Hola companeros
There is a water shortage in Cochabamba. This means we shouldn't take long showers, or shower twice a day. However for the last few days, water has been the main part of el carnival (related to the massive carnival in Rio, but not quite as big a deal here) - what most people do during carnival is throw water bombs at you as you innocently walk down the street minding your own business. Pretty much for the whole month of February. This is funny, but also slightly annoying. You have to be on your guard - I have been splattered a lot so far, as have most of us. It is actually illegal to throw water bombs or use water guns, as sometimes people fill them with ink, or even worse, with ice. Throwing a water balloon thrown from a moving car at top speed is actually really dangerous, and you can be fined for it (but generally you're not - it's one of many rules that are just there to be broken). Today and tomorrow are public holidays so that people can drive around throwing water bombs or getting drunk. We went up to the restoration centre to do some games / workshops with the girls there this afternoon. Luckily we had only spent a small amount of time planning, as guess what - all we did was have one gigantic water fight, with buckets, guns, balloons, and weird spray-y foam too. It was in fact hilarious, and I guess the water shortage can be put on hold for a few days...
The reason for throwing all this water, we found out from Mauge today, is that because it is coming to the end of the rainy season, people throw water around to remind the gods that they have had enough of the rain. Mauge told us about traditional beliefs and Christianity merging together, or at least existing together. I think this is called syncretism. She explained that Bolivians like to believe in literally anything that they think may help them somehow, as they have quite a fatalistic, external belief system - ie that life is just bad and that's just the way it is, so anything that comes along that looks like it might be helpful or useful in that struggle is quite welcomed. This means that missionaries may come here thinking they have properly converted lots of people whereas in reality it's quite a superficial conversion.
Here are some other typically Bolivian things we have recently experienced, as forewarned in meetings with Mauge and David. At work the other day we had a team meeting, thankfully Diana translated the details for us - it's not really good enough to only get the gist when you're in a planning meeting. It was as David had said it would be - pretty circular and went round the houses a few times. They were talking about fundraising, and did we have any ideas etc. We had a few ideas, which it seemed they had thought of too and had reasons why they wouldn't work. By the end, we got to Plan D, which I suspect all along was Plan A, which was that me and Tom go out and find 15 people between us who may be interested in supporting the work that our centre does. These people would come to the centre and have a tour and introduction etc, and then hopefully be inspired to give us money. So this is our mission for the next few weeks - if any of you readers know any rich/sympathetic people in Cochabamba, do please drop them a line with my details.....
The other thing we got to understand a bit more was Bolivian time. On Sunday we helped Zaida move house. She said it would be good if we could get there at 11. So we set off at 1045 and got there for 11. She was surprised to see us and nothing was packed into boxes yet. I didn't realise until later that when she said 11 would be good, that meant we should have started thinking about leaving ours at 11, and probably it was rude of us to have arrived 'on time' (English time). It's weird to try to understand this shift in thinking, so probably best not to try to understand it and just remember it next time. It goes against my way of doing things, so would be hard to get used to in the long run - I like to be at least 10 minutes early for most things - I have been known to get to airports 4 hours in advance (for an internal flight in Mexico, where timetables mean just as little as they do here - oops).
Another new thing for me this last week was to take part in a protest march against violence against women in Bolivia. Cochabamba has the highest rate of violence against women (not sure why - perhaps connected to unemployment etc). We met up in Plaza Colon, all of us that are working with Mosoj Yan, and the girls from the centre too. We had some signs and banners and leaflets that we gave out along the way. I think the people of Bolivia are quite used to people doing marches, so although it stopped the traffic, it certainly didn't raise too many eyebrows. Everyone I gave leaflets to thanked me kindly, and seemed to read them. We stopped outside the government building, no one came out to talk to us, then we stopped outside the palace of justice, and no one came out to talk to us there either. Here's some pics:
And here's the fairly scary looking armed police at the entrance to the government building in the main square (I gave each one a leaflet):
Other things that've happened this week:
We got the lawn mower working! Well, Gonzalo did, he's the manager of one of the other centres. Turns out you had to pull the lever on the handle at the same time as pulling the engine starter thingy. Don't want to say I told you so, but I had said that we should try that.
We went to the market at La Cancha with the staff of our centre, to look for a different space they could use for when they do lessons and workshops there. They did have a space, but sadly can no longer use it. There's a train station right in the middle of La Cancha, from where a train goes about once a week, who knows to where. They showed us the vegetable garden they had there too, which sadly now can't be used either. So far we haven't found anywhere, but hopefully we will. We then bought some bits and pieces like paint and sandpaper, so it was good to learn some new Spanish vocab (sandpaper is surprisingly not papel de arena, but lija). We got a small bus back to the centre, and saw some police being quite violent against some illegal stall holders at the market. It's best not to look the police in the eye apparently. They remind me of the pigs out of the 1984 (it's been a while since I read it so not sure if that's a correct analogy, but generally they reminded me of pigs in some way or other).
We went to watch the dancing in Plaza Sucre one night - our friend Diana is dancing in the carnival this Saturday and had told us that there is dancing most nights at the moment to practise for it. There were different types of dances all around the square, so we joined in the one called Caporales. This is a very traditional Andean dance, from the fields, los campos. All the moves represent things you would do, for example pulling each others hair, or fighting with sticks etc. Apparently they still do fight to the death for reasons like being the new chief of the village, or over a girl etc, and this is where this type of dance comes from. Very interesting.
Thursday was el dia de conmadres - basically girls/young women hang out and get drunk. Seems like the run up to carnival is just any excuse to celebrate / drink / throw water balloons. It was el dia de conpadres the week before.
I learnt that it is el apoca de paltas at the moment - the avocado season. Zaida told me that if you have an unripe avocado and you wrap it in newspaper and then in a blanket and put it in a bed for a few days it will nicely ripen. I bought one tonight at the supermercado, and am going to try it. Like you would look after a baby I suppose (apart from you probably don't wrap them in newspaper). Zaida also told us that she used to live at the restoration centre, where Leanne and Leonie are working. She was there for 3 years, with Santi when he was young. She knows most of the staff when we mention them, and goes to visit them sometimes. She said that it was set up by a Finnish woman, who was her friend at the time - it came to her in a dream that this was what she should do, so she did it. It was then merged in to Mosoj Yan later on and became what it is today. Zaida works with young single mothers in some form or other, or rather volunteers I should say. She helps them if they are being abused by their partners, or their children are, or if they need things, or need to go to hospital etc. She is so lovely and generous it's quite amazing, given that she doesn't exactly have that much herself. It's amazing what people will do for others. She has certainly not had an easy life herself. And recently she's been quite stressed as she had to move house and a good friend of hers died - we are going to take her out for dinner soon to say thank you for everything she does for us.
At work we have been continuing the saga of preparing the lockers to be painted - we have bought a green plastic roof to protect them from the weather; we mowed the lawns; prepared the outside walls for painting too; cleaned some of the chairs. We also went to one of the directors' leaving do - which involved not understanding a single word that they all said to each other as it was quite fast and all kind of reminiscing and private jokes etc. I resolved there and then to book some more Spanish lessons for this week, which I have now done. Even when I can't understand things it's always nice to hear Spanish being spoken, and I am definitely learning new words every day. Today I learnt the word for slippery (resbaladizo), as that is what the floor was during the water fight.
We played volleyball on Friday again. It's actually called Wally - it's Volleyball inside, kind of on a squash court sized court, and you can use the walls too. It's hilarious and we ended up rolling around laughing - it's good stress release after a long week. Last time we played me and Mariam realised we were both pretty competitive and got upset when certain people on our team kept missing the ball, ha ha.
Found a nice new coffee shop that does much better coffee than Cafe Paris. Me and Nikki sat and made flash cards and had a mini croissant with ham and cheese too. Things like that really make me happy...
Friday night the other team were away for the night with another volunteering group they'll be doing some work with. It was strange to have the house just to ourselves, and especially the whole room to myself. They stayed in cabins on a lake somewhere, sounds dreamy, and went canoing and played games etc.
On Saturday night we went to Alicia's church to watch her in a kind of play they were putting on. It was to illustrate 3 specific verses of the bible, which were from Timothy (2:4, 2:5, and 2:5 I think, in case you want to look them up). I liked what it was saying - kind of about how you need to work now in order to enjoy things later. I think the bible probably has a lot of good things to say. That's probably one of the most profound things I've ever written. Perhaps that's why millions of people read it. We did some songs, and were heartily welcomed to the church - Saturday evenings are for jovenes (youths), and when we turned up, we were instantly everyone's new best friends, it's amazing how friendly they are. You certainly would never get a situation at a Bolivian church where you are left standing on your own. The pastor made us stand up and say hello my name is Lucy/Nikki etc. I was pretty sure that was what he'd asked me to do, but obviously you kind of doubt your Spanish and I didn't want to stand up and say hi my name's Lucy to everyone when that wasn't what he'd told me to do. So I asked him to repeat what he'd said again, just to be sure. It was funny and embarrassing but also really welcoming and kind. Aftewards we had a small slice of pizza with Alicia, then one of our new best friends gave us a lift home! Maravilloso.
And that is pretty much it for now. Tomorrow we have the day off as it's carnival, but we can't really go anywhere as everywhere is closed, and we'd be at risk of being totally water bombed. We're going to cook pancakes for breakfast and watch films with popcorn in the afternoon. I can't wait - I found the film about Evo Morales called Evo Pueblo, so I'm going to inflict that on everyone. Zaida really wants to watch it too, so that'll be nice. Santi didn't seem too keen but he is only 17 and probably doesn't want to watch boring documentary style films. We went to a new massive supermarket tonight with Zaida, to buy pancake toppings - we got nutella (!), lemons, oranges and maple syrup. I bought a packet of pop tarts, and we secretly shared them in the kitchen when back - they were Amazing - it's an expensive habit to start though, £3 a pack almost... At the checkout I managed to drop a whole bag of milk (yes they sell milk in bags here) onto the floor - it exploded everywhere, on to mine and Nikki's hair and clothes. Who would have thought that milk could travel that far, that's nearly 6 feet into the air it flew.
Ciao for now lectores (readers), hope all is well xx
A few more pictures:
There is a water shortage in Cochabamba. This means we shouldn't take long showers, or shower twice a day. However for the last few days, water has been the main part of el carnival (related to the massive carnival in Rio, but not quite as big a deal here) - what most people do during carnival is throw water bombs at you as you innocently walk down the street minding your own business. Pretty much for the whole month of February. This is funny, but also slightly annoying. You have to be on your guard - I have been splattered a lot so far, as have most of us. It is actually illegal to throw water bombs or use water guns, as sometimes people fill them with ink, or even worse, with ice. Throwing a water balloon thrown from a moving car at top speed is actually really dangerous, and you can be fined for it (but generally you're not - it's one of many rules that are just there to be broken). Today and tomorrow are public holidays so that people can drive around throwing water bombs or getting drunk. We went up to the restoration centre to do some games / workshops with the girls there this afternoon. Luckily we had only spent a small amount of time planning, as guess what - all we did was have one gigantic water fight, with buckets, guns, balloons, and weird spray-y foam too. It was in fact hilarious, and I guess the water shortage can be put on hold for a few days...
The reason for throwing all this water, we found out from Mauge today, is that because it is coming to the end of the rainy season, people throw water around to remind the gods that they have had enough of the rain. Mauge told us about traditional beliefs and Christianity merging together, or at least existing together. I think this is called syncretism. She explained that Bolivians like to believe in literally anything that they think may help them somehow, as they have quite a fatalistic, external belief system - ie that life is just bad and that's just the way it is, so anything that comes along that looks like it might be helpful or useful in that struggle is quite welcomed. This means that missionaries may come here thinking they have properly converted lots of people whereas in reality it's quite a superficial conversion.
Here are some other typically Bolivian things we have recently experienced, as forewarned in meetings with Mauge and David. At work the other day we had a team meeting, thankfully Diana translated the details for us - it's not really good enough to only get the gist when you're in a planning meeting. It was as David had said it would be - pretty circular and went round the houses a few times. They were talking about fundraising, and did we have any ideas etc. We had a few ideas, which it seemed they had thought of too and had reasons why they wouldn't work. By the end, we got to Plan D, which I suspect all along was Plan A, which was that me and Tom go out and find 15 people between us who may be interested in supporting the work that our centre does. These people would come to the centre and have a tour and introduction etc, and then hopefully be inspired to give us money. So this is our mission for the next few weeks - if any of you readers know any rich/sympathetic people in Cochabamba, do please drop them a line with my details.....
The other thing we got to understand a bit more was Bolivian time. On Sunday we helped Zaida move house. She said it would be good if we could get there at 11. So we set off at 1045 and got there for 11. She was surprised to see us and nothing was packed into boxes yet. I didn't realise until later that when she said 11 would be good, that meant we should have started thinking about leaving ours at 11, and probably it was rude of us to have arrived 'on time' (English time). It's weird to try to understand this shift in thinking, so probably best not to try to understand it and just remember it next time. It goes against my way of doing things, so would be hard to get used to in the long run - I like to be at least 10 minutes early for most things - I have been known to get to airports 4 hours in advance (for an internal flight in Mexico, where timetables mean just as little as they do here - oops).
Another new thing for me this last week was to take part in a protest march against violence against women in Bolivia. Cochabamba has the highest rate of violence against women (not sure why - perhaps connected to unemployment etc). We met up in Plaza Colon, all of us that are working with Mosoj Yan, and the girls from the centre too. We had some signs and banners and leaflets that we gave out along the way. I think the people of Bolivia are quite used to people doing marches, so although it stopped the traffic, it certainly didn't raise too many eyebrows. Everyone I gave leaflets to thanked me kindly, and seemed to read them. We stopped outside the government building, no one came out to talk to us, then we stopped outside the palace of justice, and no one came out to talk to us there either. Here's some pics:
And here's the fairly scary looking armed police at the entrance to the government building in the main square (I gave each one a leaflet):
Other things that've happened this week:
We got the lawn mower working! Well, Gonzalo did, he's the manager of one of the other centres. Turns out you had to pull the lever on the handle at the same time as pulling the engine starter thingy. Don't want to say I told you so, but I had said that we should try that.
We went to the market at La Cancha with the staff of our centre, to look for a different space they could use for when they do lessons and workshops there. They did have a space, but sadly can no longer use it. There's a train station right in the middle of La Cancha, from where a train goes about once a week, who knows to where. They showed us the vegetable garden they had there too, which sadly now can't be used either. So far we haven't found anywhere, but hopefully we will. We then bought some bits and pieces like paint and sandpaper, so it was good to learn some new Spanish vocab (sandpaper is surprisingly not papel de arena, but lija). We got a small bus back to the centre, and saw some police being quite violent against some illegal stall holders at the market. It's best not to look the police in the eye apparently. They remind me of the pigs out of the 1984 (it's been a while since I read it so not sure if that's a correct analogy, but generally they reminded me of pigs in some way or other).
We went to watch the dancing in Plaza Sucre one night - our friend Diana is dancing in the carnival this Saturday and had told us that there is dancing most nights at the moment to practise for it. There were different types of dances all around the square, so we joined in the one called Caporales. This is a very traditional Andean dance, from the fields, los campos. All the moves represent things you would do, for example pulling each others hair, or fighting with sticks etc. Apparently they still do fight to the death for reasons like being the new chief of the village, or over a girl etc, and this is where this type of dance comes from. Very interesting.
Thursday was el dia de conmadres - basically girls/young women hang out and get drunk. Seems like the run up to carnival is just any excuse to celebrate / drink / throw water balloons. It was el dia de conpadres the week before.
I learnt that it is el apoca de paltas at the moment - the avocado season. Zaida told me that if you have an unripe avocado and you wrap it in newspaper and then in a blanket and put it in a bed for a few days it will nicely ripen. I bought one tonight at the supermercado, and am going to try it. Like you would look after a baby I suppose (apart from you probably don't wrap them in newspaper). Zaida also told us that she used to live at the restoration centre, where Leanne and Leonie are working. She was there for 3 years, with Santi when he was young. She knows most of the staff when we mention them, and goes to visit them sometimes. She said that it was set up by a Finnish woman, who was her friend at the time - it came to her in a dream that this was what she should do, so she did it. It was then merged in to Mosoj Yan later on and became what it is today. Zaida works with young single mothers in some form or other, or rather volunteers I should say. She helps them if they are being abused by their partners, or their children are, or if they need things, or need to go to hospital etc. She is so lovely and generous it's quite amazing, given that she doesn't exactly have that much herself. It's amazing what people will do for others. She has certainly not had an easy life herself. And recently she's been quite stressed as she had to move house and a good friend of hers died - we are going to take her out for dinner soon to say thank you for everything she does for us.
At work we have been continuing the saga of preparing the lockers to be painted - we have bought a green plastic roof to protect them from the weather; we mowed the lawns; prepared the outside walls for painting too; cleaned some of the chairs. We also went to one of the directors' leaving do - which involved not understanding a single word that they all said to each other as it was quite fast and all kind of reminiscing and private jokes etc. I resolved there and then to book some more Spanish lessons for this week, which I have now done. Even when I can't understand things it's always nice to hear Spanish being spoken, and I am definitely learning new words every day. Today I learnt the word for slippery (resbaladizo), as that is what the floor was during the water fight.
We played volleyball on Friday again. It's actually called Wally - it's Volleyball inside, kind of on a squash court sized court, and you can use the walls too. It's hilarious and we ended up rolling around laughing - it's good stress release after a long week. Last time we played me and Mariam realised we were both pretty competitive and got upset when certain people on our team kept missing the ball, ha ha.
Found a nice new coffee shop that does much better coffee than Cafe Paris. Me and Nikki sat and made flash cards and had a mini croissant with ham and cheese too. Things like that really make me happy...
Friday night the other team were away for the night with another volunteering group they'll be doing some work with. It was strange to have the house just to ourselves, and especially the whole room to myself. They stayed in cabins on a lake somewhere, sounds dreamy, and went canoing and played games etc.
On Saturday night we went to Alicia's church to watch her in a kind of play they were putting on. It was to illustrate 3 specific verses of the bible, which were from Timothy (2:4, 2:5, and 2:5 I think, in case you want to look them up). I liked what it was saying - kind of about how you need to work now in order to enjoy things later. I think the bible probably has a lot of good things to say. That's probably one of the most profound things I've ever written. Perhaps that's why millions of people read it. We did some songs, and were heartily welcomed to the church - Saturday evenings are for jovenes (youths), and when we turned up, we were instantly everyone's new best friends, it's amazing how friendly they are. You certainly would never get a situation at a Bolivian church where you are left standing on your own. The pastor made us stand up and say hello my name is Lucy/Nikki etc. I was pretty sure that was what he'd asked me to do, but obviously you kind of doubt your Spanish and I didn't want to stand up and say hi my name's Lucy to everyone when that wasn't what he'd told me to do. So I asked him to repeat what he'd said again, just to be sure. It was funny and embarrassing but also really welcoming and kind. Aftewards we had a small slice of pizza with Alicia, then one of our new best friends gave us a lift home! Maravilloso.
And that is pretty much it for now. Tomorrow we have the day off as it's carnival, but we can't really go anywhere as everywhere is closed, and we'd be at risk of being totally water bombed. We're going to cook pancakes for breakfast and watch films with popcorn in the afternoon. I can't wait - I found the film about Evo Morales called Evo Pueblo, so I'm going to inflict that on everyone. Zaida really wants to watch it too, so that'll be nice. Santi didn't seem too keen but he is only 17 and probably doesn't want to watch boring documentary style films. We went to a new massive supermarket tonight with Zaida, to buy pancake toppings - we got nutella (!), lemons, oranges and maple syrup. I bought a packet of pop tarts, and we secretly shared them in the kitchen when back - they were Amazing - it's an expensive habit to start though, £3 a pack almost... At the checkout I managed to drop a whole bag of milk (yes they sell milk in bags here) onto the floor - it exploded everywhere, on to mine and Nikki's hair and clothes. Who would have thought that milk could travel that far, that's nearly 6 feet into the air it flew.
Ciao for now lectores (readers), hope all is well xx
A few more pictures:
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| some lemons in our garden at work |
 |
| check out the short grass after being lawn mowed |
 |
| the lockers with their little green rooves (to be attached to the wall properly this week, but we had no drill at the time (that would have made life far too straightforward)) |
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