Hey all,
I know you´ll all be so happy to know that showers are still the things of dreams, and the highlight of July 4th was eating real cheeseburgers. . .yes yes, with REAL burger meat and REAL cheese (both rare commodities down here) but life in general is going extremely well !
We just got back from our ¨Technical Week¨. . . a 10 day period where we visited 3 different current volunteer sites and ¨practiced¨being real volunteers. At the first site (Tortora, in the Department of Cochabamba, estimated pop: 1,200) we spent the first day running various workshops for 1st to 6th graders. I was in a Nutrition group . . . in Bolivia there are only 3 food groups - and nutrition is extremely poor throughout the country - it is common practice to serve some combination of rice / pasta / and potatoes in the same dish - often without any veggies (and you thought I had poor nutrition ! ha). And the following day we worked with Ashley´s (our host PC Volunteer, or PCV) English club. We played games in English and made Papaya marmalade . . . in an effort to be helpful a few of us clumsily tried to help peel the Papayas . . . we lasted mere minutes before the girls of the group laughed us away from anything with a sharp edge.
In all seriousness, if you do get the chance to visit - note to self - do NOT get into a knife fight with a Bolivian . . .especially the women . . . they must come out of the womb weilding knives and peeling potatoes . . . no joke.
Our second visit was to Matt´s site : Alquile (Department of Santa Cruz, est pop: 5,000 . . .i.e. one of the bigger sites). Here we worked at an orphanage/boarding school type of place. Most of the kids are not orphans, rather they live so far away in the campo (countryside) that this internado is one of the only ways they can get education. On our first day we ran self-esteem workshops for both the kids and the teachers, followed by an afternoon ´field day´of sorts. My integrated education tech specialist, Jillian, and I ran the water-balloon toss . . . too bad Shimkus wasn´t here to put us all to shame (Jills did get soaked . . . I however, never spilled a drop :). Jillian (or Jills) is a 3rd year volunteer who applied to extend her stay here as an administrative asst. to my APCD (Assistant Peace Corps Director) Wendy Van Damme. Wendy runs the integrated education program - of which I am a part. Anyway, self esteem is of immeasurable importance to the development of all kids and people, perhaps not as shocking as it may seem - the entire concept is lacking in this society. To a certain degree, even the ideas of child rights are relatively new.
Our following 2 days were spent running a Teacher ¨Taller¨(pronounced Thai-er) or workshop. We covered all sorts of things - from classroom management (it´s still common practice for teachers to hit the kids) to the fact that different ppl have different learning styles. At one point during the learning style section of one day - a few teachers went on at lenght that a child that likes to learn on their own has problems. That this child is probably having issues at home, likes to act out, doesn´t like to socialize, or has some other type of issue or problem. It was an interesting challenge, as a 20 something non-teacher, to try and engage these teaching ¨professionals¨in a way that they might consider what we were discussing might have validity. In anycase, true to form, I took the to the whole ¨Taller¨thing like a fish to water. As Jills said, ¨Clearly you have no shame when you´re talking to them . . . and that´s good . . . you´re spanish will eventually get better¨:) thanks.
Our third and final site was La Laja with a PCV named Katie (Department of Santa Cruz, est pop: 300), way way up in the mountains. Turns out a great deal of Bolivia is covered with gorgeous rolling mountains - the further East & towards Brazil you go - the more green and vibrant they become - even in the dry season (now). We stayed in La Laja and literally had to snuggle for warmth at night (which was fine, one of my favorite activities:) but during the day we built a greenhouse in another village out of Adobe bricks. Adobe is a combination of mud, straw, and sand - all dried out. Adobe bricks are held together only by mud . . . but adobe buildings are surprisingly stable (not that I´d like to spend my life in one).
All in all I loved it, found out i was really good at some stuff. . .can do other stuff . . .but I´m less than enthused about certain activities (read: umm, manual labor is NOT at the top of my wish list. . . ). I also figured out (rather agonized over) what kind of site I wanted to be placed in. It was relatively hard . . . I´ve wanted to do this for such a long time . . . and I´ve done all this research and thus have had all these preconcieved notions about what I wanted out of PC service . . . or what ¨pc service REALLY is¨. . . I´ve really had to try and come to terms with the fact that all the ideas I´ve had in my head aren´t necessarily connected to realities on the ground. As Jills said to me over Tech week - ¨The difference between PC Bolivia and PC Africa is that in PC Africa you work to live, and in PC Bolivia you live to work¨. This statement becomes more true all the time. Sure there are amenities we´re missing, and of course there are numerous health and physical risks, but for the most part we don´t have to walk 3 hours to get water.
Basically I´ve come to terms with the fact that any ´romantic´notions I had of PC service need to go right out the windo. I believe I´ll be a MUCH better volunteer in a more populated site where I´ll have at least a semblance of support / structure . . . only really to the point where I´ll have a ´place´to go to work. . . and a place where I´ll actually be busy ( i.e. not just sitting around ¨being¨a visible, but bored, American).
On Monday we finally recieved our site postings for the next two years !! I was extremely lucky and was placed at a site called ¨San Lorenzo¨ (which is actually in a few guide books) in the Department of Tarija, just a few hours North of Salta, Argentina. I´ll be working in an orphanage / boarding school of sorts where I will have the opportunity to teach people of all ages. This internado is run by Nuns who are apparantly VERY excited to get a PC volunteer to help them with all their educational endeavors; which include a soup kitchen for local needy children, a school, after school programs, a boarding house, and an adult school ! I´m most looking forward to being busy. Throughout training it has become clear that many volunteers must work through a labrynth of beauracracy full of political fiefdoms and most efforts result in extreme boredom and frustration 
Hopefully, my site will have less such hassles (although there are bound to be quite a few nonetheless).
I´ll only be 18 Km from the city of Tarija - maybe 30 / 40 minute drive on a PAVED road (very key). Tarija is heavily influenced by Argentinian culture - which thankfully means better beef, wine, and cuisine options in general!
I´ll be changing my mailing address shortly . . . thank you all so SO much for all the letters and care packages (you know who you are) ! All my fellow trainees want to know if any of you want to adopt them !
Missing you !,
La Sarita
(literally, THE little Sarah. . . much better than La Gordita . . .I won´t translate)
