In which they go fishing!

Tuesday. By now our ragtag team of tree measurers and hole diggers is a well-oiled machine, working with precision and grace….so that we can finish early and go fishing. We have also taken to skipping lunch and relying on a chewing a certain green leaf to keep us unhungry yet energetic. Although this means that dinners are huuuge because they are a combined lunch and dinner so that Dona E gets paid for both meals. No tricking her. So on Tuesday evening we head down to the river (Me, A, Don B, Don S, Don V and Roger) with our fishing lines and guts for bait. Don B takes A and Don S and I across the river in his dugout canoe (no joke) to a good deep spot before checking his own nets. I actually do know how to fish and am pretty darn good at it but I have never fished without a pole and the guys just generally assume that as a gringa and a girl I am completely ignorant and I’m tired enough to let them think that because I do not stake my integrity or my personal identity on my ability to fish. So Don S tells me “If it pulls, let me know” and we arrive at a system where he does all the work and I get all the credit. In this manner I catch three fish in quick succession. A catches one too and Roger across the river is super proud of his teeny tiny catfish. All I get to eat for the next two days is fish.

I have noticed by this point that both A and Don S and sometimes the other guys have started saying “ok.” This makes me flashback to Peace Corps when my counterpart prohibited the word because it wasn’t Spanish. I maintained that everyone understood what it meant but was forced to use “esta bien” or “de acuerdo.” So I feel guiltily pleased about this small cultural imperialism. Don S, by the way is only about 18 years old (20 tops) but he is out of school and has bought a few hectares of land so he just has to survive military service and get married. As such he gets the honorific Don although he’s basically just a kid. He has been our ally through the week, commiserating about the amount of drunkenness and commenting on which of our crew are now single because of it.

It is not my intention to make everyone sound like a drunk but there really is no other way to amuse oneself. I would drink all the time too….well, no I would save my money to pay for my children’s education and to build an outhouse like women do. Generally alcohol consumption occurs within certain strict cultural norms but at levels that your average American might see as excessive. Check out this New Yorker article on the drinking habits of the Camba, photojournalists Dado Galdieri's project K’ajj: Tradition and Ethanolism in the Andes, and/or the WHO report on substance abuse (which really doesn't reveal anything. sorry. so much for my hard hitting journalistic investigation)

Wednesday. Pay day! Post-work, we settle up accounts. This requires more math than I think necessary. The day laborers can choose if they want all their money and the responsibility to settle up with Dona E for the food they ate or we will settle for them.  Either way they get paid surprisingly little for a week of work. I am not naiive enough to be surprised when everyone goes into town to get drunk, including Don S.

At lunch, Dona E tells us that the school will be closed on Thursday for the Aymara New Year and so the professor will not be available to drive us into town. We will have to stay in Yumao forever! So A and I spend all afternoon walking around the community trying to find someone to give us a ride into town on Thursday. We are not met with success. I am surprisingly more resigned to this fate than A. It is finally warm out so I figure I can spend all day swimming and fishing. I do however refuse to eat one more plate of rice and so skip dinner.  

The next morning (Thursday! Last day!) we take everything out of our tent so that we can later repack it neatly and head to breakfast where Dona E tells us that there will indeed be school….ack!  All of our stuff is strewn about the school room! Data sheets! Clinometers! Socks and undies! We also realize that we have neglected to take any photos of me in the field so that morning between fretting about our belongings, playing angry birds, and watching hogs being killed (real pigs, not pigs being pelted by angry cartoon birds) we stage a few photos of me measuring things. I am unfortunately wearing sandals and no one else is in the pictures so you can tell something fishy is going on but it was a diversion.

And then in a truly anticlimactic manner we pack our stuff, dump it in the professor’s pickup, and drive to the highway to wait for a passing taxi. The only excitement on the road is that I cannot find an open bathroom and our taxi driver runs out of gas. And I buy bananas which are super delicious.  On Friday, I have in my head that I will take the day off of work but A informs me that we have a meeting at the office and we have to take our samples to the natural history museum. We also wind up going out for pizza and a party with some colleagues before he invites me to his parent’s for the weekend to celebrate San Juan because evidently we are having a bit of separation anxiety but that’s a boring story for another day.

In which they escape!

Sunday. I am brought quesillo which makes me cheerful. The guys bring puro to work. A and I sit around playing angry birds but nothing else of note happens (besides work of course).

Monday. It has been decided that I will finish work fast and go into town (about an hour away) to make copies, buy gas, and call my parents. I know that I won’t actually call my parents because they will ask if I am having fun and I will ramble on about how my days alternate between being hungry, being stuffed, walking uphill, sliding downhill, measuring stuff, and sitting around. I may even mention our drunk guide, admit to having a bit of a crush on A (although I’m fairly certain it’s Stockholm syndrome-esque), and start to cry.

Anyhoo, we all finish early enough so that Don B and Don S can bring A and I into town. I know that I have truly turned Bolivian when instead of checking my email or finding a quiet place to read I go visit Dona V and Don J, the host parents of a fellow Peace Corps volunteer. We sit and chat and sip mate and eat cheese and no one gets drunk and it is perfectly delightful. We talk at length about the insects that could kill me in the campo, Che Guevarra (this is where his last stand was), Erika (the PCV) and her fiancée, and how I am ridiculously single. At one point V and J’s son gets very close to me, tells me that I have perfect eyebrows, and asks if I tweeze. His mother tells me that he has suffered a blow to the head and isn’t quite right but I agree….my eyebrows are indeed perfect.

On the walk back I call the ex-BBT because I promised I would provide proof of life. He also asks if I’ve called my parents but I explain how it could be a long conversation because everything has happened to which he responds, “You got married?” This cracks me up for some reason.

We set out in the dark and stormy night (I am not exaggerating. It was raining.) stopping only to buy gas, fix the headlights, borrow a sweatshirt from a cousin, and buy some booze. We arrive back at the ranch and A falls asleep right away so I take the opportunity to dance around the room while listening to my ipod and finishing up my work.

In which Lenni cuts herself with a machete and her first thought is not tetanus but “oh crap! That’s my favorite finger!”

Friday. You’ve seen those photos with a whole family riding a motorcycle while also carrying three chickens and thirty kilos of rice? This is our research team. Three people per moto carrying machetes, metric tape, and at least three liters of chicha. Today we pile onto the moto because it a 3km walk to our plot and I am a notoriously slow uphill walker. (I am a notoriously slower downhill walker.) The day is long, the bugs are abundant, the weather is hot, and we don’t finish measuring the plot because there are soooo many trees.

That night everyone and their mother come to dinner (actually no women). The community is on the Rio Grande and as such hosts sportfishermen from the city. I can’t help but think that they are a bad influence, offering cigarettes and booze to their guides. Post pressing plants and weighing dirt, A and I also head down to the river. It is cloudy and moonless and no stars are in sight but it is super nice just to be wet. I am not sure of the proper protocol on river bathing in six inches of water. Is it ok to strip to my undies? Is my headlamp waterproof? How do I get all the shampoo out of my hair? I strip. It is. I don’t really. Unfortunately the walk back is through a foot of sand and I drop my wet clothes so all things considered we are just as dirty as before but more content. In fact, it is the first night that I don’t dream in Spanish or about measuring trees.

Saturday. I have survived almost a week. As a reward I get to stay at home base and make numbered placards which, although somewhat awkward because Dona E talks less than I do, is a nice break. So I hang out cutting metal, hammering numbers, chatting with five year old Vero, eating mandarins, and watching birds fornicate. I can’t say that I’ve always wondered how birds do it but I never really knew how it operated. Call me enlightened. Also on the bird topic, the ducks here don’t quack. They sound like someone whispering. Is this normal? Is quacking a myth?

At one point I ask Vero where she goes when she has to go to the bathroom. This is a touchy subject that I never know how to broach. The day before I asked Dona E where the bathroom was and she and her husband just looked at each other and he answered “Anywhere is ok. We don’t have a bathroom.” That doesn’t really surprise me but I suppose I was wondering if they had an appropriate spot, away from the house. Anyone with experience in this, know how to ask this question? Anyway Vero said “go past the jichituriki tree and just a little further down the hill.” (This is exactly how foresters give directions!)

The only low point of the day was when Don B comes back drunk (he has skipped out measuring trees for the day too) and interrogates me again. I notice that as he gets progressively more intoxicated he unbuttons another button on his shirt. This is a pretty good gauge of how long I will have to endure questions about why I wear glasses and my relationship with Arnold Schwarzenegger. It’s a three button day so I also get the speech about how air has no borders. Also I get several hundred mariwui bites. They are the Bolivian equivalent of black flies only with less bleeding and more swelling. Vero helpfully points out each one.

I find out that later that while I was gone Don R was plotting how to get me to stay in the community forever. He says that he will catch fish for me every day but A explains that I am somewhat more high maintenance and require chocolate and cookies. (I would prefer fresh fruit and cheese but you get the idea.) He must have gotten discouraged because he stops coming to work after this.

Fall down/bug bite count: I’ve given up counting

In which they bring chicha to work or in which Lenni starts to break just a little

Wednesday. V leaves at about five in the morning for the city and I am left alone (ah peace) to prepare for the field. I am so proud that I remember everything but this feeling is quickly squashed as I run into Don V and Don Br on the road. They have brought my breakfast (eggs and yucca and an entire liter of chamomile with an entire cup of sugar. I know it was this much sugar because it was in the same cup I drank out of.) As it turns out, I am running late. By the time we have walked to the plot, set up our gear, and fertilized a few trees, A has arrived…bearing Oreos! I could have kissed him. (For those unaware, Oreos were my Peace Corps crack. By the end of my service I had a two pack a day habit.) We finish up the plot pretty quickly and head across the road to set up another.

At this point we have settled on an experimental design of two .25ha plots every 2.5km at a distance of 300m from the road. This results in having to climb straight up a 300m incline. The guys are impressed that I make it, joking that I should bring a flag to leave at the summit, but are less impressed when I can’t get down. A and I return to the school to work (weighing soil and plants and stuff) in complete silence. Not a word. I am not sure if this is good or not.

Thursday. I woke up to find my eyes all swollen. I don’t have a mirror but A confirms that I’m looking a little Asian. As I’m packing A hands me not only oreos but an apple! And a packet of api! This makes me feel inexplicably sad and I start to cry. A doesn’t notice and if he does he attributes it to my puffy face. It’s been interesting what I think about when left to my own devices. On day 2 it was “Oh my god. I am going to dies childless and alone!” On day 3: “Boy I’d love to just sit around and watch a few episodes of Bones.” Day 4: “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?”

Anyway that day we decide to give our legs a rest and do a flat plot closer to home. Unfortunately there are very few large trees so it is very difficult to find a place to pee without blinding everyone with my bright white ass. This has become my every day concern. Pack stuff, choke down wild pig breakfast, set up plot, find place to pee. My low point of each day happens around lunch time when it’s hottest, I am faced with yet another plate of squooshy noodles and the little tiny bees are flocking around my head. They don’t bite or sting they just bother.

That night I wet wipe bathe and wash my hair because it no longer moves on its own. I also eat my apple and it’s the best one I have ever had.

Bug bite count: elevated due to unfortunately too-short pants.

In which we get a taste of what can go wrong

Monday. Fish for breakfast! Yummy! We pretty much measure trees all day. Evidently Bolivians don’t believe in fancy tools to measure height so everything is guesstimated. I don’t doubt their accuracy to the half meter but I wonder how those other missing decimals will skew our results. Mid-day A has to leave for another job to come back on Wednesday so V and I continue. That evening we return to the schoolhouse to find that it is locked. We spend some time scavenging around, looking for where keys might be left but we have to head back to Dona E’s house. Not ten meters down the road we run into her husband coming home from dropping off A and it is fairly obvious that he is drunk. We try to explain the situation but are unavoidably detained and subjected to his repetition of certain facts: Air does not have borders, why should we? We are like brother and sister and he cares for me. He and his wife have 5 or 6 or 7 children, etc etc. V is of little help getting him back on track but Don B finally leaves to return with the keys at which point we are once more regaled with speeches. Development workers take note! His community is upset about the lack of continuity in project supervisors. They feel dumped! Of course they won’t cut down the trees because 1) it’s against the law (?) and 2) you can’t farm on the mountains so why would they clear them. At about 10pm (on a moonless night) Don G glides into the schoolyard in the darkness to try and rescue us. I’m not sure where he has come from or how he did it without a flashlight but he finally wrangles Don B back to his house and we are left to go to bed only to be woken up at 2am by someone else, also drunk, who wants to work with us. Ah conservation. Ah the campo.

Tuesday. On Tuesday we begin to work with Don R who is slightly deaf and perhaps not too bright and the type who instead of asking us to repeat ourselves just does what he thinks we might be saying. The other workers from the community delight in torturing him and their first act is to show him how we mark the trees, by spray painting him at breast height. The day passes remarkably unremarkably until dinner when Don V spills an entire 5 liter jug on Don R.  In the middle of the night I spend a bit more time than average in the outhouse and return to find that V is putting on his boots on the point of coming to look for me. How chivalrous!

Fall down count: 3

Bug bite count: bugs really like antibacterial gel!

In which they are delayed

My primary preparation for 12 days in the super campo was to search high and low for Nutella and/or peanut butter. This, I know from previous experience, is of prime importance so I braved the rain and mud to head to the supermarket. Nutella was unlocatable and the clerks at IC Norte (of which there are many) were surprised by my incredulity. I mean, the building has an Apple store, a Radio Shack and at least two fro-yo places. It is obviously the height of westernization. Why wouldn’t they have Nutella? My other preparations include purchasing a tent and practicing setting up said tent. Anyhoo, once packed, I try to convince a taxista to take me to the office but he refuses citing the fact there is too much traffic. This is in fact true: as it happens the entire stretch of road between my apartment and the office is under construction and by “under construction” I mean that it is closed because they have dug up the road and it is one giant mud pit for 20 blocks or so.

I finally arrive to find that we have postponed departure and that I will be going to the field with Aquilino (A) instead of Ivan (V). I am not sure I’d rather spend 12 days in the woods with: V has worked with me from the beginning and he is somewhat older and more experienced. However, he is somewhat bossy and has that uniquely Latin need for music at all times- even when I’m trying to sleep. A is much calmer and quieter and more precise. He also appears to be able to read my mind which is good because when he does talk it is way too fast for me to understand. He is also cute in a kind of big-headed Bolivian sort of way which worries me because I don’t want to spend two unshowered weeks with someone I find even remotely cute, even if it is only in a big-headed Bolivian sort of way.

Saturday. I am supposed to meet the guys to buy supplies but it seems that they have taken my advice that they will be gringo-priced if I come with and they don’t call until later to tell me to meet them at the office at 2 to head to the bus terminal from there. I have a full backpack with a tent and a thermarest strapped to it and A shows up with one of those carry-on roller suitcases. I feel like a complete douchebag of the consumerist American variety (not for the last time on this adventure I assure you). But I was a Girl Scout, I am a woman, and as my wise sister said “One man’s tent is another man’s sheet strung over a rope” so I think it best to be prepared. (Pro tip: bring mouthwash and floss instead of a toothbrush and toothpaste; it doesn’t require clean water and if things get really bad you can theoretically get drunk on the mouthwash.) Also, everyone has told me that it will be really frikkin’ cold where we are going. I doubt it but I respect the whims of Bolivian weather and pack plenty of sweaters. Anyhoo we pile six people into a station wagon and head off to Gutierrez. I make the guys buy a full case of water because they have only bought 8 liters for 12 days. V tries to convince me that I can drink river water….but no. We arrive in Yumao, set up our camping gear in the school house, and I rediscover that spiders’ eyes glow in the dark and that my pee stream arcs way to the right. The last two, as you may have guessed, happen in our luxurious outhouse which is packed with spiders, packed I tell you! (In fact, one night I refuse to pee because there is a huge spider way too close to my backside, huge I tell you!)

Sunday. That morning we go to eat breakfast at the mburumbicha’s house (Dona E). She is basically the equivalent of the mayor in this community of twenty families…but with less paperwork probably. It is fairly obvious that she has never cooked for a gringa before so I avoid all vegetables and drinking water. I think she might be offended but I’m pretty sure I can’t explain parasites and stomach flora so I choose gastrointestinal security over cultural sensitivity. Walking from breakfast to the river and then back to the school A asks me if I’ve ever eaten wild boar (no) and if I think it will make me sick (no). He then reveals that that was the mystery meat in this morning’s breakfast.

We sit through a ridiculously long meeting on sportfishing, are introduced, and try to explain why the heck we’ll be wandering around the community measuring trees (and dirt, and logs, and stuff). No one wants to volunteer to help. We offer money. Still little interest. The mburumbicha’s husband offers to be our guide and we’ll have to beg more to help later. We spend the rest of the morning hammering numbered plaques to hang on the trees. I take the opportunity to introduce the guys to peanut butter. They quickly realize its curative power but it is unlikely that we will be hungry again on this trip. That afternoon we walk to our first study plot. Our experimental design is pretty flawed (ie we don’t have one) so we just walk down a trail until we find intact forest and start to measure and mark transects. Since I have never done this before and I am very bad at following directions in Spanish, I have some problems. Perhaps it’s not Spanish but Bolivian Spanish. I do not find statements like “more up” and “more down” helpful in guiding me in a flat area.

We have survived a full day!

Fall down count: 1

Bug bite count: 7