My kids

Teaching high school English to the segundo medios (equivalent to our sophmores) changed my service. Below are the pictures of the kids who brightened my days, made me laugh and taught me how to be a good teacher. I went into teaching at the Marista school primarily to help out my Spanish tutor and friend Hermano Melchor, but I found that I loved teaching and learned so much from the experience.

Not having prior teaching experience everything I did in class was somewhat of an experiment, but overall things went very well. Most of my teaching style came from my own experience at a charter elementary school. I found myself remembering exercises and ways that my elementary teachers engaged us to make learning fun. I started every class with a listening exercise, in which I talked about something while the kids looked at me with wide, open eyes like I was an alien. I asked them to try and write down words that they recognized when I spoke. The short speech was usually followed by laughter and confusion... but as the classes went on the kids always increased the number of words understood. We played games with vocab such as charades, bingo and word races. Another favorite activity was also from ANLC, a "morning message"- a mixed up message with mispelled words for them to correct. Truthfully I don't know who learned more from my English classes, my kids or myself... but I know that we all benefited from the experience and had fun while doing it.

Take a look at my kids... you may find that you have a namesake!

THE INVITATION

To all of you my friends and family reading this, this is your official invitation to come visit. I have realized that although I have gotten used to most things being here for so long and I don’t miss things too much anymore, missing all of you has never gotten better or easier. I guess some days are harder than others, but all in all I hate being so far away from those I love most, and would love to see some of you before my time here is done. In the words of a great speechwriter, “Now is the time”. I have now been in Bolivia for 17 months, and have approximately 10 months to go. That means sometime next July I will be done and heading home. So now is the time for you to come visit me and explore this beautiful and crazy country for yourself, now is the time to see what it is like to be in Peace Corps. Come live the life, come help me teach English, and stomp on plastics… it’s really fun. I promise to provide a great bed, delicious breakfasts, lunch and dinner and teatime is included in the no fee rate. My town offers the only stone Jesuit mission church in Bolivia, great broasted chicken, 2+ hour siestas, wonderful sunsets, endless Spanish lessons, siestas, friendly people who are sure to tell you they love you (their English is a little limited), mountain hikes and bike rides. Seriously, I would love some visitors; you are all invited, think about it… The tickets are a little expensive, but after that you can pretty much live for free… Plus once you are here, you could check out some of the rest of South America, it’s not so bad either. I’m telling you, it’s the chance of a lifetime, take it!

More Pics!

Cusco

The poor cuy! Check out his little top teeth and big bottom one, plus claws.. yuck!

More Machuuu

a llamita

ceviche... a traditional food in lima- yumm!

Miraflores

The All Volunteer Conference

So I left you on the edge of your seat right? Were you waiting to see how the plastics project went after the first couple of weeks? And then nothing… I left you again… Well not only did I have to leave you waiting and wondering about all of the plastics not being burned in San José, but I also had to leave waiting and wondering about what was going on in San José to go to an “All Volunteer Conference”. I was not looking forward to the more than weeklong meeting; it wasn’t great timing with my big project just starting. But this was not an optional meeting, so off I went to Santa Cruz. We were put up in a resort outside of the city and held there for about a week. I have to admit the meeting went way better than anticipated. I got to see all my B45 friends (minus Hannah and Brandon, and Jamel who happened to be vacationing), got to meet our new Country Director who comes to us from her last post in Georgia (the country) and before that the International Banking Sector, we got to play with trash in typical basic san fashion, I went on morning runs with the “cross country team” and even got to fit in some nice swims and lots of good friend time. It was a good break from normal life, and a unique experience to be together as a whole country.

During our meeting we reflected on Peace Corps Bolivia. We are now missing 2 groups, thus down about 60 volunteers. When the last 2 groups were set to come in, there happened to be some political craziness going on, forcing the groups to be canceled. And as it goes in Peace Corps, ever few months a group leaves… so we have had the groups going out, but not coming in. This has greatly affected the projects, the placement of volunteers and the financial stability of Peace Corps Bolivia. Not to mention, that it is getting a little lonely feeling. In my area of the Chiquitania those of us that take the death train out of Santa Cruz are quickly diminishing. For the last year we had a pretty sturdy group of Abe and Mathias in Robore, Josh in Santiago, then joined by Chris, and then later his girlfriend Kate, and then there is me and Jenny is San José. Well now, Abe and Josh are done and gone… Abe backpacking up towards the United States with his awesome Bolivian wife Carla, thankfully Josh didn’t make it as far and is going to be a volunteer leader in another region in Bolivia for the next year. Chris, Kate and Jenny are done this month… leaving me and Mathias… and that’s it.

Another big thing to mention is how much Peace Corps has been affected by the “economic crisis”. As volunteers in foreign countries our salaries are paid in local currency, the fall of the dollar has caused a deficit. As I read in my Newsweeks- which now have been canceled also due to the same problem, that alongside the “Economic crisis”, we have the “Food Crisis” and the “Gas Crisis” all these crisis’s add up to a humongous shortfall in our poor little Peace Corps Bolivia budget. It has been sad to see the changes that have to be made our programs, the letting go of staff, and the closing of our training center… Thankfully our director is a former banker and definitely knows how to take care of this kind of thing in the best way possible. We even got a little raise, to account for the rise in cost of evvvverything.

As much as the political situation in Bolivia continues to be unstable, both with relations within the country and also their not so affable relationship with the US, Peace Corps Bolivia continues to be optimistic about our status here. Just to give a little update on the situation:

The area where I live- Santa Cruz, continues to be extremely anti-Evo, who is their President, who happens to be the first Indigienous President here. Santa Cruz along with other areas of what is called the Media Luna have continued fighting for more independence from the government, they want to be Autonomous from the central government mostly in economic terms. They argue that although the majority of the money is made in Santa Cruz, a large percentage of it is unequally distributed across the country, where people do not have as much money. Santa Cruz and the other regions want their autonomia to distribute their gains on a more equal basis and promise to still spread the wealth across the nation, just in what they consider a more just manner. The people in this region “the Cambas” are also typically very prejudice against people from the more northern regions “the Collas”. Typically the Cambas are whiter looking, and the Collas more indigenous looking… It is truly heartbreaking to hear such blatant racism day in and day out. Recently, during our All Volunteer meeting there was an important vote throughout the country to decide whether Evo would continue as president. He won the election, and things went surprisingly smoothly considering the division in the country. As there are calls for reforms in the Constitution and for New Constitutions the future is uncertain. In terms of relations with the United States, things again, as always are not so clear. USAID has been kicked out of several areas of the country, there have been questions about what Peace Corps really does, and our Ambassador has been called a liar among other adversities. Overall, there continues as always to be unrest, road blockades and strikes but this is the norm and I wouldn’t expect any less from Bolivia.

Peru

After the All Volunteer meeting, I headed right for Peru; it was time for a little vacation from Bolivia. I met up with Chris for one of the best trips ever. We had an amazing time exploring the beautiful country together. We probably would have been happy anywhere… but Peru was truly wonderful. With flights that landed just about an hour apart we met up in the airport in Lima. It was a wonderful reunion and as being away from Chris is the hardest thing for me, some tears of joy were shed. The next day we took off for Cuzco, the ancient capital of the Incan Empire. Cuzco is a beautiful city, nestled in a valley of the Andes. It has a good mix of tourism and tranquility, just what we were looking for. The combination of the high altitude and the dry climate left us feeling a little weird… out of breath, weird stomachs, shriveled fingers, a little dizziness. Thankfully we soon got used to it and probably would have stopped huffing and puffing if we didn’t chose a hostel at the top of the mountain… but it had the best view at the best price so we had no choice, we loved it. We spent a week in Cuzco exploring the nearby ruins, enjoying the city, trying new food and relaxing together (Chris was a big fan of the guinea pig and alpaca- he even got an “big pac” burger). We made sure that we weren’t running around the whole time and got in lots of card playing and siestas. A great vacation! We then traveled to Machu Pichu. The most visited tourist site in South America… and yes there were tourists, but it was so truly amazing that we weren’t bothered. To get to Machu Pichu you have to take a 4.5-hour train from Cuzco to Aguas Calientes (which is the town below Machu Pichu). Aguas Calientes is a weird town that hasn’t quite found itself but still serves its purpose. We spent a rather short night in Aguas Calientes (due to construction that went on till 12pm and overly excited tourists breakfasting at 4am) and headed up to Machu Pichu early the next morning. Taking the easy way up (the bus) we were still amazed by the difference in climate and landscape from Cuzco. The Machu Pichu area is much more tropical and humid, the actual site of Machu Pichu is located in a cloud forest, making the view even more magical.
At first glace Machu Pichu is simply breathtaking, it is so beautiful and mysterious that you have to question if it is real. We had an interesting tour of the site, in which we learned a lot and really became even more enthralled with the Incan history. I was surprised to learn that they were very knowledgeable about earthquakes and their patterns, and had built earthquake proof structures. They studied the constellations and the changing of the seasons through the stars. They had a great water system at the top of this mountain- that still worked! Their postal service to Cuzco took the Incans 5 hours by foot with a handoff delivery system! Amazing amazing, and now it takes weeks for mail to reach me from Santa Cruz! Also very interesting, the Incan leaders that lived in Machu Pichu fled when they heard that the Spanish army was headed their way. They left the site, taking all of their treasures (only one golden bracelet has been found at Machu Pichu). The next settling of the leaders and their treasure is thought to be the lost city, still to be found… For me, the best part was after the tour Chris and I explored by ourselves and had the most beautiful picnic looking at the peaks of the Andes and the ruins of this remarkable civilization.

After Machu Pichu we had a couple of days to enjoy Cuzco and then headed back to Lima. We thought we might try to head to a beach town about an hour outside of the city so Chris could get in some surfing, but it ended in a deserted summer-only type place, a cab driver urging us not to stay there and us jumping on the microbus back to the city after about 10 minutes… at least we got to see a little more of the country. Haha. We ended up staying in a nice hostel in a beautiful old house in the Miraflores region of Lima. Miraflores seemed to me like the Brooklyn of the city. There were tons of new restaurants, shopping, surfing and beautiful cliff top parks. (I guess we don’t really have the cliff top parks in Brooklyn and the east river offers little for surfers… but you know what I mean) Little did we know when we arrived, we were staying in the perfect location \ a block away from a walk down to the beach in one of the best spots in Lima “las rocitas”- Chris got to surf, and I enjoyed watching. We had a great last few days sipping Pisco sours (egg whites, lemon and a grape alcohol), eating ceviche and arroz con mariscos, enjoying the Pacific and each other’s company, and trying not to be sad that the trip was coming to an end. Leaving Chris was horrible, as always… more than ever actually, but I continue to tell myself as I am back in San José sweating in the heat, that it is only sad because it was so good. So goodbye Peru, goodbye Chris… I love you both, hasta pronto.