I’m going to Santa Cruz!!! Whoo hoo! My powers of persuasion are apparently still going strong! So what I know about this site so far is that it’s called Charagua, it’s in the Chaco, which means hot hot hot and usually dry (except during the rainy season). Apparantly I can’t escape the Angels Camp vibe because I hear there’s a ton of cowboys and rodeos and that kind of thing in the area. I’m advised to get a horse, but I was really thinking more a dog, but we’ll see. The only good thing about farm country is that there’s lots of good dairy products and meat. And I think when the roads are good I’ll be able to get vegetables when the ladies come in from out of town to sell them. Oh yeah, everyone also takes siestas from 12-3pm everyday to avoid the extreme heat. I could definitely get used to that!! And another bonus about my site is that I have a site mate. Everyone else (except for one other site and a married couple) is alone in their community, which would be super scary. At least I’ll have someone to talk English with (except that I’m not supposed to!!) and reminisce about home sweet home.
Oh yeah, one bad, or just difficult thing about my site is that I have to learn another darn language. It’s called Guarani and it’s impossible to pronounce. It’s not a written language, first of all, and it creates the nasaliest sounds you’ve ever heard. The word for water is simply a grunting sound. And the rest sounds like I have serious speech impediments or have lost my tongue. I can’t say anything with a straight face. I’m a lost cause for Guarani, but we’ll see. We only have a little over a week of classes in it, so most of my learning is going to be once I get there and have to talk with all these grunting, nasaly people.
So tonight everyone going to my department (Santa Cruz) is leaving on a flota (a big crappy bus without a bathroom) for the 12 hour bus ride into the city of Santa Cruz. I know for a fact that it only stops twice along the way, so I’m not going to drink anything after lunch. This is going to be pure hell!! I already have to pee just thinking about it. Okay, but after the bus ride, we’ll arrive in Santa Cruz (which is now our regional city, so like we go there for medical checkups and to get our mail, etc.). This is of course if the roads aren’t blocked. There’s a big transportation strike going on in almost every city, and there’s a good chance we’ll be blocked out of somewhere for who knows how long. And oh yeah, the 11 of us are a mix of Natural Resource, Environmental Education, and Agriculture people. We’re the biggest group. The other departments are smaller, so there’s less going to each regional city.
Anyway, Monday we have a tour of the regional city and hopefully we’ll meet our counterparts (the people we mainly work with in our communities, but most of them leave us after the first week or so, so we have to go out and find our own work buddies). Tuesday we then travel with our counterparts (if they show up) to our site. My trip is 8 hours from the regional city, but I hear that the roads are so bad no one can get in or out at the moment. In that case it’s going to suck super bad because I really want to see my site!! I’m dying here! If we do get in I’ll get a tour of the community, talk to the volunteers that are there right now who are about to finish their service, and hopefully see where I’ll be living the next two years. We’re supposed to spend until Saturday there. If I don’t get in, I have no idea what I’ll be doing for a week. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. So then Saturday we make the long journey back to the regional city, then Sunday we get back on the flota from hell for 12 hours and get into Cochabamba at night. Then I have to be up and ready for classes again on Monday. The only thing I’m mad about is that that leaves no time for laundry!! Oh well.
So that’s what I’m up to at the moment. I just have to pack really quick, go to the Terminal to buy my bus ticket, and then wait until 9 or 10pm to start this wonderful journey. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back (if I actually see it!).

Man has it been crazy here the last couple of days. And I should mention before I begin that I’m going on 4 hours of sleep over the last two nights, so if it doesn’t make much sense, sorry. It all started Friday morning (Semana Santa), when I was forced out of bed to start peeling potatoes. From 8-12pm we chopped, peeled, pounded, breaded, fried, and cooked until I wanted to pass out. Then at exactly noon we sat down to a two hour lunch of epic proportions. There were at least 4 potato dishes, but only one was actually tasty. It was a ball of mashed potatoes stuffed with a bunch of crap and a hard boiled egg, then fried. It was heavenly. We also had rice, arroz con leche, chocolate milk, this cake-like bread stuff, soup, fried fish, hunks of straight up cheese, fava beans with butter, mashed zuccini crap, and I don’t even remember what else. So after that there was a good old-fashioned siesta because I couldn’t move. However, soon after that I found myself peeling more potatoes and watching my butch gramma kill, pluck, and de-intestine at least 20 chickens. Why you ask? The next day, Saturday, was my sister’s quinceneta party. Talk about a big deal. They brought in a DJ, a gazillion tables and chairs, and even had a new kitchen made in the backyard to accommodate all the food they were going to be making! So all Friday evening and Saturday morning we were setting up for that and of course cooking, cooking, cooking. Finally at around 4pm on Saturday guests starting arriving and the damned Regaeton (sp?) music started to blast. And blast it did. In fact, it did not stop blasting until 5am. I could feel myself going crazy. The exact same beat, thumping over and over for 13 hours straight will apparently do that to you. I tried to go to bed at midnight, but lucky me, the party was directly outside my window, so I got to hear the world’s worst Bolivian DJ yell God knows what all night long. The only event that broke up the long night a little was when a fellow volunteer got locked out of her house at 2am and had to come sleep on my floor. It was at least a little comforting to know that someone else had to endure the same torturous fate as me.
Ok, so I just went into the backyard to check out the damage and boy can those Bolivians drink!! There are 6 empty bottles of rum and at least 10 cases of beer all strewn about the lawn. And all the uneaten food is covered in flies and stinkiness. I really hope I don’t have to help do the dishes!
So that’s the end of my venting on the last two sleepless nights. It’s Sunday morning, so I’m still a little bitter. All I know is that a nap is definitely in my future. Oh yeah, Happy Easter everyone!! I really hope there’s no Easter celebration here. I’m all partied out for the time being. But I wish you all the best chocolate Easter bunnies and jelly beans!!

So I’m back from Semana Tecnica and all is well. Just as I thought, the Altiplano is beautiful, but freezing. If you stand in the sun you feel amazing, but get the worst burn of your life, and if you stand in the shade to avoid the burnage, you freeze to death. And don’t get me started on the wind!! The wind there is unheard of. People have to close their shops down when the wind storms come. Obviously I wouldn’t last a day. But if we don’t dwell on the weather, it’s a really nice place. We stayed in Oruro city for several days, and that’s a real city. We’re talking 200,000 people. I even had pizza one night (gringo food is heaven because it contains neither potatoes nor rice)! But then again I also had llama (which is absolutely delicious!!! You seriously gotta try it!), so it’s still got culture to it. We also traveled to neighboring and not so neighboring villages to give presentations (that had to be translated into Quechua because that’s what most people speak up there) on natural fertilizers, pesticides, and compost production. One of the most awesome car trips was the three hour road to Sacaca in which we passed the most gorgeous scenery, fields of grazing llama, and crazy gigantic rock structures that almost look like stone henge. It was soooo worth all the chiropractic work I’m going to have to get done on my neck after riding on the rocky roads from hell for that long. Seriously, the pictures don’t do it justice. The whole week we spent working and talking with the campesinos (farmers) in the campos (way out in the middle-of-nowhere-like-you’ve-never-seen-it towns). It was really amazing. The people are so friendly, smart, and generous. In fact, every time we went anywhere we had to eat all of whatever kind of food they gave us. It’s really rude to leave anything behind, and they think it’s rude not to offer food. My personal favorite snack was when we were shuffled into a greenhouse to crouch around a gigantic (we’re talking Nana sized bowl) of potatoes, each grab as many potatoes as we could, and plunge it into another pot of tuna (where on earth did they get tuna?) and eat it with our hands. That was definitely my first tuna dipped potato, but to be honest, it was pretty good. Once we were even forced to eat half a fried chicken each with fava beans and potatoes as a snack literally not even an hour after lunch. All I can say about Bolivians is that even if they are poor as far as material goods go, they are rich in every other way. They have enough food to feed an army (even if it is all potatoes) and enough friends and family to share it with. They’ve really got it made as far as I can tell.
Oh yeah, so one of the sucky things was that half of our group got super sick. One kid was complaining of a headache, so they took him to the doctor and discovered that he had heart attack level blood pressure. So one of our teachers had to drive him back to Cochabamba immediately (a 4 hour drive starting at 9pm!!) to get him out of the high altitude. I feel so bad for him, but at the same time I should have tried that trick so that I for sure wouldn’t be sent to the Altiplano!! But no, that really does suck, but from what I’ve heard he’s just fine right now. The other four kids just had good old-fashioned diarrhea for 3 days nonstop. But then they got on antibiotics and all is well. I lucked out pretty well, I’ve been fine up until today, but now I think I’m getting a cold. I think it was all the temperature changes or something. Who knows. But I’ll take a stuffy nose over a heart attack and nonstop diarrhea any day.
I should also mention that our group got back to Cochabamba three days earlier than scheduled. I couldn’t be happier because that means we get a 3.5 day weekend!! Apparently the guy in charge of where we were going Thur- Sat. bailed out on us, so we had no choice but to drive back home. And tomorrow is Semana Santa (Good Friday), so I’ll get to eat the 12 dishes with my family like I had wanted!! Yay!! Apparently we can’t eat breakfast, but I’m planning on sneaking some anyway. That’s a stupid rule. Today when I got home I did 4, that’s right, 4 straight hours of laundry. I sat on the little kiddy stool, hunched over barrels of water and dirty clothes, washing in one position for exactly four hours. Once I had finished and all my freshly washed clothes were hanging in the sun to dry, a huge storm erupted and all my clothes got rained on for an hour. It was unbelievable!! But that’s life here I guess.
I find out on Monday for sure where I’m going to be placed for the next two years!!! I’m so nervous!! And then the week after that we go on site visits for another week to visit the city, meet our counterpart (the person we work with most of the time), and hopefully find housing. Oh, soon I’ll miss the good times living out of a suitcase and crappy hostels!! Think good thoughts on Monday and I’ll let you know as soon as possible where I’ll be!!

Okay, so I’ve found myself in the middle of a major family drama. It’s been brewing for a week or so, but yesterday it finally got resolved. It goes a little something like this: Sunday morning my aunt approached me and told me I had to move into her house because of a wedding in August. Yeah, the reason wasn’t really a reason. So before I knew it, about 5 or 6 Bolivians were in my room grabbing my stuff and running to the other house and depositing it in an empty room. Within an hour my entire room was empty, including the bed, which my surprisingly strong aunt picked up and carried all by herself to the other house. So I hurriedly unpacked my stuff and then went off to work on our group project until later that night. When I returned, I had to go to the other house to hang up my wet, soggy clothes (I washed them that morning and as I was hanging them up to dry it started to rain, so I had to leave them in a wet heap in my room). My old family ran up to me asking why I had left them and that they want me to come back, etc. I was completely confused. I assumed my aunt had told my mom (her sister) that she was moving me, but apparently she didn’t. The whole family was sad/pissed that I had left without saying anything. And I was pissed too because I preferred living in the other house and I wanted to move back ASAP. But by that time it was too late, so I just went to bed in the new house and asked the Peace Corps lady about it on Monday. She was mad that my aunt had moved me without asking PC (I’m just going to start abbreviating it) and that there were now two gringitas in one house (yeah, I now live with another trainee). So that night she called my aunt and they had a 40 minute argument over the phone, but nothing really came of it. We just found out that the reason for my move had nothing to do with the wedding, which pissed off the PC lady even more. So Tuesday Christa (PC lady) came to my house during my Spanish class to talk to my aunt. However, my aunt coincidentally was gone all day. All day. 9-9. She’s never gone. Wednesday she called with no response. Finally Thursday she was able to get a hold of her and the conclusion was that I have to stay at the new house. It’s kind of a bummer, but I’ll survive. Actually, the new room is much more modern and “better” (i.e. no dirt floor and that kind of thing). But dude, every door has at least 3 locks and I only have keys to some of them. I’m continuously either locked in or out. I hate that! I was late to Spanish class yesterday because I was locked in my own house!!
Okay, the other stressful thing in my life right now is all the work I have to do. I feel like I’m back in school. This Sunday I have to give a 45 min. presentation (in Spanish!!) with my PDA group. That just means, well, don’t worry about that. Too hard to explain. The bottom line is that this weekend is going to be packed. We have to prepare for that speech and give it, then immediately begin working on three more! Yeah, we have to give three more 45 min. presentations on totally different topics in Spanish during Semanan Tecnica (will describe later). And tonight I’m going to the city to celebrate two trainees’ birthdays, which means I’ll be out of commission for all tonight and a good part of tomorrow. Oh what a busy life! Okay, question for you all: if you were living in a land-locked country, would you choose to have your birthday dinner at a sushi place? I’d say no, but I guess that’s not the majority’s vote. I mean, I like sushi as much as the next person, but where are they getting it from exactly? It just can’t be that fresh. I don’t like my raw fish to have traveled two weeks over the Andes on a llama’s back. But I guess that’s just me. All I can do is try some and see if I get any severe stomach trauma. It’ll be a good experiment.
Other than the unstable living conditions and loads of work, all is good. Next week we leave for Semana Tecnica, which is just a 10-day trip to the altiplano (exactly where I DO NOT want to go for the next two years) in which we learn about what current Natural Resource volunteers are doing in their sites. We have to give our charlas (those presentations) to farmers who probably know a lot more about natural pesticides and fertilizers than I do. We also will be doing some good old manual labor like digging ditches, building retaining walls, and planting trees. It’s in a department called Oruro. It’s at like 13,000 ft or something. The bottom line is that it’s cold, cold, cold. I’m shivering just thinking about it. And the bad part is that for the Natural Resource Group, there are 5 open spaces and only 9 of us. So there’s a good chance that I’ll have to go there. We’re going to talk with the head dude during the trip about what our preferred choices are, so we’ll see if I can convince him to put me somewhere warm. I really want to go to a department called Santa Cruz. It’s really hot and humid (which will kind of suck), and full of malaria carrying mosquitos, leishmaniasis carrying sandflies, and dengue fever carrying mosquitos. But seriously, I’d rather have my skin eaten off my body from protozoa than be cold all the time. Plus, I just hear from everyone that Santa Cruz rocks, is gorgeous, and is a great place to live. Hopefully I can convince them to put me there!!
Oh yeah, there’s lots of praying and stuff going on because it’s getting close to Semana Santa (Good Friday), which is a super big deal here. On Friday (which I’m soooo mad that I’m going to miss) they eat 12 different dishes for dinner. 12! That’s awesome! I can’t believe I’m going to miss it! But at least I’m not missing the fireworks, the parades, and the weird nun ladies walking around the streets with megaphones and gigantic crosses talking about Jesus. It’s kind of cool. I love how there’s always something to celebrate around here.
Well, I love and miss you all and hope you’re all doing good back in the states. I’ll write again when I get back from Semana Tecnica!