Super Bien

So I’ve been told twice this week that my español is really good. Granted once was by a boy who was trying to be nice/impress me and he said my español was “super bien” (super good) to which I said he was lying – BUT to my credit, the other was by one of the nurses at work and although I think she was still just being nice and appreciated that I can understand everything they say, I count that one as a real indication that my Spanish really is improving.

This week was fairly uneventful, which I’m not complaining about. I spent Saturday at Nazareth playing lots of jump-rope (which apparently is a gender-neutral game down here because the boys love it). Although spending Saturdays at Nazareth keeps me from my afternoons at BK, I generally find it really rewarding, so I’m hoping to make a habit out of it. Also, the boys there think that every girl who comes to Nazareth is Jordan’s novia (girlfriend) although the number of times they’ve asked him if I’m his girlfriend got to such a ridiculous point that we just started to tell them that we’re married…which, they actually believe. We can’t decide if when Jordan leaves we should tell them it was all a scam or if we should stage a dramatic divorce haha

Sunday we went to this really nice place called Casa Campestre that has an all you can eat lunch buffet and a pool for the equivalent of about 4 dollars. It was nice to lay around by the pool and get some sun because I’ve definitely lost 100% of the tan I had when I came down here.

Tuesday was three holidays in one: Dia del Estudiante, Dia del Amor, and Dia de Primavera (Day of the student, day of love – aka their Valentine’s day minus the insane amount of Hallmark cards and valentines, and day of spring). They had a party at Solomon Klein where Salas 4 and 5 did some adorable traditional Bolivian dances and they served the most delicious cake I’ve had since I’ve been in Bolivia (granted I’ve only had one other piece of cake and that was at a birthday party at Nazareth). All the festivities led the mama’s to ask me about holidays in the US and what kinds of festivals we have – when I made a comment about the fact that we only have a fifth of the number of holidays they have, Dona Sabina jokingly told me that the reason Bolivia is so broke is because they love any reason to have a holiday/party – I kind of believe it though…

Updates on Sala 1 include that we are now eating our meals in the cafeteria with the big kids instead of in our Sala. Apparently on Tuesday after I left and they were transitioning between dinner and bath time, Gonzolo (the same knight in shining armor that brought chivalry to Sala 1) managed to land a table on his foot and fracture two of his toes. So they’ve moved our tables out to the cafeteria and we eat out there now – which is nice because it gets the kids used to eating in the cafeteria (even though there aren’t any other kids in there when we eat) and it means less cleaning we have to do in the sala after meals. We’ve only been doing it for two days, but I’d say so far so good.

I also mentioned last week that three of our kids moved up to Sala 2 – but what I didn’t mention was that one of them, Juan Carlos, left his girlfriend, Liseth, behind in Sala 1. I used to wonder about the amount of PDA (public displays of affection) down here in the parks and generally walking around – but now I know where it all begins. When we would put Liseth and Juan Carlos next to each other on their basins (toilets) in the morning about every other time we looked over Juan Carlos would have his hands on the side of Liseth’s face and be giving her big kisses. Quite possibly one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen. But now that Juan Carlos is in Sala 2 apparently Liseth is missing her make-out sessions and on Tuesday when we were watching the older kids dance she kept trying to escape over to where Sala 2 was sitting (to find her boyfriend, of course) and on Wednesday morning when she was seated next to one of the other boys, attempted to place a big kiss on him to which he just started shrieking and crying. We’re all rooting for Liseth to move up to Sala 2 so she can be reunited with her pareja (pair/mate).

In other exciting news, I finally found and joined a gym! As some of you have already heard I’m probably a little overly excited about it – but it’s a really good deal. For the equivalent of 120 dollars I get 6 months of membership which includes: a cardio room (with treadmills, ellipticals, steppers, and bikes – all generally impossible to find in Bolivia), a weight room with more machines than the YMCA, instructors (aka personal trainers) in the weight room who will show/tell you what exercises to do every time you go in and what part of the body to focus on for the day if you want, free access to all their Body Pump/Body Sculpt/Cycling classes, AND free internet. I can hardly contain my excitement. I’ll probably never find a deal this good again, so I’m going to take full advantage of it while I’m down here. Granted the downside is that it’s a 30 minute walk from my house and a 45 minute walk from work, so I generally take a trufi/taxi from work to the gym and then use the walk home from the gym as my cool down. I have a pretty good record for making random friends at the gym, so I’m hoping maybe this new part of my life will also enhance my social life (and at the very least my stories for the blog).

And the most exciting news of the week – MY FAMILY IS COMING FOR CHRISTMAS!! My parents and my brother are arriving in Coche on Christmas morning and leaving on the 30^th. So while it will be a short stay I’m SUPER excited to see them and I’ve already started a countdown calendar on my desktop (90 days to be exact).

As for the weekend, it’s been fairly uneventful so far. Last night Jordan and I stayed in and invented Jersualen bowling using the 2-liter bottles left over from soda as our pins and a plastic jar of honey as our ball. Our thin hallway is perfectly designed to act as a bowling alley and while the honey-ball isn’t ideal, it definitely adds to the challenge. I’m planning on spending my Saturday at Nazareth with the boys again, although it means I won’t be hanging around BK all day on gametracker, I might head to BK on Sunday to attempt some epic Skype catch up dates with people.

¡Oh, cuán lejos llegarás!

Danielle was nice enough to send me a package with the book “Oh, the places you’ll go!” in español which I picked up on Saturday – along with cards from my mom and Emily – at my first visit to the Correo (there is only ONE post office in ALL of Cochabamba). But now that I know where it is and how it works I’m going to attempt to start sending some mail of my own!

And indeed, oh the places I’ve been this past week. The quest to fix my Bolivian cell phone took four days and multiple hours. It all began when I went to the Viva store (Viva is the name of the cell phone company) downtown to activate my phone on Tuesday (strategically timed so because Dumbo’s – an ice cream place- has a 2x1 deal on Tuesdays and is located two stores down from the Viva store). When I told them that I needed to activate and register my phone the man at the desk told me I needed a code from the store where I’d bought my SIM card – none of the other volunteers have ever needed a code. But, nonetheless I believed them. False. I do not need a code. So because I already had plans to meet Angela (a fellow ND grad who is down here doing service until next fall) for dinner on Wednesday night, my journey picked up again on Thursday. I returned to the store and told them such code did not exist, to which they replied of course it didn’t (I think the other guy was having some fun pulling a joke on the gringa) and they attempted to get on the phone with the operator to register my phone, but it wouldn’t work. So they send me to the oficina central in another part of the city because they don’t know how to handle it. They tell me to bring my phone, my SIM card, and a copy of my passport. So I go to the oficina central, all my things in tow, and no sooner have I explained to the guy at the door that I need to activate my phone than he says that all extranjeros (foreigners) have to go to the store in the CINE CENTER (movie theater) to activate their phones. So on Friday I venture to the Cine Center after work and no sooner have I walked up to the desk to say I need to register my phone than they ask for my passport – to which I give them the photocopy, but alas, they say they need my actual passport. I attempt to argue that I’d been to the oficina central and they just told me I needed a photocopy, but the lady at the desk, not so kindly, informs me that that’s only for registering my phone – for activation I need my actual passport and if I would like to get on the line with the operator they will tell me so themselves. So I return home, defeated. On Saturday I return to the Cine Center with my passport and everything else I thought I might possibly need (200 Bolivianos – a ridiculous amount, all numbers given to me by previous stores, passport AND photocopy of passport, and a mental attitude that they were going to reject me once again, so just be prepared…) and although it took 17 calls to get through to the operator, I FINALLY left at 2:30pm on Saturday with a working Bolivian cell phone! And that my friends, is how things are done in Bolivia.

In terms of work the week was pretty good, nothing to complain about, especially since my favorite mama’s were the ones working MWF – it’s amazing how even when they are missing a mama the kids behave SO much better for this set of mama’s than for Albertina. The highlights of my week were that
1. They got a new music CD that has 25 songs instead of 3 – although I’ve almost memorized the words to “Quiero un Herrmanito” and “Pinata” and all the other songs on the CD, 25 is a much better selection than 3.
2. On Wednesday I got about 7 of the kids to all hold hands and dance in a circle. Probably the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. And slightly concerning that the highlight to my week was dancing in circles (we also attempted to do hands on shoulders and be a tren (train) – but that wasn’t quite so successful, a few of the kids took it to be more than a slight invasion of their personal space and ended up crying…one thing at a time I suppose).

It was really nice to have dinner with Angela and have someone from ND down here to relate to. I even met up with her and another girl who graduated from ND two years ago at Burger King on Saturday for the “gamewatch” – it’s nice to have a little community down here – although they’ll be working starting in October so I have to take advantage of these gatherings while I can.

I think that I’ve found the way in which I’m going to become rich – there are multiple establishments in Bolivia that have ripped off chains from the States (or maybe the States ripped off the Bolivian store…) and I’m thinking that if I take pictures of said copyright violations and identity thefts that perchance I could make a bit of money from the companies in the States…that or end up with a lifetime supply of Chiptole. Yes, there is a restaurant down here called Chipotle – and they even stole the red circle with a pepper in the middle logo from the chain in the States. Jordan and I did our American duty of checking out this fraudulent store on Friday night after my frustrating day #3 with Viva and although it is not set up the same as the Chipotle in the States, they do have a very delicious burrito AND most importantly they are the first establishment at which I’ve found Coca Cola Light in this city. I’m thinking about going back and asking them who their supplier is and if they can order me an extra crate every month.

It’s back to just Jordan and I again. Ancilla moved out on Saturday to live at Solomon Klein (where both she and I work) because she wanted to work and live in the same place and said she felt “safer” there. I still don’t understand why she wants to work and live at the same place (especially bc the rooms at Solomon are in the cafeteria and SUPER loud when the kids are out and about and it can also get really hot because they’re close to the tin roof). We’ll be getting another roommate in the beginning of October – but for the next three weeks at least, its just us two again. Poor Jordan will have to get a reward for having to put up with me for so long.

I’ve also taken to dealing with stress/homesickness by baking. I think Jordan and the boys downstairs are really going to start wishing for me to be homesick if this keeps being the maner in which I choose to deal with it. On Saturday I made Maria’s famous Oreo balls (mashed up Oreos and cream cheese balls covered in white chocolate). I had made them as a little “surprise” for when we had a few of the other volunteers over on Saturday night, but seeing as there are only about 6 of us and there were about 30+ oreo balls I brought about 15 of them downstairs to the boys when we went down for dinner – I think I’ve safely made lots of new friends.

On Sunday Jordan and I laid low for the most part – I’ve been reading Sense and Sensibility and am hooked and furiously reading until I finish. We also went and at in the park for two hours and got LOTS of good people watching in (mostly these three kids attempting to run up a slide and failing every single time and making a “WHOMP!” sound as they hit the slide). I’m telling you, I was meant to be a kid in Cochabamba. At the park they had trampolines out, a MOON BOUNCE (for all of you who don’t know this about me – I have a sliiiiight obsession with inflatables…), horse/pony rides, the motorized kid jeeps, cotton candy, a train ride that played music and rode around the park, a makeshift mary-go-round, and playgrounds. And this is just a regular old Sunday! I felt like I was at a carnival!

This week will be long because it’s the mama’s I don’t like as much that work MWF, but Tuesday is a feriada (holiday) - the bicentennial celebration of Cochabamba (their phrase is – America is free because Cochabamba wanted it to be so! – maybe giving themselves a little too much credit…) which means I’ll have the day off and get to go downtown and see all the different celebrations. Who knows, maybe there will even be a moon bounce for grownups! A girl can only dream.

I ALMOST FORGOT. I thought I would share a picture of the infamous chicken-foot-soup that we had for dinner last week. It´s not unusual for the soup to have a chicken foot in it, but on Tuesday I won the prize and got the chicken foot in MY bowl. Oh lucky me.

Chivalry is alive and well in Sala Uno

Well I guess it’s a good sign that I’m not posting more than once a week – must mean I’m busy or something.

So indeed our third roommate did arrive last Tuesday – Ancilla from Holland and super nice. I’m still getting to know her because she had a bit of jet-lag for the first few days and then her work schedule is Wednesday-Sunday so we don’t have the same off-days. There is a chance she might be moving to Solomon Klein to live because she’s going to be here for at least a year, if not longer, and she wants to work and live at the same place. We’ll find out tomorrow or sometime later this week if she’s staying here or not.

The weekend was pretty good – Friday night we slept outside for this fundraiser called “Noche Sin Techo” (Night Without a Roof) for another organization in Cochabamba that works with teenagers of the street. We slept outside in a plaza – me, Jordan, Leena, Julia, and about 50 other people altogether. It was a little chilly and only Julia and I were able to actually get any sleep out of our group (I accredit my ability to sleep to the fact that I just graduated from college where you learn to sleep through almost anything…). We also met a group of kids from the MaryKnoll center who are down here for 6 months at a language institute – two of whom graduated from Creighton and knew Mike Pogge – which was a super exciting small world realization for me. I love how small the world is, even way down south here.

Saturday was a great day – I sat in Burger King mooching off of their WiFi from about 2:45-6:45 attempting to “watch” the ND game on gametracker and get updates from friends on Skype. Getting to talk to Emily, Katie Merriam, Maria, Bliss and my parents really put me in an amazing mood (that and the ND win of course!) – I still find myself struggling with not feeling connected to everyone when I’m down here, so getting to talk to them really lifted my spirits.

Sunday was fairly uneventful, but for as generally lazy as I was I have to admit there wasn’t much I could have done because it was a national pedestrian holiday – which meant that only people with special permits could drive their cars (I saw about 20 cars all day). Jordan and I walked to the big super market, IC Norte, and bought flour so I could make bread again and the walk was really cool because it’s a good 20-25 minutes each way and there were NO cars on the street – just people and bikes. I think I was particularly fascinated by all the people/bikes in the streets because I’m fairly certain that a national pedestrian holiday (where even public transportation is closed) would NEVER fly in the U.S. – but maybe that’s the pessimist in me.

The work week thus far has been fairly uneventful – although I am definitely noticing a difference between how the kids behave, particularly in the morning during bathtime, with the different sets of mama’s. They are much calmer and generally more well-behaved with Maribel and her partner than with Albertina and the new mama. I haven’t really been able to pick up on what exactly the differences are between how the mama’s act towards the kids – but it seems like they respect Maribel and her partner more than Albertina and the new mama (I really need to work on getting all their names down…).

Best story of the week so far happened on Monday in the afternoon about an hour before I was leaving. The mama’s and I were sitting in the playroom with all the kids playing with the jugetes and Johnoton (who is always causing trouble with both sets of mamas) decides to start pulling Adrianna’s hair and generally beating up on her. While the mama’s and I are yelling at him to stop, Gonzalo took it upon himself to run (as much of a run as a one year old can do) over to Johnoton and start bopping him on the head for hitting Adrianna. At this point the mama’s and I loose it and start cracking up while cheering Gonzalo on – turns out chivalry is alive and well in Sala Uno because then a few of the others came over to bop Johnoton on the head as well and eventually he got the message and left Adrianna alone.

Thursday will be the one-month mark of my time here. Time has flown. I cannot believe it’s been that long and I’ve taken it upon myself to do some self-reflection of my time here. I definitely think I’ve taken it a little easy on myself in terms of sheltering myself with English and generally not going out on a limb. Even when I am around people speaking Spanish I’ve found that I’m very shy – it’s hard for me to initiate conversation with people I don’t really know because I don’t have any of my personality in Spanish – I’m still working with the basics. Even Melissa, who has been here for a year already and spoke Spanish fluently before coming down here, says that it’s hard because you are definitely a different person when it’s not your native language – you don’t have the sarcasm or the jokes and other conversational tactics you can fall back on in your native language. I definitely need to challenge myself more in the next few weeks – I’ve given myself my adjustment period and now I’m ready to dive in full force. Ready or not, here I go.