Have I ever mentioned that the firefighters here wear red camouflage? Do they think they are going to blend into the flames? And even if they could, wouldn´t that be really dangerous? Wouldn´t you rather people be able to see you if you were surrounded by fire? The municipal police wear blue camouflage. That one remains a complete mystery...

I really like how cheap/easy it is to get clothes tailored/altered here. Volunteers leave old clothes in the office in Quito when they finish their service, and so I had some clothes from there that were too big plus some other clothes from the last few years that weren´t good for the climate here. I took a pair of jeans that I liked how they fit me and a pair of oversized men´s work khakis that I picked up to a lady in town and said ¨make these (khakis) like these (jeans)¨ and she did! I got a dress, two pairs of pants, two skirts, and three shirts altered for $5 and now I have all new clothes for work! =) =) =) Life is good.

I live next to the church, but the bells can be heard all the way to my work. There is one kind of ring (constant, quick ringing for about 30 seconds) to call the people to mass every day. There is another kind of ring (slow interval ringing for a minute or two) that signals that someone in the town died. I hate that ring, it´s awful. You get all worried because some deaths here are so unexpected...then everyone starts talking about who died, how they died, and get ready for the visitation, funeral, and burial, which is a town event here.

So, the guy who takes care of the church, Hooper, is kinda an unconventional jokester and sometimes, when he rings the bell to call people to church, he starts of slow like the death bell and then, before the priest can get mad, speeds it up. Gets me every time.

I don´t generally like to ask for people to send me things, but a couple of people asked what I might like in a Christmas package, so I thought I would post a Christmas wishlist online.

Flip flops/flats (size 11: it´s so hard to get shoes here!)Flavored coffee (so sick of NESCAFE!)Candy/chocolate (hershey´s, cadbury, dove, etc...for a country that exports cocoa the chocolate and candy in general here SUCKS!)Makeup Actually, that´s about all I can think of...life is pretty darn good.

PS My address is:

Sarah Nelson

Correo Nacional

Zapotillo, Provincia de Loja

Ecuador

The ¨correo nacional¨ part is not necessary, but I like to put it in there to fill out the address a little. Let me know if you send something so I can wait for it =) It might be helpful in avoiding things getting ¨lost¨ to write things on it like ¨Dios le bendiga,¨ but this is just an odd theory of mine. Abrazotes,

Sarita

Well, work was slow last week because the municipal dump truck was unavailable to take construction materials out to the communities and there were no classes because the federal government decided to employ high school students to take the national census, thus they needed to take them out of classes for a full week to train them. =( I guess the positive side of all of this is that I can finally update ye olde bloge. At this rate, maybe by the end of the year I’ll be caught up, hootie hoo!

JulySo, in July I went home on home leave. Home Leave is one of the excellent benefits of being a PC volunteer...they give you up to a month of home leave and tickets home when you decide to extend your service beyond your initial two years. So off to Chicago it was! Dad, Andy, and I took a trip to some really great parks in the UP...lots of hiking, biking, kayaking, swimming, and SUN! Came back to Lombard, visited Jen in Chicago (they were filming Transformers, that was kind of cool) and Jen and Betsy came out to visit me. We did a lot of shopping, seeing as most of my clothes looked about like most peoples´ do after two years in Peace Corps. We also did a lot of eating unhealthy American foods, yum yum yum!

Kayaking in the UP

Enjoying eating way too much food with Andy and Papa Nelson

Dad at Porcupine Mtns

Andy at Muskellonge

Waterfalls at Porcupine Mtns

A tribute to my love at Sleeping Bear Dunes

Andy and I get lost at Sleeping Bear Dunes....FOLLOW THE TRAIL!!!

Dad kayaking just before he got tipped over by karma.

AugustI got back in site just in time to work...JUST KIDDING! Actually I got back in August which, if you remember from last year’s blog, is basically one big, month-long fiesta. Of course I couldn’t miss that! This year I got to see the town beauty pageant and some other things, but was actually quite busy with events that we had in honor of Bolívar: an educational-center dedication, a bike race in the reserve, a fishing competition, and a ¨cultural night.¨ I’d like to add that August is a really great time for visits to Zapotillo if you want to see the town- it is still warm, but relatively dry, most people are back for vacation, and the festivals mean there are things to do. However, the forest is dry so this is not a good time if you want to see the forest green or hang out in waterfalls, etc.

Reina competition!!

My moto-taxi driving, bmx-ing buddy...btw, the only Zapotillo bmx-er

This guy fell a lot, much like he did about a half of a second after this photo.

So this picture didn´t turn out as I had hoped, but they were launching themselves off of the top of a moving truck, so they used the loader like an elevator to get on top of the truck...here in Zapotillo, safety always never comes first.

This is the only kid who didn´t look grumpy throughout the whole parade. What a badass.

My man, Rommel, looking sharp as always.

Bike race track

SeptemberSeptember was, as far as I can remember it, rather uneventful. I was in the process of getting my service extended another year, so that was at least frustrating enough to keep life interesting. I got sent to Quito for that, to basically copy stuff from my physical a few months back to a new form. Yay 40+ hours on a bus for something completely unnecessary! Luckily, our grant for building pig pens and chicken coops ($5000 from USAID) got approved so I took advantage of the trip to accompany the Ranchers Association’s president to sign the grant contract. Ohhh AND there was this ceremony in the high school where they award the valedictorians and everyone in the graduating class has to swear, on bended knee, his or her fidelity to the nation’s flag, and then give it a kiss. I loved every minute of that ceremony just like you all love watching ¨Triumph of the Will,¨ though that may be exaggerating a bit. Oh well, I got invited to free food and beer afterwards so I can’t complain. Rommel´s baby sister, Solange. So cute!

Apparantly the kids wanted to play modeling at some point in September, because that´s all I´ve got pictures of!

My 12th graders at their flag-kissing ceremony

Next up...Galápagos!

First and foremost, I apologize for the lack in updates. The truth of the matter is, I got stuck when it came to updating for June because it means writing about something that I´d rather not accept happened, let alone have to write about it. In June, shortly after returning from a study abroad program in Spain, my boss, Bolívar Tello, suffered a cerebral embolism and passed away due to medical negligence. He leaves behind a wife and three children, ages 15, 12, and 5. As I wrote earlier, his temporary absence while in Spain was tough on the office, both personally and professionally. If you had asked me a few months ago, I would have said that his permanent absence was unimaginable. Bolívar Tello wasn´t from Zapotillo, but was considered absolutely Zapotillano. He agreed to move here to dedicate his life to the development and care of the Ceiba reserve here. He was undeniably dedicated, hardworking, wise, passionate, and gracious. He worked on the project for nearly a decade, seeing it through all sorts of hardships and difficulties. He was undeniably dedicated; normally the last one to go home. He had to set an alarm at lunch because otherwise he would forget to go and his wife would call, annoyed that his lunch had been left to get cold. For Bolívar, the work week wasn´t Monday through Friday, it was 24/7, year-round, whenever something needed to be done. He loved the people of the communities and looked to help them in any way he could, though the majority of them had doubted, denounced, or rejected him and his help at one time or another. He united our office not only as coworkers, but as a family. He was warm, sincere, and open; never judgmental. He didn´t know the meaning of minding his own business, because everyone´s well-being was his business. He was a joker…his laugh was the one most often heard ringing through the office. He taught us to enjoy each other, enjoy the work, and enjoy the forest that we were working so hard to protect. Bolívar wasn´t just my boss, he was a mentor, a friend, an inspiration. There´s no way to replace him or to recover what we´ve lost; our only consolation is to honor him by following in his footsteps.

Cat pictures I promised:

This is from the first few days I had Lucy. He (okay, I thought he was a she) did not want milk.

He was really malnourished and kinda looked like the crypt keeper...

In desperation, after having tried all of the foods you are supposed to give tiny, abandoned kittens, I gave him some tuna. Aha! I found out that the only thing this cat wanted was meat. And, thus, he started eating...and eating......and once he grew a little more even started drinking milk!He just kept growing and seemed to really like it around the office.

He got to be bigger than this by the time I left for the states, but I´m not sure where the most recent pictures of him are. This one is from around May. So there you go, months after you all requested photos, here they are. More updates to come...some day. Abrazotes,

Sarita

i haven't written in my blog for a long time....ooops. i think the last update was march, so i'll go from there.

april- meow!

in april, darwin found a kitten that had been thrown out. it's common practice here to just throw female kittens out or drown them. nobody wants the females because then they will have more kittens. so they kill them or intentionally let them die. but the general first reaction to neutering or spaying a pet here is laughing at how absurd it is and/or commenting on how you're making the poor cat suffer because you won't let it have a family. aaaanyway, so the kitten was scraggly and TINY, like a skeleton with a big ole' head. i felt so bad for the little gal but after the kauri heartbreak said no, no, no, no, NO CATS. i couldn't bare to spoil another cat just to abandon it once it got older. but darwin said that, since his cat ran away and he really likes cats, he would take it if/when i left. i was already feeding the cat before he could even finish his sentence. i gave the cat milk; it wouldn't drink it. i gave the cat bread; it just kind of licked it sadly. i tried soup, rice, scrambled eggs...nada. it didn't eat for more than a day...the poor thing was soooo skinny so i got a can of tuna hoping i could convince it to eat even just a little of the oil. the cat started growling and hissing like a madcat and ran away with a piece of the meat. from then on the cat lived on tuna, fish, goat, chicken, beef, and pork...it would only eat meat even though it was clearly starving to death. for two months, the cat ate more meat than i did. i cleaned the mites out of her ears, bathed her and dewormed her (btw, super gross when your kitten has big tapeworms and expels them during dinner with your friends). the skin and fur on her face came off in clumps with the skin. a friend put a red collar on her so no one would give her the evil eye. i taught it to stay on my shoulder while i paraded it all around town. on a daily basis, rommel's mom told me the cat was the ugliest thing she'd ever seen, calling her satanas and lucifer and telling me i should go toss her in the river to see if she can swim. little by little the cat got better and i thought, well maybe she won't die. and then the first sunday in may she disappeared. i figured she had died and felt really awful about the collar because, had she lived, it was sewn shut and wouldn't allow her to grow or could get caught on something and choke her.

may- mystery illness

the first week in may i got really sick, though i didn't end up doing much about it. it all started saturday the 8th. i guess the first thing i noticed was that i didn't really feel like eating all day, but i felt fine. looking back on it, it was probably stupid to go out at night if i hadn't eaten all day. but i felt fine, so i went out. while i was out with friends i noticed that i was not feeling too well and so i went home early. the next day i had what felt like a horrible hangover, but that didn't make much sense considering that i hadn't drank much. all sunday (day 2) i was pretty miserable and just not wanting to do anything but sleep. days 3 and 4 i felt kinda icky, but it came in waves. i'd get really tired, i was freezing (which is weird because it's so hot here), i'd get dizzy and nauseaus, had a bit of diarrhea but nothing serious, and i had kinda like what they called growing pains when i was little, you know like dull aches in the bones and joints. but the thing that bothered me the most was the nausea...i had gone five days at that point eating very little...thinking about food made me sick to my stomach. i'd go to work, do what i most needed to do, sleep for a few hours, work a bit more, and then sleep again. tuesday night i told the teacher i am helping that i couldn't go in the next day. i planned to just stay at home and sleep but i woke up wednesday with such bad nausea and dizziness that i called the pc doctor, who told me to take my temperature. a work partner took me to get checked out, mostly to have my temperature taken. i had a fever and low blood pressure (90/50). while i was talking to the doctor i lost my vision for a little bit...everything went black but i was still conscious. the doc said i was just about to faint and it was just because of the low blood pressure. he gave me some candy and scolded me for not having eaten. they gave me some kind of injection for the fever that hurt like hell and something for nausea and to be quite honest at that point i was really too weak to even say anything. i thought it was weird they didn't take a blood sample but the doctors here are pretty careless. it was kinda like pick your illness...according to doctors i had a bad flu, according to my work partners it was malaria, and according to random people on the street it was dengue. who would you believe? i didn't have energy left to do anything but sleep. i should have called pc, but seriously i couldn't even speak well at moments. day 6 i was going to call pc again but i was back to feeling how i did on monday and tuesday- kinda flu-like. by then my host mom was making me eat and i bought some ensure so i was stronger than the days before. by day 7 i felt okay...just drowsy. but i noticed that my skin was itchy/burning with a rash and red all over...my hands and feet too. since it's humid here during this time of year and i had a towel that hadn't been drying well lately, i figured it was some kind of fungus. so i went to the pharmacy to buy some anti fungus cream just in case and the girl at the counter looked at my skin and said "oh my kid had that, the doctor said it's dengue." i was like no that's ridiculous i've never heard that dengue does anything to your skin just give me the cream and she went and asked the doctor and he, without seeing me, said dengue too. i brushed them both off as i would any other quack in this town and went home. the rash and itch went away in a couple of days (fungus takes longer to cure) and sure enough there's been a dengue outbreak in town. checked the symptoms on the internet, and they all align with dengue. draw your own conclusions on the mystery illness, i'm just glad it's over. i was weak (kinda like with anemia) for nearly a month, still haven't recovered completely, and lost 10 pounds. actually i guess that part wasn't so bad. yay dengue! hah.

return of the demon-cat

mid may i woke up at 5 am one morning with a craving for bread from my favorite bakery here, which i hadn't been to in months because it moved completely out of the way. i couldn't sleep so i went down super early, at like 6 or something. while i was down there, there was a guy picking up some stuff to take to his store before he opened. he lives near the office but i'd never met him before. he looked at me and said, "hey sarah i've got your cat." and (thinking he was making fun of me) i replied with a request that he be so kind as to not screw with me because in reality i was pretty heartbroken about the cat's disappearance. he said no, seriously, it came with this collar but i took it off...you can come to my house and see. and i was like seriously don't mess with me. he insisted that he had my cat, mentioning that the thing was weird and only ate meat. so i went to see the cat. it was a little bigger and i didn't believe it at first but then i went over to it and picked it up and right away it hopped on my shoulder. the guy said i could take her, i figure he half felt bad for me and half didn't want to have to keep up with her expensive tastes. i took her out to lunch to celebrate and she went absolutely nuts when i gave her the meat. didn't touch the rice. MY CAT WAS BACK!!! she's gorgeous now, a real feisty kitty. she's chubby, just enough to be healthy, and she has the softest black coat. she's sprouted some white hairs on her back and tummy. she wears a hot pink ribbon now. i named her Lucy, short for Lucifer since she still is kinda a little devil. she eats more things now, mostly puppy food and any dairy products. people really like her now, they tell me when she gets out and they think she's so pretty. my host mom still hates her and doesn't want her around, but i sneak her in on friday nights to watch movies with me. she wakes me up at 6am, doing laps around my bed. she's insane and i love it.

work is a bit sad lately. i really miss my old boss at NCI, who is in Spain for a few months. i like giving classes, but it's a rougher and slower start than i expected. the teachers are jealous that i am teaching classes and the other teacher is getting paid for doing nothing, even though the idea isn't that she does nothing, it's that she learns the new curriculum to be able to teach it in the future. i am having difficulties with her, too...it's a challenge that she's not acclimated to a formal work environment. and then there's the kids...there's just very little discipline and they get away with so much and the academic level they're used to is so low...not to mention that i only have 40 minutes a week with each class (exceptions: 80 mins/wk with the seniors and 20 mins/wk with one of my 10th grade classes) and on top of that, a good 1/3 of my classes have been cancelled due to vacations, holidays, conferences and god knows what else. i would estimate that these kids are getting less than half of the classroom hours annually than kids in the states. they have about 4.5 hours a day, and i don't even want to count the number of hours that have been cancelled this trimester alone. and the kids say there's even more days cut out the last 2 trimesters. ugh. in may, for example, i was sick one week, the next pc sent me to cuenca, had one normal week of classes, and then pc sent me to quito...in june we had a bunch of days off for various things and in july i'll be home in the states all month...overall i feel like i need more time to get somewhere with this program, but i do feel there's potential there and that it's worth it to stick with it.

one cool thing that we did in my classes was make solar ovens...huge success! more on that to come in a week! phew, that was a long rant. i'm gonna wrap this up then. expect another post soon, particularly abut some of the cool stuff we've been doing in class. love ya all! abrazotes,

sarita

Jen made a worthwhile comment to me after my last blog post that I’ve become accustomed to listing out my activities and posting photos of them instead of reflecting on or going into depth about my time here. So, I’m going to switch things up a bit this month and discuss one project that I’m working in: Eco Amigos.

I mentioned in November that Darwin and I were giving some workshops on solid waste management, and then in December that the students who went to those workshops started an environmental club and made and presented a Christmas tree out of garbage. Well, in January the high school students started a three-month break and things have died down a little, but we still have good attendance and participation. In total, we have had 29 kids who have participated at one time or another. Of those, there are about 15-20 who regularly participate.

I’m proud of the kids and their participation, which is complicated, not because they’re particularly busy, but rather because parents here aren’t used to kids being involved in their own activities and families depend on children being much more involved in the household. Also, several of the group members live in communities outside of Zapotillo and it’s more difficult for them to get into town: they have to pay for transportation, it takes longer, etc. For these and other reasons, often times parents won’t let kids leave the house to go to club meetings and activities.

I have two ideas on how we can improve this. One, I want to invite the parents to a meeting where the kids can present what they’ve been doing, maybe we can get some representatives (professionals) from town to talk about why their work is beneficial, let the parents socialize, etc. I’d like to create more of a sense of community among the families, particularly since there’s been talk about sending the kids to the city for a conference and I can just imagine how a father would react to his 15 year old leaving to go to the city for a week with a gringa he doesn’t know and for a club that he’s not even really sure what they do. Also, I’d like to do is have a set weekly meeting time. Until now we’ve been planning meetings and activities as needed and it’s been difficult to communicate. The kids didn’t want a set meeting time at first, but I think it’s best now to have one.

Also, the kids have to fight a social resistance which I commend them for; the general attitude here is not one of environmental conscientiousness. There’s been a shift towards consumerism and consequently social stigmatisms towards the rural population, which is seen as contrary to the consumerist ideal. The rural population, whose way of life was not too long ago the social norm, looks to meet its needs as locally and naturally as possible. Consumerism supposedly looks to meet needs with the lowest economic cost through commercial activity. However, with the influence of things like marketing and externalized costs, the market usually ends up serving corporations and itself meaning that consumerism looks to feed and grow the market. The rural populations grows its own fruits and vegetables; raises its own animals; know how to work the land; were brought up using local seeds which don’t require chemicals but whose products can’t compete commercially; reuses its waste; are concerned with survival of themselves and their families; etc. The new generations shop in supermarkets and transport plastic bags of processed foods to their homes in their own cars or taxis; encourage the use of agrochemicals for hybrids and other plants that aren’t naturally suited for the local climate and soil; have become more concerned with fashion, status/image, material wealth, and beauty; etc.

These differences manifest themselves in attitudes and habits that at first glance don’t seem to be connected, but are. Let’s take, for example, the overuse of plastic bags. Tradition in this area is to have reusable baskets woven from local, natural fibers, which were used to carry locally-produced fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy products, etc. This doesn’t much help any market because nearly everything is part of a closed system where the producer is also the consumer. At best it would enter into a barter-and-trade system within the community. Consumerism tells us that this results in high costs because the scope of what is involved in the definition of costs in the current system of economics is extremely narrow (externalization of costs). So the consumerist mentality is that we should outsource the production of both the foodstuffs and the basket. The market decides that it is best to have fruits and vegetables grown with chemicals; meats, dairy products, eggs, etc. from animals raised with hormones and processed feed; and finally plastic bags in place of the natural-fiber basket. Not that any of these new substitutions actually cost less, but more of these costs can be externalized. I.E. the producer doesn’t have to pay for them and thus the consumer does not pay cash for them…the damages to health caused by working with chemicals with little or no protection or supervision in order to keep producer costs down and yield larger and more crops than natural; the damages to health in consuming residual chemicals; cost of education denied to children workers; cost of water, air, and ground pollution from agrochemicals, factories, transportation, and the fabrication of all the machines involved in the factories and transportation of goods, etc. What I mean to say here is that modern economics does not factor in all the costs of production, but rather a small percentage of the total costs which either the producer or consumer must pay with money or opportunity costs meaning how much productivity potential (also monetary value) you give up for any particular decision you make. And in those terms, buying processed foods in plastic bags comes out a lot less expensive than the traditional model. However, human beings do not just produce, in fact we live. Life is much more complex and vast than the current economic model. We would be crazy to think that just because certain costs don’t figure into the current economic model, they somehow don’t exist or don’t matter. Like it or not, we do depend on this planet, on the environment. So, anyway, in life terms instead of modern economic terms, the traditional way of obtaining foodstuffs is much less expensive. But modern culture here values consumerist tendencies and thus processed foods, supermarkets, and plastic bags become status symbols while locally produced whole-foods and natural-fiber baskets become social stigmas. Perhaps not everyone recognizes it as such, but it is evident in the attitudes and habits of the people.

Although the highlight of my work thus far has been outings to the reserve, I’m excited to switch to an environmental education focus because the people themselves are the strongest protection that the reserve (and environment in general) could have, but in order for that to happen, the people must value the forest and feel empowered to be able to conserve it. Hopefully I will be able to start working in environmental education in the high school as well, but I haven’t made any concrete plans yet.

Outside of work, life is still wonderful here in Zapotillo. Time goes by too fast, there are too many things I haven’t gotten around to doing yet. I’m trying to shape up some vacation plans for this year, but don’t know when to fit all the traveling in. And now, for those of you who don’t like words, pictures!

December was an exciting month (well, for me) so this should be an exciting update! The 2nd I skipped our monthly rancher’s meeting to guide a short tour for a woman studying tourism in Loja and to work on the World Map project we started in Cabeza de Toro.

photo: darwin martínez

On the 7th a group came from the University of Loja to learn about the reserve, practice soil studies, and to help out fixing up the trail.

As you may recall, in November we started a series of workshops on solid waste management with a group of high school kids. Those workshops continued into December as well and on the 10th the group decided to form an ecological club, wrote a constitution, and named the club EcoAmigos.

That weekend a youth service group that I’ve been helping out (JUVENTUDEZapotillo) put on a cultural program to raise money for a young man here who has Leukemia.

The following week, the whole team went to Progreso to do a community diagnostic, since NCI is going to start work in the new reserve there. I was assigned to do an activity to chart the townspeople’s’ daily activities from which I could analyze the division of labor and complete a SWOT analysis of allocation of time, etc. Each diagnostic tool is pretty boring in and of itself, but the diagnostic as a whole, particularly the analyses are interesting and necessary for the development and conservation work that we do.

Progreso

a Kasia tree

Not sure what these are called but it´s some kind of less-domesticated chicken...Guinea or something...

Alligators in the Puyango River!

I don´t know the scientific name for this plant, but the locals call it ¨huevo del burro.¨ If you know spanish, I´ll let you laugh about that for a while. If you don´t, I won´t be vulgar enough to explain it to you ;)

photo: darwin martínezThis parrot thinks its mother is a chicken. Very amusing.

photo: darwin martínezphoto: darwin martínezThe next week I was “a full” (a particularly funny saying here that means very busy) helping out JUVENTUDEZ in a project where they went around town collecting donations to go out to the communities and give cookies, candy, and toys to the kids for Christmas.

Also, Eco Amigos had their first official event on the 22nd, making a Christmas tree they made out of litter found around town and presenting it at a Christmas Carols competition. It was a LOT of work, organizing, finding the bottles, etc., making the tree, preparing the event, getting t-shirts, etc., but it was definitely worth it. The event was great, everything nicely decorated, good attendance, the president of the club spoke very well, the kids were all in uniform and carried themselves well…I only wish I could have gotten a video of the whole thing, but they made me a judge for the competition and I couldn’t leave the judges table to tape it.

The 24th I stayed in my host mom’s snack shop so she could go visit her kids in Machala. That evening I closed to go to midnight mass and then to the Martinez’ for a bit…it was really nice. Christmas day I basically just walked around town, wishing everyone I knew merry Christmas and giving them cookies I made. I got to talk with most of the family as well which was nice. The day after Christmas I went with the Martinez’ to picnic on the river, which was nice because Pauli, Ramiro and the girls were in town (they live in Machala).

photo: darwin martínezI love these girls!!

It was the most satisfying holiday season since I left home. Luckily I was busy enough this year to not think too much about being away from home for Christmas. I think what really make a difference this year, though, was that despite not being with my biological family, I still got out and spent the holiday sharing with people I care about and who care about me.

The 29th I finally was freed up to be able to go with JUVENTUDEZ to hand out some gifts that were left over. Even though it was after Christmas, it was great to be able to reach out to some communities around here that I hadn’t been to before.

The 30th, Bolívar, Darwin, and I went to Progreso because we had heard that there was a bunch of baby alligators nearby and we wanted to try to capture some. To be fair, the alligators hatch something like 20 at a time and they are lucky if a few survive, and we wanted to catch them with the intention of raising them and releasing them. Unfortunately, the net that we were using was completely ineffective and the gators got away. I’m disappointed that we didn’t capture any gators to raise, but it was still a really good trip.

photo: darwin martínez

The Chaguano trees opened up their fruits!The guayacán trees had just started to bloom and the whole area was covered in this sheet of vibrant yellow. It’s impressive; something that you really have to see in person to appreciate. I think the guayacán trees stand out most of all the trees when they bloom for two reasons: 1) they tend to be concentrated in certain areas 2) they bloom right at the start of the rainy season, when the whole forest is still dry and leafless so against the dull brown/gray background of the trees, the yellow flowers really stand out.

New Year’s I spent in Zapotillo, mostly with friends. It was cool, nothing too spectacular to tell. Alright, that’s it for December folks. Take care! Abrazos a la distancia, les quiero hartíssimo,

Sarita

November was a good month and seemed to pass very quickly.

Saturday the 7th I celebrated a friend, Paulina’s, birthday with her and her family (the Martinez'...the family I always talk about, with whom I’m very close) during the day.

(L to R: Ramiro, me, Chelita, Moshe, Mayra, and Paulina)

They always joke that her daughter looks like my kid and so we took some photos which were meant to be a (albeit cruel) joke on my parents.

(SURPRISE! I had a kid and you didn't know. Isn't that HILARIOUS???)

At night my host mom and some of my other (shall we say more mature?) friends surprised me with a party in one of the town’s clubs, cake and all! It was touching that they would do this for me considering that I don’t think they’ve ever gone to either one of the clubs and it was clearly outside of the social norm for them. We had a great time though…

(This, ladies and gentlemen, is what SCANDAL looks like...)

Sunday three of my coworkers invited me to some beer to continue the celebration, and I convinced them that we should hold the celebration at the weekly soccer games, which is where I spend my Sundays anyway. Monday, my actual birthday, the Martinez family invited me to a birthday lunch at their house and in the afternoon all of my coworkers closed the celebration with cake, singing, etc.

Three days of celebrations all planned by friends here…the people are unbelievably warm and generous, I can’t remember ever feeling so loved, and so unexpectedly so.

Mid-month I started a World Map project with the kids in Cabeza de Toro. The project is to paint a world map on a wall or a bball court, etc. and integrate geography education.

(So far, we've just traced it.)

Other work projects this month included organizing a group of kids interested in environmental issues and giving them some workshops on solid waste management and, in my spare time, helping out a youth service group (JuventudeZapotillo) that formed here years ago but has recently been inactive.

…and then I went to Quito for Thanksgiving and a little getaway...

(From the Camilo Egas Museum...he was an Ecuadorian "indigenist"/ expressionist/ surrealist/ cubist/abstract painter.)

(A sculpture by Ecuadorian Manuel Chili at the Franciscan Museum "Fray Pedro Gocial.")

Photos from an exhibit by André Cypriano about the Quilombola culture.

The Basilica del Voto Nacional...I climbed up the tower on the far left. For those who worry about me, it was no real risk but for those who like to hear adventurous stories, I suggest you read the Lonely Planet description of the ascent.

Quito from the Paramo...that's the Teleférico on the far right.

Quito, view from the paramo

The city as seen from the Basilica del Voto Nacional

Kasia hangin' out at the paramo in Quito...right before she headed off to Galapagos for a year!!

Akila is clearly better at fake falling off of fake cliffs.

Photos from an interesting exhibit where 10 ordinary Quiteños shot their own unique views of the city in celebration of its anniversary.

Embassy-hosted Thanksgiving. The people, the setting, the food; it was all awesome.

Alright, folks, that's all for now. Take care, I love and miss you all a ton! Abrazotes,

Sarita

First and foremost, October was the start of

which means lots and lots and lots of all sorts of mangos all over town.

I

LOVE

MANGOS!!!

In work news, I was invited to participate in a World Food Day fair in the main plaza. I made a poster about the benefits of various vitamins and minerals and Darwin helped make some carboard cutouts of fruits and vegetables with their benefits listed on the back. I made burritos (minus the tortillas which turned out bad....so basically cups of rice, beans, and pico de gallo) and squash cake to demonstrate how to incorporate more veggies into any meal and how to make a complete protein with beans and rice. We also had a table to promote and give out samples of the goat cheese and dulce de leche from Cabeza de Toro. I couldn't motivate anyone from the community to come out if they weren't going to sell anything, which was disappointing, but at least everyone liked the samples.

Oh, and I got my picture published in a Loja newspaper with a short announcement about the event. The guy on my right is the mayor and the lady on my left is a friend of mine from bball. (Article reads: "TOWN CELEBRATES WORLD FOOD DAY *Zapotillo* The municipality of Zapotillo, along with the support of COSV, NCI, CARE, The Minister of Economic and Social Inclusion, The Children and Family Institute, the Nourish Ecuador program, Zapotillo High School, and other participants, hosted various activities to celebrate World Food Day. Those present included the cantón's mayor, Ramiro Valdivieso, and representatives from the participating institutions. The festivities included expositions about healthy diets followed by traditional dishes, desserts, and exotic drinks prepared with local products.")

Also, we drove by the "landfill" to check it out because we were thinking about starting some garbage/recycling activities with the high school kids here. What we found was pretty disgusting...it turns out that despite the nice sign at the entrance that declares it at a landfill, it is actually a dump where the garbage is brought weekly in uncovered trucks and left until they burn it. Nothing is sorted and nothing is excluded, even though they have worm beds to put the organic garbage in, a cement tank for hospital waste, and a house for sorting recyclables. We found paint, batteries, tires, poison, needles and other hospital waste, aerosols, shoes, organic waste, plastic, cardboard, paper, glass, tin cans, aluminum, etc...all mixed together waiting to be burned. What doesn't burn (tin cans, etc) is left there to presumably go into the next week's fire. The entire perimeter of the dump has garbage strewn about. I'd hate to see the fire that would result if they weren't careful enough burning the trash...can you imagine how quickly things would catch fire at the end of a 4-month dry season? The worm/composting beds lie empty and the only thing in the hospital waste disposal tanks is the garbage from someone's lunch. The house that is meant for sorting recyclables has some bank records from long enough ago that I doubt they've ever actually done anything with the recyclables. It's absolutely disgusting that they pass this off as responsible waste management...they might as well save themselves a lot of time and money and just let everyone burn their own garbage in their homes. UGH.

Other than that, work was kinda slow as we experienced a lack of transportation and electricity. So I took advantage of the opportunity to kick Darwin's butt in Scrabble...yet again.

That's right, cry little man, cry

Hehe, office geckos

In campo news, like I said the Ceibo trees' fruits opened up and gave off these fluffy little cotton-like balls. I should have made a better effort to collect them...it's super soft and people say it makes great pillows. Oh well, maybe next year.

This is another owl we have around here...much smaller than the other one I showed you...about fist-sized.

And in personal news...

The circus came to town! Actually the circus was kinda creepy. The clowns got little boys to come up front and take their shirts off and they had a dance contest to Michael Jackson music and then inevitably made fun of them. Hmm...oh well. At least the fire-eating dude was cool.

And it was my host mom's birthday! In case you didn't catch her in earlier photos, she's the third from your left.

Oh and i just liked this photo...it's funny because you really do see kids driving motorcycles here...but parents usually don't let them until they are like 11 so I guess it's not that bad...???

Oh and it's started getting super hot during the day again. Things get super lazy around noon...notice the dog napping in the middle of the street...

Alright, that's it for now. Abrazos!

Sarita

Phew...I'm having trouble keeping up with these blog updates! Bueno...The most exciting news about September is that I finally got a new propane tank! You may not find this to be such a big deal but I had gone two months without cooking and, due to too many bologna sandwiches, too much beer from the August parties, and an extended break from basketball, my health was declining and I had gained 10 lbs. September started like any other month, with a meeting the 2nd of the reserve's management comittee. They do hikes to monitor the forest and to keep out foreign livestock and such. From there I stayed in Cabeza de Toro a few days...I've been trying to start teaching again regularly, but the distance of the community from Zapotillo is problematic. Anyway, when I can, I am teaching English/Computer/Environmental Education classes and basketball during recess. Since I've been staying there a few days at a time, I've been honing my firewood gathering/fire lighting/cooking over a fire skills.

This year's class...just a few new faces.

Reviewing how to connect the various parts of the computer. They had it wrong the last time and thought the computer was broken because all of the plugs were just jammed into random ports.

Printing out coloring pages

MAD SKILLZ

It seems there are always kittens at the Sanchez house...so cute!

Clowning around in Cabeza de Toro.

I found these highly amusing...

OH! So, also in September, a photojournalist came to visit me in my site. He's putting together a book for the 50th Anniversary of Peace Corps in 2011. The book will document the lives of PC volunteers around the world to show what it means to be a PCV, how PC has changed over the years, and its continued relevance today. Here are links to his project siteand tohis blog.So the idea was that he followed me around for a few days to document my life, which was kinda weird and cool at the same time. Unfortunately he missed out on the class! Anyway, here are some photos...he hasn't sent me photos from the last day yet.

Stupid flu vaccines

Morning coffee talk with the boss

i love this photo!!

Checking out a fish pond project

Campo life

Serving lunch after a meeting

Talking about camera lenses, I think

Love this photo too! Taken from my neighbor's house.

Zapotillo at sunset

Hiking in the reserve, training a potential new guide.

ECUAVOLEY!

The little girl (Sayra) and I were discussing the intricacies of colors in english.

Visiting with my favorite family!

Catching a rebound. What I lack in form, I make up for in height ;)

Random Photos from September:

The ceibo tree fruit has opened up and the cotton-like material on the inside is falling out...it's so soft! More pictures of this to come in the October post.

My coworkers assisted in confiscating some wood that was illegally cut down to sell. I was so disappointed I couldn't go with...we were on travel restrictions! They confiscated like 600 of over 1000 posts. Luckily a coworker took photos for me.

The town castle is the best place to go stargazing here...on a clear night it's awesome!

Maria with a new puppy...there are actually very nice, friendly dogs here, it's crazy!

A bird that got left out of the bird post...can't remember its name.

Random picture with the Italians in my site. The girl, Marcella, just left. =(

Well, I guess that's it for now. As always, I love and miss you all! Abrazotes,

Sarita

This month, I think the pictures can speak for themselves. There were a lot of fiestas in August, as we celebrated the anniversary of our cantón (kinda like county, I think). oh and i went to guayaquil to go on this pirate-themed party boat with some other volunteers. and, of course, we dressed the part. btw, ecuadorians don't really understand costume parties. heh

rommel likes to pretend he's michael jackson...if only i could upload videos i filmed rommel and another kid in a michael-jackson-imitation-dance-off

Working on a-minor with rommel...i got a great new guitar teacher too! too bad he is leaving soon to resume his studies...

goofy kids

swanky wedding i was invited to in Macara

we got some new interns for the month

guiding some tourists and training new tour guides in Cabeza de Toro

peacock in Cabeza de Toro (not-native)

pirate ship, the morgan

yarrrrgh

did i mention that it was an open bar?

we went to the communities on the ecuadorian-peruvian border to inspect a fence that appeared to be made of wood cut from the reserve without permission. ecuador has all sorts of natural-resource use laws.

peruvian side. in this particular area, it's hard to control people cutting down trees for lumber because all they have to do is cut the wood down and put it literally a few meters away, on the peruvian side, where the laws are much more lax.

the minister of environment inspecting the fence posts. we later tracked down the people building the fence and spoke with them. the fence used about 1,000 posts of a very high-quality wood. our investigation led nowhere as the people swore they bought the lumber and we couldn't find anywhere where lumber had been cut recently.

rommel's birthday! celebrated with fruit salad (the weirdo didn't want cake), soda, lots of war (card game) and a brand new soccer ball.

pre-k kids in the town parade...is that joseph next to spiderman? kids are weird.

presenting those kids' videos filmed in the reserve last month.

like i said...lots of parties

car races!

grilling with friends...oh man the food was so good, chicken, beef, pork, shrimp, sausage...i can't believe we ate so much meat...

horses for rent on the riverbank during the festivals.

...and more parties

motocross races!

...and more parties...

swimmin' in the river...it was super-clear

the beauty-pageant participants. the one on the far right won

...and more festivities...the kid on the left is my super-sweet guitar teacher.

July started rather nicely with a trip to a friend’s finca (like farm, but many people here have farms that they only go to on weekends and in the evenings). It was a short trip, but lovely all the same. I saw this really neat butterfly that I’ve never seen around here. Also, they slaughtered a turkey to eat…oh, the food was so good. They made cheese and there was fresh cane syrup and fresh juice… I should have taken pictures of the food. The 2nd we had a school group from the city come to visit the reserve. Unfortunately, all of my work partners were busy that day which left me to guide the group with an ex—coworker who lives in and is from Galapagos, not here. It went really well though. It’s great to get local groups of kids to visit the reserve because they get really excited about it and they usually didn’t even know that dry tropical forest exists, much less that it exists so close to where they live. We visited El Oro again to progress in the land rights work that I previously mentioned Also, we had a group of tourism students from the University of Loja. A little disappointing that the students seemed more like they just wanted a vacation and no one was too excited about the reserve or mentioned eco-tourism or anything. Oh well. Got invited to another finca where I was spoiled yet again with fresh-picked food. Coffee beans (really tasty fresh), coconuts, limes, papaya. Later in the month, I went camping in a petrified forest in Puyango. Due to volcanic activity, the trees became petrified, absorbing minerals from lava through their roots while still alive but fallen. The petrified trees have slowly been uncovered over the years, while at the same time a live forest has grown on top of them. Due to the volcanic activity, there are also many plant and animal fossils in the area. The second half of the month marked the start of many long days of work building fences to keep Peruvian cows and goats out of the reserve. (Which is much more reasonable than building a wall to keep Mexican human beings out of the US, if you ask me.) I didn’t get to go along very much, guess the men don’t like women getting all up in their manly work. Whatever. Also, big news in July, a group of acting/production students from the University in Guayaquil came to the reserve to film short children’s stories as sort of a thesis project. Most of the actors are local people, only about six were students. They did some last year too…not too preachy but with positive messages about caring for the forest. It’s nice to take local people out to the reserve so they get to know it and have positive memories of it. Plus, you can imagine the outtakes filming in the reserve, particularly with the animals. The last week in July, we went to a site called Progresso, where NCI is just beginning a new reserve. I’m hoping to go back this week to learn about doing a bird inventory. The reserve there is denser, with more animals. The river even has crocodiles :-D Well, that’s about it for July. Here are some random photos from the month. Until next month!

These are some birds I have recently seen around here. The names that I know are below each photo. Burrowing Owl

Black-necked Stilt

Black-crowned Night Heron

Black Vulture

Yellow-headed Caracara

Tropical Gnatcatcher

Burrowing Owl

Peruvian Meadowlark

Some kind of finchesAnother kind of finch

Ecuadorian Trogon

Some kind of woodpecker

Vermillion Flycatcher

Tumbes Hummingbird

Pacific Parrotlet

Gray-cheeked Parakeet

Cocoi Heron

Great Egret

King Vulture

Laughing Falcon

The start of June meant the start of goat birthing season here. You have to seperate the baby goats from the other goats so they won't get trampled, so everyone around here had a corral full of baby goats, which are super cute. The families I know ended up with about 50-100 new goats between mid-June and mid-July. I got to see one goat birth (I've got video if you're interested but didn't want to gross people out.) which was pretty cool just because it's so quick and the goat doesn't even seem to care that it's happening. Yay new goats!

On June 11, we went out to the campo to work on the trail I was telling you about last post. On the way back into town, we got into an accident, which you already know about as well. The roads are really bad because of construction projects and trucks and whatnot. We ran off the road into a ditch to avoid hitting a truck. I wish I had taken pictures of my nose, but I was in a bit of shock for a few days after...oops. Anyway here's a picture of the accident. The parrots seem to have come late this year, but i finally got to see some flocks of them in June. For next year I want to learn more about hides so I can get really close and get some good pictures...But i have some videos of flocks of them which are super cool and a few photos that turned out alright.

The next week we had a couple of first aid workshops given by the Red Cross. It was very interesting because we took traditional first aid techniques and procedures and applied them to a campo setting. Our final "test," so to say, was to build a stretcher from materials found in the campo and find and rescue an "injured" person in the forest. There are more photos of this somewhere, but I don't have them. Anyway, it was cool. We learned how to immobilize the head/neck with baseball caps and a belt and how to make a splint out of tree bark, for example. Also in June we continued work on some land-rights stuff. When NCI buys property for its reserves in this area they try to straighten out property titles etc. for the people who live nearby and have no titles for their land because of 1) they and their ancestors lived under a feudal system and never had actual titles and 2) the distance to cities and difficulty and cost in filing for the titles. In one of the towns, Bolaspamba, the municipal government is building these tiny, ugly, brick and cement houses for people if they knock down their old, traditional-style houses. Supposedly they are improving quality of life. The town is going to be so ugly, ugh. No one from the municipality took even two minutes to consider the people of the town, what life in the campo is like, the traditional design and its benefits....grr. And for some reason I think they may have already told people to tear down their houses before having finished the new ones...there is a section of town that looks like thisJuly to come in next post. Love ya! -Sarita

Geez can you believe it’s nearly June and I still haven’t updated? Sorry ;) Truth is, I started an update a while back but never got around to finishing and posting it. I was supposed to go to a COS conference this week, but whatever-the-politically-correct-acronym-for-that-pig flu has hit Ecuador and thus our travel has been restricted. Good for me because I didn’t really want to travel all that way anyway and good for you because you finally get an update. Not so good, however, for the folks with the flu I guess.

So…despite the circumstances, the trip to the US was nice. It was good to spend time with family as time with family and friends is the only thing I really consider a sacrifice in PC. I’ve always loved the time I’ve spent in Fredericksburg, and it was nice to visit San Antonio as well.

I arrived in Zapotillo at an obscenely early hour on Good Friday (April 10). Easter was pleasant but rather uneventful. The kids and I painted easter eggs Ecua-style with brown eggs and colored pencils. I had some photos of this but I can’t seem to find them now.

Then back to work as usual on Monday. I started back at work in the office with a market study for palo santo essential oil. I made fairly good progress on it, considering that the only resource I had was dialup internet for two hours (on a good day) during lunch. The palo santo is a tree that is native to regions near here and the reserve has about 3000 hectares of land full of the trees, from which they pick up to 52.8 (out of an available 37,500) quintales of fruit during the annual harvest, which takes place in march/april. The locals are paid for their work and the fruit is sent to the city to extract the essential oils. Up to about 50kg of the oil can be produced annually and a portion of what is sold goes to the community bank as a bonus.

The next week I tagged along for measuring (with GPS) some land in order to legalize the community member’s property, charging only the processing costs charged by the government. I admire my work partners in the great progress and successes they’ve had over the years in this work because it is extremely tedious, the worst of the struggle being getting the people to understand that you are doing them a huge favor. The dudes wouldn’t let me walk around to measure the land so I mostly got to sit and chat with the locals, which is always a learning experience. Oh well, one day they’ll teach me GPS too.

04.5 Work Partners napping after a loooong day of measuring land

Other April happenings in-town included a friend’s daughter’s birthday party, elections, a week of protesting alleged election fraud and burning tires, and re-elections.

Portrait of me, compliments of Sayra ;)

Then we started work on a trail…the guys who are used to me let me help make the stairs, saw, use a machete, etc. Our first stair model was like this:

…to which I said, this is never going to last a rainy season let’s put some boards in and the guys said no, that’s a lot of work. The next week at work the boss (without my mention) said we needed to make the stairs more permanent. HAH. So my model got implemented, though I wouldn’t dream of getting credit for it. All that matters is that the stairs outlast cows, goats, and RAIN.

In early May I went out of town with a work partner for a workshop in Rainforest Alliance certification, which is basically a broad, yet flexible, socially-responsible, international certification for agricultural products. All of the other participants worked in coffee or cocoa production and we went on a fieldtrip to a cocoa farm and processing plant, so it was really cool to learn something completely new.

And then my work partner and I took advantage of some free time to explore Guayaquil. I didn’t take many pictures because it is supposedly very dangerous there, but the iguana park was too cool not to photograph.

On May 13th some visitors came from the US, a representative from the US branch of NCI and a representative from the San Diego Zoo. They wanted to get to know the forests because they are interested in maybe doing species conservation work here. I really hope they follow through on it, it could be a great partnership.

On May 15th we had an in-office workshop about ethics and values. It was cool, but very long. I made cinnamon rolls, so at least I contributed something...

Other recent, random news: Ecuavolley tournament in town. Ecuavolley is like volleyball, except not cool. My friend Stefanie got a puppy. Oh and my cool new camera allows me to take cool new pictures of all the cool (not new) stuff around here. Sit back and be amazed…I think they’re self-explanatory.

Edward C. Moeller, 80, of Fredericksburg, died Monday, March 9, 2009, at Austin Heart Hospital.Graveside services and interment of the ashes are planned for Friday, March 20, at 2:30 p.m. at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio with the Rev. Joe Waltz officiating.Arrangements are under the direction of Beckmann Funeral Home.Moeller was born March 19, 1928, in Peoria, IL, the son of Carl J. Moeller and Genevieve M. Julien Moeller. He married Colleen F. Dierdorf on June 26, 1954, in Wilton, IA, and she survives.After joining the U.S. Navy when he was 17, Moeller was deployed to the Pacific region.Afterwards, he was employed by Precision Aircraft Assembly and upon retirement, moved to Fredericksburg.In addition to his wife, Moeller is survived by a son and daughter-in-law, Jeffery W. and Susan Moeller of Austin, and a daughter, Sally A. Nelson, of Illinois, and six grandchildren.He was preceded in death by his parents as well as a brother, Robert J. Moeller.Memorials may be made to the charity of choice.

Seeing as another month has gone by, I figured I ought to update my blog. Life is still excellent here in site. The rainy season has begun in paradise, which means LOTS of bugs, humidity, heat, and all of the lovely things that accompany those. However, I’m happy as ever, if only slightly itchier and less well-rested. I really like the rain, though, and it’s transforming everything, which is so cool to see. Below is a Guyacan tree, which flowers at the start of the rainy season.

So pretty! I have yet to see the waterfalls that everyone keeps talking about, but I’m very excited for them. The river got pretty high and turbulent with the last rain. It’s hard to tell from the photos, but it’s a decent size river.

River in dry season

River after rain

Since my last entry, I’ve moved away from just accompanying other people in their projects and into starting my own projects. So far my work has been restricted to one community, which I prefer because working with few people allows me to get to know them better, which is not only enjoyable for me, but also helps us be able to get more work done. Besides, I LOVE the community…it’s so beautiful! I usually get a ride out to the community, stay for 2-3 days, and then get a ride back.

The community where I work

The first project I started was computer classes in the elementary school. The school is a one-room, 1st-6th school with 12 students. Class runs from 8am-10am, recess is 10-11, and then class resumes from 11am-1pm. Imagine for a moment being in a class with 12 students in six different grades for four hours a day with one teacher. It’s a challenging environment, to say the least. Well, the school has had one computer for three years with no one who knows how to use it. Computer classes went really well and we covered how to assemble/turn on/turn off a computer, mouse use, painting, and typing. The structure of the class actually worked to my advantage, as the teacher could only work with one grade level at a time, leaving most of the other kids to work on worksheets, etc., and 1-2 kids to practice on the computer. Since typing is something that requires more practice than instruction, I continued to give the kids time to practice typing, but we moved onto environmental education classes as a group.

Oh and I taught PE one day and we played kickball. Kickball, indeed!

hangin´out at recess

Dancin' at the Christmas Party

computer class- alejandra with all her deditos nice and comfy in their casitas

EE Class fieldtrips to the forest

Having said that, school lets out this week and I am looking forward to the opportunity to work more in-depth on other projects. I have two other main projects that I’m working on. First is a nutrition/nutritional security program that consists of three main components: 1) family gardens 2) theoretical nutritional education 3) practical nutritional workshops…that is, we are planting gardens, learning why what we are growing is good, and learning what to do with what we are growing (cooking classes). I am starting with a group of three families and the garden we are planting is going to be a little bigger than a family garden, and will serve as a model from which other families can learn. This garden is my first official financed project in Ecuador, hooray! (Granted the financing was less than $50, but whatever) Since there is not much excess water in the community, the idea is that families will plant small, individual gardens for family consumption only. So far, so good, but we’ve only just begun.

mmm roasted squash seeds

clearing the land for the garden

Seed bed

Main plot- 5m x 10m

The other project is small business development with the goat herders. I want to work first simultaneously with organization and controlling the quality and availability of input materials. Like I said before, the goats really only produce enough milk for the business in the rainy season, about three months a year. The rest of the year, if the women want to sell their products they have to buy milk. In the rainy season, that would be no problem as milk costs as low as .30/liter. However, in the dry season, when they need milk, it can cost up to .80/liter. What’s worse is the market price for the products they make is higher in the dry season and lower in wet season as well. Therefore, in the dry season they lose money because their costs go up and in the wet season, they lose money because of market flooding. Also, the women only sell to people who seek them out and sometimes in fairs, which generally require a lot of time and transportation and generate few sales. So what we want to do is find a way that the women can have sufficient, consistent milk output year-round and organization so that sales, too, stay consistent year-round. The work, then, has various parts. One being business consulting, how to organize a business, how to set up a client list and take orders, how to keep records, how to analyze if a business opportunity will be profitable, how to calculate costs and prices, how to do a market study, etc. Another part is setting up pastures and stables for the dairy goats as well as better controlling the health and well-being of said goats. Hopefully this will have many effects as the goats will become healthier, produce more and better-quality milk, and increase incomes. This should motivate people to want to move towards a more controlled approach to raising goats, decreasing the amount of time that the goats spend in the forest, thereby aiding NCI’s forest-conservation efforts. We’ll see…we’ll see. I’m working on helping to write up a proposal for the pasture part of the project with an Ag. student who is doing an internship at NCI.

Hope you all are doing well. Thanks to those who have been sending emails, they always brighten my day.

Oh, and I wanted to share these pictures too:

The chicken decided to relax in the hammock for a bit...

This is what the kids do when there's no school...hehFound this in my room in Cabeza de Toro...the kids thought it was hilarious that I put it in the forest instead of killing it.Abrazos,

Sarita

(Captions below pictures) Oh man, so I’m sorry, I know that you have all been waiting patiently for me to say something about Ecuador. This was mostly brought to my attention by my parents asking if I am in fact alive. Well, I am alive and I can’t believe it is December already! I’ve been in site for five weeks now, though it feels like I just got here. I love my site and I love my work, so much that I just plain forget to go online sometimes.

My site is in southern Ecuador, on the Peruvian border. It is hot and dry (though I hear that it is hot and humid for part of the year, too) and under 200m above sea level! What a change, there is a wide variety of plants and animals (no llamas though) here and sometimes I don’t even sleep with a blanket.

OMG THERE ARE BATS! :-) :-)

I like going to the communities here because of the dry tropical forest preserve. There are these cool trees called Ceibas which undergo photosynthesis in the trunk and branches, too, making the tree green all over. I love love LOVE the campo.

Lindsay and I with a Ceiba It´s freakin´ BEAUTIFUL here!Town is super lujo (luxurious). I have a hot (electric) shower and a modern mattress. My “host family” consists of a 50-something divorced woman (Jhonny) who owns a snack shop and her 24-year-old helper (Ursula). We’re more just like roommates and so far things have been great.

Ursula is the furthest left and Jhonny is the one in the middle next to Romulus.I have my space when I need it, company when I want it and all the modern comforts a girl could ask for. The town is about the same size as Mach but more modern. We have small grocery stores which carry about everything I could want and this really great market on Friday mornings where I buy produce for the week. The food here is fantastic. Market spoilsPeople here are really open and the only thing I’ve really had to adjust to is the men being so…geez, I don’t even know how to explain it. We would probably call it Machista but they say that it is just that Latino’s blood runs hotter than gringo blood. I am trying my best to understand why things are like they are and sort out for myself where to draw the lines and when to assert myself. I think I’ve found a good balance so far…we’ll see.

My social life here is great…that is, my friends are a gang of kids, my BFF being an eight year old named Rommel (I call him Romulus). Rommel is a hell of a kid, though. He’s soft-spoken but very intelligent and a quick learner. At first we just played war (lots and lots of war) together, but now we are working on a simplified version of Scrabble.

Romulus!Maria and Cristina at the riverThe weather is a welcomed change from Oruro, though I think people think I’m a little weird for sweating so much. The malaria meds haven’t given me any serious side effects yet (gracias a Dios) so that’s good. I recently went to Loja and to visit Lindsay in her site for Thanksgiving/Thanksgiving weekend. That week was the same week as the workshop and I’ve kind of been on a high since then, it was so nice. We even got in some hiking and some bathing in the river. Oh and this crazy beauty pageant/town dance/ridiculous cumbia concert in Lindsay’s site.

ThanksgivingPaper project in Lindsay´s siteHiking in Lindsay´s site

There´s this cool practice here called a ¨minga¨where the community gets together to volunteer to do some public works project. The mingas we do in the reserve are mostly building fences to keep the goats out. Check it out:As far as work, I am replacing a couple that was here (sounds like PC didn’t suit them) so I am busy, busy, busy! I can’t believe how much work there is to do here and how different the attitude is. It’s sad, though, because I am starting to see how difficult life is in Bolivia. I am amazed at how progressive and enthusiastic the people in the campo here are. Although I love Oruro, it was so hard to work there.

So…what have I been working on since I got here? Well, like in Mach, we work in the surrounding communities, though this time those communities are around and within a forest preserve owned mostly by my counterpart organization. We have various programs to help community development and, simultaneously, forest preservation. My first month here I tried to take advantage as much as possible to tag along with people, get to know as much of the communities and other projects as I possibly could. There is a project working with women to make and sell goat dairy products and I’m really excited to take that on as my main project. Luckily, we have many agricultural and other natural sciences experts working with the organization, but what’s lacking is someone with more business knowledge and experience. Which is very convenient for me! There’s a lot for me to learn and a lot for me to teach. My favorite part about the work is that the main objectives are not profits or production, but rather preservation of the forest and sustainable community development.

Goat loveCheese factoryMy first official workshop was last Tuesday, when I taught the women to make cheeses with local herbs and vegetables added in. The idea was to talk a little about what business is, what the women want to accomplish with their business, and then to talk about creativity and entrepreneurship. The workshop did not go at all as I had planned. It was supposed to be two days, like a total of 8 hours, and ended up getting compacted into 3 hours and lunch. Nearly all of the activities I planned had to be scrapped. BUT, it was phenomenal! The women picked up so quickly on the idea of inventing new products and just ran with it. Cilantro is a very popular flavor here and so I am hoping that the women will sell their cilantro infused fresh-goat cheese at the next fair, to test out how it sells. It turned out really well, as fresh cheese really compliments herbal flavors. I liked the one they made with hot peppers, but it might be a little tougher sell here. The women totally got it, though, and it opened their minds to so many other possibilities. I hope they continue to experiment and I can’t wait to see what else they can come up with!

Making Cheese

We have a fair to go to on Sunday and then we’re going to talk about planning for the rainy season. The problem is that there is hardly any milk production in the dry season (like 8-9 months of the year) and then there is overproduction in the wet season (3-4 months). During the wet season, due to market flooding, the price of cheese drops drastically, not to mention that transportation is difficult which means that their products can spoil before they are sold, since they are all-natural without any preservatives. I’m really going to try to push the women to try to come up with their own solution to this problem. They know that if they just make fresh cheese they will lose money because they sell it below cost. They know that neither I nor they can fix the road. We’ll see what they come up with and hopefully we will have an attack plan by January.

Other projects in my work are improved bee farming, community organizational development, and forest preservation.

BEES!

Amusing ways of cutting wood for bee boxes. iloveit.I guess that’s it for now. I don’t want to test my luck here or anything, but I’ve been in Peace Corps for 15 ½ months and I’ve got less than a year to go…at this point I’m so enthusiastic about my project that I’m just hoping I can do everything I want to in that short amount of time! I’m going to try to update this at least once, if not twice a month. If you want to email me, I will respond. If you want to call, my cell phone gets incoming calls, as well as being able to receive and send texts from/to the states. I think you all already have my mailing address (GMA, I received your Birthday card, THANK YOU! And sorry for being so rude and not having written to you yet, I’ll get on it!). Alright, I’ve got so much to do (starting a computer class tomorrow morning!) but I swear I will try to stay on top of these blogs! Love you all,Sarita (con cariñito)

This is my new mailing address:

Sarah Nelson, PCV

Cuerpo de Paz

Casilla 17-08-8624

Quito, Ecuador

South America

Quito, here I come!

Things have been so hectic lately. I wanted to wait until I knew what was really going on to inform you all. I’m going to start from way back, though, with right before my mom’s vacation.

Mom’s vacation in August was delayed by a consolidation we had in Santa Cruz because of the national vote for whether or not to keep Evo in office. I didn’t like being out of my site for so long, but everything turned out fine and I got to go back just in time to pick mom up from La Paz.

Mom’s vacation (10 days) was great. We started out in La Paz and took a bus (mom’s first flota!) to Oruro city. Then we spent a couple days in Oruro, checking out markets and some yummy food. Then it was home, sweet home to Machacamarca. The highlights there were visits with all of my friends and the annual bullfight. me and mom in mach kerry posing for the cameramom enjoying a nutritious, delicious gourd full of chichaAfter Mach, we left for Cochabamba, where mom met Joy and we ate more yummy food. Also we visited my host family from training, who had some very cute new dogs.

Then, all three of us moved on to Copacabana, to see Lake Titicaca. It is SO beautiful! joy eating troutmom and the lakejoy found cheetos!!!fish heads, mmmmmMom wanted a little rest one day, so Joy and I went to Isla del Sol to see some ruins. totora boat, made out of reeds. so cool!ruinsthe "1000 stairs". i counted. there are 200. i love bolivia.

llama loveThen back to La Paz where we stayed in a really swanky hotel. The trip was so luxurious I almost forgot I was in Peace Corps! Thanks again for the visit, mom, it was really fun!

However, when mom left, my very bad luck began. I don’t normally believe in luck, but a black cloud formed over me the second we said goodbye. I got to the bus station and started having back problems. There was no one to put my bag under the bus, so I put it in the overhead bin and took some pills for my back pain. Long story short, the pills made me pass out and when I woke up in Oruro, my entire hiking pack with most of my clothes and some other personal belongings, was gone. I can’t say it enough; I really don’t like being robbed. It’s so dehumanizing. This was Aug 25th.

Somewhere between Aug and Sept I heard rumors that PC was thinking about not sending future volunteers to the Altiplano to serve. When I started in Oruro in November, we had something like 15 volunteers. By August it was down to 5 in Oruro and 2 in Potosi, I think. My project (micro enterprise development) had just been cancelled in July. I was a little upset, I admit, because the Altiplano has the most poverty in Bolivia and I grew so attached to the region that I took it personally that we might not be able to continue to try to help the people of the Altiplano in the future.

However…my time in site was really good socially and work wise. Things were progressing well. My women’s group started a new set of classes. We had another K’OA/ walleyball tournament for work in La Paz. I was invited to participate in a nueve días ceremony for an unfortunate young man who had passed away while I was on vacation. Nueve días is a ceremony that takes place nine days after you bury someone because it is believed that after nine days of being buried, the body’s eyes burst and the soul goes to heaven. So you have a ceremony to bless the soul on its journey to heaven. I met a nice guy at the ceremony and got to know him a little better at another mass/celebration the next week. We ended up being pretty good friends for a couple of weeks. It was nice to have someone my age to talk to and hang out with…play bball and go hiking. The 3rd after hiking, I got some kind of stomach bug, but waited until the 5th to go into the city to do something about it. When I went into the city, I found out that another Oruro volunteer was being relocated to another site because he was “too fair skinned” to serve in the Altiplano. Admittedly I was upset since he had already served over a year in Oruro, was doing good work, and was attached to his community. And, he was white the whole time! Did they not notice for that whole year? Aaaaanyway…we said goodbye to our friend and I got antibiotics from the doctor, so my stomach ailments cleared up.

I was invited to go swimming a few days later at a nearby pool/hot springs on Sept 8 when… I had an accident and got burned in a big gas fire in my house the morning of September 9th. I had wanted to make a cake for my friend’s birthday, but the regular oven was off-limits and my host family wasn’t home so I used the industrial oven. Bolivian ovens don’t have pilot lights, so you have to turn on the gas tank and then light the oven with a match. I think there was a gas leak because as soon as I lit the match (I didn’t even come near where you light the oven) there was a big explosion. It was pretty upsetting when it happened, but it’s all good now. I lost some hair and my eyebrows and lashes and stuff. The doctor said it was only 2nd degree burns though, so no big deal. Oh and now I’ve got acne from the ointment I had to use for the burns, but I have great medical coverage here and the dermatologist says it will clear up soon. The great thing was that I realized what awesome friends I had, as they took me to the clinic (to get my entire face covered by burn cream and gauze- what a weirdo!) and then when I was stuck in the house for days came by frequently, applying traditional remedies to my burns (don’t worry, I also followed the doctor’s regimen), calming me down, keeping me company, and assuring me that I didn’t look like a complete freak, even though I really did. One of my friends even walked around with me at night (since I couldn’t go out during the day) and watched Olympic swimming inside with me. It makes me a little emotional, thinking back on it now, but I’m so glad I had the opportunity to grow close to those great people. The physical damage will fade, but I will always remember those friendships.

It's okay to laugh at this picture. It's from right after the burns, when I went to the clinic. In fact, the photo cracks me up now which is why I am posting it.

Oh, yes, and then I got this giant splinter in my foot:

While I was sick and burned, I took several photos of Kauri documenting his fascinating lifestyle. I couldn't capture the full magic of the little monster on film, however. Joy was convinced he could be a model cat one day (saw it in Vogue) but alas I will never see Kauri again and his fate is in the hands of my friends. Ojalá que le vaya bien. I know he's just a cat, but "just a cat" can really help you through some tough times and I grew very attached to him, since we'd been together since his birth! Here is a short tribute to Kauri Mimijalalelacola (last name given by my host sister from Cochabamba):

kauri loves skittles OMG...SHOES!kauri was not keen on me packing

So, as you read in my last post, we were evacuated from Bolivia. It was kind of crazy; we got a call the night of the 12th saying that we were on consolidation again and that we had to go to our regional cities the next morning. Since we had just come back from a consolidation that turned out to be nothing, I didn’t take it too seriously, but was nervous. I packed somewhat, wrote a few very quick goodbye notes in case, and left Kauri with a friend. I told a couple of people what was going on, but promised that I would be back. The mood was somber but, appropriately, we stuck with the Bolivian “This isn’t goodbye, just see you later. I’ll be back.” I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t have the heart to say goodbye to my friends, to my women’s group. I think I needed to believe that I was coming back, despite the sinking feeling in my stomach. I’m very bad at good-byes and the more emotional I feel about leaving someone or something, the more quickly I try to leave and the less I try to say. I feel a great deal of guilt about this because I allowed my anxiety to let me pull away from the community very quickly. What I wouldn’t give for one more day just to tell people how much I loved them. Anyway…

So we went to Cochabamba and didn’t hear much over the weekend except that things weren’t good. But we get that a lot in Bolivia, so I wasn’t stressing too much about it. Then they told us that Sunday morning we would be moving to a new hotel so we packed our things and loaded them on buses. Then we had a meeting and they said we were leaving immediately to get on a plane to Peru. Some volunteers came from the other side of the country and didn’t even know we were leaving the country until they were already on the plane to Cochabamba. We evacuated over the course of two days, on two military C130 planes. At this point, we were all very sad to be leaving Bolivia, but hopeful that we might return. From there on out, the chronology of everything is very hard for me to distinguish. A day or so later, we heard that the PC Bolivia program was being closed. I heard there was to be more news on aid given to Bolivia, but I still haven’t been able to find anything about this. We have been stationed outside of Lima for over a week now, trying to figure out what’s going on. About ¾ of the volunteers decided to end their service and ¼ decided to transfer to a new country.

At first I really wanted to go to Honduras, but it seems like the program might not be the best fit for me. I’ve been assigned to Ecuador and I am really excited because it sounds like the APCD found something that fits well with my experience and interests. It will be tough being so close to Bolivia, but I am determined to throw myself into my work and community every bit as much as I did in Machaca.

Thus, I close the Bolivia chapter of my life with nothing but love, fond memories, and many lessons learned and hope to have the courage to open the next chapter on the same note. Though I carry on, I will never leave the Altiplano in my heart, as it will forever be a part of me. Viva Bolivia! Viva Oruro! Viva Machacamarca! Jallalla!

Sarita

Peace Corps/Bolivia Program Suspended

Volunteers have been safely moved to Peru WASHINGTON, D.C., Sept. 15, 2008 - Peace Corps operations in Bolivia have been temporarily suspended to ensure the safety of the Peace Corps Volunteers serving there. With growing instability in Bolivia, 113 Volunteers were consolidated on Sunday, September 14, and have now been moved to Peru where they will be transitioning out of service or to another post. “Our first priority is the safety and security of our Volunteers,” said Peace Corps Director Ron Tschetter. “Thousands of Peace Corps Volunteers have served in Bolivia since 1962, building deep friendships with the people there. We hope the situation will improve soon so future Volunteers can continue the Peace Corps’ fine tradition of valuable service to the Bolivian people.” The Volunteers serving in Bolivia will be granted close of service in good standing, or offered an opportunity to transfer to another Peace Corps country. Since 1962, more than 2,500 Peace Corps Volunteers have served in Bolivia. The current group of Volunteers worked in the following sectors: agriculture, business development, environment, health, and youth development.Peace Corps/Washington is in constant communication with staff in Bolivia as well as the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Embassy. The Peace Corps will continue to evaluate and monitor the situation. Each Peace Corps program has an Emergency Action Plan (EAP) specific to that country and developed in cooperation with the U.S. Embassy and Peace Corps/ Washington. The plans are tested frequently and information is updated constantly. Volunteers are thoroughly trained in their role and responsibilities in the EAP. Posts are prepared for all emergencies.The Peace Corps is celebrating a 47-year legacy of service at home and abroad. Currently there are more than 8,000 Volunteers abroad, a 37-year high for Volunteers in the field. Since 1961, more than 190,000 Volunteers have helped promote a better understanding between Americans and the people of the 139 countries where Volunteers have served, including Bolivia. Peace Corps Volunteers must be U.S. citizens and at least 18 years of age. Peace Corps service is a 27-month commitment. To learn more about the Peace Corps, please visit our website: http://www.peacecorps.gov/.

Sorry for the lack of updates, everything has been a little crazy.

A while back, we performed a koa ceremony to bless the NGO I´m working with. I found this blog which has some good pictures. Basically, a koa is a ceremony in which you give back to the mother earth (Pachamama) so that she will bless and protect you and your business. You place cloths on a table and they are filled with sugar tiles that represent certain things like education, wealth, etc. and various other offerings (ours had some kind of animal, I think it was a llama but I´m not sure). Everyone sits around the table, shares food, chats, drinks beer, etc. I´m sure this varies with the group. You dip coca leaves in special alcohol to ¨challar¨, i.e. sprinkle the alcohol on the corners and in the center of the offering. We chose the best coca leaves out of piles to give to Pachamama and then placed them with the tiles, three at a time, making a wish each time we put three leaves on. Then you start a fire and place the offerings on the fire. With the rest of the alcohol, you challar the four corners of the fire. That´s a very compressed version of what went on, so you´ll have to use your imaginations, but it was very interesting and very nice to have time to reflect on the past and bond with my work partners.

Then I had to leave my site for some time due to PC security measures. Everything went well, thank god, and I´m very glad to be back in my site. My mom is going to be here soon for a visit and I´m really excited to show her my site and a few other cool places.

Not much else new, I feel like I´m all over the place lately and look forward to buckling down at work in September. I love and miss you all!

Sarita

Howdy folks! It’s been a long time, I know. I thought I should preface this entry with the ever-encouraging statistic that something like 90 percent of development projects fail. If my entries are sparse, it’s only because I don’t want to waste your time with all of my failures. So just think, when I haven’t updated in a while, I’m probably just getting that much closer to success. Well, at least I like to think that every time a project fails my odds get better that the next one will work. Aaanyway…

I have started work with an organization called SARTAWI. I am very hopeful about this work. The people in the office are well-organized and motivated. I am working with a woman (Sonia) from SARTAWI on a project for the product transformation of milk into cheese and yogurt. We are working with sixty-something families in the municipality. We are starting with the basics and will work step-by-step to help the families improve their businesses and therefore their incomes. Our first workshop (taller) was this past Saturday, and it was incredibly encouraging. We are starting with production standards and quality control. This includes basic hygiene, hygiene of the work areas, proper milking, using a recipe and measuring, care of milk products, etc. We were able to cover the ideas of what is a production standard, what is quality control, why it is important, and personal hygiene. The families that attended each made a handwashing station out of a recycled 2 liter bottle and they liked them so much that several people asked for extra string to make more at home. The participants were very active in the discussions and activities and I felt like the whole thing was a great success. I can’t wait to go back again, which will hopefully be next weekend, so we can talk about proper milking techniques and hygiene, and using a recipe. I want to do follow-up on the production standards and then move on to other business skills, depending on their needs. I’m also working with a man (Abel) from SARTAWI on financial reports for the families’ businesses. This endeavor is much more tedious and dry, but necessary. We’re a bit rushed but after we get this report finished, I want to work with Abel to set up an Access program that people from SARTAWI can use on a regular bases to track and analyze the finances. Eventually I’d like to get the families themselves to have some sort of accounting and financial records and knowledge, but that is pretty far down the road. To say that I am hopeful about this project is an understatement.

Here are some books I’ve read recently:

· Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

· Getting Stoned with Savages,

· Beloved, Toni Morrison

· Naked, David Sedaris

· Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer

· Confessions of an Economic Hitman, John Perkins

I’m currently reading “The Places in Between” by Rory Stewart.

Everything else is going just fine. My health is fine and I am truly happy and lucky to be here. Getting to know this area from the inside and getting to know the people who live here is a work benefit that far outweighs any salary or company stock I could have gotten with a job back in the states. I’ve always thought Peace Corps was the right thing for me to do next, and now I see that I belong just exactly where I am right now. I’d like to thank everyone who has sent me mail or packages or any other signs of encouragement since I’ve been here. You’ll probably never know what they mean to me, so a simple thank-you will have to suffice. You’re all welcome and encouraged to come visit if you have the chance! Love,

Sarita

PS here are some pictures, out of order. and unlabeled. blogger.com is pissing me off. sorry.

Thanks to my old site mate Kerby, I´ve got pics from...well, since November! More to come soon. Enjoy!

my siteworking on a battery disposal box

birthday (kauri was so small!)

amber on bday hike with kauri kerby w/kauri and me on bday hike

To add to the books I´ve read while here:

Angel Fire East, Terry Brooks

Searching for El Dorado, Marc Herman

McNally´s Secret, Lawrence Sanders

From the Corner of His Eye, Dean Koontz

1st to Die, James Patterson

Life of Pi, Yann Martel

The Murder Book, Jonathan Kellerman

The Testament, John Grisham

I´ve been trying out some new thriller authors and catching up on some old favorites. I´m still working on the Living Wage book and have just started Anna Karenina.

Pictures to come soon, I hope! Besos y abrazos,

Sarita

Oh, dear friends, it has been too long since my last update. I appreciate the subtle hints, such as emailing to ask if I’m still alive. So you want another installment of my great Bolivian adventure? Hold on to your hats…

…or don’t. Life is progressing in the same slow, steady pace as always. In fact, in order to recount what I’ve been up to the past month or so, I find myself consulting my planner and personal journal. Things are going well: I’m healthy, I’m happy, and best of all I’m working. On a scale of 1-10 (Joy, if you’re reading this, you’ll recall 1 and 10 as being near unreachable. It’s important to be realistic, no?) I would rate the past month about an 8. Here’s a recap:

In late February/early March, I had a site visit from our volunteer leader (a 3rd year volunteer) Claire. Site visits are important because they give a volunteer a second (Peace Corps, that is) opinion on the way things are going in-site, be it work or otherwise. I’ve found it to be a (albeit wonderful) challenge to more or less be placed in a community and have to find some way to use your knowledge and skills to help the town develop or improve. Granted, we do have project guidelines, but it’s far from your everyday 9-5 desk job. (Which is a large part of PC’s appeal.) Anyway, so I got some important feedback on which job possibilities I should leave for later and which I should pursue more aggressively. One of the most important things about my work here is turning out to be not what I do, but with whom I work.

After the site visit, I took a trip to Sajama National Park. I’m hoping to get photos any day now so that I can show you all. It’s absolutely beautiful. I am thinking quite seriously about climbing the extinct, glacier-topped volcano during the 2009 season. It would be a challenge and a thrill, for sure. Besides the volcano, the park has the world’s highest forest, of a funny little endangered tree species; a large area of various geysers (none of which shot up while we were there); hot springs; and lots of llamas and vicuñas. While the park is in the same department I live in, I was surprised at how cold it was there! I can only imagine what it would be like during climbing season, which is in the dead of winter.

Mid-March I took a trip to Cochabamba for several reasons. First and foremost, to visit my friend Joy in her site. It’s good to get to loosen up around friends once in a while, to not have to take such care in what you say both in actual language and cultural context. To just be able to be once in a while. Plus, her site is in the Cochabamba department and, my, how green it is there! Even the city is lined with trees with huge blossoms and grass and shrubs…It’s so amazing that so many very different natural worlds exist within one country. While in Cochabamba, I was also able to help a fellow volunteer out at her orphanage, giving some internet lessons to the kids. Besides that, I caught up on some paperwork in the office and (somewhat foolishly) spent my vacation savings on a guitar.

At this point, you may be asking yourselves what I am thinking buying a guitar. It’s true that I have little to no musical talent and that, when I bought the guitar I’d never even held one in my life. Well, I say unto you nay-sayers that is precisely the reason that I bought a guitar. If my quest is unsuccessful musically, at least I will have filled my free time for the next couple of years. Like I said before, my book supply is constantly running low. To continue the guitar saga, I found a teacher in my site. He is my host brother’s music teacher at school and plays in a local Bolivian folk band. Upon meeting him, the first thing he did was give me a lovely poster advertising his band. The second thing he did was sell me the band’s cd, insisting I could listen now, pay later, surely some kind of Bolivian-pueblo line of credit. I was pleased to find that, although the actual songs, the melodies, are the usual set of Bolivian songs, the lyrics and themes of the songs have to do with my site. The third thing he did was tune my guitar, something that I hadn’t yet learned to do. Then we started with the lesson. I learned two chords and was told to practice them over and over again. You wouldn’t believe how entertaining it was to practice two simple chords over and over and over for nearly a week. I went back for another lesson. I learned a whopping seven new chords and slowly deciphered my teacher’s system of naming the notes “do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si-do” and “the other do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si-do”. For the brief time I learned piano and sang in choir, all I had ever heard of was a-b-c-d-e-f-g, with sharps and flats and then there was a song I learned with “do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti­-do”. I asked my teacher one day if “la” wasn’t “a” and he said that no such thing as “a” existed. I’ve since stopped trying to be so rigid in my learning and just soak up all he’s got to teach and the way he learned it. But one thing perpetually bugged me: my guitar was constantly out-of-tune and I kept having to hunt him down to fix it or try to ignore the awful sounds coming from what I was practicing. I had borrowed the book “Guitars for Dummies” (no, seriously) from the PC library, to supplement what I was learning from my teacher. This book arrived missing the accompanying cd, which I think is probably the only way that a book on beginning guitar could actually work without a teacher. But there was a section about how to tune your guitar to itself. Naturally, this is not the route you would take professionally but it was good enough for my purposes. That beautiful guitar, which cost exactly half of a month’s allowance. That poor, beautiful guitar. The first couple strings went well. But something happened with the third string. No matter how much I “tuned” the string, it still sounded flat to me. This is why your first lesson with a teacher should be how to tune the guitar. Stupid girl. The string broke with a loud SNAP right against my hand. Of course I can replace the string, but I think I was a bit stunned by the physical result of my carelessness. I haven’t hardly practiced those new chords and I haven’t yet had the courage to tell my teacher what I’ve done.

In other non-related work news, I joined a macramé club. Well, more specifically a women’s group, led my a local NGO, that is currently learning macramé. But let’s leave macramé, and consequently my feelings about the craft, out of this. The club is a good social outlet with nice, good people. I think some of the women sell their crafts. I explained that it is not befitting of a volunteer to make money during service. So you can all look forward to lovely macramé gifts in the near future. Send your thanks to the lovely folks at Kolping. J

I can’t remember if I mentioned it before, but I also recently visited the gold mine of a half-American in my town. They let me watch them process some ore and patiently explained everything to me. The mine doesn’t function much anymore, mostly because of limits in the technologies there. But perhaps once they get electricity up at the machines, the mine will start working again daily. Who knows. My friend even let me keep a piece of the rock with a small piece of gold in it. I should copy his pictures soon and be able to post some of those on here, too.

In work news, I started my business simulation class with the afternoon groups of high school seniors. Class meets once a week and will go until mid-May. I’m scared we won’t be able to fit everything in, but the class has been going smoothly thusfar. I was going to teach the same class to juniors, but we missed a few classes already due to miscommunications, so I think we might stick with life skills or something of the sort. Various lessons and activities that focus on teamwork, self-esteem, communication and the like. Mostly I just want to be in the classroom with the kids, doing something. You see, school started nearly two months ago. Each group of kids only goes to school for half a day, four hours. Within each group there are two junior and two senior classes. And within those four hours are three, 80-minute classes. I was allowed to schedule my classes about a month after the trimester had begun. I only asked to teach the afternoon groups, with the idea that next trimester I could teach the morning groups. There was space at least for me to teach one class a week for each of the junior and senior classes. The space that I took was these students’ “free period.” That means that, before I occupied that time, students would have days where one hour and twenty minutes of the four hour day, they were allowed to roam about the school and do as they pleased. Not that I think we need to confine students, but that meant 80 minutes of precious school time in which they weren’t learning anything. It makes my heart ache for these students, honestly. Teachers complain that when they are in classes, they are disruptive and misbehaved and don’t want to learn. I will admit that when I began classes my students came to class 20 minutes late, drifted about the room during class, talked out of turn, and made jokes. It’s not about controlling the kids so much as it is managing the classroom and creating an environment that fosters learning. I wish I knew more about teaching. I’ve been reading some books on the subject and the things I’ve implemented in the classroom are going well so far. Mostly I think the kids are in a bit of a shock, not knowing how to deal with this super-weird gringa teacher. But they’ve been very welcoming, with even the freshmen and sophomores bombarding me when I enter the school and asking can’t I please come teach their classes? The seniors assure me that they do want to learn how to run a business and I can’t wait to see their excitement in actually running one.

(Sidenote: I read recently in a friend’s blog that she can’t stand when kids in her classes call her “teacher.” In spanish, they call their teachers “profe” which is a shortened form for the literal translation of “teacher.” But something gets lost in translation and I agree that it’s rather displeasing to be called “teacher” (r rolled or with the quechua-influenced zjuh sound) or “Miss” (mees, if you will) in English. So, lots of the kids have been trying to impress me with their English by calling me “teacher” and greeting me with a “good morning” at 4 in the afternoon. With my Santa Cruz buddy in mind, I gently encourage the students to call me profe, sarah, señorita nelson…anything but gringa, choca (kinda like blondie), miss or teacher! We’ll leave good afternoon for another day.)

My work with the mayor’s office computer lab has taken on a more Bolivian-pace. I’m too busy (Allah be praised) to spend an exorbinant amount of time waiting to be blown-off. In the meantime, I’m not giving up but rather looking for different ways of proceeding.

I have a few other small projects that I’ve been meaning to get around to and, slowly but surely am. I’ve gotten some books on teaching English as a foreign language and I think once my confidence for teaching the subject is increased, so too will my enthusiasm. More exciting is the recent opportunity to help a university teacher in the city and here in my site. She would like to improve her speaking, particularly her pronunciation, in order to better help her classes. And what better way to promote sustainable development than to teach a teacher?

I suppose that’s about it for now. My apologies on the length. Will try to less, more often. All my besos and abrazos,

Sarita

A few updates:

Work: I'm currently working on lesson plans to teach a intro to business/business simulation class at one of the high schools in town. I'm taking most of the lesson plans from a business simulation guide provided to us by Peace Corps, but changing some things to suit my needs. Kerby and I are starting up with english classes with the doctor again. I'm hoping to get that schedule all smoothed out. Con calma, of course. Also struggling a bit with the mayor to get the computer lab in a suitable room so we can start those classes again. A woman in town has recently asked for help with learning some kind of economic skill, so that should be interesting. Also, one of my students from the computer class is a computer teacher at the elementary school and would like me to stop by the school some day. And then there are the endless possibilites of community tourism work. So, nothing solid yet, but a lot of good work opportunities.

Kauri: got neutered last Wednesday. Poor little fella'. He's been moping around with a homemade cone around his neck. Last night, however, it seems he got his spunkiness back.

Misc: Update on my "books read in PC" list. Since last time, I've read: Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand; Leaving Home, various authors; Making Globalization Work, Joseph Stiglitz; Life & Times of Michael K., J.M. Coetze; Bluebeard, Kurt Vonnegut; Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger; Beneath the Wheel, Hermann Hesse; One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Keasey; and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson. Next on the list is The Living Wage, Pollin & Luce

If you'd like to help feed my reading addiction (I'm running out of books!), here are a few that I'd like to get my hands on:

Failed States- The abuse of Power and the Aassault on Democracy, Noam Chomsky

Reclaiming Development- An Alternative Economic Poliy Manual, Ilene Grabel

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Naomi Klein

The Savage Detectives, Roberto Bolana

Kite Runner, Khaled Hasseini

I am America (And so can you!), Stephen Colbert

And Then We Came to an End, (not sure of the author)

Well, that's all for now I suppose. Besos y abrazos!

Sarita

Quick update: I´m well, might start working with the schools soon. In light of recent news, thought I would share this little tidbit from Peace Corps:

Since Peace Corps’ inception in 1961, it has been the practice of the Peace Corps to keep Volunteers separate from any official duties pertaining to U.S. foreign policy, including the reality or the appearance of involvement in intelligence related activities. This practice has been re-affirmed consistently by each successive administration over the past 46 years.

Any connection between the Peace Corps and the intelligence community would seriously compromise the ability of the Peace Corps to develop and maintain the trust and confidence of the people in the host countries we serve.

Consistent with the policy of every administration since 1961, Director Ron Tschetter, himself a former Volunteer in India (1966-1968), has been very clear in re-affirming this long standing policy and, once again, stressing that Peace Corps Volunteers work on community service and nothing else.

Peace Corps policy against intelligence connections is based on the general authority of the Director of the Peace Corps, provided by section 5 (a) of the Peace Corps Act, to establish the terms and conditions of service of Volunteers, by the Foreign Service Act of 1980, and on long-standing agency policy prohibiting any connection between Peace Corps and intelligence activity first enunciated by Peace Corps Director Sargent Shriver in 1961.

Since the initial opening of the Peace Corps/Bolivia program in 1962, more than 2,500 Peace Corps Volunteers have served in Bolivia. After a hiatus that began in 1971, the government formally requested that the Peace Corps return to Bolivia, and the Peace Corps resumed operations in 1990. Today, there are approximately 130 Volunteers working in Bolivia in the areas of health, agriculture, business development, education, and environmental projects. Where appropriate, the Peace Corps also integrates information technology into projects to expand technology access for Bolivian youth, farmers, entrepreneurs, and municipalities.

The safety and security of Peace Corps Volunteers remains our highest priority. Given the environments in which we work, the Peace Corps focuses on minimizing risk and maximizing security while also providing a meaningful experience for Volunteers and their host communities. The Peace Corps is celebrating a 46-year legacy of service at home and abroad. Currently there are more than 8,000 Volunteers abroad, a 37-year high for Volunteers in the field. Since 1961, more than 190,000 Volunteers have helped promote a better understanding between Americans and the people of the 139 countries where Volunteers have served. Peace Corps Volunteers must be U.S. citizens and at least 18 years of age. Peace Corps service is a 27-month commitment.

Not much new to report. I was going to post Carnaval pictures, but I asked my friend to hold onto my camera and it got stolen. So, that kinda sucks. Won't be getting a new one until, say, October because my insurance hasn't gone through yet. I've got my eye on some sweet ones though, so it'll be worth the wait!

In cheerier news, Kauri is growing like crazy! It's now apparent that she is in fact a he! Here is a picture showing him at a few weeks old and then at four months. He's even bigger now and when he stretches out he reaches paw-to-paw from my chin to mid-thigh. I'm not sure what the official measure on that would be, but he's big!

PS I'm trying my best to find work now so that I have something of substance to tell you all. In the meantime, if there's anything that you all want to know about life in Bolivia, leave a comment and I'm happy to report.PPS I got the most amazing package from Jen a while back- THANK YOU! I've also been getting some great mail from everyone and I love it! Hang in there, your reply letters are on the way!Besos y abrazos,Sarita

So, I decided to spend Christmas in my site rather than in the city, which you probably already knew. On the 23rd I made about four dozen sugar cookies as a gift for the family because they had mentioned that they would like to do something that was a Christmas tradition in the states. I found some good tips for baking at this altitude; adding more liquid, using more shortening, cooking at a lower temperature, and using less baking powder. They turned out surprisingly well and were my first Altiplano baking success. My host brother, Javier, and I decorated the living room with some things the previous volunteer left behind.

Christmas Eve started out the same as any other day- with laundry and cooking. My host dad (Braulio), Javier, and I went to the city to get a few final things for the celebration. When we returned, there were a bunch of aunts, uncles, and cousins at the house.

Cousin roger shows off the decorations

There was also a sheep. When I asked the kids why there was a sheep there, I was informed that the sheep was for the Christmas meal the following day. They wanted some pictures of the sheep while it was still alive.

Baaaaaaah

The weather was calm and the sky was beautiful. It’s summer here, but that doesn’t mean much in the altiplano. It’s hot when it’s sunny and chilly when it’s not. I hear it gets a lot colder in the winter. Yikes.

Pretty Christmas sky. They say the moon is always full and bright for Christmas.

The women chatted and got ready to cook as the kids and I took up a more American tradition; playing board games. They have a Star Wars-Monopoly type game and we tried to play that, but it turned out to be too complicated for the little ones and the babies kept knocking over the board.

Monopolio

This seems to be a lesson I learn year after year: Monopoly is not a good game to play at family gatherings. ;) So we stuck to a card game the kids really liked where they hand out cards and the winner is whoever has the highest number or the highest sum. We also played BINGO which was pretty fun. Both days we took lots and lots of photos and videos, giving everyone who wanted a chance to try out my camera, despite the worries of the adults.

BINGO!

At midnight, the women made Buñuelo (fried dough) and Api (a sweet grain drink, I think made from corn). I really like both- they’re delicious.

Cooking buñuelo

I made eggnog and brought out the sugar cookies. I didn’t know the word for “nutmeg” (and my dictionary is on-loan to someone) so the eggnog didn’t quite taste like eggnog, but it was good.

Mmm, sugar cookies!

After all the sugar and hot drinks, we were pretty tired, so we called it a night. The next morning, I slept in despite hearing all the kids’ excitement early in the morning. When I woke up, there was a card and little coin purse for me from the family. Another one of the aunts showed up for Christmas Day with her three children. They gave me some fried pastries and miniature pears as a Christmas gift, plus a plush white cat for Kauri. I had coffee and we all had this Christmas bread which is kinda like fruitcake, but it's actually good.

Then it was time to slaughter the sheep and prepare it for cooking. Javier really wanted me to watch, but I refrained. I did, however, see much of the cleaning of the sheep, etc. It was pregnant, surprise! (I have many videos with the sheep in the background if you are interested.) I was amazed at how they really use every part of the sheep. I explained that, as far as I know, adult sheep are only used for wool, and my family couldn’t believe it. “What do they do with the meat when the sheep is too old?” they asked. I still don’t know. I tried to explain that in the States, most of us are really distanced from our meat products, so many people don’t really know where their meat comes from, what parts of the animal it is, how animals are killed, etc. Well, anyway, the women spent practically all day preparing this sheep and we had sheep and rice for Christmas dinner. The traditional Christmas dish is turkey, but turkey costs 33 B’s a kilo and an entire sheep costs 200 B’s. I saw my host grandmother cleaning the sheep’s head, so I thought they were going to serve the traditional Oruro dish (I forget the name) of boiled sheep’s head, but they didn’t. It was just a pot of various meat cuts and ribs.

The family sharing Christmas dinner

The kids all put on the clothes that the previous volunteer sent them for Christmas, and took a picture.

Braulio and most of the kids

Then we watched the movie I got them for Christmas, “The Santa Clause 3.” I also gave them some Christmas music (that didn’t work!) and some candy, which they were totally nuts about. We played soccer (not a good idea) on the patio, and then switched to volleyball (good idea). After dark, everyone said goodbye and promised to return again soon. Overall, it was a good Christmas and surprisingly similar to how my family celebrates in the states. Until next time!

Sarita

PS. I almost forgot! Sad news...I'm not going to be able to dance tinku afterall. I've been coming in for practices but no one was there! There's still all of January for practice, but I'm going to be in Cochabamba for two weeks for in-service training. And Carneval is the first week of February (very early) this year. So sad!

My goodness, how time flies. First of all, I would like to send a huge thank you to my family for the recent phone calls and my most exciting first package! I love you guys and I really appreciate the support. And, thanks for this great picture of grampa, dad!

I suppose it's been about seven weeks, now, that I've been in my site. The first three months in site, we are supposed to work on getting to know the community, analyzing the situation, and identifying work possibilities.

I had been “helping out” with a computer class. My town’s mayor’s office had ten computers (complete with desks and everything) donated by a european NGO. I’m not sure exactly when this was, but a lot has happened since then, including various changes in the mayor’s office employees. By the time I got there, less than half of the computers were fully-functioning and a class was set to begin with ten students. Some of the computers allegedly had their sound cards stolen (by whom or why, I can’t even imagine). The room in which the computers were kept is extremely humid, which is so weird because the climate is so dry here. So, the humidity had caused (by word of a technician) oxidation of some machines that were no longer in the room when I got there. Some of the computers were taken out of the lab and were being used in the mayor’s office. Of the computers left in the lab, none of the monitor ports worked, so only the computers with secondary monitor ports (I don’t understand why they had them; I’ve never seen that before) were able to be used. It seemed like such a shame to me because these were new, good quality computers and I believe if they had training on the care and use of the computers before they got there, perhaps the situation would have been different. But if there’s one thing abundant in Bolivia, it’s creativity! So, we got the class off the ground and things were going quite well. The students all seemed very enthusiastic and hardworking. One night we had some problems because the room flooded and the power went out in the building, but we got through that too. Anyway, so like I said, I was just helping out. The young man who is teaching the classes is a University student with a good basic knowledge of computers. I was essentially useless, but the idea was that I was in the class in the case that any more advanced matters might arise. After sitting in on the class three days a week, Kerby (my site mate, a natural resources volunteer) mentioned that he was teaching english classes and that he wouldn’t be available for many of the upcoming classes so, if I were available, I could fill in for him. The only problem was it just happened to be at the same time on the same days as the computer class. As much as I’d love to teach a computer class, I’d much prefer to actually be teaching rather than observing. So now I'm teaching english, alternating days with Kerby. The man who facilitates the english classes, a doctor named Boris, convinced me to start teaching classes every night so that the students can get through a textbook they have and can go into the city and get tested to become certified. Or something like that. I’m not 100% sure; he talks very fast, this Boris. He's a good person to work with though, it seems. He's knowledgeable and actively wants to give back to the community.

Other than that, I had been pretty frustrated with trying to find work because Idon’t know anyone. Step one in being a PC Volunteer is to get to know people! But you need someone to introduce you to people, particularly here. I had some problems with my counterpart. Not everyone is always excited to work with us (obviously), so it's important to find the people who are. My host dad is now filling in as my counterpart and I feel like things are improving. I'm meeting more people and I'm getting out in the community to see how things work. From time to time, I hope to get to help out other PCVs with their projects. I helped Kerby a bit to build a concrete battery disposal box and other people have been talking to me about forestization, drilling wells, greenhouses, and a world map project to name a few.

So, everyone tells you that it’s going to be a shock getting into your site, but it’s hard to imagine from the comforts of training. But there was definitely a shock, and a bigger one than I expected. I wouldn’t call it culture shock. I think I mostly got over that in training, you learn to appreciate some things, learn to accept others, and learn to switch your mind off at the things that you’re likely not going to adjust to in two years. And, luckily, the majority of things fall within the first two of those. My site’s really cool and I’m really happy to be here. I think the shock was like post-training shock. I got so used to watching powerpoints and having language class that, although I still knew I was in Peace Corps, the reality of service became somewhat distant. And then one day you’re in your site and it’s like “Oh, wow, what on earth do I now?” I know it’s a matter of taking it one day at a time, but then each day comes and you wake up and it’s still just “what now?” It’s really overwhelming at first because you’re not sure what all of your goals are and they certainly don’t just pertain to work. It’s weird that having so little to do in your life can be so overwhelming. As I’m coming out of this shock, I’ve started things like keeping a “to-do” list. With each day, I feel a little less lost, which is good. I think the most valuable part of training was telling us that most volunteers feel this way when starting out; that it’s a part of the process.

I shamelessly admit that in my down time, I’ve been doing an awful lot of the thing that Peace Corps warns us about: reading. I finished Atlas Shrugged and am (finally) plowing through Making Globalization Work. It’s really good and it’s particularly nice to read something that really makes me think. Plus, I appreciate the english vocab refresher. I’ve been reading a few articles here and there, too. One in particular, The Wolfowitz Affair and its Consequences, from Stiglitz, was an interesting challenge as to the process of electing the president of the IMF, but moreso of the World Bank. Another intereseting one I’m working on is about how perceived negative trait attributes affect what type of procedures are used for solving disputes.

Occasionally I go into the city to get to know where things are, etc. The bus rides can be pretty amusing. I ended up with some lady’s baby on my lap the other day. One day there was a baby lamb on the bus, too. It just makes me smile nowadays, it’s great. I take Kauri on the bus sometimes, too. I started taking her to the vet, but I also just like to take her out with me because I hear that chaos is good for developing personality in kittens. Plus everyone adores her and a couple times and people want to know if I’m selling her. Hah! The market in Oruro is amazing! It’s smaller than that of Cochabamba, but you can still find everything there. It’s actually a few markets, but they’re all huge. I went to the used clothing market the other day and got a long J. Crew wool winter coat for 40Bs (about $5)! It’s super-nice and I know I’m going to appreciate it come winter. Another day, I went to get food and came home with this enormous bag of fruits and veggies. I was so excited by the variety of fresh fruits and vegetables that I went crazy. After I finish my shopping, I like to just walk around in the insanity a bit. You can get everything there- clothes (new and used), linens, appliances, dvds and music, electronics, furniture, food (almost anything you’d want to take home or a variety of street food and drinks), all sorts of indigenous rituals stuff (llama fetus, anyone?), shoes, toys, hardware, dishes…everything!! And when you buy something big like furniture, you just get a taxi to take it to the bus stop for 5 Bs (like 60 cents) and then get them to toss it on top of the bus to your town for the regular bus fare, a few more Bs. The most important lessons I’ve learned from the markets are pay attention to what you’re buying (I’ve gotten bad produce, a metal closet that was missing parts, and a computer program that would only work a few times) and lie when possible about having change. People lie blatently about having change here and it's totally acceptable. Like you see the coins in front of them and they’ll say they don’t have any. But if you hold your ground and insist that you don’t have exact change, they generally manage to produce change somehow. To avoid all that, I’ve also learned to go to the markets later (when they have more change) and to make big purchases first, saving the change for smaller ones.

The most exciting thing I've been doing in the city, though, is practicing the Tinku dance for Carneval. It's like $100 USD to participate and the dance is pretty complicated for someone as uncordinated as I, but it's SO cool. I want to try to upload a video so you can all see. I also started playing soccer once in a while with my host brother and whatever neighborhood kids show up. I’m hopelessly out of shape at this altitude, but I figure the soccer will bring me around sooner or later.

Well, Kauri just got hold of a piece of mint gum I had been chewing. This is probably the most amusing thing I’ve seen all week, so I’m giving up this blog entry for that shameless entertainment. I hope you are all well. I love and miss you all!

Sarita

Oh, here are some tinku pictures:

Jack L. Nelson, age 78, of Portage passed away on Monday, December 10, 2007 after an extended illness. At the time of his death, he and his beloved wife Helen, the love of his life, had been married for 58 years. His five children; numerous grandchildren; great- grandchildren; several brothers and a sister and several nieces and nephews also survive him. Jack, known as "Butch" Nelson in his youth, was born in Grand Rapids, where graduated from South High School and played on the football, basketball and baseball teams. Jack served in the Army as a Second Lieutenant after high school and following his military service; he attended and graduated of Western Michigan. Following graduation, Jack work notably for GMAC, and Ford Motor Credit before managing his own business in Kalamazoo. Internment with full military honors is scheduled for Friday, December 14th at 2 PM at the Fort Custer National Cemetery, 15501 Dickman Road, Augusta, MI. Following the internment, the family will meet with relatives and friends at the Nelson's residence.

Rest in peace, Grampa Jack.

To all of my family, my sincerest condolances. I really wish I could be with you all right now. Love,

Sarah

Hola again. So...the birthday. I was actually having a pretty crappy day when my site mate texted me and insisted that I at least let him cook dinner for me. His gf and he made a delicious dinner and a bday cake for me and we even went for a sunrise hike. It was really touching that they both cared to do that for me. It also afforded me this really sweet view of my site...you´ll have to tolerate the crumminess of my camera, but I hope this gives you a better idea of where I am, and maybe even makes you want to visit...;)

My site is the little green blob in the center of all that beautiful Altiplano nothingness.

Although my site and the people are awesome, I have admittedly been in a bit of an adjustment funk. I´m sure it happens to plenty of volunteers and it will pass as I settle in more.

I watched “Our Brand is Crisis” this week and it was really good. I recommend it to all of you for a pretty realistic look at a lot of the conditions here. There was a part at the end that I thought was really interesting:

“Bolivia is a very divided place. I guess the thing is that democracy really depends on material results. If democracy can’t yield benefits for the average person, the average person is not going to have that deep philosophical commitment to democracy like we all do in a very sort of natural, almost genetic sense. You’d better find a way to make sure that it yields benefits pretty soon and that you, where necessary, provide the countries in transition with some support so the people feel like their life is improving as the democracy takes root.” Interesante, indeed.

Wednesday, Thursday, and today there have been festivals in town for the anniversary. Lots of dancing, some races, and very little transportation. Overall, a really good time.

Something I´d meant to mention was all the books I´ve been reading since I got here. These are the ones I´ve gotten through so far:

A Painted House, John Grisham

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs,Chuck Klosterman

The Beach House , James Patterson

A Bend in the Road, Nicholas Sparks

In the Company of Angels, Kim Vivian

A Knight of the Word, Terry Brooks (in honor of both Roger and Dan´s enthusiasm for the author)

I´m currently reading Atlas Shrugged, which I am enjoying decidely more than when I first tried to start it, which could have a lot to do with making myself simply read through it rather than try to mark and analyze it. Mr. Moeller would be so disappointed at my defeat. I´d like to read some more substantial books, like this one, seeing as most of the novels that filled up my leisure time during training were pretty much garbage. Then again, it´s not too easy trying to find good books around here.

With no further ado, I present to you all Kauri.

As far as the cat goes, I know a lot of people aren´t very supportive of me having a cat, but I want you to reconsider. It´s actually really nice to have something to take care of, not to mention the obvious benefits of unconditional comfort and companionship. The thing that I like best about having the cat is that it makes it a lot easier to go out into the community on days when I might otherwise like to stay in my room and just read. It automatically opens people up to me in a way that has softened the transition a bit. Maybe they just like to pet my kitten because it´s cute, or maybe they just laugh at the way it rides around on my shoulder, but either way that´s a laugh or a smile that might otherwise have taken longer to encounter.

It´s scientifically proven; kittens make you 100% more kid-friendly.

Anyway, I´m doing the best I can to take care of her, too, looking up all kinds of advice on raising kittens and such.

¨Kauri¨ in quechua means ¨monster¨. It was not easy choosing a name; I got lots of other crazy quechua names suggested but they were all lame like the words for flower, white, or honey or were incredibly difficult to pronounce. Quechua can be like that, really difficult to pronounce. For example, ¨llajllaykamayuj¨ means "carpenter." Also, the cat is by no means sweet or a flower, so i thought "monster" was the most fitting, easy-to-pronounce word i could find. I wanted to name it Inti after the sun god Inti Raymi but everyone seemed to think that was super lame...

I have got to buy that cat a scratching post soon...

Despite the scratches (I admit that most of the bad ones are from bathing her. The little ones are from when she attacks me throughout the night, which unfortunately has not been restricted to my hands and arms), she´s an incredibly adorable, sweet kitten. She´s just a little dependant on me, so I´ve been taking her out a lot more to interact with more people and animals.

It´s pretty cute but sad...anytime I leave without her she climbs up me like this.

Well, my internet time is about running out again. Next time I hope to post a brief overview of some social and political situations that shape the way of live here in Bolivia. Hugs and such,

Sarita

Well, I´ve been in my site for a few days now. Work has begun and I finally got a bed. But that´s all to come later. For now, to catch you up on everything post-family-appreciation-lunch. After that, we said goodbye to our host families. I was really touched (albeit sad) at how attached my host family got to me. My host mom cried twice about me leaving! That was really shocking for me.

Well, I suppose the next big thing we did was for each trainee to go on a week-long site visit to make sure that everything was suitable, etc. My work partner already changed twice since the application was made by the town to have a volunteer, but I think my new work partner is going to be a good match. Site visit was really interesting, particularly given that this was my first time in the Altiplano. My site is gorgeous! I´ve already told you all I can think to say about it so I´ll just share a picture:

After that we spent a glorious week in a hotel in Cochabamba. It was really good to have time with my training group before heading off to my site for good. I also went back to my host family to pick up the kitten. I guess things haven´t been going very well for my host sister. I feel awful for her whole situation and my thoughts are definitely with the family.

We spent Halloween together and two of my friends and I went as different kinds of potatoes in Bolivia. There are at least hundreds of kinds of potatoes here and they are a main staple, served with every meal, so we thought it was appropriate to dress as them. LtoR: I was papalisa, Lindsay was chuno, and Joy was yuca. The girl in front, Laurie, was a Bolivian school girl and yes they do dress like that for the most part.

After Halloween was swear-in. It really meant a lot to me, although I´m finding it difficult to express why or how. I guess it just gave a much more official sense of purpose to what we´re doing. The ambassador even spoke, which was cool. I knew all along how important this is to me, but this was different. I couldn´t help but think about all the reactions that people have had to me applying to Peace Corps and about how I´m finally here and I´m finally doing it. It was hard to keep it together at times and I´m sure I didn´t hear half of the speeches.

Hoping this picture doesn´t get the ambassador in more trouble...;)

B46, sworn in and no ET´s!

I totally had more pictures of my site and the kitten to share with you guys, but unfortunately I didn´t put them on my pen drive. Until next time, pues. In other news, like I said, I started helping with a computer class, which is cool. The guy who runs it just graduated from high school, but he´s knowledgeable and has a better idea than I do of how education generally works in Bolivia. The rest of settling in has been a little rough, but nothing too bad and nothing unexpected. Next time I post I´ll show you pictures from my bday hike, thanks to my awesome site mate!

My apologies...this is going to be a long entry. I finally broke down and bought a pen drive (way out of my training budget) so I could prepare thorough enough entries to keep you aware of all of my adventures.

Anyway, I have some pictures to share that backtrack a lot, so… This first one is of Chris, Alex, Colin, and me in D.C. doing some site seeing during staging.

The next three are of our first welcome activity in Cochabamba, a scavenger hunt. There’s me high-fiving a cop, everyone attempting to spell out CORREO in front of the post office, and my group as ninjas.

These are some pictures from the little pueblo we lived in during training. The view of Cochabamba is spectacular. You can just barely see the little white Christo in the picture, but trust me that the actual view is much cooler. The last picture is of my host family’s puppy, Perla. Everyone seemed to hate this dog except me. She reminded me of Princess when she was a puppy- so energetic and playful.

This is Tarata, where we went for technical weekend. I was sick, so I dont really have much more to say about tech weekend, sorry

So, we set up a booth at this tourism fair in Cochabamba. While I have no pictures of the actual booth (which would have been cool) to show you, I have this nice picture of me brushing my teeth downtown. Enjoy.

Now, onto the good stuff. So, technical week was arguably the highlight of our training experience. During technical week, we get to travel to a few volunteer sites to see what Peace Corps Bolivia is all about. We see their houses, stay in hotels in the town, and do some work with the people in the towns. We visited three sites; Semaipata, Pucara, and Vallegrande. All of the places we are visited are in the department of Santa Cruz, which is the easternmost department in Bolivia. It’s known for hot weather and jungles. However, we visited towns that aren’t that far east into Santa Cruz, so of the weather wasn’t particularly hot. As we drove to Semaipata (more or less a ten hour drive), it was really interesting to see the landscape change. The hills/mountains in Cochabamba are all very dry and brown right now. A little bit further east, the hills are just covered in fields. It really amazes me that people can farm on that kind of land, and it’s just awesome to see. I don’t know if you can see all of the little plots in the pictures, but it was really neat.

When you go east towards Santa Cruz, though, the climate gets more tropical and the hills are covered in trees. There are a lot more eucalyptus trees and some shorter trees, kind of like the ones you typically think of seeing in Africa. In Semaipata, we were basically just tourists for a day and a half, seeing the town and the nearby waterfalls. The idea behind being tourists was to do a diagnostic/analyze the tourism in Semaipata. To me, Semaipata is an interesting/sad place because, while it has some level of developed tourism, it is mostly run by the Dutch, not Bolivians. The waterfalls/park was really beautiful and relaxing. Plus, it was cool to be in a tropical setting. I’m for sure going to have to vacation at least once in Santa Cruz.

The subject of tourism in Peace Corps Bolivia is interesting and fairly new. Training stresses community tourism, which involves all levels of community members with the idea that the benefits would more evenly reach all levels of the community and the level of which is more suitable for developing towns. Involving the entire community has added benefits because the more the community invests in a project, the more likely it is to be sustainable. Also, the idea is that many of the things that are beneficial to a developing town (infrastructure, better business practices, sanitation, etc.) are necessary for tourism, so the means of development for the two go hand-in-hand. I think the success of such a project depends very much on the site you go to, the time spent there, and the ways in which you go about development. Some sites may very well be ready to implement a responsible, sustainable community tourism plan and others not. It will be interesting to see how this goes.

The second town we visited was Pucara, a small site where a volunteer is about to finish her service. We split up into groups to help some high schoolers put up signs on a hiking trail that led to Incan ruins. I made friends with the cutest little girl and we had a really nice three hour hike. It felt really good to get some exercise and sunshine. It’s difficult for me to feel reassured that what we did that day was sustainable in and of itself, but I think the work, particularly the education part, that the volunteer did there in two years, certainly had a greater impact on the town.

Before leaving Pucara, we took a very short trip to La Higuera. There was a big Che fest in Vallegrande and La Higuera. La Higuera is the community (I’m not sure it’s really big enough to be called a town) where Che Guevara was captured and killed. There’s hardly anything to do there, but there is this giant bust of Che.

In Vallegrande, we taught classes (in groups of 2-3 trainees) about basic business concepts and lead them through a business simulation in which they made and sold their own products in groups. I was both surprised by the education system here and very proud of our students, two groups of which had a dance (so creative!) and we all went. I enjoyed teaching and really felt like we increased their awareness of some basic business skills. The business sim was the most challenging and my favorite activity thus far.

During technical week, our APCD had his final meeting with me about my site. For safety reasons, I’m just going to say that I am going to be in the department of Oruro, which is part of the Bolivian Altiplano, or highlands. If you’d like to know my exact site, feel free to email me, but I’d like it to remain fairly private information. However, I’d be more happy tell you some more about Oruro and the Altiplano in general. (Sidenote: the information provided here is more or less a summary of a general informational Altiplano handout provided to me by the PC. The information here reflects neither my own personal opinions nor those of the Peace Corps. As with anywhere, everyone’s individual experience in the Altiplano will be different.) The work in my site is pretty open-ended and i’ll be the first Microenterprise (MED)/Tourism/ICT volunteer there. That means that my community diagnostic (a three-month process where we basically do a bunch of investigative work, etc. to get to know the community, to assess its needs, and to start to integrate) is going to have to be really thorough, but that the work itself will be pretty flexible based on my interests and the needs of the community. Basically, I’m going to have a multitude of work opportunities at my fingertips and It’s all going to be very beginning level and open-ended. I think the elevation in Oruro is around 12,000 ft, but you might want to check on that because that number is supposedly the average of all of the altiplano, which includes three departments, Oruro, La Paz, and Potosi. The Altiplano is flat and bare, but is surrounded by mountains (duh) as well as having some lakes, mines, the salt flats, and llamas! I don’t know exactly what to expect, since I’ve never been or lived anywhere like that, but I’m excited to find out. I hear there is sun almost everyday, even though it can get pretty cold. The rainiest/warmest months are December to February, although overall the climate is very dry. The main crops of the Altiplano are potatoes, chuños (which I guess are really just potatoes) rice, and other grains, but there is a wide variety of foods available in the city. The altiplano in general is the area of Bolivia with the most indigenous people and the most poverty, although I don’t know how this will be reflected specifically in Oruro or in my site. Also, Bolivia’s current President, Evo Morales, is from a town in Oruro. From what I’ve heard, Oruro is very culturally rich and the people are fantastic. The Altiplano life is said to be very tranquilo, which will be an interesting change. Finally, Orureños are also supposedly extremely politically active. I can’t wait to get to know my new home!

After technical week, we had an official site announcement party so everyone could officially know their sites. Que lujoso, no?

Also, we had a picnic to say thank-you to our host families. Among the highlights of the festivities, there was live music via PC staff, an electric slide performance via our group, and a cueca (Bolivian dance) contest. I borrowed my host grandpa's hat and jacket and my partner, Joy, and I won a three-way tie for first! Joy and I with our language teacher, Maritza.

In other news...after site visit Im going back to Marquina to get the kitten my family gave me! Hes so cute, although for now he remains unnamed. Hes the white one...

Thats all for now. I hope you are all doing well. I miss you!

-sarita

Sorry for the lack of updates, but training has been pretty mundane lately. We're leaving tomorrow for an 8-day technical trip to various cities in Bolivia. I'll write more about that later, but for now...

Click here for a you tube video of Bolivian president Evo Morales' appearance on the Daily Show. It provides a little insight on the Bolivian political climate, particularly in relation to the US.

I love and miss you all!

Sarita

First of all, thank you for the phone messages! Mom, Jen, Dad...I got your messages. I don´t think it really works for me to message you back, but I appreciate the notes.

Dad- Got the messages, but I can´t use the ´net everyday so it takes a while for me to let you know I got them...sorry.

Jen- I have an address. Mom and dad should have it. Email me if they don´t.

Mom- The time here is currently 1 hour ahead of Chicago time. I´m not sure if Bolivians practice daylight savings. Anytime you want to know the time just search google for ¨current time in bolivia.¨ :) Yes, I sleep under netting and even have a travel net. The biggest threat here is probably Chagas, which in some respects is better and in some worse than Dengue. The food itself is good, but I´m not used to eating mostly rice and potatoes. We don´t have a whole lot of meat or eggs, and even fewer vegetables. The vegetables are available, but I get the feeling that people just don´t eat them. My family usually has bread and coffee for breakfast, soup for lunch, and rice, potatoes, and a bit of meat for dinner. There is also a lot of sugar in anything sweet. I´m not sure about the names thing. I constantly push my family to let me help out a little more, so that´s getting better. The grandma works like crazy and I´m not used to people taking care of me so much. I have a feeling there might be an animal in my future- sorry to disappoint.

So, onto the update. All weekend long there is this festival for the Virgin of Guadalupe. The community invited us to dance in the festival so we´ve been learning the dance all week and (literally) dancing all weekend. It´s been really cool to see all the different dances and to get to participate. Some dances we saw are the Tinku (a battle-type dance), Morenada (a dance from la paz that apparantly mocks the whites who oppressed blacks in the altiplano...or something), and our dance, the Llamerada (the llama-herding dance). I know there was at least one more, but I don´t know what it was.

So, Friday night we danced twice and then my family stayed to watch the tinku. Saturday we danced twice (mind you this is in between other dances) in the morning/afternoon. Then, an entire band accompanied us (dancing) down the (unpaved) streets to the house of a woman who invited us all to lunch, (fried chicken, rice, potatoes, and beer) live music, and some less formal dancing. Then we danced back down the streets to the court where we danced two more times before going home. Our costumes are great, too. The women have like a poodle skirt with llamas instead of a poodle, a blouse, a decorative hat, some rope-like thing to twirl around, and a llama doll to hold. The men have the same hat, a white shirt and white pants. Without further ado, I´ve got some pictures for you...

The town I live in

Llamerada Part 1

More Llamerada

Morenada

´

Morenada

Can´t figure out what this one was...but it was my favorite

Mystery dance cont´d

I guess that´s about it for now. Please know that I am going out of my way to update this as much as possible. I love hearing you guys, so thanks for the comments/emails. :)

Sarita

quick note. i got a cell phone and you can call me on it if you really want (they suggest getting a phone card). the number is 01159179714705. however, if you don´t want to shell out the money for an international call (which i more than understand), there is a way you can message me for free. it´s really cool because i can get this at any time, whereas i have to go into the city for internet. plus it´s free for me too, which is nice. anyway, go to nuevatel.com and click on the flashing banner that says something about websms. type in this part of my number- 9714705 and the message and your name. voila! =)

Sorry about the vague entry before. I was in the training center and we have 1 computer for 20 people to use in about an hour total. So, a few other trainees and I went into a larger ¨city¨to use the internet/have dinner tonight. It´s good to feel a little bit of freedom...

Anyway, I wanted to take the chance to tell you all just a little bit about my family. My "host parents" are 69 and 70 and live with their granddaughter who is 16. I think that one of my host parents´ children´s family lives with us, but I don´t see them enough to talk with them. There are also two of the parents´ sons who live with us (both are older than I). Other than that, I think that my host family is related to everyone in town. We have a small store on the front of our house. This is really interesting because people are constantly coming up to the front of it and yelling ¨¡vendame!¨ to call attention to the fact that they would like to buy something, then someone from the family goes in the store and does business. Our house is very large for the neighborhood and is centered around a large open courtyard. We have lots of animals; cows, pigs, chickens, a couple pesky roosters, 4 dogs, a pregnant cat, 3 green parrots, and a macaw (sp?). A cousin of the family has an adorable puppy that comes over a lot.

I´ve got to say, life has been pretty comfortable, although different from the US. I´ve only taken one shower since arriving on Saturday and it was from a bucket, but it´s just not a big deal. I could go on and on about the differences, but they all seem just fine to me. The weather here is amazing and the landscape is beautiful. I can´t wait to get pictures of my village up. (Keep in mind, this is just my village for training.)

Class is pretty strenuous, just because I don´t like sitting in class a lot. We have class daily from about 8:30-6:00. Luckily, my language teacher is awesome. And, once in a while, things get mixed up due to vaccination days. There´s nothing like free healthcare...I can´t say it enough.

So, anyway, here are some pictures that I do have online. Enjoy.

=) Sarita

Sunrise over La Paz from the airplane. Note: this camera sucks and doesn´t do anything justice.

Our hotel room.

The training center; we go here on Wednesdays and it´s just a really cool place in general.

More training center.

Latrines at the training center. First time I´ve ever used a latrine without a seat. That´s going to take a bit of practice, but it´s not bad.

View of Cochabamba from the PC Headquarters. The HQ building is ridiculously lavish in comparison with everything else we´ve seen, IMHO.

Another view from the HQ.

Sorry, can't post much. Life with the host family is good; the area is beautiful. Just a quick note, if you send anything to me, please don't declare its value because I will have to pay outrageous customs and likely won't be able to afford to receive them. Also, send envelopes only and keep it under 4 pounds. Everything is good; I love and miss you all.

-Sarita

We got to Cochabamba yesterday and are staying in a hotel for a few days. We went out for dinner last night, but haven't had much of a chance to see too much. We started at the training center today. The training center is pretty cool. It's semi-rural and the compound is surrounded by one of those cool adobe fences with glass and barbed-wire at the top for security. I hear it's mostly for looks and cultural-effect, but we've got a police/security (not really sure) officer inside the compound to keep everyone and everything inside safe. The only crime here was a guniea pig theft 10 years ago. We've got some farm animals and plants to train agriculture volunteers, plus some classes.

Today we had language, family, medical, and placement interviews today. We'll meet our host families on Saturday and I'm really hoping that I get a family with kids. I also think it would be pretty cool to be with some farm animals to learn how all of that stuff works. The guy who did my family placement interview today called me "Sarita" and I think it's the cutest name I've ever heard. Also, I confused "a dios" with "adios" in my language interview and everyone (including myself) had a good laugh at my expense. The nurse today took a look at my toe (which became infected back in Wisconsin) and bandaged it all up and gave me some antibiotics.

If you all are going to worry about anything, medical should not be it. The medical staff here is likely going to take much better care of us than I will ever take care of myself. Tomorrow we're getting a bunch of shots (apparently we have to get that new HPV shot too) so that should be fun. The food's been good (though I missed out on the cow udder) and the people have been nice. Personally, I think they are spoiling us. Guess I'll just have to wait until Saturday to see.

I am in D.C. for staging (pre-departure.) I am healthy, happy, and safe. I will be leaving for Cochabamba soon. If you would like my mailing address, leave a comment with your email address or email me (sarahlynnelson@hotmail.com) and I will happily send it to you. Also, if you leave me your mailing address, I may just send you a letter from Bolivia sometime ;)