Living in Bolivia-Oddities

Hey guys!

I hope you enjoyed reading about the jungle! I know I just posted that so if you haven't read it you should do so now, and check out the video at the end!

I realized the other day that there was one quirk about living in Bolivia that I'd been meaning to tell you all about since I got here!

In Bolivia, when you go to the bathroom, you throw your used toilet paper into the bin next to the toilet instead of into the toilet. Every Bolivian bathroom I've been in has a small trash can for this purpose alone. It took me like a month to get used to it, and re-adjusting back at home may prove difficult too! No one has mentioned why this is a norm, but I guess it is because the plumbing isn't strong enough to take toilet paper without clogging.

Another weird thing I wanted to mention is that last week all schools were canceled for the entire week. The reason? It was too cold. Last week when I'd go to work at 7:30 am I would wear jeans, a t-shirt, and a sweatshirt with a scarf. That was it. I'm not sure what the temperature was in the morning, the coldest part of the school day, but I'd guess 55 degrees. The mornings are a lot less worse now than they were for my first month here. All of the gringos I've talked to about this have felt either puzzled, amused, or outraged. The only plausible explanation I've heard (one person said a Bolivian said the streets weren't drivable at that temperature...), is that the buildings are too cold for the students since the buildings don't have heat. I agree that the buildings don't warm up with the sunrise like it does outside, but it is far from unmanageable. At work or in my house I keep a sweater on and that's more than enough.

All of the volunteers here that I've met say that wherever they work, all of the employees come in whenever they want. Sometimes they are an hour and a half late and there seem to be no penalties. I can say that every single person at my health clinic arrives late (no more than 20 minutes) every day. Some volunteers arrive an hour after they're supposed to just so they can arrive with all the other employees. I'm starting to wonder if it's things like canceling an entire week of school due to chilly mornings, and no late penalties, that Bolivia is still so far behind the rest of South America and much of the world.

These are just some quirks that stick out that I wanted to mention before I forgot again.

Word-

Hillary