Things are going pretty good. We had a 4th of July party in Camiri. I made some good 'ol American BBQ food. Baked beans, potato salad, pasta salad. We also grilled some meat, sang the nation anthem and lit off fireworks. There was something about celebrating America´s independence day in Bolivia with a group of Americans. It was definately more fun.

I have been working in my yard a little bit and getting ready to plant a garden. I am going to try to plant pumkkin seeds. I want ot be able to carve pumkins for Halloween in a couple of months. I also have to think way ahead on those types of things.

Tomorow I am headed off to vacation to Salar de Uyuni (a gigantic salt flat) and then to Lake Tititcaca. This was the vaction I was going to take last month but, due to the massive civil unrest and the resignation of the president I was not able to go and had to postpone it. I think things will be pretty calm for at least the next couple of weeks because it is feria season. No one will protests when they can party.

I'm not sure of everything that has happened since the last time I updated this journal. This weekend I put together a painting contest for the high school in Cuevo. It has been frustrating getting it together. But it has come together. Needless to say The only people who ended up coming through in the end were the 9th graders. Its a challenge.

I am also working on writing a few projects, one to put a radio station in the community and the other is a comprehensive program on how to deal with th trash. Things of coming together and I am making more progess than I did last. I think I found my motivation again. Its probably my girlfriend (Yes, she's Bolivian!). She works in Camiri in local economic development, so she understands the frustrations with this kind of work, she works really hard and is comitted to to her job. Its great to see Bolivians commited to improving the lives of Bolivians.

Every Good Friday in the town of Muypampa people climb up to the top of a mountain close to town at 3AM, watch the sunrise and have a morning mass. So I went to Muypampa to do the hike with a couple of volunteer friends. There were 8 of us and we started up the to the mountain at 2:30am.

It was dark and partly cloudly every once and a while the full moon would break through the clouds and light up the path. A couple had head lamps in our group so we started close together. We saw some other people, but we didnt know exactly where to go and being dark and all it was hard to see anything. We kept walking and made guesses as to where to go and found the way. After about 30 minutes of hiking we ran into more people and there was a line of hikers in the dark many people were yelling and calling out each others names. As a group we were staying close together. The trailwas muddy and practically straight up hill. It wasn't fun when I would go and grab a branch for balance and the branch ended up being full of thorns. Thats a problem when its dark outside. It got annoying when a group of kids would run ahead of us for 3 minutes then stop. We would pass them while they were resting, then they would run ahead of us again and stop. I got pretty annoying after a while. We told them to stop doing that, but of course they kept at it.

After about 1 hour of hiking we made it above the trees. It looked like we were close to the top and didnt have very far to go. We got split up and the trail stoped you just had to climb up a steep mountain many places almost climbing on all fours up rocks. The clouds came in the it got really cold. We cold here voices all over but couldn't see anyone. We wondered up and found a thicket of bushes and had to bush wack through the bushes We eventually made it up to the top hot and sweating, which quickly turned into a cold sweat. Then we and regrouped in the dark. It was amazing how many people were up there. I wondered were they all came from. We found a spot on the ridge and waited for the sun to rise. The sun rise was awesome. A nun was supposed to come up and do mass, but that didnt look like it was going to happen, so we took off. It was an amazing hike, I might even do it again next year.

Carnaval just finished up here. I went to Oruro to watch Carnaval there. Carnaval in Oruro is probably the most organized event in all of Bolivia. The parade last 2 days long with a 3 hour break early Sunday morning. The costumes are very elabarete. Some costing more than $300. The people participating the parade dance for about 7 miles and it takes them about 4 hours to finish the route. Some of those costumes are heavy, but they manageto danceto whole way with little breaks inbetween.

Another fun part about carnaval is the water fights. People throwing water balloons at each other and shooting each other with spray foam is fun but after 2 days can get pretty tiring. It was always fun to attack people (kids especailly) when they least expected it. Its all part of the fun since people liked to attack gringos. We came prepared with water balloons and spray foam and we wore panchos so we wounldnt get so wet. Its carnaval!

Alirght, so I have been lagging with the whole updating of the live journal to say whats te dealy-o. This Thursday the 21st will be my 1 year aniversary of arriving in Bolivia. The time as flown by fast. With 1 year and 3 months left.

I moved into a bigger place this last month. I have 2 rooms with my own backyard and my own toliet and shower. No more using a bucket to bath, but I still have a drop flush toliet. (That means, I have to use a bucket of water to empty the contents). I been spending a lot of time working in my yard recently, digging a trash whole, and cleaning up the yard. Supposedly there are a lot of snakes back there, but I have not seen any yet.

Since I moved my Rec center has slowed down a little bit, I am working on getting it back in order, now that I have lots of room for the kids and we wont be so cramped.

The new mayor is coming in this week so I hope that they will want to work with me. That is provide money for a couple of projects. They are my offical counterpart agency so with a change maybe getting projects coordinated with them will be a little bit easier. Even though I dont feel like am doing much work related to my project I am still integrating and getting closer to people in the town. After all that is one of the goals of Peace Corps to have host country nationals learn about American culture and vise-versa. I am enjoying my time, drinking matte, a herbal tea drink, and talking with the people on how hot it is, it is pretty hot. Luckily I have electrcity 24/7 and a fan.

For the holidays I went to a Bolivian Christmas celebration, which is really eating a really good meat dish with corn on the cob, and thn at midnight wish everyone felicidades, and light off fireworks. It is very family oriented, butat leat I had a family here to spend it with. For New Years I headed to Buenos Aires, a city that I really like and to the beach, a place that I really miss. I really just made me want to go surfing. At least I got to go swimming in the ocean, whcih wasnt a bad temp maybe 65 degrees or almost 70 is was really refreshing in the hot weather.

So, I am off....

My place has turned into a recreation center at night. A group of 10-15 kids come over and we play cards or soccer or frisbee. I just got some dominoes, but have yet to introduce them to see how they go. One night we made quesadillas, including the tortialls it was a hit. I am using this has an in to start some environmental projects. So after I have more of their trust maybe they will have more interest in trying to protect their environment as well. Its taken a while but I am feeling more intergrated everytime I come back to my site. Maybe I should leave more often.

So have you noticed that my updates have had very little to do with work? Well work is a slow process with small results occasionally. I have been working, but the fun stuff takes place on the weekend, such as my very first rodeo held in Palmar, the capital of the tradition Chaqeña. At least thats what the shirt says, but in Spanish. Saw I saw bear back horse riding, one clown, and cattle roping, with dancing and live entertainment inbetween. I missed the elusice horse racing yet again, but I am sure to see some good horse racing in my town festival in 2 weeks. And thrown in the rodeo was the occasional chicken fight as well. I think if I went to a rodeo in the states it would be pretty different. I also had the best beef I´ve ever had in my life that just happens to come from Argentina. To say the least we were stuffed with meat and sausage. ¡que rico! And just in case anyone wanted to make the trip to Bolivia, visitors are invited.

Most exciting event in Bolivia so far...meeting Mr. Bolivia, Dustin Larsen! It was actually kind of random. I was with some other volunteers sitting in some hotsprings enjoying the Bolivian independence day weekend, when we finished our sulfur indudced soak, when we out side and there was another gringo who started talking to us, and as it turns out he is Mr. Bolivia 2004 the gringo from the US! (there was a contraversy about a gringo winning, he is a Bolivian citizen too, but how cool is that?) He pointed out all the beautiful people gets to hang out with, making fun of himself and hes even concerned about the environment, picking up a bottle out of the river. Kevin was the most disappointed when he found out he did have his camera with him. We missed out on a fabulous picture oppurtunity. And Melissa downplayed the whole event, but it was Mr. Bolivia!

I am in Coch for inservice training, soaking up the nice warm weather and the company of my friends some of whom I haven´t seen for 3 months. I am also having language classes and other informational sessions.

I climbed up to the Christ statue here. Its the biggest in the world at 33 meters high. ITs even bigger than the one in Rio de Janero. I climbed up all 1474 steps, it was good exercise and well as a wonderful view of the city.

I was even able to celebrate 4th of July with fireworks. It was a good time. Especailly since you can buy fireworks here that I would never be able to get in California.

Everything is going well. It seems that I haven´t experiences too many ups and downs. I think my calm personality has definately helped out.

I have been teaching all the school kids about trash. Trash is more exciting than you might realize. I have not become the trash man in my site but I have become a Professor. The students call the teachers here Professor, so its not like being a university professor. Anyway all the children of Cuevo now who I am and call my Profé just like all of the other teachers. For those whose classes I have not been to yet ask when I am going to their class. I hope this is getting them interested in the environment and protecting it.

My other exciting accomplishment is my compost pile. With in 3 months I should have nice fertiziler for my future garden. Its my expirmental pile to make sure I am doing it right so I can then start teaching community how to make compost.

I am going to Sucre (the offical capital of Bolivia) this next week for a project meeting. The ride from my site is a short 16 hours with beatiful stretches of dangerous roads. At least I wont have to suffer it alone, I am going with 4 other volunteers in my area.

The weather has turned cold. Its a little different when you cannot go retreating into nice warm heated houses. So I just have to suck it up and put on more clothes. Its almost like being outside 24 hours a day exept I have a roof over my head. Its just life and Im getting used to it. Just like I can also go the the soccer field or basketball court and watch games. The teens in High School play a lot of sports and Im not sure that it is 100% choice. At least they seem to be enjoying themselves.

I just attended an exchange of PC volunteers in the Chaco. It was really good to be able to meet some other volunteers in my area of Bolivia and hear about what kind of projects they are working on. There was also a couple of volunteers who made it out from Paraguay to participate in the Chaco exchange. Since a large portion of Paraguay is Chaco too.

Chaco is basically an ecosystem where it is dry and most area recieves about 15-25 inches of rain a year during a period of a few months and during the summer the weather is extremely hot. Water is a constant issue in the Chaco but water is a problem in most of the world. The reunion was in the town of Villamontes where there is the best fish of Bolivia. Its river fish since there is no ocean in Bolivia. The fish is really good, but you are not suposed to eat too much of the fish through out the year since the river is polluted.

Now I am going bacl to my site to start working with teachers and developing plans in the school on how to reduce the amount trash in the town.

So I´ve survived my first few weeks in Cuevo. The weather is starting to cool off. For a while I was wondering why I brought warm clothes, but now as its getting colder I´m glad that I have because by June I´m going to need them.

I´ve been getting used to the constant change in plans. I can never think anything is definatly going to happen becuase sure enough something is going to change (meeting times, days) It seems everything is so sporatic and random, but I´m slowing figuring out the system of how everything works and its not random like I originally thought.

So far the best things about my site 5 o´clock tea time, homemade dulce de leche (carmel), BBQ´s (they cook so much meat its ridiculous) and the afternoon siesta.

I've been in Camiri for a couple of days. Tomorrow I'm going go my site. I've had some meetings and with my counterpart agency about my work and the goals of the organization. A lot of the money comes from the German government who helps with rual development.

I always wonder what people want to know about my experience. I do have basic amenities, electricity, water, shower, flush toliet. A lot of these I took for granted in the states. Everyones Peace Corps expierence is different and so is mine.

Two weeks ago I won a dance contest out of every gringo in my group. Well it was with my partner Treva too. We danced the Queca, one of the dances of Bolivia. For our prize we got plants and I gave mine to my host family, it was fun.

I'm ready to start working since this is what I signed up for. Take Care.

¡Soy voluntario de Cuerpo de Paz! Its offical now I´m more than an aspirante (trainee) now. On Wednesday we had the swearing in ceremony and the Ambassador of the US to Bolivia was there. It was a nice ceremony...nice and short. I´m in Santa Cruz right now hanging out here for a couple of days until I go to my site early next week.

Its exciting now. I´ve been in training for almost three months and now the real thing is happening. Its also a little scary since it take me a while to get adjusted to my site and work, espeacially since my work isn´t structured, I think with timew I´ll find my niche. I am now entering adult life of a volunteer.

My birthday was on friday, it was a nice relaxing day. It went to most host family´s house one last time before I left for Santa Cruz. Since the coutnry is pretty much Catholic, good friday was a holiday. Usually everyone fasts in the morning and then has a big lunch. I had a little party with some other volunteers the weekend before. We had some cake and the tradition here for the birthday person to take a bite out of the cake. So keeping with tradition I took a bite and my family pushed my head into the cake so I had a pretty big bite.

I will be about an hour away from an internet place in my site and I will probably go there about 2x a month. I keep forgetting to bring my address when I use the internet, since I usually decide to use the internet while Í´m walking by. I will still get mail if it is sent to the Cochabamba address. I am going to set up a mail box in Camiri (the city close to my site) whenever that happens I´ll let everyone know what the address will be. I hope everything is going well

Chao

So I´m in Santa Cruz. Its really hot, but I like the vibe of the city. It kind of reminds me of Miami. So I just got back from visiting my site this week. It was an interesting experience. I´ll be working with the mayor´s office and a regional government agency called Mancomunidad. Its kind of like a regional government with 7 municipalities in the section that I´m working in.

I told my counterparte that I have an administration degree she she wants to take advantage of that. I´m pretty happy about. I´ll still be doing some environmental ed stuff, but I think I´ll be working more with artisenian groups and local ecomomic development committees. I´m glad that I will be able to work with the local governement since that´s what I want to do in the future.

My living situtation there is nice. Warm showers, and flushing toliets are a plus. I never imagined this as being my Peace Corps expierence, then again everyone´s Peace Corps experience is different. Some people in my group don´t have showers and toliets, it just depends on the community. My host family is very friendly and helpful. In three weeks when I start working will be the big change. But this afternoon I´m going back to Cochabamba for two more weeks. It´ll be nice not having the sticky sweaty feeling for two weeks, then I get it again at my site.

I thinking of setting up a mailbox at the city thats about 1 hour from my site. Otherwise all the mail at the Cochabamba address will be forwarded to me in Santa Cruz, but I´ll get the Santa Cruz out there next week when I have access to it.

So yesterday I found out where my site for the next two years will be. I´ll be in a little town of Cuevo (600 people) in the Southern part of Bolivia in the Santa Cruz department. I´m in the Chaco region of Bolivia so its hotter down there (avg temp is 80 F) except for the winter when the cold winds from Argentina come. On monday I´m going to travel to the site meet my counterpart and meet people for the week. Then I come back and have two weeks until I swear-in as a volunteer and move to my site for two years. Last saturday I got back from tech week. I had a good time during tech week. The roads were rough and the van got stuck once in the mud, but we made it out. The most important thing to a road trip is good music. The biggest bummer of the road trip was the cassette adpater that didn´t work. I bought a cassette adapter so we could listen to CDs in the car, but for some reason the tape wouldn´t stay on one side and play. We would hear music for two seconds then the tape player would switch sides. But a volunteer hooked us up and gave us tapes to listen too. So for the second half of the trip we listend to a lot of Otis Redding, Bob Marley, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and Simon and Garfunkyl, so the music situation turned out alright. The best snack food in Bolivia is: 1. Chicolac (cholate milk in a plastic pouch) 2. Cremosistas (cookies) 3. Maria Galletas (kind of like vanilla wafers) There is good food here. Its more than just the rice, boiled potatoes and some kind of meat. Training is getting closer to an end only three weeks left after this week. Chao!

This week I am in tech week. Now I am in the town of Vallegrande. Here I am working in a tree nursury and working with a group of 5th and 6th graders with my group. It is pretty fun. Yesterday I went to the place where Che Guavera died in La Higerua. The town was really small and very hard to get to. The roads were rough and it took over 2 hours to go 40 km. The trip was worth it. Plus I was able to meet some more volunteers and see their places. Vallegrande was the place were Che Guavera was buried until 1996 then his body was taken to Cuba. I hear that in a couple of months there is going to be a film staring Benico del Torro is going to begin filming here. Well I got to go, the internet place in closing.

Choa!

Carnival was this past weekend and I was soaked. I think that throwing water balloons and drentching people with water is the most exciting part of the weekend. I had fun getting wet anyway. On Saturday is the big Carnaval parade in Cochabamba. I´m going to go to it and probably get soaked, but it will be fun to go and watch all the dancing and see the different types of costumes there are.

This past week was pretty busy getting ready for out tech week which we leave to next week. During tech week we are going to put on some puppet shows, do a recycling workshop, start a tree nursury and go visit some other places, I´m pretty excited about going becuase I get to see another part of Bolivia. It´ll be 10 days full of madness. We also might go to the death site of Che Guavara on our free day.

I finally come to an internet place with my camera so I could hopefully put some pictures on the internet, but that did not happen since there was no CDROM to install the driver to get the pictures off the camera, maybe some other time.

Training is starting to go by a lot faster now. As soon as I get back from tech week I´ll find out my site for the next 2 years. Now I just forgot what I wanted to write, next time...

Chao!

Hola!

Its been an interesting week. On Tuesday and Wednesday there was a public transportation strike so a lot of the city could not go anywhere. It didn´t effect me too much. My training group had to stay at the training center for one night because of the stike. The drivers were threatening with a road blockade, but the police stoped that from happening. I guess this is life in Bolivia.

I´ve been doing a lot of stuff with my project lately. Last week we planted seeds to grow trees and we made bonsai trees. In a couple of weeks when we have tech week we are going to do presentation to some school about recycling and put on some puppet shows and start a tree nursury its pretty exciting.

This week with two other people we are going to give a presentation on trash to a group of 6th graders. I think it will go well, since my group decided to put on a puppet show. (we love puppet shows) At least I can reas the scipt that it a lot easier than memorizing it.

Last week I went to see a movie in the city and they had assigned seating. I thought that was pretty wierd.

I also went to a park to go look at some waterfalls nearby. It was really close and everything was very green. I was able to see the whole valley. Today I´m finally at an internet place where there is a USB port and I didn´t bring my camera so maybe next week I´ll be able to get some pictures up.

Chao!

Training is in full swing now. It is very tiring. From 830am to 6 pm I am busy with training. Then I come back and I have do my spanish homework. Then I´m exhausted. It is fun. My group Bolivia 35 (thats what we´re called) is great. Last night we stayed at the training center and watched the superbowl. It was a day late and in Spanish, it was a good game. I was never really in football a whole lot but it was nice to spend time with the group since we only see everyone when we go to the training center once a week. The rest of the time we are in our small language classes at each others houses.

My spanish is getting better everyday, but it will take at least 6 months before I probably feel somewhat comfortble speaking it. I am working really hard in trying to learn more vocab. Plus speaking in spanish most of the time is definately helping.

I went to a Bolivian wedding on saturdy night. It was really fun. With a live band and plenty of dancing. I like to dance but I´m not a fanatic, but anyway I´m getting the repuation of really liking to dance. My host sister is spreading the word to everyone. Well when my family like to go to fiestas its pretty eary to go dance, since I´m not seeking it out I´m just hanging out with my host family.

My stomache has been handling the massive amounts of potatoes rather well. I just keep thinking that one day its going to hit me. I´m geting use to hvaing the same food all the time. I told my host mom that I like papas fritas (french fries) and she as made them for me almost everyday.

Last saturday with my environmental ed group we learned to crochet with plastic bags. The women who was teaching it had made some really nice stuff with it. I´ve go to run. Take care!

¡Hola! After a week of staying in hotels I finally moved in with my host family. My room is huge! Its definatly different than in the states. My room opens up into a courtyard and we eat outside. There are quite a few dogs, but they are about the only dogs that are taken care of in Bolivia. Everyother dog is a stray.

I am enjoying my self, but I have so much to learn. Well at least I have 11 weeks to learn it.

This last weekend I went with my family a birthday party and I danced Bolivian style. Everyone there thought this gringito danced good. I had a good time. I also went to my host families cousins birthday party. It was fun. Today was the first day with public transportation by myself. I managed, at least my language skills can only improve.

Maybe Ill be able to update this once a week until my training is over then I ll see what happens.

¡Chao!

I made to Cochabamba today. The city very green and beautiful. I´m starting to try a speak a little spanish around, but the really training starts next week. I really like the group that I´m with we all get along really well. It was nice to see the everyones background is so different and not everyone is fluent in spanish so I´m not as far behind as much as I thought I might be.

It was really cool getting off the airplane and having a group of peace corps volunteers to greet us at the airport. It still hasn´t hit me that I´m in another country. Cochabamba isn´t as poor as I thought it would be, then again I haven´t seen the whole city.

I´ll try to write again soon.

¡Chao!

This begins my Peace Corps expierence...

My adventure to Bolivia begins with a stop over in Miami. I'm leaving Jan 17 8:30 am from San Jose to Miami. Then Sunday and Monday I'll be with 22 other Peace Corps agriculture and environmental education trainees at the staging event. This is where we learn about Peace Corps policies.

Then I am off to Bolivia for 3 months of training in the town of Cochabamba at 8,000 feet above sea level in the Andes.

I'm pretty excited. I can't even imagine how different the living conditions are going to be, but I'll have to quickly adjust. I hear that there are a lot of internet cafes in the city so I should have some access to update the journal occasionally.

Mail in Bolivia is pretty reliable my address until April 12 will be

Justin Lovell

Cuerpo de Paz

Casilla # 1603

Cochabamba, Bolivia

South America

I also created a yahoo address so it will be easier to manage email addresses. It's justin_bolivia@yahoo.com

Take Care!