And thre shall be much arm-ripping

May I rant?

Ok. So yesterday I was in the office of my counterpart (checking flight times for Christmas) when he came in and told me that because I apparently have no time for (or interest in) working in the vivero (tree nursery) they have hired a new person in charge on behalf of the organization. (The mayor also has a person in charge but he does nothing)

When I first got to site I went to the tree nursery and found that the ladies who work there already know how to do the basic stuff. I couldn´t think of any way to help the production of the vivero (mostly because I also only know the basics). I explained this to my counterpart, adding that my general area of expertise is education. But to please him I asked for more information about the types of trees grown, the treatment of seeds. I also asked for a copy of their plan and the registro where they record all the data. I was told that the viverista (guy in charge) had most of this information...but he´s never around. I found this a smidge odd because the viverista actually asked me for a lot of this info that he was sposed to already have. I was NEVER given any information on their general plan of operation or timeline or anything. (As I recall I was told "we need 4000 plants") I tried to help them out by drawing a map of the vivero, doing a FODA to get a baseline, and finally to offer workshops on the stuff that I know that they don´t (honestly not much but important stuff) but my counterpart seemed more concerned with "branding" the vivero as USAID funded. Too little too late I guess.

Now my counterpart has hired someone, given her all the necessary information and told her what they need from her...including a plan, a registro of data and a general chronogram. AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!! My counterpart said to me "I asked you to go to the vivero, I practically begged you and you did nothing."...at which point I freaked out a little bit.

To be honest, I don´t really want to work in the vivero. It´s probably better that they´ve hired someone local who actually has experience in this sort of stuff....but I´m PISSED. I can´t help if I don´t know what they want! Is this a warranted reaction?

Also, the mayor´s office has asked me to help educate some people on the mini-vivero in one of the schools. My counterpart told me that he "would be very angry" if I agreed to help out with this vivero but not with his. Hopefully I explained adequately that my responsibility was to be education and not the actual manual labor. But again I could have ripped his arms off.

That has been my rant.

Shall I lighten the mood? Sunday as I walked to the market to drink an api (purple quinoa drink served hot) I counted 8 people with eye patches. EIGHT! Then I went to get a hamburger and BOTH the people who work at my pension had eye patches too! Unfortunately for y´all the explanation isn´t as glamorous as act-like-a-pirate day, or an eye-stabbing maniac on the loose but rather the Cuban doctors in town are giving free surgeries for cataracts.

Today I feel much better by the way after meeting my new Spanish tutor, planning some activities in the kindergarden, and watching the técnico from the Mayor´s office get yelled at by three people at once. I thought I was the only one totally frustrated with him...it was great!

Yippe-iy-kay-ay!

I took advantage of the Sunday afternoon descanso (rest) to write this. At this time of week/day there are fewer snot-nosed little boys in the internet cafe. As much as I love children, I sometimes have NY moments where I can´t stand my personal space being invaded.

Don´t know if y´all have been watching/reading the news but there has been some interesting happenings here in Bolivia. As you may or may not know, Bolivia has two capitals. La Paz has the legislative and executive branch and Sucre has the judicial. At the moment, an assembly is rewriting the constitution in Sucre. Also, they are protesting pretty hard-core to bring the other two branches of government to the city. This has resulted in protests, blockades and even a paro civico where everything in the country was closed. The paro civico affected me personally because for the first time in a week I had hot water for a shower but no soap...which I couldn´t buy because everything was closed. Sigh. I live in the same department (state) as the city of Sucre and like all volunteers here have been prohibited from going there until at least Monday. But things here (8 hours south) are normal. By the way...protests, blockades, and such are pretty normal here because the people of Bolivia don´t have the traditional means of appealing to the government. Lobbying, letter-writing, and petitions are mostly useless. You can read about the current sitch here

So my birfday passed pretty much normally. I had one gringa friend (Stephanie) and one Bolivian friend come over for dinner and card games and then we went out dancing. My other Bolivian friends kinda bailed on me. Ah well.

This past weekend (Sept 1) I went to a rodeo (!) in Yacuiba. Wednesday evening Stephanie and I met to take a bus down to Tarija. Usually this trip lasts about 5 hours. However, we left at about 9 and didn´t arrive in Tarija until 3AM. The ride was bumpy, slow, and absolutely freeeeeezing cold. We were both rather cranky upon arrival and I found myself wishing for an all-night diner. No such luck. The very next night at 5PM, we hopped on a bus with some of the other Tarija volunteers to Yacuiba. About an hour outside of Tarija the bus broke down so we sat there for a while. We arrived in Yacuiba at about 7AM. Once again the ride was absolutely freeeezing cold and from what I could see out the window....scaaaaaary. Anyhoo, we met up with about 10 other volunteers and went to breakfast, slept until lunch and then went out to Palmar Chico where the rodeo was. We hung out, eating, dancing, drinking and then headed over to the arena. I was quickly adopted by a group of girls who taught me how to dance the Chacarera. The next day we watched the vaqueros lasso and brand cowies. There was a bullfighter and some traditional dancers too. Apparently, I missed the part of the rodeo where they bury ducks in the ground and then whack their heads off. I wanted to see that just because it seems too outrageous to believe. Then we went to a volunteer´s house for a huge barbecue. Some of his friends sang for us which was very cool. Then we returned to the arena to dance until it was time to go home. My time to go home came very soon after my dancing partner dropped me while dipping me. My backside is still sore. Really, the whole experience is hard to describe so you´ll have to check out the photogs. (When I finally upload them) In all, it was great fun to hang with the other volunteers who I never get to see, visit another part of the country and dance my little legs off.

Work: This week I started planning lessons with two teachers on the subject of trees. We´ll be working together in the school garden too. I had a meeting with all the ladies in the tree nursery to do a SWOT analysis. The ladies decided that they want me to give them a class on how to do stuff like mix dirt, treat seeds etc. (They even scheduled it!) I´ve also finally set up days and times for my English class so every Tuesday and Thursday night I´ll be getting my language on. I have been tutoring three people in English but this will be a switch to a full-size class of adults.

Sunday I went to the parroquia to hang out with the kidlets. (They begged me to) The parroquia is where the priests and nuns live and where they have chorus practice and youth group and stuff...like a church hall I guess. So I read the story of Esau and Jacob to the kidlets, served some breakfast and then we went to visit Doña Vincenta. She´s a woman who lives in our town and is apparently semi-paralyzed. It looked to me like a stroke or cerebal palsy but I´m not trained in that sort of thing. Anyhoo she was pleased to have 20-odd kids in her house singing to her. One of the other woman who volunteers with the kids asked me to come on her radio show to explain what the heck sort of work I´m doing here. So that should be good if not entirely nerve-wracking. She´s also a kindergarden teacher and wants me to do some stuff with her students.

That is approximately all. Been doing a lot of cooking and have read a surprisingly large amount of books recently...Harry Potter (surprisingly good and at one point terrifying when a herd of cats was running across my roof yowling), Ethan Frome (sad), A Thousand Splendid Suns (sad), Cheese Monkeys (not sad).