Life goes on in Bolivia.

We are about half way through our training and next week we start our technical week trip. The agriculture group is going to several towns in the Santa Cruz department. This is one of the departments or states in Bolivia that have jungles, so it should be an interesting change from the “eternal spring” of Cochabamba. Cochabamba is a huge valley so the city is extremely but still I am living in the Andes at about 8,000 ft. You can take a four hour non-technical trek to the top of the highest peak surrounding Cochabamba and be standing at a little higher than 15,000 ft. It is hard to fathom that you can be higher than anywhere in the continental United States in a fairly simple four hour hike. A couple people in group plan on doing it before training is over, we just have to get some spare time. About a week or so ago the agriculture group went to a place called Tortora, an old Spanish colonial city, for a couple of days to do some work with the production of bees. I won’t go into detail but bees are pretty amazing. The interesting thing about these bees is that they are all killer bees. It sounds pretty intimidating but they remain calm unless they are provoked. There were some bees at the training center before our group arrived and some kids threw balloons over the wall and aggravated the hive and they attacked and killed a couple full grown sheep. We wear all the protective gear so no need to worry, it just adds to how amazing these bees are, not to mention that honey straight from the comb is simply amazing.

I know tax season is rolling around and some of you will end up paying the government which in turn is paying for me to be here. I just want to thank all the U.S. taxpayers who have allowed me to be down here. All joking aside it is not that much at all. I get a whopping 17 Bolivanos aka B’s a day which is equivalent to $2.26 for miscellaneous stuff and my family gets 31 Bolivanos ($ 4.13) a day which includes three meals a day and a place to stay. That is actually good pay too. That comes out to about $2,372 a year, so I hope being down here is it worth your tax dollars. That should give you some idea to how much things cost down here. When we go out to eat most people spend about 2 dollars and get more then enough to eat. It can be easy to get carried away when buying stuff because it is so cheap but you have to remember that you are getting paid in B’s not dollars. I bought a pair of sandals that and all the campesinos (people who live in the countryside) wear for 3 dollars. These sandals are made out of tires and put together with nails (literally) so they last forever. I upgraded to the leather ones for about fifty cents more. Needless to say, with the tire bottoms they are not “bouncing soles“ like Doc’s so I decided to modify mine so they would be more comfortable. I separated the leather from the tire bottom, dug out the inside of it and cut a Dr. Scholl’s insole that I brought from the States to fit. A little glue and a few nails latter and I have a sandal that looks exactly the same as the campesinos but with the comfort of a modern day sandal. How the campesinos wear those things day after day year after year is beyond me, but it is just like eating potatoes every single day with lunch and dinner… it is a cultural thing. One cultural thing with my family is that bathroom situation. We actually have a flushing toilet but I am the only one that uses the thing. The rest of the family goes out back and uses a hole in the ground. They have the option to use a flushing toilet and they use a hole in the ground?

This last Thursday two other volunteers and I had to go to a Bolivian school and set up an appointment to do a non-formal presentation of something in the agriculture sector. We got there and it was their recess time. It was pretty crazy, kids where runnings around everywhere, then we had to go into the director’s office to talk with him and there were all trying to catch a glimpse of the gringos. We had the oppurtunity the talk with a group of 8th graders. We introtuced ourselfs and then asked them what they wanted to learn about agriculture. The first kid raised his hand and said “la gente” (the people) and the next one wanted to learn English. How someone is supposed to learn English in an hour is beyond me, but they sure were excited that Americanos were in their class. After some redirecting and voting the class decieded unonimosly on agri-business. I definitly would have picked that one over composting and worms anyday of the week. There is so much to cover I am only covering a little bit of it but over a two year span I think everyone should get a basic idea of what it is like here. If you don´t you could always come visit. I just wanted to say thanks for all the comments that are definitly are a moral booster. Chao.