Multitonality

¡Somos (como) Bolivianos!

The main church in Copacabana, Bolivia

Crap! It took me more than three weeks again! I'll have to get better at this at some point. Now that we're a little more settled for the next couple months and have roommates generous enough to share their laptops, hopefully things will become easier. Needless to say, we made it across the border in one piece and after a few hectic days, we have found ourselves at our (semi-) final landing point in Cochabamba. On first impression, this is a great city. Really one of the most modern we´ve been in. People are well dressed, usually a little trimmer, and much less likely to approach you on the street to talk or just say good afternoon. Of course there´s still that distinctive edge that tells you it's not quite the same – miniature sidewalks in which everyone refuses to move out of each other´s way, older woman (though not that old) who jump in the front of the line or the bathroom stall, whichever the case may be, and as always the interchanging smell of urine (or sewage) and baking bread. It´s an interesting combination of cultures.

Oh, quick note, apparently I was so distracted last time that I forgot to mention that when we were on Isla Taquile, it was our third anniversary. So there you go. Yay us. Moving onward...

Here´s the quick recap. Those with time plug your ears.

• Copacabana (with that god awful song stuck in my head nearly half the time) and Isla del Sol (supposed birthplace of the first Inca)
• La Paz, a quick in and out of an NYC like city – we survived
•  Long bus ride to Cochabamba due to a big accident
•  Cochabamba – meeting up with Andrew and Jaime, introduction to the clinic, starting up project work, lots of bureaucracy, Chris sick again (though treating tonight!!! Yay tinidazole!), and climbing the Cristo
• Sucre - meeting the kids, Andrew´s house, more parades, Mitos
• Cochabamba - moved into new apartment, more clinic, climbing another mountain, another parade (scroll down to see the VIP we glimpsed), getting settled in

So after I got off the internet last time, we had a quick rush to get done and gone. Chris found a stall at the local co-op that kept small herds of llamas and used eco-friendly dyes in trying to be environmentally conscious. Unfortunately, everything alpaca was quite expensive so he bought a very nice tie-dye looking sheep towel/rug/? Instead. We made it to the bus and snacked in the terminal since we weren´t able to find anywhere open that would be quick to eat. Somehow, there appears to be no shortage of American candy and cookies in South America (we´ve certainly eaten more here than at home – it´s been a bit of Twix and Snickers lately). Feeling tired and pissy, I gave in and got a butterfinger. Damn that stuff is good but I wish there were just a few healthy snacks available.

The bus company took good care of us in crossing the border – this bus was the first we´ve been on that was 99% tourists (yuck). It was a highly rushed experience though, especially for us since we had the most to do. There were a total of four Americans and they pushed us to get through quickly since they knew we would take longer than anyone else. The Bolivian government isn´t exactly keen on the US because the US government isn´t exactly coca-friendly. And it just so happens that in 2008, the first native and coca cultivator was elected president here, Evo Morales. It also happens at that time, I´ve been told, that the US ambassador was expelled. So everyone else got across nice and easy but we had to fill out an inordinant amount of paperwork and pay a $135 (yes, that´s dollars) visa. But at least the visa is valid for three months a year for the next five years. Our poor friends who are here for longer have to apply for residency and pay more. But we´ll get to that later. Chris would later comment that the whole experience may have been the first time a White(just like to point out that the Spanish spell check that doesn´t recognize 99% of the words I´m using just capitalized that), middle class male like himself has really experienced discrimination. Thought-provoking, isn´t it?

Copacabana was about as touristy as it comes. Frustrated and tired we argued a bit over where to stay but eventually, trudging back up the main hill from the dock, we discovered that hostels got cheaper the further away from the lake you are. Yes, this was our second Lake Titicaca stop. What can I say? Chris just loves the water. We went out to eat at a place we found in the guidebook but it turned out to be super-touristy. Nonetheless, we enjoyed having our first tortillas in a long time even if what was supposed to be trout tacos turned out to be more like smothered burritos (we won´t bother teaching them the difference).  We walked up to the town´s infamous church (most here are in some way or another). It was already late and dark but the doors to the expansive church plaza were open. We wandered about and tried to snap a few pictures of the towering white walls in the dark. We also went into the candle chapel, which we´d heard on a good night could hold hundreds of lit candles. But a good night would also mean people had a lot of reasons (usually not good one would asume) to pray, and so I have to be grateful there were only a few lit. The walls were covered in candle wax people had used to write and make drawings with. There were only a few people there engaged in silent prayer, and so we took a brief glance and made a discrete exit.

We woke early the next morning and hopped on a boat to Isla del Sol. This time we sat on the inside of the boat the whole time. Again, like the bus, it was mostly filled with tourists. Chris knitted nearly the whole time and I just relaxed for what I can remember. When we arrived, we were ushered towards a licensed, island-approved guide who was seeking to take usa ll about the island. Most of the group was just staying for a day, and the majority were walking around on one part of the island and then taking the boat to the other side. You can already guess I´m sure that that wasn´t going to be good enough for us. We decided to walk the 3-3.5 hour slightly mountainous (at least ridgey) hike across the island and stay a night at the southern end. Landing at the northern end and then moving to the south appeared to be the norm. The northern end had more ruins and sights but the southern was more established and set up for tourists. So it was sad when all of the women, seeing us with our larger than most backpacks, approached us asking if we needed somewhere to stay on the northern end. But we didn´t have enough time to stay on for two nights and make it to Cochabamba in a timely manner, so we had to politely decline.

At first, after paying what we thought was the all-inclusive island fee (we would have top ay more later), we stayed with the tour group, thinking it would be nice to hear the background information. We stepped into a one-room museum with everyone and immediately found we took up too much space and their were too many people to see over anyway. The group moved fast and we stayed behind to move at our own pace. The museum chronicled the civilization preceding the Incas on the island and the artifacts they had found excavating the lake. It was interesting but not terribly well set up.

We slowly moved along the edge of the lake and moved along the obvious path to the ruins on the north end. We saw a sacred boulder (though not quite sure why it was sacred) before moving onto the large rock that was supposedly the birth/landing place of the first Inca. It was a little less impressive than you´d expect and not exactly featured – except for the rude tourists who felt the need to climb it. We did find a very nice cliff/rock outcropping to sit on and rest a bit to take in the view. There was also a set of ruins set up as a maze of rooms. It was very intrícate stonework but still not as precisely cut as what you would see at Macchu Picchu, which I suppose dates it to earlier in the Incan empire.

Isla del Sol

We leisured about for a little bit, having seen what a steep hike we had before us. Finally, we set out. As usual, it was good exercise. Once we stopped, we settled down for a few minutes to have a quick lunch - PB&Js, of course. There were a few other couples on the trail but otherwise, we were nearly alone. We had a beautiful view the majority of the time and passed a few Incan posts that served for resting points on the cross island trek. We were stopped by the middle town/community to pay their part of the island tax. They were also very eager to have us stay in their town, but no tourist boats come to their port, so for our excursion it wasn´t really an option.

We arrived in the southern town  and were immediately tailed by a young boy who obviously expected a tip for accompanying us to look for a hostel. We told him quite honestly that we didn´t have any change to give him, which we didn´t since we´d arrived the day before and had been given almost exclusively 100´s at the money exchanger. He didn´t seem to like that much but continued to follow us. We found a nice place that was all but vacant with a great view of the lake. We were physically exhausted but decided anyway to try to set out to see the set of ruins on this side of the island since we still had a couple of hours of light left. We made it half way there - passing some sort of foliage that smelled of lemon pledge and puzzled the hell out of me - and realized we had to drop all the way to the shoreline to see something that looked very similar to what we had already seen on the other end. So we decided to turn and head back. But we ran into our previous tour group who´d boated to the south end, and had a very, very white woman (I promise) obviously see us and continue to drop trough. So we did get to see a full moon in the day time which I´m sure is a rare occurrence on the island.

Chris on Isla del Sol

Look carefully - half is clouds and half is a mountain range, Cordillera Real is that high

That evening, we found a slightly less frequented restaurant and ate a delicious trout meal on a table overlooking the edge of the island with a bit of the sunset. Chris also managed to find our first good beer in Bolivia. A dark one of course. And of course we haven´t been able to reproduce this find.  It got cold quick and we rushed back to the hotel and got a decent night´s sleep.

Near sunset on the island

The next morning we woke up to try to find somewhere to have a decent breakfast with no real luck. So we nibbled a bit as we made the decent down to the pier. On the way down we took the Escaleras del Inca (Incan Stairs), which we actually probably the least steep stairs we´ve encountered. On the way down, we encountered the Fuente del Inca – a false fountain of youth the Incas tricked the Spanish into believing was the real thing. The way down was much more lush and green and would have been gorgeous if it hadn´t been  for all the other tourists making their way down too. We hopped on an again very crowded tourist boat and headed back to Copacabana.

Buzz at the Fountain of Youth

We both agreed Isla del Sol was very nice but it was so much less culturally rich than Taquile. There are multiple comparisons to be made there – Peru vs Bolivia, electricity vs none, quick vs long boat trip – but whatever the reason, we just ended up really enjoying Taquile and Isla del Sol not as much. I think it came down to a question of history versus culture and at this point, we're both more interested in culture. But it´s still cool to be able to say we´ve been to the birthplace of the first Inca.

We had to take the early boat back to Copacabana so that we could catch a bus to La Paz that would get us there before dark. We managed to grab a quick lunch, though Chris had to scarf it down because he ran out to find more yarn while we were waiting (it´s amazing the shortage of yarn sales in the area for the fact that all the women are working with yarn). We got on another nearly tourist packed bus and headed off on the six hour trip to La Paz. However, Copacabana sits on a section of land that is Bolivia but is not connected to any other part of Bolivia. How that happened I wish I could say. So they drove us to a narrow strip of the lake and we ferried across – bus on a barge and passengers on individual little boats. It was an interesting site and I was probably a little nervous seeing the bus with all my material goods looking like it would sink this wooden raft of sorts. But it made it all right.

 

Bird feeding in La Paz

That's just gross

There wasn´t a great deal to see going into La Paz until we got there. La Paz, being the capital, is enormous. It was very reminiscent of Quito, Ecuador in that you come down over the mountains into a city that sits in this bowl of a valley and the whole thing is absolutely immense. Of course there was too much foliage in the way to get a good picture, but it just stretched on forever on all sides. It looks something like when you roll oil in a bowl to coat it before you put dough in it to give it time to rise, the way it just slides down all sides. 

Anyway, we got in without too much hassle and having decided to stay there only one day, Chris had the foresight to leave the big army duffel bag at the bus terminal bag check so we had one less thing to carry around (believe me, we have plenty already). We took a cab in a very round about way and ended up at the very small, comfy hostel I'd read about already (there was one that was a microbrewery nearby but it's grown so popular that it's outrageously expensive to stay in). Unfortunately, it was a little pricey. I won't tell you how much because you'd probably read it and say - that's all? But we really have to be careful about our budget so it was more than we were hoping for. Having already brought our entourage of luggage with us, we decided it was better to just stay. So we set up shop and headed out to see a little bit of the sights as it got darker. 

It was immediately apparent to us that La Paz was a city grown in the same vein as New York. It was loud, packed, and dirty. The walk just out of our hostel (through a very secure, multi-lock door) felt overwhelming. We were right on one of the main roads for our quadrant of the city. Eventually we got up to a bridge to cross the street, because it would be too dangerous to do otherwise, and saw billboards and ridiculous amounts of traffic. After having been out of the states for so long, it just kind of took your breath away. Chris was immediately uncomfortable. I feel that I am somewhat of a city-walking extraordinaire. I'm very good at people dodging, watching for breaks in traffic, and holding my own with pushy people. I love Chris dearly but sometimes I just don't understand how someone from the east coast can be such a bad walker. But I know it drives him crazy how pushy I am too. In any case, the amount and attitude of people walking in La Paz did not mix well with Chris. The people were wearing American brand clothes and spoke in a fast, mumbly sort of way. It was all a little overwhelming at first.

We went to see the main plaza church (honestly, nothing too interesting to report there). Then, we went to walk around what we later realized was generally the tourist part of town. We managed to find a bookstore with used copies of the Bolivia Lonely Planet. In the course of inquiring, we came to understand that the cover of the used copies had a paper print-out cover. Asking why, we heard a voice in English from behind us say, Yeah, we're not allowed to sell them with the original cover. Turns out the company makes them cut off and send the covers of the old versions back, thinking this means the bookstores won't continue to sell those versions. How odd. So the young American guy we met there was just hanging out and working at this bookstore. He'd been in Bolivia for almost a year and was very helpful. He pointed us in the direction of an ecotourism group, Madidi (they and the region of the same name were actually featured on the cover of a National Geographic), that we're going to use to visit the jungle toward the end of our trip. It's expensive but that's why we try to skimp on other things in saving up for bigger ones (like seeing the jungle!!).

We walked around a bit more and realized the food was almost as expensive as the hostel. We walked away from the touristy area and ended up having a less than wonderful time searching for food on one of the main market avenues. Everywhere we found would be out of whatever the one thing was Chris wanted to eat. Whereas I found one of the street carts selling a food we'd read you absolutely have to try: salteñas. So I would find out later (the first one I had was just so-so), that these wonderful little treats are mainly a breakfast food and are something like an empanada but more juicy and with more of a thin pastry shell. Eventually, we found a cafe that was open and I had an awesome asian chicken salad. I think Chris had an empanada and a mini pizza or something. But then we shared a peach melba cup together. Man do I love good food in a big city.

As the night went on the city got louder. We encountered one woman (unfortunately standing right next to us), who insisted on yelling to get the attention of a friend a half a block away. She refused to just walk over to him and instead yelled about twenty times in our ears. Chris was already a little pissy and she really wasn't helping. On the way back, just before we got to the hostel, I witnessed some drunk asshole taking a bucket away from a homeless man and saying he needed it to vomit in. He was laughing and eventually gave it back, but the dirty old man just looked so sad. The city was just really downtrodden.

The next morning we made use of the communal kitchen and finally got to have some of our oatmeal. which was scrumptious. At some point I think Chris went out looking for yarn again and again came back empty-handed. We went out to change money and to look at the other main plaza. We went to the Coca museum, which is supposed to be the biggest and best in existence. I'm not sure we were too impressed but there was some interesting literature on the birth of analgesics and Coca-Cola. I felt like we were glared at a little bit for being Americans since it's our country that's embargoing Bolivia due to Coca (the current president was a former coca grower and doesn't like the states much, can you blame him?). After that, we finally encountered a salteña restaurant. I think we started with one each (or maybe three to share?), and headed for the plaza. We sat and watched people feeding the birds. It was hard to even walk through the plaza without stepping on all the pigeons. People fed so much that they would be literally covered in birds. It was disgusting. But fortunately, the salteñas were delicious. I mean hot damn that was good. So we went back and got more. The women laughed at us but it was worth it. Oh but before, when we'd first started walking, I found a street stand with buñuelos - another of the things we'd heard we'd have to try. Chris didn't feel like taking the risk, but I did. It was a donut! A little more cakey than puffy but I had a donut with dark hot pink frosting (rather than the bright lime green next to it). Cities and me are a bad mix just because there's so much food.

We left for the terminal on foot this time and got a lot of funny looks hiking uphill with all of our things - but it was a really good workout. There are always people calling out destinations as you walk in (or as you stay because they just go on and on and on). So this time I just went up to the one that was calling Cochabamba and we got semi-cama (bed-ish) seats for something like three dollars each. It was the first time we saw that it paid off to wait til the last minute to buy. They loaded our bags through the terminal for us and when Chris tipped the guy, he laughed at him - probably because that doesn't happen very often. 

We bought the front row seats. Initially we had the ones with less leg room, but since I saw the other two were open and they were just trying to cheap the gringos, I went back and insisted we be changed. The buses are usually double deckers (enclosed of course) and the main seats are up top, so the front seats have an open window and view of the whole road. We'd never looked to get them previously but just went for it this time and thought it would be fun to get a better view of Bolivia. Unfortunately, it was stormy the whole time it was daylight. Oh well. However, the big positive of our first two bus rides in Bolivia was that we learned we wouldn't have to sit through anymore bus ride infomercials. Inevitably in Peru, any bus you got on that was more than a few hours would have someone getting up to sell some sort of natural supplement and use all kinds of fancy medical words - most somehow cured cancer, one even called chicken a nutrient (though I know how it was related), one even just sold candies as a nutritional supplement. My favorite was the woman who gave us candies as a god-speed on our trip but then asked for money. Either way, we've seen that that's not the case here and it's kind of nice to have that peaceful first part of the trip to ourselves without the noise.

On the way there, there was unfortunately a big accident in the road. Later on, we'd see that it was semi vs a mini commercial truck as one had tried to pass another car in the rain. It was really awful but it was also a terrible view at the infrastructure with taking care of that kind of accident. We sat on the bus for three or four hours. The ambulance took at least two to get there. It was the sort of accident where no one would have survived unfortunately, but if they had I'm really afraid the ambulance would have been much too late. The people poured out of all of the buses and cars to stand in the rain and watch the goings on. It was the most looky-loo-ness I've ever seen in one spot. I stayed in the bus and read almost half of Mountains Beyond Mountains, so it was kind of nice except for the reason it was happening.

Significant rubber-necking at the site of a highway accident

This put us significantly behind schedule and we got into Cochabamba around 2:30 in the morning I think. We caught a cab quickly and went to a hostel Andrew had suggested to us. It was sketchy for a minute when we were afraid no one would come to the gate but eventually we were let in. Chris woke up at his normal early time the next morning and I slept in. Then we wandered around the city a bit. I got irritated with wandering probably because I was tired but also because it didn't feel like we had a purpose. The plaza was very pretty and eventually we found the tourist office who gave us a lot of useful pamphlets, maps, and information. We discovered that the whole city seems to close down between 2 and 5pm. We also found a really great Vegetarian buffet and had some salad.

So let's review a second, we were coming to Cochabamba to meet up with our classmate Andrew and his girlfriend Jaime, who is a resident in Seattle. They are doing research down here on Chagas Disease. For those not of the medical mind, this is a disease caused by a parasite that's transmitted by insects (here in Bolivia by the vinchuca bug, I'll post a picture sometime, it's nasty) and mainly effects muscles of the heart and intestines. It's endemic down here. So there are doing research as to why people don't complete treatment (it's free, at least currently, from the government) and what can be done to make the system better. They're working with a couple organizations down here, mainly Doctors without Borders (Medicos sin Fronteras, MSF) and Mano a Mano Bolivia (MMB - a non-profit program that builds schools and clinics where they're needed and has a sister program that does fund-raising in Minnesota). And we came down here to help when Huancayo didn't work out. I know that all sounds like a lot but you'll need to understand it for later.

Andrew and Jaime met us that first night and we went out to eat at this really odd restaurant with antiques strewn haphazardly about the tables and walls. The decor was fun but Jaime and I both had poorly cooked fish and the rest wasn't phenomenal. It was good to catch up and talk about what they were doing though at that point we probably didn't talk too much about the project. We walked back toward our place so the boys could get ice cream - right next to a restaurant called Dumbo I'd like to add, with the cute baby elephant picture and all.

The next day they took us into the clinic and we met a lot of people and learned the ropes with Andrew of doing the screening program. Well first, the clinic is outside the city, in a poorer area, Villa Israel. And we have to take TRUFIs (Taxi Ruta Fija - fixed routes) to get there, which was odd for us the first time because we'd been told over and over not to share fares with strangers but that's exactly what you do in Trufis. It's like a mini-bus. And cheap to boot. But it takes a good forty minutes or more to get there. The clinic is in two buildings. The first building is the waiting room where women wait with there children after having arrived at nearly 4am to be one of the thirty people to get a ficha (numbered ticket) to get an appointment for the day. In that building is also the nutrition group, which actually has three beds for significantly undernourished children who they have to keep overnight for re-feeding (plus the nutritionistas are all just wonderful women), the immunization room, the tuberculosis care room (which is without sink, windows, or any ventilation - this is a major problem), and the control/patient records office. The other building is three clinic rooms for the doctors, an emergency care room, the kitchen and dining area, and a room that we will be using for EKGs (Jaime and Andrew brought a portal machine with them as part of the study). The premises are lived in and cared for by Doña Martina, a sweet little woman who's native tongue is Aymara but also speaks a little Quechua and Spanish and sells fried nuts and things out of a cart in the courtyard during the day. She is accompanied by a white, nursing mommy puppy we call Blanca, who is (as the name says) all white with pink-ringed eyes. Oh and almost all the patients are pregnant women or women with their young children because the government pays them to come in for "controls." Otherwise, people couldn't afford to come in at all.

The record room/quasi-control center is where there is a little area that has been carved out for the Chagas screening program. The screening is free and was set up first a year ago by MSF. It's a couple drop of blood on a rapid test and we have results in fifteen minutes. After that, if they are positive, we send blood to a lab for a confirmatory test. At the beginning of the morning, if we get there on time, we do a little talk (charla) on Chagas and try to convince people they need screening. Then we give them another ficha and rush like mad to try to get them in to see us before they go to their appointment and leave. It's a bit much.

All the people at the clinic are just wonderful (usually with a few exceptions but personalities never align perfectly). The doctor in charge of the clinic is a wonderful woman who has been incredibly helpful to Jaime and Andrew. The nutritionistas were immediately welcoming and friendly. And I automatically saw the difference between this clinic and the one I had been in near Huancayo - I could actually make friends with these people and felt welcomed. It was kind of a nice change. Everyone takes turns making lunch for the whole clinic and so we ate with them that first Friday and I did the best I could to pick through the meat. All in all it was a nice first day.

We went our own way for the afternoon with the intention of getting together to have dinner and seeing Andrew and Jaime's apartment that night. What we didn't realize was that every trufi on the route we needed to take would be packed on a friday night. So it was a long walk, made longer by the fact that we were constantly turning to hail cabs. We finally found a phone when we were almost there and called poor Andrew on his cell who thought we were lost in some terrible or dangerous part of town. We met up and had a little dinner again and got to see their place - very nice, well guarded and secured - and talked about the prospect of all of us moving into a bigger unit together upstairs.

 We went home and the next morning Chris was sick again. I ran around doing some errands. Let Andrew and Jaime know we wouldn't be able to get together that night. We got Chris out later and eating at an empanada chain. Got our laundry done. Maybe had an ice cream at the Juice Zen (where everything is in English) across the street. We debated a movie but only Predators was playing and even though our copy was bad, it wasn't one we'd need to see again. We wandered for dinner and found the only thing appetizing to be a Mexican restaurant we'd seen earlier in the week. It was great. Fairly authentic and of course the margarita was excellent. Despite the fact that nachos entailed chips with that slimy cheese sauce (they also brought some salsa when we ordered some avocado to go with), we plan on going back for some cheap, familiar food.

Day without traffic in Cochabamba

Recycling games on the walking day

The next day, we hadn't realized was the yearly walking only day. Other that government and emergency vehicles, it was apparently illegal to be on anything other than foot or bike. It was wonderful. We went walking with everyone else. Explored the town a bit. We ended up in an area where they were doing games to promote recycling and everyone was out cooking food on the street to sell. 

We met up with Jaime, Andrew, and his friend Samuel (pronounced Sam-well) and climbed the stairs up to the Cristo. It's less than two decades old but Cochabamba built their Jesus stature to be just centimeters taller than the one in Rio, so it's the tallest in the world. The hike up was really steep and I felt awful for falling behind everyone after practically bragging about how much exercise we'd been having. But unfortunately, my lungs just never seem to adapt. I'd love to blame the altitude (I think Coch is around 9k feet) but we've been at altitude for months. Oh well. It was another good workout. Sundays only, the Cristo is open for people to go inside and you can climb up many flights of stairs to look out the little holes they made in him (I'm not going to make any bad references here, there's just no other way to put it). We got rained on a little on the way up but the clouds made for a beautiful view of the city. While we were up there, we of course had to take a few pictures but mostly just with Chris. Two nights before as we'd been walking to their apartment, I saw someone lean out their car, pointing at Chris and yelling, "Mira, Jesus!" (Look, it's Jesus!). This is obviously not the first Jesus reference Chris has gotten with his skin, beard, and long hair. So we took a couple pictures, none too sacrilegious, and then Andrew began calling out to people, 5 Bolivianos to get your picture taken with Jesus! People just laughed luckily. Also, now that I think of it, Chris had made mention of prayer for rain and it appears he was heard. Ask and ye shall receive, no ve? (That's how bolivians say right? at the end of every sentence) Wonder how we could misuse this new found connection he has.

Chris and the Cristo

View from within the Cristo

Afterward, we walked through the town. Gotten a frozen yogurt or ice cream (of course) from a place Chris and I had found before (where I unfortunately learned the hard way that cinnamon in this country means red hots, not dessert cinnamon). The plaza was set up with vendors for the day and more people advertising recycling (which we're trying to set up now). There were plenty of interesting things but none more than the glass Andrew and Jaime bought in the shape of a woman's torso to hold their toothbrushes in.

The next day started poorly for Chris and I as the group of young Bolivians next to us at the hostel decided to stay up all night (only til midnight which I guess isn´t that bad except for being a Sunday) talking more than a little loudly. After we finally managed to get to sleep we were woken by yelling around 4am. It finally got bad enough that I jumped out of bed and stormed into the courtyard in my PJs ready to kick some ass. Unfortunately, someone else was already in the midst of verbally assaulting the manager and I could tell my two cents would be worthless and unwelcomed. So given all the interruptions, we slept through the alarm and again, of course, found the city´s food sources to be closed in the morning on our way to the Trufis (we´re so ready for our own kitchen). I was also desperate for a shower (shocking or not) but had to wait for the next morning.

The clinic found us all very, very busy. I got started with logging in the new patient database Jaime and Andrew had started making for the project. I sat their logging for hours, while Jaime and Chris dealt with a few EKGs and Andrew fielded the Chagas screening program and more demands for their EKG machine. I know that doesn´t sound like much but there´s a whole lot of bureaucracy going on that´s taking up their time and of course we were still just trying to learn the ropes. After clinic, we had to rush out to meet another doctor from Mano a Mano Bolivia (also the program the clinic is joined with) to have the proposal signed by someone from the ethics board at the medical school. We also found out the head doc from MMB was peeved he hasn´t met us yet though we´re not really working for their program; so we had to go for a formal meeting later in the week. More hoops to jump through. After that, we were invited briefly to see the Chagas specialty clinic run by Tropical Medicine docs at the University. We will return for half days in order to get better acquainted with their treatment program and utilize their depth of knowledge - for example I´ve seen many of the patients in the database had to be discontinued on therapy due to medication allergic reactions but they say that this can often be a reaction due to poor diet while on the treatment (I´ll have to look this one up in further detail).

Afterwards, we hopped into a cab with intentions to go to the Prado (kind of downtown strip I suppose) for a meal. But Andrew started chatting up the taxi driver who then took us to the otherside of town to a restaurant he recommended us (after we insisted we were all sick of fried chicken). At this restaurant, three of us had chicken escabeche (actually a mediterranean dish, I´d tried it before at the Jugueria in Huancayo- it was better there) and Jaime had trout. We ordered the giant sized (1.5L?) bottles of Coke and the crappy regional beer Taquiña (named for the mountain above Cochabamba) to make what Andrew called Encholadas(enchola is a term, good or bad I'm not sure, for campesino women, so mixing beer with coke is to darken it, encholada).The point is to combine half and half to cover the nasty flavor of the beer. Chris really liked it, but I only drink soda maybe a handful of times year and despite Chris´ protests that it´s so much better with the real sugar down here (vs high fructose corn syrup in the states), I still don´t like it. Next time I tried it with a Sprite and it was better.

As we were walking out, Andrew got a phone call from a young woman he knew from his old pueblo, Ubaldina. She was calling to see if they could get together but also to let him know that she was out of nursing school and had come to Cochabamba looking for work. Andrew seized the great opportunity and invited her to come to the clinic the next day to talk about being a translator for our project since she is a native Quechua speaker and we will really, really need one for our interviews with some of these patients.

The next day, I finished up the database for the patients at the Villa Israel clinic, the team did the screenings and a few EKGs/patient Chagas appointments (I think it´s now been decided that Jaime will see the Chagas patients, which will be great). Ubaldina came and everyone got to sit and talk to her, while I continued to wrack my brains about how to determine the power of the study according to what statistical analysis we´ll be using at the end. Chris tried his hand too later and I think we´ll be passing this one on to the stats people at UCDenver for a little help. We got to do a practice EKG on one of the nutritionists, Angela, who is always just so incredibly nice and helpful to us and so I finally got to see the machine. It´s kind of like one big USB plug in but it works just great and of course has all the leads. Plus, it must be good since everyone here wants it so badly.

We had lunch with the clinic staff (Monday was supposed to be our day but we were so busy we didn´t get to). I again had to take to picking through food since everything here seems to come with some kind of red meat. I thought I did a pretty good job but later in the day I felt this sense of a single knuckle punching my stomach that told me I'd gotten some of the meat. I'm just going to have to start avoiding it all together. 

Chris did a lot of reading online and finally decided his GI episodes have all been the same bug and that he was ready to treat. Gratefully, he finally did. A whooping dose of tinidazole (cousin to metronidazole) appears to have done the trick and he hasn't really been sick in two weeks. Hooray!!

That Wednesday was tremendously busy. That morning we went to a nearby school and did Chagas screening on all the eighth graders (35 in total - and all negative!! Woohoo!). It was an interesting experience but it turned out to be a problem that we didn't know we were there without giving out permission slips first. Some of the parents had a problem with that. Also, I was on the blood collecting side of things with a few of the nursing students and the order of operations got absolutely screwed up and apparently without initials behind my name, I don't hold enough sway for any of them to listen to me. It was a little irritating. After clinic, we had to rush out to make it to MMB headquarters to meet the head and to help Jaime with an EKG presentation she was giving for a the clinic doctors as part of a two or three day lecture course. Ulbadina came with us too and we had to look hard for food on the way since neither of us eat red meat (it's really nice to have company in my dietary requirements now).  The meeting was hellish. I felt more than a little put on the spot about why we were there and what we wanted to do. And then we were told a lot of requirements we would need to do to help MMB since they immediately adopted us as being their volunteers. We both understand that their program is a great one and they do really important things, but it was a lot at once and asking a lot of time (there's a three or four day long program with American doctors they want us to come in to translate for) for the fact that we're only here for a couple of months and haven't really gotten the project going yet. Then, we didn't get much time to help Jaime because of how long the meeting took and Chris just got to help when they did the example EKG on Andrew.

Chris and I left right after that since we only had a couple hours before leaving for Sucre and that morning we'd had to come over to their apartment with all of our stuff and hadn't packed for leaving yet. So the Sucre explanation - this is where Andrew was based out of when he was here for his two years with the Peace Corps. Now he and one of his Peace Corps friends have bought a house there that they are remodeling - completely gutting really. Sucre is where Bolivian independence was declared and it is technically the second capital. It's also, Andrew has told us, the third in the triad of white cities with Quito, Ecuador and Arequipa, Peru (so now we've seen all three!). So Andrew and Jaime were going to see the how things were going with the house as well as to go for the holiday of Sucre's patron saint - the Virgin of Guadalupe. So we were invited and went along. 

Chris and I went and found empanadas (the best we've found actually, really close to the apartment, and with this amazing peanut sauce) and then came back and packed. Andrew got back just in time to take a quick shower. Jaime had decided she would come the next day to join us so she could go to the university's Chagas clinic.

So Andrew, Chris, and I hopped on the night bus to Sucre. They put on The Terminal in Spanish and I watched as best I could. Andrew was across the aisle from us and luckily had commandeered the window seat. He would tell us later his seatmate was a much too large older woman who Chris and Andrew both kept an eye on all night as she became intermittently apneic (she would stop breathing for multiple reasons centered on her weight unfortunately). More than that, she was apparently a flopper. Andrew described that she would put her hands on top of her stomach but they would slide off and her right hand would flop onto his crotch. It sounds like an interesting night and hilarious when he tells it. The seats weren't too bad but my big problem was the hard turns the road took, at which point my precarious positioning would lead me to smack my forehead into the window. I had a nice little bruise above my right eyebrow the next day. Early in the morning, the bus broke down. Twice apparently, but I was only awake for it once. It took a while and made us late by a couple hours. I wasn't too worried other than having to pee pretty bad. The boys went and stood out in the cold to watch as the driver worked on the engine and the ayudante tried to hail down other buses for help, which all sped up as they saw him waving.

We got in with our mini-backpacks and (after a moment in the terminal) empty bladders and got on a bus to the market. Andrew's fruit lady remembered him and they had a cute exchange. Then we went and had breakfast upstairs (the boys did - pastel is fried thin dough with cheese in it - I waited for salteña). We went to find a hostel and set ourselves up. Another part of this trip was residency for Andrew and Jaime. Unlike us, Andrew and Jaime couldn't get the three month visa since they are staying from July to February, so they have had to go through this terribly long and elaborate process to get residency in Bolivia and unfortunately, it's all in Sucre. So Andrew had to go and deal more with this. It turned out that they were requesting even more paperwork, which luckily one of the clinic directors at MMB was able to provide, and the next day they got their stamp after months of bureaucracy (they won't get the card for at least another month).

While Andrew went and did all of that, we dealt with hostel people not wanting to make change. No one here wants to give you their change and it gets really, really irritating. The edict at home of the customer is always right doesn't exactly work here. It's more like, the customer always has change they're not giving you. This time we said we'd wait while they went to the bank to get change. But the man came back and threw my money at me and demanded I give him change so he didn't have to wait in line. That on top of the facilities being disgusting, we decided to leave. We found a much nicer place with the "matrimonio" bed, which actually ended up being quite comfy. 

Wandering into the main plaza, we took a look around and found a bench to sit and wait for Andrew. Unfortunately, the strap of my money belt was hanging out in the open in the back and I was playing with my camera. Normally in the middle of the day, this wouldn't be a problem. But Chris noticed someone eying us up. He was standing very nearby and doing some very obvious looking. So I greeted him. Then he went on staring after walking around a bit. So I asked him if I could help him. He asked for a cigarette. After I explained we don't smoke, he went and sat down on a nearby bench. He unzipped his pants and began to stare and fidget. I was intrigued. It was the middle of the day and here this guy goes staring at tourists from a few feet away and then playing with himself while there are little kids playing on the lion statues in the middle of the park. This was the big clue there was a psych issue going on here. Luckily, when he was done inspecting, he got up and walked away - though I was keeping a close eye out for the rest of the time.

When we met up with Andrew, we walked up the tallest hill (directions given by the statues for the stations of the cross you encounter as you go up the hill) to Andrew's godson's house, or more accurately his friends and their five kids (both parents and the youngest boy were out of town and their aunt was taking care of them). They were absolutely wonderful kids and we spent a lot of the weekend together. We took Andrew's godson Gadiel down to the Mirador cafe (owned by Andrew's friend of course). We all got juices and hung out reading, with Andrew and I intermittently napping. Chris and Gadiel hung out talking and having a great time. Andrew took Gadiel home after a while and we enjoyed the view until we needed to go see his house.

Juice at the Cafe Mirador in Sucre with Gadiel and Andrew

Courtyard at the Mirador in Sucre

The keeper of Andrew's house is his friend's brother-in-law, Roberto (his friend married a woman he met in Bolivia while in the Peace Corps). The house was coming along well but we were told they needed to do a qh'oa (I believe it's something like a blessing of the house in Quechua) before they could start full swing. Andrew decided he needed to do some work there and then rest up to meet Jaime at the terminal the next morning (he was staying at his friend's house, the kids insisted). So Chris and I went out to dinner at a German veggie place. Chris wasn't so good (the falafel was more like balls of bread) but I had a lentil burger and spinach soup with real spinach and not just a cream sauce. Ummmm, yummy.

The next day, Chris and I went to get the Santa Clara empanadas made by the nuns at the Santa Clara monastery. Not as good as the salteñas but still okay (empanadas come with cooked egg in them and olives, and occasionally raisins, but these were a lot breadier). We went to the Santa Teresa monastery next where they have a revolving door through which you can order from the nuns (without seeing them) candied fruits. We got their late and due to low supplies and misunderstanding since I couldn't hear very well, we ended up with a full kilo of candied dates. Really, really good. Then we went to see the alleyway next door that used to have been paved in bones to remind people of their mortality. They re-did it in the 70s but I really think they should have left it that way.

We met up with Andrew and Jaime and went back up to see the kids who'd insisted on making lunch for us. The girls 16 and 14, Ruth and Maritza, and the boys 7 and 5, Gadiel and Darwin, were wonderful little hosts. When we got there, Gadiel came running up and gave us all big hugs. The girls would point out for the rest of the weekend how much Gadiel loves Chris. I absolutely adored Maritza. She was so sweet and intelligent and just such an amazing young woman. Andrew has apparently already told her father that he wants to bring her to the states at some point when she's older. Maritza made us tuna and noodles with orange soda. After that, we had watermelon Andrew and Jaime brought and Chris and I shared out chocolate we'd bought the night before. 

 

Darwin (the little one) playing with water

Chris and Gadiel

We went back down to the house. After which, we went to the museum Andrew had a hand in setting up when he was in Peace Corps - Azur. It's a showplace for the crafts (mainly weavings) and culture of the people in the villages he was working in. Everything was on the walls in English but like a couple museums we'd been to, they had booklets for tourists in other languages. I It was huge and very well organized but we easily could have taken a couple days to see it. There are two types of weavings that really caught our eye. One is a full red background with monstrous and demonic like figures supposedly coming from dreams etched in black in the foreground. The detail and time (more than two to three months) to create them really impressed us. We'll certainly be buying something of that type (probably when we go to hike the ridge in the area). They have it set up so that they pay two women to come each day to do their work in an area where you can see them working in different styles as part of the town. When Andrew came and joined us, he recognized one of the woman and they sat and talked to exchange cell phone numbers. It may be ignorant of me but it's always somewhat puzzling to me to see these women in such old-style, culturally distinct dress pull out something as modern as a cell phone.

Andrew and a weaver exchanging cell numbers

It was Friday by now and the festivities for the festival had started with a parade of school bands. We met up with an American friend of Andrew's and all went out for Chinese food (Jaime has very high standards for Chinese and she said it wasn't half bad). We have learned as was exampled by our waiter that night that it's really important to repeat yourself. You can ask the same question three times and get three different answers. He kept saying he had this type of beer but finally said that when he was saying he had this type, he actually meant it was only the other type. It's weird that this actually happens relatively commonly. Andrew and Jaime stayed at the same hostel that night. The young people in the room next to us drank to much and we had someone wretching for more than an hour next to our door starting around 2am. Lovely.

Watching the cement being poured at Andrew's new house

We woke early the next morning to do the qh'oa at the house. We got salteñas on the way and the kids met us there. The qh'oa entailed burning a fire in the corner of the house to create carbon and performing blessings with a special wine and alcohol (all adults took a sip then poured some on the ashes). Then you had to choose five coca leaves to throw on the smoking coals, each representing a different wish. I think that was about it. Then, most of us chewed a little coca. It was better this time but still not the best experience since I chewed too much and got a bunch of little green pieces floating in my mouth that you don't want to swallow. Maritza didn't chew with us. She doesn't chew coca or drink caffeine or a couple other things. But she loves chocolate. I love how opinionated and strong-willed she was. 

Quote for the weekend was while we were doing the qh'oa. Andrew's partner in crime, his friend J.C. in the states who is the other owner of the house, called during the qh'oa and Andrew told him: We'll get done talkin' with the Pacha Mama (mother earth) and then we'll talk with you.

Maritza by the wall, Ruth and Jaime sorting through Coca for the Qh'oa and Darwin on the ladder

Afterwards we went with the kids to one of the chocolate shops the city is famed for and they shared chocolate ice cream drink and a hot chocolate with chocolate cake. And then they each got a little piece as we left. It felt kind of nice to spoil them. By this point the entrada (parade for the entrance of the Virgin into the church in the plaza) had begun and the streets were packed. We walked to a park a little away from the parade route and hung out to play with the kids a bit. The girls and I were trying to do cartwheels and I taught them leap frog while Andrew and Chris were talking. It's amazing the power of green. Just seeing them there in all that grass and the way they were playing. In truth, I think I was expecting their family to be a little more affluent because they were such good friends with Andrew and I do think the area the live in is nice by Sucre standards, but it just wasn't what I was expecting. So to see them away from the dirt road and the blanket of brown that seemed to envelope the community was something special. There is something so universally beautiful about children playing in a green area.

Darwin and hot chocolate

Then, we walked a ways in the park, which was really nice, and all climbed an Eiffel Tower replica which got a little swayish when we were all at the top. We walked next to the parade route and had some outdoors shared lunch. Jaime had one of these burgers they made in a street cart and put an egg on top. Andrew and the kids had some chicken and noodle dishes. We got a grapefruit soda to share, which is so refreshing when it's hot and you're dehydrated that I'm afraid I'll get addicted. 

Chris giving "vueltas" in the park

Parade for the Virgen de Guadalupe in Sucre

We moved back to town and Andrew went off with the kids to watch the parade while the rest of us went to nap and relax. Later Chris and I met up with Andrew again to go play some soccer. Luckily I had started feeling a little ill. I know that sounds wrong but it turns out it was a boys only game and otherwise, I would have wanted to play. Andrew and Chris were on a team with Roberto (a skinny little young guy) and his brother Carlos (similarly skinny and young). I think I drove the people on the benches crazy with my American style sports commentary but the other guy that was on their team kept letting in goals and poor Chris was getting worn out trying to play every position. There was a huge, female great dane who I was first obviously interested in playing with but then she started barking at Andrew when he had to round the corner to retrieve a ball. So when she approached me while I was sitting, I was a little nervous and kept my attention completely on her. I moved very slowly but even just turning my hand over to show her I was friendly made her jump. It was really sad to see such a huge animal that gun-shy. You can see it so often here that the animals have been abused and are ready to be hit. I just want to hug them all. But being distracted, I missed a crucial moment in the game and when I looked up, Chris was holding his head and his glasses were on the ground. At first, I'd imagined he must have been hit by the ball in the face (this is unfortunately not an unfamiliar scenario), but he told me later one of the guys head-butted him. Supposedly not on purpose but the whole thing seemed quite sketchy. Ironically, we'd just been talking before the game about the risk of wearing his glasses (and how I didn't think he should), and so of course, this time, they broke. Rather unfortunate of course, especially away from our luggage so he didn't have another pair. When we got back, we found super glue and Chris fixed them but he's still wearing his other pair (which until now I hadn't seen him wear). He says their too heavy and he doesn't care for them much. Hopefully next time he won't wear his glasses then.

After we went and all got ready to go out for the night. A group of nine of us went to an upscale italian restaurant (again owned by Andrew's friend). Chris asked for whatever the owner recommended. Unfortunately, he didn't love it. Mine was superb. I had the only non-red sauce on the table and it was noodles with nuts. Yummy. We shared a lot of wine too. At the table, somehow we came to discussing dogs (big surprise right?) and Carlos was talking about all the types of dogs he likes. And we've seen multiple times now that dog preference is based on the machismo culture. People only want pinschers, rottweilers, and pitt bulls because they're big manly dogs. Then of course there are the little rodent dogs too but we won't bother going into what I think about them. No need. It's just so sad because it means all the beautiful, friendly, good family dogs are the mutts and pretty mixes out roaming the street. I just want to make people understand that if you give them a hug and a bath they'll be the best pet you ever had!

Afterwards, seven of us went out to a bar and drank overpriced beer. We shared a table with two people and after twenty minutes or so, Andrew and the guy realized they knew each other. This is Andrew's small world. It was already after 1:00 so we bid Chris good night and Andrew, Jaime, Roberto, and I (in a shirt borrowed from Jaime) headed off to the dance club Mitos (we had tried to find an epic karaoke joint Andrew remembered Los Espejos with all walls mirrors, but apparently it doesn't exist anymore). Andrew had told me he doesn't like going out at home but loves to here. It was a lot more like going out at home (Tucson home) and we met up with the friend Andrew ran into at the bar. It was crowded. The only problem was the box they'd left on the floor to collect bottles in quickly filled and there were bottles and broken glass all over the floor. I was wearing sneakers but I was worried about Jaime in high heels. They played some really hilarious music. Shania Twain, some crappy rock, even Blur Song 2 (I did a lot of head-banging to my mother's favorite song). The friend's girlfriend and I took a liking to each other but when she was speaking rapid Spanish in my ear with the music loud, I couldn't understand a damn thing. It was a lot of smile and nodding. I mostly danced with Roberto unless he started smoking. There were plenty of people we all danced with and shared drinks too (felt like I was going to get a cold afterward). We were there til close at 4am and then walked home. I had a really, really great time. The only strange part was that they didn't play a single Lady Gaga song. 

We slept a bit til we had to check out of the hostel. Chris brought me salteñas like a good little boy. We went out with Carlos, his wife, and Roberto to a fitness club to play raquetball. It was my first time and I was absolutely awful. It was Jaime's too but she'd played tennis so she was no where near as bad - quite good in fact. I just have no hand-eye coordination. Andrew is an absolute pro. Apparently, his dad was a ranked competitive raquetball player when he was younger. Chris was also great. As Andrew puts it, it appears Chris just throws himself full force into whatever sport he's playing (as evidenced by his sore shoulder for a few days). Andrew and Jaime went to try to get papas rellenas for everyone but apparently they don't make them Sunday. So they got egg sandwiches - literally fried egg on a bun with french fries, mayo, and ketchup. Sounds awful but it tasted better than you'd think. They gave one to the manager and asked for a few more minutes in the room. When we didn't get the few more minutes, Andrew went up to haggle his way into it until we all started making fun of him.

After that, we went back to have tea with the kids, who seemed sincerely sad that we were leaving. We promised to come back soon though. We took the night bus back to Cochabamba again. This time we were in cama seats and in the back row. There were a bunch of rowdy, drunk guys on the bus trying to get everyone to drink with them. We were already plotting our escape route but apparently they saw the white folks and ran away. Unfortunately, there was some weird compartment that fit two guys right behind us who were smoking pot and by trying to blow it out the window were actually blowing it at Chris. That might sounds like a good thing to some people out there but Chris didn't really appreciate it. And I, well my old friends the leg cramps came back. Then, later in the night, it was freezing and none of us slept well. 

Chris and Gadiel

We got into Cochabamba around 6:30. We head straight out of the terminal without hitting a bathroom because we were thinking to go straight back to the apartment. But Andrew and Jaime decided they were going to get breakfast at the market next door. Unfortunately, I hadn't peed yet so after getting a little more grumpy about it than I should have, Chris and I headed back to the apartment. Jaime and I ended up going into the clinic first to run the screening while Andrew and Chris stayed back to wait for the opportunity to talk to the landlady about an apartment that was open for all of us to move into.

The boys came in. They'd had a rough morning and we did too, all exhausted, but the good news was that we got the three bedroom apartment upstairs. Chris, with the assistance of Andrew, made a lovely lunch for the clinic. We called it papas a la prisa (potatoes in a hurry) - rosemary baked potatoes with a lovely (lettuce-less) salad. Most people found it interesting because of the idea of lunch without meat but they liked it too.

We went home and moved into the upstairs apartment and got ourselves all settled in. It's very big for all of us and the most exciting parts are: consistency in our hot shower, an outside sink with a line for washing and hanging clothes, and a water service with a ten liter water container we'll continue to have refilled. Andrew had been out at the cancha (the apparently biggest market in south america - something like 60 or 70 square blocks) all afternoon. He came back with stamps (sellos) because it had been implied or said so many times that you need a stamp to be official. So he and Jaime have stamps to use on whatever they like now. He was very excited. Looks like we'll need to get stamps to make ourselves official too. 

Chris and I walked out to the grocery store to stock up. It's up in a very nice part of town. It's immediately apparent the lack of beggars on the street and the fact that the sidewalks are so much wider and nicer (though still a bit uneven and I always trip). I do feel a little guilty though living in such a nice part of town with a gated building and someone in the office 24 hours. We've said we want to walk back into the main part of town all the time or at least get off the trufi early to take a walk back.

The next day was a holiday. I felt a little guilty having a holiday after we'd already taken a whole weekend off. It was the 200th anniversary of the founding (independence founding) of Cochabamba. We were all exhausted and really needed the day. Chris and I woke up and decided we wanted to go walk to the cancha to pick some things up. So we walked down and on the way passed the set up for the parade. Then, there was a rush of people coming at us from the other direction keeping up with the start of the parade. First it was a military marching band and then a line of obvious VIPs. And suddenly, I heard Chris saying, That's Evo! I looked closer and yes, there was the Bolivian president right in front of us, not more than twenty five feet away. So I ran back with the crowd to snap a picture. The one you can see is a crop of the good one I got and a lucky one at that. Even more lucky, I realized afterward, that I didn't get tackled. I realized as I was running that, oh crap, I'm an American running toward the Bolivian president with something metal in my hand. I'm sure there was tons of extra security in the crowd too. Nothing happened luckily. Chris and I were saying later how amazing it is to say as Americans that we have seen him up close and maybe only a few years before the country is closed off to us. Chris has seen presidents before, being from the east coast, but I hadn't. That was a first for me. And it was fairly exciting. Even if I do have problems with a lot of the politics here (I'll leave that for future postings).

We walked mostly along the route of the parade. Everyone was out but no one was cheering or even smiling that much. Unlike all the other wonderful parades we've seen, even in Sucre, there was no dancing. It was all marching. Mostly well dressed people marching. Chris said it felt like a funeral procession. It seemed very military and political. 

We got to the cancha and it was more than half closed. We didn't find much of what we needed but it was an experience being in there, fairly turned around and very closed off. We found the meat section, the produce section, the cobblers, the furniture, the toiletries, and the black magic section. I mention this one last because it is where for whatever possibly purposefully reason, it is quite dark, which makes it even more upsetting and startling when you notice the llama fetus hanging from every stall. Apparently, these are usually burned in the qh'oa too but luckily not in the one we were at. We walked back through the festivities and landed at home to rest. Jaime or Chris made dinner. They've been taking turns and it's been nice.

Parque de las Banderas in Cochabamba
There's a US flag there too actually
And yes, that's a real Burger King.
They also have a fake Chipotle.

Bolivian President Evo Morales - zoomed in off a larger picture

On Wednesday, Andrew and Jaime had to go to have a meeting with the health department's Chagas program director about what we're doing. More hoops. More logistics. More bureaucracy. The health department's fumigator (offered free for anyone who brings in vinchucas from their house - though they don't do the best job of following through) necessitated this meeting. He'd seen Andrew and Jaime and heard about the EKG machine and started insinuating that it should be handed over to the government and that we shouldn't be there. So he went to his boss to rat us all out and caused the need for yet another meeting to clear the air. What an ass. It really is upsetting to me that Jaime and Andrew came down here not for any personal gain but to try to do something to actually help change the system and they've hit roadblocks at every turn. The ruling part right now is MAS (that's a play on words too, más means more in Spanish, how clever), which stands for Movimiento A Socialismo. But a lot of what's going on to us appears to be socialism at the government level and not at the level at which the people are really reaping any benefit. As Chris put it, a lot of this has felt a little more Stalinistic at times. We're both very concerned that it doesn't head in that direction.

That same day, we were running screening in the morning, Chris and I. The people we work with change, almost daily. And although there's technically no HIPAA here (believe me no one in the clinic acts like there is either), I still don't want to say names. But toward the end when we'd finished with all the patients, the woman who has been working closely with our little team and was helping with screening that day came up to me and told me that she'd previously been positive and never finished her treatment for Chagas. She asked if I thought we should re-test her. Should we re-test her? What a question! Here we are offering free tests and treatment to everyone else but the idea that we couldn't or wouldn't do the same for our own colleagues was just so sad to me. I talked to her for a while and said that either way, getting the test done would be good news. If it was negative, great she doesn't have it and she can move on. If it was positive, it's much better to know and treat her now before she starts having any more problems in the future. Everyone else came back into the room just as her test came back positive. She seemed almost embarrassed by it the way she was smiling. Probably she just didn't know how to react. I drew her blood to send for the confirmatory test. I was really worried about how she would be feeling or dreading or just focusing on it for the rest of the day but when I came up to her and asked her later how she was doing, she just said her arm hurt a little where I'd stuck her.

On Thursday, we went to another clinic to actually learn the screening process. Turns out we hadn't been doing it perfectly well. Afterward, we got salteñas from a place named Homero's (with a picture of Mr Simpson himself on the sign). It's my new favorite place. We got some work done in the afternoon. Chris was exhausted and ended up napping. Ubaldina came to join us and will be living here on weekdays. Jaime's Spanish tutor (actually Andrew's old tutor from the Peace Corps) came over for her lesson in the afternoon. They let me sit in for almost an hour to see how things went for them. It was nice but I think I need to find someone a little different maybe. Jaime made a lovely chicken dish for dinner.

Friday, Chris and I ran the screening while Jaime and Ubaldina did some practice interviewing. Andrew had some work to do at MMB. One of the nutritionistas made mini quinoa burgers for lunch. Afterwards, we took off to get some errands done and met Andrew at the Peace Corps office and they're helping us find tutors matched to what we need through an entrance interview we're hoping to arrange this week. Friday night a bunch of the nutritionistas came over for a spaghetti dinner, some drinks, and eventually karaoke/dancing. It was already late and we hadn't left yet. Neither Chris or I were feeling terribly sociable. At one point we went out to the balcony to sit and share some chocolate covered crackers with wine (or rather Chris was already there and I came looking for him). There was a man rooting through the dumpster across the street for recycling who was throwing food he found to a street dog who'd come to keep him company. It was very sweet. I commented that the poverty felt somehow different here and Chris pointed out that most times we would walk out from our Cheesman Park house into the alley there would be someone digging through our dumpster as well. He's right. It's not that different but there are just shades about the way things are here - the severe contrasts so close to each other. We can be walking on the street next to rich stores and woman sitting on the ground in dirty rags are reaching out and grabbing at you, because no matter how little you are, you look so rich and so clean. It's just hard to stomach sometimes. Also, all the stray dogs. I´m sure that´s a big part of what makes it so different for me.

I went back in to try to be social.  I tried but was too tired to understand jokes in Spanish. Chris was laying down and when I went in to check on him, we both fell asleep. Oops. Next time I'll go out but this time I needed some rest. Upside from the evening even though we didn't go out was that Angela, one of the nutritionista, brought us a bottle of Coca liquor. It's sweet and really does taste like Coca. We all really like it (in small doses).

High five over Chris' first prepared meal for us

Saturday, we relaxed. Went to the market. Got some logistics work done. Jaime made a big tuna casserole with the leftover noodles and asparagus. This may have also been the day that we discovered we have a wandering neighbor, a dirty white cat, who only shows up when we're eating or cooking. She's the most vocal cat I've ever heard and now that Andrew was kind enough to throw her some scraps, we'll never hear the end of her. We watched Flashdance, which I'd never seen before - not too bad. And we had some of the Coca liquor one of the girls brought - quite sweet and nice actually. There was a wedding next door so it was loud all night though - kind of like having a club next door. Thank goodness we don't actually.

We woke up on Sunday for a 6am start to climb a local mountain - Tunari. We didn´t make it out at 6am though - more like 7. We arranged to go with Andrew´s friend Samuel again and he and another friend Mario showed up at 6:15 but the gringos weren´t ready yet. We took off in Samuel´s old white toyota corolla (previously a taxi) with Andrew squeezed in the front seat (it was a remodeled engine so there wasn´t much leg room and Andrew´s about 5´11¨), Chris, Jaime, and I in the back seat with backpacks, and poor Mario in the hatchback trunk. We started out of the city and then up the mountain. Unfortunately, the car didn´t exactly like the uphill. We kept having to stop to put more water in the engine because we were smelling burning plastic. When we stopped at a big uphill climb, Andrew, Chris, and I got out to walk and lighten the load. The second time all five of us got out and climbed up some intensely steep switchbacks. The car continued on precariously and after what should have been an hour and a half trip, we arrived four hours later. Woof!

Fixing the car on the way to Tunari

Hoping for a cloudless day hadn´t gotten us very far. Someone must have thought it would be funny to give us haze and smog instead. So we couldn´t see the city. But getting outside in the mountains was very nice for a Sunday. None of us had really counted on how cold and strong the wind would be as it came over the pass from some snow covered mountains. However, as Chris puts it, he goes packed with the intention of having to spend the night until he actually makes it back down. So he had some jackets - though he didn´t say multiple times this was not a place he would want to have to spend the night. There was a reservoir of sorts at the start and poor Chris drowned a foot in the runoff trying to help me across. We set off on the climb and mostly tried to enjoy the road. From the get-go, I wasn´t completely feeling it, especially after having already done a little bit of hiking to help the car. We got up on the road and encountered a dead sheep and a black dog who appeared to be guarding it from a distance. The dog started to bark at the two of us (the rest of the group was in the canyon, which we avoided because the flat first part meant a steeper ascent later). So we moved up further along the ridge to pass not only the barking dog but the sad shape of the dead sheep. 

On Mt Tunari

Spitting group of llamas and the boys

Llamas

We encountered a little lake with, of all things, a seagle making its home. We entered into a little valley and then started a steep ascent. However, we were now surrounded by sheep and llamas. As we moved up the side of the valley, the llamas apparently felt threatened. They started running across our path to protect the young females. A couple started hissing and actually spitting at Andrew and the boys. I was the only one who seemed to feel hesitant about this because Chris and I had seen an unhappy llama in Ecuador at Ingapirca. But with a little coercing, they got me to go and we made it past without anymore incident (or spitting). It was a nice set up for some lovely pictures though. They just really didn´t know what to make of us.

We got up to the last rest just before the real, final stretch up the mountain. Everyone ate a little lunch. I wasn´t feeling cien por ciento and walked up a little ways and then decided to hang back. The whole way was skree (if I´m spelling that right it´s like a lot of little sharp, broken rocks - almost like landscaping but not so pretty when you´re trying to hike). I knew it would be miserable so for the first time this trip (maybe in general?), I held back while the rest ascended. I curled myself up into a little ball and dozed off and on while watching the group climb. I was intermittently woken by the cold wind and then after a while, I woke up and while watching them at the top ridge for a bit, it suddenly started snowing. Ah hell. It was more amusing than anything actually. Kind of like big chunks of snow, no flakes. Almost hail but not painful. It was nice. 

Chris came running down the side of the mountain. At first, I really thought something was wrong, because he was alone and running. Turns out it was just easier to get down that way and wanted to come to keep me company instead of having tea and chewing coca with everyone up top. He told me that he´d had Andrew and Jaime take a bare-ass picture of him at the top, which is something he and his buddy Christian always do. Apparently, they felt inspired by this and took a similar picture, which I haven´t seen but heard was impressive (and I´m sure they´ll love that I´m sharing this too). So poor Samuel and Mario came down with headaches from the altitude and horrified looks from all the white ass they saw up on the mountain.

This mountain went up some 16.6k feet. Andrew had tried this mountain previously but had problems with altitude sickness. This time he took acetazolamide (that´s a pill that makes you pee a lot) but only started about 12-14 hours before instead of the 24 hours before, which we didn´t know were the instructions. We went down slow without many problems - a little snow ball fight, no dog run-in´s, nothing much. 

We had to walk a bit to bypass parts of the road with too many sharp rocks to avoid harming the car while Samuel brought it up behind us (the canister for natural gas is under the car and we were kind of afraid of puncturing it). As we walked, we again passed by loads of sheep and a few llamas. The sheep seemed quite disconcerted by our presence and were very vocal about it. I´ve decided that it´s a gringo thing (because we´ve seen and heard others do it) that you have to mimic the bleets and bah´s of sheep as you pass by because they´re just such fun to mimic. I know we make an ass of ourselves but I think Chris and I do it everytime. The car got down to us, we all piled in, and we made it down in a couple hours (with one stop in which Andrew had been driving without his international license on him and a cop asked him for a bribe, Something to buy my refreshment with). We got down and Chris and I both had bad headaches. Jaime and Andrew went out to eat but we had leftover salteñas and a little salad and went to bed early.

The group on the summit of Tunari

Yesterday was our turn to make lunch at the clinic. Jaime made curried chicken and potatoes with stir-fried veggies (it was quite good) and I made my no-bake brownie bites. Doña Martina, the sweet groundskeeper lady who always calls me doctorita, stood over me watching about half the time. Apparently my baking looked a little bizarre to her. Yes, I realize the title of this blog does not coincide but oh well, I´ve got an audience, I´ve been asked to bake, and they loved it. Someone even asked for the recipe. So Jaime and I stayed back a bit in the morning for prep work and I got to take a nice long walk to the grocery store to get my supplies before going to the clinic. Going in, my trufi´s had interesting things hanging on the rearview mirror. I think the first had a baking soda bag with little holes punched in it and the other had baby shoes - like when you see them hanging over a telephone wire. Either one was better than the normal pine tree shaped air freshener with a pattern I swear must be an American flag on it - kind of weird to see here don´t you think?

The clinic´s power was out all morning and everyone seemed pretty relaxed when I got there. We did some baking. A new dog came to play - cute little cockerspaniel guy who followed me around and kept rolling over for a belly rub. I almost kicked Blanca when she tried to bite him. When the power finally came back on, someone put on the news in the waiting room and we saw that Evo is in the US right now. We were all amazed. I really hoped something good would come of it and not something that would make our trip more difficult - but I looked it up today and he´s just doing some promotion for his biography and I think a UN general assembly meeting. Nothing in Washington unfortunately. Everyone really enjoyed lunch. It was a nice easy day, which was good because we were all really tired.

Today is somehow special apparently three-fold - Dìa del Amor (southern hemisphere version of St Valentine´s), Dìa de la Primavera (first day of spring), and Dìa del Medico (apparently doctors get the day off?). And somehow, amistad (friendship) plays into these themes as well and so the clinic is having a friendship gift exchange and they are all going out of their way to include us, which is very sweet.

This whole Dìa del Amor was apparently first mentioned to Chris by Maritza who kept pointing to chocolates in Sucre and saying that he should buy them for me. But apparently he didn´t understand til now what she was hinting at. So while I was typing this yesterday, he showed up with a big kiss and bouquet of flowers. What a sweetie. I´m a very lucky girl. Then, he went home to make dinner for everyone, which was delicious. What an easy life I´ve got.

Today we´ve been at home working on project stuff - survey, database, etc. Chris and Andrew went to the market and Andrew, who is already a shmoozer in English, was talking it up in Quechua with the sweet little old women at their stalls. Chris said they were all laughing and loving the gringo speaking Quechua. Someone asked him how long it him to learn and he said, a day. Around the house, the common phrases are ¡Hizo! and ¡Eso!, which both seem to act as stand-in´s for him for Oh yeah and Ahh right. The spanglish is pretty hilarious. And we´re all trying to speaking more strictly in Spanish for Ubaldina but she´s showing a lot of interest in learning more English, as well as teaching us Quechua (Chris now calls me his miski siki, sweet little thing, which of course came from Andrew).

The house situation is going to be just great. It´s quite easy to say that as I sit here in the living room typing while still in my PJ´s in the afternoon. We´re not all going to always see eye to eye but everyone´s been very level-headed and patient. The only problem I´ve had to complain really that we haven´t addressed yet is Ubaldina´s love for the TV. As I think I said before, she´s from the campo and never had a TV until she came to the city for university. So she has the TV on all the time even when she´s not watching it. The rest of us prefer to read, work, internet, what-have-you. We´re thinking about moving the TV into her room. We´ll see what happens. Right now the only real problems are bureaucracy. Luckily, Andrew is so incredibly fluent in Spanish and studied public policy in college and Jaime is just an incredibly patient person; whereas, for Chris and I, we have little to contribute to the long talks and endless meetings with health and government officials. So it's all gotten a little old for us.

Andrew and Jaime are going to Uyuni (where the salt flats are) with MMB this weekend. We might be going out to meet them or do the same but on our own. We´ll see how it pans out.

Few more random notes, Chris weighed himself in the clinic about two weeks ago before he treated himself and he'd lost almost 20 lbs! He didn't have almost anything to lose in the first place (but I think he'd already started to lose before we left) so that was startling. But now he checked again at the end of last week and has regained about 5lbs. Most of all of this could be daily fluctuation but it's a good upward trend.

We're eating better now that we're settled in one place. Before it was really hard to find healthy snacks but now there's a lot more cooking going on. We drink a lot of yogurt here - it's drinkable, like liquid. Took me a while to get used to but now I like it. And on further thought, I've realized the reason I love salteñas so much is there are like little juicey pot pies. Damn they´re good - and they have a very homey feeling.

On last thought, while we´re on the topic of food. Andrew was talking to some of the nursing students who are in and out of the clinic. He told them his mother is from Puerto Rico and Ricky Martin was his neighbor (just joking of course). And one of the sweetest, youngest looking students looked at him completely seriously and said, ¡Pero come mucho pollo! (But, he eats a lot of chicken!), which none of us had ever heard before as a way of saying someone is gay. Apparently the theory here (perpetuated by the government?) is that all hormones in chicken can make you become homosexual. Wow.

In this whole time period, I finished the book my brother gave me for my birthday, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. I only mention it because I need to go on record before the movie comes out (yes, I looked on iMDB and of course there's one slated) as saying, WTF? It deserves the acronym even. I got done and just thought, what the hell? I get the overarching point and the theme of the novel but still, what the hell? I'm just saying. 

I also read Mountains Beyond Mountains about the doctor Paul Farmer in Haiti who has done so much incredible work in his life. It's kind of a must read for anyone in medicine and I'm almost embarrassed to say it took me this long but I got through it quicker than anything I've read in a long time. It made me feel both incredibly encouraged and was so uplifting that one person could do so much. But it also makes you feel a little small in that you have to recognize that no you really couldn't ever do something as powerful as what he's done, but what the heck are you doing with your life?

Well, this was, as has become the norm, written over several different sessions, which I feel you should know to explain the disjointedness (and typos/grammar problems - I refuse to give this any more time than I already have). Let's make a date to do a better job of this next week. See you then? Ok, sounds good.

Wishing you all health, wealth, happiness, and something like a warm gooey salteña on Día del Amor,

Much love,

Sara and Chris

P.S. Lady Gaga is everywhere. There is no escape.