City Woes

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Nearly a week has passed since I rejoined the ranks of society who flip on light switches, go to the grocery store, and wash their hair without a second's thought. My initial instinct to reach for a candle and my headlamp has worn off, and my re-assimilation to semi-normal life is complete. I have found however, that although La Paz has relatively easy access to certain comforts like phones, food, and internet, life here is not without it's challenges. For instance, if at any point you happen to find yourself anywhere other than sitting outside soaking in the intense rays that pummel the earth at 3,300 meters, I can guarantee that you will be absolutely, positively, freezing. It's something of a Catch-22, though, because if you do decide to soak in said pummeling rays, you will be burnt to a crisp in little more than fifteen minutes (so that you may understand the gravity of this statement, I will digress to explain that having spent a large portion of my childhood cultivating melanin as I frolicked barely-clothed in the heat of the South Florida sunshine, sunburn is a more or less foreign concept to me. You can imagine my distress, then, when I realized yesterday morning that my scalp is now peeling. Gross.). Not to worry, though—you are unlikely to care about the sunburn because you will finally be able to feel your hands again and your lips will momentarily return to their fleshy pink hue from the semi-permanent deathly purplish tone they've taken on for the last several days. In an earlier post I mentioned that while staying at the Casa del Cafe I didn't have to spend any energy contemplating what I would wear because only one set of clothes was clean and dry each day. Here in La Paz I spend (if possible) even less energy picking out my daily attire because generally I am already wearing it when I get up in the morning (don't judge me). What is “it,” you ask? It, is precisely every article of clothing that I brought with me to this land of mountains and dust. Yes that is a picture of me wearing seven layers of Smartwool and a thick wool cardigan on top; yes I am still finger-numbingly freezing all day, every day despite all of these layers; and no I am not certain how this is remotely even possible. By the time I'm ready to go to sleep every night I've been so cold for so long that it takes me literally several hours to warm up, even though I'm wearing seven layers of smartwool, I've crawled inside my 35 degree down mummy sleeping bag, I've burritoed (yes, that is a verb) my sleeping-bagged self (and yes, that is an adjective) with one down comforter, and have pulled yet another down comforter over top of me. You can imagine how pleasant showering is under such conditions...which brings me to my next challenge of life in La Paz.

I spend a good portion of each shower here pondering which circumstances are most unpleasant: a cold shower in the 70 degree cool of early evening in Chijchipani, or a luke-warm shower in the balmy 40 degrees that is the inside of my house each morning. I reached a definitive answer today, when, five minutes into the hypothermia-inducing masochism that is my cleansing routine, the lights began to flicker and muffled popping noises fell upon my red, frozen ears. Odd, I thought, as pop! the lights tuckered out for good and in an instant, the electricity-heated cascade of water that I had been so desperately twisting and folding and tucking myself into suddenly turned bitterly, painfully, arctic. I let out a yelp of pain and frantically patted the wall for the faucet knob as soapy streams drained into my eyes. Fumbling in complete darkness to find a towel, I took the opportunity to revisit my daily bathtime ponderings; Yes. Definitely more unpleasant, I decided as my teeth started chattering behind what I've no doubt were purple lips. On tip-toes I hopped across the ice-cold floor to the door, where more darkness and the toxic smell of burning plastic were awaiting my senses on the other side. I nervously followed the ominous popping sound all the way to the kitchen where, much to my horror, the fuse box on the wall was angrily spitting tiny balls of fire onto the counter below {{insert your own preferred expletive here....I'm pretty sure I used them all}}. Dodging sparks, I raced to remove anything flammable from the area, wiped the ocular-destined suds from my forehead, and sprinted up the dark slippery stairs to the bedroom to grab my headlamp. I leaped back down the stairs two at a time and, light in hand, cautiously approached the fireworks so I could read the words that I knew were lightly penciled along two thin strips of yellowed masking tape. My eyes quickly found what they sought (baño) and with a loud snap I flipped the switch to “off.” Phew. Imminent danger subsided and I stepped back to assess the damage: wisps of corrosive black smoke slowly curled towards the ceiling and the fuse switches on the left-hand side of the box hung lower than the rest, looking dejected in their semi-melted state. Sigggghhh. Oh Bolivia...can't anything be easy here...? I snapped the rest of the switches to “off” just to be safe and turned my attention back to my present status: naked and wet in the dark, shivering with cold while perched high on tip-toes in a futile effort to avoid the frosty tile that lay beneath my feet. There also remained the unfortunate dilemma of the eye-stinging trails that slowly seeped down my face—unfortunate less because of the stinging and more because of the frigid encounter that therefore loomed imminently in my near future. Boo.

Jaime had already removed most of the damage by
the time I took this photo, but it gives an idea....

Outside the locked shutters of my first floor windows the day was bright; with (clean) icicles dangling from my scalp I eagerly sought the burn of the sun and decided I would go explore the bustling town and national park of Mallasa that I pass through each day on my way into the city. I had made plans earlier to meet a friend from school (also interning in Bolivia) later that afternoon in El Prado region downtown (that I had yet to visit), so I figured it would be a good combined trip. After a week of practice I now considered myself to be well-acquainted with the mini-bus system, which brings me to what is ironically both my least and most favorite challenge of this city: transportation. In Boston, I generally turn up my nose at the perfunctory regularity of the fantastically reliable, beautifully comprehensive T system that runs beneath our streets: too slow and too ordinary, I tell myself. I'd much rather be dodging cars, fighting raindrops, inhaling snowflakes, and soaking in the calm, glistening grace of the Charles as I pedal through life on Tonks, my trusty fire-engine red steel-framed touring beauty with shifters on the downtube. Here in Bolivia, on the other hand, there is nothing that is either perfunctory or reliable about the transportation “system” (if you can call it that) and surprisingly that is why I loathe it so. My commute time ranges anywhere from thirty-five minutes to two hours and thirty-five minutes, depending (as far as I can tell) on how many of the mini-bus drivers were out drinking the night before. Today being Sunday, I braced myself for a long wait and Bolivia did not disappoint. I walked over four miles up the road in the hour and a half that I waited for a mini-bus with an empty seat to appear. 

I was almost ready to throw in the towel when I heard the familiar low rumble of the strained engine and ancient exhaust system struggling over the hills in the landscape behind me. A glimmer of hope shot through my veins as I turned to face the approaching 1980s-era rickety conversion van and stuck my arm out. The engine sputtered and the tail pipe spit as it pulled to halt and a twenty-something male opened the sliding door to let me in. His greasy black hair was slicked back on his head and a sparse, dirty mustache donned his upper lip; he had the kind of snarky, sarcastic smile that made you not want to hesitate, ask questions, or in any way delay their travel. I climbed in and made my way to the closest empty seat as the driver peeled out into the dirt road, sending me lurching face-first towards the bench that I had been aiming for; the van bumped and bounced along underneath me and on wobbly legs I turned, sat, and took a gander at my surroundings. While the lack of dependability makes this system somewhat deplorable, its sheer absurdity has wholly won my affection. The word Sergio was inexplicably pasted across the rear view mirror in large, dripping green block lettering; tasseled trinkets adorned with Winnie the Pooh and Bart Simpson stickers hung from suction cups on the windshield; and tacky hand-embellished (three cheers for Elmer's and gold lace piping) Christmas ornaments depicting Jesus and Mary hung on bent paperclips stuck into the air vents and wrapped around the cigarette lighter. A matted-down blue carpet covered the entire top of the dashboard and faded blue tassels draped over the edge, swaying wildly back and forth with the movement of the vehicle. A plum-sized disco ball hung from the ceiling in between the two front seats, and skinny blue LED cable lighting ran from left to right across the ceiling behind it. Every time the driver pulled to the side of the road and turned on his hazards, the blue lights would blink and the disco ball would send scores of tiny blue confetti spinning around the aged interior. An impressive collection indeed. Though it makes it more difficult to get out, my preferred place to sit is in the back row because it gives me the best view to play my favorite travel game here in Bolivia: Count the People. Before coming here, I don't know that I had ever given much thought to how many humans you could fit inside a van that's only slightly larger than a VW hippie bus, but if I had done so I'm certain I would have underestimated. There are fifteen legit seats in most of these vans; so far my winning number of passengers is twenty-three (that's two rows of five, two rows of four, one row of three, and two standers). I'm certain it can be topped though; just yesterday a mini-bus whizzed by me with at least that many people inside and three more people on the roof.

As the familiar scenery of Mallasa approached, I yelled to the driver to stop and let me off. En la esquina voy a bajar! I stood up and rubbed the circulation back into my legs (my status as a giant here means that my knees are always jammed painfully into the seat in front of me) and asked Greasy McGee how much my fare was. I smiled as I correctly answered his subsequent question: ¿De dónde has venido? (where did you come from?). Carreras, I said, remembering my first mini-bus encounter in which I had answered Los Estados Unidos to the same question. I can only imagine the jokes that followed that day as the bus full of people drove away; given the question my answer was technically not wrong, but given the circumstances it was certainly not right. ...you drove her all the way from the U.S., huh? What was the fare for THAT?!

Obrajes: Work and play

                      Beautiful kitchen at the office with cathedral ceilings and natural light

I'm mildly obsessed with doors.   

              

 

...and the indigenous women.

City Bound...

Thursday July 8, 2010

Well. If my first experience on Calle de la Muerte in the Sportage in broad daylight was slightly terrifying, you might imagine what the trip back was like in a full-size passenger bus under the cloak of night. Jaime and I paid 5 Bs extra (~ 75 cents) to have seats in the front row of the bus (exactly why these seats cost extra is not readily apparent, but more on that later), and therefore we had the best seats in the house to watch all of the hair-raising close calls that give the road its infamous reputation. My favorite regular occurrence was to round a sharp curve at full speed only to be blinded by large headlights beaming through the windshield from an uncomfortably close distance. Each time, vehicles were quickly steered out of their collision course and brakes were slammed down hard. A lucky extra of being in the front seat while your bus struggles to come to a halt is that you get to watch as the beams of your vehicle's headlights suddenly cease to illuminate anything in front of you. This is not because the lights have failed, but rather because there is nothing in front of you left to illuminate save a billowing cloud of dust and the valley floor six hundred feet below. The driver would then demonstrate his stellar reverse driving skills as he retraced our winding tracks back several hundred feet to reach a place in the road that was wide enough for both vehicles to pass. Surely they can do better than this, you might say. My best answer is that they try: Virtually all of the large vehicles that travel regularly on this road have installed horns that would put any fog horn to shame. The purpose of these ruffian 100 decibel gems is not merely to ensure that, in the event of an emergency, everyone on the bus is fully conscious to see their own wildly exciting expiration, but also to make our presence known to any approaching vehicles that might be just around the bend. Ironically, however, the horns are literally so loud that the driver cannot possibly hope to hear anything outside of his own thoughts while honking; he certainly cannot hear the equally loud fog horn of the vehicle that is approaching the other side of the hairpin turn. Swing and a miss.

Before our departure Jaime made sure to emphasize that we had paid more for the front seats. I wasn't quite sure why they were more expensive, but I supposed it was for what would be a comparatively smoother ride. While I am certain that the level of bouncing that we experienced was far less than that of the passengers further back, our forward location was not without its faults. The bus driver started the engine and I nestled into my seat as the cabin settled for departure. As the bus was pulling away from the curb, one last-minute passenger jumped in and ran up the stairs. Having already noticed that the bus was quite full, I wondered where she was planning to sit and why she was so late in arriving. I watched her gaze toward the back of the bus and slowly lower to the floor the large, colorful load she carried on her back. She paused, she turned, and without a word she then sat on my armrest. Right.

We rode that way for a couple hours before she yelled to the bus driver to stop and let her off. Aaahhh, I settled back into my seat, my neck aching from the awkward angle it had held while trying to preserve some semblance of personal space; at least that's over, I thought to myself. We hadn't been driving for more than thirty minutes when the bus again came to a stop and the door to the cabin opened. A young man poked his head in and yelled to the driver, Do you have any seats? “Uno,” the driver yelled back. Somos dos! (There are two of us!). “Tengo uno, no más” (I only have one seat). I watched the man hesitate for an instant before yelling Okay! I'll be right back! He momentarily disappeared into the night before reappearing with parade of young girls, his wife, and a toddler. Apparently by “two” he meant six. The two younger girls clustered around my feet while the older one stood facing me, clutching sticky hands to the armrest I had so recently won back.  Apparently the extra 5 Bolivianos was for the coziness factor...

As we pushed on, the air became colder, thinner, and more polluted, and a familiar groggy, headachey dizziness returned to my brain. Aaaahhh La Paz. Welcome back.

Save a few noteworthy adventures, La Paz is best told in pictures. Here goes...

Colorful doors and angry dogs everywhere...

  Hazy red mountains....

              

And exquisite sunsets.

Departure

Monday July 5, 2010

I awoke this morning to the feeling of bittersweet anxiety that can only mean a change is in the wind and farewells are on the horizon: my time in Chijchipani with Teodoro has come to an end. Though I have only been here two weeks, by this point in my life I am all too aware of how quickly my spirit sets down roots: I will find a home and people worth missing wherever I lay my head. Despite this assimilation ease, I have fully failed to master the yin to its yang: the uproot. I blame this partially on what I will call optimistic amnesia, in which, at the final hour as I say my good-byes and ready my departure, I can recall exactly nothing except the best and most endearing parts of a place and the people who populate it. After two weeks of unforgettable experiences with one of the most endearding families I have yet to encounter, I expected this departure to be no less tear-stained than any other.

I had no idea what time Jaime would arrive, and so my bags sat packed and ready to go by early morning. After successfully downing a healthy breakfast of pito and tea (aside: it's amazing what you'll eat when you're hungry enough and there's only one option...with several days of practice under my belt, I now fancy myself to be something of a pito pro...quite unstoppable, really...spoonfuls by the dozens. I might actually be starting to like it...), I joined the kids for a few rounds of games and giggles before heading to the kitchen to help Afra with lunch. Though I am eternally grateful for the graciousness and the willingness to share that the family has shown me since their arrival, I must admit that I am looking forward to eating something that has perhaps been cooked without a shoulder in it (“Un plato siiiiin carne para la Catereeeen, la vegetariana” she says, brushing aside the scapula with her ladle). I was chopping carrots and singing Miss Mary Mack for the kids for the eight hundred and forty-fifth time when we heard tires crunching on the rocky drive and the wail of a horn. I looked at the kids and sighed; already...?

I threw my bags in the back of the taxi (the Sportage is still broken) and felt the tears rise. The kids (plus Bilde) stood in a line next to the porch, not quite sure what to do with the lip-quivering, tear-stained gringa. ¡No llores! (don't cry!) said Fabian, the eighteen-year-old who had taken to relentlessly teasing me in the last couple days. I tried to smile but instead cried harder and began my way down the line giving everyone a good-bye hug; by the time I got to Teodoro at the end of the line I could barely get out the sentiments of gratitude that I had practiced in my head all morning. He told me to come back soon, that he would miss his hermanita americana (American little sister). I nodded and gave him another hug.

As the taxi pulled away I heard a knock on the window to my left; I turned to see the tall, leggy Fabian toss a definitive thumbs-up towards me with a big grin on his face as he chased after us. I smiled and waved and cried and watched as the other children followed suit. My last image of the Casa del Cafe was a tangled, joyful cluster of waving arms and running legs, their boisterous yelling and laughing reaching my ears even over the rumble of the road beneath us. We rounded the curve of the driveway as we entered the road and in an instant they were gone. Like the satisfying pops I so relished in hearing as I tore weeds from the soil in my first days here, my own roots reluctantly relinquished their hold on this place and these people that I had come to love so much.

On to the next adventure....  

Cultures Collide

Saturday, July 3

At 5:00 this morning I awoke to something nostalgically familiar, yet somehow different. A chorus of childrens' voices echoed across the patio...Isssssss aaaarrr-eeeeee ack, ack, ack.... In my state of pre-dawn grogginess I struggled to place what exactly I was hearing and why it sounded so off. It wasn't until the pat, pat, pat of rhythmic hand clapping reached my ears that I remembered the events of the night before and finally realized what was going on: in search of a good seated game last night after a long day on our feet, I had taught the kids Miss Mary Mack, the generations-old hand clapping game that probably every female in the U.S. can recall at will at any point in her life. The reason it didn't sound quite right was because the singers, not knowing English, had no idea where one word ended and another began. They had heard me sing it enough times to learn the tune and the placement of its more forceful verbal inflections (ack, ack, ack...), but they glossed carelessly over the rest. Simply beautiful.

Lots of work and lots of play followed my cheerful wake up call; in the morning those of us who felt well enough after our epic tour of the mountains yesterday helped Teodoro hack down some of the leguminous trees to use as an erosion barrier in the demonstration cafetal. After lunch we set to work harvesting eight billion Japanese potatoes (give or take a few). As far as I can tell, these Japonesas are nothing but hairy brown beets that produce large, tropical-looking heart-shaped leaves. A short time into our harvest I also discovered that they are quite often inconspicuously filled with a rancid buttermilky ooze that explodes all over your hands at the slightest touch. After a rather ironic afternoon of wiping my froth-covered hands on the dirt to clean them, I must admit that my enthusiasm to try these supposedly creamy nuggets of delectability has waned.

Minutes while working were spent full of answering the never-ending sea of questions that is forever tumbling out of the kids: How do you say árbol en inglés?Do you have a dog? What are your parents names? How do you say their names in Spanish? How do you say my name in English? Do you have any siblings? Do you have any kids? How much does a loaf of bread cost in the U.S.? Will you sing something for us? Speak in English for a long time. What's your house like? When describing my living situation in Boston, I stupidly emphasized that I live in one big house with six roommates, somehow expecting that this knowledge would draw the same reaction from them as it does from everyone at home (Six roommates?! That's a lot...!) I felt sheepish and very spoiled when I remembered that they live in what is most likely a very small house with ten people.

Minutes between work were filled with running, yelling, giggling, and full-on belly laughing as we played pesca! (hide and seek), terremoto (earthquake), colores (colors), juego de la orca (whale game), tag, and of course, Miss Mary Mack. Around mid-day I taught the kids Down by the Banks, another hand-clapping game, so that I could sing something else for a while. Ee-Ee, Ah-Ah, Oh-Oh, Um echoed across the lawn with regularity for the rest of the day. In the evening we added the card game Uno to our growing list of diversions. As we struggled to tell the green cards from blue cards in the flickering amber glow of our solitary candle, the youngsters threw me yet another moment of humility in the form of cultural differences: the game dictates that when an individual plays a wild card, that individual gets to choose which color cards will be played by the other players. In America, he who holds the power makes the decision...it's all about the win. With this family, the child who held the wild-card polled the other players to determine which color would be best for all. If a majority wanted Red, Red was chosen even if the wild-card holder held no red cards. Clearly these kids are used to sharing.

At the end of the day, Cooper asked me if I would be the Madrina of his youngest daughter, Claudia. Fully aware of the request and the responsibility this time, I accepted...grateful for the opportunity it would afford me to remain in contact with this charming, generous, loving, and wonderful group of people.

Paseando

Friday, July 2, 2010

A flurry of activity began the morning today as the adults and older children packed their things in preparation to go in search of work harvesting coffee for a few days. I was sweeping the porch with my favorite green escoba when I heard animated yells from the top of the driveway where they were piling into the taxi. I put my broom down and went up to see what all the excitement was about; they were deciding whether to take their tiny dog Goliath and how best to pack the car. Teodoro asked me if I wanted to ride with them; ¿Adónde? I asked. Al cumbre, he said. You and I will come back here after the taxi ride..? I asked. Sí. At 8:00 AM I jumped in the taxi with them, carrying nothing but the clothes on my back.

Thirty minutes later we got out at the foot of a small trail that headed up the mountain and disappeared into the weeds. We walked for two minutes up the hill until Teodoro stopped and pointed his machete toward a place in the bushes to our right. El camino va por aquí, he said. Some people use the term camino more loosely than others, I suppose. The entrance to said camino was marked by an outcropping of vines that romantically draped over the trees and undergrowth, framing what was perhaps a “trail” that someone used once, a long time ago. Or perhaps not. The metalic clang of Teodoro's machete led the way as we scrambled over fallen trees, crawled on all fours under long spans of tangled, thorny vines, and grabbed onto tree trunks to pull ourselves up dangerously steep slopes. The humidity and shade of the jungle cooled the air as we reached the cumbre and headed down the other side of the mountain. As the cumbre disappeared behind a dense cloak of jungle disarray, I didn't even bother to ask Teo if the two of us would be turning around soon; I already knew the answer. Nothing here is ever as you're told it will be...the ability to thrive in spontaneity is a requisite survival skill.

After bushwhacking through the jungle for over an hour, the eight of us plus Goliath emerged into a newly cleared agricultural field. And by cleared I mean the trees had been felled and left haphazardly where they lay, and by agricultural field I mean the side of a mountain. Squat, one-year old banana trees and coffee plants were the only things that gave marginal order to the surrounding environment. A plethora of weeds had taken the rare opportunity of full sunshine to flourish amidst the fallen trunks and sapling crops. Though our destination at the far edge of the field was no more than 400 meters from where we emerged from the jungle, the climbing and scrambling that our rugged terrain demanded hindered our pace; it took us nearly forty five minutes to cross. Waiting for us on the other side of the field was a mature cafetal (coffee farm) that spread evenly over the steep, slippery slopes that we traversed. Shade trees towered overhead, hosting all manner of colorful birds with colorful songs. Mandarin and orange trees mingled with tall healthy-looking coffee trees whose thin branches bore shiny, dark green leaves and arched under the weight of an abundance of beautiful cranberry-colored coffee cherries. I picked one and stuck my thumbnail through the skin; sticky sweet juice oozed from the thin layer of clear flesh that surrounded the valuable pit...the bean that runs America. 

Around eleven o'clock the ground started to level a bit and we approached a house. Through the trees I saw several members of a family surrounding rickety rectangular dryer screens that sat on wooden stilts in front of the house. They had their heads bent low and their hands moved quickly as they sorted through the white coffee beans that lay drying in the sun. Teodoro told us to wait in the forest as he approached the owners of the cafetal to inquire about work. We made ourselves cozy in the shade and dug into the load of oranges the kids had picked that morning at the Casa del Cafe. Twenty minutes later Teodoro came back to announce that this farm was not looking for workers but that there were perhaps some farms up the road that were. Weathered hands paused and quiet heads raised from their work; dark eyes squinted against the sun in unfriendly stares as seven Bolivians and a Gringa emerged from the forest behind the house and walked down the driveway to the road. 800 meters up the road, Teodoro announced, we should find work there. As we walked we helped ourselves to mandarinas and oranges from trees that were brimming with fruit; we passed small houses with owners washing and sorting coffee beans, and on all sides we saw the beautiful green trees heavy with red fruit as far as the eye could see. Despite the apparent abundance of work to be done on these cafetals, no one we passed was looking for workers. As we walked, Cooper and Dalila kept happily saying, “Who would have ever thought we'd be here in Caranavi, paseando (walking) con una Americana...con la Catereeeeen...”

Around 12:00 Teodoro told us to wait while he went ahead to see what he could find. Oranges were again enjoyed as we sat in the shade waiting for word. When he returned at 12:30 with no news of work, we decided to have lunch and head home. With their fingers they dug into the pot of meat, rice, and potatoes Delila had cooked that morning and insisted on giving me a plate with rice and potatoes (para la Catereeeen, la vegetariana...). Truthfully I somehow was not terribly hungry and the heavy beef flavor in the rice was perhaps more than my vegetarian palate could manage. Feeling like the potatoes might be a safer bet, I bit into one, revealing a grape-sized dark brown lump. I brushed my finger across it and the casing fell in half, exposing a fat pink grub nestled inside. Gag reflex. For the next fifteen minutes I revisited my old childhood habit of squishing and spreading the food out on my plate and (oops!) pushing some over the edge, hoping it would look like I had eaten more than the few grains of rice and one bite of potato I had actually consumed of the food they had so graciously shared with me.

Nourished (or not) and rested, we returned to the road, this time headed back in the direction from which we came. The day was beautiful, the company was lighthearted and fun, and the scenery was movie-worthy. I kept reminding myself of where I was and what I was doing, not wanting a single minute to pass without appreciating the experience in its entirety. As we retraced our steps, the banter continued between the seven Bolivians and the Gringa. Though I had been regularly partaking in the orange chupas to stay hydrated and had consequently made a few stops in the bushes, my status and abilities in the eyes of the group had risen to super-human levels of which I was certainly not deserving. Look how easily she walks, they'd say. It's like she's not even trying! She doesn't ever need to rest! Or eat! She doesn't even need to pee.They sure do make 'em strong in the U.S.  I bet the bugs don't bite her either. Do the bugs bite you Catereeeen? Yes the bugs bite me. ...But they don't do any damage, Teodoro quickly interjected, her body is strong like iron and her skin is impenetrable like fine metal....nothing can harm it. I stared at him blankly, not quite sure what I had done over the weeks to earn such a bionic reputation. Aaahhhh, they said. No wonder she looks so healthy...nothing can harm her. Kryptonyte, perhaps. We passed a black raspberry bush set high up on the hillside adjacent to the road. Afra was beside herself with excitement. I watched as she struggled to lower a branch with a long stick; when it became clear that this strategy would not work, I suddenly remembered that I am a foot and a half taller than her and offered my assistance. She lowered the stick and looked at me while momentarily considering my offer. Sí, pues....como eres gigante... (Well yes...since you're giant...); she backed away to give me room and I quickly jumped and grabbed the branch. Yup, raspberry bushes have thorns in Bolivia too. It's a good thing, to be honest...for a little while there I was actually starting to think I might get through a day without drawing blood; no worries though, yet again the jungle put me in my place. I dolled out the raspberries and lagged behind the group as I dislodged at least a dozen thorns from my fingers and palms. Addendum: kryptonyte and thorns.

As the afternoon wore on, our pace became slower and stops became more frequent, as if everyone else's ability to get themselves home was somehow inversely proportional to my ravenous state of hunger. At 4:00 we reached the road where the taxi had dropped us off. There we rested. We walked for ten minutes before resting again. I had to work hard to quell my impatience. We walked thirty minutes down the road before Teodoro ran into someone he knew and disappeared into their house...wait for me down the road, he said. When he finally emerged twenty minutes later I was pretty well ready to implode as I fought basic instinct to attack that which stood between me and my food. We set out anew and within minutes Teodoro lagged behind again to chat with someone else. Thankfully the rest of the group continued on; Cristian, the rambunctious thirteen year old quickened his pace and I gladly matched it. As the two of us pulled away from the rest of the group, I daydreamed about how incredibly delicious my cold meal of tuna, canned peas, and stale bread would be upon my return.

At 5:30, nine and a half hours after boarding the taxi to head to the cumbre, we finally arrived back at the house. The kids who had stayed behind ran joyously up to us, surprised and elated by our return. What do you want to play?! They asked. I could barely muster a smile and Cristian thankfully answered for the both of us: We're tired. We don't want to play. I went straight to my room and dug in to the meal I had been salivating over for a good hour and a half. 

As it turns out, canned peas are always terrible no matter how hungry you are...

Family Times

Wednesday June 30, 2010

Well. Teodoro wasn't kidding when he said his family was coming to visit. After a week and a half of quiet days of work broken up by quiet meals, the two of us seated opposite each other in the quiet kitchen on a quiet mountain, residents at the Casa del Cafe now total thirteen. Nothing is quiet; not breakfast-time, not work-time, not descanso-time, not lunch-time, not chupa-time, not dinner-time, not bed-time, not middle-of-the-night-time, nor four-o'clock-in-the-morning-time. It's absolutely divine. Our clan has expanded by three middle-aged adults (Dalila, Cooper, and Afra), seven kids aged 6 to 18 years (youngest to oldest: Richar, Claudia, Heidi, Cristian, Pamela, Carola, and Fabián), and one four-foot-tall grandmother (known affectionately as Abuelita, “little grandmother”).

This morning breakfast was a series of hilarious and fascinating exchanges between these twelve wonderful people and the Gringa. “I want you to take me back to the States with you.” Announced Afra through a beaming smile, mere seconds after we had met. Really? You want to go? Yes. To the U.S.? Absolutely! You're sure. Yep. Right now? Yes! Let's go, right now. Okay. I ran to my room and returned with my large green backpack. This should do...get in! The room erupted in laughter as a plump, four-and-a-half-foot-tall Afra hiked up her skirts and lifted a leg into my pack.

This boisterousness was followed by my introduction to pito. Teodoro's family is from Oruro, Bolivia, where the main agricultural crop is quinoa. That morning I had entered the kitchen to find the tiled island full of mugs of cocoa and five or six plates brimming with a light brown powder that looked like flour. What are we baking today, without an oven, I wondered. To my astonishment, however, everyone was tossing tablespoonfuls of the powder into their mouth with sips of cocoa and looking happy. Well, clearly it can't be flour...I decided. Having already dined on a meager ration of my dwindling supply of granola and walnuts I was perhaps not chomping at the bit to try this culinary curiosity, but before I knew it, no less than six people were insisting I try the deliciousness that is pito de quinoa. Orders were barked from all directions while Dalila assured me it was a dietary necessity (pito de keeeeeeenwa, es muy sano para la Catareeeen). I watched little legs run to the dish drainer to grab a plate that then bobbed down the assembly line, passing through at least 8 pairs of eager hands before reaching the floor and Abuelita, whose hands had already located and reached into a large black plastic bag that sat amongst the pile of provisions to her left. She threw handful after handful of the powder onto the plate as I unsuccessfully tried to assure her that I just wanted un poquiiiiito. I carried the heaping plate back to my seat at the far end of the kitchen with a cup of plain mate (said status causing something of a ruckus....You sure you don't want sugar with that...? Here, have some sugar. No sugar? Really?? What? She's drinking tea with no sugar...? Do all Americans take their tea without sugar? Wait, did you say no sugar...? Impossible. Teo, does she always drink her tea without sugar?? How can she drink it with no sugar? You sure you don't just want a little bit of sugar...?) Here goes nothing, I thought, as I tossed a heaping spoonful of pito into my mouth the way I had seen everyone else do it.

Well. It would appear that my initial impression was spot on; flour indeed. My eyes widened and I nearly choked as any moisture in my mouth suddenly disappeared, leaving behind a delightfully tenacious retainer of goo. I frantically reached for my tea but it was too late...not only did I promptly burn any epithelial surface that was not coated in pito, but the scalding liquid failed to weaken the impenetrable wall one bit. Hoping to assuage the pasty assault on my palate before I had to speak again, I quietly exited the kitchen and ran to my room for backup. I poured copious amounts of bottled water down my throat to no avail before enlisting the scraping services of my index finger and several rounds of floss. After swishing, scraping, suctioning, and struggling for the better part of five minutes, I finally emerged victorious. Phew. One spoonful down, one heaping plate to go...

The plot thickened surrounding my kind-hearted but enigmatic companion Teodoro when Cooper happened to mention that this was their first trip to visit Teodoro at the Casa del Cafe. Knowing that Teo had been living there for more than twenty years, I suppose the look of surprise on my face was apparent because he then continued, saying that one day thirty-five years ago Teodoro had up and disappeared for thirty-four years. Until a year ago they had had no idea whether he was dead or alive. Fancy that.

The next two days were filled with all manner of games, fun, and learning. The kids are fantastic language teachers and their games are inventive and entertaining. All seven of them find it necessary to explain (at the same time, in rapid Spanish) the rules of whatever game we're about to play; more than once I decided that rather than admit ignorance at whatever it was they were trying to tell me, I would just watch what everyone else did and imitate. This strategy works unless you're the first person called upon to do whatever the game demands, which I invariably was nearly every time. Fail. The loser(s) of each game are always forced to endure some sort of penalty for the loss, the favorite of which is the dreaded siete cruzes (seven crosses). In this penalty, the penalized is forced to kiss the crux of each of seven crosses that the punishment enforcer draws with his finger. Common places for such crosses to be drawn are on the wall, on the floor, on someone's shoes, and the most common of all, on the Gringa.

Sadly, my camera battery needs a recharge and I have no way of doing so until I get back to La Paz. No photos of the kids! Boo.