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My Peace Corps/Bolivia Experience | |
It seems as if I´m right on schedule. Another eight months or so have passed by and I´m finally sitting down to write another update. Sticking with that schedule would put the next update right about when I complete my service. Hopefully I´ll get more than one in before then. If not, I may just have to stay here longer so I can continue writing untimely updates. Since the last update, life has seen its normal range of high points and low points, busy moments and slow ones, sad times and happy times and one incredible event that affected most of you quite a bit more than it did me. I hope and pray that all of you have been able to continue with your lives after the attacks of September 11.
Since the last time I wrote, I was actually able to get some work done. It turned out to be quite an ordeal, but hopefully when all is said and done it will have made some sort of impact. As our winter was winding down last year and the parties were becoming less and less frequent, I grew increasingly bored and anxious to do something even if that meant inverting some of my own money. So, I talked with a couple of the agricultural promoters in a couple of the communities around Toracarí to see if ther was any interest in starting up the tree nurseries again that a former volunteer had done. The nurseries had fallen into disuse due to the lack of seeds, lack of nursery bags, lack of will, lack of iniciative, etc. So, a couple expressed interest and I went off to determine the feasibility of what we wanted to do. Willing to spend my own money, but not exactly wanting to if I didn´t have to, I went to the director of the NGO (non-governmental organization) I work with to see if there was any money for the seeds and other supplies. Surprisingly he said yes, but unfortunately this is where the ordeal starts. This was in the middle of August when I asked him, the time when the seeds should be germinating in the seed bed (meaning I had started the whole process a little late to begin with) and I expressed this sense of urgency to buy the seeds immediately to the director and he seemed to understand. (The frosts end in July making August the earliest time that planting seed is possible. It´s also about the latest time since the rains end in April--the plants need four to five months in the nursery to be big enough to be transplanted and a couple of months of rain after to establish themselves before the dry season kicks in.) The seeds were supposed to bought immediately, but to make a long story short, I didn´t get my hands on them until almost two months later in the middle of October. During this time, I was busy fending off drunk, hostile promoters wondering where the seed was that I promised them. I finally got them and despite the time of year we decided to germinate the seeds anyway in a couple of communities. The hostility died down, the trees are growing with different rates of success and due to the late planting and the forthcoming dry season, they won´t be transplanted until the beginning of the next rainy season. They´ll have a lower chance of survival since they´ll be rather big for transplanting, but hopefully a good number will catch on and provide the people with trees for a varied number of purposes: soil conservation, firewood, lumber, forrage and others. All said and done, that kept me busy for the months of October, November and December and I really enjoyed working with the community members, spending time with them in their communities and hopefully helping them to understand the benefits and purposes of what we were doing.
The Christmas holidays brought a somewhat sudden trip back to the states to spend the holidays with family and friends. It was a whirlwind trip that barely gave me enough time to realize that I was back in a developed country--I forgot on several occasions that toilet paper can be flushed down the toilet instead of placed in a trash can and I regularly thought pissing behind bushes was the only option you had when you had to pee and weren´t at home (there are bathrooms all over the states). Luckily I avoided any embarassing situations and made it back to Bolivia happy to not have to readjust to the aforementioned behaviors and others of the like. It was great being able to spend Christmas with the family considering the previous one is the only one I´ve ever spent away from them. I also had a chance to visit with some friends, sorry I missed a bunch of you, it will have to be next time.
LIke I said, coming back to Bolivia didn´t require much adjusting and I was able to slip right back into things except I really haven´t had much to do in my site since then. The trees are busy growing by themselves and don´t require much supervision from me. I´ve tried to stay sane by writing, reading, making bread (my new hobby that I recommend everyone should try, there´s nothing better than a piece of bread hot and fresh from the oven with a little pat of butter. My Italian herb bread has gotten rave reviews from fellow volunteers), spending time with the family I live with in my site who can´t understand how someone can spend so much time reading and going out to the communities when the weather permits. The past few months have been the core of the rainy season limiting the amount of work possible and making hot cocoa consumption a daily affair. Another factor limiting work is the amount of money available from the NGO I work with. In the past, they´ve had a fair amount of money available for agriculture and natural resources stuff, but lately their funding has diminished for those things and the program´s focus has been shifting more and more towards health and education. So, the coming months look grim in terms of things to do and the amount of money available, but I´ve got two economical ideas that seem like there is interest for and have a good chance of working out.
Some of the farmers have access to water year-round and are interested in using this for the cultivation of vegetable and forrage crops. Traditional irrigation is by inundation and is a relatively inefficient method. Some months ago I attended a workshop on micro-irrigation and learned how to make a low-cost, homemade sprinkler from PVC pipe. I´ve shown the design to some of the farmers and they are interested in spending their own money to make a couple and see how they work. It´s encouraging to see interest when people are willing to spend their own money on something to benefit and better themselves instead of them saving it so they can get totally wasted during the next fiesta. There´s such a culture of charity and a history of poor development work in the area that the majority of the people expect any project to include lots of free benefits with little investment or participation on their part. The other idea is the use of organic, fermented fertilizers made from a base of animal manure. It´s another homemade, low-cost idea that people are willing to try out and put up the little investment that´s needed. There´s an agency here in Cochabamba that´s working with them and is having decent results with increased harvests and healthy crops. Hopefully these two things will keep me busy enough to keep me sane until November.
A nice break to help me with that is the arrival of three of my brothers during the month of May. It will be a nice trip and somewhat of a repeat of our 1998 Dominican Republic adventure when Dan was a Peace Corps Volunteer there. It will be a busy trip including a nice hike along one of the old pre-hispanic trading routes that has some of the original stone paving intact. We´ll also head out to my site for a couple of days where the highlight will be the slaughtering of a poor, little llama that we will eat shortly after its death. Where else can you buy an animal with enough meat for 30 people, enough wool to make a baby sweater and enough spit to drench you all for about thirty US dollars. It was a deal I couldn´t pass up. Towards the end of my brother´s visit, a friend from college will be down visiting allowing me to use up a couple more vacation days while I can and do some more traveling.
So, that´s the news for now, what´s happened (there´s more, but I´ve run out of words to tell you about it), what might happen and an invitation to write and let me know what´s up with you. I´d like to know and I promise I´ll write back--I do warn you, though, my average response time is about one to three months, but you will eventually get a response. Until then...
posted by jimmy knowles 4/25/2002 02:53:33 PM
The last time I made the trip in from my site, I decided to walk in again with a couple of friends, one being my neighbor, Dan, who lives in Sak´ani and the other, James, a friend that came out to visit and walk in with me and Dan. I walked up from Toracarí to Sak´ani the day before we were going to start hiking and made it up with no problem. The three of us hung out in the afternoon and turned in early since we were getting up at 4:30 the next morning to start the walk. The morning rolled around pretty quickly and we were on the road shortly after waking up. It was pretty cold since Dan lives somewhere around 13,000 feet and I was fighting with my bowels all morning due to a recent bout with giardia, but all in all we were feeling pretty good and making some decent time. The sight of the morning was the dog head lying in the middle of the river bed with the body nowhere to be found. It looked pretty fresh and if we knew what the rest of the trip would hold, we might have taken it as an omen. The hiking was fine except for some minor fight pain from my boots, but that was solved by switching into my sandals. We made it to Apilla Pampa around 2:30 in the afternoon, where we were hoping to find transport to Capinota, but our chances for scoring transport were not looking good. We asked a couple people and all said maybe or not until the next day. We rested there for a while and watched a church procession going to perform some baptisms. We were invited to go along, but were a little too tired to move just yet. We rested some more and watched the baptism procession walk back into town. Again we were invited to join them, this time for some food, but we decided it was best that we be on our way.
We started walking again and the plan was to walk for a while and when we found a good spot to stop and wait for transport and if nothing came, to just crash and sleep on the side of the road and wait until the next day. So, we walked a bit and found a decent spot with some grass, but it was a little close to the road, but looked like it would do us well enough. We sat on the side of the road for a while, more or less, until dark and up until then nothing had passed us except animals and the people accompanying them. As dark rolled around, we moved up to our little ´perfect´ camping spot complete with grass, trees, babbling brook and the night sky above to entertain us as we waited for sleep or transport to come. There was still hope, so I was kind of on guard especially since we saw something coming down the hill from Arampampa heading our way. I waited and waited and around 10 or so, I heard something coming, so I jumped out of my sleeping bag and ran to the road to find out that it was only a taxi and that it decided to speed past me instead of stop when I tried to flag it down. After that disappointment, I was ready for bed and tried to sleep.
Sleep didn`t come very easily and was interrupted around 12:30 when things began to get interesting. Since I wasn`t really asleep, I heard them all approach. First I could hear the taxi`s engine and then when it stopped, I could hear all their voices. Then when I opened my eyes and lifted my head, I could see a few silhouettes through the taxi`s headlights shining in my eyes. I quickly put my head down just in case they were looking for us and if they were, to try and keep them from seeing us. The first place they stopped, they were unsuccessful, but they weren`t going to give up that easily. So, they started the taxi up again and advanced a few more feet. This time the headlights were shining right on us--they had found what they were looking for, us. So, the group of them with the help of the headlights and their few flashlights approached our `perfect` camping spot and began to surround us as we still lay in our sleeping bags. Once they had us surrounded, they attempted to wake us up followed by a barrage of questions from all of them at the same time. They obviously were not experienced in interrogation techniques. None of our answere were satisfactory, but that was probably due to the fact that they couldn`t tell which questions our answers corresponded to. After some more questions we were fully awake and we could see that in addition to the taxi, there were about 15-20 of them some armed with pick-axe handles, 2 by 4´s and other assorted pieces of wood that could have served nicely to bash our heads in. They briefly search our bags by frisking them claiming they were looking for illegal objects. The questions continued and centered around, "Where are you going?", "Where are you coming from?", "Why are you walking?", "Why didn`t you look for lodging?", Who are you?", etc. We answered them all, but none of our answers pleased them and it became clear they weren`t going to let us continue sleeping there because didn`t we know it was illegal to sleep on the side of the road and that it was dangerous.
After some continued discussion, it became clear how we had gotten into this mess and it was my fault. It turns out that when I tried to flag down the taxi (instead of stopping and picking us up like taxis are supposed to do) the driver got scared and went to this community to rat us out. After some poor negotiating on our part, it was decided that we were going to walk to their community, Chimboata. Of course, when we asked, we were told it was close, but it still took us over 45 minutes to get there and we arrived well after one in the morning. To say the least, we were extremely tired when we finally got there. Walking 28 miles in a day can do that to you.
So, the three of us were all ready to go to sleep when they led us to their community center, but unfortunately it wsan`t time for that according to their plans. They talked to us some more, asked us more of the same questions and then took whatever documents we had with the promise that they would return them in the morning. We also discussed our chances for transport the next day to Capinota where we could get further transport to Cochabamba. So, at that point things looked simple, we`d wake up, get our documents and then be on our way.
It finally looked like we would be able to get some sleep. They brought us one hay mattress for the three of us and then a coupld of others for the ´guards` that were going to spend the night with us. So, we all got settled and we were all dying for sleep by this point, but unfortunately our companions weren`t. They talked most of the night in Quechua preventing us from getting the sleep we so desired. And to make matters worse, they were smoking the cheapest, most foul-smelling cigarettes available (100`s can be bought for one U.S. dollar) making sleep that much more elusive. They continued to talk, smoke and guard over us to prevent our escape until the wee hours of the morning. They finally shut up and the sleep felt good, but unfortunately it didn`t last long and before we knew it, the wake up call was being sounded. So, we all woke up feeling like crap and just wanting to get out of there. But that wasn`t going to happen just yet. We walked outside to warm up a little in the sun and were greeted by a nice old woman that decided to start yelling at us, actually screaming is a better word. All of her tirade was in Quechua, so I didn`t understand all of it, but the gist of it was that we were very bad people who were robbing them, stealing their mineral wealth, throwing rocks and dogs, sleeping on the side of the road and doing other awful things. It was quite amusing, but a little disturbing and frightening at the same time. She was wielding a stick that she`d beat the ground with occasionally and it was clear that she wanted to use it on us as well to set us straight. Things got a little scary when some neighborhood dogs started fighting. To say the least, she beat the crap out of them and it was obvious despite her age, that she could still do some damage. After that display of force, we walked back inside to try and escape her wrath. Her husband wasn`t much better, but at least he didn`t scream at us to our faces, but rather said the same things about us to whoever would listen.
So, after some time and after they blew the horn to convene the townspeople, it looked like things were going to get started. We just sat there as they reviewed our documents and talked amongst themselves. There were many differing opinions on what they were going to do with us (some suggested not to let us go) and they seemed to be having a lot of problems in interpreting our documents. One person would stare at them for a good 5-10 minutes, say a little something and then pass them to the next person. This went on for about an hour or so and we were getting tired of the lack of progress in our release, so we finally said something. Their response was that our documents were false and they expected us to have ID cards that were like their Bolivian ID`s. We explained to them that we weren`t Bolivians and that`s why we didn`t have Bolivian ID`s. Initially this wasn`t satisfying them, but after further explanation of who we were, what we do, who we work for and after giving them the contact information for Peace Corps, they were somewhat satisfied. They believed our story and seemed ready to let us go, but it wasn`t over yet. The town leader wanted to let us go, but the other townspeople didn`t and slyly told the leader to continue with the plan they had previously discussed: extort us and make us pay our own ransom for kidnapping us. So, the leader explained that they should be compensated for their troubles, for having to get up in the middle of the night, for having to walk all that way and for having to put us up in their community center. Even though all of those things were unnecessary and their fault, they didn`t see it that way. So, they asked us for 100 bolivianos (about $15 US dollars), but that sounded pretty steep to us. So, amongst ourselves in English, we decided that was too much and that we would negotiate. I explained to them our situation; that we were volunteers, that we didn`t have much money and quite easily they lowered their price to 50 Bs and to prevent prolonging this fiasco any longer we agreed to it. Once the money was handed over, they acted like our best friends, giving us hugs, telling us to come back, etc. After that they served us a little breakfast of crackers and hot flavored water (not really worth the 50 Bs, but a nice show of hospitality, nonetheless).
As soon was we finished eating and it looked safe to leave, we hightailed it out of there forgetting the customary goodbyes and started on our way to Capinota. We walked for a little while just to get away from Chimboata and then sat on the side of the road and waited for the transport to come along to take us to Capinota. It was strange sitting there on the side of the road...the experiences of the night before instilled such a paranoia in us, that every person that we saw that morning, we expected them to tell us we were doing something wrong when all we were doing was sitting on the side of the road. So, we sat there in our state of paranoia and before not too long, a truck rolled by and we made it to Capinota thinking all the people on the truck with us were going to accuse us of something at any moment. After that, it was another short ride to Cochabamba and finally we felt safe again and our paranoia had started to diminish.
posted by jimmy knowles 9/12/2001 03:02:19 PM
Well, it´s hard to believe that almost eight months have gone by and I haven´t found the time or the will or the right combination of both to update this page. I could go on and on and list all of the excuses I could think of to make it look like my lack of timeliness is justified, but I´ll just say that life has been far from normal (as you´ll see) for those past eight months. Things right now are about as normal as they have been since I arrived in Bolivia and I guess that´s why I´m finally finding the time to let you know what´s going on and what´s happened since the last time I wrote.
The last time I wrote was right after I swore in and was heading out to my site, Toracarí. Well, to give you an idea of how irregular life has been, over the past eight months, I´ve only been in my site (which is where I should spend most of my time) for about half of that time. To give you a run-down of the big events: I have logged over 200 hours traveling in buses and trains, walked to and from my site, celebrated my first Christmas without my family, killed my first chicken, helped butcher cows, sheeps and goats, drank way too much chicha, attended two bullfights, my Dad had open-heart surgery here in Bolivia when he and my Mom came to visit, was interviewed by the FBI about the missing volunteer (Wally Poirier), was evacuated to Tarija for two weeks due to threats of civil unrest, visited Machu Picchu while my friend, Nicole, was here visiting, have eaten parts of animals that are normally destined for hot dogs and dog food and have started reading the Harry Potter series in Spanish.
To say the least, things have been interesting over the past eight months and I can´t say that they have gone as I would have expected them. Due to my prolonged absences and the lack of overall time that I´ve spent in my site, neither can I say that I´ve gotten a lot of work done. There are of course, the non-tangible things that I´ve at least been able to gain, like further cultural adjustment, better command of Spanish, some knowledge of Quechua (I´ve still got a long way to go, though), more patience and tolerance than I had and a better idea of what´s possible and maybe what I should be focusing on. With the non-governmental organization (NGO) that I work with, there are no ongoing projects right now that I can jump into nor is there money to start new projects. So, I guess the challenge that I face right now is coming up with things that don´t require a lot of funding and also looking into alternative sources of funding for appropriate projects. Another challenge is coming up with projects that fall into the category of ´good development´. So much of the development that goes on out here creates a reliance on outside help and as soon as that aid is gone, the majority of the projects stop functioning and not much is gained. So, I guess what I´ve realized and what a lot of development is now focusing on is capacitation and education. So, in the coming months, that is what I will be focusing my efforts on and coming up with the initiative and the will to get some things going.
I guess if I were to describe my experience to date, an appropriate word would be interruptions. Every time I got out to my site and was getting a feel for things, it seemed like I had to leave for some reason and then was kept out of my site for an extended period of time. All this resulted in a feeling of discontinuity and much difficulty in being able to accomplish anything. Lately, things have been somewhat normal and I´ve actually been able to spend some time out at my site. That doesn´t mean that I´ve been working, though, but that was mainly due to the fact that no one else was either.
June turns out to be a pretty busy month in my neck of the woods with three major festivals/parties right in a row. It all starts off with Corpus Christi on the 14th which is a national holiday and in Toracarí, Corpus Christi means there´s plenty of chicha, food, drunks and what makes it from other Toracarí festivals are the bullfights. The bullfights aren´t your standard Spanish style with matador vs. bull, but rather Bolivian style with bull vs. bull. It´s held on the town´s soccer field and is definitely an interesting sight with 30 or so bulls spread across the field all ready to go, snorting and 'screaming' (or whatever bulls do) and kicking dust back with their front feet. The fights are conducted by the owners of the two opposing bulls bringing them to center field, unroping them and then letting ´em have at it. The fights normally last 10-15 seconds, but can sometimes last minutes and the loser is determined and the fight is ended when one of the bulls backs off which is defined as taking three consecutive steps backwards. Normally, though, it´s a couple more than three steps and more like a run-for-your-life retreat which normally sends the braver spectators (those who are on the field watching) running for their lives. The bullfights are just part of the party, which also involves mass in the town church preceded by a procession of the church´s crucifix around town, and then most of the townspeople and the campesinos from the surrounding communities drinking themselves into belligerence until the chicha or their money runs out. I´m not sure if I´ve mentioned this before, but the drinking in Bolivia is the worst I´ve ever seen as well as being the most high-pressure drinking I´ve ever experienced. In the Bolivian campo, the majority of the people don´t understand the word moderation nor do they take no for an answer. If you are hanging out with people who are drinking, it´s either drink or your manhood will be questioned or attacked by all parties present. So, it´s often necessary to come up with creative excuses to slow the pace down or just sneak out and escape (normally disguised as a bathroom break) when I´ve had enough. They keep on going on though, sometimes until dawn and normally for three or four more days being continually drunk and only stopping if they pass out or some family member is able to drag them away. This may sound all bad, and it mostly is, but the aspect that I like about it is the music. Drinking is always accompanied by the music of Northern Potosí which means the charango and the guitar and the occasional accordion. During the fiestas, the people normally go from chicheria to chicheria in groups, singing as they go. Once they stop in a chicheria to enjoy some more chicha, the music doesn´t stop, but rather gets more interesting. The music is now accompanied not only by singing, but also by dancing and 'zapateando', a form of foot stomping/dancing that I´ve become especially good at. The music is continuous and as the day goes on, it becomes less and less recognizable as music and moreso as noise, but somehow I think it´s this 'music' that keeps them going.
So, Corpus Christi ended and by about the time everyone had recovered from that festival, it was time for the next, San Juan, El Bautista, on the 24th. Folklorically, this is the coldest day of the year (some years it is since it´s only three days after the official start of our winter) and being so, it´s traditional to have a bonfire outside your front door on the eve of San Juan. The next day involves mass and being the feast of the Baptist, baptisms. After that it resembles any other Bolivian festival with plenty of food, chicha, drunks and music.
With barely any rest from San Juan, it was time for the next festival, San Pedro/San Pablo. This involved taking a trip to the 'big city' of the area, San Pedro de Buena Vista (about a 1.5 hour drive or 5 hour walk from Toracarí). This is San Pedro´s annual town festival and their biggest of the year. It´s a typical Bolivian festival with two noted differences: .one. the town fills up with vendors selling anything and everything from fried intestines (tripas) to coca leaves to radios to industrial orange juice squeezers and anything else you could possibly not need and .two. it´s also the time for San Pedro´s annual Tinku. I won´t get into many of the specifics of the Tinku, but will say it was one of the craziest things I´ve ever witnessed in my life. Three days of hand-to-hand fighting between the campesinos from the Valles (valleys) and those from the Puna (the highlands). If you´d like to read more about the San Pedro, check out this article that appeared in Outside Magazine earlier this year (warning: the article is definitely evidence of the sensationalism employed in journalism). Some refer to the Tinku as a type of extreme sport maybe resembling something like the Ultimate Fighting Championship or maybe kickboxing. At times the fights are well controlled with a referee of sorts making the matchups and keeping the fights from getting out of hand. But, sometimes they do get out of hand for lack of this referee or his lack of power with groups of people ganging up on one poor soul or the fist fights evolving into a full-fledged rock-throwing war. It was an ultimate display of machismo and resulted in plenty of broken noses, black eyes, chipped teeth and most of all, lots of blood. All these wounds were just left alone and rarely did they seek medical attention, supposedly it attracts the women. All in all, it was definitely an interesting experience and I´m still trying to figure out what I think of it.
So, now that the parties are over, it´s time to try and get some work done. I´m in the city right now and will hopefully be able to get some things together to bring back to Toracarí and get some projects started. I guess I talked a lot about the past month, but haven´t said much about the rest of my time since I last wrote. Well, I´m not going to say too much about that time, but don´t worry, it´s all written down in my diary and selected stories may come out in the future. But, for now, I´ll just limit my words to one or two incidents.
Probably one of the most trying times I´ve had since I´ve been in Bolivia (and my parents can attest to it) is the trial we had with my Dad´s health. My parents came to Bolivia in February to visit me and instead of enjoying the nice vacation we had planned, we spent the better part of two weeks in the hospital. A few days after they arrived, the chest pain my dad was experiencing got so bad that we went to the hospital. The initial tests showed no signs of heart damage, which was good news, but further tests revealed some severe blockages in his coronary arteries. Once that was discovered, we were given two options--operate that afternoon (Friday) or operate the following Wednesday due to the holiday weekend of Carnaval. The doctors expressed urgency and didn´t even present the option of going back to the States for treatment due to the severity of the blockages and the risks involved if something wasn´t done soon. After a quick consultation between me, my Mom and my Dad it was decided for the immediate surgery. So, that evening, Pops went into the operating room and came out a hurting fellow about six hours later. To say the least, it was the longest wait of my life and thanks to God that everything turned out all right. The next few days were the most difficult while my Dad was in ICU with a lot of pain. A couple of days later, he was moved into a normal hospital room (with my Mom acting as the night aide) and once his recovery had progressed enough and a couple of complications (his hiccups and swollen feet) were resolved, he was a free man. Obviously it was a trying experience, but to make things even more difficult was the fact that most of my Dad´s doctors didn´t speak English deferring me to the role of translator. All of this tested my abilities in Spanish and frustrated my folks since it was rare that they could communicate directly with the doctors, the nurses or the other hospital staff. All in all, though, the treatment was good and they took great care of my Dad. A couple of days after being released from the hospital, the doctors cleared him to fly home so that he was able to continue his recovery in more familiar surroundings. So, despite the problems experienced during their first trip, my folks are already busy planning their next trip to Bolivia which has included a little more attention to their health. To all of you who were aware of my Dad´s health problems as they were happening, thanks for all of your prayers and support.
So, after that trying experience, another was right around the corner with the disappearance of my friend, Wally Poirier. I won´t go into the details of his disappearance, but I will say it´s been hard on all of us here in Bolivia and also on his family and friends back in the States. We still don´t know what happened to Wally, but the search and investigation continues and we are hoping and praying for the best.
The last major trial came towards the end of April, when due to the threats of civil unrest to take place around May 1, Peace Corps´ Administration decided to move those of us in high-risk areas to Tarija as a precaution to avoid any potential problems. So, about forty of us endured a nice 24-hour bus ride (mainly on dirt roads) to the southeast corner of the country. We wound up spending two weeks there while the threats continued, turned into a lot of talk and then not much action. It was nice to get to know another part of the country, but by the end of two weeks, I think all of us were ready to go...we had had enough of each other, the work projects, the language classes, etc.
Those are the highlights, there´s of course more I´d like to say (like about the crazy three-horned sheep that attacked me or about my almost near-death experience when the pickup I was in lost a wheel), but I´m not sure if you´d like to read more right now. So, I´ll save those stories for later. Hopefully the next update you get from me won´t be so untimely. I say things are normal now, but who knows what´s lurking around the corner.
posted by jimmy knowles 7/10/2001 03:14:21 PM
So, now that I´m a volunteer and since I don´t have someone telling me my every move, I have to figure out what to do for myself now. I survived the last couple of weeks of training and throughout that time the powers that be decided I was worthy enough to become a Volunteer and confirmed that by letting me participate in the swearing-in ceremony this past Friday. To get to that point, I had to endure many more classes of Spanish and Quechua, participate in ´tech week´, get to my future site and back for a week long visit, and survive all of the fanfare that came with the end of training.
I guess the last update was towards the end of the civil unrest that was plaguing Bolivia. Well, for the most part, the majority of the problems have been solved and things have mostly returned to normal, but we´ll see how long this state of ´normality´ lasts. They finally let us move back to our host families and the rest of training just flew by. One of the remaining weeks of training was spent in the northern part of the department of Potosí where we worked in communities close to where two Natural Resources Volunteers are currently working. Three days was spent in and around San Pedro de Buena Vista where we worked in a tree nursery performing some improvements there, with a mother´s club in a very rural community planting trees to protect their riverbank from erosion, in a riverbed building a stone wall to divert the river and prevent it from destroying a farmer´s fields and giving presentationson environmental education topics to kids in the local school to benefit them and also to help improve our speaking abilities in Spanish. All of the activities were extremely worthwhile, satisfying and educationg. It gave us a chance to understand more about the culture of the area and the needs that the people face there on a daily basis. The other days of the week we spent in Sak´ani with Dan Ryan who will be my neighbor for at least the next year. Sak´ani is about a three hour walk from my site, Toracarí and Dan and I will be working with the same organization (World Neighbors), so we´ll have ample opportunity to work together and collaborate. In Sak´ani we did some work with a small neighboring community to replant a hillside with trees, shrubs and grasses to protect their water source and the path that enters their peublo. We also enjoyed the local culture there participating in and observing some dancing, singing and also by eating some of the local food. We killed a goat for the end of a successful ´tech week´ and had a feast. Some of us participated in the killing and butchering and some exciting pictures should be coming soon.
So, we had a great week and I also got a chance to visit my future site while we were in the area and it just made me all the more anxious to get back out there. And after a week more of training back in the Cochabamba valley, I got that chance to head back out there for a week for ´site visit´, but from the beginning(namely the ride out there) it was an extremely different experience. The difference between using the public transport and cruising out there in Land Cruisers is startling. A trip that in a private car can take five hours can take anywhere from 8 to 20 hours by using the buses that make the trip out there and back twice a week and that doesn´t include the two hour walk from where the bus drops me off. It would be hard to do the trip justice by trying to describe it in words, but I will say a few things. Toracarí is physicallo located about 45 miles from Cochabamba, but the road there is about 130 miles long and has more elevation changes than just about any other road I´ve been on. There are three different buses that make the trip all of differing quality and character with the prize (for what I don´t know) going to the baby blue one that resembles a 1960´s prison bus. What even makes the trip better is that it leaves somewhere around 7a.m. which isn´t a problem when leaving from the city, but can be quite painful when a two hour walk uphill is involved to meet the bus. So, my first bus trip out there was fun, but I survived it despite witnessing a domestic dispute complete with physical contact and a campesino infringing on my reserved seat by sitting on my lap for a couple of hours. I made it to to stop, got off and was meeted by Dan (my neighbor) and by my host-country counterpart, Freddy. For some lucky reason, the only vehicle in my pueblo was there waiting for people from Toracarí coming in to take them down, so Dan and I got a ride down and didn´t have to make the walk.
So, we made it into Toracarí and I started my first week there which proved to be especially interesting since my visit coincided with a very big holiday for Bolivia, Todos Santos (All Saints´ Day). The week started off slow, but the end made up for it with all of the activities and customs associated with the holiday. The celebration started on October 31 in the people´s houses ho had relatives that had died recently. In these houses, the families would set up tables/altars/shrines for the deceased with photos, candles, traditional breads in the shape of people, and all of the things that the deceased liked while they were alive. These families also prepared food for most of the people in the pueblo and had many visitors for dinner and also to pray for the deceased. So, after dinner and quite a bit of chicha somebody would decide to lead everyone present in prayer reciting parts of the Our Father and Hail Mary while everybody else would respond with other parts. This night I visited two of these houses and had a chance to meet quite a few of the community members while witnessing part of their Todos Santos tradition. The next day started out with more of the same--food and chicha in the people´s houses until you couldn´t eat or drink anymore after going from house to house, more praying and kind of a disturbing part about the stark poverty of the region. Since there´s so much food and you can´t possibly finish all that you are given, the poorer people from surrounding communities come down to Toracarí and wait outside the houses with food with their buckets and pots for all of the leftovers. So, it was a little startling that even in the middle of nowhere in Bolivia there is still quite a bit of class distinction. So, after everyone has had enough food and chicha, the trip to the cemetery begins with the same families carrying and then setting up tables with the same things as in the houses next to the deceased´s grave. Then, once all of the tables are set up, groups of people go around the cemetery to the different tables praying for the dead and in return for their prayers they receive the traditional bread treats and other goodies including chicha(and lots of it). This part of their custom is quite reminiscent of our present-day Halloween customs. All during the time in the cemetery there are several groups of campesinos that are just playing their hears out on these huge flutes that can be up to five feet long. So, everything was going good in the cemetery until the campesinos started fighting (in this region of Bolivia, whenever people come together from different communities, there´s always a chance for a fight) and one of them stepped on a beehive. The bees got angry, people freaked out, lit up cigarettes and unfortunately I didn´t escape unharmed and suffered the first bee sting of my life. The fight went on, but the bees finally stopped after some fires were lit and th smoke calmed them down. Most of the afternoon was spent in the cemetery and the trip back into town was featured by frequent stops to consume more chicha which also continued for most of the night even after I called it a night.
The next day was again filled with interesting activities; of course, plenty of chicha and a big lunch. The afternoon featured an animal slaughtering of about 6 to 7 goats and sheep that was done so quick we were pretty sure it was a contest of who could kill and butcher them the fastest. After the mass killing, the people of the pueblo marched the huge crucifix from the church around town for a little while and then continued with the chicha all night long again. Friday and the fourth day of the festivities also included another interesting tradition. This time everyone hiked up to this hill above the village to witness this quite interesting game while a false priest complete with palm frond hat and trench coat was going around marrying people for fun. The game was involved two people, one armed with a sling and moderately sized chunks of wood while the other had a shell from some animal to protect his back. The one would load the sling with a chunk of wood and get it going round and round and then slam the chunk of wood into the shell on the other guy´s back. Then they´d switch and continue taking turns until they were out of wood. At the same time, there was also a ´battle of the bands´ going on; there were probably four different groups of people playing all different kinds of instruments--huge flutes, kenas(smaller wood flutes), zampoñas(pan flutes), charangos(local stringed instruments resembling mandolins) and guitars. It was cacaphonous at times, but always interesting. After Friday´s activities, Dan(who came back for some of the festivities on Thursday) and I escaped from the revelry to get some rest since we had to get up at 4 a.m. to start our hike uphill to meet the bus.
So, we succeeded in escaping and avoided any more consumption of chicha and were able to get some good rest until the alarm clock woke us up a little past 4. It was also a great way to start my first birthday in a foreign country and the day proved to be quite nice for celebrating my first quarter century of life. So, we made it up and had a nice treat with all of the fog making things absolutely surreal and beautiful. We had plenty of time to spare since the bus made it there a little later than usual. Thank goodness we had seat reservations because a nine hour bus ride standing in the aisle would have been a horrible way to spend my birthday. So, we made it back to Cochabamba without too many problems except having to get off the bus, help clean the road a little adn then sweat and watch as Freddy(the driver) maneuvered the bus over the places where the road was a mess due to landslides. Due to his skillful driving, absolute craziness and a little helpful pull from a truck we made it through the problem parts and back to the city. I got some brownies for my birthday when I got back from another volunteer and then got an egg cracked on my head from all the kids back at my host family´s house. So, all in all, it was a great week in Toracarí. I got to meet a ton of people and got a little bit of a feel for what my two years will be like there and what I might be doing.
So, after the week in Toracarí, the rest of training went painfully slow with the anxiousness of the end of training and getting out to our sites, but also amazingly fast since it was only a week and a half before we found ourselves back in the Hotel Regina getting ready for swearing in. We had a couple of days in the hotel, had our ceremony(which was quite nice and memorable) and as a reward(or punishment) treated us to a veritable meatfest. All-you-can-eat salad and side bar and then waiters dressed in medieval dress serving you assorted meat products (until you said no) freshly grilled right of the skewers including turkey wrapped in bacon, cow udder, chicken hearts, beef ribs, pork ribs and many others. To say the least, I at least tried everything and the minute I got back to the hotel, I feel deep into a food coma and didn´t come out of it until the next morning.
So, that leaves me where I am now. We had a workshop yesterday with our counterparts to give them an opportunity to learn more about the Peace Corps and also to give us a chance to plan a little bit what we might be doing in the near future. So, it looks like I´ll have plent of work opportunity out there which might include such things as fruit tree production, introduction of dairy products, reforestation and some different soil conservation projects. (if you want to learn more about the organization I´ll be working with, follow the link at the top of the page) So, I´m heading out there tomorrow and will be out there for about a week and a half before I head back in then over to the tropics of Santa Cruz for a 3-day All-Volunteer Conference. So, that´s it for now. I hope all of you are doing well and that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and truly thank God for all that He has blessed us with. Until next time...
posted by jimmy knowles 11/21/2000 04:19:27 PM
