Hi, Happy Thanksgiving! We’re celebrating down here, but that story (among other things) will come another day.
I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while. My blog naturally tends toward highlights and special events, so you’ll get an incomplete picture of Bolivia and my life here if I don’t stop to fill in the gaps from time to time.
First of all, I have a couple errors to correct. Somewhere I remember writing that Cochabamba has a population of 2 million. Turns out it’s more like 700,000. I confused the department of Cochabamba with the city of Cochabamba. A more important error has to do with my homestay “parents,” Ana and Dennis. I had them pegged at about 30 years old, and that’s what I wrote, but it turns out that they are 23 and 25, respectively. Also I’m almost positive that they aren’t married yet, and the wedding may be while I am here!
Now I invite you to join me as we go together through my typical day in Tiquipaya. I won’t catalog the events of an actual, specific day, but what I’ll write will be a very realistic account of an “average” day in my life here.
I wake up at 6:15 to the sun and then at 7:00 to my alarm. Breakfast is as usual- bread and butter, bananas, and coca tea. Today we also have cheese and avocado, which is a treat. During breakfast we always turn on our small, 25-year-old, rabbit-ears, requires-pliers-to-change-the-channel TV to watch the morning news (station: Unitel, program: La Revista). We get a good dose of national and local news, and later a local teen dance troupe comes on the show to give a performance.
Dennis finishes his food first and says quickly, “muchas gracias Ana muchas gracias Fabi muchas gracias Ha-cob.” We all respond, “provecho.” This is the custom here; to excuse yourself from the table you thank everyone who shared the meal with you. Then everyone responds by wishing that the meal serves you well.
Next Fabiola finishes her food. “Gracias Mamita Anita. Gracias Mami. Gracias Mami. Gracias Mami. Gracias Mami. ¡Grac-”
“¡Provecho, Fabi!” Ana barely manages to get out in the midst of a hurried swallow. Fabi definitely knew that her mother had food in her mouth, but she would not stop saying “gracias” until she got that “provecho” out of her mother. Really cute, a little annoying, and absolutely an everyday occurrence.
I finish my breakfast, give my gracias, and check the time. 7:48. Just enough time to wash my plate, knife, and mug and get out of here. If it were two minutes earlier I would have washed all the dirty dishes; two minutes later and I would have just put my stuff in the sink and run.
I grab my backpack, put on my hat, fill up my water bottles, and I’m out. It’s about a ten minute walk to the bus stop each morning (teachers, students, and even the principal take the bus to school), and I always aim to be there by 8:05 at the very latest. My daily walk takes me right past the main plaza of Tiquipaya, which at this hour is abuzz with public school students in way-too-hot uniforms rushing about in every direction.
I get to the bus stop and greet the students and teachers who are already there.
“¿Qué tal, Sebas?” We slap hands and then fist bump. That is the common handshake among young people here. “¿Cómo estás, Nico?” Slap, bump. “Buen día, Marcel.” Slap, bump. “Hola, Manuel.” That’s Matt’s 16-year-old homestay brother. We don’t do “slap, bump.” He always goes in for the handshake and then pulls his hand back at the last second and runs it through his hair. There’s one in every crowd. It’s OK, I’ve caught on by now. Manuel also intentionally uses fake Spanish words like “rompido,” “morido,” and “escribido” when he talks to me. Anyone who speaks or is learning Spanish will understand how annoying and (admittedly) clever that is. He’d better watch out, though; I’m his English teacher.
Anyway, at 8:08 the big, red and white, Kusikuna bus #2 arrives, with nothing to distinguish it from a public transportation bus other than a sign on the inside of the windshield. We pack into the bus, little ones first, and then continue on our way. We drive away from the city and into more and more rural terrain. By the last stop, people are standing up, packed into the aisles, and grasping the metal bars above them. It feels like a bus in a major U.S. city, except when you look outside you see mountains instead of steel.
We clunk up the final cobblestone/dirt road and arrive at la Comunidad Eco-Activa Kusikuna at 8:30, right on time. Someone rings a cowbell loudly enough for all to hear, and we’re off to our ambientes (“environments,” which is what they call their classrooms).
Today I’m starting with the secondary students, who range from age 13 to 18. It’s our one day a week for curriculum-based math. (With them I also have a day for math activities/games and a day for English.) I’m working with a group of 8-10 students, but they are at so many different levels that I mostly do 1-on-1 help instead of typical teaching. Today I taught combining like terms (Algebra I) and trigonometric identities (Pre-Calc) to two students in the same classroom. After about an hour many of the students get bored (maybe two are still focused, and two were never focused), so I play chess with a couple of the kids and pause when I’m needed for a math question. They’re not so good at chess. Too bad I’m not so good either, so I can’t really teach them.
At 10:20 (yep, that’s a 110 minute period), the cowbell rings again. Time for recreo (recess). I spend my recreo as I do every day, playing fooseball in one of the classrooms. We play in teams of two, first goal wins, losers go to the back of the line. I stink at fooseball. But it’s really fun. Who would have thought that because I’m living in a foreign country instead of a college dorm I get to play more fooseball?
Anyway, after the recreo I’m with the 11-12 year old group, Jatun (that’s Quechua for something, I think “big”). Today is our day for math activities. We start as always with a warmup that lets them choose between three games: Knockout, 21, and 24. The first two I mentioned in an earlier post, and the last one is an elementary and middle school staple that you may have seen in the form of blue cards with a big yellow circle in the middle. The goal of the game is to use the four integers on a given card and add/subtract/multiply/divide to reach 24. I made up most of the cards, and each student made a card also to add to the stack.
The warmup takes about half an hour, after which I would normally present the students with a challenge or discovery activity, but today I just have them go outside for a review game. This game emerged spontaneously a couple of weeks ago, and it goes something like this: everyone stands in a circle tossing a basketball around to whomever they want. If someone drops the ball, the group has to answer a math question before they can continue. If I drop the ball, they get to play one round of “el diablo se divierte,” which is like sharks-and-minnows.
We play this game for a surprisingly long time; about a half hour goes by without them getting bored because victory is always in sight. They chuck the ball almost exclusively at me with a complete repertoire of fastballs, lobs, look-aways, behind-the-backers, etc., but I don’t give in. Plus, they drop the ball frequently enough that I get to drill them in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of fractions. After I’m satisfied with their work, I drop a tough one from Nico on purpose, enjoy the look of shock and pure bliss on his face, and then they’re off to play “el diablo se divierte.”
Once their round is over, there is only enough time left for me to pull out the 24 cards again and play with those who are interested. I let the others stay outside if they want. We didn’t do anything new or exciting today, but they got a good fractions review and definitely had a good time.
At 12:30 we stop what we’re doing, and the students pack up and do their chores (cleaning the classroom, watering the plants outside, etc.). At 12:45 Kusikuna buses #1 and #2 pull up, we pack ourselves in tightly, and before 1:00 we’re out of there. Good thing it’s not Thursday; those days there is only one bus because several (but less than half) of the students stay after school for workshops.
At around 1:15 I get home. The family restaurant is still open, but traffic is winding down. Dennis, who acts as the host and the waiter and the busboy and the cashier, looks tired as always. I feel bad because I always arrive just too late to be able to help. I peek my head into the kitchen to say hi to Ana and María. María gasps, her eyes widen, and she exclaims, “Oooh, ¡ya llegaste!” (You already got back!) Then I sit down at the table, and she serves me sopa and segundo (soup + second). Sopa is quinoa, and segundo is milanesa de pollo (pounded, pan-fried chicken) with rice and a potato. Yummy. But not colorful.
I go upstairs to my room and have about an hour to relax. I listen to a short podcast (Democracy Now! en español) for news updates and Spanish practice, I work a little bit on my next blog post, and then it’s time to go to the program house.
I get to the house at 2:45 after a seven minute walk, help myself to some yogurt in the fridge, and pull out my phone to check my email and fantasy football. Rachel, Peter, and Gina are already there, and the others trickle in by 3:00. We start with our group check-in, in which we all share how much water we’ve drunk today, the consistency of our poop on a scale from 1 to 10 (not a joke), our energy levels, and highs and lows of the day.
The Spanish teachers won’t arrive until 4:30, but before that we have to do “metacognitive Monday.” That’s a misnomer for the sake of alliteration- all it means is that we go to the backyard, watch and discuss a TED talk about development, close our eyes while Gina proposes some deep reflection topics, and have some free journal time.
The three Spanish teachers arrive promptly at 4:30. They are the extreme exception when it comes to punctuality in Bolivia. Manny, Peter, and I go into the back room to work with María. For the first time in weeks we are all there at the same time; all of our jobs require occasional full days, so almost always one or more of us is missing. We start with grammar- today is involuntary actions using the impersonal “se”- and then move on to talking about the books we’re reading. I’m reading El Alquimista (The Alchemist) by Paulo Coehlo. While we are speaking, María corrects every single mistake we make and sometimes jumps in to provide better ways of expressing ideas even when we hadn’t messed up. I like that a lot, especially since no one at school or at home will do that for me. María is pretty serious but also fun, and any time a random question about Spanish or Bolivia comes up, she is willing to digress to clarify any doubts. She also speaks English pretty well, but in class we pretend she doesn’t.
Spanish ends at 6:30, we stay after a little bit to clean up and chat about upcoming events (i.e. Thanksgiving), and at 7:00 I’m on my way home. I let myself in the side door, go upstairs, and am greeted by another set of surprised eyes and a “¡ya llegaste!” from María. She’s funny; I get back at this time every day.
María offers me dinner and I say that I’d be fine with the bread and tea that the rest of the family eats, but she insists on cooking for me anyway. (Lunch is the biggest meal of the day here, especially because dinner is kind of late and close to bedtime.) A half hour later, she comes out with some sort of beef over rice with sautéed onions and tomatoes on top, and of course, the omnipresent potato is right there on the side. She also brings full plates for Ana and Dennis. Ana tells me that she’s getting fat because of me since they didn’t eat big dinners before I came.
As we eat, the old TV goes on again for our nightly viewing of “Calle 7,” a corny American Gladiators-type show with super muscular athletes sent through a gauntlet of taxing physical challenges in support of either the red team or the yellow team. My family is full of die-hard red team fans. The winners of the day celebrate jumping up and down with Coca-Cola in a hilariously contrived ad ploy; they remind me of Wii Sports characters celebrating their victory. Then everyone dances together and they’re all friends again.
After dinner I shower, read, journal, maybe work more on my blog, and go to bed around 10:00, ready to do it all again tomorrow morning.
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Intermission time! Here’s a Spanish tongue twister I learned: “tres tristes tigres tragan trigo en el trigal.” Three sad tigers swallow wheat in the field.
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Now I have several nuggets about Bolivia that I’d like to share with you. I’ll throw them at you bullet-point style.
– Stray dogs everywhere. They chase bikes and bark really loudly at night. Some people have pet dogs, but they’re just for protection and aren’t really domesticated. If a stray dog bothers or threatens you, you throw a stone at it. Faking a throw works just as well. The relationship between dogs and humans is way different here, and it’s a little shocking and unsettling to someone who comes from a culture in which the dog is “man’s best friend.”
– I already alluded to a general aversion to punctuality in Bolivia. In fact, Bolivians themselves admit to working on “la hora boliviana” (Bolivian time). You know how you have to show up “fashionably late” to parties? In Bolivia that rule extends to almost every possible meeting, maybe 15-30 minutes. Along a similar vein, if I ask for directions from a stranger in the city and am told to walk straight ahead two blocks no más, you’d better bet it’s at least four blocks away.
– In Tiquipaya and more widely in Cochabamba, you can buy a nice little bag of popcorn from street vendors for 1 B ($1 = 7 B). In Cochabamba cholita women on street corners will make you up a cup of freshly-squeezed orange juice for 3 B.
– To travel into the city, we use cheap, ubiquitous, fixed-route taxis called “trufis.” Two trufi lines that go into Cochabamba pass right by my house. It’s about a 30 minute ride with up to 9 people in a minivan that costs 2,40 B each way.
– Driving in general: trufis and individual drivers alike drive very aggressively here. Red lights often function like stop signs or even yield signs. At a minor intersection with no signage, cars won’t even stop; they’ll just slow down a bit and honk twice to warn any cars that may approaching from the other way. Luckily, speeding isn’t an issue because of frequent speed bumps on every road that drivers have learned to take seriously.
– In stark contrast to the United States, similar stores don’t separate in order to avoid competition, but congregate in order to stand out. I once asked the woman cutting my hair why she set up shop literally with six other hair cutters on the street. She said that no one would find an isolated hair cutter; everyone in Tiquipaya knows to go to the Calle (street) Loa for a haircut. Plus, when they are in a bind, the hair cutters lend each other equipment and break large bills for each other.
– Cochabamba is home to the largest open-air market in the Americas and arguably the world. It’s called the cancha. You can buy absolutely everything you’d ever need in the cancha, from clothing to ice cream to bicycles to refrigerators to live turkeys. True to Bolivian form, all of the similar vendors congregate, which makes sense because the overwhelming size of the market. In fact, the cancha is so big that it doesn’t even feel like a market, but instead a never-ending set of city blocks packed full with street vendors. The cancha is an amazing place to go shopping and also an amazing place to get robbed. I’ve only been there once.
– Cola-Cola has won the game down here. They are publicity geniuses. Many of the family-owned restaurants have Coca-Cola branded tables and chairs and refrigerators and silverware because if they buy enough Coca-Cola they receive these gifts. Works well on both ends. Not to mention that Coca-Cola is all over Calle 7, the most popular TV show in Bolivia. I wouldn’t be surprised if Coke outsells Pepsi 20 to 1 here.
– I have 5 hour staff meetings at Kusikuna every Tuesday after school. It’s about as boring as it sounds. The topics get repetitive and I often zone out. But it’s always a potluck lunch and everyone brings great dishes, so I thoroughly enjoy the vegetables each week. Plus, I’m getting to know the teachers and the inner workings of Kusikuna, so the meetings get better each time. I’m sure I’ll look back on them fondly years from now.
– The principal of Kusikuna is Rafael Puente. That’s a rather famous name around here. Rafo is a well-known historian and was briefly the mayor of Cochabamba. I’d put him in his 70’s; he’s totally bald on the top but has a short, white ponytail in the back; and he’s married to a much younger woman with whom he has a 4-year-old daughter, Rafaela. Just thought I should paint you that picture. Rafo is the heart and soul of the school and it’s philosophy; the teachers and students respect him, even if behind his back they make fun of his eccentricities and “senior moments.”
– Spanish: I’m getting better more slowly than I had hoped. My expectations seem to rise at the same rate as my level of fluency, so I’m always a left a little frustrated. However, when I take a step back and think about it, I realize that I’ve absolutely come a long way. I understand most of what I hear and am confident enough to try to express any idea that comes to my mind, albeit sometimes at what feels like a 1st-grade level. I haven’t dreamed in Spanish yet, but the words come of out my mouth much more naturally now. No longer do I think in English and translate into Spanish in real time. That’s a big step forward from August, and I can’t put my finger on when it happened.
– Quechua: I haven’t picked up much at all, but at least I can tell when people are speaking it. We may start classes in the coming months. Nuqa jumuni estadosunidosmanta. I come from the United States. Interesting that the alphabet is the same- must mean that Quechua was only an oral language before the Spanish colonists arrived.
– Politics: there are two hot issues in Bolivia right now. First, they want a strip of coastland from Chile. The case is working its way through the international court system right now, and Bolivia has had some success invoking an old treaty, but I’m not too optimistic. In the words of my instructor Pedro, “Chile would take La Paz by force before giving us coastland.” The other issue is much more heavily covered and hotly debated, and that is the question of whether to change the constitution to re-elect Evo Morales to another term. He has been in office since 2006, and his current term goes from 2015 to 2020. The current constitution would not allow him to run again. The public is basically divided into three groups: “we love Evo let’s keep him forever,” “we don’t like Evo let’s vote no,” and “we like Evo but this is a slippery slope and we should just elect someone else like him.” I suspect that the last viewpoint is the most popular, but we’ll see what happens on Election Day in February. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he pulls it out.
– What do Bolivians know of the USA? In some coca growing regions they hate us because laws that we coerced the Bolivian government into passing at the height of our War on Drugs led to bloodshed. But here in Tiquipaya, the USA is seen mostly as a reflection of its pop-culture influence. People ask me if I’ve ever been to Springfield (because of the Simpsons), some enjoy WWE, the movies have them mesmerized by Las Vegas, the most popular actors include Adam Sandler and The Rock, when I say I’m from Pennsylvania they ask me if I’m a vampire (Transylvania), then when I pronounce my name as it’s said in English they recall Jacob from Twilight. That reminds me, I have several names here. I’ll write them phonetically from most to least frequent: Hakob, Yakob, Hakobo, Jacob, Gringo, Frederick (the name of the German volunteer at Kusikuna- they confuse us), Hakobito. I respond to them all.
– I make French toast. I’ve done it at least three times for my family and twice for my group. Ana really likes it. Thanks, Dad, for granting me that invaluable skill.
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Hope you’re all enjoying Thanksgiving back home. Thinking of all of you, especially my family and my friends who are reuniting for the first time since going to college. We’re cooking up a storm down here, too, and there’s a lot to be thankful for.
Abrazos,
Jacob
Jacob in Bolivia 