It's 'winter vacation' now, extended a week early and now a week late (for a total of 4 weeks) for the cold. So that's that. I've been teaching english again, testing my switching back and forth translating and teaching skills between inglés/español again for kids that stick around during vacation. The brain does funny tricks when every other word or sentence is in a different language, and it's quite exhausting. It is also difficult to teach a large range of ages and abilities, from little ones who can barely write to a couple who have had 2 or more years of english in school, but still can´t say ¨name¨ correctly, saying it nahmay. I get frustrated, questioning my teaching skills and my patience. I start to wonder about children across the world, and would like to know how Bolivians (and Bolivian children) have become such imperfect perfectionists. Their notebook page will be colored and spaced and stickered and outlined to perfection, yet half the words of the actual notes were incorrectly copied from the board. But they LOVE bingo, and it is satisfying when one of my seven year olds can correctly repeat how old he is in english, smiling his half rotten tooth and half toothless smile, spelling his new english name correctly on the quiz I gave them.
It´s one of the hardest seasons to be in Bolivia, when it is sometimes unbearably cold and dry and dusty here and knowing that friends and family back home are grilling out, swimming in creeks and lakes, savoring newly picked blackberries, digging into the summer harvests, and simple things like t-shirts and sandals. I try to bring back that image of green that seems surreal in my pictures, but instead savor the color of orange and purple in the sunset and neon aguayos against the bleaker brown backdrop.
It has also been a hard time for the volunteers in the altiplano region, as many have chosen or been asked to leave Peace Corps Bolivia for reasons sometimes beyond our control. At the end of July, 7 of my closest volunteer friends will be out of the country and I´m feeling a little bit left behind. But, that being said, never have my chapters of Peace Corps life ever been the same. Things change and people move on, and this will just begin a new phase that will have a different rhythm to it. It´s a weird feeling to have...saying goodbye to a close friend, and then left with their possessions, feeling a weird selfish gain from the new ‘items’ that replace the person that was once there. The ¨goodbye experience¨ has made me realize once again this Peace Corps experience is so individual and personal, and yet knowing that I have to continue to rely on the support of other volunteers that remain, because otherwise it would be impossible to continue the cultural struggles that sometimes make us go crazy.
(Here's me at Aymara New Year in the morning hanging out around the traditional dancing with the HUGE indigenous flag and the moon in the background) What else? I´ve been able to roam around a bit, and ventured up to the Tiwanaku-Tihuanaco (both spellings are accepted) ruins for the solstice celebrations on June 21-22nd, also known as Aymara New Year as the Aymara calendar begins anew on this date. It was a cold wait for the sun to rise (and consequently the president to arrive in his helicopter) with the other thousands of people milling about the ruins. The energy and history involved was truly special, although the complete meaning for me lost to the ropes prohibiting us from getting too close to the actual ceremony and the fact that the ´puerta del sol´ has been moved and you don´t actually watch the suns rays coming through it, but rather up over the mountain...I don´t know, I´m not discrediting it, but felt like things had changed quite a bit. Not to mention people carrying coffee (nescafe coated in sugar) around in plastic jugs selling a small cup for 1.50Bs.
I saw up close my first Chullpares, or ancient Inca burial houses this past weekend visiting a fellow volunteer´s site. You can see these Chullpares all the time from the road or from afar, but are usually on the very top of a mountain or rushing by on a bus-trip or in a musuem re-created. There are debates on how old they actually are and why they were constructed the way they were...but they are essentially adobe huts with small triangular doors always facing the east that at one point (before being robbed and looted) contain mummified and wrapped up human skeletons resting in the fetal position. The ones we visited did in fact still have some human bones scattered about, because of the local belief that it will bring your household bad luck if you loot the grave, but were very eroded and falling down...but I did feel a special energy in knowing the history. Kind of like seeing that well-worked arrowhead sticking out of the soil and wondering how many thousands of years ago an ancient human walking the same ground beneath your feet.
This is me and Anna (a PC friend), Tania (a Bolivian friend), Me, and Franz (an Austrian friend).
Anyways. I received my July 2008 issue of National Geographic yesterday and it has an assumingly amazing article on Bolivia in it. Haven´t had a chance to read it yet, but the pictures tell me enough to say its a fairly good summary of what I see in the big picture here. Bolivia is an amazing country, surreal in its landscapes and people, with a lot to teach me still. I´m not done here yet. Hope everyone´s July 4th celebrations reminded you of the great blessings the U.S. offers and how much we can learn from other countries as well.
I added 6 random new pictures to flickr...so check them out.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16952202@N06/?saved=1
2 comments:
t- i have that nat'l geographic too...so cool that they covered altiplano. i like your stories. love you.
Bree
Tiffany, I bought the Spanish version of National Geographic one day in the grocery store with my food stamps just because I saw a picture of Evo Morales and then the Altiplano. The photos are incredible and I have been imagining you there. I love and miss you SO MUCH!!!!
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