March: The month that stole me away from my blog

I think I’ve set a new record for length of time between blog posts and completely and totally shot my New Years resolution of at least two posts a month. My bad. Good news is that the reason I’ve been so MIA is that I’ve been SUPER busy and loving every minute of my time down here. Because it’s been so long since I’ve written I’ll try to make this as brief as possible, unfortunately leaving out some of the more intimate details, but I think the bigger picture is better. Either way, this is going to be a novel, so grab a cup of coffee and make yourself comfortable if you’re planning on sticking through until the end.

The first weekend of March I went to Oruro for the biggest Carnival celebration in Bolivia. It was an absolutely amazing, overwhelming, and ridiculous experience but I’m definitely glad I went. We had a fairly large group (about 70 people in total) with the majority being gringos from a group called Bolivia Sustanible. BUT the good news was that we slept in two different houses, the 50 people from Bolivia Sustanible in one and the other 20 of us (mix of gringos and Bolivians) in the other. We got in late Friday night and immediately went into the center to see the festivities. The streets were jam-packed with people, the music was blaring, and the atmosphere was completely contagious and unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. Kind of like the high of a Notre Dame football weekend but with traditional Bolivian costumes, music, and dancing. Saturday we woke up early and went to the stands to watch the parade from 11am until 4am – a LONG day, but an incredible day nonetheless. Although I’ve been to other entradas while I’ve been down here, nothing will ever compare to the atmosphere and the costumes and energy I experience in Oruro. Sunday was the same entrada, but they reversed the order of the dancers, although there were significantly less people in the stands and MUCH more water-balloon fights. Also a ridiculous experience. We arrived back in Cochabamba at 1am Sunday night and luckily had Monday and Tuesday to recover because they were holidays.

The following weekend was Carnival in Cochabamba, but I didn’t go to that entrada (although we did walk around a bit) because I was still recovering from a cold I caught as a result of the festivities the weekend before. I think my greatest relief was that once the Carnival in Cochabamba was over I no longer had to worry about getting hit by water balloons while walking around the city, although generally they weren’t as much of a problem as people prepared me for.

March really was a month of festiviites because the weekend after all the Carnivals ended we had a wedding celebration for two of the volunteers from Amanecer. It was an absolutely beautiful wedding that the priest said in both Spanish and English and they had invited some of the older boys and girls from the houses the two volunteers work at.

After all of these different festivities I surprisingly still had the energy to take a 10-day trip to visit my cousin Liz in Chile. I flew to Santiago at 2am – who knew flights existed at these times? But apparently that’s the only hour you can get to Santiago for a reasonable price from Bolivia…which has it’s advantages – like the booth for charging Americans $120 to enter Chile being vacant and me somehow avoiding that fee. We spent two days in Santiago and then flew south, with her parents, to Patagonia and did 4 days of hiking/camping/glacier-seeing in the Parque de Torres del Paine. I really had no idea where I was going or what I was getting myself into because Liz was good enough to be the travel agent for our trip and arrange everything – but it was an absolutely unforgettable experience. We saw rainbows 3 of the 4 days, experienced wind, rain and snow and hiked for over 4 hours every day (my body was kind of hating me by the end of the trip). I owe Liz for asking me to come with her because if it wasn’t for her I never would have made my way down there. I had another 2 days on the other side of Patagonia in Santiago – being in a big city in South America really disoriented me because I felt like I could be in Chicago or another big US city. The positives of this being that I got to fulfill my salad, Diet Coke, and Starbucks cravings that I’ve had for the past 8 months.

Although I had an absolutely amazing time in Chile I was definitely ready to come “home” (Mom, I’m putting that in quotes for you…don’t worry I still consider the US my real home) and back to Cocha at the end of the trip. I even went into visit my kids for an hour the day I got back because I had missed them so much – and that was only after being gone for 10 days! The best feeling was coming into work on Monday morning and walking into the bathroom to all of them screaming “KATY!!” – which they have taken to doing almost every day this week and warms my heart every time. I took a video of it on Friday and I”ll try to upload it here so you all can see a little of what I experience every morning.

Things are going really really great here and I can’t believe I come back to the US in 44 days. That’s less than a month and a half! But, for those of you who don’t already know, I’ve decided to come back in August for another 4 months as a result of deciding not to go to WashU in the fall and instead apply to VCU for the fall of 2012. I’ve really found myself down here and I can’t imagine doing anything else with at least part of the next year free I have. Although when I come back I’ll try to change up a bit what I’m doing – helping with volunteer coordinating, fundraising, and working at one of the homes with the older kids (that’s if I decide after being home for 2.5 months that I don’t miss my kids terribly and want to go back to seeing their smiling faces at least twice a week while I do office work the other days).

I’m sorry this is just a snap-shot blog of the last month or so, but I promise to try to add some more detailed posts the next few weeks as I experience starting to get ready to come back state-side.

And I’ll leave you with this brief video of the 21 beautiful children who brighten every one of my days down here and have stolen my heart…and my name (because most of them respond to “como te llamas?” with my name instead of their own…whoops). - Okay the first upload attempt didnt work, but I'll try again soon when I have a better connection!

And they call this summer...

Well it´s supposed to be summertime, but I think I´ve worn a sweater and/or scarf every day except one this week. They say it´s unusually cold this year - that usually during rainy season although it rains it is also sunny and warm the other half of the time. Not true this year.

It was actually a fairly eventful week - on Thursday Albertina and Martha got into a fight when we were bathing the kids in the morning. More like Albertina decided to start screaming at Martha about not putting an undershirt on the kids after she bathes them while they are waiting for Albertina to put the rest of the clothes on - instead of saying "maybe next time you should put an undershirt on them" Albertina instead started screaming about how she didn´t want "mala atención" (bad attention) from the director and nurse and she NEVER leaves the kids sitting like that. To which Martha started yelling back to defend herself that indeed Albertina HAS left them like that ocassionally and she doesn´t always leave them sitting like that but she was trying to bathe them quickly because they were all running around the bathroom. So they didn´t talk to each other for the rest of the day and then got called into the office at 3:30 and were there until 5...leaving me with all the kids (and eventually a helper came in when it was time to take them to eat) for an extra hour than I´m supposed to work. And to add on top of it I was the ONLY volunteer in all of Amanecer working on Thursday because the strike was still going on and no one could get to work and the two other girls that work with me at Solomon were sick. Needless to say when I got to Diego´s house after work I was not in the best of moods and promptly passed out for about half an hour.

Other than the incident on Thursday everything has been going well. Two more of my girls moved up to Sala 2 this week - Nadia and Adrianna. Adrianna was one of my favorites (she´s in my Facebook picture) and was also an avid fan of shouting my name. So it´s sad not to have them around anymore, but great because now when I pass by Sala 2 BOTH Johnothon and Adrianna shout my name and I feel loved. Now that Jen has 3/4 of Sala 2 filled with kids from Sala 1 I sometimes get jealous and feel the need to proclaim "They were mine first!!"

I don´t know when my next blog will be - it´s a crazy few weeks coming up. On Friday I´m traveling to Oruro for the 2nd largest Carnival celebration in the world and then the following weekend is Carnival in Cochabamba. I´m excited for the next two weekends but I also think they´ll leave me quite exahusted. Just giving my fair warning as to why I wont have updated in a while - that´s mostly for you Mom.

No hay mobilidad en Cochabamba

Today is Day 2 of the transportation strike in Cochabamba. Aka there are no trufis or micros (the public transportation system) throughout the whole city. On Wednesday all of the drivers protested because they want to raise their prices from 1.50bs to 2bs. Although 50 bolivano cents doesn't seem like a lot, seeing as it is a third of the current price it's causing quite a commotion. [Sidenote: They also can't raise it any less because there is a problem with change in Bolivia and particularly among any coins less than 50 cents - 20s and 10s exist, but are very rare. ]The people do not want the prices raised because they are convinced that if they raise the prices of public transportation they will raise the prices of other things as well - such as milk, bread, etc. Unclear how the two are related, but in the minds of Bolivians there is no question to the link.

The protests started on Tuesday with the people protesting the rising prices with marches in a nearby town called Quiacollo. I actually was unaware this was going on except that I noticed it took a particularly long time for a trufi to pass that would take me to the gym after work - soon came to find out it was due to the fact that since all of the trufis I usually take come from Quiacollo they were blocked from getting through the masses of people. Wednesday the trufi drivers responded by marching through the city - starting out peacefully - on all the main roads and creating blockades and, eventually, starting fights and throwing chairs, stones, and other related objects. Luckily though I was relatively unaffected because I always walk to work - for my roommate Hanne though it was a different story - she had to walk over an hour to get to work.

Today the strike continued, although more or less without the mass marches, just without running transportation. It was also announced that it will be an indefinite strike and tomorrow will be even more dangerous because there will be marches by BOTH the people and the trufi drivers - aka lots and lots of fighting.

It's fascinating for me to watch this whole process go underway because it's something I would never experience in the US. I personally don't understand why the trufi drivers are striking when they could just raise the prices and see if people still use the transportation or not. The first day I was confused about who was striking - why would drivers strike if they could be making money and driving their trufis?!

I've been warned to stay far away from the city tomorrow, but part of me will be urging to join the march on one side or the other just to see what goes down. Don't worry Mom, I won't actually do it, my curiosity will just be peaked.

Rain rain go away...

It´s officially rainy season. And I can already tell it will be the test of my patience at Solomon.

This past week it was rainy and cold (granted nothing compared to the cold in the States right about now – although the Mama´s love to dress the kids like it´s negative fifteen degrees outside with sweaters and hats and pants when it´s a mere 50 degrees outside) EVERY day from Monday-Friday and by the end of the week I was dead. Which is saying a lot considering it was a Sabina MWF week. The poor kids were going stir crazy because they had to stay inside every day all day – eve when it wasn´t actually raining, if there was the slightest bit of water or puddles around we had to keep them inside for fear of them wreaking havock. I understand that 21 one to two year olds and puddles and mud doesn´t paint the prettiest of pictures, but by the end of the week I was ready to risk that havock for my mental sanity.

Although my main memories of the past week are of crying, screaming, insanity there were also a fair share of adorable moments as always. Probably one of the biggest highlights of the week for me was seeing that Edson, going on 4 but not moving up to the next sala because of his inability to walk, could do the “Chu chua” dance – something a little like the Spanish version of the Hokey-Pokey where they add a body-part action ever verse and end with ¡lengua afuera! (tounge out!) so that you end up singing “ la la la la la la la la la la” instead of the words. The second-to-last verse goes a little something like this…

¡compañía!
brazo extendido (arms out)
puño cerrado (fists closed)
dedos arriba (thumbs up)
hombro fruncido (literally means “puckered shoulders” )
cabeza hacia atrás (head back)
cola hacia atrás (but back)
pie de pingüino (feet like a pengin)
Chu chu uá, chu chu uá
Chu chu uá, uá, uá
Chu chu uá, chu chu uá
Chu chu uá, chu chu uá

I also went climbing on Wednesday after a bit of peer pressure from Jen (who works at Solomon with me) and Diego to give it a try. The last time I climbed was at summer camp when I was twelve. I envisioned the climbing walls I´d seen in the States – with the multicolored fake rocks – but instead ended up climbing a cement wall with cement knobs in the middle of the soccer stadium while all the venders were setting up for the nights game. Hilarious. Although I did manage to make it all the way to the top – after about ten minutes and about 4 descansos (rests). I´m told I was held back by not having the propper shoes which was why I had such difficulty and that I did better than most people on their first try – I still think they were just being nice to me and Diego was doing his boyfriend-duty of flattering me. Today Jen told me they installed some new cement knobs in the wall so it´s a bit easier…who knows maybe I´ll give it another try sometime soon. The next thing on their peer-pressure list for me to do is paragliding…which I was initially 100% against (I have nightmares about the free-falling feeling in my stomach) but when we swung by the office of the place that we would do it with after climbing and there were pictures on the wall of people doing it AND I was reassured that there was no free-falling involved…I´m starting to get convinced.

This week has also been a bit rainy and cold, which has kept us inside more than I would like but less than last week. So hopefully, considering this is now an Albertina week, it will continue at least at this rate if not with some nicer days.

Also, today Johnoton, the notorious peleador (fighter) in our sala finally moved up to Sala 2. And even though we´ve all been saying for months that he needed to move up, taking him over to the Sala 2 lunch table and leaving him there was not an easy task. He was also probably the most avid of the kids in my sala of screaming my name all the time, so when I saw Sala 2 on my way out this afternoon and he walked over to me and took my hand and said Katy! my heart melted. Although it was also hilarious to see all the kids in my sala accepting the new girl to come up from recien nacidos (new borns) and standing around her in a circle pointing and screaming ¡wawa! ¡bebe! (wawa is the word for baby in quechua which is the language spoken in the campo) even though she is about the same age and size as all of them.

Spanish Speaking Countries: 2 Katie´s Teeth: 0

So I´m writing this in the internet cafe tonight so that I can say that I´ve made my two-posts a month goal that I´ve set for myself in the new year...you could say I´m calling it kind of close.

The last few weeks have been fairly uneventful at work - which I´m not complaining about. Albertina and Martha continue to work together but they´re both doing a MUCH better job and I´ve actually quite taken to Martha and we get along really well.

I even have gotten Edson, Johnoton, and Adrianna to be able to say "Katy!" when they see me which is super cute - although maybe questionable considering the only other two words they know are "mama" and "caca" (poop). Today they decided to give all the kids (minus the newborns) Coca-Cola for a little celebration - genius idea, caffinated two year olds - and when I walked into the sala mid-way through naptime when three-quarters of the kids were awake and Johno and Edson started screaming my name so did about 4 others who had never said it before...it was awesome. I want to give them Coca-Cola all the time now.

I´ve also recently taken to taking a few of the older kids in my sala out to read picture books (with picture of animals and "my first words" type books) in the afternoon for 15 minutes each or so. My goal is to do a little research on how exactly to best go about helping a few of these three year olds who still only know how to say three words (mama, caca, and Katy) how to start saying more - but in the meantime it feels really rewarding when they can repeat "mono" (monkey) and "gato" (cat) and point out the eyes, ears, mouth, and legs on all the animals.

It was a nice short week at work last week because I donated blood on Monday - one of the boys from Casa Nazareth had heart surgery on Friday and in order to recieve the blood for his operation he needed people to donate the equal amount - and when I called Emma to tell her I would be coming into work late her response was "No vas a venir hoy - tienes que descansar y tomar leche - nos vemos mañana¨("you´re not coming in today, you need to rest and drink milk - we will see you tomorrow!"). So I had a nice lazy start to the week and a fairly uneventful week until...

I guess the biggest news is that my teeth and Spanish-speaking countries really have it out for each other...last Thursday when I was opening a little bag of milk with my mouth/teeth - yes the dentist in Spain told me I should not be biting into hard things or opening things with my teeth - my Spanish tooth went flying with the corner of the bag and I was left toothless in Bolivia for about 15 hours from Thursday afternoon until I went to the dentist on Friday morning. The second time around being rendered toothless in a foreign country was much more entertaining and less stressful than the first time. And hey, now I have one Bolivian and one Spanish tooth! Who wants keychains, tshirts, and manillas when you could have Bolivian teeth??

The end of the rope

This week I reached the end of my Albertina rope. I didn’t really realize before this week just how much of a difference there is between Sabina and Albertina, although I’ve known there is a difference, because there is always a mama I like working with Albertina to balance her out. This week however a mama I don’t really know worked with Albertina on Tuesday and Thursday. While Doña Martha doesn’t yell at the kids or do anything particularly bad, the problem is that she doesn’t do anything. She is a very passive, quiet, and reserved person. Having Martha and Albertina together was probably the most challenging days at work I’ve ever had.

Thursday I even left work enojadiiisima

Angry that Albertina and Martha had basically ignored me all day long – talking between themselves during baño and while folding laundry in the afternoon as if I wasn’t even in the room. Angry that they hadn’t tickled, laughed with, or kissed any of the kids while bathing them and getting them ready in the morning – that they had treated the kids like a process in a factory, just going through the motions. Angry that the kids could tell these mama’s didn’t care as much and took to revolting and walking all over the baño with their basins. Angry that I couldn’t handle every other kid crying when I tried to manage the sala by myself all afternoon. Angry that they hadn’t spent a single minute playing with the kids either in the morning or afternoon. Angry that they had disappeared for half an hour, nowhere to be found in the baño or sala, after changing diapers in the afternoon. Angry that I was letting them affect my mood. Angry that when I left in the afternoon they were going to be left for three hours without someone to give them the love and attention they deserve and more.

Generally 100% pissed. Pardon my language.

So in that mindset I went to a travel agent to ask about flights home – supposedly there was a direct flight from Santa Cruz to Washington DC, but apparently “direct” means a stop in Panama and Dallas. So instead I went to the internet café and booked a flight with American Airlines for May 22^nd from Santa Cruz to Miami and Miami to D.C. I guess it was better for me to do this at a time when I was angry and ready to leave rather than when I couldn’t bare the thought of leaving this beautiful country I’ve fallen in love with.

When I had first arrived at Solomon Klein in August the director, Emma, had told me if I ever saw a mama not giving the kids enough love or treating them well that I should say something. While I’ve always had a slight problem with the way Albertina treats the kids, I knew that Emma already knew she was difficult to work with because several of the mamas had told me of conversations they’d had with Emma about how they would work at any time of day in any sala with anyone BUT Albertina. However, after Thursday I knew I needed to talk to Emma myself, even if it was just to reaffirm what she already knew.

Friday I walked into the baño in the morning to smiles and laughter with Sabina and Emilen and the kids rather than the stoic faces and chaos of Thursday. It was casi imposible to believe that it was the same place I had been yesterday and that the change of two people in the room could make that much of a difference. Friday was an absolutely amazing day at work. There is no other word to express the day. I saw Sabina chasing the kids around the sala, tickling them, stimulating them, and generally enjoying every single one of them. After lunch I went to Emma’s office to talk to her and that conversation was also amazing. She knows and agrees with the fact that Albertina is no longer a good mama and that she tends to treat the job like factory work. The problem, she explained, is that Albetina is one year away from retirement and there are laws protecting women workers in Bolivia from being fired right before retirement. Mostly to make sure they aren’t getting denied pensions, but in this case making it impossible for Emma to fire Albertina now. So instead we discussed how maybe Emma would keep one of the mama’s who had worked in my sala before and had said last week that she wanted to quit to go back to school, but this week had come back to Emma saying she wanted to stay because her family needed the money. Emma had told her that it wasn’t a game – to decide one week to quit and the next to stay – but told me that maybe she would keep her on to work with Albertina because they had worked together before and not had too many problems and she treats the kids really well. Someone who won’t butt-heads with Albertina and will also be able to balance out Albertina’s stoicism. After that discussion we went on to talk about Emma’s family (she has a daughter my age who has been studying medicine in Cuba for 6 years and she hasn’t seen her for that whole time), how she never gets to rest , how she studied in North Carolina for a year when she was preparing to take over as director of Solomon, about how great some of the other mama’s are, and other topics for another half an hour.

Perhaps the most amazing thing I took away from this whole experience is how although education is extremely important and can make all the difference in a person’s life, there are some things that education cannot teach. Albertina and Martha are both professionals – a nurse and a dentist – who studied for years with specialties in caring for kids. Sabina has never even learned to read and write. Yet the innate difference in their spirits is astonishing. Emma told me that she has been paying for Sabina to go to night classes so she can learn to read and write so that she can better help to educate the kids and read with them – an initiative that I find truly inspirational in a woman who is just learning to read at over 50 years old for the sake of 21 kids who aren’t even her own. That passion is something I will definitely take with me. Some people could blame the fact that Albertina has been working at Solomon for almost 5 years as to why she is burned out (but has been working in general for over 14 and she needs 15 years for pensions/retirement), but Sabina has been working at Solomon for over 20 with a passion and love in her eyes stronger than ever.

Playing Catch-Up

So I’ve promised myself I’ll do a better job with this blog in 2011. I figure there is both a positive and a negative to the fact that I haven’t been updating this as frequently as I would like…Positive: It means I’m actually living my life down here – busy and happy, but not always with enough time or energy to update my blog. Negative: I don’t get to share as much of my experience with all of you. So in 2011 I’m working on finding a happy medium between the two extremes. Wish me luck.

Although it is January I can hardly believe that the holiday season has passed. Christmas Eve we played Bingo with the boys in our house from 9pm-1am – I’ve never played so much bingo in one night…and never had such bad luck with bingo. Four hours and I only won ONCE. Ouch. But I didn’t work that day and had stayed home to Skype with people and then bake lots of desserts for the boys for during bingo. It was really cute because I’d told them on Tuesday or Wednesday of my plan to bake desserts for bingo and one of the youngest boys of the house, Erwin, who is 13, then asked me at least once a day every day what time I was going to have the desserts ready and to make sure I saved him some.

Christmas day was probably one of the best days I could have ever asked for. I went to Solomon in the morning until lunch to say hi to my kiddies, see them get some gifts, and watch one of my colleagues dress up as Papa Noel. Then at 1:30pm my family arrived!! The volunteer director, Tom, took me to the airport to get them and asked on the way if he would get a good show in the airport when we were reunited…I think we fulfilled his request -Tim picked me up and carried me about 50 yards across the terminal which drew attention in and of itself, along with the fact that Tim is probably the tallest gringo almost any of the Bolivians in the airport had ever seen.

Having my family here was absolutely amazing. We did a few of the touristy things – climbing the Cristo (mom even braved the gondolas with her fear of heights), visiting the Cancha market, walking around the city, etc – But the highlights of the trip were their getting to meet the 21 kids that I’ve fallen head over heels for, the mama’s who have taken me in as a family of their own, and the friends I’ve made down here (and of course our family bridge tournaments for hours in the hotel with popcorn and beer). I try to explain my experience down here, but there are some things that are just impossible to convey without seeing them or experiencing them for yourself, so I feel incredibly blessed that I was able to share this experience with them. Luckily they left early enough the morning that I was almost too tired to realize I actually had to say goodbye for another four and a half months – that is until I went up to the observation deck to wave goodbye to them as they boarded the plane, it felt like a scene out of a movie – them walking away and waving, me standing, waving, and bawling my eyes out.

This past week getting back into the routine of work has been a challenge to say the least. When my family was here they came to visit the kids twice for about two hours each time and afterwards would exclaim “How do you DO this every day all day?!” – and getting back into the routine again I wondered how I had gotten so accustomed to it before. One of the highlights of the week included me sneaking a video of Blanca, one of the tiniest girls in the sala (although also one of the oldest) who when you ask her ¿Quien quiere chicha? (which is a corn-based alcohol that is very popular down here) she raises her hand and says ¡Yo! (Me!) and its probably one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen and now I can remember it and show it to all of you when I come home!

I ended up taking Friday off as a bit of a mental health/recovery from too much Albertina day. Hanne didn’t have to work this week because the day center was closed due to a lack of boys coming in the prior weeks, so she and I had some nice quality time in the morning with coffee and visiting a beautiful convent. We found out Friday night that we get a third roommate on Thursday which, although is good for me in the long-term because it means I’ll have someone once Hanne leaves at the end of March, we aren’t quite ready to become a three-some instead of the pair we are now. Friday night we also went out for First Friday celebrations and went to an awesome chicheria where we danced around a fire and it was truly a magical experience. Bolivians still find it weird that extranjeros do NOTHING to celebrate the first Friday of the month because it’s such a big deal down here.

Although it’s been difficult attempting to readjust to work and a routine and schedule walking back into the sala and seeing all 21 of the kids’ faces light up and hearing them yell “Mama! Mama!” was one of the most amazing feelings. I was starting to question at the end of December if I should start working a day or two a week at Madre de Dios, the girls shelter, because I want to work with older kids when I go back to the States and it might be good for me to have some practice, but now I’m not so sure. I feel so at home and so loved and so useful at Solomon that I can’t imagine splitting the little time I have left somewhere else. I want to get every hug, smile, laugh, and “mama!” I can out of the little guys before I have to figure out how to stash them all in my suitcase on the way home.

This blog has been a little random and all over the place, but I promise to update more frequently and therefore be able to share more particular stories and elaborate more on my life instead of having to summarize one month into one blog post!