The Final Word

To everyone who spent a little time visiting this blog….thanks! Hearing from you (and knowing that there were probably a few silent readers out there!) helped me feel less disconnected from home and, no matter how much I was enjoying my time in Bolivia, that was always a good thing.


My travels aren’t done for the summer (right now I’m in California visiting family and then I’m off on a family vacation in Montana), but I’ll be back in Baltimore on August 19 to get ready for the start of classes (and the last year of my Master’s!) on August 29.

In the meantime...I’m beginning work on a goal I’ve set for myself: to get ballet shoes for each of the 25 girls at Corazón del Pastor. While I’d like to get dancewear companies to donate shoes, they might not be willing to help. With that in mind, I’m considering the possibility of fundraising for the purchase of shoes. If you’d like to make a donation toward the purchase of ballet slippers (which usually cost about $15/pair) or if you have a connection to a dancewear company, please get in touch with me at meros.meghan@gmail.com. Your help would be very much appreciated! You can also check out the website for the foundation that runs Corazón del Pastor and Pedacito de Cielo: http://www.ninosconvalor.org/. There you can find information about the work of the organization as well as information about making other kinds of donations, including donations that can be used for dance, music, and art classes.

Chau for now!

Meghan

A parade in celebration of the foundaton of La Paz.

One of the CDP girls enjoying a good book

Wrapping Things Up in a Certain Way

As the sun rose a couple Fridays ago, I zipped up my bags, headed to the aiport with Dan, the director of the short term mission program, boarded a plane and, 45 minutes later, landed in La Paz. This signaled the beginning of my journey home, a journey that, during my time in Cochabamba, I had both looked forward and dreaded depending on how things were going on a particular day, but that I had also begun to feel was not urgent and not necessary, at least not yet. What I'm trying to say, I suppose, is that I could have stayed in Cochabamba longer. If classes weren't starting in a month, my life in Cochabamba could have rolled on for a while longer and I think I would have enjoyed it.

New city--La Paz!  Before heading back to the States, I got to explore for a couple of days.
 I even got to explore a bit outside the city....see below.

My time in Bolivia, you see, was markedly different from any other trip abroad. I wasn't a tourist, I wasn't a student, and I wasn't visiting family. Instead, I was, technically, a missionary. What does that mean? Well, I certainly didn’t go with the goal of converting people. For me, my time in Bolivia was been about presence and participation, and I think most (if not all) Maryknollers who stay in a country for a few years would say that those words also define their experiences as long-term missionaries. For all the negative connotations associated with the word “missionary” (especially in Latin America), “presence” and “participation” sit well with me, not only because my work in Bolivia really was about being present to people and participating in the life of my barrio and he city, but also because it allows for people from all walks of life to be missionaries. One does not need to be wealthy or from the United States to be present and participate. Almost anyone from any country can do it and success is almost always guaranteed.

In the Altiplano, about an hour outside of La Paz

My last week in Cochabamba was full of a lot of goodbyes, both to people I had gotten to know and to places as well. Some goodbyes were good, like the one to the shower that gave me electric shocks and to the tap water I could not drink. Other goodbyes were not so easy, in part because I felt I was saying goodbye to a lot of possibilities: the possibility of deepening frienships with people I had gotten to know, the possibility of seeing more of Bolivia, the possibility of eventually feeling self-assured in my work, of learning to barter well, of futher understanding Bolivian culture, of mastering Bolivian dance--the possiblities were truly endless.

Araceli, one of the girls who lives at Corazon del Pastor (CDP), liked to put on my hat and sunglasses and call herself "Meghan 3." ("Meghan 1" was the first Meghan-named volunteer to arrive at CDP, and Meghan 2 was me--the second to arrive.)  Araceli promises to fill in for Meghan 2 in her absence.

While I may yet have the chance to master Bolivian dancing in the States and while I certainly hope to stay in touch with the people I met in Bolivia, some of the possiblities mentioned above are probably better ascribed to the process of building a life in a country or doing longer term (as in years) mission work.

Moving to a different country is certainly more attractive than ever before, but my time in Bolivia was never about settling in for good. Instead, it was about being immersed in a new culture for a time and getting a taste of what cross-cultural mission is all about. Indeed, I think my yearning for more time in Bolivia is not only appropriate, but also far better than feeling like I've had enough of Bolivia and never want to return. For that reason, I suppose I am grateful for the bittersweet goodbyes and the reverse culture shock I'm experiencing now. At present, the challenge I face is that of continuing to nurture my relationship with the people of Bolivia, of staying connected with a culture that is not my own and with a country that is not only far away, but also very different from the U.S. I could push the challenge aside (it is, after all, not so hard to do now that I have re-entered the relatively cushy world of middle-class America), but I accept. With an open heart.

Last day at the home and my pointe shoes were as popular as ever. 
When I said goodbye, I left my shoes and toe pads at the home so the girls could keep on dancing.

An inhabitant of the Altiplano who resides at the Tiwanaku ruins. 

Maryknoll volunteers, sisters, and friends together for one last dinner
with an excellent dessert made my master baker and volunteer, Veronica Holland (sitting next to me)

My Barrio

I lived in a great neighborhood!  It took some getting used to and it certainly had its quirks, but the people were very friendly.  Take a tour with the help of my Flip camera...

Mad Libs--With Answers!

From the back of the chocolate bar:

"This unique alliance will surprise your taste buds.  As soon as you bite into the bar, a unique dance of textures and aromas starts: the intense, smooth dark chocolate will flirt with the crunchiness of the nibs and salt crystals.  The bitterness of the nibs enhances the intensity of the chocolate while the salt brings a feel of juiciness and freshness."

And the festival...?

Well, it was in celebration of duck, guinea pig, and chicha.  That's right.  Guinea pigs are food in Bolivia, not pets.  On menus, however, they're listed as "rabbit."  Go figure. 

Bolivian Mad Libs

You know those "Mad Libs" books?  The ones in which words have been left out of stories, articles, etc. and you have to fill in the blanks?  Well...we're going to play Mad Libs with the description of a gourmet chocolate.  The company that produces this chocolate, El Ceibo, is actually a cooperative and, judging from the very detailed and almost poetic desciption of their 77% dark chocolate with cocoa nibs and salt from the Bolivian salt flats, they have a good advertising/PR person who knows English really well.

Part of the description follows.  You fill in the blanks.  Answers will be forthcoming.

This unique (noun) will surprise your taste buds.  As soon as you bite into the bar, a unique (noun) of (plural noun) and (plural noun) starts: the intense, smooth dark chocolate will (verb) with the crunchiness of the nibs and salt crystals.  The bitterness of the nibs enhances the intensity of the chocolate while the salt brings a feel of (noun) and (noun).

**Bonus!**

This comes from a banner I saw in Cochabamba, advertising a festival that celebrates three things: Duck, Chicha (a kind of alcohol made from fermented corn), and ___________.  Think hard...what would you celebrate along with with duck and alcohol?

Last week, the girls took turns doing my hair
and I ended up with about 5 different styles in 1 hour.

Random Things I Must Report

Some things just don't fit into a normal blog post, like this video of Ken, missionary priest,calling people to mass with a bullhorn:

Also:

--A woman walked onto a micro (bus) carrying a fairly large, limp dog in her arms. Dead? Sedated? Sleeping? I guessed “sedated” and it turns out I was right: outside the micro window was a veterinarian’s office.


--As I sat in a trufi (collective taxi), waiting at a stoplight, I man came out into the intersection and started juggling knives. Good thing he left when the light turned green—someone might have gotten hurt.

--Our shower is heated by a coil inside the showerhead and there are exposed wires leading into it. A volunteer who no longer lives in the house said the showerhead caught fire once when it was turned on after not being used for a while. Thankfully, there have been no fires during my stay, but the shower has shocked me several times.

--Speaking of showers, the coil stopped working because it got too crusted over with minerals. My housemates mentioned that their showers were cold and, while I had hope that mine would be warm, the water was cold for me, too. So I bent my head over the shower and washed my hair. Then I took a sort-of sponge bath to deal with the rest of me. A couple days later, when it was time to shower again (yes, that’s right, I don’t shower every day in Bolivia) and I was going to go shower at the sisters’ house next door (it took a few days for our shower to get fixed), I woke up to find that neither house had running water! So…I boiled some of our drinking water from a bottle and, taking the pot of water into the bathroom, proceeded to not only bathe myself, but wash my hair and shave my legs. By dipping my head into the pot, I could get my hair wet, and by dipping my washcloth in the pot and squeezing out the water, I could get pretty wet overall. That “shower,” in fact, was the best one I had had in Bolivia before the showerhead was fixed!

The Cochabamba version of the Hard Rock Cafe

--One of the girls at the home I work at came up to me the other day and asked, in Spanish, ¿Qué significa “super hob”? (What does “super hob” mean?) “I have no idea,” I answered. “Where did you see that?” I asked. Well…the girl led me over to a poster on her bedroom door on which there was a sticker, in English, that said “Super Job.”

--On one of my first dancing days at the girls’ home, I brought a short, black chiffon skirt that I sometimes wear in ballet class over my tights and leotard. One of the girls found it in my bag, took it out, and proceeded to wrap it around her waist. “Bonita!” I said, and then went back to dancing. The next time I looked over at the girl, she was heading downstairs to show off the skirt to the other girls and the women who work at the home. Problem was, she had taken off her pants, and chiffon is see-through. Another girl saw and yelled out “Es transparente!”, but it was too late--the skirt-donning girl was off, proud as could be.

--Today, 16 people headed off to lunch in one, small SUV (meant for five passengers). I was among them. :)

--Willa and I were heading home in a taxi the other night and the driver, apparently, got bored with our company, grabbed a music video DVD out of his glove box, and stuck it in a portable DVD player sitting on his dashboard. We all had entertainment on the way home!
--A lot of stray dogs roam the neighborhood and Cochabamba, in general. If they get aggressive, just pretend like you’re going to throw a rock at them—it usually makes them go away.

--Some people in our neighborhood get rid of trash by burning it in little (unattended) piles by the side of the road.

--A lot of the girls at the home have significant communities of large lice living in their hair. Such an infestation, I have been told, is something that a lot of Cochabambinos just live with, in part because lice shampoo can be hard to come by and/or expensive. A couple weeks ago, one of the women who works at the home sat down with each of the lice-infested girls and bottle of rubbing alcohol. Her goal: to kill the lice with the alcohol and comb them out. She began this endeavor as many events with alcohol begin: with a toast. “Salud!” she said. “The lice are going to come out drunk!”

El Campo=Space

Me in the campo--it was cold!

Last Saturday, one of the lay missioners took me and my housemates and to the campo. In Bolivia, “campo” can mean “space” as well as “countryside” and, when you venture out of the city, it’s easy to see why these words are related. In the campo—in the countryside—there is a lot of space, along with a lot of fresh air, mountains, animals, sweeping plains--so many things I hardly realized I was missing or missing out on until we actually left Cochabamba and started climbing higher into the hills.

The weather that day was quite unusual for this time of year: overcast, rainy, and cold (even colder at higher altitudes). Technically speaking, Bolivia, like any other country, experiences the four seasons. In general, however, sorting the seasons into two categories, wet and dry, tends to be more relevant since the climate is pretty temperate year round. Last Saturday, then, we found ourselves venturing out on a wet day in the dry season with a view of snow-covered mountains in the distance. It may have been rare for this time of year and it may have been slightly annoying to head out in the rain, but it was beautiful.

Our first stop was the town of Tiraque where we ended up at the mayor’s office to use the bathroom (essential, unless we wanted to use bushes for bathrooms the rest of the day) and pick up a woman, Maria, that Jason, our guide (and an engineer), has worked with on projects that give people in rural areas access to clean water and sanitation facilities. Maria needed to check on a couple projects in surrounding areas which gave us a great opportunity to see the projects for ourselves.

Both villages were accessed by dirt roads, and I’m really glad Maria knew where she was going, because there were no signs, and no sign of civilization off the main road. The first village we stopped at surely had a name, but I’m not sure what it was. Upon getting out the car, the colder air let us know we were not in Cochabamba anymore. Thankfully, Maria led us into the local meeting house (a concrete building that used to be a one-room schoolhouse) which provided some relief from the biting cold. Inside, the people from the village had gathered to discuss the pros and cons of building a composting toilet in their area as well as what kinds of bricks they would use if people voted in favor of the project.

You might be wondering, as I wondered myself, why wouldn’t someone want a composting toilet in a brick building if they don’t have access to other, good-quality sanitation facilities? Well, to begin with, people might be satisfied with what they have already. In addition, while the government and an organization called Water for People subsidizes the water/sanitation projects, local people who will benefit from a project also have to make a financial contribution and provide all manual labor. This changes the situation a bit, and requires that the community come together, discuss, and vote.

At this meeting, Maria led the discussion in Quechua, an indigenous language that, over the years, has pulled in some Spanish words. Maria asked the villagers to sort themselves into groups based on whether or not they wanted the toilet, and then asked that they move into groups based on what kind of brick they would like (if they wanted the toilet at all): adobe, “ladrillo ecológico” (a brick made with clay and formed with a machine), or some other kind of brick whose features I can’t remember.

As the villagers voiced their opinions, Maria wrote pros and cons on some paper that she had mounted on an old chalkboard and I looked around the room, taking in all the details made me feel, more strongly than at any other moment since arriving in Bolivia, that I was in the presence of people whose culture was very different from my own. More importantly, perhaps, I realized that I was their guest.

Some might say that poverty defined the differences between us. I have, after all, never lived without a toilet or running water and that fact probably has less to do with my culture and more to do with my parents’ socioeconomic status. Still, seeing everything through the lens of poverty inhibits one’s ability to recognize and appreciate the cultural gems that exist in a society and persist despite poverty.

Take the shoes of the women at the meeting, for example. They were, essentially, ballet flats made of plastic, kind of like those “jelly” shoes (anyone remember those?) that were made in the 90s—certainly not what I would consider appropriate footwear on a cold day in the campo. The women even wore those shoes without socks! Looking at their feet made my feet cold, and I felt bad for the women, thinking they didn’t have enough money to buy real shoes. I then realized, however, that many of the men were wearing rain boots. Hmmm…very curious. They had money to buy “proper” shoes. So what was up with the women? Poverty? Perhaps not. A kind of sexism that dictates what kind of footwear is appropriate for women or who gets the better shoes? Maybe. I don’t doubt that an outdated understanding of gender roles keeps many women from realizing their full potential in the campo, but I think the women’s choice of shoes was based more on what is fashionable and what goes well with the just-below-the-knee length skirt that is the dress of choice among indigenous women in this part of the country. Sitting in on the meeting, I was seeing a new culture--uncomfortable-looking shoes and all—and I had to respect that.