I think Mom is the Head Angel in Heaven.
My new life is so absolutely wonderful she MUST be pulling strings!
I am extremely blessed.I´m living with the marvelous Antelo family who are native Tarijañans. They´re very well off as situations go down here - in fact Dón Freddy (the Dad) was Mayor of San Lorenzo for years, and Freddy jr. is now the 2nd in command of the town and engaged to a former PCV. The entire family is awesome - well educated, friendly, and unbelievably welcoming. The first time I met Heidy (one of the married daughters) she and her younger brother Petero pushed me really hard to play Texas hold ´em with the fam that night. . . I thought it might not have been a good idea to lose my shirt or steal theirs the first day we met - so I declined. However, they´ve since won about 20 Bolivianos (about $2.24) off me . . .so I need to practice to get it back !
Dón Freddy has been an avid rider all his life - and is extremely excited that I am so motivated to get a horse ! He and his wife have generously offered for me to live in their house for free, make any changes I want to the house, to stable my horse on their land 5 minutes walk away from the house, have their cousins help me with the daily care of the horse, AND drive me NINE hours down to Salta Argentina to help me find the horse of my dreams!!! I´m sorry this is such a laundry list . . .but it´s a bit overwhelming. They treat me like a special member of the family and graciously fold me into everything they do - while still insisting I keep my independence as much as I want.
Clearly Mom has been working overtime upstairs. I have more freedom of movement than I ever thought I would - being only 25 minutes or so from Tarija city on paved roads ! The nuns have been equally as welcoming and I´m thoroughly enjoying getting to know them and the kids I´ll be working with. I´m definitely not cut out to be a nunnette (what I call the postulates) - I still can´t remember all of the Nuns´names - but I´m working on it.
I spent the day cleaning out my new rectangular/hallway shaped room - note to self - manual labor is NOT for me:) I washed/scrubbed the floor 3 times and it´s still dirty . . .dunno how that works, and I scrubbed and scrubbed the random set of stairs in this room that go from the floor into one of the walls . . . at this point I think paint is going to be my best friend ! Where are my fashionistas when I need them ?? (Steph…Sal…Anouk ?? where are you people?!!)
Below you´ll see part of an email a fellow B42er who´s serving in Santa Cruz (another department in Bolivia) - I was actually writing something almost verbatim to another friend - I think Naya speaks for all of us :
¨The funny thing is, my friends and I were talking about this over the weekend in the city, we have never worked so little in our lives as in a job, but we have never been more exhausted. The Peace Corps is more about the emotional adjustment that one needs to make and how difficult just life is, not the job that we will be doing for the next 2 years. The real challenge will be, being by ourselves and trying to integrate into a community that doesn´t really understand American culture and we ourselves having to become comfortable in a foreign culture. Our new motto is ¨How far will you go?¨and I think that means how far out of your comfort zone are you willing to go, because it is definitely not normal to feel the way one feels being in the PC. But what a great experience this is…
-Naya¨
It´s awesome to be able to write and hear from friends at home - but it´s such a unique learning experience to be so ¨not busy¨ the way we think of it at home and yet be working all the time. Just today I found myself trying to explain in Spanish why I ¨chose¨not to be Catholic and why the doctrinal differences between Catholicism and Anglicanism are important (footnote: although most Bolivians are Catholic - they tend to be ¨shopping cart catholics¨- i.e. they pick and choose what they like about the faith, and they are rarely sure of Catholic doctrine on various subjects . . .which makes debate highly frustrating) - in essence, on of the most interseting things to get used to is ¨working¨ just by interacting with people all day long. It goes against my Bernie-given proclivity to accomplish ¨tasks¨or get things ¨done¨ . . . but nonetheless is a big part of what PC service is.
Everyone keep your fingers crossed !!! I should be off to Horse Hunt in Argentina within the next week or so !!! All name suggestions will be extremely welcome !
Lots of Love,
Sarita la Tarijaña!!
