The Real Work Begins

Hellooo!

It seems like an eternity since I last did an entry - all of our days have been filled to the brim with classes, service, excursions, family functions, homework, and an hour or so to relax or get a coffee. Needless to say I´ve been a little busy, and have a tooon to write about. I´ll just cover the basics of what´s been going on lately.

A short-term (older adult, not college-aged) Amizade group was here for two weeks (most are leaving today, and last night we had an awesome going away party complete with all you can eat fresh seafood, a private room at a Karaoke bar, and dancing salsa, merengue, and samba with some Bolivian friends), and were working on construction of an orphanage called Hogar de Niños in a small town about 20 minutes outside of Cochbamba called Vinto. We had the pleasure of being able to join them for a few days of work, and got down a diry painting, stucco-ing (which is extremely difficult), plastering, tiling, and the like. Amizade has been working on the orphanage for many years, and have expanded it two-fold. Some of the volunteers had been here before, and were back for more. One couple in perticular, Marty and Marvin from Missouri, have been coming to Cochabamba off and on for 10 years, and cçhave built a very strong relationship with the people here. Marvin is even the godfather of one of the local mason´s sons.

However, last week we all got a big shock, when about ten armed policemen showed up at the orphanage when the others were working (we weren´t there), and began an investigation of the premises. We came to volunteer the next day, and found out that the news was reporting that the orphanage was being shut down due to abuse, and in the following days the story began to unfold. We were still able to work, eventought the kids had been taken to different facilities, although reporters were streaming in and out all day. Now, our professor did make clear to us that we are unsure of what the situation is, exactly, and that the Latin American media tends to overexagerrate and jump to conclusions, so do consider that. Anyway, according to the media the nuns running the orphanage were not real nuns, and there were various reported cases of abuse by them, other employees, and older children to younger children.

I hesitated to even include this in my blog, but I think it´s important to give a realistic account of what´s going on here. Amizade of course has no fault at all in the matter, and is not involved in any way, we are fairly certain that the facitlity itself will be re-opened under different management, and that all the hard work that has been put in over the years by many generous individuals will not go to waste. Our overall experience at Hogar de Niños was positive, and we were able to interact with the kids one day after work. They even made birthday cards for two of our volunteers, and we had a little party with cake and playtime. I can only hope that they are able to return to their home with the care they deserve, and are not put out in the street. I´ll go into a little further detail about this system a little later.

Last Saturday I went to a baptism with my host family at a church in a nearby town, which was very interesting. The church is famous for its alter to the virgin, and once a year draws people from all over South America to pay tribute to her. It is apparently a strong center of faith, and thus a popular place for baptisms and weddings. When we arrived a newlywed couple was just pulling away, and when we were leaving they were setting up for the next wedding. The baptism itself was for 90 kids, most from the surrounding countryside. We were there for my host uncle´s (who lives with us) granddaughter, Velesca.

The service itself was a little nuts because there were so many people in attendance. You really couldn´t hear anything the priest was saying, and there were photographers and camera crews all around trying to capture the moment to sell to participating families. My host mom explained to me that it is unusual for people from the city ot baptise their children under those circumstances, but her great niece had been born with a birth defect, and her parents had prayed to the virgen, promising to baptise her there if they were able to get is fixed through surgeries, etc. Valesca is now totally healthy, to my knowledge. This photo is of my host uncle with his 3 daughers. The one holding Valesca is her godmother, who lives in Miami, and came in for surgery. It´s cheaper for her to fly both ways and get two surgeries and dental work done here than to get them in the U.S. Talk about a need for healthcare reform.

On Sunday our group travelled with the short term group and three other travelers Eric met at his hostel to a site called Incallajta, which is the location of an Incan fort and small city. The whole trip was extremely interesting, and the 3-hour drive through the mountains taught us a good bit about the country just from looking out the windows. When you get outside the city you begin to see the life of the majority of the world - mud huts with straw roofs, outhouses, small plots, sometimes at an incredibly steep grade on the side of the mountain, and essentially no more than the ingredients for a life of subsistence.

The site itself was gorgeous, and we had a very good guide. We took about a 2 hour hike around the ruins, and had a lovely time. There´s really not too much to say about it, but I got some nice photos, so you can get a little bit of an idea for yourself. It was a cool day with high wind and, as always, the strong Bolivian sun.

A local walks his horse down the mountain; Descending the path to the waterfall

Last week I started my service work at Millennium orphanage in Cochabamba (not to be confused with the one in Vinto that was shut down), which is about 4 blocks from my house. I´ll be working there two days out of the week, and with another organization called CEOLI, which provides services, classes, etc for children with disabilities. I haven´t had the chance to go there yet, though. Millennium is home to 22 kids, aged 6 months to 6 yrs old. After they turn six they are no longer allowed to get state funding, so if they aren´t adopted or placed in a different facility they are put out on the street, which is very upsetting to me. There are many street children around the city, many will juggle or wash your windshield at a stoplight for change or come around outdoor restaurants begging. This photo is one I took walking to Spanish class one morning. Can you imagine? Or do any of us really want to?

Anyway, Millennium is run by a woman named Virginia who has a very obvious committment to providing the best home she can for the kids. Although they only get $.43 a day from the government for each child, at least they have food, clothing, and a bed to sleep in. Still, the conditions are a little hard to accept. All of the kids have runny noses and coughs, and most have lice. There are 2 nurses on staff and various volunteers in and our, but they have to be somewhat stern due to the lack of staff. For instance, we aren´t allowed to pick the kids up because then they´ll cry to be held all the time, and if one falls and is crying they´re essetially just told to get over it and left on the floor. As volunteers we help feed and cloth them, etc, but also just give them as much individual attention as possible. We took turns holding Pablo, the 6 month old baby (who can barely hold his head up), and talking to the others, rubbing their backs, tickling them, etc. It´s as depressing as it is fulfilling, but hopefully over the course of a few months it´ll make a little difference.

Adoptions to American families from Bolivia has apprently never been legal, but traditionally they have been allowed with Europe. Now, though, Presidente Morales isn´t renewing the adoption agreements, and according to my information the only foreign adoptions that are still allowed are to The Netherlands. His stance is generally quite anti-Westrn "Developed World" (which has actually been well-earned, but is not necessarily the best attitude) as far as I can tell, and he says that Bolivia´s children are not for export. A nice theory that results in an ever increasing population of street children. According to my Spanish teacher they had some issues with children being adopted and sold into slavery or used in the organ sales black market, which is very hard to believe, but may be true. Still, it seems to me if you´re that crooked and evil it would be easier and cheaper to just take them off the street and smuggle them out of the country.

As much as I do love it here, there are plenty of things to make you angry and ashamed of the lavish lifestyle we lead in comparison to so many in the world. Yet at the same time, it´s natural to think of yourself first, is it not? I know when I get back my career and my happiness will be at the top of the priority list, not ending world hunger. Still, the fact that I´m very much hoping to enter a career that will make at least a small impact in this area helps to reconcile a little of that guilt.

Eric posted a few quotes from our journals on his blog, and they are all worth checking out. It´s interesting to see everyone else´s reaponses to the trip thus far. Mine was in response to a quote we read in class, which is as follows:

"Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome by the actions of human beings. And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life."

Nelson Mandela

My response to that was this: When you think of ending poverty as an act of justice rather than an act of charity it places an individual responsibility on each of us to act in ways that are more just rather than just nice.

It´s just something to think about. I do believe that there could be an end to poverty, but unless there are fundamental changes made in our lifestyles. There was a very good article we read called "What Should a Billionaire Give and What Should You?" that breaks down the amount that the super-rich would have to give to substantially increase the quality of life of millions. It´s not that much. If you´re interested you can read the article at http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/20061217.htm.

That´s all for now. This week we´ll be staying with rural families for 3 days and working on furthering construction of a school in the country with a group that´s here called Youth International. That should be very interesting. I´m also going to start having essays due every week, so I don´t know how much time I´ll have to write. I´ll try to keep up as best I can.

Here´s my song of the day. I´m sure you´ve all heard it, but there´s no harm in a little reminder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b7qaSxuZUg

"You may say I´m a dreamer, but I´m not the only one..."

Yours,

Alanna

Futbol, Family, Friends, and Fun... Not to Mention the Occasional Parade and Blockade

Hola!


(Note: I added pics to my last post, so you can take a look)

Well I´ve officially spent a whole entire week in la Bolivia maravillosa, and what a week it´s been. Between an electrified soccer match, shopping in the largest open air market in South America, dancing with some spry old cochabaminas (ladies from Cochabamba), and trying our hand at some homestyle vegetarian cooking, our days have been going by fast, and we´ve barely even begun the real tasks at hand.

I´ll start from the beginning, which would in this case be last Sunday (Saturday wasn´t all that interesting - we went out looking for a contemporary dance performace, got lost, and instead called a taxi and went bowling, haha)

So on to Sunday... As I said Friday, I just met my host mom last weekend, so as sort of a getting-to-know you, we decided to go to La Cancha, which is the largest open air market in South America, and that´s saying something, haha. La Cancha is in the Southern part of the city, which is the poorer area, and covers several city blocks with stands, shops, street vendors, and sort of open warehouses full of every possible item you can imagine. From fresh fruits and vegetables, to artisan crafts, to watches, cell phones, jewelry, pots and pans, TVs, tablecloths, candy, and rows upon winding rows of shoes, jeans, and dresses. There is an interesting mixture of people working the stands - some dressed in the traditional skirts, hats, and colorful wraps of the campesinos (people from the rural ourskirts), and some chatting on cell phones in Levis. We went at lunchtime, so many were eating a plate of rice and meat or other typical dishes, and there were girls inching down the isles selling hot bowls of soup on trays. Ad you walk the smells vary considerably from tastey food to musty clothes to urine, and it´s hard to step anywhere without bumping into someone. This pic is of my host mom talking to one of the vendors about buying peanuts.

We were looking for sandals to replace my recently deceased Havaianas, but didn´t have much luck because a lot of things are closed on Sunday. Still, it was a very fun experience, and was definitely better to go with my host mom, who always seemed to know the way, although to me it seemed an impossible labyrith.


After our semi-successful shopping trip, we ventured out to the country, driving for about 20 minutes. It was cerainly very interesting to see the abrupt change in landscape from the largely modern Cochabamban centro, to the surrounding mountainsides. The houses there are all perched, one on top of the other on the dusty slopes of the mountains surrounding the city, and are largely made of concrete, mud and stone, and many have very shoddy roofing. You could see people washing clothes in the river below, and many made their way in or out of the city along the sides of the road, or up paths and steps that carve their way up the mountains, most dressed in the traditional garb, the origen of which is unknown to me. This photo is of houses we passed on the hillside.






We went, though, to a very lovely restaurant that sits just below the dam, and apparently expanded from being just a little family owned place to a huge restaurant with a salon for weddings, paddle boating and other rides, a multi-storied building and outdoor eating area, and one of the coolest bathrooms I´ve ever seen. It´s still owned and run by the family, though, and in fact the husband was running the boat rental place while the wife was in the kitchen; not your typical enterprise owners.



That evening Jean Carla, our lovely local coordinator, bought us all tickets to the last home game of Wilsterman, one of the two Cochabamban soccer teams. It was, of course, full of crazy screaming soccer fans, some of whom were more so than others, and towards the end the continual chanting and shouts from the crowd got increasingly profane, as neither team had managed to score a single point. About 15 minutes from the end, though, Wilsterman managed to make the winning goal, so it was a good day for Wilsterman fans (and for us as well, as the spirit is highly contagious).



Coming back to crazy fans, there are two sections apart for the craziest hooligans, one of which is the more violent. Apart from the typical smoke bombs, confetti, throwing of plastic bottles, and massive banners, they also felt it was necessary to start catching fires in the stands. This of course led to an active intervention by the numerous
police officers who are there to keep order and protect the opposing team and referees. In fact, they actually showed the police essetially beating a few people up on the screen where the crowd close-ups were being displayed. I didn´t get a good picture, but it was certainly a moment of culture shock. Other than that it was a great time! haha. You can read a far more artfully written version in Eric (our professor´s) blog.

(side note: Since then Wilsterman played a game that secured the team for the running in the national championship, and afterward the opposing coach ran at theirs seemingly in an attempt to attack him, and had to be blocked by the police, so even if it´s culture shock for me, I guess no one besides us was suprised at our game´s events, haha... I hate to think what woud´ve happened had we lost)


After the game we decided to go to Weenta´s (pronounced just like its spelled) for a bit because her family was having an Independence Day party, complete with a live band and gourmet catoring.



Just to elaborate on this before I get into the party: A number of Bolivians have told me that gringos (foreigners) tend to be suprised at the number of parties and parades, etc they have all the time, to which they respond that life is short, and everything should be a cause to celebrate. Monday was the actual Independence Day, and we went out to the city´s main plazas to catch some of the festivities - the parade that was going on lasted for the entire time we were there, which was about 3 hours, and was not showing signs of slowing down. Bands, city officials, mining unions, schools, and just about every one else who had any reason at all to be marching was. This sense of patriotism is interesting to me because it seemed to be largely indigenous people who had come out, but it´s precisely the indigenous people that hardly even reaped the benefit of the struggle for independence. Bolivia is still the poorest country in South America, and these people have been marginalized by their government and the international economy, left with few schools and barely access to clean drinking water. Yet, they still find reason to celebrate their culture and their country. (Like our Spanish teacher told us - A ustedes les gosta gastar, a nosotros nos gosta bailar!, or "you guys like to spend money, we like to dance")



This is a very interesting time in Bolivia, though, in this regard, because a few years ago Evo Morales, the first "indigenous", rurally born president was elected, and he seems to be a symbol of victory to much of the indigenous community in the way Obama has been to our African American community. Now, I´ve heard very mixed opinions about Evo and his policy, the negatives of which include the fact that he has only a basic education, he seems easily influenced by and in line with socialist leaders such at Chavez and Castro, that he may actually be another mestizo (mixed Indigenous and European) like former presidents have been, and that many of the ministers that influence him are corrupt, whether he is or not. This December he´ll be up for reelection, so we should get to wittness some pretty exciting political action by both the government and the people. As is it now the city´s Plaza Central, or the plaza 14 de Septiembre (which is where my pic was taken) is littered with largely liberal political propaganda that gives you an interesting perspective from the view of Bolivian activists. This photo is of a few indigenous ladies hanging out in the Central Plaza in Independence Day.

In other news, there was a protest this week where the transportation union had blocked off many of the streets in central Cochabamba, demanding the government talk to them about transportation reform (including the street our afternoon class was on, haha). Apparently the transportation unions are very strong, and don´t like the fact there there are numerous unregistered vehicles that they have to compete with. Blockades are pretty common in the city and the country, and my host family just said they don´t make much of a difference. The government just says they´ll talk to union leaders to they´ll upen everything back up, but then nothing really gets accomplished anyway.

Of course, Bolivian and Latin American politics will be one thing we´ll be exploring in much greater depth as the semester progresses, so this has been an extremely superficial analysis. I just wanted to give you a little idea of what´s going on down here.


So back to the party, which was, as I said, complete with a band, good food, and pretty much exclusively older relatives. In fact, I have a lovely picture of me giving cow tongue a try, which is apparently very popular in Cochabamba, Bolivia´s most famous gastronomic center. I don´t think it would´ve been that bad had I not been able to see the taste buds - something about that just grossed me out way too much to even begin to enjoy it, haha.


Other than that, though, the party was great. We ended up being pulled onto the dance floor by Weenta´s host mom, and a few other ladies, where we did some traditional-ish dance for like a half an hour. We were definitely getting into it, and by the end everyone was sweaty and tired from laughing. Margaret, in particular, connected really well with one of the ladies, and they were really breaking it down, haha. That´s what this pic is of. We also got to see Weenta´s host dad and host sister do a beautiful traditional couples dance with handkerchiefs.

So those are probably the most interesting things that I´ve done lately. This week we began both Spanish and our Poli Sci and history classes. Toni, our Spanish teacher, is great. She makes classes go by very quickly because we have a good time, and she even threw Hannah a party yesterday because today is her 20th b-day. The other classes look like they´re going to be really interesting as well. This week was just sort of intro, but I think we´re going to learn sooo much more here than we would´ve at home. Learning about the often vague concepts of development, poverty, class struggle, etc is given a whole new light when you actually get to see people living it out. We don´t start our service until next week, and have thus far only had a very small taste in the city, but I think in the weeks to come this trip will really start to come alive.

A short term group is coming to do some manual labor on a school, which we´ll be partaking in this Monday and two days the following week. We´re going to stay with host families out in the country for that and actually do some real work, so it should make for a great experience and an interesting entry. We also start our service next week, so look for a new post on that stuff next weekend-ish.

Also, I´d appreciate if you can send some positive thoughts and prayers to my Papa and Nana Jane, who were both in the hospital last week. They´re home now, but still need all the support they can get. Thanks!

That´s all for now, I´m about ready for some home-cooked lunch! I hope there weren´t too many errors - I´m feeling way too lazy to proof-read, haha.

All the Best,

Alanna

Since I forgot to add a song last time, I´m putting up two this time.

Maná - Manda una Señal (a very famous song by a very famous Mexican band)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8X_2cjFGHE

Chimarruts - Saber Voar (by a Brazilian reggae band, one of my all time favorite love songs)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhnVJBylnlE

P.S. Sorry about the funky formatting. It always looks nomal in the editing window, but weird on the page. I don´t think I can do much about it. Also, pics aren´t up yet. I might do a shutterfly instead because Flickr only allows 100/month, but I need to do homework this afternoon, so if I do set that up tomorrow will be the earliest. Sorry!