Feb 12th 2008
My room is on a balcony very New Orleans style, long balcony with six rooms each with a window overlooking the courtyard. There is a long row of Eucalyptus trees behind the house bordering a stream/drainage for Tiquipaya, the town up the road. The balcony wraps around the corner and overlooks the street, one of the main drags in Cuatro Esquinas, Four Corners, my neighborhood. Through the balcony I can see if there are any of my fellow gringos wandering and say hello to the cows across the street.

All 31 of us have been placed in home stays about 20 minutes outside of Cochabamba in adjoining neighborhoods. Rachel lives next door, Michelle down the street and Garret, Meredith and Brandon round the corner a bit towards the mountains. We are in a valley so the mountains surround us and look divine round 6 or 7 when the sun is setting and casts and eerie yet warming glow on the topmost part while the rest is in cloud shadows. For all of us in B47 (47th group in Bolivia) we wake to four hours of Spanish class with no more than four people in a class. We meet at one of our houses and return home for lunch. The afternoon is then devoted to technical work. We usually meet in one of our houses and well, learn a lot!

As of now I have
nine spiral bound manuals on policy, health, women’s groups you name it,
four Spanish textbooks,
one cultural textbook,
one PACA book (participatory analysis for community action) to go along with our PDA (participatory diagnostic assessment)
Where there is no Doctor
Where there is no Dentist
And a huge binder full of articles on: vocab, conditions of agriculture in Bolivia, Gardening, pests and disease, conserving fruits and veggies, drying fruit, solar dryer construction, nutrition, beekeeping and Ag business.
Apparently this is only half of the materials we get…..

The Ag people have to make gardens, my group has it at my house, lucky but watering falls on me then. So we tilled 30 square meters mostly by hand on Sunday. Yesterday we planted a seed bed in our tech session in another groups garden. Added sand, manure, om (organic material) and planted. We even wove tape from a cassette through stakes above the bed to protect the seeds from birds. We have to plan our gardens in accordance with our PDA meaning we have to canvas the neighborhood and see what grows well, what sells, what’s needed, who grows what, who buys and when do they buy etc…We are also starting a community bank and have to market a product to sell, take out loans, pay interest all that. Overload of info but taking it as the Bolivians do there is always tomorrow to do things.

The group is of good spirits. Very varied and eclectic interests from all over the states. Big enough to have lots of friends and small enough to have closer friends and know everyone. Have met a good number of PVC’s already when they come into Coch from their sites which is nice because they are so helpful with questions. Seems like the Ag people will be in Santa Cruz, Tarija or the Chaco which means the down jacket is totally unnecessary except for when I visit the altiplano. Silk sleeping sack, though, best thing I could have brought, so cozy and functional, thanks ann!


Nos cheque
Lebo

March 8, 2008
Yes my blog, how fancy no?
Recap since so much has happened

Our garden is thriving! Especially the radishes and onions. Thanks to the rainy two weeks I haven’t had to water and the plantitas are loving it!

Our Queso de Paz (Peace Cheese) was quite the success. Andrew Marlise and I made queso fresco, basically a fresh cheese, simple flavor that we pressed in molds of pvc pipes and sold. We made 9 b’s profit. Took out a loan of 90, but only spent 60 so we still have to pay the ten percent interest on the 90. Sold the 12 cheeses for 7b’s a pop. Glad to have sold them all because though the consistency was primo, we lacked salt, a lot of salt, it really just tasted like molded milk, but it was soo good in the super protein salad another group made.

On Sunday Andrew Marlise and I have our PDA Charla. We discovered an interest in yoga among many of our sisters so we are combining Yoga classes with nutrition and exercise. So on Sunday we will have a basic Yoga class accompanied by Andrew on the guitar and after we are going to make smoothies to get people into fruits and milk.

Received our site descriptions on Wed. There are 15, 5 in each department, Santa Cruz, Chiquisaca and Tarija. I have my eyes on a sight in Chiquisaca in the municipality of Yotola. The site is Pitantorilla and it is a boarding school for high school dropouts who want to learn a trade. So they have carpentry and metal working and huge gardens with fruit trees and veggies and bees and ooo it would be sweet. I could probably have dance classes if I wanted! Surprisingly not that many people want it so I might have a good chance, though really any of the sites would be great. There is one in Tarija where they produce a surplus of papaya and end up throwing it in the river!!!!!! So the volunteer would be working on product transformation, imagine papaya all the time dried, juice, smoothies. Mom.

Mishay and Natalie and I signed up to do our tutoring in a university where the students want to hear native English speakers and then we can practice Spanish and meet some Bolivians who are our age. Going to make cookies with Alejandra my nine year old sister and then back into the city for a birthday celebration at the only sushi place in town. Brazilia Café, I guess it is Japanese Brazilian fusion???

Must catch the trufi now. Last wed I had to stand for 30 minutes with my back pressed against the ceiling in the crowded trufi. There were 25 people in one of those white vans….amazing.