Since the La Paz trip I haven't written about what I've been up to because I've been writing about La Paz. I also wanted to give everyone a couple of days to read those long posts. So here is a "catch up" post!
I got back Monday night very late and went to work Tuesday morning with a cold. I left an hour early, and called in sick Wednesday so I could rest. It worked, because I felt completely better by Thursday morning. Wednesday the 23rd was like "Dia de San Juan," a celebration to honor the coldest night of the year. Apparently it's celebrated mostly in Puerto Rico, and then here for some reason. They celebrate by staying up all night burning things in the streets (tires, cardboard, etc.) and eating hot dogs. I did not participate in this and I don't think any of the volunteers in my program did. Oh and by the way, I'm pretty sure one of the male doctors thought I missed work on Wednesday because I'd had too much partying on dia de San Juan. Not the case.
Wednesday night I did however meet up with the two American girls I'd met on the plane from Miami. We had dinner at a place called "Brazilian Coffee" that has sushi, Bolivian food, and pasta. It was a lot of fun and we're meeting up again Monday to do a book swap! One of the girls has finished all four of the books she brought, and I finished "One For the Money" and "The Reliable Wife," which Rachel and Grandmama loaned to me. It was really awesome to chat with them because we've all been here for the same amount of time; everything is still new and exciting to us. Whereas for some of the people in our organizations, they are already jaded and tired of Bolivia.
On Wednesday I also electrocuted myself trying to swap a plug into my adapter. Must remember not to touch the prongs when I do that..
I met a girl at work who is Bolivian but speaks some english that she learned while in India (along with Hindi). She was really cool, 24, a nursing student, and it's nice at work when we talk because she can practice english and I can practice spanish. I was considering asking her to meet for lunch one day so we could do a language partnership thing where people learn each other's languages. Then, Friday, she got all "Christianity is the best" on me and kind of freaked me out. It was nice of her to invite me to church, but the way she was talking made it seem like she can only hang out with Christians. I told her I have friends from every religion and she kind of stopped talking about it. I still might hang out with her, we'll see. There was this guy at work who'd fallen down some stairs and had lots of stitches on his arm. He came to replace his bandages, and I saw that half of his stitches had sort of failed, because there was a HUGE circle of dead skin and dark muscle where his stitches should have kept going. It was really gross but cool to look at. This girl and some nurses and the front desk guy got into a conversation about India, and she was explaining some of their customs. She loved it over there and wants to go back to work there for 5 years. The conversation was kind of like the gay conversation because it was like seeing how much other people know or don't know about certain things. She was explaining the Caste system, ways of dress, wedding rituals and so on. At one point the cashier front desk guy (that I work with for the first hour) asked me why the U.S. doesn't want relations with Cuba or Iran. Everyone looked at me and I was like "uh...how am I supposed to explain this in spanish..uhm..I'm just not going to." I just said that it isn't that simple.
Friday I bought a cell phone but it still doesn't work because apparently there is a law that extranjeros (foreigners) have to register using some form of ID like a passport number. All the other volunteers have had to do this as well. You can get around it by having a Bolivian do it for you, but if something happens and you need to fix the phone, you have to have that same Bolivian fix it. Sooo I'm going back to the office Monday to get it taken care of. Oh and on Friday I also made puppy chow! I can't find Rice Chex anywhere here, so I used Corn Flakes and it was a huge hit! I also didn't realize how much I missed puppy chow. I also had to melt half a Toblerone because I ran out of chocolate.
I FOUND TORTILLAS!! I thought they didn't exist here because I couldn't find them at all, until my housemate told me that they're in the refrigerated section. Oops! But I bought a pack of twelve on Friday and now I am out. I didn't realize how much I loved Mexican food until being here. I think Nina's mom's handmade tortillas have spoiled me. But the tortillas here are better than at home, they taste like Nina's mom's.
Tomorrow I'm going to write about the "art" exhibit at the main office, and my lazy sunday which turned out to be wonderful.
Peace out! Love,
Hillary
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