TravelStream™ news feed for member amz8op on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/amz8op en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sat, 20 Sep 2008 12:45:19 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1221929040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1221929040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1221929040/tpod.html Sat, 20 Sep 2008 12:45:19 -0400 Peace Corps Bolivia

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Lima, Peru

Well, I guess this is probably my last blog as an official Peace Corps Bolivia volunteer. As of Monday (supposedly) I will have finished my close of service stuff and with be COSed (Peace Corps speak for done). I am still unbelievably sad that we had to leave Bolivia when there was still so much to do and so many people that I wanted to spend more time with. However, being that in this case it is what it is, I have accepted the fact that there is no more PC Bolivia for me right now and have explored my options. I have been given various opportunities and have decided to take advantage of them. I have a plan (well you know, kind of) and I think it's a good one. Although we did have to leave Bolivia, I must have done some good stuff down there lately because I believe my karma led the stars to align in my favor and that some good will come out of this whole ordeal.

My plan: Travel through South America until Christmas then go home for a bit until I leave for another Peace Corps assignment (another 27 months).

My South America travel plan (completely flexible and dependent on other people's plans, time, and money):
® Head up to Guayaquil, Ecuador by bus and spend a few days on the Galapagos Islands
® Do anything else I want to do in Ecuador and head to Quito to fly to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
® From Rio, head down the coast and hit up some beaches and make my way to Iguazu Falls (on the border of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay)
® From the falls, make my way to Buenos Aires, Argentina
® Head to Mendoza, Argentina (wine country) then try and do some Patagonia in Argentina/Chile
® Make my way through some other interesting sites in Chile and end up in Santiago, Chile
® From there head back to Peru to go to Cusco and Machu Picchu
® After that head back to Bolivia to do Lake Titicaca, La Paz, and the Salt Flats
® By mid December be back in Concepcion to see everyone again and say proper good-byes and maybe pick up Mafi before flying home for Christmas

This is just a rough outline that I put together after doing some research. Everything is subject to change, but this is kind of what I thought would work. Also, I just want to let everyone know that anyone who is interested in taking a break from life (and able to do so) is more than welcome to join me on any part of my travels...I would love to be able to share some of these experiences with friends and family.

Now, back to my next PC assignment - nothing is for sure yet (as we all know by now), but it is looking like starting next spring I will probably spend the next couple of years on Vanuatu, Tonga, or Fiji...I know they sound like I will just be going to resorts and stuff, but I promise there is stuff to do there, especially on the outer islands.

This is just a basic plan and I will say again that any or all of it could change, but nevertheless, this is what I'm thinking right now.

In other news, we went into the city of Lima on Wednesday before all of our meetings with the people from Washington, DC started and it ended up being pretty good therapy for a lot of us. I spent the day with Britt, Tammy, and Laurie from my group. We went to the main plaza and shopped a little bit (I got a sweet hat/scarf...yes it is all connected) then headed to Starbucks (oh so delightful) and walked down to the Plaza of Love (we didn't know that's where we were headed) to look at the ocean. From there we walked along the cliff that rises above the ocean down to Larcomar (a shopping center built into the side of the cliff) to eat some of the most amazing sushi I have ever had. It was a fun day, and I think we all felt a bit better after getting out for a bit. (check out my pics on www.flickr.com/photos/amz8op)

Ok, well I think that's all for now. The next time you hear from me (as far as blogs go) I will probably be beginning my next adventure in South America. Hope all is well for everyone wherever you may be.

Peace. Amy.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1221594960/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1221594960/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1221594960/tpod.html Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:57:22 -0400 Peace Corps Bolivia

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Lima, Peru

OK, so I'm not sure, but I think this may win out as most interesting blog so far (I am sending it as an email and posting it to my blog to make sure everyone can read it). I'm sorry that I am just now getting this news to some of you, but in the past week we have had very little information and decisions were made rapidly and we weren't allowed to be sharing the information we were given with many people due to safety and security protocol. So now I will try and give an overview of what happened in the past week of my life in Bolivia (and now Peru). I will try to make it as detailed and accurate as possible, but just keep in mind that there has been a lot going on and all of this is from my point of view and the things that I understood to be going on. That said....

After our last consolidation the beginning of August during the voting to see if the president and governors were going to be able to stay in power, we all went back to our sites and started work again because it looked as though things would calm down and return to relatively normal. Evo won, as did the governor of Santa Cruz department, so it looked like maybe blockades and strikes wouldn't be so frequent and life would be relatively uneventful until the vote for approval of the new constitution in a few months. However, boy were we wrong...

So, I was back in my site hanging out and trying to get some work done. I was teaching English 4 evenings a week (to a group of 3 - one of my students from before and her 2 kids) and working with people from the mayor's office and the sub-departmental government to start a Committee for the Protection of the Environment and Natural Resources (more about that later in the interest of getting to what most of you want to know about right now). The last weekend of August was supposed to be the Rodeo down in the southernmost department by Argentina in one of my friend's sites. A bunch of us had planned to go down for the weekend to enjoy that. However, the beginning of that week began a string of blockades along the road that led south (to an area of the country called the Chaco). It was nothing to be concerned about because it was pretty normal to have blockades - they were peaceful and were meant to address the IDH to the best of my understanding (I think this is a tax on gas that used to go to the departmental governments and was now to the national government and the people of the Media Luna (the departments in the north-east-south that oppose Evo and support Autonomy) wanted that money to go back to the departmental governments to be spend at the discretion of the governors. Anyways, that whole week led to one blockade after another popping up on that road and since we are not allowed to travel through blockades we ended up spending the weekend in Santa Cruz City instead of going to Rodeo (which was cancelled anyways due to the blockades). Even though there were all these blockades, there was still no reason to be concerned because they were common and peaceful. So I went back to my site and continued working.

So I was in my site and blockades and stuff were happening, but again nothing out of the ordinary, so no reason to be concerned. Every day we received text messages and emails and calls from Peace Corps updating us on where there were blockades, etc. to make sure that we were all aware of the travel situation. As the days passed, the list of blockades got longer and they started popping up in different areas of the country. The week of September 8th is when I really started noticing the spread of the blockades and that they were being done by Autonomy supporters and by Evo supporters in different areas of the country (but again nothing too unusual). Then, the evening of Tuesday, September 10th, Evo declared the American ambassador persona non grata and told him to leave the country. He did this on national TV and the reason that he did it (as I understand it) is that he blames our ambassador for the conflict between the two regions of the country. He states that the ambassador was helping the Media Luna and basically organizing resistance again Evo's government. As I found this out, I began paying a bit more attention to what was going on in the country and things began deteriorating.

Wednesday began a Peace Corps Emergency Action Plan (EAP), as we've oh so many times for all kinds of reasons. The ambassador had been expelled, followed by the expulsion of the American ambassador from Venezuela as a show of support for Evo, followed by the expulsion of the Bolivian and Venezuelan ambassadors from the US in accordance with whatever Convention or whatever governs international diplomacy of that sort. The number of blockades in the country was also increasing. The capital of northernmost department (Cobija, Pando) began to be a huge part of the news as its airport was taken and violence began to break out between Autonomistas and Masistas. (During this explanation I will refer to various things as being "taken" - I mean taken by civilians, though sometimes I was never sure if it was Masistas or Autonomistas doing the taking). As people were beginning to be injured and killed in Cobija, riots began to take place in Santa Cruz City. Autonomistas took over Entel offices (a nationalized communications company) and various other government offices, and not always peacefully. There was not the level of violence that was happening in Cobija but there was a lot of destruction of property. I was still in Concepcion and not really affected by anything left. I was all happening in the cities of Cobija, Santa Cruz, and Tarija and seemed very surreal. There were rumors circulating about all kinds of things those couple of days and people started to be kind of worried - Americans about the future of the US mission in Bolivia and Bolivians about the state of the country.

So as things continued to escalate, we were contacted Thursday night by Peace Corps and told that we were moving to consolidation phase of the EAP. 5 of us were consolidating in Concepcion and then were being moved to Cochabamba to meet up with all of the other volunteers. At this point we were told to pack one bag and prepare our houses as if we were being evacuated - just in case...

Me, Laura, and 3 other people from my groups whose sites are in the same general area as mine got together in Conce to prepare to be picked up by airplane (because of the blockades) on Saturday morning. We all packed our one bag and labeled important things in our houses and left instructions with our families - just in case...

Everyone in Conce knew that we were leaving but of course, as is typical of Bolivia, everything would calm down in a few days and we would be back in site before we knew it. I spent Friday hanging out with my family, telling the people I work with what was going on, and we made some traditional Chiquitania foods and spent time together - just in case...

Friday night, one of my brothers there, Juan Carlos, came home about 1030pm and told me that the people of Conce had just had a meeting and they were getting ready to blockade the airstrip because of rumors that some military might try to land there (not very likely). So I called my counterpart who was the head of this group because I had already told her, the sub-governor, and the mayor that our flight was coming at 8 in the morning and not to blockade until after we were gone...she said she knew and that I needed to talk to the mayor. So I called the mayor and he said not to worry that they were just putting trucks on the airstrip and would move them in the morning so our plane could land, but that I needed to get there early to make sure that they were there to move them.

So Saturday morning I head over to the airstrip with Juan Carlos to check and make sure that all is going according to plan, call the mayor again to double check and make sure people are coming, and just generally oversee things...it was explained to me that they would move the trucks, but not until our plane arrived and while he was circling Conce, they would move the trucks he could land, we could board and leave, and then they would replace the trucks and add tree trunks (which did in fact all go according to plan).

The rest of the family met us at the airstrip as did the other 4 volunteers and some other random people from Conce. We hung out and waited for our plane and were all convinced that we would be back soon. (Mafi had to be left at the house)

Our plane arrived (a small 6 seater) and we all said good-bye and boarded the plane...Baloo (the big brown dog that follows me around) had followed us to the airstrip and refused to leave my side and proceeded to climb up onto the wing of the plane trying to board behind me (twice), then had to be drug away by two guys, then chased the plane down the runway...he really did not want me to go.

So after an hour and a half flight we arrived in Cochabamba and went to a hotel to meet about half the volunteers. The other half were at another hotel and a few were still in Tarija because they could not get to Coch. Information was still spotty as decisions were still being made because they were receiving new information all the time. We ate lunch and talked to other volunteers to find out how they had made it to Coch (some were flown like us and others were picked up by PC staff to take back roads around blockades). We were then moved to another hotel because there was going to be a big conference of a bunch of Masistas at the one we were at that the hotel had not told anyone about, so for safety we were moved to another one on a main strip in Coch because it was the only one that had enough space for us all...we were there for the night and had a meeting in the morning - at which point the 44 of us were informed that we were being evacuated to a neighboring country and that the volunteers in Tarija and the group at the other hotel in Coch were already on their way out, but that we would not leave until Monday morning (these decisions about leave times were made because of plane availability and us being in Coch another day was not a safety issue). We moved hotels again to one not so centrally located and had a meeting with the country director later in the morning.

We were told that we would be going to Lima, Peru, but that we were not to tell ANYONE until all of us had safely arrived at our destination. She said that she wanted to take us all out to eat with the PC staff in Coch that evening so we could all have a chance to say good-bye. No decisions as to whether or not we would be returning to Bolivia had been made yet. We spent the rest of the day talking about hypotheticals and just generally stressing out. We all went out to dinner, which was nice, but sad, and had jello slurping contests to try and lighten the mood.

Anyways, the next morning we were picked up and taken to the airport in Coch to wait for our flight. We were flying out on an American military plane that had been donated to the Bolivian government and was operated by a Bolivian crew. Clearance into Peru (just general red tape - nothing safety wise) apparently took longer than expected and we finally took off at 330pm. While we were at the airport however, our director told us that the PC director in DC had made the decision to temporarily suspend the PC program in Bolivia. (more on that to come) The flight was 3 hours and not terribly comfortable. It was hot and stuffy and not too smooth, but we survived and arrived at the Peruvian Air Force Base to be met by PC Peru staff and some Peru Embassy staff. We were then bussed to a retreat center about 1 hour from Lima to meet the rest of our volunteers. We got here and had dinner and were all physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. We went to bed and now here we are...

The program in Bolivia is now temporarily suspended, which means that until such time as PC sees fit there will be no PC program in Bolivia...there is no time frame for this decision and means that we will not be returning as volunteers to Bolivia (unless when it is reinstated, we sign up for another PC tour).

Our basic options as I understand them now are to decide to be done with PC and take and early Close of Service (COS), be transferred to another program somewhere in the world for 1-2 years, or take the early COS and then sign up for another 2 years of service somewhere (but skipping the recruitment phase) - I don't know what I will choose. I'm sure these are much more complicated than they sound, and people are on their way from DC to explain things and facilitate all this stuff. We are still receiving more info on a daily basis and so none of us are sure exactly what all of the implications for any of this are. But I will do my best to keep people updated.

Sorry to take so long to let some of you know what was going on, but I guess that's just the way things are...I am OK at this point, but the situation sucks the whole way around and that's about all there is to say about. It is sad and depressing, but I guess options are now opening up for new opportunities that we can take advantage of.

Anyways, for those of you who were wondering...my committee planning in Conce was going really good. We have a meeting planned for this Thursday to form the committee where the whole town is invited (we handed out like 40 invitations and put announcements on the radio and TV) and so I think that will still happen and so maybe Conce will actually have a committee to deal with the trash issue, solid waste management, the environment, natural resources. Also we were planning activities with the schools for tree day on October 2. We were planning a green march through town with signs and shirts and costumes the kids were making to end up at one of the soccer stadiums to plant 200 trees around its perimeter. I also think this will still happen...so maybe I got some good work done before we were pulled out, but I really really would have like to have been a part of the stuff and seen how it was going to play out and do projects with the committee over the next year...but I guess things are what they are and hopefully they will continue with what we started.

That is everything I can think of right now, as I get more info I will try to keep everyone updated, we have another meeting today, but we kind of expect that we will not be getting new info until the people from DC get here in the next few days. We do not know how long we will be here in Peru, but it is probably safe to say at least a few weeks.

I hope everything is going well for everyone wherever you may be. I'm sure I'll be talking to many of you soon.

Amy.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1219761240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1219761240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1219761240/tpod.html Tue, 26 Aug 2008 10:48:04 -0400 Peace Corps Bolivia

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Concepciòn, Bolivia

Ok, so I realize that it's been like a thousand months or something similar since I've blogged. Oops. So instead of giving a blow by blow account of the past...oh lets say 4 months of my life...I'm gonna try just giving some highlights and stories that are my faves to get me back into blogging...

One important thing is that since about April I have become really good friends with a Bolivian family. I met them through Frances because they are from her campo (San Miguelito Sur - which is where I am referring to when I refer to the Campo from now on) where she lived during her service. They also have a house in Conce because the kids go to school in Conce, but are also building a new, very nice house out in the Campo. So I'll give a little background info here just so that when I refer to people and such you will have some idea of who I'm talking about. The family consists of the Mom and Dad (Mery and Jose) and their kids (in order of age) Antonio (lives in Spain), Juan Carlos (travels a lot doing tourism work, but passes through Conce some), Ingrid (lives in Santa Cruz), Juana (21 - lives in Conce/the Campo) and her 2 kids (Cande and the Beba - the baby), Lucho (20 - lives in SC but plays soccer in Conce on weekends), Rosa (16), Enrique (15), and Beto (12). Rosa, Enrique, and Beto are the ones in school in Conce. There are also a variety of other relatives and friends of the family that I have become close to as well. The family also has 3 dogs (Oso - a german shepherd, Teri - a boxer, and Doofie - a small mix), Mafi loves to play with them, but the dogs stay in the campo most of the time. So this is basically the family, and they have become basically my best friends in Bolivia, we have great times together and I love to go out to the Campo with all of them when I get the chance. Also, since I was spending basically all of my time over here playing games, cooking, eating, watching movies, etc...I'm moving into their spare room. There was nothing wrong with the room I was renting from the other family, it just so happens that this family had a room for me and I'm here all the time anyways, and I love having people around all the time to hang out with (if you can imagine : ) Anyways, this is basically a quick synopsis of my current living/friends situation (Frances has gone back to the states, but Laura is still around) so hopefully when I refer to people now you may have at least some sense of what I'm talking about...

The first thing that I know I meant to blog about a WHILE ago is Bolivian Mother's Day...I really meant to get this up back in May when it happened, but such is the Bolivian life (and my awesome talent for procrastination) that I am finally getting to it now. You have probably seen the pictures from it that I put on flickr in June (if not go to www.flickr.com/photos/amz8op), so now here's the story to go along with those pics (hopefully I won't skip around too much)...

Mother's Day in Bolivia is May 20. It fell on a Tuesday this year, so once the kids got one with school (about 11), we headed out to the campo...the group consisted of me, Frances, Jose, Mery, Ingrid, Juana, Lucho, Rosa, Enrique, Beto, Cande, the Beba, 5 dogs, and a few aunts and uncles and such. We all piled in the back of an old truck for the trip out to the Campo (about 25 minutes on a dirt road) - dogs and all. The plan was to get out there by about 12:30 or 1 and fix a big lunch to eat around 3 (to include one of their pigs that we would kill and eat - sorry this is not a vegetarian/vegan friendly story). Also, I had offered to make one cake as a little something extra for Mother's Day, but somehow got put in charge of all the cakes (which turned out to be 3 because it was a pretty decent amount of people and I definitely did not want to run out). Thankfully Mamagene and Mom came to the rescue and I got MamaLou's (my great-grandmother) Yellow Cake recipe and the Texas Sheet Cake Recipe from them and made those to take with us (and they turned out deliciously if I do say so myself). Ok, so anyways, we all pile in the truck with all the stuff and the dogs, and mind you we're leaving about 1 hour later than we meant to. We get about halfway there and the truck breaks down...we call a friend in Conce to bring a tool that we need to fix it...wait for him to get there...the tool doesn't help...but luckily a taxi is passing by from dropping some others off in the Campo and so we switch stuff into the taxi and go in 2 shifts the rest of the way...so we start cooking and all that jazz, but conveniently the pig that we are supposed to be cooking has wandered off (I'm not sure why he wasn't tied up). So while some of us are cooking, others of us are looking for the pig. He is finally found and lured back to the house, but wait no one can catch him...now I never realized how fast pigs can run...but anyways, he escapes...again...and heads toward the river with the 5 dogs chasing after him...and then about 8 or 10 people after the dogs. They eventually get him and bring him back (thanks to the dogs I think) and we proceed with preparing the main part of the meal. Basically, we finally eat about 7:30...in the candlelight because there is no electricity in the Campo. All in all, quite an adventure...but a whole lot of fun!!! It was such a good day with the family all participating and playing games and cooking and stuff...it really reminded me of a day at the river up in Galax with my family.

Also, during April and May I was having lots of problems with my tonsils...mainly lots of strep throat. I had been on several rounds of antibiotics, but it just kept coming back...I already had plans to travel to the states for 2 weeks in June to see my sister graduate from high school, so we added a trip to the ENT to my itinerary to have my throat checked out...long story short...I needed a tonsillectomy. It was scheduled to be done right after a week at the beach. So basically, I went home, saw Meg graduate, hung around town and caught up with people, had a great week at the beach with friends and family, got muscle spasms in my shoulder that sent me to the ER and put me in bed out of commission for a week, got my tonsils out and was out of commission for another two weeks, finally got better but all the flights out were booked for another week and a half, then long story short about that flight - the airline didn't tell me about a $1000 charge and Peace Corps had to put me on a different flight 5 days later through Argentina to finally make it back to Bolivia 2 months after I had left. So my time home was good, but I was very glad to be back (I was missing Mafi terribly). The family had called me after my surgery to check on me (they only speak Spanish and Mom answered the phone : ) and I called them several times while I was home so we were in touch, and Lucho and Rosa came and met me at the airport when I arrived in Santa Cruz and we traveled back to Conce together where everyone was waiting at the house for me!

So that basically gets us up into August. A very abbreviated version of April, May, June, and July...but hey...

I get back to Conce, only to have to turn around and leave again like 4 days later to go back to Santa Cruz because Peace Corps decided to consolidate us for a week because of an election that was to take place on August 10. This election was to decide if the President and each of the 9 governors could stay in "power." It was kind of up in the air as what to expect around the election, so just to be on the safe side, Peace Corps brought us all into Santa Cruz and took us to a hotel where we had a week long all volunteer conference. The hotel was nice...and I got some good ideas out of the meetings and discussions...new project ideas and helpful hints on how to improve/expand projects I'm already doing. But nothing happened to make safety an issue for us so that following Tuesday we were allowed to leave and return to our sites. So I have been back in Conce since then.

My counterparts have been out of town the past 2 weeks, so I haven't been doing a whole lot since I've been back. I've restarted my English classes, but there is really only 1 woman who has stuck hard with it. So I decided to keep going with it and she is now bringing her 2 kids (10 and 13) who are also really dedicated to learning English...so that is enough for me. I think that because they are so willing to make time for it and there aren't many of them, that we will start doing it more times during the week and for longer periods of time to make more headway.

I think I am also going to start working with someone from the mayor's office on organizing a trash committee (or environmental committee as we will call it) to work on solid waste management in Conce. Basically we want to get people to use organic trash as compost or animal feed instead of throwing it out and start a recycling project (probably in the schools) in order to reduce the amount of trash being shipped to the dump.

Also, I may start doing classes for customer service for hotel and restaurant employees (an guides and artisans) and maybe other types of classes as well at Infocal. It is a school here in Conce that offers classes for the tourism industry and they are kind of losing funding and interest right now, so the organization in Santa Cruz has sent someone out to try an revitalize it, so I am probably going to be working with her trying to get things going again.

I am also going to continue my work with the artisan and guide associations. I want to do a business simulation to introduce some more concrete business concepts and then go from there into some more marketing strategies and techniques and more accounting stuff.

Ok, well I think those are the big things that I know now. I know I say this every time, but I will try to do better about blogging. I just seem to get caught up in life down here and continually put it off...

Ok, so now I'm really done I think. Hope all is well wherever you may be while you are reading this, and I will work on getting some more pictures up sometime in the near future.

Peace. Amy.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1209758940/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1209758940/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1209758940/tpod.html Fri, 02 May 2008 16:13:43 -0400 Peace Corps Bolivia

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Concepciòn, Bolivia

Ok, so I realize I've been a terrible correspondent for like the last month and a half. It's just that I've been pretty busy down here and I've also gotten used to not going to the internet so often, and when I do go, I don't want to stay for very long. Anyways, that is just to say that I still miss everyone, I've just gotten sucked into life down here and sitting at the internet everyday has gone down on my list of priorities. So anyways, I will attempt to do better, but time has a way of sucking you in down here, and a month or more passes without me even realizing it, so no promises :)

Well since last time I updated my blog, I guess I've done a decent amount of stuff. First of all, Mom and Doug came to visit. We spent Easter weekend in Santa Cruz and just kind of hung out and explored the city. We also went to the Butterfly Conservatory, which was pretty cool. It was really beautiful out there. They have the largest butterfly dome in the world...which it turns out is actually too large for the butterflies, so they were in the process of transferring them to a newer smaller dome and had put a variety of birds in the big dome. Inside the dome was a tower that you could climb up and look out over the dome and see for miles because everything is so flat. They also had natural pools to swim in and an area for orchids. However, there weren't but a few orchids because they don't bloom until October and November. We spent the morning there and explored and got some good pictures. Then, after Easter we came back to Conce for a few days. We pretty much hung out around here and I introduced Mom and Doug to the people around Conce that I know and showed them the places where I hang out and stuff. It was super hot so we didn't do a whole lot of wandering around, but we had a lot of fun. Two of the three nights we were in Conce, I cooked them dinner at my house (pasta both nights), I even made a homemade pasta sauce that was pretty good if I do say so myself. They also helped me put up all my posters that I got at the International Tourism Fair in February, so my room looks a lot better now. They stayed a week then had to get back to work, but it was really good having them here, especially since it was only going to be two more months before I get to see everyone at home :)

They also got to meet Laura's parents (my sitemate) who were around Conce at the same time. They came to visit Laura for a little over two weeks, so I got a chance to spend some time with them before Mom and Doug came and then we had a meal or two with them while we were in Conce. So basically, after all the parents left Laura and I had a decent store of special treats from the states that they had all brought down in extra suitcases, which we are still enjoying and trying to make last until I head back to the states for a couple weeks.

After Mom and Doug left, I got sick with a sinus infection in Santa Cruz, so I was stuck there for a few days trying to recuperate, which I did with no problems. Then came back to Conce for a few days for some meetings, and then headed back to Santa Cruz for the B42 despedida (going away party).

We always have a big despedida for each group about 3 months before their close of service because no one can travel during the last 3 months of their service. We had it at a resort similar to the one we went to for Thanksgiving, but this one was about an hour closer to the city, and more spread out. I personally preferred this one. It had like 3 or 4 connected pools and lots of lounge chairs, a volleyball court, and an emu. Mafi went with me and got to spend the whole weekend running around their huge property...I'm decently sure that she even made friends with the emu (or at least attempted to make friends with him in her own way :) It was lots of fun but after 3 weekends in a row in Santa Cruz I was ready to spend some more time back in my site.

I was back in Conce helping get ready for the International Baroque Music Festival (April 24 - May 4) in Concepcion. I've kept working with my tourism club, as well as having some more meetings with the artisan association to plan for the Music Festival and also to talk about some plans for after the Festival. We are planning on improving their business practices so that they can eventually make a bigger profit and also have a more professional appearance and practices. One thing that is planned right now is another volunteer from my group coming to visit later this month and we are going to do a workshop on basic accounting practices to kind of give them an overview of what kinds of things they need to be taking into account and figure out what they can do as far as accounting practices go to be more efficient and make more money and better use of the money they already have. I'm also planning to start teaching two English classes a week after the Festival is over when people have more time to come. I'm going to offer these classes to the artisans', the guides, and other people that work in the tourism industry. We are going to start with 2 one hour classes each week, and then depending on interest and schedules figure out where to go from there. I'm also working on making a database of all the information for hotels and restaurants in Conce for the tourism office (and hopefully to put on a website that I'm going to work on). Anyways, that's a small overview of some of my projects right now. It was really great to have Doug down here to chat with about them, as a lot of the problems we are having are similar to what not-for-profits in the states face and that he is familiar with, so he was able to give me some new perspectives and some new ideas that I am anxious to test out. We also worked on a proposal from the town to get an Ecotourism Congress to come out to Conce in June for a meeting that they are having. This would bring 250 people out to Conce for about 4 or 5 days and give us more tourism opportunities. We are currently waiting to see if they chose Conce or San Ignacio to do their Congress and as soon as we find out if they chose us will begin preparations for that. So basically there always seems to be something to do here with regards to tourism, so I do pretty well about staying busy.

Anyways, after a couple weeks in my site, I had to head back to Santa Cruz. It was time to get Mafi spayed and I had a computer workshop to attend with my counterpart. Poor Mafi had to stay in the vet all weekend to get the surgery and then recuperate some before I could get her back. But all went well, so she will not be having puppies and she has already gotten her stitches out, so now we are just waiting for the scar to go away. She has also seemed to calm down a bit since the surgery and I'm really hoping that she stays that way...My computer workshop went well also. It was organized by the 3 Information and Communications Technology volunteers. There were about 10 of us that attended (some with and some without counterparts....mine ended up not being able to come). We learned the basics of how to use Adobe Dreamweaver and create a website for our communities, as well as some of the basics about Photoshop and Illustrator that should prove useful in my work with tourism here in Conce. So all in all it was a useful workshop to attend and hopefully I'll be able to put this new knowledge to use pretty soon.

Right after I got back to Conce, my project director and the country director came to do my site visit, which went really well. We had meetings with my counterparts and I showed them some of the stuff I am doing here in Conce. They were only here one night, but I think they got a pretty good idea of what it is I'm doing here. Unfortunately, about that same time I also got strep throat. But as soon as I realized that's what I had, I went to the doctor in Conce and got a penicillin shot which cleared it right up. I got that taken care of just in time for the Baroque Music Festival to start.

That Thursday was the first concert, and there is at least one a day until Sunday the 4th of May. Every evening after mass (about 8:30) there is a concert by an international music group. Also, on most of the days at 11:00 am, the orchestra from Conce plays a concert. Everyone has been very good. All of the international groups have been different, but they have all been fantastic. There have been groups from the states, Israel, France, Italy, Belgium, Poland, and Holland, and we still have 3 more nights of concerts to go. I have to gone to all of the evening concerts to help out with making sure everything is running smoothly. The concert series was organized by an NGO in Santa Cruz, so they are in charge of everything, but I worked with the head person during the Raptor Birds Festival in November, so I am working with her again with anything else that they need. I've gotten to hang out with several of the groups after their concerts and they are all really nice and fun to talk to. I've served as a translator for a couple of them because most of them speak English but some groups have had very few with and knowledge of Spanish. They all have bilingual guides with them, but I've tried to help out where I could. I've really enjoyed seeing all of these concerts and all of the visitors they've attracted (last weekend we probably had about 8 extra people from Peace Corps out here), but I'll be kind of glad when they are over because then I can get back to my normal bedtime and not have to stay up so late.

Right now we have all four of us Concepcion volunteers in Conce because of the referendum that is going to be on Sunday. There is going to be a vote on the autonomic statutes, so they want all of the volunteers within easy communication. We don't really expect anything big to happen. It will probably just be like it was in December...a whole bunch of talk and not a whole lot of action. But I guess Peace Corps has to have a plan for all possibilities. So this weekend should be interesting, the end of the Music Festival and a big vote. So Frances is staying with me for a while and Jamel and Beth (2 other volunteers from around Conce) are at Laura's house, as is a friend of Laura's from the states. So I've still got plenty of company around here.

So after this weekend, stuff should be back to a kind of normal. My plan is to stay in Conce until I head back to the states the beginning of June to try and make some more headway on my projects. I'm going to start the English classes, keep working with the tourism club, help plan for the Ecotourism Congress, try and finish my database, work with the artisans, and whatever else comes up...So with all that to do, I expect the next month to fly by and be back in the states to visit in no time :)

Oh yeah, and now that it's fall, we've already had 2 surs (Antarctic winds that come up through Patagonia) in like 3 weeks. Each sur lasts like 5 days and it gets pretty cold. I stay pretty bundled up during those days, even wearing an alpaca sweater and a toboggan. While the temperature doesn't get that cold, there's a lot of humidity, so it's kind of a wet cold. Anyways, it basically gets a lot colder than I thought was possible, and apparently it can get even colder during our winter months. So now I actually believe people when they say that it gets cold in Conce...before I was always like "yeah, sure," but it's true, it is actually cold.

Anyways, sorry again about taking so long to update the blog and about it being so long because of that. Hope it's not too tedious to read. I've got a bunch of pictures ready to be uploaded to flickr; I just need to find a day to go sit down at the internet and start putting them up. I'll try and send out an e-mail once I get them all up.

Well, hope this finds everyone doing well and in good spirits.
Amy.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1204838880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1204838880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1204838880/tpod.html Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:40:41 -0500 Peace Corps Bolivia

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Concepciòn, Bolivia

Wow, so I guess I've been slacking off again. Sorry it's been so long, I keep meaning to write and then things happen and then I think I'll write soon, but here I am and I am doing it now, so forgive me if it's a bit long (again).

Well, first off I guess I'll talk about Carnaval. So basically I envisioned carnaval the way I had seen it described in Cochabamba. With specific dances and costumes and stuff (basically a lot like what we did at the festival where we danced the llamerada but on a much larger scale). This is how they do it in Oruro and that's the carnaval that Bolivia is most famous for. However, in Santa Cruz we do it a bit differently. People here join different comparsas (which are basically like teams). You form a comparsa and pay dues to be a part of it. Then you receive a team shirt and are part of all of this teams activities for carnaval. Each comparsa picks a queen for their comparsa, then of these queens a queen of carnaval is selected (this year it was Laura's homestay sister, China). It started off by going to China's coronation that Saturday night where each comparsa entered and danced around wearing their shirts and showing a grand display of team spirit. Then China was crowned queen of carnaval and there was a big party. Then Sunday, there was the parade where each comparsa had a float that was supposed to be decorated in a typical Chiquitano fashion. There were all sorts, lots with palm trees, flowers, traditional dress, games, more palm trees, etc. and each queen rode on the float and the rest of the comparsa danced alongside. It was basically a huge contest were they competed for things like most spirit, best costume, best float, etc. (it reminded me a lot of Fall Fest for those of you familiar with Salem College tradition). I liked China's float the best...it was on the back of a flatbed truck and was decorated with traditional Chiquitano games. For example, there was a May pole (or something of that sort) and some other things that I wasn't really familiar with, but the best was a giant armadillo made of wire and paper that China stood on top of. Pablo (her brother) sat inside the armadillo to open and close it's mouth and people from the comparsa collected small kids from the crowd and fed them to the armadillo. It was great :) and I'm pretty sure I can say that I have never seen anything like that during fall fest :) Anyways, these were the big community things the rest of the time was basically spent by spending each day at a different comparsa member's house and having a huge churrasco (cookout) and eating and drinking and dancing all day. I didn't spend a whole lot of time doing these things as my family wasn't part of a comparsa and Laura was at a church camp for a lot of the time so I didn't go over to her family's house too much. But we did go over after the parade when it was her family's day to have the party at their house. We just stopped by to grab some stuff, but were quickly covered in mud and pulling into the dancing...which was in a big mud pit. It was fun and we got some good pics (which are still on Laura's camera...whoops, I'll try and get those up later). So that was basically Carnaval in Conce, it was fun and definitely a good experience, but next year I wanna try and do it somewhere different where it's done on a bigger scale.

OK, so next up on the list of semi-interesting things that went on the life of a Peace Corps Bolivia volunteer during the month of February 2008, Collin and Frances were in Conce for the weekend after Carnaval, so me and Laura hung out with them and had some fun. The highlight of the weekend was of course Collin (from my training group who now lives in San Javier 1 hour from me) coming to visit. It was the first time someone from my training group had come to my site, so I was excited about that. We all basically just spent the weekend hanging around. We had an abundance of avocados on Saturday because there is definitely not a shortage of avocados, and I never thought I could get guacamoled out...but apparently that is possible, so we tried a variation on the avocados-soup. It was pretty good, especially with the homemade tortillas that we made. Anyways, then we headed to the represa to cool off (which is a resevoir that essentially serves as a big lake). We swam around there for a while then decided to climb down below the damn part (don't worry not dangerous) and jump in the pool that forms at the bottom then climb up to where the water spills over the damn...it was super fun, and feels good with the water pressure hitting your back. I had been before with Laura, China, Pablo, and China's boyfriend, so I wanted to show it to Collin and Frances. We had a good time hanging out there...except I lost my sunglasses :( Anyways, that was about all the excitement we had that weekend...it was just good having a group of us to hang out with and show Collin around Conce.

The next week, Mafi, who is pretty huge now, scared me to death because I came home at lunchtime from a meeting and she came limping out from under my bed and wouldn't put any weight on her front paw and it was super swollen. I worried that she had been hit by a motorcycle or a bike, or had gotten bitten by a snake or who knows what. But I took her to the vet and the vet assured me that it was not broken nor was it a snake, so she gave her an anti-inflammatory/anti-allergen injection and by that evening it was fine :) I'm pretty sure it was a wasp because I saw a couple more around the house later that day.

Anyways, that came right before ABC news decided that we were all spies sent down here aby the government to keep track of Cuban and Venezuelan activities (clearly not true). Someone from the embassy here had said some wrong things at a couple of briefings of volunteers and Fulbright scholars and while the things had already been corrected (at least among Peace Corps volunteers) apparently it made a great news story...which definitely did not help US-Bolivia relations. So we got put on an Emergency Action Plan (again) because Peace Corps was afraid that everyone would think we were spies (which we are not). Anyways, things were cool here, people mostly just joked about it, but nothing serious. The mayor even asked me when Peace Corps was going to stop bugging me here because clearly nothing was going to happen in Conce (and I could even tell them that he said that :) So basically, Conce is still as safe as ever, but we never know what's going to be the next "big" thing down here :)

I also spent a decent amount of time in meetings with artesans and in workshops with NGOs doing projects in the area. I'm making some good connections, and still figuring what exactly everyone here is doing. So work is going good. I'm doing a Tourism Club now, which started today (but no one showed up because it was raining-and it was for the 13-18 year olds, so I have a hunch they may be too cool for a tourism club). But I will continue on Tuesday with the younger kids. We are doing it in the library to try and get more people to come to the library. Me and Laura are both working with the library and enjoy doing it because Marley, the librarian, is a super nice person. I'm also working on planning my English classes that I would like to start in April I think and trying to get things going with the artesans so that we can start prioritizing and planning things that I can do to help them with new skills and strategies for increasing incomes. Other than that, we are just continuing on with tourism, maybe trying to figure out a way to get tourists to stay in Conce longer and spend more money at places where they aren't spending any now and still working with NGOs and other organizations and trying to get everyone to communicate a little bit more so that Conce can benefit more from their help.

We also have a new baby in the house. Miriam, my homestay mom, had Diana about 2 weeks ago. She is a beautiful baby (and doesn't even cry much yet) and I will do my best to have some pics to put up soon.

I just spent almost two weeks in Santa Cruz. Last weekend, there was an international tourism fair and some of the artesans from Conce went as well as both my counterparts. We had two booths, that went pretty well, but I came back with some suggestions for future fairs so that we can do better about taking advantage of the opportunities they offer. It was a great experience and I got to see a lot of the other tourism options that exist throughout Bolivia and make some new connections. Tammy and Collin from my group were there as well with their counterparts, so we had a good time seeing each other. We even got to go on a city tour of Santa Cruz on a truck that had been converted into a tram looking kind of thing and listened to music blasting out of it the whole way around the city. Other than the fair, I had a couple of meetings in Santa Cruz before I could head back to Conce, so I spent the time in Santa Cruz at Marvin's house (a friend of Frances) instead of at a hotel. They have three dogs and Frances' dog was there too, so Mafi had plenty of friends. One of them, Kiara, is even the same age as Mafi, so they went at it all day long. So now I am back in Conce, and glad to be, it is a nice change of pace after being in the big city for so long, although it was nice to be able to go to the movies (we saw Bucket List, There Will Be Blood, and I Now Declare You Chuck and Larry). Anyways, I'm back here now, until I head in to get Mom and Doug on the 21st for their visit here (YAY!!!!!!!).

I've been making lots of new friends here in Conce and in Santa Cruz, so time is passing super fast right now between work and friends, so in no time, Mom and Doug will be here and gone and then I will be home in June to visit (June 6-22).

Anyways, hope all is well for everyone and I hope I haven't rambled on too much again as a result of waiting so long to update my blog. Also there are lots of new pics on www.flickr.com/photos/amz8op so be sure to check those out :)

Happy almost spring for those of you in the northern hemisphere :)
Amy.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1201890480/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1201890480/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1201890480/tpod.html Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:32:29 -0500 Peace Corps Bolivia

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Concepciòn, Bolivia

The Great River Adventure 2008 (and all the other stuff since Christmas)

Well, I could be nice and recount my Oh so exciting river adventure, but where would be the suspense in that?? So I decided to start from where I left off and work my way up to this interesting escapade of earlier this week :)

Well, I had my dad, and Stu and Meg here from my birthday and Christmas. It was great seeing them. We spent most of the time in Conce. They stayed at a hotel pretty near to my house, so we spent some time there at the pool and hanging out in the hammocks and juts taking it easy. The hotel also had a couple parrots and a macaw. Mafi made friends with one of the parrots named Mathias, who kept following her around everytime we were at the hotel. We also went to see a waterfall in a community near Conce, it was a nice trip, but there wasn't a lot of water yet because we hadn't really gotten into rainy season yet. But on the way there, there was a tree down in the road, so as is typical here (and which Meg really got a kick out of), the driver stopped the car, pulled a machete out from under the front floor mat, and started hacking away at the tree until we could pass by :) Anways, we also explored the church here and the one in San Javier (another Jesuit Mission Site about an hour away) and just kind of hung out around town. We went out for a nice birthday dinner at the restaurant that one of my counterparts owns and Lupe (my counterpart) gave us a sampling of several different typical Chiquitano dishes. We then went to midnight mass at the church here in Conce which was really nice. Then we headed back to Santa Cruz to do some souvenier shopping (which I am now pretty sure that my dad is better at than me :) and I took them to some of my favorite Santa Cruz restaurants.

Then they left, which was sad, but instead of dwelling on that, I packed my stuff and headed to Samaipata to spend New Year's with some friends. Samaipata is about 2 and 1/2 hours from Santa Cruz city and is located in the valleys of the Andes mountains. It is a beautiful place and quite a bit cooler than Conce (which was nice). The volunteer there, Tammy, was in my training group, so I spent almost a week with her at her house. And we just hung out around Samaipata and relaxed. Mike and Britt, the married couple from Montana (also from my group) cam up for a few days as well, as did another volunteer from my group. We had a great time wandering around the town and taking turns cooking dinner. Our project director also came up to do Tammy's site visit, so we spent some time with him as well. One day, me and Mike and Britt got restless and decided to set out for the "zoo". Tammy said "oh, it's about 15 minutes walk past the plaza", so we walked and walked and walked, and while it was a beautiful walk, we kept thinking that we had passed it. But finally after a good 45 minutes or so we saw it. It was pretty much a house with big enclosures out back for the animals. They had some different types of monkeys, cats, birds and so on. It was pretty cool to see everything from a baby toucan to some kind of wild pigs that kept licking my leg. We got to go in one of the enclosures and I played with a monkey for while, while I tried to figure out if this pig was showing me its affection or trying to figure out if I would taste good for dinner (I think he was showing his affection :) Anyways, after about a week in Samaipata I had to get back to Santa Cruz for Mafi's next round of shots.

After Samaipata and Santa Cruz, we headed back to Conce for about a week to recollect ourselves before heading back to Cochabamba for two more weeks of training. I took Mafi out to the campo to hang with Frances for the two weeks I would be gone so she didn't have to travel with me, then I headed to Santa Cruz and then to Coch with one of my counterparts (Ruben).

The 2 weeks of training was called IST (in-service training) and the first three days consisted of a project design workshop that we attended with our counterparts -- this workshop took us through a step by step project of designing small projects. We then presented our diagnostics at the end of the week and then our counterparts headed out so we could have our project meeting with my training group and the one that came the year before that is the same project as us and we could share what we are doing and whats working and whats not and just kind of put our heads together. Then most of my group stayed for another 3 days of language training. It was a loooong two weeks, and most of us ended up not feeling great for most of it because Coch is not the cleanest city and several of us got bacteria in our stomachs...which was uncomfortable to say the least. Anyways, it was good seeing everyone and we had a good time together.

During our second week there the rainy season really started to get going and there were landslides at several places throughout the country....several of those being on the road back to Santa Cruz from Cochabamba, so because it was impassable, we got to fly back. It was great!! A 30 minute flight instead of a 12 hour bus ride :)

Then...the start of the great river adventure 2008! We got back to Santa Cruz and I got Mafi back because Frances was there (yay!) and everyone that was there from the Chiquitania was stuck because we all have to cross the bridge over the Rio Grande and it had flooded. So, our project director decided that since some of us had been out of our sites for so long for IST that we really needed to try to get back on that Monday because Cesar our project assistant would be in Santa Cruz. (He was there because he was supposed to be going to the inauguration of a tourism office in Guarayos, but couldn't because they were stuck too because their bridge was out). So his assignment got switched from attending their inauguration to accompanying me, Tyler, and Colin across the Rio Grande so we could get to our sites.

So, we started out in a Peace Corps Land Cruiser a little before noon, we rode to the Santa Cruz city side of the bridge, got out (without our stuff) to go check out the situation. We walked across the bridge, which is not short (ask dad, Stu and Meg) - prob about 1.5 Km, then hopped in a cab to go another 2 or 3 Km to where they had cut out sections of the road....oh yeah, they had done this because the river had decided to run across the road, so clearly cutting away 2 or maybe 4 sections of the road to drain the water is a fantastic idea, because now the water doesn't run over the road, just through it. So we then waded through a small section of the river over to the railroad tracks to hike another kilometer or so on the track before we got to the part where the tracks were covered with water and people were essentailly fording the river to get to the other side where there were taxis and micros waiting. (oh yeah and i had Mafi with me). So we see that people are crossing this part with relatively little trouble (I mean the water was only around their belly buttons or so) so we decided to turn around go all the way back, get our stuff and do it all over again with all of our stuff (did I mention this is the one day it decided to be super sunny and none of us had sunscreen?) So we go back and collect our stuff and I leave one of the 4 bags I have (Cesar claims I brought a piece of Conce - literally - if you can believe that :) but really I just had a lot of clothes, shoes, and groceries - oh yeah, and 8 kilos of dog food...oh well) because bringing all 4 would have been a bit much ;) So we go to do this all over again, but we've hired kids with wheelbarrows to cart our stuff, which makes it a little better. So we finally get all the way to the other side around 6 (just before dark), and we all just about bit it in the water on the way over (oh yeah I did bit it in the shallow part on the way back to the car, carrying Mafi through the mud...so I was soaked, but oh well). Anyways, so we made it, along with the (probably) hundreds of others that were doing the same thing. I really felt at times that Moses should have been at one end with his walking stick held in the air and the waters parting for us, or at least in coverd wagons Oregon Trail style. OK, so we made it that far with all of our stuff intact, if maybe a little (or a lot) wet. So then we hopped in a cab soaking wet to go to San Ramon (like a 2 1/2 hour ride) to then catch a Micro (bus) to San Javier and Conce. We dropped Colin in San Javier then me, Tyler and Cesar headed to Conce. We got there finally around midnight, checked Cesar into his hotel, then I cooked us upa good dinner of pasta and homemade tomato sauce (from another volunteer's project) with an appetizer of chips and salsa around 1 in the morning. So all in all, a great story - a wet, hot, and exhausting day - and a true Peace Corps experience :)

Anyways, so now I'm back in Conce hanging out with Mafi and my sitemate. Cesar did my site visit while he was here, and that went well, but he and Tyler have since headed out (Cesar had to cross back over the river in a boat because the water had risen - so I am definitely here for a while), so now we're just waiting for carnaval. Laura and I went in together and bought a hughe water gun for carnaval because apparently for like 3 days of carnaval you just get everyone as wet as possible (or something like that). As far as I know the buses are still not running because the road is still not fixed, so we are running low on fruits and veggies so it is looking like pasta is on the menu for the next several days at least (and avocados - because somehow there are loads of those around...which makes me happy).

So, I'm here and happy with my pup - who has grown loads and become a lighter color. We're just chillin' getting ready to start trying to get to work on some projects after carnaval calms down. I've added some more pics to www.flickr.com/photos/amz8op so check those out. And hope all is well wherever you may be.

HAPPY CARNAVAL/Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday (or whatever you wanna call it :)
Amy

(By the way, I know this was super long - hope it wasn't too boring...sorry)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1197905100/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1197905100/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1197905100/tpod.html Mon, 17 Dec 2007 12:06:35 -0500 Peace Corps Bolivia

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Concepciòn, Bolivia

Well, things have been a bit interesting since my last blog...I haven't been doing too much, still just hanging out around Conce. The town festival went well..it didn't rain until Sunday and I think people had a good time. There wasn't a whole lot to do, but it was nice to see everyone kind of together in one place enjoying themselves. Other than that, nothing really been going on on the tourism side of things...I've been working with my site mate in our library (it's super small...but it's brand new) doing arts & crafts and stories and games with the kids in town. It's been going well, and we've had fun doing it. We've been making Christmas ornaments and Christmas cards...I've made some pretty cute ones (I think) :) We have been doing that pretty much every day because an organization called PLAN International (an educational organization) has given us a bunch of supplies to use and they told Laura to go ahead and try and finish them before the end of the year so they can give us more...YAY!!

The interesting stuff has been in the political aspect of the country. Evo's party (the president) approved a new constitution (I think without the involvement of the rest of the parties) a week before it was supposed to. So about half the country was pretty mad at him and the government of the department I live in went on a hunger strike all week. (This happened last Sunday night) So then on this Saturday, there were 2 parties in the country - one for Evo and his new constitution in La Paz - and one in Santa Cruz celebrating their declaration of Autonomy. (3 other departments also declared autonomy). We watched the party in Santa Cruz on the news and it was HUGE. The only comparison I could make would be Times Square on New Year's Eve. It may not have been that big, only because Times Square has more area, but all you could see was a sea of people and buildings and trees rising up out of there....it was crazy! Well, the autonomy that they declared is not what we would generally think of....they are just declaring that they are going to be in charge of their own natural resources (I think) because Evo wants to nationalize the country's resources (I think). So basically there has been a lot of conjecture about "Bolivia divided" and no one really knows how it all will play out....especially when you put Chavez into the mix. Keep in mind this is all my understanding as a foreigner living in a town where nothing happens....it is tranquil here all the time so pretty much all I have to go on is what I hear and I'm sure that is skewed no matter where the info is coming from. But today I talked to Peace Corps and apparently everything has calmed down since Saturday and they expect that it will stay calm until after the New Year. That's pretty much my understanding of the situation in the country right now...if you have any questions you can ask me, but I may or may not really know the answer. But basically just keep in mind that Concepcion is perfectly calm and I think that if everyone had to go to one place in the country where nothing would happen it would be here. So no worrying (you know who you are!)

I've still been reading a lot...this weekend I read the Life of Pi and Girl with the Pearl Earring...Both of which were really good and I would recommend them both to anyone. Also, last week I read the first 2 books of the No. 1 Ladie's Detective Agency series and they were very good as well. Unfortunately, I think those are the only 2 that are floating around Peace Corps volunteers, maybe there are more though...we'll see :)

Well other than that stuff there isn't too much going on. I'm heading in to Santa Cruz on Wednesday so that I can meet my dad, Stuart, and Megan who are going to spend Christmas with me. So basically until then I'm just sitting here tryig to be patient and waiting for them to get here.

As always, don't forget to check for new photos at www.flickr.com/photos/amz8op

Hope all is well with everyone everywhere and that everyone is having a great holiday season. I'll talk to some of you soon I'm sure, and for those of you that I don't talk to, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Feliz Navidad!
Amy.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1196778720/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1196778720/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1196778720/tpod.html Tue, 04 Dec 2007 09:57:45 -0500 Peace Corps Bolivia

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Concepciòn, Bolivia

Hello all :) Well, it's been over a month now as an offically sworn in volunteer and I'm still here. Concepciòn is a lot of the same stuff. I'm still kinf of floating around town trying to get to know the community and spending time in the tourism office and at the restaurant hanging out. My community diagnostic is the main thing I'm trying to work on right now, and fortunately I've gotten a bit of help from the departamental government who decided to do a tourism plan for Conce. The weekend after my last blog (when I planned to relax and do laundry and wash the dog) I ended up working with a guy from the Prefectura (dept gov) from Santa Cruz on his diagnostic. We worked pretty much all weekend and then into the week before I left for Thanksgiving doing surveys with tourists here and collecting baseline data from the hotels and restaurants here in Conce. That took up pretty much all of my time up until Thanksgiving and now he is working on that info as well as some info he collected during some workshops to compile for his plan. We are still somewhat working together, but once his plan is done, we will probably be working together more closely trying to implement stuff. I will hopefully then be able to build off of what he is doing to get some of my own stuff going. Basically I think this is a good thing, and it is definitely helping me with my diagnostic I think :)

Anyways, Thanksgiving was good. We all hooked up in Santa Cruz and Tyler and I made creamed corn to take with us and made the baked apples at the resort. Both were a big hit, but I dare say we made a bit too much creamed corn. Oh well, it was good. Although it was a bit thick because even though Mamagene warned me against putting too much flour in it, we still managed to do exactly what she told us not to do. We thought that the cream would get thinner when we added it because of the juice already in the corn, but oh were we wrong. It just became almost a solid, but after adding A LOT of milk, it turned out really good :)

We got up early and went to the resort on Thursday and pretty much hung out by the pool all day. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful place. There were probably about 40 of us there so we all had a good time. We had dinner about 7 or 8 and there was a whole table full of good food. There was our creamed corn and baked apples of course, as well as, sweet potato dishes, turkeys, stuffing, mashed potatoes, lots of veggies, cranberry sauce, soups, and loads of other good stuff. All in all it was a good Thanksgiving (maybe not great because I wasn't with family, but good nevertheless).

Friday, we ended up back in Santa Cruz fairly late in the day and just kind of hung out at the hotel watching movies on cable and catching up on sleep. Saturday was rainy and nasty so there was more movie watching until I went salsa dancing with some friends, which was pretty fun. We also ate at a German restaurant which was also pretty good. I'm now partially addicted to their soft pretzels and sweet/spicy mustard that comes with them :)

Sunday I headed back to my site with another volunteer whose site is close to mine. She's been working on a project with the mayor's office here in Conce, so she's spent the last week here in Conce, so we've been hanging out a lot. I've still been around the tourism office, and we've been working on planning the town festival that will start this Thursday. I was in charge of taking pictures of some of the officials to put on the program, and that took a large part of 2 days, since they are all so busy. I also helped design the program, so that was a lot of fun. Anyways, I have a meeting later tonight with the tourism people and the artisans to work on organizing the artesania fair that will take place all weekend during the festival. Other than working on that, I've gotten through several books and been watching some movies. I've recently discovered that I really like the books by Gregory MaGuire, once I read Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, (yes I know Mom, Megan, Susan, and Blaire that everyone has been trying to get me to read his books for a while now and I protested, well, make sure to save this e-mail because I was wrong. I really liked that book and can't wait to come across more - which is a bit difficult here - so I can read them). I've also discovered Elizabeth Peters who writes kind of like British mysteries with Amelia Peabody as her main character. The one I read was rather late in the series I think (The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog), but it was still good, and I'm going to see if there are any more floating around PC folks :)

Oh well, that's about all I know right now. I've uploaded some new pics from the past several weeks, so check those out at www.flickr.com/photos/amz8op Otherwise, there isn't much else new, so hope all is well wherever everyone may be, and that no one gets too stressed out over the holiday season. Hope to hear from some of you soon, and good luck with Christmas shopping :)

Happy Holidays!!! Amy.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1195238460/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1195238460/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1195238460/tpod.html Fri, 16 Nov 2007 14:07:49 -0500 Peace Corps Bolivia

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Concepciòn, Bolivia

Heylo :) Don't have anything terribly interesting to report. It's been about a week and a half since I've been living at my site and life here is pretty laid back. I spend a lot of time just kind of hanging out around the town and trying to meet people and get the feel of it. Mafi and I have spent a lot of time in the plaza...I read and she plays with whatever she can find and the kids that come through. All the kids here think she's adorable and want to play with her all the time. She's doing pretty well as far as training goes...she's only 7 weeks old, but her accidents are few and far between usually and she is even good about walking on a leash when she feels like it and isn't too distracted...the whole name recognition thing is a bit difficult, but sometimes I think she gets it, but she just chooses to ignore me, but she's growing like crazy (check out her new pics on flickr.com).

Anyways, I got here and tried to get unpacked and stuff (I'm still waiting for some furniture to come so I can finish). I went to see oen of my counterparts a couple days after arriving and was going to tell her I was just going to hang out for the first weekend, but apparently there was the first annual festival for aves repaces (eagles, hawks, etc.) that come through this area, so I ended up helping out with that all weekend. I mostly worked with a girl from CEPAD (a Bolivian development organization) and it turns out she had worked on tourism in Conce for a while and so I think she will be a good resource for me while I'm working here. She's also about my age and lives in Santa Cruz, so I think we are going to hang out at some point while I'm there.

There hasn't been a lot going on this week, I've just kind of been around (reading a lot). Last night I went to the kindergarten graduation at the school here. It was cute, the 4 year old from the house I live in was dancing because all the classes did some kind of traditional dance (too bad I didn't have my camera, it was too cute). I didn't stay the whole way til the end because it was looong and I was tired but I got to see the dances, so that was good. I've been cooking some for myself (mostly utilizing the fresh fruits and veggies here). I've made tuna salad and spaghetti with a veggie tomato sauce, then reused the sauce and added lentils to make a lentil stew/soup thing yesterday. But the funny thing is I realized I didn't have a can opener and haven't found one, so I've been using a knife to open my cans (I didn't even know that was possible :) and the only thing I can think of is I feel like I should be out west somewhere prying open cans of baked beans beside a fire...oh well, it shouldn't last that much longer, I've got a can opener on the way (thanks Mamagene). I'm sure I could get one here somewhere, but a knife will suffice, and sometimes it just easier to ask your grandma for a little help :)

This weekend I plan on washing my laundry and the dog and then on Wednesday, I'll leave for Santa Cruz to go to Thanksgiving. Some of us are cooking dishes to share, and I think me and another volunteer from my group are going to cook creamed corn and baked apples (we'll see how that works out :)

We had a "sur" this week. That's when it gets kind of windy and a bit chilly because Antarctic winds are blowing this way. It was kind of nice...it was chilly enough that a jacket could be worn but wasn't necessary, so walking around outside a lot wasn't too bad. But now it's over and it's hot again...oh well.

Don't know much else, just wanted to update everyone and let you know there are some new pics up on www.flickr.com/photos/amz8op

Hope all is well. Amy.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1194537060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1194537060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amz8op/pcv-bolivia/1194537060/tpod.html Thu, 08 Nov 2007 11:53:09 -0500 Peace Corps Bolivia

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Concepción, Bolivia

Ok, well I know it's been forever since I updated this thing, but the past few weeks have been CRAZY. Last time I wrote, I think we had just finished Tech week and were getting ready to finish training. Well, we got back from Tech week and had some tests (technical, cultural, safety, and policy - all of which I did really well on) then we turned in our diagnostic assignments that we worked on during training....that went pretty well. We wrapped up some general tech/cultural training sessions and moved out of our homestays in Marquina on Saturday, Sept. 20.

On Sunday, we all headed to our regional cities...mine is Santa Cruz. Wow, it is definitely different from Cochabamba. Some of the other volunteers refer to it as the Miami of South America...I don't know that I would go that far, but it definitely nice. There was an Irish Pub(no Finnigan's Wake of course), but it was nice and we were able to watch some NFL. We also found some great restaurants....in the several nights that I've been there since, we have had Cuban, Italian, Mexican, and a variety of others. Their plaza is also super nice...I'll try and get a picture of it to upload sometime soon. On our way home from dinner that Sunday there was a band playing some reggae type music and they were great...we kind of stopped there and then didn't want to leave.

Anyways, on Monday, we had our orientation day with our counterparts. One of my two came and the day was loooong but went well. Then on Tuesday I was off to Concepcion with my counterpart. Except in the process of catching the bus I lost my cell phone...whoops...oh well my counterpart helped me find another one, so I was connected again within 30 minutes. We got to Concepcion that night and I went to the restaurant that my other coutnerpart owns to meet her. Both my counterparts work in tourism and seem to have great ideas about where things kind of need to go in the next couple of years. I'm super excited to work with them and others in the community because I think that with some more organization and cooperation Conce could be more amazing that it is now.

When we got back to Cochabamba, we were in a hotel for the week to finish up some training stuff on that Monday through Wednesday to be ready for swear-in on Thursday. The training stuff was a bit looooong and tedious, but Wednesday was a great day to end because it was Halloween and we had a big party that night with all the other volunteers from Coch and the surrounding areas. We had some interesting costumes because we had to work with what we could find - I was a Chinese geisha (kind of - don't worry there are pics on flickr.com). Anyways, after that, it was time to swear-in and become official volunteers on Thursday afternoon. We had the ambassador, PC country director and our training coordinator presiding and one of our trainers and a member of my group also give "speeches." It was a nice ceremony, and we had a pretty good crowd. I think all of us looked the best we had since we arrived (check the pics on flickr.com). As of 4pm we were officially PC Bolivia volunteers and went out with anyone left in the city to celebrate that night. Friday, I headed back out to Marquina to pick up my puppy, and boy had she grown...I think I'm gonna end up with a good sized dog :) Also, it's pretty amazing how pretty she is because when you're getting mutts down here it's kind of a toss up as to how they're gonna turn out. Anyways, she's doing great (except we're still working on the whole listening to me and not using the bathroom everywhere thing) and I've put up some new pictures of her on flickr.com too. Right now she's asleep beside me :)

Well, I left with a few others on an overnight bus to Santa Cruz on Saturday after a really nice dinner with all of us in Coch. We took a BusCama (which means the seats go back further and it's more comfortable). Anyways, we arrived in Santa Cruz Sunday morning and jsut kind of relaxed all day because we had a full day on Monday with orientation at the PC Santa Cruz office in the morning and then going out to buy all of our stuff in the afternoon. I ended up having to buy a bunch of stuff and it was kind of comical trying to get it all to my site. My pseudo-sitemate and I ended up with our arms out the windows holding my double mattress on top of the taxi on our way to the bus station...oh yeah, with no ropes :) But we made it and now I'm here with all my stuff . I've just been trying to get organized and I'm still trying to get everything the way I want it before I actually start working. The family that I'm living with is really nice and my room has a nice big window that faces the street :) The town is still as beautiful as I remember it, so I think I'll like it here.

Anyways, as for the next couple of months, I'll be working on my diagnostic to present to PC in January and probably starting a few small projects in the meantime. I'll also be hanging out and tryign to get to know the community and the people in it so that I can integrate and figure out how I can be most helpful.

I don't really know much else new, just make sure to check out the pics at www.flickr.com/photos/amz8op/

Also, I have a new address. It is at the regional office in Santa Cruz where I will be once a month to retrieve it. My new address is:
Amy Barnhart, PCV
Cuerpo de Paz
Casilla #3998
Santa Cruz, Bolivia
Sur America
It doesn't matter what it is but it's always just really nice to get packages of stuff from the states and know people are thinking of me. Dried fruit and healthy snacks are always good though :) Anyways, the general rule for packages is put them in a padded envelope and try to keep them under 4 pounds and when you do the customs slip, keep the value at $10 or less and mark it as "religious items" or "cosas religiosas"

Hope everyone is doing well and that I haven't rambled too much. I look forward to hearing from everyone and will do my best not to let so much time pass before my next update.

Peace. Amy.
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