Final Reflections

Hi for the last time! This is going to be my last post; it's going to be a sort of reflection on the trip. Obviously, I've been posting a lot of details about everything and every day in specific, so today I'm just going to give you a general overview of my final impressions. Sorry, this post is going to have no pictures - but it's going to be fun to read I promise (I mean, at least if you like learning about other cultures and stuff)!

Before I left, I made a list of goals that I had for the trip:

1. Embrace the culture! I know that there are different customs in Bolivia, so I want to do my best to really appreciate and understand them while I can.

 

I definitely feel like this was accomplished. I learned so so so much about Cochabamba and the people who live there. Some things I discovered:

 

• People (especially women) dress very conservatively. I didn't see anyone wearing shorts or anything revealing, except for when they were walking in the parades! The only day-to-day exception I saw to this was that women were just breastfeeding all over the place! It took some serious adjustment; no matter where we were, there would be at least one woman openly feeding her baby.
• In fact, the entire family dynamic is pretty different in Bolivia. Children live with their parents until they get married - you could be 40 and still living in your parents' house! And there doesn't seem to be any sort of general daycare system, so there are little kids running around with their parents at all times of the day. Family is hugely important in Bolivia, which was really nice to see. Even just small interactions, like an adult son hugging his mom for no reason, or seeing three generations of a family walking around a plaza, demonstrated the emphasis that people place on their families.
• Every single day, there is some sort of celebration or parade or preparation for one of those. At 6:00 or 7:00 am, there was literally ALWAYS a band practicing. This is great and makes the entire city feel very festive and patriotic, but can be a little irritating when you want to sleep in.
• There are really not many tourists in Cochabamba. I mentioned this before, but it sometimes felt like I was actually the only blonde person in the entire city. However, there didn't seem to be any anti-foreigner sentiment; people seemed quite curious about life in other places. When I visited the girls' home on my last day, I got questions about everything from Justin Bieber to what work is like to my family.
• Bolivia is just the coolest country - one of the many reasons for this is the diversity in landscapes. There are extremely dry places with cacti, green mountainsides, rainforests, the salt flats, and the Amazon River! Driving even one hour out of the city brings you to extremely rural farming communities, while inside the city are restaurants, bars, hotels, and beautiful plazas. It was a great place to be, to say the least.
• Children and dogs are adorable in Bolivia. Duh.
• Traveling in Bolivia is super cheap - I had at least three meals that cost me less than $1.00, and all of my meals cost less than $15. Nice hotels cost maybe $20 per night. The one problem with this, though, is that you usually end up with really big bills every time you change money, and it can be hard to have enough change to buy things like water bottles or a cup of coffee.
• PDA is really really common - it's impossible to walk down a street without seeing a couple embracing or cuddling on a bench. We talked a couple times about how this is really different from the US - people just don't seem to be as affectionate here, which is pretty sad.
• If you can figure it out, public transportation is actually really great! They have a pretty extensive bus system that goes all over the country, and TRUFIs, which is an abbreviation for Taxi con Ruta Fijada (fixed-rout taxi). Basically, these are taxis that serve as buses; they go on the same route every day. The one thing is that I had no idea how to figure out how to use the transportation system, but there's always someone to ask!

2. Accept the challenges. I want to avoid getting too frustrated or upset when I'm uncomfortable because I'll be in a new setting - I know it will happen, so I'm going to try my best to be open-minded about everything and not worry about being perfect all the time.

 

This was tough at first. I dealt with a lot of ants all over my bathroom for the first few days, I got really overwhelmed by having to speak Spanish after using only English for a long time, I got sunburned pretty badly the first week, and Toro Toro was terrifying. But now, I can't think of one experience I had that I wish I hadn't. I'm never going to love insects, but I have finally accepted that they really aren't going to form a swarm and attack me every time I go outside; I started putting on a lot more sunscreen by the end of the trip and now a nice, if uneven, tan (yay!); I got a lot of practice speaking and understanding Spanish; and I survived the Toro Toro trip with a lot of cool pictures and experiences as a result!

 

3. Try new food. I love food, so I want to take the chance to try things that I can't eat in Minnesota or Baltimore!

 

Yep - this was accomplished! Saltenas, pique macho, and llama meat were all part of the experience.

4. Make a friend. I would love to come back to the States and keep in regular touch with at least one person from the trip for a while after!

In case it isn't really obvious from all my posts, I just loved everyone I met on this trip. Joyce and Alexa were such great people to travel with for the first week, the Oxford group was amazing and I wish I lived closer to them (but I've already found them all on Facebook, don't even worry), and literally everyone from Mano a Mano is just an amazing, selfless, dedicated, hard-working, passionate person. I can't wait to keep in touch with them all!
 

5. Be more confident in my Spanish-speaking. I'm always really nervous about my American accent when I speak to native speakers, but I definitely feel like I have a good grasp on the language and know that it will only improve while I'm there! 

So, this trip taught me that learning Spanish in a classroom is nowhere near enough to be fluent. I can read, write, and understand Spanish pretty well, but speaking is REALLY HARD. I did feel a lot more confident in my speaking by the end of the trip, though, so that's really good. I guess I'll just have to go back to South America at some point to practice more!

 

6. Get a tan. I've been inside all summer, so I want to come back at least a little browner! This also involves applying sunscreen every day, because I absolutely do not want to come back peeling and red.

See #2.
 

7. Adjust to the altitude. I want to be able to embrace the entire experience without feeling sick the whole first week, so hopefully this just works out.

The altitude actually didn't present much of a problem for me at all. After the initial tingliness in the La Paz airport, I didn't feel lightheaded or anything for the whole trip. The one thing we all noticed was that we got winded a lot more quickly - three flights of stairs often required me to take a break before climbing anymore. Even this got better by the end, though!

 

8. Get souvenirs. I want to come back with at least a new sweater for myself and some presents for other people!

Yeah, this didn't really happen. Sorry everyone. I was busy doing other stuff!

 

9. Blog at least six times. This is dependent on the Internet/computer situation there, but I do want to keep my friends and family updated on the trip, as well as keep an in-the-moment record for myself in the future! If I can't do the blog thing, then this will turn into journaling at least six times.

 

Mission accomplished! I hope the posts were entertaining and at least a little educational.

10. Make someone smile every day. As cheesy at it is, I really want to make a positive impact while I'm in Bolivia. I know it's a bit of a hassle planning for people who visit, so I hope to be helpful and friendly enough that it's worth it for everyone involved. 

 

I think this was achieved. Whether it was from playing with the girls at the Salvation Army Home, talking to patients at the hospital, or just helping the Oxford group with their project for a couple days, I think I managed to brighten at least one person's day every day I was there.

 

 

Being on this trip, I learned a lot about myself, too. Even though I wasn't really alone for much of it, this was my first time traveling without my family/friends for the whole time. A list of some things I didn't know:

• I hate eating out alone. Having a book helps, but I feel like everyone is watching me.
• I get really attached to people within minutes of meeting them. Leaving Bolivia was the hardest thing I've done all summer, because I didn't want all my relationships to just be over!
• Harry Potter will never cease to be a source of comfort whenever I need it.
• I don't really like llama meat.

There were many other lessons learned, but here's the most important one: I am extremely blessed to be where I am. I live in a country where skill and hard work generally results in reward. The smartest people can find ways to thrive and succeed wherever they are. This isn't the case in Bolivia. No matter how smart or dedicated or talented you are, if you don't have resources or opportunities or even clean drinking water, you simply can't move past a certain level of income/well-being. Even in the biggest hospital in the city, people were begging for help and resources. The people in Bolivia are wonderful - they are passionate, they are kind, they are accepting, and they are happy. But, they need help. When people don't have water, when they have to walk three hours on a winding mountain road to and from school every day, when they simply don't have access to medical care, something needs to be done. That's why I'm so happy to have been able to connect with Mano a Mano, because they really understand Bolivia. They work with these amazing people to solve the problems that need to be addressed, and they are making a huge impact.

 

By no means is traveling kind of on my own for two weeks enough to have had a transformative experience. I'm still the same person who will spend too much time on Facebook and too much money on clothes I don't really need. I'm not going to start thanking my professors for the opportunity to do 800 hours of homework every night or calling my parents every day to tell them how grateful I am for the opportunities they have given me. But two weeks has been enough for me to get to know Bolivia and its people. It's impossible to convey the need there is for money, teachers, medical equipment, roads, and every other sort of help imaginable. But, I can now be an ambassador for this place that I have come to love. I'm going to tell people everywhere about what I've seen and what I think can be done. I'm going to keep doing whatever I can for Mano a Mano. And I'm definitely, definitely going to go back to Bolivia.

Bye Bye Bolivia

Hi again! Sorry for the long wait between this and the last post - I haven't had very reliable wifi and I also haven't been taking pictures much. However, I do have some updates to share!

Monday

I spent Monday recovering from the weekend, so I spent a lot of time walking to various plazas with my book. Eventually, I ended up at my favorite cafe to grab lunch. I ended up running into a group of guys we had met in Toro Toro (two from England, one from Canada, and one from Colorado), which was a crazy coincidence! I guess that's what happens when you travel, though! I hung out with them while they planned the rest of their trip in the cafe (we definitely overstayed our welcome there, but the wifi is hard to resist). Then, we all went to the Italian place I had been before. I got gnocchi this time and it was DELICIOUS!

Tuesday

I spent Tuesday morning doing pretty much the same thing, walking around Cochabamba and drinking coffee in various locations. I went back to the office once I thought everyone would be there to ask some questions for the Minnesota office about what we ship. I spent the rest of the day translating some kids' books that were sent from Minnesota. They have beautiful pictures and the stories are really cute, but they're all in English! Here's a pile of the books I translated Tuesday:

Tuesday night, I went with Blanca to buy seats for the festival we (myself and the Oxford group) attended yesterday. The festival is called an entrada, and basically consists of folk dancers putting on a parade from 11 am to 2 am. There were basically 43 billion people watching, and people were actually camped out so they could get the best seats in the morning. 

Wednesday

I spent Wednesday morning translating some more books, after I went to get a very American breakfast. Here's a picture:

The Oxford group showed up around 3, and we headed off to the parades. It was a really cool experience, and it didn't seem like there were many tourists at all. We drew a lot of attention, but had no problems. 

There were quite a few terrifying masks, like this one:

One thing we found amusing was that the boys all seemed to be having a blast, like this guy below, but that all the girls looked miserable and exhausted. 

He has a llama on his hat:

Mickey Mouse was there (dressed in his finest American flag apparel for some reason):

Barney made an appearance as well (I tried to talk to him but was ignored):

We also saw Sid the Sloth from Ice Age:

We were all just confused by the end, but had a lot of fun anyway! We decided to go back to Cochabamba to eat dinner (at the Italian place again - and there's only one waiter so I tried to hide my face as much as possible). We couldn't get in touch with the taxi company for which we had a phone number, so we spent about an hour trying to figure out how to get back and ended up going on a bus. It wasn't scary at all and was really cheap, so nobody had any complaints. 

Everyone got pizza at the Italian place, and one of the boys actually got a family sized pie (he was, unfortunately, unable to finish it). Here's my pizza: 

It was so so so good. We went back to the Mano a Mano building to check in with Blanca (who tends to worry about visitors) and to get the group a taxi back to the CEA. One of Blanca's sons was there, and he drove them back, which was super nice! I actually drove with them, because I was having severe anxiety about never seeing them again. The group from Oxford is seriously awesome - I wish I could have stayed with them for the rest of their trip! 

Thursday

This morning, I went to hang out with some kids at a girls' home. I thought that I was leaving tomorrow night, so I had planned on spending the whole day there, but it ended up only being half they day. Anyway, the girls were adorable, and they taught me how to jump rope (which I have always been incapable of doing - embarrassing, I know. Gym class in elementary school was always a nightmare)! I hung out with them while they washed their clothes, watched a movie, ate lunch, and got ready for school. 

During lunch time, the high schoolers came back - the older girls go to school in the morning, and the younger girls go in the afternoon. All of them were so so so nice and curious about everything to do with life in the US. I was asked by pretty much all the high schoolers if I had a boyfriend (I felt like I was letting them all down when I said no), and everyone kept asking me to sing to them! I also got to play some clapping games with the younger girls, which was really fun and obviously adorable. 

Mid-morning, Zulema from the office called to tell me that we had been wrong about when my flight was: it was actually today. I was pretty upset - I had prepared myself to say goodbye to everyone tomorrow, and wasn't really able to. Plus,  I was planning on eating dinner with the Oxford group at the CEA tonight and going dancing with one of Blanca's sons after! I had thought I was really ready to go home, but discovered that I definitely wasn't. 

Anyway, now I'm in my hotel in La Paz (I had to fly here tonight because I fly out early tomorrow morning) watching a One Direction concert on TV. 

Tomorrow, I'll probably publish my final update. Thanks for staying with me throughout the trip!

Toro Toro

Hello hello! We have officially survived our Toro Toro expedition. The word "survived" should not be read as a joke; we actually did a lot of dangerous - but really fun - stuff this weekend!

The Way There

In order to get to the park in time to have a full day on Saturday, the plan was to be on the road by 5 am. (It takes about three hours, and then about an hour walk/drive to all of the sites. I'll explain the layout of the park in a bit.) Well, we definitely did not get on the road by 5. Ben (Blanca's son, who came with us on the trip) and I left the Mano a Mano building around 4:40 to pick up the Oxford group at the CEA. On the way, Ben realized that he didn't have his long-distance cell phone, so we would have to stop back after we picked up the others. Well, we got to the CEA and realized that nobody had a key to open the door so that they could actually get into the car. A lot of people tried various things to figure it out, but nothing seemed to be working. Anyway, after about 15 minutes, Ben ended up  crawling under the fence to wake the staff person up, because nobody else could find him. So we eventually piled into the car and headed back to Mano a Mano to get Ben's phone, but it wasn't there. Later, it actually turned out to have been in his camera bag the whole time! 

We got on the road (all a bit squished) and everyone just tried to sleep the whole way. I can't really sleep in cars, so I took some pictures out the window! 

In what has to have been one of the cutest moments I've seen in a while, this dog was running around a community and went up to the door of this house. The little boy opened the door, looked at the dog for a few minutes, and then just went back inside. It was adorable, to say the least. 

This is a picture of one of the mountains - it's a little less green than the ones closer to Cochabamba:

Toro Toro - The Beginning

We arrived in Toro Toro and were welcomed by a big sign saying "Welcome to Toro Toro National Park," along with some rules and information. To be honest, I don't really think it's a park. It's more like a town that happens to be surrounded by a lot of cool historical things to do, and the municipality has just deemed it a park to make sure that stuff stays as preserved as possible.  You drive into the town and have to pay a small fee just for being there (they charge foreigners about $4.50), and then obtain a guide. You aren't allowed to - and shouldn't - visit anything without one! 

This is a picture of the dinosaur statue  in the town's main plaza (which is actually under construction at the moment):

And this is what we had for breakfast! Api, which is a warm drink made of corn, cinnamon, water, and lemon - it's delicious! - and these pastry things which are filled with cheese:

After eating, we met our guide Gabriel to go to our first site! We had walked about 20 minutes when he told us that we would be gone for 8 hours and would have no place to get food or water until we got back. Everyone had a few minutes of panic, which included discussions of whom we would eat first (whoever keeled over first was the general consensus), but we carried on. 

Just outside the town, we saw dinosaur footprints! The big ones are from Sauropods, and the small ones are from some sort of carnivore:

We also saw some cool views of mountains that had been formed in landslides:

And some donkeys:

The Canyon

Yesterday's trip was, for the most part, a hike down about 300 meters into a canyon, a swim in the lake/waterfall at the bottom, and a hike back up. It was quite exhausting and also scary, because we had no harnesses or anything and had to scale quite a bit of it - Toro Toro is pretty much untouched by people, so there weren't stairs or any easy ways to walk. 

On the way to the canyon, we saw this natural amphitheater, where a lot of singers apparently film music videos:

Here's a picture of the canyon from above:

The lake/waterfall:

That picture doesn't really do it justice, though. It was like a little paradise! We swam around and took pictures under the falls for a long time. 

And we saw some ancient paintings, which our guide couldn't really tell us much about because they haven't ever been studied properly:

Going up the canyon was one of the most exhausting things I've ever done. We were basically rock-climbing without any sort of protection from falls for three hours, and this was after we had already gone down and gone swimming! I think the worst part was that nobody had expected that to be the case - we had been thinking we would walk around at a leisurely pace, see some fossils, and swim in a river, all without risking our lives. It was definitely worth the trek though!

Dinner & Sleep!

Obviously, we were starving when we got back to the town. We went to the town cafeteria (it's kind of like a dining hall, with a bunch of long tables and different stations of food - all made by locals) for dinner and got something which is apparently called piquemachu, but which just looked like a mountain of food to us. That was exactly what we wanted!

Here's my plate: rice, fries, hot dog slices, ground beef, egg, tomato, onion, ketchup, and mayo. Definitely not anything I would usually eat, but it was the most well-deserved plate of food any of us had ever eaten. 

I made a dog friend:

And then we went to our hostel for the night! It was beautiful and clean and comfortable, and even though we had to pay for toilet paper and the showers were cold, it was like heaven. We all hung out for a while, but everyone was asleep by 10. 

La Ciudad de Itas

Today's first stop was La Ciudad de Itas, which is basically a bunch of really cool rock formations from millions of years ago. They were actually carved by water because they were in the ocean, and then got pushed into their current location somehow. 

We had to hike/climb/scale a small mountain to get to the "city," but it was easy compared to yesterday!

We saw caves:

Pretty views and such:

And a rock shaped like a turtle! A few of us actually climbed this, but I don't have the pictures. (Once the Oxford group gets home and uploads all of theirs, I'll have more to share! That won't be for about a month, though.)

The Cave

So today I did something I never thought I would: I went spelunking. I didn't bring my phone into the cave, so I don't have pictures of my own, but here are a few I found on the Internet:

Here is a brief description of the cave journey: we had to do the same rock-climbing that we did yesterday and this morning, but in complete darkness with only (really poor) headlamps to see: we had to basically slither through a few narrow passages; we had to use ropes to get up and down steep slopes inside the cave; and we had to slide down slippery rocks on our feet. It was TERRIFYING. On the other hand, we got to see stalactites and stalagmites actually growing, different formations that looked like shapes (a Christmas tree, a sombrero, a champagne glass), we saw a subterranean lake/river where blind fish live, and we got to go spelunking!!!! Definitely worth the anxiety it caused because it was so cool.

(Note: I'm not sure I'm actually using the word "spelunking" correctly here, but I've always wanted to check it off my bucket list, so just go with it.)

Dinner!

We drove back to town to eat before setting out to go back to Cochabamba. Tonight's dinner was similar: chicken, rice, a boiled potato, dehydrated potatoes (which I really liked - no surprise), onions, and tomatoes. 

Here's my plate:

And some cute kids we saw outside:

We're in the car now, and I cannot wait to have a hot shower and go to sleep! Sorry this post was so incredibly long, and thanks for reading it!

To conclude, here is another cute Bolivian dog:

I Moved!

Hello readers! I hope you're all having a great end of summer - it seems like it just started and it's already almost over!

El Altillo

First, big news: I'm living in a new room now! The guy who was living upstairs in what's called the altillo has returned to the US (he goes to school in Illinois), so I'm living there now. It's beautiful and has a lot more space than I did before!

I have two beds to choose from:

An office/living room:

A kitchen:

And a great view of the city:

So, here's a huge thanks to Blanca and Zulema for setting it up for me!

Wandering 

Yesterday, after being at the hospital all morning, Joyce, Alexa, and I wandered around Cochabamba all day. We went to a museum which gave a history of the tribes that used to (and still do!) live in the area. One cool, but also gross, thing I learned was that the Incas used to make drums out of the skin of their defeated enemies!

I took some pictures even though it wasn't technically allowed. 

This guy is hanging out in a funerary urn - he's from before the Incas were even around!

This guy looks really scared, but apparently your jaw just drops after being dead for a while because your muscles relax or something. You learn these things when traveling with a doctor!

Here's some cool pottery so you don't all think I'm obsessed with the remains of pre-Columbus people or anything:

After being at the museum, we found an art gallery and walked right in! I didn't take pictures there, but trust me when I say it was really cool stuff! Needless to say, we felt very cultural after this outing. 

Pizza!

We all needed an energy boost after the morning at the hospital and the afternoon of walking, so we went to Cafe Goss (the sushi/breakfast place I mentioned before) for drinks and to take advantage of their wifi. I got carbonated water (which I haven't ever really liked in the US, but have come to love here) and a tiny espresso, and we all relaxed for a bit. Joyce was working on her presentation for this morning, Alexa was looking for pizza restaurants in Cochabamba (yes, that was my idea), and my phone was dead so I was just people watching. 

Here's a picture of the smallest coffee ever:

We found out that the best pizza place in the city was within walking distance, so we started on our way! It was SO GOOD, and we had the sweetest waiter ever. 

I got a Neapolitan pizza:

We also shared some amazing thin-crust garlic bread. It was a great excursion. 

The Presentation

After dinner, I went back to the office and worked on some rough translations of the slides Joyce had sent me from her PowerPoint so that I would be a little prepared for this morning. It was like doing homework! 

This is an example of one of the slides I had to translate:

I definitely feel like a bad Johns Hopkins student, because I don't know what any of the medical words mean! To all my premed friends - what you're studying is HARD!

The presentation went really well, and when I stumbled over the complicated stuff, there were enough people who spoke some English to fill in the gaps. 

Here's a picture of Joyce presenting and me standing there trying to figure out how to translate what she's saying:

After the presentation, we went to get salteñas at Sol y Sombra (the place Nate recommended on our first day). I think I have, unfortunately, developed a taste aversion to salteñas and empanadas after the charque meat, because I can't even think about eating them anymore. It was fine, though, and I'm glad we made it there before Joyce and Alexa left.

Church

We wandered around again and ended up at a beautiful church; there was even a man singing and playing the guitar when we were there!

The outside:

And the inside:

CEA Again

Later, Blanca drove the three of us to the CEA so we could help out, since we didn't have anything else scheduled today. The Oxford group was working on preparing the water cisterns they're going to install in a few weeks; the first step was to create a sort of lip on all these sheets of metal so that they can be welded together. 

Here's Johnny (from Oxford) and Alexa working on one:

Despedidos

We came back to the city so that Joyce and Alexa could catch their flight to La Paz. It was so sad saying goodbye to my blonde travel buddies! They have a long day of travel tomorrow: La Paz to Lima to Miami to Minnesota. I hope it goes well! And now I'm the only gringa in the entire city - at least that's how it feels. 

On the bright side, the Oxford group and I are going to Toro Toro National Park for the weekend! There are dinosaur footprints, swimming holes, hiking trails, and a rare species of macaw! We're leaving at 4:30 in the morning, and there are 8 people going in a 7-seat car, so that should be a fun 3+ hour drive. 

Here's today's cute street dog:

Ciao! (It's kind of a pun because this dog looks like it's part chow. Can't help myself.)