So where did I leave off? Oh right, Saturday night I went to sleep and the 3 girls I came with went out and did not return until 4:00am.
Sunday:
I woke up at 8:30 fully awake and hungry. I looked down (from the top bunk I was sleeping on) and saw all three of the girls asleep and it didn't look like they were going to get up anytime soon. I sat in bed for awhile then at 9:00 Elizabeth woke up to catch the very end of the soccer game that had started at 7:00 that she'd wanted to watch. I climbed down from my bunk and had a peanut bar thing that they sell on the streets and then one of my last granola bars from the U.S. I read a little bit of the book Grandmama gave me, then I brushed my teeth and became extremely thirsty. At this point it was 10:20 and I didn't want to leave the room because I'd have to interact with the family, and even though they were super nice, I felt weird. I made myself go to the kitchen and got a glass of water. As I drank it at the table, the French Canadian girl who is living with this family for the summer came and sat down across from me. (She is in charge of a group of volunteers from Quebec who are working in La Paz for the summer and they will come into the story later). By 11:00 I'd eaten bread, a mandarin, an orange, scrambled eggs, yogurt, juice, and tea. It was wonderful. I loved these people. Around 11:30 the girls wanted to eat. I didn't want to be behind on eating an get hungry before everyone else, so I ate some more eggs, yogurt, tea, and bread.
Sidenote: the dad's name is Gaston. I mentioned to Maren that I thought Gaston was supposed to be a french name, and she said "did you think that only because of Beauty and the Beast? Yeah, me too."
Elizabeth and Sarah went for a run, which you wouldn't have been able to pay me to do in La Paz, and I spent the afternoon reading, watching some movie with Clive Owen and Naomi Watts, and watching more soccer. Anna and Gaston served us lunch of homemade soup, salad, roasted chicken, and this fried cheese dish. It was phenomenal. Around 5 we headed out to what I thought was going to be a quick trip to a store so I could buy some sweatpants. As we left the house Anna told us that we could borrow sweatpants from her sons, and that we should head over to a party with some Capoeira people that Maren knew. So off I went to a party wearing hiking boots, tall socks, 3/4 length sweatpants, my big white thrift store shirt with the french writing (some of you should know this shirt very well), a blue sports bra, and a Northwestern hoodie. We weren't sure where we were going because Maren couldn't quite remember exactly which building it was. (She had spent time with a lot of these people when she studied abroad in La Paz several years ago). As we stood on the sidewalk, I thought I spotted a Costa del Marfil (Ivory Coast) flag hanging from a building's window.
"Hey!" I said, "people here really like the Ivory Coast..weird." Maren informed me that in fact that was a Brazil flag, and "oh hey, actually I think that's their building!" So, with a little help from my inability to recognize flags, we found the building and went up to the apartment. And this is where the night began.
It turns out that this was in fact a birthday party. As soon as we walked in I noticed that all the boys were wearing marching band looking party hats, and all the girls were wearing bunny ears. I never did figure out what the theme was supposed to be. I sat against a wall with the other girls and the birthday girl, who was very nice and wearing a tank top with no back, ensured that we all had bunny ears on. Then the dog passed by and it was a Schnauzer!! (Standard size). It was perfectly groomed and really soft and black like my dogs and I spent awhile petting it, missing Tiger and Asia. I sat around talking to the girls from Sustainable Bolivia that I'd come with, the French Canadian I ate breakfast with who had joined us, and a girl from Holland.
One important thing to note, is that for the entire time we'd been in La Paz, anytime we mentioned Tiwanaku, the first thing out of anyone's mouth was that it is freezing. When asked if they were going to go up this Sunday, every one of them laughed and said "no I don't think I'm going to do that again." At the party I was mostly avoiding eye contact with people, when out of nowhere the dancing began.
Alright, I thought, just be cool. Even though latin guys are notorious for being good dancers, that doesn't mean this will be a disaster. Just..just get up and walk away from the dancing area. Yeah, that's it. The birthday girl apparently did not know of my plan and brought two guys over to me and Sarah and told them to dance with us.
"Do you want to dance?" asked one of them. (This whole thing is in spanish).
"Uhm..I can't dance." I mumbled. He laughed and said "Why not?"
"I can't, I'm..I'm bad. I'm not any good. I don't have any..what's the word in spanish..rhythm?"
"Me neither, I'm not good either."
He ended up getting me to dance, the poor guy. He was also lying about not being able to dance. I don't know what it is about spanish speakers but dancing seems as easy to them as walking, which sometimes I have trouble with as well. Meanwhile, I haven't showered since Friday afternoon, I look like a bum, and I'm wearing hiking boots. Needless to say, I was probably painful to watch but he danced with me for the whole party. He was trying turns and switching hands and foot and hip action and,.. I stepped on him twice. Javi (the boy whose house we were sleeping at) made this fruit juice in the kitchen out of ice, passionfruit, lime, mango, and some other fruits I can't remember. It was the best juice I've ever tasted in my life, and he made it from scratch in 5 minutes.
Eventually it was time for us to go because it was 8:30pm and the French girl had to meet her group at Javi's house. They were all going to join us for the winter solstice celebration. I looked toward the door and the French Canadian, Lily, was standing at the door, and it looked like this really cute guy was whispering in her ear. Or, I thought..is he kissing her neck? No..he must be whispering something..this is odd. The cake came out so we had to stay to sing happy birthday, and the boyfriend, little brother, and two best friends made speeches. Then they pushed the birthday girl's face into the cake when she blew out the candle. Finally we left and Maren informed me that Lily had just invited the cute and drunk stranger to the celebration with us. Apparently he had been making out with Lily on the dance floor in the living room throughout the entire party. I don't know how I missed that, but I also decided maybe he was kissing her neck and not whispering something to her after all.
We all met back at Javi's house and got layered up with the French Canadians and by the time we left I was wearing Under Armour leggings, fabric leggings, my 3/4 sweatpants, a pair of socks, a pair of knit wool socks, my hiking boots, a tank top, an Under Armour type top, a long sleeve shirt, my NU hoodie, and a coat. All the cute stranger had was jeans, a t shirt, and a coat. I carried my gloves, hat, Javi's old sweatpants, and two scarves in a bag because we had a 1.5 hour car ride to the town that is at an even higher elevation than La Paz, and I figured the car ride would get hot. The van in which Javi's friend was taking people up only fit the 8 Canadians, so us 4 girls, Javi, and the cute stranger took a taxi to a van/shuttle area by the cemetery to go up to the town. The ride out of the city at night was magnificent. The city is surrounded on all four sides by hills that are covered with little houses, and at night the lights from these houses makes it seem like you are in outer space and that there are tons of stars lighting up the night rising halfway up the sky.
We squeezed into the van and on my left was Javi, on my right was the boy, whose name turned out to be Gabriel, and behind me were the 3 girls from Sustainable Bolivia. Javi and this boy, who earned the nickname "the Idiot" later in the night, immediately started mixing a Brazilian drink with clear looking rum and sprite. I had the good fortune to sit right between this as they attempted to pour liquid into cups on the bumpy road. They graciously offered me a drink, which I declined. I explained that drinking combined with my pension for car sickness would be a bad combination. Gabriel, who we will refer to as the Idiot, started talking to me. The idiot told me he is a 21 year old from Brazil and is currently a med student in Bolivia. As I talked to him I realized he was amazingly gorgeous. I don't just mean he was cute. I mean he was breathtakingly good looking. Unfortunately, he was also very conceited and obnoxious. I turned around to talk to the girls and I noticed that he kept staring at me. I tried not to look at him. At one point he spilled on the woman in front of me and she turned around to ask him and Javi to stop. Maren decided that it must be the Idiot's beauty that lets him get away with a lot of crap. Javi whipped out his charm and got all of them laughing and even shared his iPod with them. The idiot began trying to convince me to visit Brazil. "If I visit Chicago, would you visit Brazil?" He asked. "Don't you want to see paradise?" Gag. I explained that I have absolutely no time to visit Brazil, even if I wanted to. He then tried to teach me some portuguese in exchange for learning some english. Neither of us did very well. He also kept offering me a drink; "Salud? Cheers?" Eventually in english I blurted out: "Do you want me to throw up on you?! Because I will." Although he didn't understand my words, I'm sure he got the message because he stopped asking.
At one point everyone fell asleep and he decided to profess his love.
"Te quiero, te quiero, me entiendes?"
"No you don't."
"Si, si, te quiero, I love you."
"No, you do not."
"Recuerdas mi nombre?" (Remember my name?)
"Si," I answered, "Gabriel."
"Y, me olvide, como te llamas?" (And, I forgot, what is your name?).
At this point this guy was so ridiculous that his forgetting my name barely phased me. We got out of the car amongst tons of vans and people in the dark in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. He tried to help me carry my stuff, which I didn't let happen, and us 4 girls split from the boys to find a bathroom.
And thus ends part two! I will post the third and final part of the story tomorrow!
Love,
Hillary
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