Experiencing how the political is personal

"The personal is political." It's a beautiful adage from the feminist revolution. And it goes the other way. The political is personal.

Here in the U.S. we often think it odd the way world events can suddenly collide with daily existence. But every time it happens to me, I realize again to what extent the seemingly impersonal political and economic and social issues of this world are actually personally experienced realities. The Honduran teacher strikes are students missing out on their right to public schooling. The economic recession is a child going to live with grandparents when his parents’ house goes into foreclosure. And the strife in any number of countries leads to a family leaving their home and trying to grow and succeed in a place where they don’t know the culture and don’t speak the language.

That’s why I got into international education. My work abroad has allowed me to help students prepare themselves to face their lives with the resiliencies and skills they need, as well as providing them with the chance to comfortably and securely gain cross-cultural understandings and skills. My work here in the U.S. allows me to do the same, with the extra facet of being a bridge for my students to understand and access the culture that surrounds them, hopefully without losing any understanding, access, or membership in the culture of their home.

Today the world celebrates the democratic emergence of a new nation, South Sudan. I reflected on this coming event yesterday while I sat with a young Sudanese girl, L. (Because I respect the privacy of my students and issues of confidentiality, I will from now on refer to students anonymously.) She is attending the summer program at the family literacy school where I teach, although she is not in my class. That day we were on a field trip to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall. We had walked through the Peace Corps themed activity area, where the kids had received “passports” which were stamped when they took part in each activity. We built a wall with bottles like they are now building in Guatemala. We helped paint a world map (that included South Sudan as clearly separate from Sudan!), and we made Malian mud cloth bracelets.

As we recovered from the heat and enjoyed a brief cool breeze under one of the dining tents, L struck up a conversation with me about her “passport.” We talked about all the activities in which she had taken part and I helped her pick out words she didn’t know in the booklet. We came across the blanks in the front cover that called for her name and nationality. I explained that nationality is where you are from.

L: Where are you from?
K: I’m from Texas.
L: I have a cousin in Texas!
K: You do? That’s great!
L: But I don’t know where Texas is.

So we looked at the world map in her passport booklet, marking DC and Texas.

L: I’m from Sudan. Well. (Pause.) Hang on.

She turned to her mother and spoke with her in their home language. There was some back and forth. Her mother, pregnant and tired, was also interacting with her 2 year old brother and 4 year old sister. L was obviously repeating herself to make sure her mother really understood her question. Finally satisfied, she turned back to me.

L: Yes. I was born in Sudan. (Her emphasis. I had not asked. It can be a complicated question for any child, especially an immigrant child.)
K. Okay. Let’s look at where Sudan is on the map.

So we marked the general location of Sudan with an X (it wasn’t a big map, thankfully). L wanted to label it the way we had labeled DC, but she didn’t know how to spell it. I spelled it out loud, and at her request I wrote it down so that she could copy it. After spelling it successfully several times in random places on random pages, she finally turned to the front cover and wrote “SUDAN” on the previously empty line for a nationality.

L’s personal experience was a mixture of culture, identity, literacy, and all the underlying structures and skills that support these facets of development. And there I was, to some extent experiencing it with her. The day before millions of her former countrymen got the chance to have a very similar experience.

Education as a right...and responsibility

Education is a basic human right.

Seems so simple and true, right? But, the first time I really heard this idea actually put into words—I am sad to admit—was within the last two years. The moment I heard it, I thought, “Duh, of course it is!” However, as I began to really delve into this beautiful concept, I found myself in a morass of questions, questions that helped me understand why the idea of education as a human right is so difficult to actually implement.
How much education? Do we all have the right to get whatever level of education we want? Whether or not it is within the resources available? Whether or not we will be employable after receiving that education?

To what kind of education do we have a right? What kind of education best serves the interests of society? A liberal arts education that teaches us to perceive beauty and speak languages and analyze issues? A professional or vocational education that provides us with excellent job skills? An education at a community school near home? An education at a prestigious private institution?

Who is to provide this education to which we each have a basic human right? The state? The community? The family?

What about those who don't want to get an adequate education? Do they have a right to give up a right? At what age? How do we motivate ourselves to complete our education? So, it's not just a right, actually, it's also a responsibility, isn't it?

Obvioulsy, it’s difficult to come to a consensus on exactly how to make education available so that every person’s right to it is honored. But, that doesn’t mean it isn’t worthy of the effort. So, laying aside the concerns about how, it is important to establish why it is vital to honor this human right, despite the reasons it is so difficult and complicated to provide. This brought me to the following thoughts:

People need education to function in our complex society. People have a right to be able to access skills and information that will improve their lives and give them agency. This includes:
- literacy: the ability to read for in depth comprehension and to clearly communicate yourself verbally and in written form
- numeracy: the ability to solve problems involving amounts and numbers and measurements as well as spatial ability
- health education and basic sciences – to understand the world and the way it affects us as well as to be able to anticipate and resolve problems occurring between people and the physical/natural world

People also have the right to learn the social and psychological skills to navigate and resolve social conflicts and to function positively in the wider society, such as:
- civic education (social values, citizenship, peace, identity, governance, history)
- rights education (gender, human rights)

Finally, people have the right to learn skills that are necessary to secure fruitful and sustaining employment. This can come in many forms:
- professional education
- vocational education
- nonformal (think workshops, GED classes, apprenticeships) and informal (everyday learning)

So, I’ve worked through the why—at least my own personal version of it—but I doubt there are any blanket answers to the questions of how. The point is that the why is important and demands our attention, so it is unacceptable to give up trying to figure out the how(s).

From estadounidense to US-American

I have struggled with my geographical self-definition for many years now. Ever since I learned the word “estadounidense” in Spanish.

Unitedstatesian.

Finally, I had evidence that there could be a word to replace “American” as a descriptor for a person from the United States. After all, it seems usurping to describe ourselves as Americans, when we are hardly the only nation in THE AMERICAS. Nor are we the largest. Sadly, being the richest seems to make us entitled to taking what we want, at least it has in the past, and so we came to describe ourselves as “Americans,” forcing all the other americans to define themselves differently.

But “unitedstatesian” hardly rolls off the tongue.

I’ve tried a lot of different phrases.

North American. But we aren’t the only North Americans. It could make sense to the extent that Canada and the U.S. are very similar, but there are also vital differences between us. Canadians (and Mexicans, especially) might resent my describing myself and my values and culture as North American.

[Brief geography lesson: Here in the US we teach that there are 7 continents, and Central America is technically part of North America. In Honduras, they teach that there are 6 continents, with the Americas being one continent split into three regions: north, central, and south.]

I didn’t give up. I tried “US Citizen”…but there are many who aren’t citizens who do identify as residents of the U.S.

US Resident…but there are many who reside here without feeling cultural ties here.

And, finally I hit on it. US-AMERICAN. So simple. So clear. Borrowing from the way we structure our self definitions within the US (African American, Irish American, Native American, Latin American, etc.)

I am US-American.

In English.

But in Spanish I am still estadounidense.

Back from Cuba again!

I've just returned from spending ten days in Cuba doing research with educational specialists there. The island continues to struggle under an economic blockade by our government here in US, one of the results being an extremely limited amount of internet access. I'll slowly add my reflections on Cuba to this site, as I have time to do so. Reflecting on my research experiences in Cuba is never a simple matter. The personal and the academic and the educational become blended in a way that makes articulation difficult, but here are a few thoughts I sketched out as my plane was getting ready to depart Havana this morning...


In his work, the Cuban artist Fuster often uses a crocodile to symbolize Cuba. For my own reasons, I find it an apt visualization. To truly know a crocodile is not only to read about it or to see photos or videos, nor is it only to talk to those who have met one and understand why they love it or hate it. To know the crocodile is not only to touch it when it is gentle, sleepy, or playful or when its thick skin seems smooth and pliable. To truly know the crocodile one must also know it when it is angry or ill, when its skin is parched dry and rough and crackles in the sun, when it bares its teeth even to its babies and closest friends. To really know the crocodile one must form a relationship to it and reflect upon that relationship continuously while passing time with the crocodile.

So it is with Cuba.

My time in Cuba, two and a half weeks over the last two years, has significantly altered my perceptions and ways of being, as a researcher, as an educator, and as a person. Cuba is for me both intellectually and personally reinvigorating. Each time I leave Cuba, I do so with both greater hope and greater realism about what it takes to make this world a better place. I find links between who I am as a person and my work and my research and my role in the world. I more enthusiastically embrace my responsibility to form and demonstrate a link between theory and practice so that each informs the other, to break down barriers to knowledge and inequality, to participate fully in life on all levels. My greatest lesson has been to begin asking more questions, listening more patiently, and embracing and building more integrated approaches to being a life-long learner.

I’ve taken a load off!

Well, I’ve been back in the States for just over a week. So while I jump back into grad school classes and catch up with friends and slam away on my final reports for Save the Children and look for a job (and that’s just my schedule in the first week!), I’ve started to notice ways in which I don’t quite fit into my DC life like I used to. Not least because I seem to have shed about ten pounds since I left!

I know what most people want to ask first, and the answer is no. I ate plenty in Bolivia. The food was great, and cheap, so I was always willing to treat myself to something sweet or a little snack when I felt puckish.

So what was different? For starters, the choices! At my home (which I miss terribly!) we ate traditional meals centered around meat and potatoes, just like most Bolivians, and most US residents for that matter. But in Bolivia everything was fresh. Almost everything was brought in from the nearby countryside, or at the farthest from the valleys a few hours away. Things were not soaked in preservatives and additives. They were just straight up, plain old ingredients that were also often organically grown because pesticides are unnecessary and fertilizers expensive. Since I got back I’ve been unable to stomach heavily preserved and additive filled foods. I crave fresh fruit (especially the mandarins! How I miss the mandarins!)

What a travesty that in our country eating fresh, organic food has become a privilege of the economically elite! I can’t afford to buy only fresh vegetables here and must settle for using canned tomatoes and frozen peas and canned corn. What a topsy turvy world North America is, when compared to the realities of other continents!

The other reason I think I’ve lost so much weight is that Bolivians follow a different meal schedule. I would eat something small for breakfast, maybe bread and a mug of tea at 7:30 or 8:00am. A little after noon would come the big meal of the day, a three course lunch. First the soup, which would fill me up quite a bit, then a “second” that consisted of a large portion of meat with a large portion of potatoes and/or rice plus a sizeable (in my house, at least, due to my landlady’s health consciousness) portion of vegetables. For desert we would almost always eat mandarins or oranges. After work I would sometimes grab something to eat, but just as often it would be something small like breakfast was. There was usually no formal evening meal. My landlady swore that this was good for body, because digestion slows down at night, especially in the cold of winter and with the high altitude.
All in all, I think they may be on to something. (After all, the Aymaras were forcasting the El Nino effect for millennia and “Western” science only started being able to do that about 20 years ago!) It’s been great to get home to my new-again old clothes that I couldn’t wear when I left. There's all kinds of stuff that I forgot I owned while I was wearing the same few things for three months.

It’s for sure. Sometimes travel isn’t an entirely “expansive” experience. And, I don’t plan on fully returning to my previous DC life. Some changes, like my renewed love to healthy foods and exercise, will just have to stay!

On the Road in Bolivia

It’s always a good idea to take one’s life in one’s hands now and again, just to keep a sense of the value of life and health, right? Once in a while can be a daily occurrence here, I’ve found. And at times I can feel that my perspective of what is safe and what is really out of the question could become about as fuzzy as three day old leftovers in the fridge.
Cars

I’ve travelled in all manner of ways here (save bicycle and horse), but by far the most common mode of transport is car. This might be in a taxi or a mini-bus (full size buses are only for inter-city transport) or in a colectivo (a larger car or mini-van that travels between the urban and rural areas, and only leaves once full of passengers.)
It is always important to remember that laws (and the accompanying concepts of justice) will change from culture to culture. This includes the concept of “right of way.” Here in Bolivia it seems that it is not the pedestrian who has the right of way, and cars will regularly honk to hurry passengers across the street. I’ve more than once come near to denting the hood of a taxi or mini with my fist when they’ve decided to get too close. (That’s my fight response kicking in when flight would be impossible.)
Cars aren’t always honking to warn off pedestrians. It is also the accepted thing to do in order to cross almost all intersections. You see, traffic lights and stop signs are not terribly common, and rather than slow to a stop to ensure no other cars are coming, it really saves time to just honk and hope any other cars hear you. At least most streets are one way, so that simplifies the number of directions in which you have to focus your attentions.
At night there is less honking, and it is more common that cars will flash their headlights as they approach an intersection. In a fairly well lit town, this makes me cringe, as that flash of light is often very difficult to see. But then again so are many of the cars, because actually using your headlights is not an altogether common occurrence here, either. When I’ve asked about this strange habit (or rather lack of a habit), people have pointed out that the city is quite well lit, so you don’t really need to lose your headlights to see. When I bring up the idea that headlights are also useful as a way to be seen (rather than only to see) this seems to be a new idea for many. I’ve often dodged cars and motorcycles that I didn’t see coming down the street at night.
Headlights are not the only lights I find myself worrying about when it comes to riding in cars here in Bolivia. There are also the dashboard lights to be concerned about, or rather, to try my hardest to ignore, because they are almost always lit. My worst moment to date was when I found myself perched on the middle front seat of a minivan colectivo travelling from Oruro into the rural area of Caracollo. (“Wait,” you say, “since when to minivans have a middle front seat?” Well, a box and blanket squeezed in between the bucket seats is enough to make another fare earning seat, don’t you know!) So there I was, sans seat belt on a blanketed crate, cruising down the highway at highway speeds and trying not to look at the dashboard where the gas warning light, check engine light, the airbag light, and the anti-lock brake system light were all lit. (I comforted myself with the idea that it was nothing more an electrical short in the dash, and when I finally dismounted a half-hour later in Oruro I silently celebrated the fact that I hadn’t had to find out if my comforting imaginings were true or not.)

Anti-lock brakes? Well that was a newer Toyota minivan, but in reality most cars here are hardly so new. In fact, bolivian cars seem to have more lives than cats. One night I was riding in a taxi and trying to understand why there was a gaping hole in the dash where there should have been a glove box on the passenger side. Only slowly did it dawn on me that the gaping hole was the original location of steering column, which had been switched from the right hand side (British style) to the right hand side (as is used in most of the Americas.) So in essence, the driver was driving through the glove compartment.

Buses

The only ways to travel between cities here (unless one is lucky enough to own or know someone who owns a car) is to travel by bus or train. By far the most common and most thorough network is that of buses. This is how one travels between La Paz and Oruro and Cochabamba. The price is excellent, only three bucks! But for those three dollars, you are to some extent taking your life in your hands. Bus accidents are common, and there have been so many lately that even the Bolivians are remarking on the fact. I actually met a German man whose bus between La Paz and Oruro had been in a head-on collision two days prior. And one of the members of the parent association at a school Save the Children works with was injured in a bus accident in La Paz. Bus drivers will regularly pass slower trucks, and highways are often two lane affairs with nothing that resembles a shoulder, unless one counts either the valley below or the sharp face of the mountain on the other side. So, I always feel a little lucky to have arrived safely, even if the bus ride itself was intolerably nausea inducing.
Trains

I refer to travelling by train as the $15 luxury here in Bolivia. Safer by far and much more comfortable. The tracks extend south from Oruro only and are hardly what most people would call luxurious or smooth, but to me they make a lovely change from the rough roads and alarming driving habits. And the huge windows let you look out at the changing (or rather not changing all the much) landscape of the Altiplano (where I’ve decided that the sparse clumps of grass look like tribbles from the original Star Trek.)
All in all, travelling around Bolivia is easy and affordable, but rarely comfortable or altogether perfectly safe by North American standards. That said, it’s better to travel than to stay in one place. I can’t imagine staying in one place or not experiencing all that the world has to offer.

Blogging on Books 2 – More fiction for the traveler

My time in Bolivia has been busy and full, but in the evenings I find myself drawn to reading novels as a way to relax and to inspire interesting dreams. I’ve done my best to remain true to my usual intention, which is to read novels that serve to fuel my contemplation of what it is I am doing in my living abroad and working to enhance the potential development of the next generation.
I was “blessed” with a fairly nasty sinus infection, which laid me up for about a week, in which time I was able to complete a more than fair amount of reading (as my feverish brain was incapable of addressing the research tasks I had.) I must commend the existence of the internet and the free program “Kindle for PC,” which has allowed me to continue to access English language literature when I’d read everything I own in print here. I must also commend a lovely little bookshop I discovered in Cochabamba, not far off the Prado, called “the Spitting Llama.” Their wide selection of used books was a godsend.

THE ALCHEMIST by Paolo Coehlo

This is the beautiful story of a young Spanish shepherd who sets out to follow his heart and a magical dream of treasure. Along the way he meets with adventure and the true education that one gains through life experience (if one is open to learning from it.) Although at first I felt alienated by the fairy-tale style of Coehlo’s writing, I found myself sucked into the beauty of the story and truly moved by a number of the quotes, which I think will stay with me for the rest of my life.

“The secret of life is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”
“People need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want.”
“You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it’s better to listen to what it has to say.”

Coehlo’s Spanish shepherd often pops into my head when I am out in the rural areas. Part of his travels take him through the Sahara desert in North Africa, from which he is able to learn a great deal simply by remaining quiet and observing. I find that this is an important part of field work, and an important part of travelling, to remember to shut up and just watch and listen, to learn from all the information that is out there, the great majority of which is written in the non-verbal communication between people and the way the people interact with their envirotnment.

ACTS OF FAITH by Philip Caputo

This long volume went surprisingly fast, and as I read it quickly became obvious why it won the Pulitzer Prize. It is the story of aid workers in Sudan and Kenya, many of them operating under self-induced delusions of what their work really is. It follows both men and women as central characters, which makes it an inviting read for anyone.

This novel is especially apt reading for a “Westerner” just beginning a career in the development industry. You cannot come away from the book without knowing that it is important to question yourself constantly if you are to keep yourself honest and that you mustn’t automatically put too much faith in the goodness of your intentions and actions; we can all have unintended consequences for others and for ourselves.

Another reminder I took away from reading this novel was that one mustn’t leave home in order to run away from what one is. To do truly good work and to be a truly whole person, you want to do your best to leave a home and a past that is sound (or with which you have made your peace) so that you can share that strength with the world.

LOVE AND DEATH IN A HOT COUNTRY by Shiva Naipaul

This novel was a surprise find in “The Spitting Llama” bookstore in Cochabamba. And inside its pages (and its story of a mixed-race woman trying to find her identity as a native of a South American nation closely based on Suriname) was an absolute treasure: a beautiful and haunting description of what might be the internal limits so often perceived by outsiders as an “intransigence to progress” in post-colonial developing countries. I recommend it for anyone travelling in the developing world, particularly the Caribbean. Several quotes moved me greatly.
“Cheated out of a self, the mob would not be cheated out of its anguish.” This quote made me wonder about the application of the grief process to national development in post-colonial and post-conflict regions. I’m sure it has already been done, applying those five steps that begin with denial and anger and finally end with acceptance and the ability to move on. And, following this idea through, this means that development is ultimately a culture’s recreation of its sense of self and purpose, perhaps an identity that has been stolen or that has withered internally due to lack of care. It is a constant cycle of ebbs and flows that takes place in all cultures, but these currents cannot be instigated from outside the source; they must be internally propelled. Colonialism and conflict are both realities under which these internal currents become stymied, creating eddies and whirlpools but lacking direction and flow.
At one point the main character, a woman who has realized that she is unhappy after passively floating along with the currents flowing through her life, expresses “a retrospective disgust for her innocence, her acquiescence.” It reminded me of the unhealthy intra-cultural disgust I’ve seen in Honduras, with people disparaging their own compatriots to their faces. In their desperate efforts to realize their potential, they have ultimately chosen to turn their backs on themselves and to alienate themselves from their own community.
A quote by another character in this novel also started me thinking. The main character’s father explains his seeming acquiescence to the apartheid of the past: “I wasn’t going to run after anybody begging to be admitted to the human race.” It is crucial to remember that those who aren’t openly fighting aren’t necessarily being weak; maybe they are being strong in a different way. We must value and allow space for all kinds of internal strengths, rather than make them out to be weaknesses. If we do that, we are only robbing others and ourselves.
LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The beautiful novel was an excellent read for a Latin American journey, and I would especially recommend it for anyone visiting the Caribbean. This story of two lovers who are separated for most of a life time is infused with a sense for the romantic atmosphere that permeates many parts of Latin American culture, as well explaining through story some of the strong influences of tradition and economic classism found throughout the region.
WHO KILLED PALOMINO MOLERO? by Mario Vargas Llosa

This is the simple, straight-forwardly written story about 1950s Peru and two police detectives’ search for justice in the murder of a poor young man. The story unfolds along with itself a sense of the divide that existed and continues to exist between indigenous and mestizo populations. The unexpected love triangle evokes a sense of the importance appearance has in many cultures here (I experienced it quite a bit in Honduras and to a lesser extent here in Bolivia) and the stress this fakeness causes when the sake of appearance runs against the honest desires of the heart. This same romantic plot theme also brought forth a sense of the cultural stress resulting from the gender divide, while the overall story helped remind me (as I often suffer from an overabundance of enthusiasm and fortitude) how impossible it can feel to fight the good fight amidst a culture of corruption and personal interests. I came away from this volume remembering that it is in empathizing with this sentiment that I am most likely to be able to help others overcome it.
MOTORCYCLE DIARIES by Ernesto Che Guevara

I know, regular readers will wonder if my visit to Cuba converted me (and in some ways it must have) but in truth my choice to read this book was far more based on location than anything else. Guevara travelled through South America in the early 1950s, first by motorcycle and then by hitchhiking, as well as on a raft he and his travelling companion built to travel on the Amazon. What I find most interesting is his description of life in places I have visited previously, especially Chile and Peru, and how accurate some of his descriptions continue to be. I look forward to reading his Bolivian diaries, written years later when he was trying to foment a Communist revolution here. Different perspectives, whether or not you might agree with them, will always help to open your own eyes to aspects of life you may not have noticed before.
Safe travels to you all, whether in real life or via the written word!

Consumer Concerns

Inspired by a couple of recent articles on La Gringa’s Blogicito, I thought I would write about what is like here in Oruro to secure those goods one needs and or wants.

Food

Supermarkets are an unknown thing here in Oruro. There are a few in larger cities like Cochabamba and La Paz, but here in Oruro food is mostly purchased fresh in the markets or from small “tiendas” that are more or less Bolivian convenience stores (for North Americans) or newsstands (in British terms…except that you’d never expect to find reading material there.) We have two “mini-supermarkets” just off the central plaza where one can pick up a few imports or less common items like mozzarella cheese and canned beans (as a result I’ve been able to make BBQ Chicken Pizza and Baleadas for my host family and friends here.)

Here’s a good example of solving a problem by purchasing a product: I really wanted to clean my shower head when I first got here, because it was clogged with calcium deposits and rust (the water here is incredibly hard.) Of course, miracle cleaners like CLR aren’t something one can find here outside of industrial applications. After some internet research I came upon the idea of using white vinegar in a baggie tied around the shower head for 24 hours. Well, white vinegar proved impossible to find, so I finally settled on a bottle of the red vinegar that is sold as salad dressing here. Truly watertight plastic bags were also impossible to find, but I finally wrangled three bags into layers in which each bag’s leaks were least annoying and were backed up by the next bag’s areas of strength. So, 1 bottle of red vinegar, 3 baggies, 4 rubber bands, and 36 hours later, I had a well functioning shower head…and a more than slightly vinegar-scented bathroom.

Determination and creativity are ingredients that must never be underestimated.

Crafts

I recently got a crafty inspiration to make jewelry out of plastic bottles, to be sold when I get back to the US as a new line of products for my online business REMNANTS (currently on vacation mode while I am in Bolivia.) It’s taken me a while to collect together all of the necessary supplies, but after spending a Friday afternoon wandering downtown and a Saturday in the “feria” with Nelly, a member of the Save the Children team of educators with whom I am working, I’ve managed to collect all the necessary pieces: translucent paint, wire, round nose pliers, and ribbon. Of course, each and every item was purchased only after scouring for a shop that carried the item in the right size and quantity for my needs and then comparing between shops for the best price.

Although I’m busy and can find it frustrating to say the least, I happy that a single shopping trip allows me to help keep so many different people in business rather than a single large company with impersonal employees. I love getting to converse with all the different people I buy from. They always have suggestions for where I might be able to find something else I’m looking for but that they don’t carry. And, it’s only in Bolivia that you can walk past shops selling magic supplies like dried llama fetuses and other offerings for the earth goddess Pachamama!

Clothing

There are plenty of clothing and shoe shops here, but so far I’ve been able to fill my needs in the much cheaper “Mercado” or the twice weekly “Feria.” On Wednesdays and Saturdays the section of town just northwest of the plaza becomes a whole other world chock full of stalls along the sides of the street where clothing, electronics, beauty products, housewares, and just about anything else you might need is sold for much cheaper rates than in established stores. This is how I’ve gone about finding most of the more traditional Bolivian style cold weather clothing I’ve been wearing here (ponchos, sweaters, shawls, gloves, hats) as well as the universal cold weather gear (like long underwear and turtlenecks.)

Shoes proved a little more difficult…actually a lot more difficult. I brought my warm hiking boots and a pair of black flats that quickly proved far to open and chilly to wear in the office. However, despite the fact that all I wanted were black dress boots or flats (with more foot coverage than mine) like many women wear here, I went to just about every location that sells shoes in the city…the “feria,” the established shoe stores, the “Mercado”…and ultimately found only 1 pair that fit me! Not one pair that I liked, but one pair that was actually in my size! I do often feel like a giant here, it’s true, but that day was frustratingly so!

It does help that many shops of the same kind are grouped together. For example, in town there is a street where most of the sewing shops are, a street lined purely with lawyers, a block with all the shoe shops, etc. If you are a fan of the efficient shopping provided by the concepts of department stores and supermarkets, this system is, I suppose, the next best thing.
Staying warm and thinking development thoughts

The “feria” where I’ve picked up warm clothing is also where I picked up my beloved space heater (which I have since gifted to the office when another one became available in the house.) I’ve had to finally give in and admit that it is bothersomely cold (especially as nights here are now regularly below 0 degrees Farenheit.)

I really can’t understand how people could live here for so many thousands of years and not have developed systems for heating their buildings. The kids have been out of school for a month now because it’s simply too cold for them to learn. Although it’s been a colder than normal winter, this is hardly the first time the problem has occurred. Surely there are simple and affordable solutions. It’s a volcanic region and there are hot springs not far outside of town, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some geothermal sources under the town. By midday the sun has warmed things nicely on the outside, but buildings without much sun remain cold and even those with sun become cold again by sunset. There is quite the market here for development projects related to affordable and ecological heating methods.

It’s not exactly homesickness…

There’s something so strange about being sick when you are far from your home culture. I’ve noticed it before, but especially here in Bolivia. I’ve had an acute sinus infection over the last week, and as I emerge the other side of it (knock on wood) I feel like I’ve been somewhere else all together. Is it the altitude? I feel like I’ve started all over again in terms of adjustment. Climbing a flight of stairs winds me and sends me into a fit of hacking coughs. Is it the sinus medication? I sleep half the day to constant dreams of wild nonsense that when I’m asleep have seemingly immense Lewis Carroll-like meaning. Awake, I feel like I’ve lost my Spanish…especially verbs. I constantly conjugate verbs incorrectly and am unable to correct myself. Maybe it is the same when at I am at home and speaking English and it is only the lack of familiarity here that emphasizes this facet of illness. The world in which I felt so comfortable just a week ago now feels unfamiliar all over again. I can’t follow conversations, cross-cultural communication that I could work through rationally gets me angry and frustrated and, when combined with sinus pressure and fever, I find myself pushed to tears. The simple tasks of life, like laundry and washing the dishes, usually invigorating times where I can think, are at best exhausting enterprising and at worst insurmountable obstacles. All taste for adventure and new experience has dried up, not to be replaced by a wish for the familiar but a hope for the easy and simple. And like all illnesses and setbacks, this too shall pass, and in the mean time I just keep chugging along, taking care of myself as best I can and taking it easy whenever I can until the energy kicks back in. Life goes on and there is work to do.

Late winter has begun to settle into Oruro. I’ve been warned that August is windy, but the winds seem to have arrived already. When I go to retrieve my clothes hung out to dry on the roof, I must unwind them from around the line and search for the buried clothespins. The air is so dry here that even my tepid wet clothes appear to steam when I hang them up in the bright morning sun. Yesterday was the first precipitation I have seen since I arrived, a lightly falling mixture of snow and icy rain that momentarily cleansed the air of its constant dust. It’s finally begun to feel truly cold, the unrelenting kind of cold that is hard to ward off even when wearing 3 layers of clothing. I’ve been told that I look like I’ve lost weight, but the extra layers of long underwear make my pants fit more or less as always.

Despite the cold, fruit continues to come in from the lower altitude valleys, and I’ve fallen in love with what they call “mandarinos,” a hybrid between a true mandarin and the more common orange. We set them out in the sun on the window sill at the beginning lunch so that they make a deliciously warm dessert. They peel easily and break into perfect segments and are so juicy that I often squirt myself in the face as I go about removing the seeds from a section before popping it into my mouth.

It is excellent to feel myself getting back onto my own two feet after a week of being out-of-it-kinds-of sick. I’ve moved to a room on the second floor of the house and the window provides me a lovely view of the street, from which I watched a small parade this morning. The participants were dancing the “Morenada,” one of the traditional dances for which Oruro is famous. Yes, I’m even beginning to tell the different traditional dances apart. Looking out the window now, however, I can’t tell if the sky is just a dusty dusk or if another storm is coming in tonight. The garbage men are coming soon. I hear their harbinger, a junior employee no doubt, banging his two pieces of metal together as he passes up the street. It’s time to bring in the wash and cuddle up to the space heater with my neglected research materials.

Siempre,
Kati

Partying bolivia Style!

I haven’t written in a while, not the least because I’ve been busy getting to know how to have fun here in Bolivia (and I’ve been working hard too, I swear!)
This past weekend I was in the city of Cochabamba for a teachers’ workshop on creating and interpreting evaluations. Now, the workshops weren’t terribly party-like but the after-hours festivities were a good break from the constant work. And it turns out that Cochabamba has a fairly good nightlife!
One evening I went out with the education team I’m working with. We found ourselves at a bar, enjoying the wide range of cocktails available here (just about anything can be imported for a price!) We ended up playing a dice game called “cacho,” which is best described as something between yahtzee and poker.

I picked it up by the second game and look forward to teaching it to folks when I get back to the states. A basic description is that each person keeps track of their score on something that looks like a tic-tac-toe board (see below) and each game lasts ten rounds. After you roll the dice using the leather cup (and everyone has their own unique style of doing so) you can choose to reroll some or all of the dice once to try to improve the outcome. After you are done rolling, you count the best score you can. If you can’t score in any of the spots, you have to choose to put an X in one of the boxes. Ones are referred to as “balas,” fours are referred to as “cuadras,” a straight is called an “escala,” and a full house (2 of a kind with 3 of a kind) is simply called a “full.” If you turn your cup over when you roll your dice and say “boteo,” that means you can turn one die over and use it’s opposite side if you want to. And of course, you can turn it into a gambling game!

My second night out in Cochabamba I was on my own, taking an extra night to stay in the city after the workshop was over in order to enjoy the warm valley climate for as long as I could. While partaking in a delicious Huari (by far the best of Bolivian beers) and a plate of spaghetti, I met a guy just a couple of years younger than me. He was selling handmade bracelets to pay for his room at an “alojamiento” (a very basic hotel) while figuring out his next move, having come from his native Ireland to travel through South America when he ran out of money in Cochabamba.
I could tell from his accent that his first language was English, so I figured he had to be suffering for lack of beer (especially if he was European or Australian.) We ended up hanging out until the wee hours of morning, both of us glad to have someone with whom we could speak English for a while. Turned out there was an Irish bar not far from where I was staying, so there we were in an Irish bar, drinking Bolivian beer, watching a Flamenco group, and chatting with a couple of Frenchmen who are working in Bolivia for a water sanitation program. This big ol’ world can really come together for a good time!
Previous to my adventures in Cochabamba, I found myself dancing the night away at the graduation party for one of the office interns here in Oruro. I was introduced not just to dancing in the Bolivian style (fairly simple steps thankfully!) but also to a Bolivian liquor called Singani, which tastes fairly lovely when mixed with 7Up.
An undergraduate graduation is a big deal here, as it takes a lot of years and a lot of financial sacrifice. Plus it holds the promise of a securely middle class, upwardly mobile future. Systems engineering, as the IT program is called here, is a really popular major, as it is something desperately needed for development and promises good employment. The graduate’s parents were so proud they cried, and the graduate cried too. I’ve never thought of a graduation party as a sentimental thing, but then again, getting an education was never an enormous challenge in my life, not like it is here. It reminded me that the work I do is important, helping to make sure that kids are prepared to take on the educational challenges that come up for them in their lives, despite the challenges they face.
And I thought I was just going out for the dancing and the alcohol!