Mi Familia!

Okay, so I've been living with my family for about five days now. Sorry I didn't post anything about them earlier, but in my brother's words, "Bolivia es le strange" and I don't understand it yet. So apparently my internet cafe was closed on the weekend, so I went to go find another one, but the USB ports didn't work. So I found another one, and it didn't understand my camera, and I just decided it wasn't meant to be. Anyways, allow me to introduce you to my Bolivian family!

First of all, we have the grandma, Fanny. She is so matronly it's incredible, she insists on taking the bus with me if I have to go somewhere I haven't been before, just so I don't get lost. And if I don't like some food, she'll offer to make something different for me right then and there. (No mom, I don't actually take her up on it. Yes mom, I'm being a good girl and eating what's being put in front of me.) She also wants me to get a cell phone so that in case I'm lost, she can come and rescue me. So sweet.

Next is Jaime (pronounced Hi-may), the grandpa, who I haven't gotten to know very well yet but he's pretty funny, I think. Or at least he would be if I understood him. He's a biochemist, I think, so he's at work a lot.

Then we have Karin, my "sister." She's an architect and she's really cool. She introduced me to a bunch of her friends and we played pictionary together, which was really weird at first cuz I had no idea how to guess "square" in Spanish, but I ended up doing pretty well. Who would have known that "water polo" was the same in Spanish and English? We played guys against girls, and whoever lost had to buy movie tickets for the winners - we're going to see Las Tortugas Ninja! Karin works really close to my work, so we're going to have lunch together and go to work together and things like that.

Finally, there's Laurita, who is adorable. She's Karin's daughter, six years old and in kindergarden. She calls me "Tia" (which means Auntie) and always wants to play with me and she's just so cute!

As for the house that I'm living in, it's actually very nice (I was quite surprised, I was expecting to be living in the slums). They have a computer (which I haven't seen on yet, but apparently it's for Karin's work) and a lot of movies, so I've been watching Disney in Spanish with Laurita and trying to figure out what they're saying.

So overall, I'm very well taken care of, I have a nice family who has definitely adopted me. They loved the gifts I brought (mostly a photo tour of Toronto and a stuffed moose and generally everything's pretty good!

Hike

We went on a hike today, as our last event as a group. We've actually already moved in with our families (yesterday), I'll make a post about my family as soon as I have pictures.

We went to a park that was set up a while ago by a guy named Simón Patiño, a Bolivian who struck it rich in the mines and was the third richest man in the world. As far as I can tell, he's dead now, but there are a lot of things he built in Cochabamba.

Anyways, he started this park/camping area on the side of a mountain that's really pretty. We went hiking up the mountain and man, it was hard work. Probably just because I'm a wus, but I blame the altitude.

We found this dog, too. Well really, he found us, and hiked up the mountain with us, waited while we rested and ate, and hiked back down with us. I wanted to bring him home with me but I don't think that would have gone over well with customs.

Strange things

So I´ve been in Cochabamba for almost a week now, and I´m pretty much getting used to some of the strange things I see. But there are some things that I´m not sure I´ll ever get used to, and I feel like sharing.

First of all, we have advertisements painted on walls, rather than on billboards. There´s a lot of graffiti, so sometimes it´s hard to tell if something´s an advertisement or just some scribbling. To the right, a Pepsi ad; below, some graffiti.

Next, we also have a strange occurance that keeps happening that completely boggles my mind. A lot of the dogs here wear little doggie clothes, like a blanket or a sweater or something. I don´t understand at all, there are a lot of really really furry dogs (i.e. huskies) that still wear little clothes. Here is a particularly amusing picture of a dog in a shirt.

Futból!

We went to go see a soccer game yesterday. The Cocha team, "La Aurora", was playing the Bolivian national team, and for a long time it looked like they were actually going to win! The final score was 2-1 for the Bolivian team, but there was more exciting about it than just the game.

For example, soccer is really really really popular around here, as in most places in Latin America. As we were heading to the game, we passed a number of bars that were playing the game on TV, and most of them had huge crowds gathered around the windows to watch.

There was also a huge mass of people gathered around the entrance to the stadium. Almost like a mini market, there were people there selling everything. Besides the obvious sports apparel and food, there were like temporary restaurants set up with seating and stuff, where everyone would gather around the portable radio to listen to the game. There were a lot of people selling stuff like confetti (ripped up newspapers) and seat cushions (collected from the end of last game). Apparently there are many entrepreneurs around here! It´s not a very good picture, but the man to the left was walking around the stands and taking bets for the game.

Soccer is also really political around here. Recently, FIFA (the world soccer organization) made a rule that says that no games can be played above a certain height. Any that are played don´t count internationally. Since the international games in Bolivia are played in La Paz, which is at 11,500 feet above sea level, this means that either Bolivia can´t host any international games, or they have to move the team´s home to a different city.

I know it sounds like a very arbitrary rule, but the reasoning goes like this: the oxygen is really thin when you get up high like in Cochabamba, and people who aren´t used to it get sick really easily, which includes being short of breath, getting nauseous, lightheaded, or having to throw up. So obviously for traveling soccer players, this is a problem - they need to be at their best in order to play well, but if they just came to the city for like one game, they´ll be at a disadvantage. The rule is to level the playing field a bit and not give so much home field advantage.

But the rule has all the Andean nations, like Peru, Ecuador, Chile, and Bolivia, all upset - they feel like they´re being discriminated against. A lot of the soccer players from here are all proud of their ability to play with the thinner oxygen, and think everyone else should just suck it up. But more commonly, the people who live in these countries are upset because they can´t watch their favourite sport play in their country. Pretty much all of the fans around here are protesting then (not unusual for Cochabamba), and there were an abundance of signs that said something about the subject. The sign in the picture to the right says "We are united for soccer - We say NO to the altitude ban." Obviously, that´s paraphrased a little.

Dance show

We went to see a performance last night by a local dance club of traditional Latin American dances. It was really incredible, especially if you realize how poor a lot of Cochabambans are. The costumes were absolutely amazing.

One of the girls who is here with Foundation for Sustainable Development has been here for ten months and had joined the dance group, which is why we went to go see it.

Anyways, I don´t really have much to say about it, so here are a bunch of pictures.

Tour of Cochabamba!

Hey all!

Today we went on a bus tour of Cochabamba. It was very interesting and there were a lot of strange things to be seen.

The photo over here is a picture of a church that we passed by, very old and very pretty. There were actually people inside praying and stuff! Amazing.

Where else did we go? Well, let´s see. There´s the Christ statue on the top of the hill in the middle of the city. Heard of the famous one in Rio de Janiero, Brazil? Well this one´s even bigger, the biggest in the world. It´s called El Christo de la Concordia, which basically means the Christ of Unity. It was built in an effort to unify a country that was geographically, ethnically and philosophically divided. There´s also an awesome view of the city from there.

We drove throughout most of the city and saw lots of random scenes of the city. A lot of the city is very poor and so as a result we saw lots of run down housing, people selling things on the side of the road, and stray dogs. There are a lot of very nice gardens though, which are always full of people .


There is also an abundance of cheap stuff here. For instance, I´m at an internet cafe which charges about 25 cents per hour. There are all kinds of knock-off products, including fake McDonalds´ and stuff. Actually I´m quite surprised at the lack of American chains here. I´ve seen one Burger King, that´s all. There´s very few coffeeshops, not really any fast food restaurants.

So basically, Cochabamba is very different from what I am used to, in some good ways and some bad. It is definitely going to take some getting used to, but I think I´ll be able to manage.

Airport Woes

I don´t know when yesterday ended and today started - they kind of blend together in my head. So I can conclude then, that the past two day mess has probably been the closest to hell I´ve been in for a while.

Let´s see, where shall I begin? Well I got to the airport yesterday morning at 11am, which was WAY earlier than I needed, but my mom wanted to make sure I wasn´t late. My plane wasn´t sposed to leave until 1:50pm, so yes, I ended up sitting around for a while. Then it was late. Not significantly, but like half an hour or so, which probably would have bothered me if I didn´t have a 5 hour layover to look forward to in Miami.

So that flight was uneventful, and I arrived in Miami. Let me tell you, that airport is smelly. Anyways, having a five hour layover, I tried to have a nap at first, but that wasn´t working so well, as there were announcements all the time. So I decided to go on the internet, but NO ONE, especially that silly boy of mine, was online. So basically I sat around being bored for five hours.

Somehow, five hours turned into six and a half, cuz our plane was late. This one I did mind about, because I had an hour and a half layover in La Paz that I really wasn´t too keen on missing. But, there was nothing I could do but get on the plane and cross my fingers. Now this flight was scheduled to be from 11:20pm-5:30am, and let me tell you, I can´t sleep on planes, so I knew this was going to suck. But you try sleeping on a plane when you´re freaking out about whether or not you´re going to make your connection and the only thing you can do is will the pilot to fly faster. But not crash. Definitely not crash. As a sidenote, I learned that American Airlines personnel really suck at their jobs.

So we ended up landing in La Paz at about 6:30 am, and got to the gate at maybe 6:45. The flight attendent was all saying that I could make it, not to worry, it was a really small airport. Well guess what? It may have been easier to do so if I freaking spoke Spanish! I still had to go through customs, collect my bags, and figure out where the hell to go. There were a whole bunch of airport people ushering us along, as if they had it all sorted out and they were holding up the plane (there were about 12 of us who had the same connection). But somehow, none of us made it. Figures.

So, here I am, in La Paz, totally freaked out because I missed my connection and I was in a weird country I´ve never been to, completely alone, not even speaking the language very well, and wondering what the hell to do (on top of it all, La Paz is at 12,000 vertical feet, so the air is really thin and I felt like I was going to pass out or vomit, not sure which), when I ran into this really nice couple.

They turned out to be Anglican missionaries, originally from Alabama, who had lived in Cochabamba for the past 6 years and were returning home. They basically took me in under their wing and talked to the airport people for me. Honestly, it´s times like that when I feel like there may be a god after all, despite all the rest he craps on my travel plans. They said that the reason they didn´t catch their flight was because god wanted them to help me. So sweet.

Anyways, with their extraordinary help, American Airlines decided to give all of us a ticket to Santa Cruz, because there were no more flights from La Paz to Cochabamba that day that still had space on them. So, somewhat ironically and even more alarmingly, I ended up boarding the same plane I just got off of, and headed off the path of my itinerary. Which really freaked me out; I was wondering if the plane was going to crash and no one would know where I was.

So we ended up in Santa Cruz at about 10am, which was the first time I stepped outside on this whole excursion, and it was gorgeous. A sunny day, the perfect spring temperature, with a nice breeze. However, I didn´t have a whole lot of time to appreciate that, because I was stuck in Santa Cruz. American Airlines doesn´t fly to Cochabamba, so I needed to switch airlines. But the airlines that flies there, Aerosur, charges a pretty big fee for changing flights around. I´m not exactly sure how it worked, cuz I don´t really speak Spanish, but AA was obligated to get us to Cochabamba, cuz they made us miss our flight. So that means that they had to pay for the charge of shuffling the Aerosur flights around. But all the AA guys were avoiding us, and for the longest time I thought I was stuck and it was very scary. But it all worked itself out, again, thanks to the help of my new friends, and I was scheduled to be on a flight from Santa Cruz to Cochabamba at 1:20 pm.

To throw a monkey wrench into my already difficult day, I was getting picked up at the Cochabamba airport at 8am, along with a bunch of other people in the same program as me. But I had no opportunity to call them and tell them I missed the connection, because I was being herded onto the next flights and all, so it wasn´t until 11am-ish that I managed to call and tell them I was going to be late. They told me not to worry, usually it happens to at least five people in their group, but this year I was unlucky and I was the only one. Figures. So I tell them that my flight gets in at 2, and they say they´re going to send someone to pick me up. Cool, right?

Not so. The 1:20 flight turned into a 2:00 flight... and the string of bad luck continued. I wondered what I had done recently to piss the gods off, or if I had killed a spider or broken a mirror. Well, it didn´t really matter, because we were only about 45 minutes late, and I ended up getting picked up just fine, getting the phone number of my new missionary friends, and meeting up with the rest of my group just fine. Well exhausted and frustrated, but physically fine.

Now let´s recap:
Flight 1: Toronto-Miami - LATE
Flight 2: Miami-La Paz - VERY LATE
Flight 3: La Paz-Cochabamba - the only one that was ON TIME, and the only one that I wasn´t on!
Flight 4: La Paz-Santa Cruz - LATE, because we made it so
Flight 5: Santa Cruz-Cochabamba - LATE

So this concludes my 28, yes count 'em, twenty-eight hours of travelling. Now who can honestly say that no one is spiting me?