This time it worked

Me at the Christ statue looking over the northern part of Cochabamba

A view of the Southern Zone where I´ll be working. You probably can´t tell, but the country club is in the foreground and the hills in the distance are covered with homes many of which that don´t have access to basic services like electricity and potable water

My awesome host family - Susana, Katerine, Bubi, Pamela, and Firulay the dog

Por fin, algunas fotos!

So, it´s taking forever to load them and it´s not telling me whether they´re even loading successfully, but here´s hoping a couple of these get thru to you. Let me know what you think or if you don´t see anything at all. I´ll add descriptions later. I gotta head to dinner. Details about my work to come tomorrow. Be well!

It´s off to work - but where?

Today brought to a close our weeklong orientation with the Foundation for Sustainable Development. They´re the ones coordinating this experience for me and 5 others, or atleast trying to. Everyone is now with their host families and I´ve returned to mine. It´s good to be ¨home¨, although staying in a palace of a hostel and eating amazing food all week sure was a good time... Work starts with a half day tomorrow and then full-time starting next week. More on that in a minute

The other group members are cool folks. We´re all very different, but we get along well. We range in age from 18 (the only dude) to 27, so I´m well within the range, which feels good, and we´re from all over the US and one woman is from Japan. I think they will be good companions for this journey. We´ll meet weekly to learn about different topics concerning Bolivia and development, so I look forward to learning with and from each of them.

So, about work... I´m still struggling to finalize things on the job front. The only certainty is that I´m going to one of my two options tomorrow morning to check it out and will decide for sure tomorrow afternoon. The thing is that I was assigned one project in July, which changed a few days before I left, and I´m still in love with the first project. They are both distinctly different and each have their pros and cons and it ends up that both are still options. The first one I was assigned would involve living in a rural area two hours outside of the city Monday thru Friday, learning some Quechua, and working in a very well known malnutrition reduction project. This would put me in a beautiful place with unique challenges. The second project here in the city is still quite unclear what my roll would be. Chances are, the job would involve working with residents of the Southern Zone on food security issues. This would present plenty of chances to develop my Spanish fully and be in contact with all that the city, my host family, and FSD workshops have to offer. The problem is that the community food security project is dependent on me as the volunteer and is not led by an organization staff member. So, tomorrow morning will bring some difficult conversations with the staff of ProHabitat all in Spanish about some complicated concerns that I have with the current project I´m assigned here in the city. If they are will to be flexible with me and allow me to participate in other projects that the agency specializes in, then I think I will stay with them... I´m certainly anxious to have it settled and to know with whom and what I ´ll be doing over the coming months. I feel lucky, though, to have two strong options at my finger tips and to have the decision entirely in my court. If I decide to head to the campo, the FSD director said he could work it out to have me there by Monday. In short, I´ll be sure to let y´all know what comes of this over the weekend.

I do realize that this blog is getting pretty boring without a chance to see anything that I´m talking about, but I plan to change that tomorrow when Internet access and my photos on the FSD laptop meet up... Until tomorrow!

Parrots and cows

It took me just about 3 weeks to bust out of this wild city to the nearest national park and was it ever a glorious few hours. For our orientation, we spent one night outside the city at this awesome house on the side of a mountain. The fresh air on open space was very welcome. Becky and I hiked in with an enormous dog named Apollo and headed straight for Mt. Tunari, the highest mountain in the Cochabamba area. No, we didn´t climb it, just touching the base was enough of a hike. The late afternoon sun on the peak was breathtaking. It was especially neat to see some awesome green parrots at such an elevation flitting around. The only other wildlife to look out for were some cows that were grazing with some very large horns. It was everything I could do to keep Apollo and his drool from getting into it with the cows. He didn´t get charged, but he certainly did playfully charge two young girls who were hiking up later in the afternoon to retrieve their herd. No one was hurt thankfully as this horse of a dog is just a puppy and doesn´t quite understand how big and scary he is. The peace and quiet of the park was rejuvenating for me as was the great conversation that Becky and I had, even though it was in English...

On the up and up

I feel like I´m about a three year old in Spanish atleast that´s what I thought until I tried talking with a three year old yesterday in my kitchen. Let´s just say that she didn´t make any sense and I´m gonna go ahead and put the blame for that on her. Yeah. That atleast makes me feel better. Considering I finished classes today. Here´s to three months of absorbing everything I´ve been presented with over the last two weeks!

In other news, I´ve stopped consuming overwhelming amounts of meat since my intestines mounted a revolt against me earlier this week. We´ve made our peace with one another with a veggie diet and I´m gonna slowly start fazing chicken back in and hope the stomach doesn´t notice. That way my host mom will have something to feed me.

Alright, I´m gonna go memorize some verbs... Happy Bolivian Day of Love, Day of Doctors, and Day of the Student! I haven´t decided whether I´ll check out a party at the school, restaurant, or hospital yet. Yes, there are parties at the hospital tonight. But that´ll have to wait until after the verb fun... ;)

A Complicated Place

I´ve been talking a lot with my host mother lately. She is a wonderful, strong, gentle woman who works her butt off day in and day out to do what´s best for her family. She rises before the rest of us have even thought about opening our eyes to go buy bread for the day and prepare the tea. She spends her mornings cooking for neighbors that buy lunch from our house and she taught me to wash my clothes by hand yesterday. She also sells beauty products and knits tablecloths for sale in order to bring in a little extra to send her daughters to college. My host family´s not poor by Bolivian standards, far from it in fact, but that doesn´t mean that they aren´t trying to achieve the same comfort and things that they see are possible through the media. For them, atleast, access to such knowledge and achievement is possible.

It´s hard to see her so tired so many days especially when a lot of her fatigue comes not just from the work, but out of worry. For, she and her husband are trying to raise three young responsible, professional, and independant women in a society with countless pressures and mixed messages. To find the balance between allowing freedom and protecting their daughters from harm is excruciatingly hard. I see it in her eyes and I´ve come to understand this strain through our conversations. I realize that Susana´s story is one of millions of women in the world, one that mirrors in many ways what my mom did and does for my family. I don´t mean to discredit men, I´ve just done a lot of thinking and reflecting lately about the role of women because of what I´ve seen, because of what I´ve heard. I respect and want to recognize the load women are carrying without a great deal of power granted to them in response. I´m certain this reflection will continue as my experience hear in Bolivia takes shape.

These are just some initial responses after a long day of studying. I have four more days of studying, then FSD orientation, before my official work here begins. More soon... Thanks for listening and I look forward to remaining in touch and hearing your response.

Make it a great day.

Address - I love exchanging letters!

If you´re inclined to send letters, I would love to communicate with you that way! All mail can be directed to:

Molly Robertshaw
c/o FSD
Torres Sofer Fase IV
La Casilla 6293
Cochabamba
BOLIVIA

I look forward to snail mailing with those of you who are up to the challenge!

Lots of meat and cable tv

In short, I´m enjoying time with my host family, trying to learn as much as possible with 5 hours of Spanish classes per day, and spending quite a bit of time getting lost in this city with very few street signs...

It´s funny, too, you know, because I´m pretty much catching up on a lot that I´ve missed out on over the past couple of years. Some pretty ´cool´ 9 and 19 year old host sisters, cable tv in my bedroom, a huge statue of Jesus on the mountain outside my window, plenty of time to sleep and read, and plates of mystery meat will do that, I guess... It´s good I decided to forgo the vegetarian thing before heading south cause I sure don´t see many veggies or fruit in my house. It´s kind of like living in the Midwest, but not really. Meat, potatoes, bread, and tea, you know, all the basic food groups. I love the food so far, really. I have to tell you, though, there´s something to the idea here of eating a little bit in the morning, a lot in the middle of the day, and a little bit at night. It just makes sense. And whereas I´m always starving and ready for a meal in the States, I´ve hardly felt hungry here. Anyway, enough about my eating habits...

The family´s been fun so far and quite hospitable. We live in a fourth floor apartment which is lovely and their dog, Firu, doesn´t bark at me nearly as much as he did when I first arrived. So far, I´ve avoided getting bitten by the pet parrot. It´s interesting because the family spends quite a bit of time watching TV and by quite a bit, I mean the TVs (yes, plural) are on all the time. Everyone has their own in their room, so that they don´t have to fight over what channel to watch, so I´m following suit cause that seems to be what we do. Right now, I´m justifying all the time laying on my bed watching Discovery and Nat Geo channels, as study time. We´ll have to see how helpful it really is. I´m bound to get sick of laying around watching TV quite soon... There are dance classes and running with my host sister on the horizon as soon as we think I´ve adjusted ok to life at 9,000 ft.

In other news, I think I´ve tried most of the typical foods so far from cinnamon juice to pork rinds (mmm...) and my Spanish is getting better slowly but surely. I´m finding my voice, which means I´m not listening all the time, so I´m happy that my courage is building in that way. I´m travelling thirty minutes each way each day to the west side of the city where there is an awesome little language school called Escuela Runawasi. It´s in a great little neighborhood of former mining families and I´m enjoying meeting the other students and profs at the school.

After an outing to an ´Ecological Park´last weeked to watch my host dad do a parasailing demonstration, I get to go to the farm where their oldest daughter works this weekend in the tropical (coca growing) region with my host mom. I couldn´t be more excited. Although Cochabamba is a nice city, I can´t wait to see the more tropical, quieter areas to the east.

I hope to be able to post atleast a couple of photos next time as well as my mailing address. I´m in the process of figuring both out. I hope you are well. Hasta más tarde and please keep in touch!

Safe and Sound

I was hoping to post a fun overview picture of La Paz, but flying in in the pitch dark with a seat smack dab over the wing, didn´t allow for such things, so that´ll have to wait. But nonetheless, I´m here safely at 14,000ft and feeling great. The safe part was a big worry for me these past few weeks, but I´ve met some wonderful people like a guy that reminded me a lot of my dad that I was able to share a taxi into the city with and a lovely old man who greeted me at the door of my hostel calling me by my first name. Things are just working out and the people are beautiful. Traffic´s crazy here and the pollution is reminiscent of Nepal, so I like it, of course! Tomorrow brings 7 hours by bus to what´ll be my home city of Cochabamba and my first night with the KolbeArces, myhost family, so I´m really looking forward to that! I´ll be sure to post some photos this weekend. Thanks so much for all your kind words, thoughts, and prayers, and please do stay in touch! Have a great night!

Almost on my way

After a wonderful party in French Park with family and friends yesterday, I feel so supported and grateful for the amazing people in my life. Feeling such support makes it both easier and harder to go. Nonetheless, I'm starting to load the pack and will make my last trip to the store tomorrow - this time the mission will be gifts for the host family whom I'm sure I'll be writing about lots in the coming months. I hope you enjoy my first effort at blogging. The next installment will surely be my first impressions of high altitude living:)