The last we saw our intrepid hero she was waiting with bated breath (what the heck does that mean anyway?) to see if her students actually remembered to bring their planting supplies to school....Many adventures have transpired since then.
First our brave volunteer encountered 40 shovel-wielding 4-year olds who had high hopes of planting a garden. She set them to work mixing dirt...because what kidlet isn´t capable of dirt mixing....and successfully created a small garden of lettuce and radish. (Well the seeds were more or less successfully planted. Whether or not they survive under the excessive ministrations of the Kinder remains to be seen.)
The very next day Super Lenni mounted her trusty steed and pedaled out to the campo...where they were totally not expecting her. She decided to stay to hang out with the kids, dance, play basketball and just generally celebrate the Dia de Mujer. Unfortunately danger lurked in the form of a drunken community member waiting to ambush our hero and the directora of the school and invite them to get shnakkered. But using their powers of divination (or something) both Lenni and the Directora escaped back to their respective houses without having to participate in any raucously drunk celebrations.The drunk community member is still emotionally wounded by this slight but our hero is pretty sure that she wouldn´t be able to withstand the torture of explaining her feelings about Bolivia or Evo Morales repeatedly.
Super Lenni returned to the campo the very next week to visit a new community (unfortunately for her having to carry her stupid bike up several flights of stairs, across a river and through large piles of sand...next time taxi) and to teach a class about trees. She is pretty sure that some learning was had by all. Lenni also had an encounter with the local gang of kidlets who said "If you don´t come to play with us on Sunday...WE KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE."
The very next week, our favorite volunteer decided to take a trip to outside Sucre with the grand purpose of helping a fellow volunteer with a puppet show and pizza party. Unfortunately Bolivia is kryptonite to well laid plans and our hero hasn´t done anything planned since then. Instead of leaving on Tuesday, she endured a suprise meeting with her Peace Corps boss. Wednesday (instead of leaving) she endured a surprise meeting with the Mayor, or would have if he had showed up. Instead of making it all the way to her friends town on Thursday she only made it to the city of Sucre due to blockades and the like. This was fine with our hero cuz she was tired and wanted a pizza and a warm bed.
In the grand white city of Sucre (which by the way is Super Lenni´s favorite city now) she met up with her BBT who turned out to be very enthusiastic tour guide. As a result, our hero got to see the Casa de Libertad where Bolivia was born, the castle of the only princes in South America, several thousand churches, dinosaur tracks, the watchtower above the city, the eiffel tower, the national archives, and the first bank, train station and university in Bolivia. She also got to visit several mechanics and battery shops, eat lunch with his family, and have some quality gringo time with other volunteers.
Two noteworthy things: 1. Foriegners have to pay triple the price to get into museums than do Bolivians. Our superhero, defender of justice, had a bit of a cow and yelled a bit about it until she hit on the bright idea of showing her Bolivian ID card. (The definition of Bolivian in the case of entrance fee extends to all who look remotely Latino)
2. What was the second thing? I think it was that while lunching with the family..who were sort of elitist and rude to the wait staff, our hero ran into her old sidekick from Camargo. She leaped out of her chair yelling greetings and hugging him and no one mentioned this strange occurence until about 20 minutes later "Do you know him?"
On the way back to Camargo, our hero was waylaid by her counterpart agency who wanted to send her to La Paz to translate something. That is where our hero remains today...translating a stupid document while enduring a slight altitude-headache. Because she was trapped en route to her home (ie on the bus in the city of PotosÃ) our hero doesn´t have shoes with her (just Tevas) and is also lacking clean underwear. Such is the hero´s life. But perhaps she´ll stay the weekend here for a bit of vacation.
First our brave volunteer encountered 40 shovel-wielding 4-year olds who had high hopes of planting a garden. She set them to work mixing dirt...because what kidlet isn´t capable of dirt mixing....and successfully created a small garden of lettuce and radish. (Well the seeds were more or less successfully planted. Whether or not they survive under the excessive ministrations of the Kinder remains to be seen.)
The very next day Super Lenni mounted her trusty steed and pedaled out to the campo...where they were totally not expecting her. She decided to stay to hang out with the kids, dance, play basketball and just generally celebrate the Dia de Mujer. Unfortunately danger lurked in the form of a drunken community member waiting to ambush our hero and the directora of the school and invite them to get shnakkered. But using their powers of divination (or something) both Lenni and the Directora escaped back to their respective houses without having to participate in any raucously drunk celebrations.The drunk community member is still emotionally wounded by this slight but our hero is pretty sure that she wouldn´t be able to withstand the torture of explaining her feelings about Bolivia or Evo Morales repeatedly.Super Lenni returned to the campo the very next week to visit a new community (unfortunately for her having to carry her stupid bike up several flights of stairs, across a river and through large piles of sand...next time taxi) and to teach a class about trees. She is pretty sure that some learning was had by all. Lenni also had an encounter with the local gang of kidlets who said "If you don´t come to play with us on Sunday...WE KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE."
The very next week, our favorite volunteer decided to take a trip to outside Sucre with the grand purpose of helping a fellow volunteer with a puppet show and pizza party. Unfortunately Bolivia is kryptonite to well laid plans and our hero hasn´t done anything planned since then. Instead of leaving on Tuesday, she endured a suprise meeting with her Peace Corps boss. Wednesday (instead of leaving) she endured a surprise meeting with the Mayor, or would have if he had showed up. Instead of making it all the way to her friends town on Thursday she only made it to the city of Sucre due to blockades and the like. This was fine with our hero cuz she was tired and wanted a pizza and a warm bed.
In the grand white city of Sucre (which by the way is Super Lenni´s favorite city now) she met up with her BBT who turned out to be very enthusiastic tour guide. As a result, our hero got to see the Casa de Libertad where Bolivia was born, the castle of the only princes in South America, several thousand churches, dinosaur tracks, the watchtower above the city, the eiffel tower, the national archives, and the first bank, train station and university in Bolivia. She also got to visit several mechanics and battery shops, eat lunch with his family, and have some quality gringo time with other volunteers.
Two noteworthy things: 1. Foriegners have to pay triple the price to get into museums than do Bolivians. Our superhero, defender of justice, had a bit of a cow and yelled a bit about it until she hit on the bright idea of showing her Bolivian ID card. (The definition of Bolivian in the case of entrance fee extends to all who look remotely Latino)
2. What was the second thing? I think it was that while lunching with the family..who were sort of elitist and rude to the wait staff, our hero ran into her old sidekick from Camargo. She leaped out of her chair yelling greetings and hugging him and no one mentioned this strange occurence until about 20 minutes later "Do you know him?"
On the way back to Camargo, our hero was waylaid by her counterpart agency who wanted to send her to La Paz to translate something. That is where our hero remains today...translating a stupid document while enduring a slight altitude-headache. Because she was trapped en route to her home (ie on the bus in the city of PotosÃ) our hero doesn´t have shoes with her (just Tevas) and is also lacking clean underwear. Such is the hero´s life. But perhaps she´ll stay the weekend here for a bit of vacation.
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