Getting to Know You

It is day 5 in Cochabamba and I'm starting to get to know the city a little more each day and on top of that I think my Spanish is improving!  This is going to be a long post, because before I talk about my adventures this weekend with my host family we have to back track a little bit to talk about Orientation and la Ciudad de los Niños (The City of the Children).

I'll start with orientation. We arrived in Cochabamba on Wednesday and were literally swept off our feet by our professors Ismael and Heidi. Luckily, they knew how tired we were so after a short introduction we were allowed to eat and rest and then eat some more. There's a lot of eating in Bolivia. We ended the evening with a ritual to Pacha Mama (the god of the earth, time and space). We got to chew Coca and afterwards dinner included a huge meal of typical Bolivian/Andean foods! It was delicious and a great bonding experience because there were so many times during the ritual that no one knew what they were doing. As one of my fellow classmates said (I think it was Kai) "Nothing grows friendships faster than awkward situations and alcohol." Day 1 was the awkwardness and day 2 was our very own Bolivian wine tasting! ;)

Coca leaves and two 'beans' para mi

 (I gave the other to Pacha Mama durante el ritual)

 Our first real "assignment" during orientation was to find your way to and from an assigned location with a partner, a very touristy map of Cochabamba and your Spanish.  My partner (Jimmy) and I were assigned to la Ciudad de los Niños and the paper just said "Find out what they do they do there."  We found our way without too many problems, the micro driver dropped us off and we began following a road named "Ciudad de los Niños" up a hill in a very quiet neighborhood -- which is saying something because Cochabamba isn't necessarily a bustling city during the day.  When the road ended we made a right and a few blocks down found a mural promoting water safety and sustainability, a basketball court with soccer nets, and a door. People were coming in and out of the door so we went through and were greeted by a large map of buildings and decided that this 'city' was a fully sustainable city used to educate the people of Cochabamba about the importance of keeping the planet clean. I'll just tell you now, we were wrong.  We get to the top of that hill and there are tons of kids and teachers, so now we think it's a school that promotes sustainability and we are sort of on the right track.  Now just to recap, we are two college kids from the US, Jimmy is a short Mexican (sorry Jimmy), and I'm a tall red head.  No one has stopped us yet, we are taking pictures, speaking Spanish and don't see any problem with anything we are doing and then we meet Sister Augusta.  She is working in the llama pen and she stops and asks somewhat sternly, "Who gave you permission to be here?!"  And we are just so taken aback that we needed permission because we had passed so many people on our way up that we were speechless (in both English and Spanish).  We ended up having to go back down the hill to the administration building and talked with the director of la Ciudad de los Niños and well.. we were sort of in trouble.  Although being a US college student in Bolivia is sometimes helpful as it allows for a few mistakes!  It turns out la Ciudad de los Niños is an orphanage AND a school for the children of Cochabamba and you need to be vetted and approved in order to be on the property; (whoops!) and because we had neither of those things we had to be escorted around the property. We were able to take a brief tour, ask some questions and talk to a few of the students before we had to head back to our hotel. They keep the orphans until they are 18 and also offer classes in car repair, carpentry and a few other useful careers. I'd love to return (con permiso) and find out what the numbers are for 'graduating' kids, and how they deal with having both orphans and students with parents in the same classrooms. But that's for another time. For now, I think I've learned my lesson about places with kids, find the administrative building first! :)

 They had every right to stop us, it was just somewhat frightening to be questioned as though we were doing something illegal. I think it's important to note here that there used to be a child trafficking problem here.  Children would be snatched from their families and sold as orphans to couples in other countries so it makes sense that they want to know who's on the property at all times.  In fact, if a mother wants to go on vacation with her kids, without their father, he needs to sign a note saying it's okay, they need permission from the school, and she has to prove that the children are hers.  (It would be the same situation for the father.)  But I didn't find that out until much later that day.

The Entrance

I love this!  It has all of the children's hand prints!

The last evening of orientation we met our host families! I only met my mama and papa because my sisters had night classes. It was a beautiful night in a beautiful restaurant, with a live band, lots of dancing before and after the meal, and a delicious dinner! It was so nerve-racking waiting for our families to arrive. We all were sitting at a table and the host family coordinators would come over and take each of us one at a time and introduce us to our family. I definitely felt like a puppy in a pound waiting to be adopted! But my family came and it was great to meet them! My mama is an economist and my papa is a vet and it turns out they have 12 dogs: 3 pugs, 5 pinschers and 4 german shepards! There is a pinscher puppy that would easily fit in my shoe, she doesn't have a name yet and she's probably going to be sold to someone, but I will get a picture of her before that happens!!

Mis padres por el semestre

I moved in with my family on Saturday. They came and picked me up from the hotel, we ate lunch and then it was off to El Cumbre (the summit/peak).  My papa, mama, both sisters (Laura & Valerie), Laura's boyfriend (Charlie), Laura's boyfriend's cousin (Wilson) (hope that's not confusing!) and I all piled into my papa's truck.  It was almost a three hour drive up a tiny, cobbled road, through the mountains with horrifying bends and the cliffs just a few feet, or in some places inches, from the car's tires. But the drive was beautiful!  I saw tons of llamas, Cochabamba from afar, Andean families in traditional dress, terraces for planting and collecting water and of course, the mountains! El Cumbre is where the snow starts, so that was our goal, and we made it, although there were times when we weren't sure! Once we reached the top we threw some snowballs and hiked around a bit and it was absolutely incredible, although a little altitude sickness inducing.  But the great thing about Bolivian families is that they know how to handle the symptoms and it turns out sweet things and liquids work like magic!  I think pictures will work much better here, so here are a few of my favorites!

The road... 

I wasn't kidding about this road!

Climbing up the mountain!  There was so much snow!

Mi Familia y el coche!

The view from the top!  The valley where the sun is setting is Cochabamba!

 

 And finally, today!  It's a very special day in Cochabamba called the "Día de Peaton" (Pedestrian Day) in Cochabamba.  It happens three times a year and between 12am and 6pm only police cars and citizens with a long commute to work or some extenuating circumstance are allowed to drive.  So essentially, there are no cars in the streets and everyone is out and about, riding their bikes having a massive party! There are street vendors in the main plazas selling things from jewelry and sunglasses to action figures, plants and who knows what else, bands playing, people dressed up as statues, others walking on stilts in costume, people are walking their dogs, pulling their kids on tricycles, it was awesome!  Plus there are more food carts than you could imagine and people that will fix your bike in the middle of the road for 5 bolivianos (less than $1) which was great for me because I rode my host sisters' grandmother's bike and I had to have my back tire fixed twice, and it still went flat on the way home!  When we returned to our house we had a massive lunch!  There were 13 people at the table who were either friends or extended family and more importantly, there was so much food!  We had pork, beef, ribs, chicken, rice & cheese, a salad with tomatoes, onions and cheese, bread, yuca... it's almost impossible to list because there was so much!  Everything is family style and lunch is the most important meal of the day.  We easily sat there for 3 hours, chatting, eating and eating some more!  It is great fun, although it's hard to understand everything when I'm not concentrating fully, but that will get easier with time! Also, when you leave or enter you must greet everyone at the table. Women greet everyone with a hug and a kiss on the cheek while men greet men with handshakes. So when my nephews left they went around hugging and kissing and shaking hands. Then 20 minutes later another group left and the same thing happened. You stop everything when saying goodbye or hello! It is quite a production, but it makes it even more entertaining!

Día de Peaton

The people that fixed my bike the second time...

Tomorrow is my first day of classes and I'm pretty excited.  We only have class with the 22 SIT students here, but that's okay because being away from each other this weekend was strange since we've been spending every hour together since many of us met in the airport in Miami on Tuesday night!  Plus, we will all have so many fun host family stories to share, I can't wait!

I hope this post keeps you entertained for a while! I do have wi-fi but with classes starting and the amount of reading it looks like I'll be doing, who knows when I will be writing! Or maybe I'll procrastinate and write daily! We shall see!

Until next time!

Carly