carnaval en moro moro

just got back from the market and almost got taken out by a power line. oh no it wasn't an accident, the power company was there taking lines down. only they just don't block the section of the street off or have a sign up or anything. going to buy fruit shouldn't be so exciting :P

wish this was my view everyday
what happens when you refuse a beer at 10am during carnaval

so feb. 15&16 we had off for the holiday of carnaval. things get pretty crazy in santa cruz with people throwing water balloons, paint, car grease, rocks, etc and public drunkenness everywhere, so we ( allyn, adrienne, and I) decided to head to the mountains and visit the MCC workers in Moro Moro, an 8 hour bus ride away. carnaval was still going on up there, but on a way lower level on the crazy scale.

he was so cute we refilled his water gun and let him shoot us

we had a great time and our hosts, andy and cassie. they build water systems with the people of moro moro and live the slower paced rural life. they took us on motorcycle rides on the side of the mountain (ahhh!), on hikes all over, and to a carnaval parade around the town plaza. the parade was made up of different groups who had their own live music, coordinated party shirts, and dancing. my favorite was the group for the elderly cuz man they could dance.

we also went to a morning celebration of the completion of a cow barn. people in moro moro usually just let their cows wander free, but then it can take a day or two to find the cow again and they don't really benefit from the milk. so that combined with carnaval made for quite the party. we showed up at 9:30in the AM and instantly were pressed to start drinking with them. so we just kind of held cups in our hand and poured it onto the ground for pachamama's (mother earth) blessing. and we danced to the live band of accordion and guitars. then we watched the dedicating ceremony to pachamama which entailed digging a hole with a machete and soup ladle, putting in food, drink and coca leaves and dancing over it. kind of strange to watch the combination of native andean culture and catholocism. i couldn't tell if they were hard core believers in pachamama or just perpetuated a traditional ceremony of their ancestors that's thousands of years old. but it was really interesting to watch, especially after reading and studying so much about cultural practices. we had a good time and i even ended up getting a free hat out of it!

and now wyatt comes in 5 days!!! huzzah!

wait, what´s your job?

talking with my family i realized that i don´t really write about my job. ok maybe i have once. i guess i do usually post about traveling, host fam, or random events (sidenote: last weekend we went to visit fellow salter kristen in santiago de chiquitos where she teaches music and pretty much the coolest salter there ever was. i´ll put some pics up later)

i love my job. it is both totally normal yet totally strange at the same time. Centro Menno ¨Drop-In Center¨ has a mini-bookstore, hang out area, and a library in both German and English. It´s a place for low german speaking colony mennonites to stop in while they are in town shopping or whatever. Let´s back up and i´ll explain some things. My over-arching organization I work for is Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) and Centro Menno is part of the Low German Mennonite program of MCC Bolivia. And I came as a SALT volunteer. ok awesome.
Colony Mennonites are on a wide spectrum of conservatism. The majority in Bolivia are pretty conservative because they left Canada, Mexico, and Paraguay because they wanted to hold on to their Old Colony traditions. I don´t really want to go into depth with the how and why of their beliefs because i don´t fully understand myself, but let´s just say they are kind of like the amish, but not. To really really simplify things, they chose their way of life minus modern conveniences because they believe its how God wants them to live.

Way of life and rules depend on the colony. One colony may not allow rubber tires on their tractors, so they use steel. This is to keep people from traveling too far out of the colony on their tractor. Another colony may require women to wear a head scarf and hat, others a head scarf, io others just elaborate braided hair dos. but the women wear brightly colored, big flower print dresses made out of polyester. i have no idea how they do it in hot humid santa cruz. men wear a wide range of overalls, pants and button up shirts, cowboy hats or trucker hats.

Now Low German (or Plautdietsch) is not the german spoken in Germany. oh no its not. It´s a 500 year old dialect that is not a written language, yet its the first language of over 300,000 mennonites in the world. To me it sounds like a mix of German, Dutch, Old English and a lot of random Spanish words thrown in like ¨no se¨ or ¨bien.¨ Here´s an example of the difference: english-¨this little book¨ high german-¨dieses kleine Buch¨ low german-¨dit kjleenet Buakje.¨ what the what? i´ve tried studying it, but so far all i´ve managed is how to say good morning, good day and goodbye. when i try to speak high german, spanish comes out. when i do manage high german, either they don´t understand or it turns out they speak english haha!

I manage the library, checking out books, helping people find books, repairing books, etc. Pretty interesting since the majority of the books are in German and the majority of the mennonites who check out the books are women and only speak low german. we also sell cds and tapes (gasp what would the elders say?) so i play the music and try to sell them. usually pretty interesting trying to communicate. one day a man started looking at the audio tapes and asked a question in low german. sometimes i can guess what people are saying and can point the way to the bathroom or help them find a book, but i had no idea what he said so i asked
¨ablan español?
¨nä¨
ok, english?
¨nä¨
ok now what?
then he spoke up and said ¨ekj räd Spanisch¨
um perdón?
Spanisch!
oh ok i´m sorry he doesn´t speak español, only spanish.

i also manage the subscriptions for the 3 periodicals we distribute, label and package them. so i´m really getting to remember the colony names and popular colony mennonite names, such as Peter Peters, Corny, Klassen, Thiessen, etc. and i do just random office admin stuff. one day i was sitting at my desk and i looked up at a large mennonite family (7 kids in their overalls and dresses) and thought ¨crazy awesome.¨ i love studying culture and history so man have i hit the jackpot with this job. we also break for tereré in the mornings and afternoons and drink it with whomever is hanging around. sometimes i can follow the conversation, but i usually need someone to interpret for me. so we hear old colony jokes or stories about family life. for example, one man in his 60s wanted to buy a book for each of his kids, but he has 27 so the thought it might be expensive. turns out he was a widower with 13 kids and married a widow with 14 kids. yowza. i asked him if he could remember all their names and he said it wasn´t too hard because there is a few duplicates :)

but maybe one reason i don´t really write about my job is because Centro Menno is here to help deal with the issues and struggles of colony life and i don´t want to just be writing about the negative things that do exist. the colony mennonites in bolivia became known to the world through international news last june when a group of colony men were arrested for mass drugged rapings in some colonies. i myself didn´t know about this until i was in language school and my teacher told me colony mennonites were bad people because all she knew about them were the horrible rape cases. these crimes will affect the colonies for generations and who knows how long emotional, physical, spiritual healing will take, if it happens at all. i don´t really know what to say, just that i don´t really have much to offer them. i just pray for them and treat evey woman i meet here with respect and a smile, because who knows...

if i´ve just succeeded in confusing you, write me an email and i´ll try again. also, here´s a website with a ton of pics of mennonites in bolivia. i have no idea how this photographer was able to take these pics, but it provides a glimpse into life here for them.

http://www.jordibusque.com/stories/MennoBolivia/12.html

the krols part dos

continutation of the family visit with some pics to spice things up...

at the ¨sky bar¨ in front of the catedral.
awwww, my families!

wednesday we had to say goodbye to samaipata and head back to santa cruz. this taxi driver was silent, but deadly. he manuevered those hills in a mini-van like he was james bond in some sweet sports car. but we made it back. we ate lunch at my favorite pensión ¨don freddy´s¨ (yes the sign for the restaurant is in quotations) where you get soup, bread, a massive plate of rice/veggies/meat, and gelatin all for 10bs (or $1.43) back in centro menno, my coworkers jerry and irina were having their despidida, or open house goodbye party. i introduced my fam to my coworkers, showed them around, and of course drank some tereré. and got loaded with a ton of fresh oranges and lemons to make fruit juice. huzzah! for supper we went to the wednesday night english speaking potluck. traveled in a micro like situation with stuffing 12 people into a prado and then drove around lost for 45 min. but it was like giving my fam a free tour of santa cruz!

samaipata!

thursday...

we had breakfast at lynn & laurie´s , my coordinators, house. baked oatmeal, fresh fruit, and discussion about the awesomeness of the bowl cut! a very full krol family rolled out of there and off to mariposario, a eco resort/research center. it was gorgeous! there was an enclosed butterfly house and another enclosed area for rescued birds. everything looked very natural and it was clean! that´s kind of a big deal here in santa cruz. the best part were the swimming pools. they were made out of rock and kind of waterfalled (yes my english is suffering) into each other. and there was a lake for kayaking with an island of monkeys and an island of rabbits. we had a great time. had to keep the white fam out of the sun so that they wouldn´t blind the other visitors. ordered pizza for dinner and let me just say i hate talking on the phone in spanish. i didn´t know what ¨supreme pizza¨ was in spanish, so i said ¨ supremo pizza¨ and kept getting told ¨i don´t understand you.¨ so maybe you can understand that i was mad when i looked it up and saw it was ¨pizza suprema.¨ but we did get our pizza.

played cards or fill or bust every night...

friday...

was a chill day because dad and pete were sick and the girls were also not feeling 100% so me and the sisters and mom went out for breakfast and then did some artisan shopping. found some great souvenirs at one shop. after shopping we got manicures. i´m sure you´re all thinking what? manicures? well like my host bro here says ¨manicures are for the people¨ as in they are super cheap. fun. just relaxed in the afternoon (really hot again) with a little more shopping. dana found some great shoes and jewelry for her winterfest and we took pete back to ¨our¨ touristy shop and the store owner gave me a coin purse because i had brought her so much business haha. their flight was at midnight, so one last time we squished all 6 into a taxi. i was not ready for them to go, but i also didn´t feel too sad. i´m already half way done with my time here and it flew by, so i know i´ll be home before we know it. but we had an amazing time. it was great for my fam to meet my host family, coworkers and friends and to see the everyday places of my life as well as seeming some of the beaurtiful sights bolivia has to offer. and now a new countdown for another special visitor :)

hanging out. my fingers indicate how many times i have already told my siblings something, yet they asked again because i think they listened to me about 30% of the time.