The Quechua Post

On November 29th, come stop by Weed's cafè, 1903 - 20 Avenue NW in Calgary, AB from
7 - 9 pm for an open forum on my volunteer exchange to Bolivia.
Also covered will be the political situations in Latin America,
information on volunteering abroad, and lots of discussions.

After the event, a Christmas Package will be sent down to the Aldea
S.O.S. in Potosì. Bolivia. Acceptable items to donate could be SMALL
children's toys or books (preferably in Spanish or without words!),
toothbrushes, pencils, markers, socks or other clothing (for ages 0 -
7), postage stamps of any denomination (to get the package down there,
of course!) or any other item that may be benificial (please don't
bring candy or sweets, they've already got more than they can handle!)

Please don't hesitate to email or call me with any questions you may
have. I can be reached at (403)313-6837

Hope to see you there!

I guess my plane won't crash! My fortune cookie from dinner tonight:
"You will be reunited with old friends before the month is out."


The whole time I have been here, I have held a strong resentment for the horomone-driven comments from the male half of the population. Lea and I shared the bus from Sucre to Santa Cruz with a boxing team that had just won a silver cup in a tournament and were on their way to another competition. I could almost smell the testosterone.
I was about to move one of the bags to the side in the overhead compartment to make room for my own when three men leapt up, asking to help me. In a matter of seconds they had my bag in place and were smiling at me as I was sitting down. Any other time I would have felt a little angry and jaded, like they had insulted me by thinking I couldn't manage on my own or that I was somehow inferior as a female. This time, though, I finally understood. They weren't expecting me to fall in love with them, they didn't hope I would react with the final result in some sort of sexual activity, they weren't being bigoted. They thought I was pretty, and they wanted me to know their appreciation. I suddenly felt foolish about my reactions to half the men who had commented on me in the street. This was simply how they thought; it is normal to vocally show appreciation for what they think is beautiful. I pretended not to notice when a few of them exchanged glances about Lea and I, feeling very good about the situation.
Only a few minutes after the bus had left the terminal, I heard the man next to me ask one of his compadres to pass a tiny zampoña, a Bolivian flute. His friend didn't listen, and I offered my guitar. It was gladly accepted. The man couldn't really sing that well, and the guitar was awfully out of tune, but the songs were played with confidence and an underlying relaxed manner, and they carried themselves well.
After playing a while, usually with the rest of the team singing along to most of the chorus, another girl stood up. She sang more or less a capella, the guitarist trying to accompany without knowing the changes. She sang Shakira, she sounded exactly the same and had very good control over her voice. I was impressed by her courage and self security.
Two of the boys called out "I want to hear from the girl who owns the guitar!" I took Shakira's example and just played, without shame or nervousness. Sin verguenza. Everyone applauded afterward, and I passed the guitar back to the first man.
The evening continued this way, and on into the night. The boxing team started passing around tiny glasses of Singani, but I felt alright about it. This was my third night with less than four hours of sleep in a row, and with the lull of the engine and the stress of the last few days I felt like my body was not quite a part of me. I sang Summertime, and one of the boxers told the teammate next to him that his heart was no longer in his possession. Lea asked me, her eyes closing with fatigue, to sing another, quietly, just for her. I felt like my time here had come to a good end. I was ready to come home.

Last night was the goodbye/birthday dinner for Sophie from Switzerland, one of the other volunteers in Potosí. I was instructed to arrive around seven. I got there a little after seven thirty, but this is really quite normal in Bolivia. I had plans later that night as well with a few other friends, thinking the evening with the girls would end around nine. It was nice to just sit with Lea and Sophie in the living room and talk. We have only seen eachother a handful of times in the past month and I could really feel the distance between us, which made me a little sad.
Presently, the doorbell rang. A stream of people began entering, most over age 50, slightly obese and waddling a little. The normal greeting of kissing on both cheeks, saying "hola, buenas noches, mucho gusto, muchas gracias, egualmente" to every person who had just arrived took about five minutes. I started feeling quite uncomfortable.
At a quarter to nine we sat at the table to eat. The good silverware had been brought out and the table was set impeccably. I glanced at my watch and wondered if my friends were going to be terribly angry I was about to stand them up.
Conversation started. The first questions are always, without doubt, "How do you like Potosí? It's very cold, isn't it? Do you like Bolivian food? It´s very spicy, isn´t it?". The first course was soup, a bright yellow and viscous liquid very obviously from a powder with a garnishing of chopped hot dog. It was like eating bad instant gravy with a few chunks of rubber tossed in for flavour. When passed yajua, a salsa of jalapeño, I gratefully took too much to cover the taste. They asked me what family I was living in. I told them and, not suprisingly, they knew who I was talking about - Potosí is a small town like any other. "I know the grandmother who lives there. She´s a doctor, you know. She tends the Pharmacy very well. The younger one doesn´t. She´s lazy, and a slob."
I exhaled with relief when they asked Lea where she had been working. The grandmother across from me finally looked away, attention diverted for the first time since we had sat down. "Don´t you want a piece of bread, Lea?" "No, gracias, estoy bien." "Give her a piece of bread, she wants bread!"
The second plate started to be served, and the grandmother returned her stare to me. A monstrous cut of fried pork covered almost the entire plate, black with charcoal and dripping in fat, the skin and occasional hair still attached above an inch-thick section of fat that sits under the first layer of flesh. I thought of what my very Jewish grandmother would say and felt the gravy-soup threatening to rise in my throat.
I began eating the sprinking of overcooked broccoli and small serving of mashed potatoes, feeling quite hopeless. They asked us again where we had been working and with whom we were living, and again we told them.
Though I had been waiting for it the whole time, I still tensed up when the inevitable question came. "Look! She's not eating the meat! Are you vegetarian or something? You don't like meat?"
"Um... yes. I mean, no." I was fumbling horribly, staring at the disgusting cut of pig fat which was suddenly easier to look at than the faces of the family.
"Just tell them," whispered Sophie at my side.
"I can't eat pork because of my religion."
Silence.
About a minute passed. "Well, would you like some more potatoes?" I accepted.
Conversation returned timidly to the table. My ears were burning. Eventually everyone finished and cake was served. "Would you like a second piece?" I was asked. I declined. I was stuffed with mashed potatoes. "Oh, you're on a diet?" Several people exchanged glances when I said no again.
I excused myself to call a taxi, explaining when I returned that I was not feeling very well with a cold.
"You are fatter than the other girls, aren't you. When you're fat you get tired quickly." I laughed, not knowing at all what to say. If I have gained weight in my time here, it's not more than five pounds.
"Do you have a heart?" the grandmother asked me.
"I believe so..." I replied.
"How big is it?"
"I haven't seen it lately."
"Let me see your fist. Oh, yep, it's pretty big."
I heard the taxi honk from outside and almost ran for the door.

My time here is very obviously measured at this point. I have found myself looking around here as I did when I was getting ready to leave Canada, thinking to myself that I won´t be able to appreciate these things any more in a very imaginable amount of time; somehow, this does make me appreciate them more. I am regretting not living my life for the first four months the way I have been able to live it lately, though I do remind myself every so often that it simply wasn´t possible.
I am currently in Sucre, a beautiful city largely resembling everything I know of Oakland, California. I have come here to say goodbye to Holger, probably the last time we will meet in our lives. I will soon do the same in Cochabamba with David and Tim. The most strange and difficult will be to say goodbye to Lea and Sophie, the two other volunteers from Potosí. How do you say that to someone after you have spent so much time together? When we have all seen eachother cry and been through the same things together, all of the problems we have had with the families and the awful homesickness and just simply living together in the same situation, trying to remember street names and deciding which cafés we like and making fun of the cultural things we just couldn´t understand. We all have entire lives in three different countries, but though we know eachother so well we only know eachother´s actual lives through brief stories and the snapshots we managed to bring along. I mentioned somewhere at the beginning of this journal (at the beginning of my time here), that the psychology of making friends this way fascinated me, but I never once thought of what the goodbye would be like.

The B&W printing is even worse this time! Sorry, guys.

Geysers, and Dali´s rock formations.



The two girls who work with the babies in Aldea S.O.S.


My babies!


My kids!


Juanita. She works in the kitchen at Aldea S.O.S., and is undoubtably my favourite person to see every day.


Left to right: Julián from France, Harry, Alfredo.

I was in a bar with a couple Potosínos last night. I was sitting with my back against the wall, thoroughly enjoying one of the best local bands. To my right was a Mexican man everyone referred to as "Pachito" (Pachuco is Mexican slang for "amigo"). I had drank a glass of Sangría, heated wine with apple, lemon and cinnamon, the first alcohol in my system since last August or so. It wasn´t strong, but I could feel in my head that I had drank it. I glanced at my watch, 2:30, and briefly thought that the bars in Calgary would have already served last call, but here the night was still starting. Suddenly a man was in front of me, smiling with a friendly mischief in his eyes. His hand was extended. With a thick accent, he asked in English "Would you dance?".
I smiled and told him I have two left feet. He took my hands and pulled me out of the chair. "Harry! Help me!" I called to one of my friends. He laughed at me and I started dancing with this stranger. Especially coming from someone who can not dance at all, he was very good at leading; I managed to look only like a slight fool. I thanked him after the song and sat back down. Harry smiled at me.
A few minutes later, the man appeared in front of me again. He had a tall glass with a small amount of liquid and a lemon slice in the bottom. He touched the glass to the others on my table. "Salud," they all said. He then offered the glass to me. "No, gracias, esta bien," I said. He offered again. I glanced at Harry for support, who shrugged.
I took the glass swallowed its contents as fast as I could. It was a little sugary and very thick. I could taste how strong it was. The man looked very pleased, and went back to his table on the other side of the room. The Bolivian culture in social areas is based heavily around drinking, and to not accept is a rudeness of an almost unparalleled height. I hadn´t wanted to drink it, but encouraging the stereotype of self-superior gringos who won´t accept friendly gestures from the locals seemed a lot worse.
"What did I just drink?" I asked the girl next to me.
"Singani con limon."
Singani is a Bolivian liquor of about 50 proof. I was suprised I hadn´t gagged.
Two boys came to sit with Pachuco beside me. They were quite drunk. They ordered heated Singani with lemonade and three glasses. One turned to me and offered his glass. I tried to refuse again, this time a little more nervous. I looked to Harry, he understood. "Just a sip," he instructed.
I took the sip and thanked the boy. I could feel the alcohol in my stomach. I didn´t like it.

Sorry about the blueish tint to the B&Ws, can´t wait to get into a darkroom with them.

Top: The food from Tarija in a backyard patio.
Below left: My new host mother and her dog.
Below right: A lake near the Salar de Uyuni.


Top: The horizontal snowstorm in Salar.
Middle: Another lake.
Bottom: Katrien from Belgium.


Top: Kwang and Oat from Thailand in the back of the jeep.
Below left and right: Tim from Belgium in the salt lake.


Top: Tim from Belgium (left) and David from Australia (right).
Bottom: Katrien and I.

Written two nights ago by hand:
I am sitting at the bar of a deserted pub in Uyuni, Bolivia. Three black lights are illuminating this page, it is glowing a slightly painful color against the blue ink. I am facing the liquor display shelves with a mirror behind to give the illusion of depth to the generously spaced bottles. A boy of about sixteen is waiting for customers to appear, patiently twirling a corkscrew in his hands. He is cleanly dressed in a white collared shirt and black sweater-vest. Occassionally, he imitates the syllables of the American music he has just put on the stereo, "Lo Máximo de Los 60s". The compilation skips genres in flying leaps - Jerry Lee Louis to James Brown to BB King to Steppenwolf to Louis Armstrong. There are tapestries on the walls of local fabrics and a few badly-lit posters of fast food, but I keep looking with a bit of desire to travel to the large photo of the Golden Gate bridge on the other side of the bar. The only other people in the room are the two gringos I am with, drinking coca tea and speaking in Dutch. Overall, I really do feel like a tourist.
We have just gotten into this city after three days of hurtling past, over, through and around almost every type of terrain you can imagine in dust-covered jeeps for three days. I feel emotionally and physically overwhelmed, and my rush of adrenaline has still not faltered; I have managed to fall in and out of a severe atraction with the blue eyes of an admirally clear-headed Belgian, and made very close friends with a lanky and energetic Australian whose personality somehow mixes a loud rudeness with sensitivity and an obvious dependability. I have seen things here of an unparalled beauty: deserts of gigantic rocks that seem to have been placed impeccably, missing only Dali´s stick-legged elephants, lakes of a vivid red or green in the company of gulls and flamingos, thousands of mountains inhabited only by the elegant vicuñas and hawks, totally unmarred by human presence. I breifly braved a snowstorm in the middle of a desert close to the border of Chile with a vicious vertical wind that made the snow seem to be falling from the ground up. I walked through billows of thick steam from geysers bubbling a heavy grey mud; the sun had just come up and was calmly filtering through the edges of the giant earthborn cloud obscuring everything but the sillouhette of the mountains behind. I breathed in the cold at almost 5000 metres of altitude, protected from the wind by an adobe wall and singing to myself under a crescent moon slowly crossing an arm of the milky way; if I looked only at the sky I felt like I was home. I climbed to the top of an island covered in gigantic cactus and looked at the 360º of perfectly flat land covered white salt where an ocean used to be; I could hear the conversations of everyone near me, but was almost deafened by a silence so heavy and profound I could feel the weight of it in my head.
At first, I was nervous that I would hate this trip, and be overwhelmed by the 60-something other students and annoyed by the sixteen-year-old mentality of feeling the need to drink every night. It turned out fantastically; I spent almost all my time inside the jeep with Belgian, and almost all my time outside of it with the Australian. Our first night in a hotel (the rooms are usually accommodated with six to nine beds), the Austalian and I spent an hour and a half singing loudly and obnoxiously to Janis Joplin, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Kelly Joe Phelps, Jeff Buckley through an ipod with distorted portable speakers. We slept in beds beside eachother, still whispering long after everyone else was asleep and giggling about how cold it was to keep warm. The Belgian reminded me of how important honesty is to me, of how to speak without fear of a reaction because it´s the truth and nothing more, something I had forgotten I used to try to live by before I came here. We sang Spanish children´s songs, and he translated Dutch conversations for me when I was the only one in the group who didn´t understand. I am harbouring a huge regret of not knowing these two people sooner, of not having more time with them, but the feeling that their appearances in my life are such a gift goes so much deeper than knowing I might never see them again.
I am exhausted, but it feels clean and worthwhile, and I know I´ve learned something. My jeans are filthy and there is still a coating of salt and dust on my shoes.

I have pharyngitis!

Note: If you´ve got something to put in the mail for me, it might be better to just wait until I come home and mail it to my house, or give it to me in person. I can´t guarantee anything will get here in time.

It´s a little odd to me that my homesickness is getting a little worse. It is different from before, though: I used to just get attacks of it, normally when my first family was being especially awful, but now it shows up calmly every evening for a few hours and keeps me from falling asleep. It reminds me of how I used to feel at a sleepover when I as 6 or 7 years old, calling my parents in tears to come pick me up when it was time to go to bed. I remember how I´d feel entirely cured the instant after hanging up the phone, then re-think my decision and want to stay, only to repeat the entire process. I tell myself every night that if I were to book the plane ticket, I would feel fine again and then regret the decision in the very same manner.
Last night, two of my sisters and I watched Spongebob Squarepants: The Movie and Grease, both with Spanish dubbing (thank goodness not in the songs!). The three of us were taking up the entire single bed, eating popcorn, oranges and a sugary star-shaped cereal. It was so comfortable, and I was regretting sorely that I have only a month with this wonderful family.
Of the four siblings, two are fairly distant and don´t interact with me a whole lot. The youngest and oldest of the sisters, 13 and 20, I feel remarkably close to, even after hardly two weeks. The youngest one and I talk easily and frequently whenever we are together, and I think I will miss her the most. Because I am sharing a room with the oldest sister, it is necessary for us to be comfortable with eachother, but we also understand eachother on a lot of levels - she is currently taking her art degree in the university, she listens to music of all genres and is very sweet and genuine. The entire family is very relaxed (excluding maybe the grandmother, but she makes up for it in hilarious mannerisms and sharp witticisms), and definately a better fit for me than the previous: the entire house is perpetually in disordain, the meals are always later rather than timely, they prefer fruit, vegetables or fish rather than meat in huge portions every day (this week we bought 75 oranges!), and, best of all, there is a neurotic dog and a playful but temperamental cat that are loved dearly by the entire family, the first I have seen treated in Bolivia the way I am used to. They do not have expectations for me concerning religion, they believe in alternative medicine of all calibers, yesterday they talked about auras and divine numbers at the dinner table. I feel like I have found the only family in Potosí with these kinds of mindsets.
While I have the chance to be very happy here, at the same time I am terrified that the situation before will repeat itself. It is usually quite easy for me to admit fault in situations I bring upon myself, but I don´t feel like I can claim much for having to change families - even so, I am doubting myself constantly. I feel like I´m riding a bicycle with a warped front tire. What if everything they said about me was true, that I´m from a different class and have no "education," I am horribly rude and inconsiderate? If I am from a different class, is that really such a bad thing? I don´t think I´d want to be a part of a class like what I lived in for the past four months. If they realized that I had "no education," why didn´t they try to teach me? I don´t know of another way to learn something like that. I know that sometimes I say things that are far too direct, but I was trying hard to never do that in their house. And the thought had never occurred to me that there was a difference between saying "hello" and "good morning," is that all it takes to be rude? Maybe I am just a disgusting, awful slob and this family is going to come to the same conclusions.
But I can´t let that happen.

Added Part Three.

A woman was waiting at the bus stop with an entire sheep. It was tied at the legs, laid on its side on the pavement. It was still alive - its nose fluttering lightly - and calm; as I was staring, it blinked slowly, and there was a thin film over its eyes.
After waiting for the bus a while, the woman picked it up by one horn and a hind leg, craning its neck horribly to the side with its weight, and carried it away down the street. She must not have understood how the string immobilizing its feet could be used as a short leash and she wouldn´t be so inconvenienced by the bus being late.

Of the 42 children I work with, there are about 10 who come for the afternoon after they have gone to school in the morning. Most of them are 8 years old. It is incredible to watch the differences in mental capability between the two age groups, and I am very glad for the diversity.
Last week, two of the girls, one popular and pretty, the other plain and quiet, were arguing about an incident from the day before; one had been angry and pushed the other who pushed back much harder, hurting the girl quite badly.
"Listen to this," I said to them; I was crouching, looking them in the eyes, their height. By now, most of the children their age had gathered around. I could see they were all listening.
I turned to one of the girls in the argument. "Push me."
"No! I can´t!"
"Push me! Not hard, it´s okay! This is a game!"
She stepped back, smiling nervously and shaking her head.
I turned to another. "Will you?"
She was giggling, with a little encouragement she pushed me lightly on the shoulders.
"Okay, I´m mad now! Look, she pushed me! I´m going to push her back!" I did so, lightly, on the shoulders. I looked around at everyone, they all looked around at eachother. "Who´s fault is it?" I asked.
Almost everyone pointed to the girl. She had pushed me first. I waited a second, shaking my head a little. They looked around at eachother more, a little confused.
One boy called out, "No! It´s both their fault!"
"Exactly!" I was grinning now, pleased I didn´t have to provide the answer. While I was watching, an expression that comes when you´ve just understood a new idea washed over most of their faces.

May 11, 2006 18:26
Part One
In the past week, I have gone through the pains of changing my host family.
About two months ago, the family requested that I move out of the house. I was rude, they said: always angry and slamming doors, never talking at the dinner-table, never saying "thank-you" after the meal ("probecho" in Spanish, a word that has no equal in Engish), that I didn´t take my medicine after I went to the doctor, that I shouldn´t tell them when I didn´t like something in Bolivia. The pain I went through to hear this was excruciating; not because I felt hurt, which I did as well, but because I had wanted more than anything for this family to be happy with me and I had been trying hard to please them. I was hurt by their lack of understanding that maybe I didn´t know the word "probecho" yet, that the door was slamming because all the windows of the house were open and the wind would close it for me, not because I was angry, that I was scared and shy and homesick and confused and that noone was explaining to me what I had been doing wrong. The head of AFS Potosí talked to the family, and they agreed that I was allowed to stay if I would change instantly. I focused my entire being on their large list of things, seemingly unimportant and trivial to me, that had been bothering them. I cried a lot. I wrote huge amounts of lists and ramblings to try to organize how I felt. I convinced myself that how I felt and what I believed in was not important, only what the family wanted of me. My belief in a god became very strong. My ego was almost non-existant. My conclusion was that, since I obviously had more patience than these people that I was living with and more power of flexibility than they did, it was more important for me to change myself entirely than for these people to accomodate to me - if they did not have patience or understanding, that was not something to begrudge, because I could change myself to make them happier. And, more or less, I managed to do it.
It only lasted a while, though.

May 12, 2006 17:50
Part Two

The past two months with this host family had been difficult. For two or three weeks, my only real concern was what they thought of me. I was breaking down and evaluating every single interaction that happened between us, and constantly looking for messages that maybe they didn´t even know they were sending. In a lot of ways, I felt like a machine.
My relationship with the host mother had elevated to a standard higher than when I had first arrived. We would sit at the table for hours talking or run errands together when I wasn´t at work. Her father, living in the family, didn´t seem to have an opinion either way and didn´t interact with me much. The 13-year-old boy and I would talk breifly but always with friendliness when we weren´t occupied with other things. The stepfather, always abrupt and cold, even had a few conversations with me. But as time went on and my panic of being sent back to Canada started to subside, I started to notice that I was also terrified; a numbing feeling that would swell up and completely overtake me whenever I would trip on the stairs or put down a glass a little too quickly. I started to dread returning to the house. I was trying to be someone I am not and I knew it couldn´t last; I was essentially waiting to be told again I couldn´t live there.
By April, I felt a little like I was choking when I thought about going to the house. I started making plans to go to La Paz to rest. I was mentally exhausted. I told them it was for the "most important Jewish holiday." It seemed like heaven, the security of going into a group of people I knew would accept me just for telling them where my mother was from (which is a bizarre idea in itself). It was viable for the family here to believe; the people here literally do not understand when someone does not identify themselves with one of the dominant religions. The stepfather came into the room when I was talking with the madre about leaving for this "extremely important festival". He sat down at the table and listened for a minute. In a harsh voice:
"You are claiming this to be your religion?"
"Yes."
He replied that the Jewish community in Bolivia doesn´t exist, in actuality they are Nazis trying to avoid suspicion, and left the room.
From that day on, he acted like a child towards me. If I said something to him, even as simple as hello, he would usually glance at me without replying. The only time he ever spoke with me was when he wanted to tell me how I was doing something wrong, always in an explosion of angry words. I felt isolated. It didn´t matter that it wasn´t a religion I would "claim" in most normal circumstances, the fact that his behaviour was based entirely on this was like a rock thrown into my gut every time I saw him. Who I am, my personality, what he thought of me before he knew "my religion," meant nothing; only that I didn´t believe I had a saviour. Racism.
These were the circumstances when Lea and I left for La Paz.

May 19, 2006 11:15
Part Three

La Paz was better than anything I could have hoped for. Our last day there, I had finally broken a little - I was full of regret and doubt that this trip had been a good idea. We returned to Potosí, and after only a day I was ready to come back to Canada. I had no energy left to continue accomidating this family.
I had received a package in the mail from one of my cousins, full of books and colors for the children in Aldea. I called my dad to ask the spelling of their last name for a thank-you card and burst into tears when he asked me how I was. My grandparents happened to be visiting and the phone was passed to my grandfather. "It doesn´t matter one bit about the adults," he said, "you´re there for the kids. You´re exposing them to new ideas they wouldn´t otherwise know. They´re going to remember you, you know."
Somehow, this thought made everything easier to bear. I started focusing on my work during the day instead of thinking about the family, or about nothing. Every day was still a struggle, but I was taking it step by step.
I lived this way for another three weeks. One night, I came home and no one was there. I used the toilet and tried to flush, but it didn´t work. The tank hadn´t filled after it was used last. I looked underneath, and the pipe leading from the tank to the wall was disconnected. "How simple," I thought, and reconnected it.
It still didn´t work, though. The water had been turned off. This, I thought, was nothing for me too mess with, and flushed the toilet manually with a bucket of water.
By this time, the grandfather had come home. "The toilet upstairs isn´t working, there´s a leak. Don´t use it. We´ll have it repaired tomorrow."
Shortly after, I left to watch a movie at Lea´s house. I got back after everyone was in bed.
In the morning, the host mother was angry. "You are going to wash the bathroom floor. Wash it well! You made it dirty last night. Why did you use the toilet upstairs when it was broken? Why did you reconnect the hose? You dirty the floor and then leave the house, I´m tired and grandfather is old, why do we have to clean up after you?" Even though the water had been turned off, the hose had leaked a little onto the floor.
I tried to explain that noone had been home and there wasn´t a note anywhere, that I had only seen the disconnected pipe afterwards and thought it had come undone on its own (or from the brother playing with it, but I didn´t say that out loud).
She went into a rampage then. A shower of accusations and complaints were spitting out of her mouth like sparks. Most of them were not coming from a terribly accurate standpoint: "Why don´t you ever cook? I´m tired of cooking!" Because after the family didn´t like what I had prepared, you made it a rule that I am not allowed to cook. "Why don´t you ever clean in the house? The girl we hire is just here to do the cooking, not clean the house!" Because every time I ask, you tell me not to worry, and even though I´ve asked where the cleaners are kept, you never tell me where to look. "Why can´t you speak Spanish? You never understand anything! I can´t have a conversation with you like I can with Lea or Sophie! It´s because you never read!" The girls are always asking me how to say things, often I act as their translator, and I read every night.
I left the house. I was in shock. I went to see the AFS woman, and she told me the family did not want me living there anymore. "I don´t know what we can do, there aren´t any other families here, and maybe you have to go back to Canada." She asked if I knew the reasons they had told her. I repeated a few, and started crying. She started telling me more, most of which had nothing to do with me at all - that I complain about how Gladys, the woman I was speaking with, does not speak English (which were actually the words of the mother), that I spread gossip about the family with the woman who owns the pharmacy where I had been playing piano (which I still haven´t done), that I was horribly rude (for this they provided examples that had never occured), that I had kicked Sophie out of the house when she had needed to stay over for two nights.
After listening to my side of the situations, Gladys had no idea what to believe. The two stories were remarkably different. After discussing it a while, she suggested I ask the family in the pharmacy if they would like an exchange student in their house, or to think about going back home.
I left to walk and to figure out what to do.
After nearing the house, I ran into the mother who owns the pharmacy in the street. She asked me how I was feeling, and for the first time when she asked me, I told her an honest answer: "Not well. I have to leave the house I´ve been living in."
Her and I were walking down the street arm in arm, and I could practically feel her optomism flowing into me. She told me that I need to know I could come to her house anytime, for everything - to eat, wash my clothes, shower - to bother the current family less.
"I think they want me to leave entirely, not even be there just for the night. Do you know any families that might want to take someone in for a month?"
"Oh..." she said, pursing her lips a little. "Well, I´m sure we´ve got space. My bed´s pretty big!" She laughed.
I couldn´t believe it had been so easy. She didn´t think twice about her decision, though I asked many times. I came in for tea, and was presented at the table to the sisters as "Remember Naomi? She´s going to live with us!"
"Really!?" They all replied, huge smiles on their faces.
"She can share my room!" The oldest one said.
I started crying again.

Walking on my way to work this morning, for a short amount of time I was behind a mother and her 3-year-old child. They were taking out the garbage, carrying three wastebaskets between them, two with the mother and one with the little boy. She was walking quite quickly, and he was walking just about as fast as his little legs could go while carrying a wastebasket nearly as tall as him. He was wearing green sweatpants for a child probably two or three years his major; as such, they were falling down constantly, exposing a tiny rear-end sin underwear. He would stop to pull them up every few steps, but eventually realized the futility in this and proceeded to try to figure out how to hold them up with one hand and carry his wastebasket with the other arm. When his mother realized how far behind he had fallen, she scolded him and traded his wastebasket for another, slightly smaller one she had been carrying. I was giggling madly, but the mother didn´t notice.
In other news, my eye has swelled up ridiculously and is red and sore. It looks like I got in a fight. I haven´t taken off my sunglasses today.

Though most of the children in my class listen primarily to the teacher employed by Aldea, Ricardo has taken much more strongly to me; to him, I am the one to listen to. In the past, I did not believe entirely in Attention Defecit Disorder. If it did not actually exist, Ricardo would be the inventor. Though it seems almost everyone has been diagnosed with it in Canada, it is practically unheard of here. As a result, the teacher, lacking profusely in patience and understanding, was constantly punishing him for not being able to sit still. When I started taking special interest in trying to help him, she seemed slightly relieved to have to worry less about what seems to be just a pain in her backside. I have thought of special exercises to keep him occupied and tire him out when he is having a very hard time, his punishments are slightly more lax than for the other students, and he is rewarded slightly more quickly when he manages to work well. He is a very sweet boy, but sincerely has a problem.
He has improved a little since I started this, but it is assured: every day when I return after lunch in my house, he will be sitting on the bookshelf next to the door on time-out, waiting for me to enter. As soon as I do, he reaches out his arms and whispers "Tia!" followed by a stream of whatever he was thinking about at the time. I have yet to understand fully when he speaks.

Here are some photos by Cindy, another volunteer in Aldea S.O.S. She´s from Quebec, too!


A woman in traditional dress and her flock of goats.


Some girls in a festival.


Sunset in Potosí.


The sign in front of my work. It says: "Village SOS for Infants and Toddlers, Strengthening Families to Prevent the Abandonment of Children".


The kitchen and dining room in Aldea on National Children´s Day.


Cielo Mar (Her name means "heaven" and "ocean".)


Grover


Left to right: Carlos, Joaquin, Ricardo, Grover


Joaquin (yes, his teeth have rotted away... it´s quite common here. I´ve started flossing every day.)

Hand written last night:
The bus on the way back to Tarija stopped in a town called Iscachi to change a blown tire. The sun had just gone down, and the market that is in every town and every city on the weekend in Bolivia was closing for the night. We were walking slowly through as everyone was packing up their merchandise. I left the others and crossed the dirt road to enter a store, looking for Kleenex.
The store was sparesley stocked, compared to most that hold all their merchandise on display - stock rooms do not exist here. It smelled of hay, horses and beer, and was mostly in dull browns. The proprietor, a large woman in traditional dress with a blue skirt and long black braids, looked at me with slight interest. "Hay panuelos?" I asked.
"Hay," she replied, and pointed to some thick wool blankets on the shelf. Clearly, she didn´t understand.
"No," I pulled out an almost empty package from my pocket. "Like these?"
She pointed again to the wall, this time at napkins.
I bought a roll of toilet paper instead and turned to leave. For the first time I noticed two men, about 70, sitting at a table in the corner. I was suprised I hadn´t seen them sooner, this was the only part of the room with a lot of light. Their skin was brown and their wrinkles were deep and defined, their clothes had been colorful once but were now faded with dust and the sun. One stood up, stooping slightly in the shoulders from picking vegetables all his life.
"Ay, Señorita!" He was smiling a grand smile, his eyes barely visible with the effort of it, his eyes sparkling and glinting vividly.
"Did you know? I´m going to dance and sing in the festival tonight!" He lifted his arms in the air and looked to the ground, shuffling his feet in rhythm and singing without melody, but singing all the same, in Quechua.
"Ah, muy bien! Bonita!" I clapped a little for him, grinning, and turned again to go.
"Señorita!" He called again. His voice was soft and full of joy, I could hear the alcohol slowing his tongue. He took my hand in his. It was warm and not rough at all like it seemed it should be.
"Won´t you come with me to see me dance?" He wasn´t being rude or lecherous, I was his new friend, he really wanted me to come.
I explained that my bus was leaving shortly, but that I was sad I wouldn´t be there. He smiled even wider and I stepped outside.

When we first saw Tarija, the sun was just starting to turn the sky blue behind the mountains. We turned a curve around a mountain overlooking the city, revealing a pool of lights in the valley below. We slowly wove down the dangerously narrow road, and finally stopped when it was fully daylight.

written yesterday by hand
We are sitting in the backyard patio of a restaraunt just outside of Tarija, waiting for a second plate of food for all of us to share. To my right is a river with a bank of 60-foot trees. To my left is a young fig tree. Everywhere, there are flowers and leaves of every shade of green. The proprietor of comes out with the plate: it is covered with bright red crabs, about half as big as your thumb, fried whole. He is stepping lightly but quickly with apleased and proud expression, he sets our food on the table delicately, nodding his head in satisfaction. His laundry is hanging to dry in a corner of the patio.
The greenery in this part of the world is stunning. I feel like I can see the life hanging like a mist around all of the plants and leaves. Fruits and vegetables here all reflect this vitality. Holding them in your hand is like holding a piece of this life-thing itself; not just the product, the thing that is created when we think and eat and feel, but the other part that starts it all.

Tarija is in a valley betwen mountains of much smaller calibur than I have gotten used to. The altitude is about 2500 meters, less than even Calgary by quite a bit, so it is hot all year around - it is the middle of Autumn here but feels like a good summer day at home. We are heading back to Potosí this afternoon, it is a 13 hour bus ride scaling upward and with twists and turns the whole way. I hope I can sit nearer the front...

The family I am living with has a daughter and a son, though the daughter is away in Italy in the same program I am in. From everything I have seen and heard of her, she seems to be the antithesis of her loud, inconsiderate, insensitive brother. My madre, her mother, is the obvious source of the daughter´s sweetness. The girl´s friends are all very kind and open as well, especially one who comes to visit my madre in Belen´s absence. They sit at the kitchen table with cups of tea and talk for hours, about nothing, usually, but always enjoying themselves. I usually sit and listen, having nothing to say because I don´t know any of the people or places they speak of, but also enjoying myself watching their interactions. The first time she came, I was impressed by how mature she sounded for a 16 year old girl. Later, my madre told me she lives alone, and I am sure this accounts for it. Last night she visited again, and they spoke for almost 4 hours. My madre was delighted to have her, comfortable, listening and speaking tranquilly, tracing designs around the wrinkles on the ruffled tablecloth, her young friend relieved for the break in her day and the safety of the kitchen. It was really beautiful.