malcorancho

so i just finsihed a week in the rural pueblo of malcorancho. ill admit i was a bit worried at first, all the natives i spoke to gave wierd looks when i told them i was staying in the pueblo for a week. but it was awesome. and beautiful. every home owns their own feilds to grow their own crops and every family has their own cows or chickens and geese. huge hogs wander the fields and the dogs roam the streets in the day. the colors in the campo are beautiful. the fields and so green, and the sky so blue. and like clockwork, its sunny and hot until noon, and then huge thunder clouds come over the mountains and cover the sun for the rest of the day. giving us workers a huge relief. i prefer the cloudcover. i almost think it makes the colors of the earth look even richer. and i loved my host family. there was a 4 year old daughter, a 14 year old daughter, and a 23 year old son. the parents are so nice and welcoming. and sarah and i, my roomie, became really close to andrea the 14 year old daughter. they feed us so much lol. they just want us to be perfectly content. and our house...cant complain. we have a toilet and shower....enough said. so we got into the routine that every day we would wake up and leave to walk 3k to the school in a neighboring town called viloma. there we would slowly but surely build the classrooms untill 12. take an hour break for lunch, and then get back at it untill 3 30. its very demanding but very satisfying work. the clouds provide such a huge relief from the sun. and then we would go home, shower, eat, and sleep. the week went by so fast. i couldnt believe it. o and one night we all met up at the leaders house and ahd salsa lessons!! they were great. its actually not that hard. well for me it wasnt lol. that was a great night. and another night we all got together and just chilled and watched a movie. group activities are very fun. i got sick the last two days from dehydration, i know stupid me, but im all better now. i just have to remember to drink lots and lots of water on the work site. o and another thing. the kids at the school are teaching us a native dance. we have to perform for them on tuesday. quite nervewracking. we practice at the school during lunch with a few of them. the kids love to watch us work. its so funny. and they love to watch us eat. they wont talk to us, just stare while we talk and eat and work. there are a few who are brave enough to talk....but not many. but they love to help out. a 3 year old came with his mom and tried to shovel cement. it was the cutest thing ever. today the group is relaxing at an eco spa. and tonight we head back to malcorancho for two more days to finish the classrooms. untill la paz!!

last day of civilization

today is our last day in cochabamba, as well as our last day of civilization for about a week and a half. our next stop is the rural pueblo of malcorancho where we will begin our first volunteer project, building a school. im a little nervous only because every native weve told that were goin to malcorancho has given us wierd looks. like, why would you want to go there? ha so i guess its going to be a very different experience. it´s very hot here. despite the random rain storm we got two nights ago, the weather has been very claremontish in the summer. i wont be able to blog untill saturday. omg, i need to tell everyone who reads this blog how amazing my host mother is. she makes her own ice cream!! and its possibly the most delicious ice cream ive ever tasted. im not lying. and its so easy to make. i asked her and she showed me the ingredients to make it and its super simple. all you need is evaporated milk, the powder of the fruit or flavor you want, and a little bit of sugar. and all you have to do is mix them and let it sit for an hour. ah its so good. im going to try to make it sometime. the only bummer is that i dont know if the states sell the powder mixture they have here. ill have to see when i get home. im a little homesick lol. i think its because weve settled down here for a long enough time that i have time to think about how things would be at home. and of course the whole home setting makes me miss seeing everybody every day. but its no biggie. i can deal. spanish lessons are also coming to an end. they were good overall. i reviewed a lot and am overall better off. there isnt much other news to tell....so ill say goodbye now and catch up in a week with all my stories of malcorancho!

cochabamba

i am currently in the beautiful city of cochabamba. it truly is great here. it´s pretty small, so much cleaner than anywhere else ive been, and arguably the food capital of bolivia. the south american culture is so different in relations to food. they really only have one big meal a day, which is lunch. that can consist of a three course meal, but then breakfast and dinner is just bread and tea. i dont think ill ever get used to it. i have never had a bad meal though. the food is great. they really value good cooking. but then again, ive been careful to go to all the right places. i had a health scare a couple nights ago. we were still in the hostel, and i took a swig of my friends water to wash out my mouth after brushing my teeth. all of a sudden she shouted, robyn, thats not purified girl. i practially choked up the water. i was a little shocked at my own carelesslness, but i got over it eventually. you really just cant drink the tap water here. the natives dont even do it. its just so unclean. so i still might get sick, but for now there have been no affects and it seems that luck was on my side. i told myself i couldnt get sick anyways. i made a bet with my leader jess that i could stay healthy for two weeks. ten bolivianos is on the table. im going to win. so anyways, cochabamba. im rooming with a girl named elise, and shes super chill. our host mom is great. shes a grandma, and her niece and another girl from washington who teaches down here room with her. theyre all very nice. we live in an apartment flat overlooking a park thats also a chaoitc roundabout. and then there are the spanish lessons we have twice each for an hour and a half. my mom would be so happy if she were here lol. im getting a lot of review. unfortunately im a little more rusty than i had thought. the teacher, toni, is highly recommended by everyone i have talked to. im remembering a lot. putting it into conversation is another thing. the nightlife here is great. i think weve all gone out just about every night. the first night we all met up at globos, a burger and helado joint. its very similar to jhonny rockets. and last night some of us met up and tok taxis to the cine. we saw the ugly truth for like 1 dollar, and it was in english. apparently all the movies are in english with spanish subtitles. i never would have guessed. it was a lot of fun. and last night it rained! we would have walked to the cine, but it was raining so hard we would have been drenched. the city reminds me of claremont because of the houses that back into the hills. it looks very familiar. i walk to both of my spanish lessons. i get to explore the city that way. its unsafe to walk alone at night though so we always group up. o, interesting story about last night. four of us girls took a taxi from the cine to the first stop, sarahs and amandas house. our house is just up the street from theirs, but the driver was goin to make us pay a total of 15 bolivianos. which is totally a rip off and we knew it. we could get to the other part of they city for 5. so we argued with him and he kept making excuses so finally we all just got out and told him we would walk. we still had to pay 6 which was ridiculous for a 2 minute drive. but im glad we didnt pay the 15. my next lesson is soon, so adios!

jeep safari

we just got back from the jeep safari throughout the bolivian desert and salt plains. i actually didnt like it as much as i thought i would. the scenery never really changed and the we were offroading the entire time so it was very uncomfortable. some of the sites were cool. by far the coolest site was the lake with the thousands of flamingos. why would there be flamingos in a desert....i know not. and i dont know how to write questions marks on this computer lol. the salt plains were also pretty spectacular. theres nothing but white for miles. and if you taste the ground....pure salt. we took some crazy pics using small toys and us in the background. it looks so cool. the people who live out there are crazy. these tiny towns, one only consisted of three families, live out there and make their living from these tourist attractions. to me it didnt seem like any kind of life and they seemed pretty bored themelves. so im kind of happy its over. i felt like i was on a ski trip the whole time. it was wierd. it was so windy and cold and i was wearing so many layers that it just felt like i was on top of mammoth about to ski down daves run. the people here are so nice. everyone is polite and friendly if you talk to them. i was exchanging money at a bank in la paz and this cholita, a well respected old woman, turned around and just started a conversation with me. she wanted to know where i was from and if i liked bolivia and she talked about how much she lved bolivia. she definitely kept me on my toes with the spanish. tongiht were taking an overnight bus to cochabamba for our first host family stay. im pretty excited. o and i bought my first item for myself haha. its a really cool blue and purle hat. totally something a hippy would wear lol. but its very warm. it so hard not to buy everything i see because all the alpaka is so pretty and the jewelry and armbands....ah man. but im doin good. im holding out. the nights were the best on the jeep safari. we would all just get into the same room and talk and give each other massages....good bonding stuff lol. o ya and there was a hotel made out of salt in the salt plains!! people cant stay in it...but it was very cool. they make a big profit out there by digging out the salt and exporting it. well thats all i have for now!!

la paz

Hola! I have traveled for 24 hours straight, am exhausted, and now in a pretty nice hostel in the city of la paz in bolivia. it is 9 35 at the moment. we arrived at 5 50 after taking a red eye from miami to la paz. my first impression...it´s a city in the clouds. literally. the elevation is about 14000 feet. so in the alto region you are level if not above big puffy white clouds. other impressions...la paz is a pretty poor city. and very bare, since it´s so high. they don´t clean the streets, huge buses crawl through tiny streets, and people are going about their normal day. o and its pretty chilly. there are so many houses fitted into this bowl shaped town, and many of them are rundown buildings. the roofs are all covered in tin shingles. but the culture is great. the best thing ive seen so far are the cholitas. they are these old women who wear colorful shawls and bright full flowy skirts. but the best artical of clothing is the bowler hats they all wear. they are tall wide hats that are placed delicately on their heads. this wardrobe just speaks culture. it´s a symbol of their status here. apparently the french brought these hats over back in the day and it carried on here. they are pretty expensive, so you know if these ladies are wearing them they are pretty well off. i´m exhausted though, and i´m going to try to get some sleep before we go explore the witch markets where they sell llama fetuses and such. i just wanted to get everybody started on some reading. ill write again soon! especially because the internet here is free.