city as soon as possible. (basically the political situation in bolivia is messed up, half the country is for the president and his new constitution and the other half is not, and then there is a whole group of people who just want to overthrow everything and govern themselves...i actually do not really fully understand what the heck is going on). so because i had to get out of the city, i went to try to buy bus tickets...but they were sold out for days already. so my boss and the peace corps administration staff decided it would be best to send me to the town of Concepcion to my friend laura´s site so that i could just catch a bus to my site from there the next day.staying in the city of santa cruz did not seem like a good option to them, considering there were marches, demonstrations, and a hunger strike going on.

so, i went. it was a good time, got to hang out with laura for a few days and help her out with some christmas activities she put on at the library.

the only problem was that the bus from concepcion to my site was sold out. then the next day it was not going due to bad roads. then the next time i tried to leave the bus still not going to go because the road was bad. so there i was, stuck with no hope of leaving. finally the woman who sells the bus tickets told me that the roads were so bad (more like rivers than roads she said) that the bus would not be heading out towards my site until march. well that was no good.

so then i was in a pinch. peace corps had prohibited travel to the city of santa cruz due to the political situation. so i could not go back there to try to take the other bus i would normally take. but no bus was leaving to my site from where i was until march...so that was not going to work at all. but after long conversations with my boss and meetings about me and my situation at the peace corps head quarters in cochabamba (thats right, they had meetings about me because i am so special haha)...they decided it would be ok for me to travel back to the city of santa cruz to try to take the bus from santa cruz out to my site. so i got back on the same bus i had came to concepcion on and headed all the way back 6.5 hours to the city of santa cruz. which means i totally backtracked and wasted an estimated 13 hours travel from santa cruz to concepcion just to turn around and go back again. at this point it was the 19th of december. i had been stuck for over a week at this point, so i was glad to get going on my way. i made it to santa cruz with no problems and headed out on the bus to my site the very next morning. the trip was uneventful (which is like a miracle because we all know that my bus trips are usually the main topics of conversation for my group emails).

so i arrived in my site on the evening of the 20th of december. i unpacked my stuff. cleaned up my room. and got some much needed rest. travel by bus in bolivia is exhausting.

and then i realized that it was almost christmas and that my boyfriend josh would be coming soon...which meant that i would have to get back into the city in order to pick him up on the 27th. (yet another bus ride, yippee!). this was going to prove to me another sort of challenge. i knew that the bus was unreliable to begin with...but now it was the rainy season and the roads get all muddy or wash out. basically the roads become a series of small rivers and mud holes. plus it was the holiday season, and i was pretty sure that the bolivians would not be driving their buses out to or of the jungle on christmas eve or christmas day. so i asked around my community to see what the situation was going to be like. i found out that the bus would not be traveling from puquio to the city the 24th-27th. that was a problem...since i needed to pick up josh at the airport on the 27th. so i stayed in puquio a couple of nights only and headed back to the city on the 23th of december to spend christmas in the city with my friends and to wait for josh to arrive.

christmas in bolivia was strange. for one thing, it is as hot as a boy scout campfire down here...and to me christmas means freezing cold weather and snow. it just does not look like christmas here. there are palm trees, butterflies, people eating ice cream wearing next to nothing. (that is no exaggeration, the women here in the city dress like supermodels at the beach).

i could not get into the christmas spirit. christmas is a family holiday, and my family 4000 some miles away. i was bummed out, and so were my friends. i spent christmas eve with my friends anna, tristan and mathias. we just sat around all day being bored and sad. there was not much to do. walking around the city hearing christmas music when it feels like the 4th of july is not fun. it is depressing. i missed my family. i missed my friends. i wanted to play in the snow and smell a real christmas tree. but we finally pulled ourselves together. remembering that we should be thankful to have eachother. my friends here in the peace corps have become like family to me.

but then mathias and tristan got invited to go to church with a childrens home and spend the evening with them. so that left anna and i on our own. for while we sat around in bed watching tv and wishing we had something to do. then anna got a phone call from her mom. anna´s mom felt bad for us and told us to get dressed up and go out for dinner somewhere nice, her treat. so anna and i got all dressed up (yes i even put on a dress, shaved my legs, and wore a tiny bit of makeup haha) and went out on the town. we tried to find a nice restaurant to eat at, but it was christmas eve and pretty much everything was closed. we stopped at a few churches close to the plaza and went in to listen to christmas carols and pray, which was very nice. the churches here are beautiful. we walked around the main plaza, which was full of people and christmas lights. it finally did feel a bit like christmas. but we still needed something to eat for dinner. we ended up at an ice cream place called Dumbo´s (yes like the elephant from the disney movie). we both orded huge ice cream sundaes and laughed about how we were out on christmas eve wearing dresses and eating ice cream under palm trees. in the end, we had a good time. although it was still hard to be away from the states and our families.

then on the 27th of december my boyfriend josh arrived to visit! it was absolutely wonderful to see him. i can not even begin to describe how excited i was to go pick him up at the airport. it was his first trip out of the united states, and his longest vacation ever. (he was here for 16 days). so it was very exciting for him...and nerve racking too i am sure because he does not speak very much spanish and international travel is no walk in the park when you are doing it for the first time all alone. but he made it here safely and we spent a couple days in the city before i took him out to the jungle with me. in the city we spent our time walking around, riding in scary taxis (the traffic here is horrible and traffic laws either do not exist or are just not enforced), and eating yummy food at all of my favorite places. i think i would have to say that josh's favorite thing here in the city is a place called yogen fruz. it is the most delicious frozen yogurt place in the entire world as for as i am concerned. it is simple, healthy and delicious. you get to pick 2 types of frozen fruit and then they use a machine to whip the fruit into frozen yogurt. it turns out all fluffy, fruity, and creamy. so needless to say, we ate a lot of it. so after a few days in the city we headed out to my site. and that is where the real adventure began.

fortunately we were able to get seats together on my little micro bus....the bad news is that the seats we had were not very good. josh was seated directly behind a half broken seat that was falling onto his knees. and a little old man sat down in the seat. the whole ride the little old man kept trying to recline his seat back further, not realizing that the seat was not a recliner...it was just plain broken. so josh's poor knees got squished the whole ride. not that it would have been much better for him if we had different seats. josh is so tall that he would have had problems sitting in any seat on the micro. bolivians are not very big people, so their buses are not exactly made to accomodate people over 6 feet tall. josh was a trooper though, and toughed it out. other than that the ride was relatively uneventful. the bus stopped a few times to conduct random business in small communities or let drunk people go pee. one time we stopped because we came to a place in the road where a small stream of clear water was slowly running over the road. the bus crossed over it without problems and then stopped. all of the people got off the bus and started to use the water from the stream to wash their hands and faces, wet down their hair, and fill up their empty soda bottles. (and yes they drank the water from the stream....josh and i did not drink the water but i did use it to wash off my face a little bit. drinking that water would be like asking to get diarrhea haha). a teen boy from my community who was on the bus also decided that one of the little puppies travelling on the bus was probably too hot...so he dunked him in the water. the puppy ended up looking like a little wet rat.

so finally after our long trip we arrived in my site. we were greeted by many people...all whom were excited to see and meet josh. especially since he was the "tallest most white foreign man they had ever seen". it was too funny watching all of my neighbors look him up and down like he was an alien or something. josh is not out of the ordinary looking by american standards, but here in bolivia he is a giant.

we had an awesome time in my site. josh drew attention like he was some sort of famous rock star. the children loved him. we spent most of our time playing with the kids, cooking, washing dishes, washing clothes, and getting water. truth be told most of my time on a typical day is eaten up by mundane daily tasks, like going to get water or washing dishes. so josh got to experience the true jungle life that i have been living down here for over half of a year now. (crazy how time flies by no?) josh learned what it is like to hand wash clothes, bathe with rain water, and use a disgusting smelly bug infested latrine. he handled it all very well, just as i knew he would. the only thing that really bothered him was one particular type of bug. in the jungle we have tiny little bugs that look like gnats...but they are far worse. they do not sting or bite or anything like that....they just like to fly directly into your ears, eyes, nose and mouth. they are everywhere. they never leave you alone. they are quite annoying at first, but i have gotten used to them.

new years eve in my site was a good time. i decided that it would be fun to climb to the top of the water tank and toast at midnight. so that is exactly what we did. of course everyone who saw us thought that we were crazy people. but we went up anyway. we carried up my alarm clock (so we would know when it was midnight) and a bottle of lemon lime soda for our toast. the view from the top of the water tank is pretty at night. especially when they put on the electricity and the whole village lights up. they had a electricity for new years eve, so the view was nice from the top as we did our count down. at midnight we toasted with our delicious soda. then the crazy little bolivian kids started shooting off fireworks....directly up at us! it was a bit scary...but makes the story of new years eve 2007 in el puquio even cooler right?

josh and i had a wonderful time together. we taught the kids how to play "go fish" and use a frisbee. some of the children had never actually seen or touched a frisbee before, so that was a lot of fun. we participated in a church volleyball game that earned josh the reputation of being a "huge white guy capable of instilling fear in the opposition". one of the professors was using the sound system they had hooked up to a generator to narrate the game like we were on television or something. he had a good time making commentary about josh blocking the ball with his "arms that reach the sky" and hitting the ball "with the force of several men". it was hilarious, and i am sure that josh felt like a rockstar or something.

i did not plan very well when it came to our food supply. so poor josh had to eat a whole bunch of oatmeal, potatoes, rice, bread and pancakes...i guess i sort of put him on the ANTI-low carb diet. but being as wonderful as he is, he did not complain too much.

i also decided to show off my baking skills one afternoon...which almost turned into a disaster. i had my chocolate cake batter all ready and had lit the oven to preheat. but then...when i went to put the cake in the oven i realized that it was not hot. the gas had run out. that meant i had no way to cook the cake...or cook anything else...or boil water to drink. it was bad news. so josh and i had to go on a little adventure running around the village asking if anyone had a gas tank to sell or knew anyone who may have one. since there are only 4 or 5 gas stoves in the village (including mine), finding a spare gas tank is not easy. i got excited when i found out the merchant truck had just arrived the day before because i figured some tanks might have arrived on it. so josh and i ventured off to where the merchant parks his big truck and asked him. he was very nice and even spoke a little bit of english with us, but unfortunately he did not have any gas tanks to sell. he told me he sold the ones he did have to one of my neighbors. so josh and i back tracked to my neighbor´s store and asked him if he would sell us some gas to cook. he explained that he had bought an extra tank because his was almost empty, so he really did not have extra. but seeing the mini crisis i was having he agreed to trade me my empty tank for his full one. and then in the evening he could send his son on the motorcycle to the nearest town that may have gas (about 25 km away) to trade in the empty tank. i was so thankful to him that i even agreed to pay his son a little extra cash for going through the trouble of driving out there on the motorcycle. and then when my cake came out of the oven, i went and delivered his family half of a chocolate cake, warm and fresh out of the oven. i think after sampling my cake they were extra happy that they had helped me out.

one afternoon josh and i decided to go on a little adventure to find the river. i had always been told there was a river nearby (but nearby is a really relative term here in bolivia...sometimes nearby means over 20km away haha) and so i figured it would be fun to go see it. we ventured off in the late afternoon walking with nothing but a camara in josh´s pocket. (yes we were being risky...normally you should not venture out into the jungle without at least taking a flashlight and some water...or some bug repellent, but we were just being spontaneous i guess). i asked a few little kids how to get to the river and which trail to take so that josh and i would have some idea where to head.

we ventured through the jungle on a narrow little path that seemed to be used only by cows and a few adventurous motorcycle drivers. besides all the bugs, the jungle is awesome. i love looking at all of the differnt green plants and hearing all of the strange sounding birds. some of the birds make pretty songs, but others make horrific screeching child noises and i do not like it one bit. after walking about a half hour, we came to an open field with cows and a small little mud house. and then josh noticed that there was a river passing in front of the house. so we had actually found what we set out to find. we walked through the open green field and passed by the cows and a few horses and got to the river. the river was not very wide and was not moving very fast, expect for one small part where it ran over a bunch of big rocks. there was a giant twisted old tree growing out of a pile of giant rocks right on the edge of the river and a bit into it. it looked awesome, so josh and i decided we should climb out onto it. it was a lot of fun, though slightly dangerous. i was wearing flip flops...which are not very good for climbing on slippery rocks and trees. but we made it into the tree safely. but then, just as we were starting to take pictures of the awesome little hideaway we had found, the rain started pouring down in buckets. we had no where to go to hide from the rain...so we got soaking wet. it was super hot out, so the rain actually felt nice. but then we realized the rocks were only going to get more slippery so we had to climb out back onto the shore. after awhile the rain finally stopped and we were able to start the hike back. somehow we got a little lost on the way back and ended up coming out onto the main road that leads out of my community, but that was no problem because i knew where i was. so that was our adventure for the day.

when josh had to leave my site (sad face), we planned to take the bus out into the city on the morning of the 8th. josh was supposed to leave bolivia on the 11th, and we wanted to make sure we got him there in time. it was a good thing we planned ahead, because the morning of the 8th we showed up to the bus stop only to be informed (after waiting a half hour) that the bus never arrived the night before, so there would be no bus going out that morning. that was a small set back. so i just asked the girl who sells the tickets if i could get tickets for the next morning....but she told me they were sold out already, plus the bus would probably still not be running anyways. it had obviously broken down pretty bad since it had not made it in yet. so then josh and i were in a pinch. bolivian bus travel is an unpredictable thing, you never quite know if or when you will make it to your destination...or in what kind of condition you and your baggage will arrive. i hated to try to wait to leave my site on the 10th....the day before josh´s flight...because that was cutting it too close. but there did not seem to be much of an option.

BUT THEN...an angel in the form of a man on a motorcycle pulled up in front of the bus stop and said, "hey beth, i have a solution for you to get out of here". and i said, "oh yeah? let´s hear it". so he informed me that there was a pick up truck leaving in a few minutes to head out to the town of concepcion...and from there i could take a bus to santa cruz. i looked at josh and said..."ok, come on". josh was probably a little confused seeing as how he did not understand the conversation i had just had in spanish. but then i explained to him that we would be travelling in a pick up truck. josh probably also assumed that we would be riding inside the truck...but of course that was not the case. we ended up sitting in the back of a tiny pick up truck with 5 or 6 other people, josh´s suit case, my giant back pack, an empty gas tank for a stove, a variety of duffle bags, a big plastic jug and a bunch of old soda bottles filled with liquid. we were packed tight and had to sit on the edge of the truck bed...not exactly the safest arrangement. but we did what we had to do. the ride was quite exciting...the driver was going way too fast and we had to pretty much hold on for dear life the entire way. the ride took little over 3.5 hours...including several potty breaks. the potty breaks were funny. as soon as the truck stopped everyone got off and walked a little ways from the truck, forming a perfect circle of peeing people. it was hilarious. don´t worry though...i ventured a little further into the bushes to take care of my business...i did not want anyone to get a free lookie lookie at my white bum haha. during the whole ride the wind was whipping at our faces and the sun was beating down on us. branches were whipping josh´s body and bugs kept hitting me in the face. needless to say that we arrived in concepcion tired, wind burned, sun burned and extremely dirty. thankfully, concepcion is the home of my good friend and fellow volunteer laura. laura happily took us in for the day, fed us, and let us use her shower. and in the evening at 11pm josh, laura and i all took the bus into santa cruz and arrived around 5am. it was exhausting. but on the upside, we saved money because we slept on the bus and did not have to pay for a room at a hostel or hotel.

the next few days were spent in the city, recovering from out travels and introducing josh to some of the other volunteers. of course we also at a crazy amount of frozen yogurt again haha. we also spent time taking me to the doctor...because i magically contracted an ear infection and a viral eye infection called something something keratitis which causes little scratches on your eyes. but no worries, i am doing just fine now.

but then, josh had to leave. needless to say it was tough to say goodbye and i was sad...but having him with me for over 2 weeks was well worth the anxiety of having to send him off to the states again. and so that was the end of my adventures with josh.

after josh left i went back to my site. and of course it was a long exhausting trip...and of course the stupid micro bus broke down. something hit the underside of the bus and was causing all of the oil to leak out. so we got stuck waiting in the middle of the jungle while the men tried to fix the problem. and as usual, they worked their magic with nothing more than a coke bottle, toilet paper, chewing gum and ingenuity. i swear they must put these bus drivers through some kind of mechanic boot camp. its like they are all related to rambo or macgyver or something. it is truly impressive. finally i made it back to my site and figured that i would finally get to get started on some work for the school year, which starts the second week of february. but, that was not the case. the english professor, the kindergarten teacher and half of the other teachers were not in town. the had all traveled to the city for vacation. most of the teenagers were gone too...off visiting relatives in the cities. so i had nothing better to do than hang out for a couple weeks. i played with my little kid friends a lot and took care of my host family´s dog´s new litter of 7 puppies. we are actually keeping 2 of them, so i am excited. maybe i can win them over and convince them to protect me from the scary evil dogs that try to chase and bite me at night. wouldn´t that be nice? i spent a lot of time with delcy and giovana, my host cousin and sister. we did some baking, climbed the water tower to watch the rains come in, and spent a lot of time climbing trees to eat yummy fruit. it is plum season here, and the plums are delicious. it is also guayaba season. guayba is a weird squishy yellow fruit about the size of a baseball that is watermelon pink inside. it is pretty good.

after 2 weeks in my site i had to make the trip back into the city to get my eyes checked again to make sure that my infection was gone. so that is where i am today. my eyes are doing better, in case you were wondering. the ride into the city was not too eventful, until we got almost into the city. there has been a lot of rain here which has caused major flooding and damage all over the country. they say that the rain is worse than in other years for some reason. (and yes, bolivians do believe in global warming). several people have died due to the flooding of rivers. anyways, when we got close to the city we encountered a section of the road about 300 meters long to be covered in around 2.5 feet of standing water. it looked like a river. but since the people here are crazy...we decided to follow all the other trucks and cars and drive right through that water. it was kind of scary. i was pretty sure we were going to break down in the middle of it and that i would have to swim to dry land. but, we made it without problems. i will never understand how such cruddy little buses can take such big risks and still come out in one piece...but hey, this is bolivia and bolivia is full of crazy suprises.

well, that is all i have for now. for those of you who made it through this one...you get a old star for patience. sorry that it was so long, but i had to cover a long period of time. i hope that you enjoyed it in spite of the fact that it was 1000000000000000000000000000000000000 words long haha.

i would like to wish a happy late bday to all of the december and january birthdays i have missed. and happy early bday to those january and february bday i have not missed yet haha. so...

Happy Birthday
Uncle Paul
Corey
Brendan
Emma W.
Lauren
Uncle Gary
Sara
Jake B.
Basia
Monika
Uncle Mike
Uncle Steve
Julie
Uncle Larry
Aunt Donna
Lisa
Rachel
and anyone else i may be forgetting...sorry!

know that i love and miss you all. thank you again for your continued love and support. i hope that the new year is treating you well. keep in touch and write emails when you can. i like to hear what is going on back home.

take care. know that i am doing well. i am healthy and happy. more adventures or beth meray in bolivia will be coming your way soon. (and one day i just might have to write a book about it all haha)

tons of hugs are flying up over the equator and landing on your doorsteps as we speak. enjoy.

peace and love, beth