Possibly the coolest accidental photo ever! She was standing behind me in church and to be "smooth" i kept looking a head of me and held the camera over my shoulder facing her. the EYE is so cool!

We had a little Valentines day get together at my house, a mix of my Liberian and Peace Corps friends. This was how the evening ended. that fire would have been exponentially more enjoyable if it had been less the 85 degrees out.

A friend of mine came over to teach me basic Liberian cooking. We boiled palm nuts, beat them and boiled the juices, then added peppers, salt and some fish. pretty easy but it takes a long time! And cooking with coal is always and adventure.

My housing situation has finally (after two months) improved a great deal. This is my newly cemented bathroom, complete with a toilet (the non flushing variety)

These beautiful kids are some of my new neighbors, the boys above are 6 of 14 children. One Pa two Ma if you ask them.

This is Hawa and her little cousin, they live in the house directly behind mine. 26 people in all share the house. Grandpa and his three daughters plus one son and daughter-in-law, and then ALL of there kiddos. They are the sweetest bunch. Little Ms Hawa organized this photo shoot, she lined up all the kids, ordered by age and relation, so I could get the whole group and then each set of siblings.

The Future Ms Africa I presume?

When you look up SMILE in the dictionary THIS is what you should see.

New Years Eve church service, followed by dancing and drums and a march around town

Typical Monrovia chaos

One of many "Only in Africa" moments

Im all for a road trip, but thats a little extreme.

Site Mates in the Big city! We climbed to the top of the "Old Ducor" Hotel, formerly the finest Hotel in the country, It was reduced to a shell of its former glory during the war- now UN solders occupy the first few floors, they showed us the way to the rooftop, with these spectacular views of the city below.

Our Christmas digs.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season, time is going by faster then I could have imagined, and with only 4 months left here, I am trying to get deeper into my work and make as many new Liberians friends as possible.

A common greeting in Liberia goes a little something like this.

"Morning-Ohh, Ya'll right?"

"Fine-Oh, What news?"

"No bad news"

"Thank God"

"Thank God"

So that is what I say today. "No bad news".

I am still waiting on a permanent place to say, waiting to feel settled and in a routine. I helped to organize the PTA elections for the largest school here in the District. Over 100 people came to hear about the role of the PTA and how they can be a part of a newly reorganized PTA. or maybe they just came to see the while lady. Either way, we have now elected the whole committee, and we have started meeting with the hopes of strengthening the PTA as a whole as well as strengthening the organizational skills of the teachers, PTA members and student leaders.

What I really wanted to share today was an excerpt from a wonderful book I just finished reading. It is the autobiography of the President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first female head of state in Africa. The book is titled This Child Will Be Great, and it details her life, her family, her political career, and her professional career. She was jailed various times in the past 20 years, and she talks candidly about all of this. Here is an excerpt from the first page.

"If asked to describe my homeland in a sentence, I might say something like this: Liberia is a wonderful, beautiful, mixed-up country struggling mightily to find itself.

...Liberia is some 43,000 square miles of lush, well-watered land on the bulge of West Africa, a country slightly larger than the state of Ohio, a lilliputian nation with a giant history. It has a population of 3.5 million people from some sixteen ethnic groups speaking some sixteen indigenous languages plus English. It has never known hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, droughts, or other natural disasters, only the occasional flood and the more frequent havoc wreaked by man. Liberia is complicated. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Liberia is a conundrum wrapped in complexity and stuffed inside a paradox. Then again it was born that way. "

Here is the link to her inaugural address.

I also wanted to share this link from the "frontal cortex" . Mr. Lehrer posted a summery of a study that "looks at how severe recessions, depressions and other "macroeconomic shocks" influence the political beliefs of young adults." He then goes on to talk about how the beliefs of youth might be effected by war and conflict. I thought this wonderfully relevant to many countries including Liberia. How we interact with out political ideas and ideals is linked to how we feel connected within our society. Whether it be in a divided country like Bolivia, or a "post conflict" country such as Liberia. War, pain, and fear so often influence and blind us to the reality of our needs and influence how we make economic and political decisions.

So no bad news from Liberia.

In Liberia, “tomorrow” is the perfect day for nearly everything and “later” the hour at which it should get done. I am sorry for the delay in this post, I have been in country for almost a month now, and as all those tomorrows were passing I was thinking about what I might write to you all. You see I have been struggling, as many people who come to this place often do- how do I explain what it is that I am seeing, when I don’t fully understand what is going on around me. But mostly I am afraid that whatever I do choose to say might only serve to uphold our preconceived notions about this far away continent.

I don’t want to write about the girl who carries boiled eggs in cartons on her head, and sits for long stretches staring at me as I read on my porch, asking for a piece of bread, or money, or for me to buy more eggs from her. When I don’t entertain her need, she walks right into the guest house where I am staying, finds a broom and begins cleaning the floor with furious obsession. I try to tell her no, that there is someone whose job it is to come and clean the guesthouse. She either doesn’t understand my flat English, or chooses not to. In the end I cave and give her some small bills for her service. She comes back, always watching me, and waiting for me to offer her something.

Swollen bellies and orange tinted hair; the stains of childhood malnutrition, I was hoping that those TV images were only that, some glorified misguided manifestation of what this place truly encompasses. But every day their tiny beautiful hands reach out to touch me, as if they need to feel the contrast. They scream “WHITE WOMAN”, which when slurred together in their lilting Liberian English ends up sounding like “WHYYYY WOOOMmmm”. As English is most peoples second language sometimes the kids get a little mixed up and call me “WHITE MAN!” which all of the adults in earshot find hysterical.

Every morning as I leave the guesthouse to wander in search of coffee and bread, there is one little girl who seems to love me more then all the others. As I walk by the water pump where she always seems to be sitting, she jumps up and runs toward me as fast as her four-year-old legs can carry her. I don’t know her name, or who she belongs to, and I have never been able to have a conversation with her. But she runs at me as only I have seen a child dive into the arms of a loving grandparent. I get a wonderful little hug from her every time I see her, she holds my hand as I walk for a small stretch, then she lets go, no longer amused, and makes her way back to the water pump.

This town isn’t big, there is one main intersection- where the road that comes from Monrovia makes a fork, one way goes to Guinea, the other to the county seat of Vonjama. Most of the shops are within eyeshot of this intersection. There are tea shops run by French speaking families who are mostly Muslim, there are small dry good stores that sell soap, rice, oil, crackers, sugary drink mixes, and cans of dry milk, there are a few stores selling hardware type items, locks, chains, shovels and spades. Then there are all of the random kiosks some have generators and will charge up a cell phone for 50 cents, there are women selling fried plantains, and fish, if I am lucky they might have an avocado or cucumber sitting out.

I guess that bring me to food. As you all know, I love food, I love eating it and cooking it, and here I get to do very little of both. Even for me, earning a decent salary in this part of the country, I still find very little food. If you don’t want to eat the typical Liberian food then you are going to have to get along with crackers, peanuts, and maybe one piece of fresh veg or fruit.

Most Liberians eat one main meal a day. A bowl of rice topped with what they call soup. This soup is what we would call a sauce; it is a thick spicy mash of whatever is around that is edible. Sometimes its cassava leaves, or sweet potato greens, mashed then fried then boiled with lots of hot peppers. There is also the palm nut, which is a small reddish nut that comes from a palm tree, they boil these then grind or mash them, then boil them again add lots of peppers and you have another soup. Most soups have either meat or fish. The fish comes from small rivers and streams nearby, and the meat is just wild meat people trap or hunt in the jungle. Its called bush meat, and you never know what kind of animal you are eating. It could be a bird someone hit with a car, it could be monkey, or a small squirrel, there are some large rodents (like a cross between a hamster and a porcupine), and small deer. Since there is no refrigeration and this is one of the most humid places on earth you can imagine what happens to the meat. People tend to burn the outside of the carcass (sorry if this is getting graphic) I guess the crust then acts as a barrier to some of the bacteria and critters, I have also seen it cut up and crudely smoked or dried.

Since most formal agriculture was destroyed during the war there is little to no animal husbandry, and the only food cash crop is rice, with some cassava. Not only did the war years destroy the physical infrastructure of the country, but the loss of human capital through immigration, death, and lack of formalized education or apprenticeships has wreaked havoc on the industry. Additionally low agricultural productivity is due in part to the 53% of rural farms being small (1-5 acres), additionally about 45 % of rural households do not own land.

Liberia is one of the most food insecure countries in the world. Over 70% of their food is imported and the majority of a family’s income is spent on food items. Real GDP from agriculture has declined over 50% since 1987, and rice the staple of west African cooking has declined over 75% (also from 1987 levels). 11% of household in rural/semi urban areas are considered food insecure, that number increases to 28% in areas more heavily affected by the war and whose populations were displaced (including Lofa county where I live). Also 40% of the population as a whole was found to be either highly or moderately vulnerable to food insecurity. Over 2/3rds of household report that they cannot afford three meals a day. (These statistics were complied from the Poverty Reduction Strategy of Liberia published by the Liberian National Gov 2005-2007)

That’s enough statistics for one day.

I have a big meeting tomorrow, it is our first PTA elections and meeting. Im hoping there will be a good turn out, and we will have enough people to elect a committee. Once that body is established the real work begins. However I am guessing that I’m going to be spending most of my service just educating people about the role of PTAs and drumming up interest. I will leave the projects to the next volunteer.

WELCOME TO LIBERIA

What an amazing country I have stepped into.

Liberia is a lot of things,

and I hope that these photos can begin to do justice

to this amazing country.

Here is a typical road and at typical little town, with the requisite children staring and frantically yelling WHITE WOMAN (lots of pointing and waving) WHITE WOMAN.

They yell lots and lots just in case I didn't here them the first time.

Its pretty darn cute.

He is a student at one of the schools I visited with the World Food Programme's food monitoring group. We visited around a dozen schools each day last week recording how much food they had used and auditing their accounts. There wasn't a whole lot for me to do, so I made friends with the kids and let them play with my camera.

Big eyes stare.

This kid is roasting peanuts to sell

I didn't mean to scare you, but I saw a guy carrying this by the tail the other day and asked if I could look at it and take a picture. He clearly didn't want to be in the picture, but he set up this nice little pose and let me snap away. As I was taking a shot some kid snuck up and grabbed the tail and yanked it really hard, making the whole animal jump. The crowed that had gathered had quite a laugh at my expence, after I screemed and jumped around for a bit.

Hey sitemates! Im so glad these guys are here to keep me company. Soon Russ and I will be living in a nice little house just ouside of town. (Russ and I also served in Bolivia together, and somehow ended up here in the boondocks of West Africa, small world?)

Liberian food. Many have been asking "What's it like?" - Its mostly rice with "soup" on top- thats the red greasy stuff. Its way to spicy for me so I try to find a hunk of fish and pick through that for a while. Russ and Kelly (my other sitemate) are champs and sweat out all the spice.

more kids

joining in on a little game of kickball

Every bus or car ride usually involved a little bit of this. ie cussing, rain, and more people watching then helping. I was one of the former.

Im spending the next few weeks working on my personal statements and applications for grad school, so I wont be posting much until I get to Liberia. I however wanted to share this article and link to those interested in food, nutrition, and development in agriculture.

Africa has hundreds of indigenous vegetables, which have been grown, gathered and eaten for centuries. But in the past half century 'exotic' imports have started to displace them; the likes of cabbage, kale and carrots were associated with being more developed, and cosmopolitan, while the traditional foods became food for the poor. So does it matter? Aren't all vegetables healthy? Sheila Dillon looks at a project run by Bioversity International in Kenya to increase the availability and consumption of Africa's indigenous green leafy vegetables. She finds out what role many people believe they can play in solving some of the continent's most pressing problems, including malnutrition and crop failures due to global warming.Heres the link to the BBC radio interview

I felt like I was going to hurl.

Not a weak, sick, kind of baby vomit, but a loud angry sweaty projectile kind of Vomit. The faces of my dear friends and colleagues floated around in front of me, their bodies writhing in the heat, their balled up sweaty fists clinging to old plastic bags ready for action. I was strapped in, rollercoaster style with the military issue straps awkwardly holding me on the woven “jump seat” in the back of the plane. I didn’t want to think about the past few days- it might trigger my gag reflex. But I allowed my mind to wander as Bolivia drifted away below us.

The Ex military C130 cargo plane had taken off from Lima Peru earlier in the day, requesting special permission from the Bolivian Government to land there, papers were shuffled and favors called in. The Volunteers were finally allowed to board the plane. It was a cavernous beast, hardly resembling the more typical 747s of normal international travel. The sides were bare with wires, radios, med kits, netting and ropes along the interior. The Peruvians loaded our bags into a spot on the floor in the middle of the plane, with the passengers sitting along the edge of the plane facing each other. The space between us seemed forever. We were given earplugs and told to buckle up. Next stop Peru.

A few days earlier I was in Samaipata, aka Paradise. I had a meeting there Wednesday afternoon, and had hitch-hiked my way to town from the small community where I was living as a Peace Corps Vounteer. When I arrived in town there was a buzz in the air. Taxi drivers who usually sit in their idling cars, were huddled in small groups chatting about the latest eruption of violence. Many hundreds of miles to the north-east a group of peasants marching in the town of Cobija were confronted by the police. The resulting skirmish ended in the death of 15 people, mostly indigenous farmers. Both sides, pro-government, and anti-government saw this as the last straw in a conflict that had recently come to a head.

The majority of the roads in the country had been shut down by protest for most of last August and the beginning of September. As I made my way into town that day I saw another road block going up between my village and the nearest town. I knew something was going to go down, I had never seen as much commotion in this sleepy valley retreat. As I was walking to my meeting with the local women’s cooperative I got a call from Peace Corps saying that I better stay in town for the night because they were going to want to be in contact with me that evening and the next day. This was the reality of service for many of us in Bolivia I got a call like that at least once a month. I knew the drill. Call in if I saw anything out of the ordinary, check with people I knew about the condition of the roads, which ones were blocked with protestors, which ones were passable, but otherwise go about my day.

Tammy and I spent the night as we always did when I stayed in town. She was another PCV who had a house there with a spare room for me. We cooked a yummy dinner, ate and talked speculatively about the situation that was sweeping the country. By morning things were different. The streets were eerie with silence. I found out why as I walked down the highway to get the latest on the news from the cab drivers. Most people from town were also down on the highway, a new road block was being set up, with rumors of more on the way. People were coming from all over the region to set up their blockades along this stretch of highway. Trucks were already lining up, the stench of rotting fruit and vegetables that wouldn’t make it through to the market was palpable. So was the tension.

As soon as I saw the line of trucks and cars stretching into the mountains I called the office and got a hold of our logistics guru. He noted the change in the highway. I imagined him drawing a big red line on his map of Bolivia already splattered with red ink.

That evening we got the call. A SUV from the office in Sucre was going to drive through the night on back roads to get to us the next morning. We were to have our bags packed and wait altogether in a nearby town. We had less then 12 hours to put one small bag together, and we couldn’t even say goodbye. I passed through two road blocks on the way back to my house. It was dark by this time and my taxi was anxiously waiting for me as I shoved some cloths, photos, and a few keepsakes into my bag. I left thinking I might only be gone a week. I left my laundry on the line, my dog with a neighbor, and my bed unmade. A week has turned into a year.

The SUV arrived and we began the long journey to Cochabamba. It took us 12 hours bumping along dirt roads, avoiding the main highway and other routs that were closed or impassable. My taxi driver friends had told us as we pulled put of town that the military was marching down the highway. By foot was to only way to get to the largest and most cosmopolitan city in the whole country, the airport and radio stations had been shut down, and the military was on the way to begin to restore order. Santa Cruz has always been the wild west of Bolivia but this, this was crazy.

We moved hotels everyday. Somehow the staff made it work, they got no sleep, and no respite- while their country was falling apart they were going out to get us pizza. I felt like an asshole, I sat in the nicest hotel in town watching cable and taking hot showers, enjoying the breakfast buffet. I tried to call my friends and coworkers in my site, and in a nearby town, but the phones were down in that part of the country, while I had wifi.

I remember her face when she told us we were leaving, she was all scrunched up, she looked small, she turned around and walked over to the windows that overlooked the city, not knowing what more to say. We all felt small, we were all scrunched up. I lay in bed that night, with the window open listening to the building chaos in the streets below, I reached for my roommate through the dark to feel something real, something breathing, something normal.

The Peruvian plane was a cavernous beast, it ate us alive, its bowels were hot and smimmey we were like zombies with fake glassy smiles on our faces. I knew I would be back, it would be different when I returned, I could do this on my terms. I could do this. I didn’t throw up, I was sure I was going to, but I didn’t throw up. Then a few hours later the back hatch of the beast slowly opened and the foggy moist ocean air slipped in to welcome us. Peru.

This was a year ago today. Now I am in America, preparing once again to go overseas, this time to Liberia. There will be many new challenges, new adventures, work, people, and places. I will continue to write about my thoughts, about development work, about funny kids, and new places. I will take many photographs.

Thanks for reading.

Im just going to post some good links today, the Times has done a good job of informing people about bees and colony collapse over the last two years, yesterday they posted a op ed about the current state of Bees titles Saving Bees: What We Know. With a statement from the Uof Ms very own Marla Spivak, there's also a good video taken from Nature on PBS.

Below is an article from Foreign Policy Mag

"President Barack Obama has signed a Presidential Study Directive authorizing a U.S. government-wide review of global development policy, according to sources briefed on the review by the White House. The review, expected to be completed by January, is being formally co-led by National Security Advisor Gen. Jim Jones and chairman of the National Economic Council Larry Summers." Find the rest of the article here

I also wanted to get up some photos I shot out at Piney Hill Farm, check out their blog in my links list.

Im off to the fair tonight, and up north for the weekend.

What an interesting way to think about the world. Just look at us... this bring to mind all sorts of questions and assumptions we make about our planet and how we interact with it. It prompts new meaning to the once racist and ignorant classification of the "dark continent" doesn't it. I am always searching for the dark places, or the "soft places" as William Powers calls communities that have somehow evaded the reach of globalization and modernity.

The light.

Once a metaphor for bringing civility to those in need of the saving grace of a christian god. Now takes on a different more literal meaning for development, "no really bring them the light". We who work in development often classify, however unintentionally, the places with or without electricity. Ranking places based on their progress towards the light, a literal light it turns out. Whose community has the posts set up, who's has electricity for a few hours each day, and whose is on the grid.

In Sarah Erdman's book about her Peace Corps service in the Ivory Coast she talks about the day the lights blinked on in her rural village. People stayed up all night playing drums and dancing in the yellowish glare of the new lights. To her it was the day everything changed, "Life as Nambonkaha knows it is revolutionized in the space of a second. ... We have been stripped naked by streetlights... they have elbowed out the dark. I knew I would rue this day and only know do I know why". To some those changes were a welcome step in the right direction, more time to finish washing the pots, and added hours to study and do homework after finishing the laundry. Some however would stay in the dark, and the difference between those who have and have not will become more glaringly obvious in the new yellow flicker of the street lamps.

This represents much of the struggle that community members and development workers alike face. What to do, when to do it, and how much to do, and why do it. There are many types of light that are found in the dark places, hope, and resilience, and war and hunger all exist together in and out of the shadows.

more new posts to come.

Above is a typical evening, listening to the BBC on my little radio, constantly tuning and retuning to catch the very short signal. As you can tell from the photo its still hot come sundown, and we have no electricity, after 630 this is what my life looks like.

Somehow this little guy is attending classes even though he seems much to young, but hes working on his penmanship, and as you can see his page of As is turning out quite tidy.

After visiting this womans community for the day, I sat down with her as she wove a fishing basket. I had my turn but my holes were so big any of the fish would have swum right through the net. Fist she weaves a stretch of line together to form the strand she will crochet with. Then she loops the palm frond strand through the first layer and the wooden hoop she holds with her other hand. It works out very nicely if you can follow her swift moving hands.

Grasshopper make a lovely snack for the kids, pull out the insides and fry 'em up!

Walking home from town one day I saw a huge swarm of women wading through a little swamp, they were fishing for catfish it turns out. This old woman hauled out a huge fish for me to see.

This girl found a birds nest, and showed me before she tenderly put it back in the bank of the river.

Gives new meaning to "catch of the day."

Well, I have finally figured out how to add video to my blog, and am at a computer that is faster than your average Internet cafe. The first is a little long, but it shows a lot of the beekeeping work that volunteers do, and lets you see the types of equipment that we had access to.

This next one is well, just adorable.

The Last of the travels...

This is me, one of my first and most shining moments as an Rpcv, jump for joy in Mancora Peru!

What follows are my photos from the past two month, no longer a volunteer. A traveler, just me with no work to do, i packed my bags with what was left of my ransacked room, and started a new journy. My goals were to see the bolivia that as a volunteer i hadnt the time to see. All the places that you read about and hear about the salar the mines, the jungles. Everywhere but my site. Pictures are in decending order which may be confusing, sorry. These first pix are thrown in just becasue i like them and i just got copies from tom n anna.

Some beautiful B44 faces

Huaraz Peru, Tiffany and I spend three short days in this mountaineers paradise, anyone up for climbing trip to the Andes in 2009?? Im ready to go back!

Now we are in Potosi, the highest city in the work, and at one time the richest!

Traditional textiles and patterns from the Sucre region. Tarabuco.

Tiffany, a beautiful Altiplano sunset.

The girls enjoying hot cocoa and cards

Before our tour of the mines

One of the many images inside the mines, leave him some tabaco and coca and he will protect you from falling rocks and dinamite.

Workers start in the mines when they are as young as ten years old, working alongside their fathers, placing dinamite, and hauling rocks. Most miners have horrible health problems due to the toxic fumes and no protective equipment.

This is me, not in nearly bad enough shape.

Practicing with Dynamite.

Up the teleferico with emily in salta. A little slice of heaven not to far from the border.

Good friends good wine good food, what more is there??

Bike and wine 08!

Some cute boys i met in Argentina. Thats odd they look like rpcvs.

Nothing like a new bola and a good view

worried about my ballance

One of the Seven summits. Some people want to climb all seven but i thought it might be my new goal just to see all seven. So far i have North America (Denali), South America (Anconcagua), and Asia (Everest). not to shabby.

Here we are in Tupiza, or nearby at least. This was the setting for Butch Cassady and the sundance kid's final days. They were gunned down in a nearby village. What is it with bolvians shotting well known foreign rebels... Che too. Weird.

This is a salt factory on the edge of the Salar.

Campo house on the salar

The amazing fish island, in the middle of the salar,

Covered with huge cacti.

A little vicuna looking for handouts

After a week of traveling solo, i was glad to meet up with friends near la paz to make the trek thousands of feet down to the tropicals jungles of the Beni and trinadad. Here we spent a week getting to know the tropical side of bolivia. We traveled by canoe up the river to a outpost of sorts where we took day trips looking for alligators and caymans, capybarra, and one rainy afternoon looking for anacondas.

What a fun gang, thanks tom n anna for the Obama Cumple t shirts! great idea.

The largest rodent in the world, the capybarra.

Lookin good ladies

One of thousands

Me on my birthday! lots of cake and great homemade gifts.

These are the eyes of Aligators as set off by my flash. we went for a night paddle down river to see all the gators cooling down along the river bank

Swiming with pink river dolphins!

The water was a bit murkey and the gators were within sight, but we got in anyways and it felt great!

I know how to drive a boat... our driver needed a break to bolear for a moment.

One of many 6,000 plus peaks outside of la paz.

Bolivia home of the potatoes, and these are just some varieties. i count six in just this pic.

The beautiful market in Sorata. i have never seen so many Aguyayos.

I have just returned from an exhausting few weeks on the road. By return i mean to the Capital (well one of) of Bolivia Madame PEace in all her cold and vertical glory. (ie 4 deg C at what 3 though something meters). Anyways sorry folks i have no photos to put up this time, i will though in a few days so dont fret. In resume, i spent just over a week in Argentina, going from salta in th north to Mendoza and to Mountains mid country. I had a blast met up with some good friends, ate a lot of steak and drank, not to much, wine! Then i made my way back to bolivia via an extravagant 30 plus hour bus ride extravaganza, that got me across the border and into tupiza. There i stayed for a little to long, but i needed to be near cable on the 4th. And there i was, the only american in so many miles to watch as my country made the best decision in a long time. I was finally proud, oh so proud, to say yes i am an American and My Country Just Did That! The grumpy hostel owner made me turn of the TV around 11 bolivia time, but i had just seen OHIO go over and i felt fine going to bed on that. Then i Traveled north and west to get to Uyuni, where i spent one day and one night, roamed around on the largest salt flat in the world and ate some of the best food in Bolivia, thanks to Chris and his nice wife at Minutemen the greatest secret in in Altiplano. And now after a bone jarring 12 hour freezing cold (literally) bus ride, here i have landed in La paz.

The next plan to is go over these great big mountains to Rurre, meet up with another awesome group of RPCVs and head out into the jungle.

I will post all my pix in a few days when i can get them off my camera.

I hope you all are well and enjoying the best that fall/winter has to offer.

See you on thanksgiving.

So, here and working backwards are photos of the past weeks of travel. I left my site for the, almost, last time a few days ago. While there two other RPCVs came by for our anual town festival and then we spent a few days hiking and enjoying all that the Valles have to offer. so starting there...

This is the middle of the  "condor" hike, we saw a few of the big birds off in the distance but nothing photo worthy. it was a long and beautiful hike these views are looking out over the vallies south and west of samaipata.

The band playing typical Valluno music, the party followed a mass and a procesion around the soccer field. My two RPCV friends Tiffany and Emily joined me in Paredones for the begining of our trip.

Dona Estella and her sister posed for a goodbye photo with me, 

The procession with the virgen, we sang as we marched the little lady around the soccer field with all 150 people from my village. This is me on Columbus day, exploring new and uncharted territory.Tiffany and I on our lunch break, we spent the day following the path of a little river, it lead us around big boulders and slabs of rocks, then getting more and more narrow we finaly had to resort to swimming dowriver through a narrow little canyon. 

Big cool hollowed out river rockPretty AWSOME, narrow and deepNow we continue to work backwards, the next photos are from the begining of PCT when i went with Tiffany to her old site, Huari, to explore some of the Altiplano, her site sits on the egde of lake Popo, at about 12,000 feet!These are the salt flats that surround the Lake, a short drive from Huari.A local weaver and friend of Tiffany, we stopped by to chat and ended up buying some beautifull textiles. 

The view from behind huari,

Tiff and I in an old church, shrine, monumnet type place. I was lucky that durring the few days that i was there, the folks of Huari were celebrating an anual festival

Some more beach pictures, before going to Huari i was at the beach in Peru for about a week with a group of other fomer Bolivia Volunteersbelow is my Ms November shot.

Naya Tiffany and I being goofy on our way to the hot springsThen after the beach we made our way uphill to 13,000 feet to Huaraz where we spent a few days mostly just looking and mountains but we did get in one nice hike before going back to Bolivia. 

The Bolivia 113

Evacuation complete,

what came next was a week of goodbyes and paperwork tears, and decisions.

Its hard to explain what it feels like to be walking along one day and have the rug pulled out from under you. I had appointments, and meetings, i was going to teach a class the next monday, and i was going to help Doña Nancy capture some bees. Then one night i was gone, and i havent gone back.

What remains of Bolivia 44

We had 24 hours to decide if we wanted to continue with our peace corps service, 24 hours to read about the countries and programs that had offered to take in the "Bolivia refugees". Burkina Faso, Ecuador, Nicaragua??? Teaching health care and nutrition, goat farming, beekeeping, HIV-AIDS education??? 24 hours to wonder if another year, or two years of Peace Corps service could fit into my life, could i do this all over again, integrate, learn a local dialect, meet new friends, understand a new place. 30 of the 113 of us former Bolivia volunteers decided to take on the challenge of starting their service over. I was not one of them, I had 7 months left to go in Bolvia, and the thought of another year of sporadic electricity, dog bites, and all the rest, left me a little bit nauseous. Tammy my good pal and neighbor will be continuing her service in the Gambia, i have a link to her blog at right. Cheers! i wish you the best!

During those for days outside of Lima Peru, big decisions were made, who was going home, who wanted to travel and where would we go? I along with 10 of my closest Peace Corps buds took of for the beaches of northern Peru as soon as our paperwork was signed. We arrived at the Beaches of Mancora, 4 degrees south Latitude, a little bedraggled and swollen eyed but ready for some relaxation. And relax we did, our hostel was right on the beach, there was sand in my sheets, and refreshing cool water in the shower. For four days i did nothing but reapply sun lotion, and shake sand out of my shorts. Our mornings were spent drinking coffee and then making our way to the beach, laying on the beach until the sun deamed it time for a shower and some lunch.

I tended to rotate between fresh ceviche, and the bread lady who sells rolls of fresh bread stuffed with cheese, tomatoes and fresh basil. In the afternoon i would wander the streets, use the Internet, catch up on sleep, read or again lay on the beach and play in the waves. We found plenty of ways to entertain ourselves. One afternoon we took an evening ride up to some hot springs, and another day we did a mock photo shoot on the beach, one of the Volunteers had packed along his hookah to evacuation so plenty of hours were spent in a circle with only the sweet peach flavored smoke between us and the stars. Beers were drank, and songs were sung, but after 4 days, i was ready and so were my rosy cheeks, to head inland.

After leaving the beach with Tiff and Alison, two former B44 ladies , we made our way up to 3,800 meters or so, to the town of Huaraz. Our first day in town we hopped into a local micro, or combi as they are called here, and headed up the mountain, one of many in the region, to hike around and see what we could see. We arrived back in Hauraz just after sunset with sore knees from the tiny combis backed with campesinos on their way home or from work.

I will be continuing through La Paz Bolivia to Santa Cruz this week, and getting back to my site for some final goodbyes.

britta

Hi guys, At 3:00 pm Monday - after 6 hours spent waiting and saying good bye to Peace Corps (PC) staff and administration - we were loaded onto a C38 military cargo plane, property of the US but managed by Bolivia’s armed forces (ie. the drug police). Half of the Bolivia Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) had been evacuated the day before and our flight (with the other half) was this afternoon. Here is our timeline from the past few days: Wednesday, Sept. 10 - I went into Samaipata, 30 minutes from my village of Paredones - for a meeting, and found out PC Bolivia had once again gone on EAP, meaning I would have to spend the night and call in the next day.

Thursday morning, Sept. 11 - Things look calm in Samaipata but we hear from neighbors that things in the city of Santa Cruz (4 hours away) had been bad all night, protestors had taken over the cell phone company and cut service, also demonstrators had tried to storm the "governors" offices. Thus many people were without communication; we however were fine and in touch all day with Peace Corps. By noon I realized that I would have to spend another night in Samaipata and went back to Paredones to pack up for at least a few nights away. On the highway a road block was being set up just outside the entrance to my site, but they graciously let me pass.

Thursday afternoon, Sept. 11 - 2:00 pm - Returned to Samaipata, and waited to hear any new news. Nearby Volunteers came by to say they had heard that all PCVs would be “consolidated”, but we still had no official word from PC yet. We also heard from Bolivians that the army was making its way down the highway to get into Santa Cruz, since the airports had been shut down due to massive protests, thus the military could not fly in to protect the city. We started calling the PC office in Santa Cruz to see what we should do. By 5:30 we had the official word that all PCVs in Bolivia would be picked up the next morning to consolidate in Cochabamba.

Friday, Sept. 12 - 7:30 am - Wake up at Tammy’s (a PCV) in Samapata to a call from Remiro from PC. He had just arrived to Samaipata with a Land Cruiser after driving all night from Sucre to pick us and nearby PCVs up. 8:00 am - I go to the plaza to meet him and figure out what we should do. A volunteer about an hour away hasn’t been able to leave her site as there was no public transport, so I go with Remiro to pick her up. We get back to Samaipata around 10:00 am, and Tammy has some food made, and we eat and load up the Land Cruiser. Four PCVs and Remiro drive 1 hr on dirt roads to get three more PCVs who have gathered in Mairana and are waiting for us. One more Volunteer who lives a further two hrs away has not checked in with PC, they don’t know where she is and cannot contac t her. We have to drive to her community to find her. By 3:00 pm we arrive and pick her up, and start on the long way to Cochabamba. We have to avoid the main paved highway because there are lots of blockades (burning tires and trees) and the military is marching to try and get into the city. Conflicts were expected. We eat some fried chicken in Aiquile after dark. Midnight - In total 8 PC Volunteers and Remiro arrive in Cochabamba at midnight, after over twelve hours of driving down sandy and gravel roads, stopping for trucks and blockades along the way. We slee p at a 5 star hotel in Cochabamba!

Saturday, Sept. 13 - Lounged around in the morning, and had a meeting with the director at 3:00 pm. We have to move hotels. At this point all Bolivia volunteers are in the city and in two different hotels. My group has to move because we found out the President of Bolivia will be at this hotel the next day (The last person on earth who should see us.) By 4:00 pm we are packed again and move to the new hotel. We eat a pizza dinner, hanging around to see how long we will have to wait this out.

Sunday, Sept. 14 - Meeting at 830 am. Things don’t look good; more than 20 people have died so far, and Martial law had been called for in at least one department (state) in Bolivia. Violence is happening in the city and suburbs of Santa Cruz and other cities in the east. Protesters have taken over the natural gas pumping station a stone’s throw from my house. All export of petroleum and natural gas has been interrupted costing Bolivia millions of dollars daily. In the meeting we are told that we will be leaving Bolivia, one group that day, and the rest of us Monday. We spend that day moving to a new hotel, again fo r safety reasons, and we are told that we cannot tell anyone that we are leaving. We essentially have to sneak out of the country, without the press getting a hold of the information. We are given information only as necessary.

Monday, Sept. 15 – 9:00 am. The rest of the volunteers in-country are taken to the airport where we spend the day waiting for a military plane to come in from La Paz, Bolivia. We arrived by 6:00 pm in Peru, we will stay in Lima for the next week at least, I would guess it may be ten days.

Wrap up: Peace Corps in Bolivia will be suspended, that means that we cannot go back as Volunteers. Maybe in 6 or so months the program can be reopened, and new volunteers will be let in, im not to hopefull about this option. Staff from PC in Washington D.C. are flying down and will begin meeting with us Thursday and Friday to explain what our personal options are. Each of us needs to complete reports about our projects and accomplishments, with recommendations for the future should the program reopen. As well as do a slew of medical exams, and clearances to be let go from peace corps coverage.

Some may want to continue their service in another country for a year option or for two. All volunteers will be given the option to COS, or honorable close of their service. After that the decision is ours as to what we do or where we go. PC will provide us with a ticket home, or with the cash equivalent in case we wish to stay and travel and go home in a month or more. Some of us may stay in south America and travel

That is all I know and can tell you at this point, we will be learning more in the next days. We are all safe and sound in Lima, a little sad, and worried about our communities and friends that couldn't get out. And, we didn’t have a chance to say good bye. A lot of work and projects have been left behind, belongings and friends that we may never see again. It has been a very hard few days, but i am here with some of the strongest and most amazing people i have known and we are all helping and supporting each other, while making plans for the future.

There is Internet here so I will be checking mail a few times a day. Miss you,

I just wanted to pass on this article from the NYT. its a good overview of what going on here.

"Bolivia is an uneasy ally as US presses drug war"

enjoy

No new news here, But i will be spending the next week in the city, or nearby at least which means my cell phone will be charged and in service for more than a few hours!

So all you friends and family should call me, say hi and take a moment to chat. Call my folks for the number as i probably shouldn't post my phone number on a public website, but you know the drill.

I'll post photos later in the week.

also check out the democracy center blog, linked to at right. He has posted a few good articles about whats going on politically here in Bolivia, also the economist has a new article on the current wave of votes and referendums.

Be well

The Chaco is a remote and beautiful part of Bolivia, located in the southern part of the country where it shares a border with Argentina and Paraguay. It is mostly dry and prickley plants, poisonous spiders and snakes abound. It is also one of the hottest places in the world, i think some volunteers actually fried and egg on the street, just to see if they could!!

I spent a few days with Jackie in her site, and went on a hike to this little river nearby. The next days we spend teaching women in her community how to make all sorts of goodies from honey and wax.

And Greetings.

Just some new photos this time around. Things are good Bolivia is still beautiful and I'm still happy in my little valley and my little home.

I went for a hike the other day with my semi-sitemate Kilo, we ventured up the opposite side of the valley from where i live and spent the day walking uphill and taking in the vistas. the Photo above is me, while Kilo tried out some cool effects on my new camera.

Ever had a really fresh Cafe con Leche? My french press mug and a teat. Kind of an old fashioned espresso and milk steamer machine, No?

Ok ok another picture of me, i know, but i thought the colors and stuff were cool, and yes dad i am using my new camera and these are the results.

Some very happy beekeeping ladies in Jackie's site during our tech-exchange workshop. The little camba colored containers are for the coconut chapstick and propolis cream we made. We also had our hand at Granola with honey, and a cough syrup of sorts with honey and propolis.

My friends in my site like to make fun of me because i dont have any children yet, and at 25 i am way past my prime. So every time that i spend the afternoon with one of my many friends who have two or three kids they make sure to instruct me in the ways of motherhood. Jeanne and Elissa (and any other new moms) listen up.

As a money saving measure the filling of a diaper can be pulled out after it has been used once, and then you can fill it with other absorbent materials like cloth or cotton and use a disposable diaper as a reusable one. Babies must be covered in at least three layers, even when its 100 degrees out, also babies do not sweat. Acording to some, putting instant coffee into a bottle is ok, as long as you also add lots of sugar. Oh i could continue but it would only frustrate and sadden me.

So my vacation to Chile fell through, but its for the best i have lots of work to get done in the next few weeks, so my Monday will be well spent here in the city.

I hope all is well, and i cant wait to be in the cities the end of August, so friends come and visit please!

Britta

WE did it GUYS!!! THANKS for all your help and support!!

In just a few short months, all of YOU -my friends and family- have come together to raise over Four Thousand dollars for the beekeeping women of Paredones. I am so great full and excited at how the process went. The Peace Corps Partnership program is great because it lets Americans connect with their volunteers serving abroad, and help them too, my work here really wouldn't be possible (or at least not as successful) without you guys.

For those of you who didn't get a chance to give to the project, there are lots of other ways you can help support Peace Corps, their are still other projects up on the Donate Now, PC website, all of them are well thought out and have been put up by some hardworking volunteers. There is one more beekeeping project that is still waiting for funding, you can read more about that one if you go to the link in my sidebar, Jackie B who has another PC blog. I just returned from Jackie's site in the Chaco, near the border with Argentina. Where I got to meat her beekeepers and work with them making chapstick, and granola, and talking about all the other cool products that you can make from honey and beeswax.

This week will be busy in my site, we still have some money to get together on our end of the project, and i will be continuing with our beekeeping class. Then the week after I have some meetings in Cochabamba, spaced a week apart, so during that week off I'm going to use some vacation days and make the overnight buss trip into Chile, where there is an Ocean! Ahhh see the beach, and spend a few days playing in the sand. Should be beautiful!

I hope that you are all well,

I understand that there are some new babies in the family, i am sad that i wont get to see their first little gurgles of happiness. Congratulations to the new Moms and Dads in the Hansen, Burk, Cosgrove, Clan!!

Bee well to all,

Britta

Greetings to all,

I hope that summer finds you all in good spirits while enjoying some nice weather. I am doing wonderfully; the cold winter winds have begun to die down and today we were blessed with sunshine and gusts of a warm southerly breeze. I wanted to get up some of my many new pictures before it got to late, and i thought you were all well overdue for another post.

My work has been going well, Im still doing my beekeeping classes and in my down time i continue to read, do Yoga, knit, and hang out with friends. I have started a couple of fish tanks in my site with the hopes that more people will be turned on to the idea. that way people will have access to a good cheap and healthy source of protein. Thats the idea anyways.

Following are some pictures from the last month or so.

These two cuties are my friend Patricia and her 6 month old Carla-Patricia

This is Silvia finishing up with her monday baking

I saw this man hidden beneith some brush as i was walking into Samaipata. I stopped to take a drink of water and mid-gulp i met his eyes and gasped with surprize. As i was choking and not sure what to do I hear a rustle and out comes a rifle from around his shoulder. I sort of stutter and say hi, and that i am just walking into town. He says he just went hunting and caught a porcupine. I asked if the meat was good, or what he would use the animal for, he said that it he boiled the pins that the "tea" is good for the heart, and that the meat was OK, but a bit stinky. After living here i dont think that anything could ever surprise or shock me again.

This lovely vista is the view down my vally from the highway.

Another one of the lovely Chari

Tammy and i have been helping some women learn how to use a computer, this is one of our classes.

My friend Yolanda and I have been working to dig her a tank to raise fish, heres us about half way done.

Tammy and I on a nice hike up into the hills

I just wanted to thank everyone who has contributed thus far to my Peace Corps Project. I have no way of sending individual thanks yet, as the project is still underway, but thank you, thank you.

The link to the right is the easiest way to donate, it will take you to the PC page where my project is listed.

The bee season will soon be underway here amongst the green hills, and every cent helps these beekeepers reach their goal of new equipment and materials.

Greetings and Happy summer to those of you in the Northern Hemisphere. It's getting cold down here as winter sets in and the mist and cool take over. The nights become longer and i hunker down below layers of blankets and long underwear. Really folks it's not that cold, maybe mid fifties, but hey that's cold here. I don't really have windows, but hot water has been a magnificent addition to my bathroom. The little electric unit sits at the head of the shower and pumps a current through the water heating it just before it leaves the nossle. But in order for it to work at full strength i have to turn off all my lights, and unplug my frige and other apliances. But who cares i have a hot (warmer) shower!

This week it was Mothers day here in Bolivia, so this meant a wonderful morning at the school watching the kids dance and sing to traditional folk songs, dressed up in matching outfits compleate with lassos.

The Moms proudly watching their little ones dance and sing.

And the Little ones, aren't they the cuetest!?

And the weekend before some volunteers came into town to give my site mate Kilo a hand in building a water catchment tank, called a fero cement tank. These basic san Guys and Gals provided guidence and plently of entertainment for us Aggies. Thanks guys!

PS

I created a link to the right which will take you to the PC donation page, 3,600 UDS to go!!

Hi. The Peace Corps donation page was down for awhile, but now it seems to be back up. If you looked and it said it was "fully funded," and wouldn't let you donate, please try again. It seems to be back now, and accepting donations. Thanks for your patience and for your help.

Peace Corps Donation Page: Women's Beekeeping Project

Britta

Greetings all. My Beekeeping project has made its way onto the PC website. Please click at right to the link about My Beekeeping Project (above my photo), and there you will find a whole lot of information about the partnership process and the people that I'm working with.

You can also visit the PC website at http://peacecorps.gov, click Donate Now, then Donate to Volunteer Projects, search under BOLIVIA, and then my project will pop up below the map, WOMEN'S BEEKEEPING PROJECT, HANSEN B. MN. Click and read all about our beekeepers and the work that I have been doing.

Or follow this link:

Peace Corps Donation Page: Women's Beekeeping Project

Thanks,

Britta

Well after a much anticipated local election on the 4th, the big Autonomy vote for the department of Santa Cruz, we are all still here in Bolivia. There were some isolated protests but no civil war as some were expecting.The following is from the economist April 29th

¨Local leaders in Santa Cruz see the referendum as a way of standing up to Mr Morales. They hope for a turnout of 80% and to win a similar share of the vote. Three other regions—Beni, Pando and Tarija—have scheduled similar referendums, while Cochabamba and Chuquisaca are considering following suit.

This defiance has exposed divisions among Mr Morales's aides. Some favour arresting regional leaders, or deploying the army to prevent the referendum. Instead, the president has ordered the police not to patrol polling stations. The Santa Cruz authorities have signed up thousands of volunteers to do the job. The government seems certain to claim that the vote cannot be trusted.

The president remains popular, but less so than he was. Inflation is heading for 20% this year. The government's coffers are bursting after it nationalised the oil and gas industry, but it has proved inept at spending its treasure trove.¨

Next is from the Economist after the election

¨THEIR vote may have lacked legal force, but the thousands of opposition supporters celebrating the approval of an unofficial referendum on regional autonomy held in Santa Cruz, Bolivia's economic capital, on May 4th sensed a political triumph. With four-fifths of the votes counted, 86% backed the autonomy plan. As if to confirm their judgment, the national government of Evo Morales, the socialist president, felt obliged to take out full-page newspaper advertisements declaring the referendum a “resounding failure”.

In theory, the voters approved a plan to set up an elected regional assembly that would assume many of the powers of the central government. In practice it was a warning to Mr Morales not to go ahead with a new constitution that in the opposition's view would enshrine “21st century socialism” and dilute the rule of law by giving equal status to customary justice imparted by Andean Indian caciques. The constitution's text was approved at an ad hoc session of a Constituent Assembly from which the opposition was excluded¨

We will see what is to come in the following weeks, but for now work and life here continues.

britta

Running away with the reminants of a birthday

Me and baby Juan

One amazing thing about living in the “campo” is the way things happen exactly when they are needed, with little or no planning. Its hard to describe but I was always amazed that when I wait for a cab with someone from my village a car always seems to pass just as we arrive. When I am alone and on my own schedule, it seems I have to wait for hours for a car to pass and give me a ride. This happened with almost everything, if a meeting is scheduled for 3 on a Sunday everybody arrive promptly at 430 and the meeting starts thereafter. I however got there at 3, and then I am left to wait for everyone else who somehow knows to get there at 430. Most people here don’t talk in terms of the hour, they say more general things, like “we can start working in the afternoon” this means sometime after 2pm. I am slowly learning to read what these seemingly vague times mean. If a women tells me to come by in the morning, I know that she has chores and children to get ready for school which starts at 8, so I wont arrive until after 830, I also know that she will have to start getting ready for the noon meal around 10. So come in the morning really means sometime between 830 and 10. I now realize that all of this was so hard for me to learn because I don’t share their schedule. Everyone here is on the same time. They all have animals to feed and water to fetch in the morning, children to get ready, and laundry to be put on the line, lunch to make and take to the fields, more laundry to wash, baking to do, and all the rest. There is very little of that that I have to do, and when I do it im only doing it for myself, not a family of five. Time is important to me because I have so much of it, and it isn’t to them because its useless, as their work dictates their day.

There was a wedding the other day, and the party took place here at the other end of our dirt road. I went to the party arriving with some friends, we hovered along the edge f the party for a while, her holding her young son, and me holding her gift to the couple. I had decided that in good gringo fashion, I would give them some money, which here means that you get to pin it to the brides dress, and besides not finding them a gift I was looking forward to participating in this seemingly strange custom.

The geography of the party is such, benches set up around an open dirt “dance floor” where everyone is crowdedly sitting and eating the food that’s slowly being passed out in plastic “togo” containers. We wait for awhile before approaching the couple who were in their room arranging gifts. Gifts are given and hugs and kisses all around and then we go outside to join the rest of the sitters. We find a spot, semi on the ground and wait quietly for our food. I say quietly, but what I really mean in that the music is so loud that even speaking to the person next to you is impossible, so nobody says anything, we sit looking at our feet shuffling in the dust, and smile as kids run by playing a aggressive version of tag.

Eventually we get some food, and the requisite glass of chicha. I Try to not finish my chicha cause an empty glass is just begging to be filled. A group of five young boys run around with pitchers filling up everyone’s empty glass even if there seems to be none to claim it. I watch as its too loud to talk and I wonder if they are being paid on some type of commission. There’s no band, just 4 large speakers at each corner of the patio, trapping us all in a vortex of painful sound. It becomes clear to me that most people are just waiting until they are drunk before anyone makes a move towards the dance floor, maybe that’s why the boys are furiously trying to keep everyone glass full.

The next beverage to hit the rotation is Leche crema (milk cream??) which tastes like a mix of butter and lighter fluid. This is a homemade beverage like chicha, but I imagine it to be made by fermenting raw milk with pure alcohol. It actually doesn’t taste that bad but on top of chicha and a beer the little curdles of yellowed milk are starting to make my stomach curdle. The dancing still hasn’t started and its almost midnight, my rule is to only dance with men over 55 who wont try and convince me to marry them. But I think that tonight I will slip out early and avoid the proposals altogether. I turn to my friend and sleeping baby, “Im leaving” I say, “do you want to come with or will you be ok by yourself?” I ask. She looks at me, because she knows better then to try and say anything over the noise, but her eyes say “I have been doing this for 35 years without your help, I think I can manage”. I look back and try to say “suit yourself” with my eyes, knowing full well that I have yet to master bolivian-eye-speak. I slip out the back turn on my head lamp, some guys ask where im going and I say “to the bathroom”, I know that if I say im leaving the music will skip right at that moment and my whole village will hear and come running at me with glasses of chicha and more food. Sometimes a little non integration is the best way to go and on this cool fall night my blankets and the sounds of a distant party will be just enough to lull me to sleep.

Vanessa and Gabriel,frequent visitors

In other news my beekeeping project should be up on the Peace Corps website next week, I will send out emails with the address and more information on what we are working on and how you all can support us.

Thanks and Peace

The view across the valley from my house

My neighbors Kilo and Tammy at the first anual Samaipata area PCV progressive dinner, I cooked up a middle eastern feast, compleat with Falafel, hummous, Babaganoush, tabhouli, and Pitas. Followed by pie care of Tammy and Bannana bread de Kilo! I look forward to round two guys!

My main project here in Peace Corps is working with bees. As many of you know I spent a lot of my training working with bees, learning how to manage, how to find the queen, how to harvest and divide colonies. Bees are fascinating little creatures, they work themselves to death for the survival of the colony, and their whole life is dedicated to a series of prescribed activities to which their bodies change over time, adapting themselves for their newfound maturity.

And the result of all this biology and predisposed responsibility: YUMMMY honey, that golden gooey sticky stuff. The most underappreciated sweetener, that is so much more than a sugar. It is antibacterial, antifungal, and it is a much healthier source of sugars and proteins. Bees also provide the world with pollen, which on its own can not be broken down by our stomachs but when mixed with honey their enzymes get to working and the mixture becomes an instant energizer. Propolis is a dark green sticky resin-like substance that bees collect from newly formed springtime buds. When made into a tincture with alcohol and concentrated it can be used as a simple medicine for many ailments.

My work with bees consists mainly of organizing a group of local female beekeepers, and teaching them the basics of managing hives. We are also beginning to explore the wonders of product transformation. That’s changing honey, wax, and propolis into creams, chapstick, candles, and soaps. The fun part of my job is hanging out with the ladies in my group and coming up with new combinations of oils, and scents for the products we want to make. We also head out into the woods every few weeks to check on the hives that they have. This means getting all dressed up in our bee suits, lighting the smokers and lifting the lid on a loud buzzing colony of Africanized bees (aka Killer bees).

The Project I am currently working on - and looking for funding - is what’s called a Peace Corps Partnership Project. This means that I have written, with the help of the beekeepers, a project for the solicitation of funds to purchase much needed protective equipment, harvesting equipment, and boxes for those just getting started. The members of the association, pictured below, are contributing more than 30% by way of in-kind contributions, cash payments, as well as good old fashioned hard work.

The way that a Partnership Project works is the Peace Corps puts a summary of my project up on the web, so people can donate following simple steps outlined on their website. My job is then to contact people who I think might be interested in making a donation and direct them to that website.

SO that said, this is a great opportunity for people in the states to support a PC volunteer and the community where we are working. The great thing about the Peace Corps and this program is that the donors are guaranteed that 100% of what they donate will go directly to the community, and not administrative overhead. Every cent that you pledge to the women of Paredones will be used to purchase hives, bee suits, smokers, and a shiny stainless steel centrifuge for honey extraction.

These ladies have been working hard for the past year, gearing up with what they have and checking their rustic hive boxes when they can, learning and participating in workshops with me. They have been patient with my Spanish, and more importantly, they have been my friends and my family since I arrived in site just over a year ago. This is why I am here, to help and support people who need it the most. So I hope that you all can at least look at the PC site and if you have the means, please help us out by making a donation.

As checks take a long time to go through security clearance, it is recomended to donate over the net or by phone. You can contact John Hrivnak directly at (202) 692-2182.

Peace Corps Donation Page: Women's Beekeeping Project

Greetings to all,

Since my last posting things have gotten better with my ankle, i only had to have the cast on for 5 days, and now im just taking care not to be stupid again. I have been in Cochabamba all week with the rest of my group. each year PC does a medical overview of sorts. Many fluids left my body and were sent of to a lab looking for all sorts of parasites, bacteria, amebas, cavities, worms, and who knows what else. But in a country like Bolivia the possibilities of getting any number of ailments is as easy as breathing. I was lucky and i only came away with a small cavity, with the PC dentist promptly filled. I have never have a cavity, but apparently its common for volunteers to get there first here because there is no fluoride in the water, and most beverages have a much higher content of sugar than we are used to. so i bought some Listerine and am hoping for the best in the coming year. I am healthy and eating amazing fresh food in my site. So there is nothing to be worried about.

Speaking of food, I dont know if the increase in food prices have hit you all in America, yet, but for me and those who are living here it has become very evident that food prices, especially for basic needs, grains, cooking oil, and meat, have risen exponentially in the past few months. This is one current event that rural people understand all to well, the hardest part is that incomes haven’t risen at all. For one day of manual labor a campesino still makes between 30 and 40 Bs (4 or 5 USd) a day, including one meal. Some products have risen over one hundred percent in the last three months. Cooking oil for example has doubled in price, in a country where the diet mostly consists of potatoes, rice, and small amounts of meat, a good number of the much needed calories come for the oil used to cook most food. So with families cutting back on oils, and grains, nutrition is suffering, especially among women. Men and Children eat first, and eat most. While mothers wait and eat what is left. It is hard for women here to see the value in their work, even though they work upwards of 12 hours a day in all matter of jobs, from farming, to child rearing. The BBC has dome a wonderful job of bringing to light the issue of food, and overpopulation in a new section of their website, titled FOOD PRICE CRISIS, check it out.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/world/2008/costoffood/default.stm

Earth day is coming up and in order to maybe think a little bit more about food, environmentalism, conservation around the world, i encourage you all to do something special on that day. Some people choose to buy nothing, others may decide to plant a tree. In order to connect earth day with the global food crisis i am going to include some Bolivian recipes so maybe for one meal one day I can share something with you all a little more flavorful than a blog entry, or a phone conversation. Think about what its like to be here, or to not have access to all the things that we are used to.

Main Course example

PICANTE DE POLLO

3 pounds chicken, divided into parts

¼ cup ground cayenne pepper

2 cups of white onion, cut into small strips

1 cup tomato, peeled and finely chopped

½ cup fresh locoto or chili pepper, finely chopped

1 cup green peas, peeled

½ cup parsley, finely chopped

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon crumbled oregano

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

1 tablespoon salt

3 garlic cloves, peeled, chopped and roasted

3 cups broth or water

2 spoonfuls oil

Preparation:

In a large casserole put the chicken pieces with all the other ingredients. Pour the broth or water until covering the ingredients completely.

Set to cook over high heat until it boils, and later over low heat for at least an hour and a half or until the chicken is soft. Stir occasionally.

If while cooking the broth diminished much, add a little bit more of broth or water so that when serving there is enough liquid.

In a deep plate serve one piece of spicy chicken with one boiled potato, cooked aside, chuño phuti (you wont be able to find this in america, Chunos are potatoes that have been buried by a river, and frozen over winter, and then stomped on in the spring, and then set to dry in the sun) and uncooked sauce on top.

Finally, sprinkle the chopped parsley on top of the spicy chicken.

This is also great served over white rice, grated carrots are sometimes also added to the rice as it is cooking.

In other news the political situation, and the social response to it has continued to worsen over the past few weeks and i can only expect that things will continue through the beginning of May. Possibly coming to a head on the 4th of May when a vote is scheduled in the city in Santa cruz. The Democracy center has a good post describing the many conflicts within the country http://democracyctr.org/blog/ or the link and left,

Scroll down to the post titled Bolivia : notes on a divided country.

Have a happy earth day,

I will be out of my site for another week, working with peace corps and the new group of volunteers, and maybe getting in a short trip to see another site or to do some hiking.

keep it real

britta

Do you like the new look? I happen to have a lot of time on my hands these days, and since im not very good at "surfing the net" or otherwise wasting my time on the Internet, i thought i would do something use full while i sit here at the hospital cafe in the city where they have wireless and ham scrambled eggs. Why you ask am i sitting trying to waste time, well im not in college anymore so i have no need to procrastinate, no in fact the story is much more interesting then that.

I came down here on friday with plans on leaving the city sunday morning to visit a fellow volunteer south of santa cruz on the highway that goes to argentina. That part of Bolivia is called the Chaco and the volunteer i was going to visit is Jac and her blog is at left. Anyways the highway has been blocked since late last week, with burring cars, rock throwing campesinos and military police trying to control the outbreak of resistance. anymore than that i couldn't be sure. needless to say i wasn't going to wade through that mess to play with some bees and maybe squeeze in a hike with my good friend. While i was waiting to see if the violence would subside i had a couple of days to kill in the city. One evening while out with some visitors from the states i took a little spill hustling down some steps and twisted my ankle. It didnt seem so bad at the time, i shook it off and spent the next two days hobbling around the city. I went o the doctor as soon as he opened his office on monday, hoping that he would tell me to put some ice on it and avoid and soccer matches. Those were all good ideas he said, but after looking at my xray he decided to get creative with some plaster and gauze. So that is how i ended up with a cast up to my knee and a tick in my step. dont worry i am fine, nothing is broken and it should be off in a week or two if i have anything to say about it. After talking to the peace corps doctors they assured me that it is only a sprain, but here doctors like to put casts even on a 1st or 2nd degree sprain.

Its a little bit funny that i went though my whole rambunctious childhood, playing hockey and soccer and building forts at the tree farm and never even and a stitch, and here i am all grown up and i fall on my ass in an embarrassing mess of flying legs and elbows.

Once i get some signatures on this thing i will put up a picture.

peace, and balance

These top two photos are from Samaipata, the community closest to my site. Sundays are my favorite day here, its the one day off but i always seem to do more on Sundays than any other day. My morning starts early when at 7am i wait on my road for a big truck to pass by and pick me up. I pile on with old ladies and families carrying bags and baskets overflowing with veggies and fruit to sell in the market. All morning i get to shop for my food for the next week, haggling with toothless old men over the price of potatoes and then commiserating with my ladyfriends over how expensive things have gotten. Sort of like talking about the weather in Minnesota isn’t just a filler but an actual conversation, thats how talking about money is here. People will ask you how much something cost, "nice bike how much did you pay for it" and its not rude or invasive. im used to it and i have taken to asking the same questions myself. people here also seem to know how much everything costs. How many of you could tell me on the spot how much ten lbs of dry corn costs, or a bushel of onions? Here anyone can tell you how much a liter of vegetable oil is (14bs up from 8 less than 6 months ago) a kilo of rice, (7.5 bolivianos). you get the idea. Anyways Sundays are great i drink fruit smoothies and use the internet and then in the afternoon back in my community everyone gathers at the soccer field, the boys play soccer, and the girls sit in the shade with their mothers. I tend to migrate between both crowds, getting schooled by 8 year olds on the field and sharing knitting tips with the ladies. Seriously its great!

These are from my trip to the great and amazing Machu Pichu. Words wont do its grandeur and beauty justice, and a photo will only help to induce wonder and awe.

After Carnival at the beginning of feb i travelled from Oruro to La Paz, the city of peace with a small group of good friends. We spend a day of so in the city and the got the idea to try and make it up to the mountains that hover over the city like the devil on your shoulder. We spent one night and one day on the mountain, learning how to ice climb and exploring one of the glaciers at the base of Huayna Potosi, the base camp was at a teetering 17,ooo feet and the peak an even more unbearable 20,000. The views were spectacular, and i hope to get back there soon.

heres the WIKI of the mountain theres some more photos and links if your interested http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huayna_Potos%C3%AD

Carnival!! This was from the city of Oruro, the capital of the altiplano and of Carnival. There are many volunteers located close to this city and they all participated in amazing dances like this one. The costumes were spectacular and the dancing tiring.

Greetings Family and Friends,

Happy new year to all! Things have finally started to settle down around here and I am getting back into my routine after a lovely and busy vacation with my Family. Yup that’s right as I am sure you have all heard, mom dad, and little brother all came down for a three week whirlwind tour of Bolivia, and Peru! What a trip and what a beautiful country I live in. I hadn’t had much of a chance to travel, only to Santa Cruz and an occasional trip to Cochabamba for trainings and Peace Corps related meetings. What I realized is that the majority of the country is NOT at all like where I live. I live in a fertile humid valley, people are poor yes but they can grow tomatoes, and beans, and broccoli, and carrots, and just about everything they need including the roof over their heads. That isn’t how it works in the rest of the country. Over those big mountains that divide me from the Western half of the country, lies another world. A world that lives well above 9,000 feet, and where trees and bushes can barely eek out an existence. Houses pop up built into hill sides, or formed out of adobe and straw, where llamas are herded by women wearing bowler hats and brightly colored shawls. There is nothing in abundance here, where I live oranges and peaches rot on trees if we are not careful, in the Altiplano the soil is hard and cracked and the wind burns your skin. La Paz, the countries capital (well one of) is the San Fransisco of Bolivia, minus of course chowder on the wharf. Hilly and dizzy it is a city which I believe showcases the best of Bolivia. Young educated professionals and cholitas in fantastic dress, farmers and tourists of all sort of blend in there. After a few days of site seeing in the Capital, we took a bus to the pilgrimage site of Copacabana. This small and touristy town is located on the shore of Lake Titicaca at the tip of an Archipelago belonging to Peru, but the town itself resides in Bolivia. If you imagine Lake Superior somewhere in Arizona and if you imagine Arizona thrust skyward to an elevation rivaling the highest peeks in the lower 48, the you might come close to the dizzying beauty of this part of the county. The sky is as bright a blue as any imaginable and the water seems to be tropical in color and reflection, scattered throughout the lake are a serried of Islands, islands that have been inhabited since long before the Incan conquerors, and longer still from the Spanish explorers. We spent one day hiking along ancient trails on the Island of the Sun, one of the more populated Island. People still farm as they have for hundreds if not thousands of years, a rotation of potato, fava, and corn, make up the diet of local people. After a few days at the lake and finally feeling used to the altitude we bussed further north and west and crossed the border into Peru.

Before I continue with this exciting and detailed description of the rest of our trip, I have to tell you about what just happened. For a little background, I live in a one room house with a small kitchen attached to the side of the house, meaning that I can not get into the kitchen from my bedroom but I have to walk outside and around to the side of the house where there is another door which enters the kitchen. The room is small less then 6ft by 6ft, I have some shelves a small table to eat on and another small table for my two burner stove. I also have mice. I have, as gross as it may sound always shared my kitchen with these little critters. Oh I tried to prevent them from getting in of course, I patched up the screen on the window, and filled the gaps in the ceiling with cement, I put a rubber strip under the door, and I pack most of my food up in plastic boxes. So far nothing has dissuaded the mice from coming in at night and nibbling on what little bits of food I have laying around. I have learned to live with these house guests, I sweep up their leftovers in the morning, and push their little poops away. I hardly notice the little black pellets anymore, and I have learned to share my food.

Im sure the peace corps medical office and my grandmothers would have some words for me on my uncleanly behavior, but there is no Lysol under my kitchen sink. I in fact have no kitchen sink, and I have no cleaning chemicals whatsoever, so the things you cant change you learn to live with. Anyway I have been learning to live with the mice, the pitter-patter of little feet running along the beams of my roof every night, and their traces in the morning. Something however changed a few days ago. I first noticed a different smell, I cant say what exactly just different. Then I noticed the size of the mouse poop, it was getting bigger! So had these little mice turned into rats? Mice ok I can deal with that but a RAT? I do not know scientifically the difference between a rat and a mouse, but one seems almost cute, and the other well, big and gross and possibly harmful. They don’t make children’s videos with a sing-along rat for a reason.

A few more days passed and then this afternoon something just didn’t seem right in my little kitchen, so I decided to look around. As I said before I have a two burner stove, it is basically a colmen camping stove, not a real camping stove as I would be hard pressed to bring this into the back country, but lets say a car camping stove, with an attachable gas garafa (one of many words I am discovering that I just don’t know in English). The two burners sit on a metal casing that forms an elevated box of sorts. Anyways the idea that I am getting at is that under the two burners there is a gap of space, a gap big enough for a rat. Ohhh I get chills just thinking about it. I knew from experience the possibility of a mouse storing a cache of food under there, so I thought I would take a peak and clean it out. As I lifted up the range I saw a plastic bag (strange I hadn’t put that there) and the rump end of something round and grayish about the size of a tennis ball. I let the stove fall down with a clang, and then listened for the requisite rusting. All I heard was my own beating heart. I wondered what it could be and I tried to convince myself that maybe it was just a potato. I didn’t imagine what it would have taken to get a potato under my stove, as I don’t keep my potatoes anywhere near. But I clung to that thought for as long as I could, but then finally I understood that there was only one logical explication, there was a rat in my stove. I screamed, like any sane and reasonable person would do, and then I left, latching the door behind me.

My good friend and neighbor Juanito was working on building a latrine at his mothers house, which also happens to be the closest house to mine. So I wandered over there to see how things were coming along, and in good Bolivian fashion ask for something without really asking for it. I stood around for a while and talked about the weather, rain mostly, and then casually asked if I might borrow some cement when they had all the bricks in place, if that is there was any left over. “Sure no problem he says, what do you need it for?” well that was when I coolly mentioned that mice were still getting into my kitchen and that things were urgent. We talked some more about mice and what nasty little creatures they are and how the only real solution is to get a cat. Then I casually mentioned that in fact I thought there was a mouse right now in my stove, possibly dead, and wouldn’t he like to come take a look. Well he thought that was pretty funny and he continued to mix his cement around, when I added that I was very afraid of dead things, he said that sure he would go take a look. Juanito bravely entered the kitchen, while I stood on a stump in my front yard with a broom and hollered instructions into the kitchen. “Its under the stove, be careful when you life it up! Do you want me to get you some leather gloves?” He responded that well hmmm this wasn’t just a mouse, and ummm I might want to take a look. I assured him that I was fine where I stood, and that if it was dead I was very sorry about the smell and all. He just laughed and reached for my dust pan, then a few seconds later thrust it out the door. Again like any normal person I screamed and hopped around on my stump, waving the broom around just in case anything leapt at me. When I calmed down I could see what he had in the outstretched dust pan, five little clear skinned baby mice. Oh my I thought, they were just babies. Then the next thought was, oh what about the mother? OH oh gross, a baby and their mother were living in my stove! It all hit me in a flash.

So possibly one morning while I was sleepy-eyed and making my coffee, say waiting for the percolator to perk, there was a mouse giving birth one inch away from my pot! And then it had stayed there for maybe another day while again I made coffee, and cooked up some spaghettis for lunch. And who know how many days before it had been there. That is so disgusting I thought, and that thought made me scream again, which just made Juanito think I was the most hilarious person on earth. He handed me my new neighbors, and went back in for their next of kin. The rest of the story is just me screaming some more with a dustpan of baby mice in my hand hopping around on my stump as the mother runs straight for me, and then darts to the left into the ruins of a bike and a baby carriage.

Juanito will be coming by later to help me fill in the last of the remaining gaps with his left over cement. I guess that maybe that’s what peace corps is about, having neighbors who will fill in the gaps while laughing at you just a little bit.

I would love to finish the story about my vacation but is late on a Saturday night and I will be in town tomorrow and post this, that is only if the rain stops and the river isn’t too flooded to let the trucks pass so I can actually make it out of here to an internet connection.

Looks like i made it, the river was way up and i forded it with a big stick and help from a neighbor.

Greetings all, this is another one of those short posts just saying hi and yes i am alive and i did have a nice birthday thankyouforasking. These three little guys are all the kids of my friends, all younger than me (not the kids but the friends)and they wonder and ask quite frequently why on earth do i have none of my own? Initially i would joke about the quality of men in America, then i realized this was a bad idea as they all have brothers my age. Now i just say i will let them know, and until then i will continue to be a good "auntie" to their kids. This was an epic day, we all hiked for three hours in the morning to get to their relatives land where we picked peaches all day long. The kids sat in the shade, napped, or mushed juicy peaches all over themselves. While us adults picked crate after crate of yellow, white, and red peaches. It was a long day of hard work but was rewarded by a load of peaches for me and something to sell at the market for my friends.

have a very happy November and i will write again

britta

The lovely loros (parrots) have left their post in one great screaming mess and then shortly after the sun drops her brilliant eyes and goes to sleep. Sunset in this valley is an abrupt and noisy affair; the birds take cover and the insects and moths begin to appear around my light bulb. Each night there is an assortment of large furry moths as well as beetles, ants and spiders around the corner of my door most lit by my bulb. The silence here in the campo is a rhythmic one, the grasshoppers and other nighttime singers chant some droned out lazy call for the dancing fireflies. There is an assortment here of lighted bugs that flicker through the night sky. There are ant-like crawlers with glow in the dark spots, and big bulbous ones with glowing guts and sparking wings. My favorites are the caterpillars whose edges light up only when you touch them, and each individual little light dances on and off in a pattern unique to each multileg-ed critter. I was catching these little bugs with my ten year old buddy the other evening, he would squish a little glowing insect and then wipe its glowing juices on his face, or his sisters arm, and we would all squeal with delight as we watched the green pulses slowing fade away. Sometimes from my house I can see entire trees lit up with these magical little beasties, like an espresso fueled night of blinking Christmas lights. And then having thought of Christmas, I sigh with the memory of snow on my tongue and a crackle underfoot. For a moment I am far away from this valley, but something always calls me back be it a grasshopper or the shriek of a parrot leaving its post.

So in addition to leading a lovely romantic and poetic life down here in Bolivia I spend most of my days sweating in the summer heat, smelling bad, walking a lot, looking for people, playing with kids, working with bees, and all of the other stuff that I have to do to live on my own without a; washing machine, dishwasher, car, garbage pick-up, working toilet, hot water, fan, radio, tv, phone. So I am busy most of the time, and when im not I find a moment to sit in my hammock at the end of the day and listen to the animals go home and the bugs come out.

Greeting and saludos to all, The city of Santa Cruz is these days filled with a thick layer of smoke, it glows a warm orange brown all day long and feels like walking through some futuristic version of what the world might look like when we really start to feel the effects of global warming and climate change. The city and the towns here on the plains are feeling the effects of what Bolivians call the Chaqueo, or the burning of ones fields before the rainy season starts. Soon people will be planting their crops and the fastest way to clear the land is apparently by burning all the overgrowth and weeds. It makes for a sneezey and itchy eyed drive out from my site.

In other news the President of Bolivia Evo Morales was in the states last week and apparently made a visit to the Daily Show, if you search Evo and Daily show... you can watch it. I couldn't figure out how to make a link... But it was good.

Things have been busy here, there was just a workshop in my site and ten volunteers and some Technical trainers came to work with us all in beekeeping. Mostly product transformation and marketing but there was also a day devoted to creating new queens. Other than that i have a lot of work to do in my site latrines and stoves and other miscellaneous stuffs.

Be well and dont let the smoke get in your eyes

britta

Blog entry sept 14

Here I am like most nights around 700 sitting in my little house its dark I have eaten, and now I have time to sit and think only for a little bit because usually then I get sidetracked with something that I should be doing, more “productive” than just say sitting and listing to the wind and the river. like knitting or reading or writing to you all, or doing some work related thing, oh that reminds me…. Anyways sometime my neighbor comes over, Francisca and her daughter Daniella, they are two of my best friends here in my community, and I am going to be Daniela’s godmother when she is baptized in October, they come over and we talk, or play with the dogs, or drink tea, or hot chocolate. Bedtime comes early here, and morning earlier still.

There was a fiesta here a week or so ago, the Virgin de Guadalupe, each night during the week the community gathered to pray at the home where the statue is. Then on Saturday there was a church service here, and we all paraded the Virgen in her little pink box down to the church. The sermon was all about how Mary is an or the example of the perfect women, virgin, mother, giver, caretaker, etc… and as the women in my community sat all together on the pews on the left and the men on the pews to the right I had to wonder If that is really the only good example known to these women. I think she may be, splendid and holy and all of it you go to school until your 16 and you go to church and you stay behind your mothers skirts, you keep your eyes lowered and nod your head, and that is how you learn. What exactly one learns from that im not entirely sure nor will I ever be. Im also not sure if that scares the crap out of me or if it is beautiful and simple and they way things have been forever. Im getting away from myself, so after the service we marched the little painted rock of the Virgin back to her house and I left to eat at home and change and all that jazz. Come evening people started to return to the Soto house again for the party. The drinking began as soon as people arrived, the family had made chicha (corn beer, sort of) a few weeks before and were passing around buckets of it to each cluster of people. There is a tradition here called “inviting” people to drinks, so someones looks at you and raises their glass, now your invited, and when they finish then they go and refill the glass and give it to you, and now you have to invite someone. As you can guess there is no end to this cycle people keep getting invited and drinking and drinking all night long. The ladies have all devised little tricks so they don’t have to drink to much. My favorite is that because the chicha is served from big buckets scattered on the floor throughout the party there is always one close at hand, so when whoever invited you turns or isn’t looking dump most of it out in the bucket. This works for the most part and nobody get too mad if they catch you. Anyway so shortly after dark the games started, kids won little treats with fake money as the parents sat around laughing and drinking. The adult game is called catch the duck, its kind of like a cross between pin the tail on the donkey, and catching a greased pig, yes it is hilarious. The guys are blindfolded and spun around a few times and given a lasso, the duck is tie up by the leg to a post so it can still walk around, and the goal is in one toss to get the duck. After two rounds of this, and the guys jetting worse and worse someone finally got it. His prize was of course the duck and a little bag of candy or cake or something. Then the ladies play this time for a female duck. The first missed on her first and second try (the women got two turns) and then I was committed by someone else to go next. So I was blindfolded and spun around and handed and lasso, and I missed. They spun me around again and gave me the rope, and I let it fly. By some magic stroke of luck or out of the goodness of the virgin of Guadalupe my blind aim hit true and the duck was mine. The crowd roared with laughter and before I could see my prize I was convinced I had lassoed some poor old lady. Once I got the blindfold off and realized that I had won I too was laughing pretty hard. Then I was handed my flopping and squawking prize by her bound feet. I walked home that night, late, with a duck under my arm. It was one of those moments (this happens often here) when I wonder how I got here. How is it that I am walking in the dark with a duck under my arm, not only that but how is it that this feels completely normal? Needless to say I had no idea what to do with her in the middle of the night, was she hungry? Exhausted? So I put Sally in the bathroom and went to bed.

Thats all for now, i am well and healthy and happy , and i hope you all are too.

Britta