Guess what everyone, I am now officially a volunteer and not just a trainee!! Whoo hoo! And not only that, I am no longer writing you from the lovely comforts of Cochabamba, but am in fact in my new home of Charagua!! Yep, today is my second day here and I really don’t know what to think or how to feel yet. It’s really beautiful here, that’s for sure. But what the hell am I supposed to be doing for the next two years??? That is a scary thought!! And I’m already having English withdraws. I mean, I went from speaking it everyday with everyone in training to being dropped in this little village with only Spanish, and not only that, a funky Spanish (they drop every s, it’s weird, it’s like at the end of every word they don’t know what to do with their tongues)! Needless to say, I can’t understand a damn thing anyone is saying.
Well, let’s back up first. I have no idea where I left off. But let’s just start at swear-in. That was Friday, April 18. We had a nice little ceremony in the afternoon, in which I was forced to sing the Bolivian national anthem (and ours, too) and that night we went out to a delicious dinner of non-Bolivian food. It was so good!! I’m sure I’ll be dreaming of that night for the next two years. Saturday we had to go to a bike safety class (I don’t know why, but if we ever want to get one in the future, peace corps will pay for it if we prove that we were at the workshop) and later that night all the Santa Cruz kids and I hopped on a flota to Santa Cruz. We left at 9pm and got there at 8:30am. Again, not the funnest thing in the world. But anyways, Sunday we just relaxed and walked around the city. Monday was a whole different story. We had an official orientation of the Santa Cruz regional office in the morning. We just met the staff and all that jazz. The office itself is a tiny little box compared to the one in Cochabamba, but the people are wonderful and it’s in a nice part of town. Up until lunchtime we talked and talked and talked. But after lunch it was on. Shopping, that is. Seriously, you have to be mentally and physically prepared for the markets here. They’re all open-air, all boiling hot because they drape tarps over everything so you’re walking through basically an oven of used goods, stinky to an unimaginable degree (boiled potatoes, fried intestines, sweaty bolivians and car parts all mixed together), and packed with people and stuff. Anything you could ever think to buy (well, to a degree) is all there, sitting under the sun. The only hard part is trudging through the crowds (you literally are rubbing against every single person you pass), finding what you want (asking people does nothing in this country because most people don’t know what you want, but instead of saying no and making you feel bad, they’ll say they know and then point in whatever direction they feel like pointing), and then trying to bargain with the vendors to get the prices down. It’s a jungle out there. And to my shock and dismay, there is also no bathroom anywhere. That has nothing to do with anything, it just makes matters worse when you have to go pee, your hands are full of random cleaning supplies, and there is no bathroom in sight. Luckily after a couple more minutes I think I sweat the rest of my bodily fluids out, so it wasn’t too much of a problem. Well, back to the shopping. Monday I bought a bed and bed frame, sheets and pillows, a table, cleaning supplies, pots, pans, plates, cups, bowls, blankets, food, and I don’t know what else. I’m also now realizing that there is a ton I forgot!! I’m going to need to take the journey back to Santa Cruz pretty soon. All they sell here is toilet paper, cookies, and soda. After buying all that stuff we had to haul it into (or on top of) a taxi, take it to the train terminal, and then store it in the train area. Yeah, that’s right, we took a train. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but believe me, it wasn’t. I’ll get to that later. Anyway, by that time it was dinner time and then bed time!! Tuesday morning we went back to the terminal to move some other boxes and suitcases we had shipped from Cochabamba ahead of us, only to discover that the warehouse was down the street near a circus. So we walked down there, waited to find our stuff (I was actually pleasantly surprised that it was all there), took a taxi to the terminal again, waited for the train storage thing to open (over an hour late), elbowed our way through pushing and cutting (you know, like cutting in line) Bolivians, and finally got them to store our crap. By that time we had just enough time to go grocery shopping then go back to the terminal to catch our 3:30pm train to Charagua.
So the train. When I think of a train I think of a nice Amtrak with single seats, nice big windows and of course, a bathroom. Well, this train was a little different. First of all it looked straight out of a 1920’s movie. I think it might have been, actually. The seats were school-bus style (straight backed and shared), the tiny windows barely opened (and when they were opened sticks and branches kept whipping me in the face. I wore my sunglasses all night to protect my eyeballs.), and the “bathroom” was a small closet with a hole that opened up onto the tracks. Seriously, you could watch your pee go down onto the ground below you as you watched the tracks go by. It was crazy! And as for snack bars, there was occasionally some Bolivian women (passengers) who would walk up and down the isles trying to sell you stuff they brought to eat. It was weird. And not like cookies or crackers, but like smoked chicken and potatoes. Who brings tons of smoked chicken in their bag to sell on a train while going home? Anyway, we pulled into Charagua at midnight (yeah, I was very tired at this point, but also slightly on an adrenaline rush because there is no intercom or anything on the train, nor does anyone tell you where you are. Since it is pitched black outside, you pretty much have to just go with your gut on whether or not you’re at your site. Therefore, I was up all night, looking out the window and hoping that I didn’t miss my stop). After getting there we unloaded our stuff, then signed some papers to get our shipped stuff, then flagged down the only two taxis functioning in Charagua to take us to my house (~7km away). Finally by 2am all our stuff was unloaded and it was time to pass out.
The next morning at 6am Charagua was up, and so was I. I wanted to sleep more, but the light shines right into my room and people were chatting right outside my window loudly. But it didn’t really matter because I wanted to get started fixing up the place anyway. All day yesterday I cleaned, unpacked my stuff, fixed the kitchen, organized as much as I could, and talked with the neighbor lady. I still haven’t set up my bed yet, but I’ll get to that eventually. Who knew you need tools to put stuff together? Oh yeah, about the bed. Bad bad bad choice on my part. It is like a rock, except it’s stuffed with hay or something. Seriously, I keep getting jabbed with whatever they are, wheat husks or something, in my sleep. This is going to be a long two years!! Also, since my real mosquito net isn’t hung up yet (I can’t do that until my bed is ready), I have to sleep in this stupid travel net that is about the size of a sleeping bag. I look like I’m in a cocoon! If I move my head up even the slightest amount it smacks into the sides of the net. I have no idea how people taller than me deal with it!
Let me describe my “pad.” First off, much to my dismay I am currently paying more than anyone else in Bolivia per month for this place. And I’m talking by quite a lot. In fact, I might have to move in a couple months (we’re required to stay here at least for the first two months) if I don’t have enough money to pay for food and whatnot. But I guess we’ll just wait and see. Anyway, I have a bedroom which opens out onto a little patio area. It’s really beautiful. Then, through another door I have a bathroom. And through yet another door which also opens onto the patio is a small room that I’m going to use as my kitchen. The only sucky thing is that it doesn’t have a sink. I never thought it would be so hard to have a kitchen without a sink. Every time I want to boil water or something I have to walk across the backyard to a spicket (I don’t know how to spell that word). After dinner I also have to do my dishes by headlamp while getting eaten alive by mosquitos. I fill a bucket with water from the spicket, add soap, hunch over and scrub everything as best I can. Then I unload the washed stuff onto a table (still soapy), empty the bucket and fill it with fresh water in which I rinse the soapy stuff. Yeah, I definitely need to get more buckets. The only thing I’m worried about is not having enough water. That’s a problem here, and also I have to pay extra for utilities, so I try to use them all sparingly. Anyway, I know it’s hard to get a mental image of this place (I’ll try to send a picture next time I’m in the city, the computers here are WAAAYYY to slow for that), but just know that it’s cute and pretty. I mean, it has a good share of sand (the floors are mostly sand just because the streets are all sand, so it gets everywhere), spiders, and toads. Oh yeah, the night/morning I got in, I was greeted in the bathroom by a huge toad that jumped onto my leg from the dark while I was peeing. I nearly had a heart attack until I realized what it was. Oh, the good times of campo living!!
So, yeah, that’s what’s happening right now. Just getting myself together, and then I’ll go try to figure out this little town. I know I’ll be freaking out about being here in a week or two, but I’m not ready for that quite yet. But I do still miss all of you and hope you’re doing good!!
Okay, this next part is being written like an hour after I wrote all that. I just found out that my water filter is super broken, so I have to go to Santa Cruz tomorrow to get it replaced!!! I was just on a train for 9 hours!!! I can’t sit still any longer!! I think I might go crazy if the flota smells as bad as the last one!! But oh well, it’ll give me a day to pick up some things I forgot. Anyway, that’s the latest update.
Oh yeah, one more thing. My new address is:
Av. Rene Moreno #17 Piso 5
Edif. Royal Palm Plaza
Casilla 3998 Santa Cruz
BOLIVIA