Antua

Next week is my last week. I can hardly believe it´s actually here and I have had quite my share of emotional ups and downs (which I´m sure will continue into next week) recently. The thing that really hit me yesterday was that over the last month or so Antua - one of the 8 kids who has been in my sala the whole 10 months I´ve been here - has taken to following me to the door every afternoon when I leave and bursting into tears when I have to shut the door behind me. Even the days when I´ve tried to say goodbye to him when he´s outside, he always knows when I´m leaving and is waiting at the door when I´m trying to leave. It breaks my heart a little bit every day to leave him, but I´m consoled by the fact that I can tell him I´ll be back tomorrow. Next Friday though, that won´t be the case.

I originally thought it might be easier to leave my kids than it would be if I was working with older kids, because they don´t understand that I´m leaving and there is no need for explanations. However, as the countdown begins, I´m starting to realize that maybe this will be a little harder than I ever expected. How do you say goodbye to the little people you´ve watched grow up - learn new words, learn how to climb up and down from their cribs, learn my name, learn how to run, learn how to dance, learn how to drink out of a cup instead of a bottle - over the past 10 months and who have completely stolen my heart? Obviously I will miss every single one of my kids, but Martin, Antua, Omar, Jose Carlos, Julio, Jose Armando, and Gisel - who I´ve spent 5 days a week with for the past 10 months are going to be the hardest.

I just consider it a loan...

Well as the days and weeks wind down I find it more and more likely that Martin will be returning to the States with me in two short weeks. I know it´s a terrible, no good, very bad thing to have such a favorite in the sala - but every day he does something to make me want to steal him away a little more.

1. Sabina told me that this weekend when I wasn´t at work he would put his fist up to his ear and say "Hola, Katy!" and "Katy, ven!" (Katy come!) which made my heart melt just a little

2. Last Friday we were playing with cubes that had holes of different shapes and he was trying to fit each shape into the hole. I had to point out which hole went with which shape, but he eventually was able to get about 80% of the shapes in the hole and then look up at me, clap and say "Bravo!" - and the times that he wasn´t so successful he would slowly sink sideways to the ground and then look up at me as if to say "Okay, I´m tired...do we really have to keep doing this?"

3. He´s started copying almost ALL of my facial expressions- including one of complete shock where he opens his mouth wide and his eyes sparkle.

4. His new dance. Where he throws his entire body into it, falls over (every time because he´s lost complete control over his body with excitment) and looks up at me - not crying - as if to say "look what you made me do!"

So Mom and Dad, when I get off the plane in D.C. don´t be surprised if I tell you to handle my backpack with care - Martin could very well be stuffed inside. I just consider it a loan since I´m coming back here in August after all...

KATY!!!

A little sneak peak into the wonderful welcome I get every morning when I come in to work :) Although this is an awesome video, nothing can fully grasp the amazingness of the experience.

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.