As seen in the news lately, Bolivia is having some political problems. January 25, 2009 there will be a country wide vote on The Referendum. If passed, The referendum will alter the Constitution that Bolivia has right now. Some changes include;  indefinite re-election of current president Evo Morales, what the people of Venezuela voted against in their election last year, land ownership will be limited to 24,000 acres, allowing for the redistribution of some land to the poorer indigenous people and all natural resources will be nationalized.

That is a pretty vague description and some laws may be a little different, but it is very hard to get a legitimate grasp on exact issues of the referendum. For example, talking to my host mom the other night she told me that if the referendum passes,vigilante justice will be legalized, allowing people to take the law into their own hands.  There was a case recently where some people were burned alive in a town about one hour outside Santa Cruz (i´ve been there) due to vigilantes. So, while my host mom´s story seemed pretty unrealistic I was close to believing her, but have not been able to find any information on-line saying the referendum will legalize that there for I do not think that is necessarily true.

Yesterday, Tuesday January 2, 2009, huge crowds of people gathered down at La Plaza 24 de Septiembre to pray for a ¨no¨ vote.

Fast fact: One new years tradition in Bolivia is to eat 12 grapes, one for each month of the year, and for each grape to make a wish. The sweeter the grape the luckier the month and the more likely your wish will come true.

New years in Bolivia is an even bigger deal then Navidad. Everyone goes to big fiesta´s and parties until the morning hours. I went to a fiesta next to Las Lomas de Arena. Las Lomas de Arena are giant sand dunes located about one half hour from the city. The Party went all night, lots of dancing, and then in the morning some friends and I wandered over to the sanddunes and watched the sun rise.

Just a few hours after getting home for Cotoca I left for my trip to Brazil. We (a bunch of kids from my class here and kids from five other schools in Bolivia) traveled by land, 17 hours train 27 hours bus, to Iguazu, Brazil first to see the waterfalls. I can’t describe how beautiful they were, so instead see for yourself.

Then after just one night in Iguazu, we traveled to Camboriu, a mere 25 hour bus ride. The week in Camboriu was a lot of making close friends, traveling to near by cities and of course beach time. It was a nice change to not be the only one not fluent in the language, (besides my other exchange students friends), some of my Bolivian friends also struggled with the Portuguese.

Bolivia is split into nine departments (the way the us is split into 50 states). Each department has one major city, and each major city has a virgin (like the virgin mary, not just some girl) that they worship. The virgin is located in a small pueblo outside the city limits. For Santa Cruz, it is the Virgin of Cotoca, located in Cotoca. When somebody is wishing for something, they make a pilgrimage to the virgin of Cotoca. About a 20km walk from the city depending on where you are located.  To explain further, its like this, have you ever said “if i get an A on this test i’ll do this…”  for most peple here, the thing they will do in return for recieving what they wanted is make a pilgrimage to Cotoca, or they willl make the pilgrimage first to ask for that special something. And each year there is a Virgin of Cotoca festival where over 80,000 people make a pilgrimage to the Virgin. I actually think there are a few a year but I’m not completely positive. Anyways, I caught wind of the festival and that day decided to ask my host mom what exactly it was. Some how I ended up volunteering to go (thank you spanish skills). Of course in actuality I was interested in going its an “only in Bolivia” experience. Karin, her boy friend and I left our house at 10 pm (you need to walk through the night because its too hot during the day) and began the pilgrimage. There is one road that takes you to Cotoca that is solely for the mass of people walking during the festival. So first we walked from my house to that starting point of the road a good 3 km. Slowly it turned from just the three of us into a huge mass of people. The walk was incredible. Just so many people, and then food vendors on both sides of the street, and after we were far enough people sleeping in the grass next to the street also. We arrived in Cotoca around 3:30-4ish in the morning, yes, after about 6 hours of walking. We almost did not make it we were so tired. Then the city itself, (which is really small) was just filled to the brim with people. all wanting to be blessed by the virgin (which by the way is a doll). and there is a room off to the side of the church to light candles. People were just sprawled out all over the city, sleeping on any part of the ground that wasn’t already taken by someone else. I was definitely ready to join them I was so tired. We decided to take a bus back home around 5 in the morning, but of course the road was closed off to buses until later. We just ended up wandering around the pueblo (me trying to join the mob and sleep on the ground(really anywhere would have worked for me by that time even the middle of the road), but was stopped many times by my sister). We arrived back at my house at 8:30 in the morning. It actually would have been a bit earlier, but, of course, our first bus broke down so we had to wait for what felt like forever for a second one. So Bolivian. But thats also part of what I love about Bolivia, there is no way to describe it.

Iglesia de Cotoca

Just to mark the time, as I’m writing this its 3:30 in the morning and I just got home from my second prom. The fiesta is still going but my feet were (and are) just killing me, too much to continue dancing so I called it a night. The proms here are very different from the typical us prom. For one thing, they are in association with graduation. The dance (which is also a dinner) usually follows the week or weekend after the act of graduation. Each member of the senior class gets a table and then their whole family and some friends come and sit at their table. Each person “disfilars” or does a walk, in front of all the people there with their date (grand march for people from wooster). I disfilared with some one for tonight’s prom. I was actually dreading it for this whole week, but it wasn’t quite as horribly awkward as i imagines. For one thing i didn’t know him very well just met him a few times at parties and for another I don’t know a ton of people from his school. Oh yeah and the language thing too made me a bit nervous. But it turned out okay, I made it through the disfilaring part with out falling on my face and sat with his family, yes feeling uncomfortable, but doing what i think to be a good job not showing it.

some noticing about Bolivia

*the more make up the better

* The more shiny stuff the better

* I was almost dragged to a hair salon for them to do my hair and make up by my host aunt, after doing my own

*I was asked if I had gained weight here and after responding “hmm Im not sure” was told it seemed like it (again by my host aunt)

* I didn’t take offense to either comment by my host aunt, because that’s Bolivia the people are very blunt and forward

So Saturday was la fiesta de promo, or in other words the prom dance. Surprisingly similar yet very different. For one thing there was something similar to grand march. only the dates walk across a room in stead of a stage. It was a dinner dance and most kids brought their entire families, and by entire i mean 40 people in some cases. Each family has their own table and its just dinner and dancing until about 3 in the morning. 3ish is when the bus came to pick up the kids going to La amanecida. La Amanecida was kinda of an after party at a quinta about 20 minutes from Santa Cruz and those of us who went were there untill 3 p.m. the next day. It was fun and a good chance to hang out with friends.

after being thrown into the pool jeans and all

Today (Tuesday) I returned to Stansberry, the Orphanage/ Day Care that I am volunteering in. A lot of the kids were excited to see me again and surprisingly I could remember most of their names, not that I could pronounce them very well. There is one kid Oliver who loooves to correct my pornuncicion we can sit there for 15 minutes just saying “oliver” to each other, I said it right maybe once out a 100 times trying, but hey thats good for something yeah? The way it works at the day care is the kids come in around 7-8ish and eat breakfast. then we sing songs and play for a bit in the classroom. then there is a snack and we go again to play, normally this time outside maybe a few things inside. then there is lunch at 12. I think most kids stay there until 7 at night, but I’m not 100 percent sure when it is closed for the night. Today at one point I was playing house with a group of three little girls. I was the mama one of the girls was my hija and two were perritas. They loved it, and it brought me back to the good old days of playing house. Only this time in Spanish. There is one boy at the day care who I think is mentally handicapped in someway. He is treated worse by the other kids and the other teachers kind of ignore if he acts out (not that much is notices anyways) For instance today the kids had to sit in a circle and he just kinda crawled around in the middle and ran around and they said nothing. I just went with it, but sought him out later to play with because the other kids were ignoring him for the most part. Later when we were playing outside he brought me a boquet of fern leaves and grass with a huge grin on his face, he then layed down in my lap and dosed off for a bit. It was a great moment. There are so many moments like that working at the day care, sometimes just a smile or a quick hug can light up one of the kid’s faces.

Okay so I have officially been here for three months! and what a three months it has been. I’ll start from the begining since I have been horrible at blogging.

The first two months here were huge adjustment months. Living with a new family in a completely different society, and oh yeah and the fact that I couldn’t understand ANYTHING. two years of Spanish in high school did nothing to prepare me for the language here, not that I expected it too, but I guess I did expect to be able to communicate better then I could on arrival.

Two day’s after arrival I started Catholic school, at Espirtu Santo.

School for the most part was just pretty boring because I really did not do much during classes. But I did enjoy making friends with my classmates and I learned a lot of my Spanish in the beginning from talking to people at school. Also there were 5 other exchange students in my school and we all became pretty close. It was pretty difficult at first to go to such a Catholic school, I thought all schools here were just religous so I wasn’t too worried about it before, but my school was one of the most Catholic which at times made me very uncomfortable.

In October we took a trip with rotary to some Jesuit Missions that were created in the 16th century. We went to San Xavier and Concepcion for the festival de Orquidia or Orchid festival.

Concepción

Quick fact; out of 7000 species of Orchids found world wide 700 species can be found in Bolivia. But the Orchids really did not take precedence on the trip. I enjoyed the hike to go see them much more then actually seeing them grow. But more then viewing the Orchids we went the churches which are really beautiful old baroque style buildings. And we went to two small villages, where we ate and some kids did some traditional dancing. Dancing is a huge things here. Lots of traditional dancing too.

some houses in the village

Recently I took a trip to Samaipata.  Samaipata is a small pueblo about 4 hours from Santa Cruz, situated in a valley. So far it has turned out to be one of my favorite places. It just oozes good vibes, and is really beautiful. The town itself isn’t  really beautiful, but it’s surrounds are ridiculously green and mountainous. (mountainous for lack of a better word, because their not mountains but larger then hills.)

Samaipata has a lot to offer. Besides being a very tranquil town, there are pre-incan ruins situated really close by.

Not very much is know of the ruins, in fact it was only recently that any measures were taken to protect the ruins. The family I went with to Samaipata said they when they were young they used to go  hangout up there sometimes and just thought el fuerte was a pretty cool rock but nothing much of it.  some . Little is known about the hole pictured. But a few theories exist. One, it was a form of punishment to send a person down there, or a sacrificial hole. Another, that it was a form of communication with other Inca tribes because from what I understand there are underground passages connected to the hole and its thought that maybe the echoes can be heard from far away in maybe another spot. Those are just a few theories. The problem is, only one person has gone down to explore, but they heard sounds that scared then and ended up cementing shut the entrance…so I guess we will never know.

Recently I started volunteering in an Orphanage/Day Care. Stansberry home. Originally it was just an orphanage, but families used to bring their kids to the orphanage because they could not work and have the kids, or they could only afford one of their kids and had to choose between them, so then the the day care side was created. I’m working with the kindergarden age kids. Within minutes of walking through the door I had about three kids attached to my legs and one trying to jump into my arms. Its such a good experience.

  While most 18 year olds will be heading off to college, I chose a little altered route; Bolivia.

  Why Bolivia? you may ask- or even better yet, “your parents are letting you go to Bolivia??”

  Bolivia, known mainly for its inner turmoil and the coca farming that is so big there, has a rich culture that is just waiting for me to explore! Bolivia is one of the least westernized of the South American countrys with an indigenous population of roughly 50 percent.  

  Not only do I hope to learn the language (Spanish), but also to  experience as many new things as I can.