Just another day in the Corps

Hello folks.  I wanted to share a funny frase we sometimes use down here when our days seem to hold encounters with something totally and completely weird to our minds before we decided to step away from that life of ours back in the U.S.  We remind ourselves jokingly "It's just another day in the Corps", and brush it off taking its worth and moving on.  Like walking around my town at the "International Fair" and finding a monkey that signs his autograph for you, dressed up in the Bolivian Tinku outfit.  Just another day in the Corps.  Or finding out that we can't go anywhere, because people are blockading the roads.  Just another day in the Corps.

I'm officially one year into my service, and our group met the past week in Cochabamba for medical check-ups and meetings.  We got our teeth cleaned and tests run on everything...and I proudly say that I have/had giardia as it showed up in my poop samples.  But, it was a kind that doesn't make me sick, because I feel great and have had little to no symptoms for 8 months (I knew I got it 8 months ago but it went away).  But our doctor smiled and said, "well let's get rid of it".  So, I took 2 pills and hopefully I kicked those bichos (bugs) out of my stomach.  It's pretty crazy to hear the wide range of sicknesses we've all accumulated over the past 15 months, even only after training our group was infected with everything from shingles to typhoid and a broken arm.  Weird, I know.  But that's why we have free, unlimited medical care and we take advantage of things from sunscreen to vitamins, so I'm well taken care of.   

It's been fun to see everyone and see how we've changed as a group and reminisce on those that have left our side.  We debriefed and shed a few tears and encouraged each other to continue our journeys.  We shared pictures and music and frustrations and success stories.  I look at people's lives from the other side of the country and I see reflections of lives I admired before entering the Peace Corps.  I see their huts, and dirt floors, and little kids running around, and working in the fields, but this time I intimately know these volunteers and understand their lives and know what hard work it is to accomplish even the little things.

When I'm "in-site" it's often hard to remember that people that live 20 bus-hours away from me are experiencing similar things, and I'm not alone.  And I know that, but it's amazing what distance you feel when you go back home to site and are once again just living the simple things out.  I site here now with wireless internet and my mind is racing with so many options of things to see and read and do and learn and download with access to my personal archive that is so completely out of reach most of the rest of my life, and I realize once again the incredible crevasse of difference that infiltrates developed and underdeveloped countries.  Although, it's hard to see that difference when being in Cochabamba when wealth seems to abound in comparison and wireless IS available although we are the only ones using it in the movie theater complex that provides it.

It's been difficult to think of things to write as my small anecdotal stories are few as they have slowly meshed their way into regular life for me.  It feels good to be comfortable in this life here, and I'm happy living just another day in the Corps.  I won't deny the frustrations, and lack thereof of many true success stories when it comes to work.  But then again I primarily work in education and education is hard to measure in tangible means so I hope that I'm making a difference that I won't ever be able to see personally.   

I'll be going back to site shortly and hopefully with renewed motivation and encouragement and waiting out the political situation that will be hitting the country come May, although we've been assured no true upheaval will occur.  There are still talks of autonomy for certain departments and demonstrations are supposedly taking place in early May, but I personally think nothing drastic will take place, although we've been briefed to be alert and of course stay safe.  So, for me it's interesting to be apart of a country that is still trying to define itself and its economy and working out the conflicts that exist between its people in a major form, and I wonder why we as Americans don't do more of this open discussion and public disagreement when we don't agree with policies.  

I imagine spring is coming in full bloom now back home, and I sometimes dream about sitting on a humid outdoor porch listening to the crickets and imagining the first lightening bugs infiltrate the creek beds.  ENJOY it and tell me about it often.  Love from Bolivia.