May 8th 2008
Almost another weeks has passed and I am in awe. Though I have experienced in the thousands moments in which I don’t really know what to do with myself , I have read almost three books and have reflected a lot. On everything under the hot sun set against the blue blue blue sky so blue you cant breathe if you think about the blueness for too long. I really felt like I was drowning in blue one day and I couldn’t pull myself out. I used to think the blue in NY was awesome because on clear days the numerous skyscrapers reaching up into the endless sky made the blue seem like the background of a painting we in our busy goings and comings were stuck inside. It was awesome but creepy. Here in Bolivia the blue is much purer and there is nothing even trying to breach its shores. That’s frightening. And the night sky, a whole different story. The stars are brilliantly endless. Anyway, lots of conversations and being silly so we can laugh together. Slightly swollen arm from some bee stings but sweet honey to taste away the bother.
The problem with my little home here is the number of projects available, I don’t know where to start. The bees are good, but it is a slow process especially since we lack materials. So then I got to thinking why wait to buy suits and smokers and hive tools and boxes when we have sewing, carpentry and metal works classes. We can make our own. That lead to the realization that Sucre doesn’t have a store where bee keepers can buy supplies. You need to go to Santa Cruz or Cochabamba. If we are going to make our own materials, then couldn’t we also make them to sell…? So that on top of managing the colonies and teaching the Gatos about beekeeping.
Gardens are also in need of improvement, mostly intercropping and better watering systems. But then I realized that during the summer, the growing season, all the kids leave. So who is going to water and harvest etc.. me and Don Mario? Not so much. Plus that’s when all the honey harvests are too, the summer, duh. So my idea here is to research a bit about WWOOFING. Willing Workers on Organic Farms. An Australian organization that is quite global, I think. People sign up and are sent around the world to work on farms. No pay but room and board and the chance to live and work somewhere else for a stint. So my idea is to combine the garden problem with our lack of tourism. Make a whole eco green tourist hot spot. Bring the tourists in the summer months to help with the bees and gardens and such. We have plenty of rooms and a communal kitchen/dining room….the wheels are a turning, merely ideas but like I said soooo much time to think. Though two years is a long time I may need to think more realistically about the way things move, but aim big right.
There are countless opportunities to have exercise classes, English lessons, art and dance classes. These Gatos soak up everything with twinkles brewing in their eyes. So far their only form of entertainment is football and on special occasions they get stuck in front of the TV. Best so far the principle of the school said today that they couldn’t watch a movie with any violence in it, but that they could watch the news. For any of you who have seen the Bolivian news it is rather like an action film with nothing but dramatized stories about murders and blockades, riots and scandals. I laughed to myself!
Excellent part last night for may birthdays we even got to dance to our own music! Wanting to return to site so I can work on settling in. Figured out a color scheme for the room got a wardrobe to make some paper lanterns to hang and a budget proposal to work on for the bee project. Went fabric pricing with the sewing teacher yesterday to figure out how much it would cost to make our suits, real fun and now I know where the fabric stores are for any other projects I might dream up!
More musings as they come to me.
later
May 1, 2008
Today there was ropa interior stolen from the girls dormitory and tacked to the backboard of the basketball hoop in the cancha. Before that was addressed, however, we raised the Bolivian flag and sang the national anthem. I expect to have it memorized within these first strange three months. Strange for it seemed like I was on vacation as I had my coffee and plums on my balcony, my supplementary breakfast, while everyone was getting ready for classes to start.
Moved on to plant broccoli and utilized the gravity fed irrigation trenches we dug to water. Tomorrow to the bees if I don’t die from eating cow stomach again. My own gas tank is imminent as asking to boil water for a single cup of green tea everyday is taxing. Loft has been approved and may even be finished before I put up the sleeping cage. Can’t wait to have somewhere to plop down, to couch, if you will. Bolivians don’t plop. They don’t perch either. They slouch, I think, sink, and saunter. What do you think? I am proud of my patience so far. I can sit and watch for hours nothing in particular and once I am tired of asking questions, silent dinners pass less awkwardly. The best of today came at dusk as I finished helping someone level their garden plot. I looked up and the remaining bits of sun filtered through the mountains uncovered all the tiny specks of dust. Millions of particles floating along in no particular direction reacting somehow to whatever came their way paying no attention to amazed me.
You know the ever reliant mound of rice. Well today instead of rice it was quinoa, sweet right, guess again because well instead of potatoes or pasta on the side it was more quinoa, a protein Everest. Unfortunately, I couldn’t even use the energy in the soccer tournament because our team played our games in the morning. I was goalie won and then lost, so I helped make bread for the rest of the day. Fascinating experience though, last night, trying to organize the tournament. Four guys teams three girls not that hard right. Well it took the kids about an hour to get everything straight, I was so tired I slept for ten hours, and felt oh so good this morning. Oh but during the game one girl twisted her ankle pretty bad and I spent fifteen minutes trying to convince the groundskeeper that she needed to elevate it and put something cold on it, he insisted that mule grease was sufficient, end of story.
Loft fell through, not literally, that would be sad, plaster all over my magenta shower curtain. Did you know that my shower curtain is magenta? With silver spirals to boot, and I didn’t even pick it out. I did however pick out a matching towel without even knowing. My bathroom is pink, it is a beautiful thing. But yeah the top of the bathroom isn’t finished, the ceiling is but above it is not covered. I need some plywood or planks of sorts then mattresses. Ahh well TIB.
I spent a day gluing rice to a wall. Actually it was more like flinging rice at the wall hoping it would stick to the sugary paste we applied beforehand. Brother Hector, from Chile, is constructing a pub, for the non existent tourists. Before I thought his interior design couldn’t get anymore wonderfully tacky the rice happened, and then we spray painted the rice multicolor, oh yeeah! And the rest of the room has a border of horses and bulls and lizards and chickens and elephants and there are these little vignettes of campo like scenes and every color imaginable is represented except purple which saddens me because it is such a soothing color. Who knew it would feel so satisfying to fling rice, though I may have inhaled a bit too much of the paint, it was worth it to pass the time while my new friends were in their academic classes.
The gardens are growing, and we turned compost piles the other day, almost ready for worms! My main job has been to check in and out tools, lame but it helps me learn names and plus I don’t want to do the work for the kids, that’s even lamer. Yo, we have like an uber population of bees that are outta control. Miriam, my counterpart, and Jose, the guy who is writing his thesis on bees, and I checked out the hives a few days back. Three really strong colonies with honey even in the alzas but there weren’t enough frames so we had to attach comb and add frames and well they need a lot of work but super stoked to start having bee classes. I want to have a bee song, suggestions welcome….And I want to teach the kids football and Jose Limon’s modern dance technique. It is all about fall and recovery and these kids are doing such while playing soccer falling so gracefully so as not to hurt themselves too badly on the concrete. In Limon you gather up energy till you can’t hold it in any longer and swoosh out it goes in a turn, jump, fall, mmm satisfying.
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