The Site Visit

Greetings from southern Bolivia! I´m here giving my site a test run before I commit to living here for 2 years...or am committed. My site is north of the city of Tarija about 6 hours by flota...and let me tell you it´s quite a trip.

The 8 of us Tarija volunteers flew here last Sunday and were greeted in the airport by a bunch of screaming hippies who whisked us to a hotel and promptly took us out to partake in festivities. Unfortunately the best steak house in Tarija was closed but I was content with my ketchup pizza and ice cream. (See guys they have ice cream here! And it´s good!) AFTER finishing my pizza I was told that there was an actual-real-live Italian place down the road. We went there the next night and it was good although I think that maybe my standards are slipping. Sorry to keep talking about food. I actually dreamt about Cheerios a few nights ago. But my site has a Gringo mart stocked with Grape Nuts so maybe one day Cheerios will come too. Either way I´ve gotten used to drinking yogurt and have been served cow intestine twice this week. Going against my motto (I´ll try anything twice) I didn´t touch it either time. Just couldn´t.

Speaking of dreams. I hate malaria medicine and only have one more week of it. Hooray!

So anyway, on Monday we had counterpart day where we met our work partners and learned what they expected of us. I will be working with an Adventist NGO here who does stuff like land use, environment and health, and natural resources. Apparently I am expected to work in the vivero (tree nursery). The counterpart meeting also consisted of enumerating the rules of Peace Corps (no motorcycle, no coca, no sexual harrassment) and a brief explanation of American culture (sometimes we like to be alone and read) which my counterpart repeated to my other coworkers at least twenty times the next day. This is awkward because he also told everyone not to greet me in the traditional Bolivian way (kiss or campo hug which is like handshake-pat on the side-handshake). Anywho, the counterparts, my closest gringa neighbor (who also works for them), and I rode up together. (It is 4 hours by car including seeking the perfect location to pee and a lime-aid break)

What does it look like you ask? Leaving the city of Tarija we just went up and up and up the mountains on this narrow dirt-ish road that kept doubling back. My counterpart pointed out every location where a drunken bus driver went over the cliff but I only thought I was going to die once. It looks rather like the Southwest of the US (cliffs of red rock). It is not what I pictured Bolivia to look like. It is very dry, the vegetation is scrubby, and dust is now the fourth food group. So when we got to the site we had lunch, my buddy missed her bus and so we got introduced to everyone and their mother at the NGO. Then we all drove up to her site. (This is when I thought I´d die) She lives higher than I do in a similar sized city. I use city in a loose sense. There are only about 7000 people here but it´s not campo.

So the area is famous for beef and wine. I actually know which cow my intestines came from because the tree nursery is located just above the cow-killing place. I´ve been warned that this may cause an icky odor. Anywhoo on Wednesday I met everyone in the vivero. It was one of those days that I´m pretty sure I only understood half of what went on. I think my counterpart said that I can´t come to work drunk but that he and the guy in the mayor´s office are Catholic so if I wanna stay out until 3am on the weekend I can go with them and their wives. I am also pretty sure that he told everyone that I´m fluent and to not treat me like an idiot. Oh he did mention that if they weren´t nice to me then I would go back to my country...and of course he reminded everyone of the the Peace Corps rules.

Thursday and Friday I worked in the vivero. I have learned a few things. Bolivians don´t sweat. They may say they sunburn but also not true. Sometimes my ladies (I work with 3 diff ladies a day who get paid in food) bring goats to work. They are also totally capable of breast feeding and shoveling at the same time. Today I felt my work could be done by a trained monkey (or maybe if we trained the goats). My ladies and I folded, filled, and poked holes in about 400 plastic bags, gathered a ton of molla seeds and planted about half of them. This is good to know as I´ll be sure to seek out work in the schools or offering planting workshops.

I leave you with this: Telenovelas are like Shakespeare. They always involve drama and mistaken identity. They feature a wiser-than-he-seems fool. And I only understand about 1-3 of it.

Tomorrow I get to sit outside at 5AM waiting for a flota back to Tarija, carrying two liters of vinegar for my Peace Corps boss.