10 Fun Facts about life in Bolivia

1.  It costs 1 Boliviano to ride the Micro to class every day which is equivalent to about $0.14 USD!
     1a.  There are no specific stops, if you want to get off, you get off!  Also you flag the micros and         trufis down as if they were cabs.  YOU DO NOT TAKE PRIVATE CABS.

1 Boliviano

2.  Lunch is the most important meal of the day and every day it kind of feels like Thanksgiving.  There's meat, rice, vegetables, dessert... it's incredible and more importantly delicious!
     2a. The food is amazing!  I've been trying everything and it just gets better and better!  When I was      making friends on the plane (because I do that) the woman that I sat next to told me that you could      have a different Bolivian dish every day of the month, so far it has proven true as we have yet to eat      the same thing twice!

3.  Because lunch is the most important meal of the day dinner is almost non-existent. If we have dinner it's bread and cheese, leftovers from lunch or just a piece of fruit.
    3a.  My host abuela makes mermelada fresh for the family.  She also is the one that gets us the fresh      cheese from the mountains.  It's made from sheep's milk and has a very different flavor, almost as        if you were on a farm.  It's difficult to explain, but delicious nonetheless!

4.  Coffee the first week in Bolivia was AMAZING! You pour a little bit of very strong coffee that is somewhat viscous (or a lot if you're tired!) then add water, milk and sugar! I don't know why, but it's the best coffee I've ever had and I've been drinking it black!
     4a.  Instant coffee isn't bad.  My host family teases me because I put 3 scoops of coffee & 1 scoop      of sugar in my tiny little cup to get as much caffeine as I can!

5.  You don't drink wine, beer or any type of liquor during meals;  you drink fruit juice!  My host mom makes it fresh every day.  She puts whichever fruit (it's been tumbo lately) into the blender with water and some sugar, liquefies it, strains it, liquefies it again and ta-dah:  JUGO!

Tumbo

6.  My grapefruit (pomelo) had so many seeds yesterday I could have planted a garden of grapefruit trees! (same with mandarin oranges (las mandarinas))  Yay for organic produce!

7.  We have lemon trees in our yard and put lemons on everything!
      7a.  Limes don't exist here.

8.  The showers are electric... aka if you want hot water you have to turn on the electricity and while the water is on you pretty much can't touch anything.  During orientation my roommate and I had a faulty shower and when we went to turn off the water (which is not connected to any of the electricity) we'd get a nice shock.  It was great in the mornings, it really woke you up!

9.  Television is very important.  Everyone has a TV in their room, there's one in the kitchen, one in the sala (living room) and many conversations revolve around the TV.  You can talk over it, but it's part of daily life to watch a movie together or three or four!

10.  There are very few non-Bolivians here.  When I ride the micro to class I am the ONLY gringa. Unless I am walking with one of my classmates I'm the only gringa in the streets.  We have been trying to count how many other gringos are around, I haven't hit double digits yet and we've been here for a week!
     10a. I tower over just about everyone.  I'm waiting for my host family to start calling me "altita" -          Tall.  In general Bolivians call people as they see them, "flacita" -skinny, "gordita" - fat, "negra" -           if you have darker, tanned skin... etc. etc. They're not being mean, they're just very straight forward



That was pretty much all about food... whoops!  Oh well, it really is amazing! :)

Hasta luego,
Carly


PS. These photos are from the internet! They don't belong to me!