Arrival

I had been warned about the altitude in La Paz, but I was completely unprepared when I stepped off the plane yesterday at 5 am. I felt dizzy and thought my head was going to explode and my heart was beating faster than ever before. It was still dark out and below freezing outside. As I exited the plane via metal stairs of questionable stability, I realized that my carry-on backpack with my visa papers had been checked when I boarded the plane. No one could help me, so followed everyone else towards the immigration line, hoping I could still get through without my papers, that my bag wasn’t gone, and that I wouldn’t pass out. Luckily I was able to fill out new forms, get through immigration, and some nice kids from a church group also going to Cochabamba offered me water and a cracker, fainting averted. I successfully found both my bags, success I had made it!

            Professor Pei in comparative politics always said, you could judge the state of a country by its airport. Bolivia, being the poorest country in South America, I expected much worse. Security was not as thorough as most western airports, but I was pleasantly surprised to find free wifi, an abundance of charging outlets,  which were not available in LAX or Miami, and I was able to sit at nice café with a view of a large snow covered mountain. My plane left on time, and I had a great view of the Andes as we departed, I was even given jugo de mango and a cookie in nice box with a picture of the Cristo, and the flight was only 30 min. On the 5 hour American Airline flight to Miami sandwiches were $10, not even free peanuts…

            On the descent to Cochabamba, I noticed the landscape was very different from La Paz, as the mountains were smaller and there was much more agriculture. I was greeted at the airport by Erin from Sustainable Bolivia, who explained the traffic was extra busy due to the Cochabmaba hosting the Organization de Los Estados Americanos (OEA) conference, which in English is the Organization of American States (OAS). It is one of the world's oldest regional bodies established to promote peace and justice, and promote solidarity and establish collaboration between the states. I also found that a new law restricted certain cars from entering the city center on certain days, determined by license plate numbers. Today, was our taxi cabs day, so we took a round about route to my new home, Casa Bolivar. I was shown my new room, which is fairly large, with a double size bed, armoire, small desk, and even a coat hanger! (Bojana you would appreciate this!) Seven other people live in the house, from France, Germany, Australia, Brazil, England, and the U.S.

The first person I met, Megan form Massachusetts, asked me if I wanted to accompany her to market, so even though I was exhausted from 24 hours of traveling I tagged along. She showed me the streets by our house which don’t have street signs you just have to know, this could get interesting…and she explained that you just cross the street whenever you can, cars will not stop, they may even try to hit you! After dodging lots of cars, and the frequent “eyy beautiful,” we made it to the market. I expected we were going to a traditional super market, similar to the one I recently went to in Panama, however this market consisted of indoor stands selling everything from fresh produce, to scoops of cat food by the kilo, to power tools. It was overwhelming, but fascinating; there were so many things to buy. I couldn’t decide what to buy, even though I will be cooking for myself for the next two months, we’ll see how that goes…On the walk home, we stopped for Choripan, which is an Argentinian Chorizo sandwhich. It was quite tasty, however only when I returned home, was I advised to avoid street food in the beginning oops…luckily so far the Choripan and my stomach got along just fine. Everyone has told me I will get sick, there is no avoiding it, yay can’t wait! I survived for 3 weeks in Ecuador without getting sick, while Tokyo last winter was a different story so we’ll see..

After taking a much-needed siesta, I went to the main house, just a block a away, for a charla (discussion) and shared dinner prepared by the Germans. In the charla we talked about Bolivian cultural differences. For example, in the Western world we run on monochromatic time, which means our daily tasks happen on a line, we finish one thing and move onto the next, and things usually occur on time. While in the Andean culture, time is cyclical or polychromatic, everything is happening at once, and certain occurrences shape and trigger others. This is why in a meeting a Bolivian will answer their phone and it is not considered rude, and nothing usually runs on time. I’ve never thought about time like this before, but I kind of like the idea of letting things run their course and accepting and adjusting to changes in one’s daily plan, and not worrying about being late for work sounds nice too. I also learned that when you enter a room you greet everyone with a kiss on the cheek,  even if they’re busy with someone else.

            At the dinner I met the rest of the people at Sustainable Bolivia, and learned a little about what they were doing here. There are about 25 other volunteers, most of them older than me from around the world. My favorite response was a guy from England who had “proper” job but was bored working in an office, so he decided to come to Bolivia, and he’s been here for almost 6 months and doesn’t know when he’s going back. It was great meet and talk with everyone, and I was even invited to travel to Machu Picchu or Salar de Uni (the salt lake) this weekend! So we’ll see what happens, I am beyond excited! Well I’m off to go explore the city,

Chau for now!