The Slow Road Out

Last Reminder: The new subscription service is at the very bottom of the page (Subscribe Via Email) if that would make your life easier. I would just put it at the top of the page but I think it´s ugly.

Well here we are, days away from Chris` 30th birthday and he´s an uncle!! Huge congratulations to the new parents Dan and Meghan for the little bundle named Liam, born the day after his dad´s birthday on October 20th.We can`t wait to meet him.

All is well here and we´re just getting ready to jump on yet another bus for Sucre tonight. So here´s the quick update:

• Recovery
• Multiple trips to the Cancha
• A project shot down
• Puppy dinner 
• Quick trip to Sucre and Potolo detour
• Prepping for the final push 

So when last we left off, I believe I was still ill. Completely better now by the way.  Friday night we completed the dream and watched Herbie the Love Bug (the original! not the one with the coke addict). We took a drink for ridiculousness or 60s clichès - and these abounded with Buddy Hackett in the movie, so lovable but totally crazy. ¨That´s as beautiful as Ulysses S Grant on a fifty dollar bill!¨

Saturday we took the long walk down to the Cancha to get me out of the house for the first time in days. The mass of humanity was a little overwhelming after having been in the house for so long. But Chris was of course pleased to get more yarn - a more than weekly occurrence around here it seems. We would go again the next Wednesday and this past Wednesday as well (market days are Wednesday and Saturday - when god and everybody is out on the street selling something).

Drinks at the Cancha - the sweet attracts bees like you wouldn´t believe

Chris got a good bit of knitting in the rest of the weekend. I believe that´s when he finished his new knitting bag, which he´ll use to carry all his yarn and materials in. He also started to teach Andrew how to knit but what started as a square has continued to grow outward as Andrew accidentally adds more stitches.

Knitting boys

Monday was our last day in clinic for cooking lunch. So the night before I made banana oatmeal raisin cookies (along with sauco - elderberry - jam thumbprint cookies just for the house). They turned out really well but I was not pleased at having to use real eggs and real butter. Not exactly as healthy as I make them at home. Jaime make shepherd´s pie for the clinic.

We also got to finally exchange gifts for the friendship day gift exchange they´d arranged. We´re not supposed to know who our gifts are from but I feel like I have a good idea after how excited Doña Margarita (the older nutritionista who arranged the whole thing) got after giving me mine. I got a chuspa(?spelling) which is the colorful bag they use to hold their coca leaves in the campo (a great keepsake) and a bar of Sucre dark chocolate (definitely gone already). Chris got a rather hefty fake castle (?!?!?!?!). Jaime got a jewelry set and Andrew got a decorative mini alcohol barrel with mini cups. It probably wasn´t meant to be used but as you´ll see in a minute, we did.

It was a nice day. I got a nice long belly rubbing session in with Blanca. It was a rather zen moment for me. She´s a good girl when she wants to be.

Waiting for the leftovers

We had a couple days in clinic that week. Overall, we did have some interesting experiences there - saw (and Chris quickly ID`ed when no one else could) hand-foot-mouth disease, tried to kind of help with a really nasty cheek lac from a car accident (never figured out why it took him a few hours to come to get fixed up though), went to a preschool for anthropomorphics with the nutritionistas (that was our first day, just Chris and I from the med side and we got to do a little physical exam on everyone - found some murmurs, rhoncorous breath sounds, a really severe pectus, etc), saw a kid who probably has HOCM (hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy) who came in with chest pain and really bad looking Q waves and LVH on an EKG I never saw, and of course helped a lot with screening. It was generally a good experience, if not quite what we were expecting.

By now you may have noticed that I´m using past tense a lot. Well, MSF (that´s Doctors without borders) who was backing the Chagas project here changed management, as is normal every September. However, the new boss came on board and it was realized that the old team hadn´t done a good job of actually READING the proposal and project details they had received. Turns out they didn´t like some of the details, namely follow up EKGs that wouldn´t normally be given and wouldn´t change the course of therapy (I understand some parts of this and have big problems with others but it´s probably not worth getting into here). So this had come up while I was sick and was already a problem for us as previously this had really been our only draw, our carrot for getting people to come into clinic for the survey. Now we had nothing. After a few days of trying to reconcile the new situation we found ourselves in, Andrew received another email. This time the new director was pulling MSF´s support from the project completely. Not only that, he had decided it was necessary to call the government authorities to tell them we were working no longer under the MSF umbrella and perhaps they should be checking in on what we were doing. Puta. For Chris and I, this was really the end of the Chagas project, at least in Cochabamba. There had been so many problems getting things moving, so much bureaucracy and red tape that things no longer appeared worth it in this department of Bolivia. Stress and tension had been so high in the house and with this, we took the opportunity to respectfully bow out of activities in Cochabamba and suggest that they do the same - meaning that work be moved to Chuquisaca (the department in which Sucre resides). But we´ll get to that later.

Selling in the Cancha

 The vaguely ironic part of all of this is that Andrew had been worrying so long about obtaining some mode of transportation for us to go between the more distant clinics to work. Well, he finally managed it when one of the secretarial women working at MMB (Mano a Mano, the other supporting organization) took pity on him and offered up her extra peta (means tortoise apparently but it´s the word used for the Brazil made VW beetle) for the remainder of his time in Bolivia. We all of course had to question her motives after having so many problems with I´ll scratch your back kind of problems. Turns out her daughters had been educated in the states and she and her husband had been there as well. She seemed to understand the idea of a favor for future gain/connections. As Andrew put it, she´s one of the few Bolivians who´s able to see  the forest through the trees. So now here we had this peta and the project went to shambles. That and they had just ordered another EKG machine from the states. What bad timing.

And also, I´d finally done my first survey (been working on databasing most of the time). At least I can say I did one!

I consider myself as having a knack for knowing when the tension needs to be broken, so on hearing the news, my first move was to pull down the Coca liquor. We invited Ruben (the doorman) up as well and the six of us had a few drinks out of Andrew´s new mini barrel, which was very exciting for him I assure you.  Someone made the observation that it functions ¨like an 80 year old man taking a leak.¨ We just needed a little amusement.

Andrew and Ubaldina setting up the mini-barrel stream

We took turns making little toasts with our mini drinks. Ruben´s was the most memorable as I believe he toasted to the group of us (minus Andrew) being almost normal.

It needed a mini Coca liquor hat - peeing like an 80 year old

Everyone slept in the next morning before going into the clinic to talk to the doctora about what had happened and let her know we wouldn´t really be secure coming into the clinic anymore with MSF and the government agencies on the look out for us. It was a salteña morning of course - as every morning should be. Since Chris and I realized this could be the last time we would go into the clinic at Villa Israel, Chris decided to act on the gift idea he´d had for the head doctor. Whenever we would miss a clinic day or she would do something to help her, the doctora would tell us that we owed her a chicle. So Chris bought a little colorful ceramic pot and we filled it with her favorite brand of gum and some chocolate. Along with that, I made a copy of the database for her with all the patients with Chagas who needed follow-up and all the contact information we´d obtained. It was our little going away gift.

When we got to the clinic, two of the nutritionistas were doing their final presentation so we sat to listen in. Unfortunately, one of the study patients hadn´t been notified and showed up and Andrew had to turn her away because of the situation. We finally got a moment with the doctora - after the nurse tried to pull both her and Jaime away to attend a woman in labor that the male doctor ended up handling. Andrew explained the situation and the doctora really wanted to fight for us. The situation got complicated with of course multiple more meetings. I´ll just say that Andrew is dealing with a little bit of it so that hopefully they can make use of the almost two hundred patients we have databased at three clinics when they come back in December (both are going home for a stretch - residency interviewing and home visit).

Chris and the doctora (she´s a Bolivian bad ass)

That night, Thursday, we went over to dinner at Elva and Marcello´s. This is the couple we went out to dinner with previously with the two little girls who housed Andrew and Jaime when they first arrived. Dinner was just fantastic, dessert was amazing, and the company was fun and hilarious (another couple showed up a little later with the rest of us). We all ate too much and Chris of course insisted on doing the dishes, which the women were all really impressed with. But the highlight of the evening for me of course was the 5 month old golden retriever, Horacio. He´s a menace. And huge for a five month old! But he was adorable and much too playful and I was probably rude for how much time I spent outside with the dog but oh well. I had a duclaw (is that how you say it?) ripped shirt sleeve and a big ass grin at the end of the evening to show for it. However, it did cement the thought that when we get back, we´re really not going to have the time or energy to keep up with a puppy. I´m thinking our adoptees will need to be around 2 or older. I´m fine with that. They´re all puppies to me.

Chris and I also finished up our Spanish lessons that week. We had them at my instructor Alex´s house (really more his family´s house, it was really big). There were a couple big and fairly angry seeming dogs. But in the end, those weren´t the worst. As we were leaving the first time, Chris got nipped by the littlest dog. Luckily he didn´t break skin or even pants. But what a little bastard.

In our lessons, Alex had me doing a lot of random talking. At one point he asked me the three most important things that happened to me in college. It was a kind of strange question but I immediately said the first was my summer in New York. For the people I met, the experience I had, and how much I grew, I will be forever grateful. Without that first step outside of the bounds of life in Tucson, I wouldn´t have moved away from home (sorry Ma) and I most certainly wouldn´t be the person I am who´s made it all the way out here. You never know where the big changes are going to come from.

Lessons ended well. Alex told me he didn´t really have anything else to teach me and that I just need to do a lot more reading and practice talking more. That part´s just a little harder to do with the four of us English speakers living together.

Friday, Andrew, Chris and I went down to the clinic again for the nutritionistas last day. It was actually very somber. The doctora was sick but they all took it as a personal snub that she didn´t show up for their last day. We of course saw both sides and knew that she was actually sick, but couldn´t rightly tell them the reasons. If we get back in time next week, they´ve invited us to go out for their graduation. I´m almost glad that we´re done in the clinic just because it would be so sad to be there without them. They were such a bright presence.

Farewell with the nutritionistas (minus two)

After leaving, Chris and I went and bought the tickets for the bus to Sucre that night for Andrew, Ubaldina, and the two of us. Jaime wasn´t feeling very well and decided that she would spend the weekend relaxing while we went to Sucre and Potolo (the small town Andrew worked in during Peace Corps where Ubaldina is from) to try to set up campaigns in the surrounding area. Afterwards, we finally had the chance to go check out the archeological museum Chris had been dying to see (after picking up an ice cream on the way of course). It was rather small but fairly impressive in its collection. They had a lot of mummified remains and interesting skulls - including those that of priests that had been purposefully elongated or otherwise deformed (damn you Indian Jones 4 for ruining that for me). Seeing them was very interesting but I never feel right taking pictures in a museum so sorry I have nothing to share on that one.

During that whole week, Ubaldina had been attending training sessions for an afternoon job she was applying for. In the middle of the week, she came home late when only Chris and I were there and tried selling us perfume/cologne from the company (at $40 US a pop!). We talked a little bit about it and got the feeling something funny was going on. Jaime talked to her about it more the next day and got more details that made us all certain it was a pyramid scheme. Oh boy. How to handle telling her that? Andrew went to great lengths to try to find articles and evidence online to show her what he meant. He even went with her to talk to the boss (who was incredibly slimey and whose girlfriend would shake her head nod in the corner when he was answering dishonestly). Finally they managed to convince her and Ubaldina pulled herself out before she had paid the excessive amount she was planning to to gain access to their supposed corporate ladder.

Street fruit

 We didn´t manage to see any of it but all the while, Bolivia has been exploding with protests against new anti-racism legislation Evo is putting through. That may sound strange at first. Why would anyone be against an anti-racism law? But it´s looked at, apparently rightly so, as an excuse for the government to impose censorship. And the media has been out in force protesting. I haven´t heard the end of things yet but with government-owned media already in place, it appears free speech in Bolivia is in serious jeopardy.

Somewhere in all of that week, Andrew, Chris and I stayed up late and watched Scent of a Woman. I´m ashamed to say it was my first time seeing it (Chris O`Donnell bugs me!). But now I´ve got a whole new view of Al Pacino. What an amazing role. 

We left on the bus last Friday night for Sucre. I don´t think I slept at all. It was miserable. But the bus was a little more spacious this time. We arrived very early and immediately Ubaldina left ahead of us for Potolo. We headed to the central market for the boys` regular breakfast - coffee, a chunky looking corn drink I just can´t stomach well, and pastel (fried dough with cheese inside). I waited for a salteña. It was stormy and miserable outside when we got there but of course cleared up quickly.

We went up to the family´s house - the kids we spent so much time with last time. Their parents, Pedro and Hilda still weren´t home. But Pedro was already in Potolo for catechism training and we knew we´d be seeing him there that night. We passed Ruth on her way to school (on a Saturday?) and the rest of the kids were still at home but I think we woke Maritza up. She looked a little tired. I took a little nap and then we went back out into the city.

Playing tourists

Chris was hell-bent on getting one of the hats like Andrew had gotten on their previous visit. So we went down to the hat factory, only a little less rushed than at his last visit when he´d been unable to find anything (they close at noon), and they didn´t have anything big enough for his huge head. This isn´t a new experience for us after everything we went through to get him a panama hat in Cuenca but still frustrating. They suggested we try to outlet at the bus terminal where they might have bigger sizes. It was of course closed.

We went out for lunch and incidentally met up with Andrew and his friend from Potolo, Dominga. Dominga, a very intelligent, soft -spoken woman, brought with her Sebastian, her 8 month old and maybe the most serious baby I´ve ever met. Andrew hung on to him the whole time, even when it seemed like Dominga kind of wanted him back and ignoring my obvious hints and how much Chris would love to hold the baby.

After stopping by Andrew´s house (and talking with his so sweet foreman Don Marcelino who unknowingly wears a BeBe hat), we headed to the Mirador Cafe to nap/read/relax. Chris had started working on making mittens for the first time and a very curious older man came and suddenly sat with us to observe and discuss.

Knitting mittens

When Andrew found us, we had to move quickly. I had plans to call my aunt Nancy for her 60th birthday but the bus driver for Potolo was in a hot hurry to leave. Turns out it was probably a good thing because I probably would have been calling early enough to ruin the surprise of everyone coming out to Denver. We met up with Andrew´s friend Martin and Dominga again (who was coming with the baby just to say hi to her parents overnight) and hopped on the bus after Andrew had managed to greet the nearly half of the bus that already knew him. 

We left early enough that there was some light for the way out for the first hour or so. Then, we were far enough from the city that it was pitch black. It was a relatively pleasant ride other than having been on a bus already that day and the man across the aisle who kept spitting on the floor and spraying me. I´d always seen the no spitting signs on buses and just thought they were ridiculous. I guess not. I just wanted to point to the sign and say, This means you my friend. Fortunately he got off before Potolo so it didn´t last the whole time.

Arriving in Potolo, a very small town under the mountains, meant a lot of greetings for Andrew. For me, it only really met one. I´m the only person in the group who hadn´t met Pedro yet. He was quite busy but showed us into the priest´s quarters where we would be sleeping (don´t feel too bad, he wasn´t there and apparently he isn´t a nice guy anyway, made Maritza and her little brothers pay for a ride to Sucre when he was already going and had space, what kind of a clergyman is that?). 

The view of the way to Potolo in daylight

Martin´s wife was making food and offered to feed us. She made sweetened milk and several deep-fried small potatoes per person with a big hunk of grisly meat. Needless to say, I didn´t eat. The meeting we were supposed to have with the doctor and town officials was postponed til morning because they had to wait for us too long. Andrew´s young friend opened her stall for me so I could grab some crackers and cookies to eat. We were accosted in the plaza by an SUV who we didn´t realize had mistaken us for a group of gringo tourists. Most pass through for a day doing the circuit we´ll hike when we go back this weekend.

Chris and I went to sleep early while Andrew went and caught up with his friends. It was a little difficult to sleep for me (unluckily, Chris seemed a little ailed by altitude but it meant he konked out immediately) because the catechism training was populated by some very, very giggly school girls. Not quite what I was expecting.

We had the meeting the next morning in the health post. The doctor wasn´t able to be there but two nurses and several town officials were. The reception was wonderful. They were thrilled for us to be there and to want to help. They had recently run a diagnostic campaign for Chagas with a nearly 90% positive rate. In the treatment of Chagas, you have to have (as an adult) an EKG to show that your disease isn´t too far advanced before you can receive treatment. For the cost and distance of an EKG, this is nearly an impossibility for the people of Potolo. So we met and arranged that we will come back next week to run an EKG campaign. The idea had originally been to enroll patients in the study as well but it turns out no one has been treated in the town (only children) so no one is eligible. Therefore we´ll be going back just to help with getting these people the EKGs they need (which Chris and I think is just wonderful) while they run another screening campaign (apparently the last was during a town fair and most people weren´t able to come). Then, Jaime and Andrew will return in December to do EKGs for the newly diagnosed as well as to enroll people for the survey.

The big concern for us was making sure that these people could be followed, that they could actually be provided treatment. They are legally entitled to free treatment but they will still have to petition for it since it has not yet been provided to their region. So a letter was printed out and to become official required all the officials and doctors´ stamps - their sellos, these are used to make everything official in Bolivia (don´t you dare turn in any paperwork without a sello on it!). Andrew went with Pedro the next day, Monday, in Sucre and turned this into the network management office (which even gave a sello on their copy to show that they´d been received in the office) and things appear to be rolling now. So the plan is to leave tonight for Sucre, spend a day relaxing and re-equilibrating, leave for Potolo Sunday but get off early to hike to the nearby crater, then complete the hike and spend the week in Potolo running EKGs. Sounds like a good way to end our time here in Bolivia.

When we woke up, we saw how really and truly beautiful the valley around Potolo is. We´ve seen a lot of landscape and I´ve commented that I´ll be glad to spend less time in one place because I won´t grow accustomed to the landscape and thus take it for granted. There was no taking for granted here though. The area was one of the most beautiful we´ve seen in Bolivia. The colors in the rocks and the mountainside were just brilliant (you can see a little in the picture above). Chris of course was ready and rearing to go for a hike but we learned there was only the one chicken truck leaving that day and when a private cab showed up, Andrew, Dominga, Chris and I had to jump on the chance to leave. The trip was a little crowded (there was another woman in the front seat) but he did let us get out to stretch and take pictures at one point and the trip was much shorter overall. 

Gadiel hiding among the clothes lines

We arrived in Sucre and were starved. We went and had a huge Chinese meal, which was more satisfying than I´ve had in a long time. Leaving from the restaurant´s second floor, however, gave Chris the opportunity to slam his head into a low beam. Oww! I went and finally had the chance to call and talk to the family who was enjoying my Denver and wish Nancy a happy birthday. The locutorio (phone shop?) I was in felt like such a clichè though. Everyone was a gringo tourist using Skype and Facebook at the same time. But when I left I was walking along a path that normally means being demanded of by many women sitting on the sidewalk begging, but this time I was left alone. As opposed to the clichè a moment previous, I found myself walking behind such a rarity that it commanded their attention so completely that they didn´t even notice me - a white woman walking with a really big bag of coca leaves. Apparently it looked both strange and appetizing.

We went to spend a little time with Pedro´s family before going to Dominga´s house, where she´d offered us rooms for the night. At this point, I finally got to meet Hilda, Pedro´s wife (and Manuel, the smallest of the kids and a totally cutie). She was a little sick and hoarse sounding but very pleasant. I gave her the rest of my cough drops and tried to hint that they weren´t candy but special medicine when I saw Darwin staring at them but she gave some to him anyway. I´m sure it tasted funny to him. 

Hilda was a very honest person and spent a lot of time talking about the financial hardships they´ve been going through. Being a Catholic foot-soldier doesn´t exactly pay well, especially when you have five kids. At the time we were talking, Andrew was trying to teach the kids origami. It looked really hard. While we were there Pedro came home from Potolo with his boss(?). They had tea and talked (talked a lot about Pedro´s aversion to western medicine and how hard they had to fight to get their oldest, Ruth, vaccinated when she was born). Then, his boss offered us a ride to Dominga´s in his brand new white truck. It was such a stark contrast getting into that truck as we left such a humble house (he didn´t even know how to drive it very well). Chris and I vowed to bring a big bag or two of fruits and veggies whenever we come back.

Gadiel sounding out Chris´ email titles in English

Dominga´s house was incredibly nice (even nicer since it meant I got a warm shower the next morning). Andrew had promised to cook for Dominga and her family. It got late and it looked like that might not have been the best idea. So we ordered pizza instead and Andrew and I went out to find beer (we found his favorite) and ingredients for him to make ¨monkey bread.¨ Monkey bread is little balls of dough rolled in cinnamon and sugar and baked thusly. Kind of like the snickerdoodle version of bread. I watched him make it with Dominga´s sister and niece supervising. The baker in me cringed as they ignored what I felt were crucial steps in bread making. 

While they prepped, Dominga´s little black mama puppy Lipa kept coming in and out (and being run out when Dominga would come back in carrying Sebastian). Eventually, after having pet her for a while, I learned where her two puppies were being kept, and Dominga´s niece showed Chris and I down to where they were. Lipa didn´t like us being there I could tell. But I picked up a puppy (almost as big as she was, obviously a much bigger daddy) and held it down to her to lick. Chris tried to come near and she bit him - twice. What is going on with Chris` bad luck with dogs recently!? Again no skin break but what a little brat. She kept coming to us to beg all night too and he told her she was barking up the wrong tree.

Andrew went with Dominga to have a quick meeting with the Potolo doc who was in Sucre and I played cards with Dominga´s two brothers-in-law and niece while Chris knit. They play a lame version of rummy here where you aren´t allowed to take more than one from the discard pile, but they taught me something interesting called imaginaria too. Lipa had seemed a little gunshy and I understood why when I saw one of the men handling her (and maybe Sebastian too) a little roughly. The guy was just rough all around, but he ran the store downstairs and kept sneaking more beer up and changing them without us noticing. It was a little much by the end of the night.

The pizza was delivered by a taxi and the monkey bread in a big old pot actually turned out quite nicely (for breakfast too with some peach slices). My favorite moment of the evening was likely Andrew asking Dominga´s niece whether she´d like to sugar his ball or wet his balls. Luckily, it didn´t sound as bad in translation.

Selling shoes near the Cancha

The next day Chris and I left and bought bus tickets. This is only important because it means we went to the terminal. And this time the hat shop was open. We spent a little while trying on hats and this time Chris did find the XL that fit his dome-skull. It´s called a Safari hat but it looks very Indian Jones and other than the fact that he can´t get it wet (felt?), he´s thrilled. I actually found a cute little green hat too. They were both really cheap and Chris loves when I wear hats, so why not? I tried to get the lady to take a picture of us against all the racks of hats but after a couple failed attempts, I gave up. I´ll get a picture this weekend I´m sure.

We went out into the city and bought a big bag of fruit for the family. We also heard that Pedro was turning 45 the next day so we got him a big bag of chocolates and some chocolates for the kids in Halloween forms. We enjoyed a chocolatey espresso before heading up the hill (it´s a steep on) to the family´s house. 

Andrew had bought a chicken for them so Hilda made us lunch - more than I could eat as usual. The girls were at school but the boys were thrilled to finish their lunchs to have chocolate. I´d bought two witches meant for the girls but they were more intricate looking so the boys wanted them and I teased them to no end for choosing the girls´ treats. But then I went running around playing monster with them in the street so they forgave me quickly. Pedro loved his chocolates and Chris said he carried them around in his pocket for the rest of the day. We also brought a Cars puzzle (including, more importantly, stickers) for the boys that we handed off to the adults to keep them from fighting over it too much.

We went down to the Mirador cafe again (it´s very close) but this time to introduce Pedro to Andrew´s friend the owner in the hopes of getting him a gardening job. Very sweet of Andrew to try to get him some more income. They went into the city to run errands so Chris and I had a juice looking over the city and talked about the things we´re excited for in the coming months.

Back at the house that night, Andrew made monkey bread again for Pedro´s birthday. This time under my supervision. Andrew said it turned out much better that time - and who am I to contradict? The boys were made to go wash their hands so that they could help with assembly work. The family has a big oven in the top floor where Hilda makes bread to sell in their little house shop. We´ve heard it´s the best in the area but haven´t gotten to try it yet.

Drizzling melted butter with sugar onto little balls of cinnamon dough

  - could there be anything better?

Dominga came up too for the little gathering and Chris finally got to spend some time holding Sebastian. Their tiny little kitchen was very crowded but it was such a lovely group and a lot of fun. Hilda made soup and we made it out just in time to say hi to Maritza as she came back from school and get to the bus terminal in time.

Ubaldina met us at the terminal with her aunt who was leaving Potolo for the first time and apparently in ill health. She´s now in Cochabamba with her son and being well taken care of. The seats were less wonderful this time around but the woman of this company (the one Chris and Andrew have usually used) recognized Chris (as he puts it - who in this country is going to forget his beard?) and gave us a little discount. I didn´t sleep again, which meant I was up when Andrew´s sleep was interrupted by a new passenger yelling, Hey friend, is that seat open? He woke him up a few hours later to get off. Andrew was pissed. I was hot. We came prepared both times to freeze on the bus but they had the heat on both times and we all sweat the whole night long.

Little man in a big hat

We got back Tuesday morning around 6:30 and went home to immediately collapse into bed. I stayed there til almost one. It was glorious. Mostly just hung out around the house for the day, relaxing and reading. I finished What is the What, which I may have mentioned previously is a quasi-autobiographical story of one of the Sudanese Lost Boys. It was tremendous. I was on the bus to Sucre the previous weekend when I reached what I considered to the only good news in the book and I just lost it. I had to finally stop reading because I couldn't stop crying. That's my way of trying to tell you this was an amazing book.
That night Jaime, Chris, and I went out to a Kabab restaurant, which in Spanish was called A Thousand And One Nights. When they brought out our wraps engorged with lettuce, Chris then began talking about the Thousand and One Nights of diarrhea (none of us ended up getting sick though we all felt slightly off the next day). We went home and I made boxed brownies and we watched Robin Hood - nothing special but not as bad as I thought. It´s nice to watch movies because we always have Spanish subtitles on too. I consider it a form of studying. Not buying that? Oh well, it works for me.

Wednesday was Cancha day. So for the maybe fourth time in the past two or three weeks, Chris and I went down to the Cancha. It was nice to go for a walk and get out but it was a monstrously hot day. We ate at our favorite veggie buffet and a bird shat on Chris' lap and veggie lasagna. Chris wore his new hat out and about, quite stylin' on the town. The most important purchase of the day pertains to the validity of everything getting done down here. I've already described how the Potolo letter needed to be stamped by everyone and their mother and then stamped again. These are called sellos in Spanish. Well, Andrew and Jaime had their own sellos made and now Chris and I finally found the same shop and had our own made too. Chris' favorite saying in Spanish here equates to about Everything is possible, but nothing happens. So he now has a stamp that says his name and his saying (of course with a caduceus, a mountaineer, and two mini elephants as well). But to stay fitting with the saying, Chris printed his name for her to make the stamp with instead of capitalizing it. When we came back to pick them up, his name was CLISTOPLER UPTOR. Wasn't quite close enough but that's ok, it gave us time to get him an ice cream and me a smoothie (a real one!) while she re-made it. My stamp is a little more uplifting (though I found the word document I was looking for today that had the less optimistic quote I actually wanted - oh well) with mini dogs and a person reaching for the stars in front of the caduceus. I had to counteract Chris' negative sello vibes. Otherwise, we went and found Chris more yarn and a big old button for his knitting bag.

Pedro´s first monkey bread bite with Hilda and the boys looking on

 Ubaldina came home from being with her aunt and cousin and made our first papas rellenas for everyone for dinner. Papas rellenas are pretty much fried mashed potato balls with hard-boiled egg and cheese with herbs stuffed in the middle. It was actually really good. Chris wants to make them at home now of course. Jaime made soup and baked squash to go with and Ruben came upstairs with beer and gave Andrew hell about his gringo Spanish (ouch! the rest of us are doomed if Andrew still sounds like a gringo). In the midst of cooking, Chris got the news that his little nephew was born and we all gawked at the precious photos he got from his parents over email and toasted little Liam with Bolivian beer, observing how well traveled his name already is - being toasted on a different continent within an hour of birth. A good start.

We were thinking of making a little day trip before heading back to Sucre/Potolo again but it's hard to find transportation to some of the interesting sites without using a tour company (no thanks, we're still having Uyuni flash backs). Jaime and Andrew decided to go to the Chapare, which is the jungle region nearby. Since it's supposed to be very similar to the jungle/rainforest we're going to (reservations are all set with Madidi!), we decided to pass and stay home to rest up before the next few jam-packed weeks. It was a very rainy day Thursday, which made it great for staying indoors and doing not too much - just getting the little things done. Chris made a lovely little dinner for us (including lentil "meat"balls!) with a really cheap, not-so-bad Chilean wine. We watched a movie and managed to finally get a hold of his parents on Skype. It was very nice to finally see them again and of course not so bad that they brought both dogs on screen at one time or another to say hi. 

Unfortunately, Jaime and Andrew came home in the middle of the Skype conversation at nearly 10pm, having been unable to find an alojamiento/hostel. They had intended to go to the Chapare but were told it was too steep so they instead went to Incallajta, ruins we´d talked about going to together (maybe Chris and I will go when we get back). The little peta took them all the way there and back in one day. What a bummer but hopefully it was still nice to get out of the house for a day.

So tonight we leave for Sucre yet again. I think I'll be dosing up on benadryl this time since I'm just flat out sick of not sleeping for how often we're busing lately. We'll take a day in Sucre to re-acclimate and then leave Sunday to hike the Maragua crater near Potolo (it looks fantastic on Google Earth or Google Maps Satellite if you can find it). We'll spend the night there and be in the crater for sunrise on Chris' 30th birthday Monday! How exciting! He's really excited for it and afterward it's Andrew's godson's birthday in Potolo (it's actually Gadiel's birthday too, scoundrels were made for each other). So we'll celebrate there too. Apparently, they're planning on slaughtering a sheep which I'm not exactly into. Then we'll spend three days doing the EKG campaign and head back for a few days of business here before heading off again for our Madidi rainforest trip (that's a nearly 22 hour bus ride in total). I'm detailing it now because it sounds busy to me already so we'll see how long it takes for me to get back here. Especially since after all of that, we leave for Peru again and for a brief stop on the East Coast in late November to meet Liam and see parents. Woof, what a whirlwind!

The rest of our time right now is trying to figure out the rest of our trip - safari in Africa (if you've been and have any advice, especially on companies, please, please let us know because we're stumped) and a week volunteer experience with elephant rehabilitation in Thailand (we're both extremely excited for that one).

I think the quote for this one comes from Jaime after having to clean some unexpected bits off her eggs:

¨The eggs are so fresh here, they still have feathers on them from the chicken´s ass!¨ 

Then there was the first. Hearing for probably the first time in our travels, Chris saying, ¨I do believe I need a shower.¨

As for other new things, I´m ashamed to say that as an Arizonan, I´ve had my first experience killing a scorpion down here in Bolivia. I would have just left it alone but it was in the apartment courtyard and looked like it was moving toward where a woman keeps her baby carriage. That just will not fly.

Guess that´s about all. Hope to be seeing you sooner than later. 

Much love, peaceful autumn feelings, and big kisses for pudgey new baby cheeks,

Sara and Chris