My Neighborhood, Milk, and the Weather

Why hello there!

My Neighborhood:

I want to show everyone my neighborhood. We live in a somewhat richer area than most of this region of Bolivia (not the richest, I'll get to that later) but it is generally a safe part of Cochabamba. This picture below is of Plaza Sucre, there are tons of small plazas/parks like this in Cochabamba and this one is beautiful. I took this picture today (Saturday) but the city is extremely bustling and hectic during the week.

I just realized yesterday why the look of Cochabamba wasn't feeling new to me, it's because a lot of Cochabamba reminds me of parts of Southern California. Both places have tall solid cement-like fences, gates, palm trees, loud traffic, and spanish music playing conspicuously all night long. This picture below is my street (my gate is behind those flowering trees).

The Cristo is a big tourist attraction that I'll probably try to go visit but walkers often get their cameras stolen so if I go I'll take the little ski lifts up the mountain. Anyway I can see the Cristo on my short walk around the corner to the office.

Milk:

Finally, I wanted to take a picture of my milk. It is in a bag if you haven't noticed. I also bought salt in a bag because they didn't have them in shakers. I got this milk (and Frosted Flakes) from a grocery store on Calle America. America is an ironic name for this street, I think you'll see why. I went with a housemate via taxi trufi (shared cab) there and this is the richest area in Cochabamba. I could tell this just by the grocery store, which actually had a parking lot. There were lots of imported goods from the U.S. that were pretty pricey (like my frosted flakes) but the most expensive seemed to be the chocolates (they had ferrero rocher!). In line at this store we met a Canadian. The housemate that I went with is also Canadian so we struck up a conversation. Small world, eh? My housemate told me this area has some new, modern high rise apartment buildings and trendy cafes.

Something interesting that I learned from the same housemate (who graduated as an engineer, had a job but didn't like it, and is taking a year off to figure things out) is that when parents are put in jail for committing a crime, the children of those parents move into the jail as well. She volunteers for a day camp type program that provides a safe place for these kids to be until they have to go back to the jail for the evening and night. When she mentioned this to the Canadian teacher at the grocery store, she was as shocked as I was when I learned this.

The Weather:

June 23rd is the coldest night of the year in Cochabamba, after that it gradually warms up and I'm told that by August the nights will be warm. As it is now, the nights are getting colder and colder. Thank goodness the heat in our apartment was temperamental this year, because now it's no biggie. My room blocks out a lot of the heat during the day, which is nice because during the day the heat is really intense. However, this means that it is freezing at night. It probably gets down to the 40's at night and warms up by 10ish in the morning. Oh, and apparently there is a festival in the mountains on June 23rd to celebrate that involves dancing, bonfires, and sacrificing a llama if you stay long enough to see that.

I'm going to update again later with a couple stories. Stay tuned!

Love,

Hillary