Vamanos a Tiwanaku y La Paz y Lago Titicaca y Tocoli, Oh My!

Oi vey, this last week-ish has been really busy. Last Sunday, bright and early in the morning, I hopped on a plane to La Paz. The first day, we visited the Tiwanaku ruins, which while they currently don’t look like much, were once the home of a great pre-Incan civilization


After the day at Tiwanaku, we headed to La Paz/El Alto for a few days. La Paz is an amazing sprawling city, spread throughout a large valley and surrounded by beautiful mountains (though they aren’t as snowcapped as they once were). El Alto is a city that overlooks La Paz from one of the mountains, and is home to a large number of immigrants from the countryside. 


Our time in La Paz was wonderful! We got to visit the Ministry of Foreign Relations, learn about the Andean worldview, talk with the World Bank, visit famous artists such as Mamani Mamani, watch Chuquiago, the most famous Bolivian movie and talk with its director and we visited Mujeres Creando, a feminist group noted for their aggressive political action. One of the experiences that I enjoyed most was talking with law students at the Universidad Publica de El Alto and learning about each others lives. Beyond the academic stuff, La Paz has GREAT food, good salsa dancing and reggae concerts and its famous Mercado de Las Brujas (Witches’ Market) where there is some serious shopping to be done and where one can see things like llama fetuses (which are supposed to be buried while a house is being built for good luck).

After La Paz, we headed out to Tocoli, a small Aymara village on the shores of Lago Titicaca, to do a rural home stay. We were only the second group of foreigners to every come to the village! They gave us an amazing welcome-full of dancing, music, food and coca.

Me, My Host Mom, My Host Sister and the other SIT student who lived with us

Our time in Tocoli was busy, we ate many many many potatoes (one of the only foods that grows in the harsh mountain environment) and we participated in the daily activities of the community. For my family there, that meant herding sheep, irrigating the crops, and constructing their adobe brick contribution for the school’s new kitchen. The women there are incredibly strong (most of the men  live in La Paz to work) and tend to both the children and the farms, and carry 30 pound sacks of food up the mountain like its nothing. My family was one of the highest up the mountain, and we had an amazing view of Lake Titicaca and the mountains (we could see all the way to Peru!). I even got to swim in the lake! (But really it’s freezing cold and by swim I mean that I ran in, got wet and ran out screaming, but it was great).
The people in Tocoli were amazing to us and really welcomed us (even though we often caused them to burst out laughing by doing “weird gringo things” though I’m still not really sure what exactly we did.) We finished out our trip with a stop at the Aguas Calientes, a hot spring pool, which after a few days without a shower/bathroom felt great!


It was a great trip, but I’m back in Cochabamba and back to lots and lots of schoolwork.

Just a little update

It’s been a busy week here in Cochabamba! And I have 2 good pieces of news-I now have internet on my laptop (which means this blog will actually be updated) and I can now put pictures on my blogs (so you can see how pretty it is here!).

On Monday, Oscar Olivera (a key leader of the Water Wars that took place in Cochabamba in 2000) came to our Spanish class to talk about environmental/water problems in Bolivia. It was super interesting and one point that he kept coming back to was that while Bolivia percentage-wise has hardly contributed to greenhouse gas emissions, it is one of the first countries suffer as the ice in the mountains is melting rapidly. The environmental awareness of the general population here is really interesting and people have repeatedly stressed to me that while they would like economic opportunities, their ideal is to “vivir bien (live well),” which means a development that is sustainable, respects the environment and does not include the level of consumption seen in the U.S.

Tuesday was a Feriada (festival)! NO SCHOOL! Cochabamba celebrated 200 years of independence so there were constant parades and folk dances (and many many many marching bands).  There was also a chocolate festival, which was my favorite part of all the celebratory shenanigans!

A Dance in the Parade

The rest of the week I just had more classes, but Thursday was a really emotional day in class. We went to the house of one of our program leaders for a history class on the dictatorships in Bolivia and Latin America in general in the 1970s and 1980s. As the program leader is also a documentary film maker, we watched a few videos on the dictatorships and then he showed us the most recent movie he’s been working on-a documentary about what it was like to be imprisoned and tortured during the dictatorships. Much to our surprise, he featured prominently in the film and we came to find out that our joyful academic director had been imprisoned, tortured and exiled because he was a journalist when the dictator Garcia Mesa took over the country. Watching the movie and discussing the dictatorships with him was really hard, but really interesting experience.

On a happier note, I’m going on a trip for the next 10 days! I leave tomorrow at 5:30 am (ugh) for La Paz. We’re going to be visiting with some well-known Bolivian artists, the feminist anarchist group Mujeres Creando and the World Bank. We’re also visiting the Tiwanaku ruins and they doing a rural homestay on the banks of Lago Titicaca for 5 days so I’m sure I’ll have lots to update about next time!

The view from my bedroom’s balcony

Hola from Bolivia!

Hey everyone!

So I´m actually in Bolivia now and since it´s been two weeks, a lot has happened! It´s hard to get internet here since the family I´m living with here doesn´t have it, so this blog will probably languish for long periods of time.

Anyway, to say the least Bolivia is an adventure and a great lesson in learning to be relaxed, go with the flow and not worry too much about any plans that you make. I got into Cochabamba last week a day late with most of the other kids on my program and we had orientation for a few days while we orientated ourselves in the city and a little bit in Bolivian culture. Cochabamba is beautiful and nestled in a valley so the mountains surround the city are beautiful but the climate is ¨¨eternally springlike¨ as they boast and the city itself contains palm trees.

Last Saturday, I went home with my host family with whom I´ll be liking with for more or less the next 2.5 months. They are a very sweet bunch-a mom and a 17 and 11 year old daughter. They also have a tiny pug dog which they dress up in soccer jerseys. The dog gets lots of attention and picture requests since they are quite rare here!

This week was my first week of classes. I have class for more or less 6 hours a day-history, politics and culture in the morning and Spanish in the afternoon. It´s defintely a lot, but we get a 2 hour lunch break to go home and eat with our families and they do a great job of making our classes interesting! We´ve taken some really interesting field trips-to rural towns and to visit the union of the domestic workers here (who are very discrimiated against due to their being poor, indigenous women). Our homework is different because while we have some readings, the idea is more to get us engaging in our community so theres lots of map-making, journaling and interviewing involved.

One great thing about Cochabamba is how much there is to do here! Last weekend was the Dia del Peaton (day of the pedestrian) so all the streets closed down and people walked and biked through them and celebrated the environment! This week on Tuesday is the 200 year anniversary of independence so the city has been full of folklore concerts, fireworks, marching bands and parades! There are also a lot of festivals going on (like the chocolate festival!). Chocolate brings me to another important thing about Cochabamba-FOOD! They love love love to eat here and eating is a huge way of showing hospitality, so I´ve been getting lots of food. Frid chicken is popular here and last night, my family took me to a fried chicken restaurant that claims to be ¨¨ämerican style¨¨ to have me verify its authenticity (I dont really know much about fried chicken so I can´t be sure, but it seemed American to me).

Anyway, I´m settling in here, bit by bit. The culture is definitely different here and not having internet easily acccessible is sometimes a frusteration. The people in my program are great and all love doing activities! One of our teachers here lives near me and offers free Tai Chi in the mornings, which is a really peaceful way to start off the day!

Besos from Bolivia!