Hola todos! I finally made it to Bolivia!! I touched down yesterday morning after 3 back to back and utterly exhausting plane rides from D.C. to Miami, from Miami to La Paz, and from La Paz to Cochabamba. At each landing we literally had to run to our gate in order to make it on the plane on time. In fact, we were a half hour late to our last plane, but luckily they held it for us! And unfortunately I have a cold, so I was all stuffed up for the wonderful multiple elevation changes, which believe me is not fun. But oh well. After we landed in Cochabamba we were greeted by current peace corps volunteers in different parts of the country (near this area) who came here to welcome us. That actually made me feel a lot better, seeing that they all looked happy and healthy and full of energy. So after taking a bus thingy to Hotel Regina we put our stuff down and then began a welcome introduction from our training director. We then got a couple hours rest where we all passed out and/or took showers. But back before we knew it we were getting safety lessons, banking lessons, etc. What’s nice is that the peace corps volunteers took us out to dinner that night so we could get to know them and ask them questions and get to know the area a little better. They all seem pretty cool. One even adopted a dog! I want to do that once I get to my site!!
So today we woke up early and headed off to the training center where we had our project, medical, language, and host family interviews. They just wanted to get a sense of our language skills, technical abilities, our medical situation, and what we wanted in a host family. We then got more health lectures by the head doctor dude. Tomorrow after a three hour Spanish test they will assign us to a host family which we will go to on Saturday and spend the next 11 weeks there. We’re also getting a massive dose of vaccines. Let me tell you there is not a second to rest around here. We’ve got a lot to do in the next 3 months!
I also forgot to mention that there are 31 (there were 32 but one girl dropped out at staging) people in my group, which is the largest they’ve ever had. We’re all either Natural Resource Management, Environmental Education, Agriculture, or Agro business. So far I really like all the kids in my group.
Oh yeah, it’s also a holiday here right now. It’s called Carnival. It’s a two week celebration (of what I haven’t been able to determine yet), but we’re just catching the tail end of it. But that doesn’t stop all the kids (and even grown adults!!!) from throwing water balloons at everyone, especially the gringos!! I’ve already had about 6 water balloons thrown at me! Some even from moving vehicles! Man, it’s a jungle out here! But hey, it’s quite festive and exciting. There’s a band playing outside of my hotel right now.
Well, gotta get to bed, but I’ll write again as soon as possible!!