20-10 or 2000 and 10?

happy new year! already am finishing up a week of work after the whirlwind vacation. i think i´ll write about it over a few short posts cuz one long post seems a litte daunting right now.

on wednesday morning (dec 30) had slight bank fiasco because i wasn´t sure of my pin number and didn´t want the atm to eat my card, but it all straightened out. we didn´t go to tiwinaku because no buses were running, so we explored the city some more. we went to a park that over looked the city and took some great pics and relaxed. then we found the ¨witches market¨ where everything from herbal remedies to llama fetuses are sold. didn´t buy any souvenirs there. we also toured the coca museum. it was just this little cramped room but full of info about the coca leaf´s history and culture. in north america we may hear coca and instantly think ¨cocaine! crime! rick james!¨ but that´s really the westernized use of coca. in western bolivia the leaves are dried and people chew and leave a wad of leaves in their cheek, usually when their working. it kind of helps increase stamina and staves off hunger. when the spaniards first came they forced the andean people to work in the mines at shifts over 20hours long. at first the spaniards outlawed coca, but when they realized that chewing it helped keep the workers in the mines alive and more productive, the king of spain encouraged its use. and now coca-cola still uses it for flavoring! gotta love museums.

seeing the cultural difference between la paz and santa cruz was huge. people from santa cruz are extremely proud and brag about it all the time, but honestly i don´t really know what they are bragging about. i don´t really see a unifying culture or theme to connect people besides their pride in their city, where as in la paz the amayra people and culture came before the incans and is still around today. i do like living in santa cruz, but la paz has a lot more character. more later.

krol fam countdown: 7 days

hola from la paz

hope everyone is having a wonderful break for christmas and new years. i traveled up to la paz, seriously up 3500 meters, with some friends. there are mountains everywhere, its cold, and its rainy! so like michigan but with mountains! tomorrow we plan on visiting tiwakanu, incan ruins, and will great the new year in copacabana and by lake titicaca!

last week didn´t start out so great. i got robbed yet again, losing my purse, rainjacket, flashdrive, and my cell phone. yup cell phone numero dos. but vacation started on wednesday by going to my host bro´s wedding in the morning and then the pool with my host mom and sister in the afternoon. christmas eve is the big celebration here, so we had a huge party at my host sister´s house - complete with plenty of food and papa noel! and my host mom and sister surprised me by getting me yet another cell phone! so let´s hope 3rd time is the charm. on christmas day we hit the pool again, then afterward i was able to skype with my family and with wyatt. not the same as being there, but at least technology let me see my cousin gerrit´s magic trick! on christmas night we went out and wandered the main plaza that was all decked out for christmas.

i am so incredibly blessed with my family and friends in north and south america! and am so glad i am here in bolivia!

krol fam countdown: 17 days

although its been said many times many ways...

its been pretty busy the last couple of weeks. had a christmas cookie exchange with fellow mccers. us SALT girls made over 350. a little overboard? i think not! definitely necessary because right now it does not feel like December, let alone 4 days til Christmas.to help get in the christmas mood i decorated centro menno and play christmas music i find on youtube. and i sing out loud - gives the colony mennonites a little show. we also had a christmas party with all the MCC bolivia staff. somehow i was on the planning committee and ended up in charge of games. so we had a snowball fight with newspaper and a pinata :)

wednesday was my host mom's bday, so late tuesday night a bunch of people from work came over to serenade her. i got home from walleyball around 11:30 and they were in the middle of serendaing. we ate a little dinner afterward and everyone left around 12:45am. My host dad sang the first song he ever sang her outside her window when they started dating. Apparently the boys in her neighborhood didn't like him, so they threw rocks at him and chased him when he was on his bike. He told another story that he took her on a date to a movie, but when it was time to go home he only had 1 boliviano, not enough to take her home to the 3rd ring. So he went and bet his 1b on a street game, hoping to make enough cash. He lost it all and they had to walk in the pouring rain :)

christmas came a little early on friday...the mail finally came!! i received a package and letters from friends and family back home and it just made my week! recieving mail here is a huge waiting game - one letter was mailed back in early november. but now i have more letters to read, cards to hang on my wall, and dark chocolate m&ms to eat and not share (thanks wyatt!)

my last day of work for the year is tomorrow! my host bro is getting married on the 23rd in the morning, so that should be a fun day. and i'm excited to experience christmas bolivian style. but i think to me it will just seem like a new holiday and not really christmas - i definitely miss the christmas songs on the radio, traditional christmas food,etc. but not snow :) we had a christmas program last night at church that was cute - but went over 2 hours long. one skit was of a parrot flying around looking for i think love and peace for christmas and was cute. and while a parrot is appropriate for bolivia, i kept thinking of the movie "love actually" where there are lobsters and octopuses at the nativity, so i had to try really hard not to laugh.

but then hey, what is christmas? although nat king cole says "turkey and mistletoe help to make the season right" (and there is no turkey here) i have to remember that i'm celebrating the same thing with people from bolivian and old colony cultures - God's love is so great and amazing that he came as "a babe in the straw to save us all." merry christmas!

The serenaders.

The cookies! Finally showed my host family I have some useful skills.

Dutch Bingo

My last post was cut short, so I thought I would add a little more. On Saturday I went out with my church to El Turno, a pueblo 16km outside of Santa Cruz. Everything was so green and lush and there were hills! No cement! We went to a home for boys off the street and played in a soccer tournament (i dodge that bullet - enough girls were there that i didn't have to play). when we arrived i had to use the restroom but couldn't find it, so i walked over to some people to ask and hey, there's someone who looks like me. one volunteer there is tall and blonde, from the netherlands, and she has family living in grand rapids. now that's crazy dutch bingo.

as you can see, i'm paying really close attention to my host dad's closing words at the end of the tournament!

this home was so wonderful and the workers go to Santa Cruz and take boys off the street and bring them to this gorgeous place to live and go to school. i talked with one boy who had just moved there 2 weeks ago. he had a tough, gravelly voice, but was so sweet and had a huge smile.

sunday was election day, so everything was shut down between 8am and 6pm. there were no micros or taxis and you needed special permission to drive your own vehicle. i walked with my host family to vote. it was really fast and simple and the results were in by 7pm. the president was re-elected. i don't really want to write about politics because one of the other salters did and now she gets a super crazed political guy writing her. but if you want to know more google it or write me an email!
it's christmas! i know y'all are getting hit by snow back in michigan...not so much here. but our house has decorations!

here's the family chick! it was pouring out one day when i got home from work so i sat on the couch to read and this little guy decided to hang with me!

singing in the rain

i think rainy season has officially begun. i've worn my rainjacket everyday this week. but i love walking in the rain. i put my hood up, stuff my purse under my jacket, and sing my heart out. i'm sure i might seem a little crazy - everyone else tries to walk close to buildings and under roofs - but who cares? the only problem is crossing streets - one step off the sidewalk and its into a murky river flowing with garbage.

i had some actual bonding time with my host brother, manolo, yesterday. usually our interaction consists of my eating dinner, he walking in and saying something really, really fast and i respond with a si, and he walks away. he's 33, lives in a room off the house, and is getting married on dec. 23. turns out he plays walleyball (volleyball in a raquetball court) every tuesday and thursday night. he invited me to come and while i was a little apprehensive (i asked if any girls played, picturing my nose getting broken by a rogue shot) but went along. ended up having a blast. we played 3 on 3 and although its been a while (9th grade gym class), i held my own. it's a nice replacement since vball ended last week.

today i ventured out to run some errands for centro menno. we're selling cds in the sala and needed some colored photocopies of the album covers. i wandered up and down some streets, stopping in at copy places and asking if they had color copies. i finally found a place - a video game playing internet cafe - and got my copies. as i was walking back to centro menno, i realized that the little outing was completely painless and not awkward. sure i didn't speak the best spanish, but i got my message across and got what i needed.

here come old flattop he come groovin' up slowly

one thing that is a constant annoyance/slightly humorous/growing old fast is how much i stick out here. i am used to being one of the many tall blonde people in grand rapids that i thought 5'11" is average height for a girl haha. well that's one worldview that has been challenged.

i've never been part of the minority before and it is an eye opener. sometimes i just want to yell "i am a person, i have a name and it's not "gringita" or "barbie." it just shows that my whole life i've had the luxury of not even being aware how oppressive "being different" can be. wake up.

and here it can be easy to slip into the "big city" persona where i just walk fast with my head down, ignoring everyone and not looking up to enjoy the beautiful day. i had another little wake-up call the other day. i got off the bus on the way home from work a little early so that i could have a little walk. as i was waiting to cross a busy street, a homeless youth, maybe around my age, walked up to me and tried to grab my hand. i acted upon my quick, stereotypical judgements of oh he's dirty, gross, and walked away with a "permisso." a minute later he was back and said "hola" with a huge smile and held out his hand. so i gave him a handshake and offered my cheek in the typical bolivian style greeting. he kissed my cheek, said buena dia and walked away. i was never worried about my safety because a political rally was going on all around me and i was surrounded by people. but i had realized that hey, aren't i sick of being objectified and being seen as only a tall gringa? this kid, mentally handicapped and harmless, is being constantly ignored and shunned. jesus hung out with the socially shunned, so i should get over myself. i think my kindness helped make his day and his kindness made mind.

well, check that off the bucket list

(this is my host mom, Ana, making a pot of huge corn kernels and 3 pigs' heads. yeah that's right. the pigs had blue eyes, someone called it a gringo pig, i was creeped out. but i still ate it)

can't believe it's friday already. can't believe it's NOVEMBER already! definitely doesn't feel like it. last week the temperature got up to 40 degrees celcius and muggy. since i avoided math/science classes like the plague, i don't understand the metric system and only knew it was dang hot. a few days later a friend told me that it had been 102 degrees F. i am definitely glad i didn't know that at the time, i think it would have made the days feel even hotter! but now its in the 70s and rainy, kind of a nice relief.

its been a pretty eventful week. one day we had a couple from sturgis, mi visit centro menno! turns out they're one step away from the amish, so they have cars and electricity but where traditional clothing. they gave me their address and i plan on visiting when i'm back home!
last week i attended a university graduation. the program said it began at 7:30pm, so at 8:30 the music started :) each graduate took about a minute to walk across the stage, hug the president and professor, and pose for a picture. i told my host family that at my graduation of 1,000 people we were practically running down the aisles. they replied that here they like things "tranquilo" and relaxed. well my host niece was the 10th person, so we left after an hour.

Monday was an official holiday in Santa Cruz because Sunday was the "day of the dead" when people remember deceased family and friends. my church always has a youth retreat in el campimento over the long weekend, so late saturday afternoon we packed the prado full of people and drove 20 minutes out of the city to a baptist camp. i spent the night getting to know the leaders of my youth group, listening to the praise team rock out (not an exaggeration) and played the usual youth group games. the next morning 2 SALT friends came out with my host family. we spent 2 mornings listening to sermons, a little tough when its hot and in spanish. since it was so hot we did a lot of relaxing in the shade and eating mangos that would drop as if attacking the whole camp. sunday night they set up a stage outside on the sports court and we had a mini rock concert of worship concerts accompanied with a mosh pit. On Monday we had the sports championships and my church was the volleyball champions! its funny because before every serve, either a teammate, audience member, or someone from the other team would yell out "vamos corrie" to cheer me on. i think they're all just happy i'm participating and trying to make friends.

(the loaded prado)

tuesday was my host dad's 71st bday, so late monday night a group of people serenaded him outside his window. we had a grand fiesta at lunch. i came home from work (i always eat lunch at mcc) and found our courtyard full of people and food. we had paella (a spanish seafood dish?) and che-cha, a drink made from corn. and cake. i ended up having cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner that day. pretty good day.

then the oddest of all on wednesday...i was a model. my host niece works in accounting for the local supermarket chain fidalga and the store is having a promocion or sale in their clothing department and needed people to show off the goods. so paola signed me up! i think there was 4 others girls, 2 guys, a news woman and a little girl. all the women had fancy hair, nails, and a ton of makeup on and i walked in with a light layer of dirt (happens is santa cruz. hot weather + wind + dirty city = importance of frequent showering), took my hair out of my pony tail and was ready to rock. down here whenever a woman is going to be in a photo, she strikes whatever pose she knows is the most flattering. i don't think that's the case in the u.s. at least not for me. so this was slightly out of my normal comfort zone. but i put on 5 different outfits, smiled for the video camera, made some new friends and 200 bolivianos! it's supposed to be kind of like an infomercial and shown at night, but i have yet to see it. access to a tv is a little hard for me because it is in my host parents' bedroom.

when i got home from that long day and told my host mom what i had been up to, she laughed long and hard. then she said "corrie, you have many adventures." the reason i gave was that here people say "vamos corrie," and off i go. i guess because i don't want to miss a thing. it makes me really busy and tired that sometimes i dream about just laying around. but then i think, nope i don't want to live my life lying around. i want to learn, try new things, met new people. i pray that whenever God says "vamos corrie," i will go and act without hesitation. i had a great email from my lil sis dana about accepting plans God has for us, even though they might not be what we want at the time. it may not be easy, but i am so thankful that He has plans, because heaven help me if it was only up to me!