after evacuation...I came back!

(This is my favorite old lady, speaking almost exclusively in quechua, that would gift me eggs and ask when the next time I was coming to visit her and motion to come with her...in which we would walk to the end of the street or the other side of the plaza but never get to anywhere in particular)

I´ve written a more lengthy update that might overlap with previous entry...so here it is:
September 11, 2008 I got the call to pack my bags and be in Cochabamba before noon the following day. I arrived to the hotel and was told I was unable to leave until further notice. September 14, 2008 we got evacuated from Bolivia on a C-130 military aircraft amidst gas shortages and continuing blockades around the country. Two and a half hours later strapped in temporary seats with ear plugs to drown out the engines, we were met by the U.S. ambassador to Peru in Lima. For the next week, 113 refugee volunteers forced down meat and rice and potatoes in a camp-like family conference center as we closed our Peace Corps service in Bolivia and made decisions to transfer to another country or go home or take the option to stay in Lima, dependent of the Peace Corps.

I decided to end my service and be "set-free" in Lima, fleeing to the beach with some fellow recent RPCV's (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers...our new acronym even though we haven't technically "returned" yet) and tried to make our situation reality: we would NOT be finishing our Peace Corps service as we had imagined, and we were now independent tourists in Peru, a little hard to believe. We've learned to deal with unexpected uncertainty over and over again during our service and always joked about being evacuated but never thought it would materialize into reality. Bolivia is an unstable country dealing with some internal issues and a government that isn't always in agreement with the U.S., causing Peace Corps to decide that security concerns might arise for us in the future. I won't comment on my personal feelings to our removal, but do feel that I had a wonderful service and felt connected to my town and knew that I couldn't leave it in the middle of the night like I had, becoming that girl that disappeared without saying goodbye. It was the biggest Bolivian exit ever and we performed well. I called my host family and the conversation confirmed my need to save my reputation and return to clear up the rumors that could and would spread.

After a nice beach vacation and a short trip through the Cordillera Blanca mountain range in Peru, I ventured back across the border and immediately felt a comfort once back in Bolivia: from the transportation, accent, billboards, phone booths, and landscape, it was all a familiar comfort.

(A picture of Huari looking back at the mountains from the edge of town at sunset)

I made it back to my home away from home, falling into a deep fever and cold as I packed my bags and slowly started confirming people's fears that it was the last time I would be back. My students ran up to me, hugging me and saying "We thought you had left for good without saying goodbye" Even though I had been away for 2 weeks at a time before, they knew this time seemed different. I told them in varying detail about my situation and told them it was the last time I would see them for awhile, holding back tears when I met with my classes. Some people couldn't possibly understand and other wished me well and hoped for better times in their country. I packed up a few more boxes and tried to give away what I could to neighbors and friends. My eco-club showed me trees they had planted in my absence and I felt proud. Two more eco-clubs in the other schools appeared to have been up and running in preparation to plant even more trees and I felt satisfied knowing my work might have lasting impact.

I tried to take mental pictures of everyone's faces. Kids told me they would never forget me and I honestly believe that, but I am scared that I would forget all the people I knew so well on a daily basis. I greeted the market ladies (Doña Lidia, and Vivianna), the bread lady (Doña Lucia), the coca lady (Doña Irene),

(this is Doña Irene, the lady who sold coca in town, a great friend and professional gossiper. i spent hours sitting here watching the traffic and people go by, chatting about them and things going on in town)

the relleno lady (we would say simply amiga to each other), the store lady (Doña Elsa), the moms, the dads, the babies, the grandparents, the dogs, and everyone along the way and thought "It's been good!", but also know that in a year I'll hesitate to remember all the names. I shared one last meal with all the teachers in the school and then I left on October 7th, this time much more ready than the last time when everything was still a big unknown. My host mom accompanied me in a taxi to the nearby town to catch a bus and insisted on paying for me, her child. We walked up to the stop and saw the bus pulling out around the corner, and started jogging after it. Me with my backpack on my back, my timbuktu hanging on the front of me, a market bag hanging in my hand and she was carrying my cardboard box wrapped in an aguayo on her back. We ran the 100 yards to the bus, hastly threw my luggage under, and once again she insisted on paying and gave me a quick hug and told me to take care of myself. I sat in my seat, tucked my bus ticket away and only then took a deep breath trying not to cry or forget all that which seemed so familiar and yet I knew would see for the last time. Instead I threw in some earphones and tried to imagine new adventures ahead of me.

Since then, I wrapped up some loose-ends in the city of Oruro, mailed boxes home and ran errands in Cochabamba before taking a night-bus to the low-land and very hot city of Santa Cruz. There I met up with some of my other group members, also saying goodbye in their sites, and we spent the next 3 nights in and around 'the prettiest place in Bolivia', a rolling luscious valley with peaches and cliff-topped mountains, waterfalls, and condor hikes near where my friend Britta spent her 2 years. After participating in a town festival with her community, we explored a canyon creek-bed and tried to find condors. We caught a night bus going to Sucre, even though none of us actually had seats and instead sprawled on the floor of the cab and on a milk crate in the back, we managed to spend 3 more nights in and around the colonial capital of Bolivia, enjoying more RPCV's company and seeing an amazing Bolivia folkloric dance performance...kinda like dinner and a movie, but it was dinner and a ballet, plus quite a bit of souvenir/artesanía shopping. Since yesterday we've been exploring another city full of history, a city that used to be the largest in the world with its mining production and will be doing a mine tour tomorrow, climbing up the "Rich Mountain" (Cerro Rico) and climbing inside its shafts. Today we plunged into a natural hot spring green laguna that Inca Huayna Capac supposedly traveled to from Cusco in order to bathe in. Our plans are to catch another bus tomorrow night to Tarija, a city on the border with Argentina. All of that to say, we are heading to Argentina in a little while and then my plan is to come back to Bolivia and get a flight home from here before Thanksgiving.

I wrote the first half of this while sitting in a brand new Cine Center (movie theater) with wireless internet and wealthy adolescents buying popcorn and going to the movies in Sucre, and the second half in a hostal in Potosí with the heater on bundled in bed, as the city is at 4060 meters above sea level. By the day after tomorrow, I might be able to find some internet to post this while in the warmer climate of Tarija, and hopefully include a series of pictures below to help tell the story. I will see many of you very soon, so until then....

(October 21st, 2008)---yup, so I´m posting this in Tarija, with slightly better internet than Potosi. We did an intense mine-tour yesterday, and are feeling the effects of crawling through tight spaces at over 4060 meters (cuz we were driven to the middle of the mountain), in a dusty setting trying to breath through our masks and crawl around. Wow. I feel so much sadness and history in that city, a huge divide of the ghosts of colonial wealth and the continued labor in conditions not fit to work in that continue today. Yet silver is still being mined daily and people are desperate-proud enough to continue to mine the ¨mountain that eats men¨ as it is sometimes referred...mainly referring to its past and not its present, but the average age of a miner today is 45 due to health issues with 49 accidental deaths out of 15,000 workers occuring last year. whew, i will post pictures about all of this very soon.