Sorry about having so many photos

A view from the Valle de Las Animas

So I guess I’ll start by catching you up on my health.  So the stomach thing is completely gone and over with.  Thank God!  I have managed to gain back my weight.  Maybe because I was extremely hungry for over a week since I had barely eaten.  My sunburn has finally finished peeling and I have a nice bronze tint.  This week started and I began to feel a tickle in my throat.   The next day I felt it a little more.   Next thing you know I develop a cough and a very deep voice.  It’s like a never ending story here.  And I’m not the only one.  It has been like this for everyone more or less.  But I am on the upswing now.  I have been coughing up some flim and my voice is somewhat going back to normal.  I just hope that I have a good few weeks of good health before I fall ill with something again…  Speaking of health, we had to shut down Casa de Paso this week (the building where I work).  It started last week when 2 of the kids in the kindergarten had confirmed cases of Hepatitis A.  Hepatitis A has been a big problem lately in Bolivia especially in schools and prisons.  Soon after the 2 cases were confirmed in Casa de Paso, it turned into 6, then 10, and by this Monday it was 12.  So we shut down Casa de Paso to the public to clean the whole building.  We wiped down everything.  In our office we even waxed the floors while we had the opportunity while everything was moved out of the way.  In the states many people receive vaccinations for viruses such as this but here in Bolivia many of the people can’t afford healthcare and not many preventative measures are taken.  This is one of the things that I appreciate about Foundation Arco Iris and Hope Worldwide as they try to provide up to date and free or very cheap healthcare to the poor here in La Paz.

 

Me waxing the floor in the office

On Friday this week Justus and I had a bit of a revelation about healthcare here in La Paz.  As we were walking up the hill to work, a lady fell down in the road and began having a seizure in front of us.  Once the seizing stopped I checked to make sure she was breathing and not choking on anything.  Then we carried her up the hill to Casa de Paso and waited for the doctor to get there.  She was about 10 minutes away.  So Justus and I had to stay with her to keep an eye on her.  I noticed that she was foaming a bit from her mouth so we rolled her on her side to prevent any choking.  That’s when we thought about how difficult it is to get to a hospital here in the city.  Yea there are ambulances but it is quicker to get to the hospital in a Taxi.  Even then it might take 30 minutes or more in rush hour traffic.  Finally the doctor showed up and started to treat the lady.  When the lady started to come to she was very confused and hit the doctor in the nose.  I then had to restrain the lady so that she wouldn’t hit anyone else.  After we gave the lady some more oxygen she finally began to calm down.  After about 20 minutes she started to realize where she was and began apologizing for all that happened (punching the doctor in the nose).  I sit here now and think what would have happened if no one was around when she had her seizure.  I am just grateful that we could be there and that she is ok.  She and her sister who came to pick her up were extremely grateful as well.

 

Little Cholita standing on the side of the road.

Hmm... Now what have I done since my last blog?  Well one day Justus and I went to Huajchilla.  We had to go visit a family that lived there.  And there was a good ways out of the city but not as far as Huayauasi.  It also is a small town out in the valleys below La Paz.  As we were waiting we met some of the nicest people.  That’s one of my favorite things about Bolivia.  I always meet some of the nicest people who are willing to take the time to talk to you and answer your questions.  She told us all about Huajchilla and many places around.  Finally the lady that we were visiting showed up and we went to her house.  It is very sad to see how many of these people live.  After visiting we headed back to the city to return to the office.  This past weekend (a week from the day I post this), we went to the house of one of the coordinators of Casa de Paso for a cookout.  It was a great time!  Her son is in cooking school so he manned the grill and I layed back in the hammock enjoying the nice cool breeze.  Her husband and Mathias were playing the churango and the guitar.  I tended to doze off every once in a while until the food was ready.  And man was it good.  The food was delicious.  If there ever is another cookout at her house I have no doubt in my mind that I will return.

 

Nice little BBQ shack

I'm Really liking all these Barbecues

My serenading music

Today Bekka and I went to Valle de las Animas (Valley of the Spirits).  We had tried to find it once before but today was looking more promising.  We took a minibus to Cota Cota and the took a micro further out of the city.  We met three young Bolivian college students who had to walk in the same direction as us.  They helped us with directions and we talked about all kinds of things.  I am amazed at how much my Spanish continues to develop as time goes by.  Yea I have trouble when I don’t know certain words but I am able to have a conversation that can last over an hour now.  It is very encouraging.  So they had to turn off on another road and Bekka and I kept on trudging along down the dirt road.  We then noticed that we had missed the entrance of the valley and decided go in through the exit.  Now this valley is not like parks back at home that have marked hiking trails or ropes and rails.  This is rugged, untamed hiking.  We began walking up a river bed.  Notice I said UP!  The whole hike was basically walking up a river bed of some mountains.  The further we walked the thinner the air got.  It was slightly harder to breathe and the calves of my legs were burning like crazy.  I could definitely tell that I was just getting over a cold.  The sights were breath taking (if it wasn’t already hard enough to breathe).  There were spires of rocks jutting up into the sky everywhere.  And the higher we got, the valley began to open up and green hills were everywhere.  When we turned back to see where we had climbed, we could see far off into the distance as mountains poked up above other mountain ridges and so on far as you could see.  It was like nothing I had ever seen before.  We continued walking up trying to find the way out of the valley when I just decided that we should climb a mountain.

 

Cool mountains behind me

Look At This!

Me stuck in a crack

Long ways down!

At the top of the mountain, after I finally caught my breath, I began to recognize where we were though I had only seen it from a distance.  We decided to go higher up another mountain but first we had to avoid some cows that seemed to be very interested in us.  I was the first to the top and I almost fell back in amazement.  On the other side of this mountain was one of the most amazing views of the city that I have ever seen.  We were higher than El Alto because I could see well off into the Altiplano on the other side of El Alto.  We could see far off through the valleys south of the city and many mountains off in the distance.  The best part of all was that down the steep cliff at our feet was a Valley of spired columns of rock that seemed to look like a lunar landscape.  WOW!  I think that this mountain top is my new favorite place in Bolivia though it is not easy task to get to.  When we turned around to look back where we had come from we were stunned with an amazing view of Illimani.  íQue Bonita!  We finally decided we should start to head down back to the city and then home.  It was starting to get late (we had been out there for 3 or 4 hours).  Our route of choice was through the valley of the spired columns of rocks.  Again it was not easy to get down to that point.  We had to scale down a steep set of hills until we got down to the river bed.  At least this time we were walking down.  While walking through the valley we were dwarfed by sky scraping towers of rock.  The walls seemed to hundreds of feet high.  It was a lot bigger than it looked from above.  The valley took about an hour to walk through with the occasional pit stop for a picture.  Finally we exited the valley and found ourselves in the far edge of the city where we caught a minibus home. 

 

Valley of Spires of rock bellow my feet

Chillin on top of a mountain. You know!

Wall of rock on each side

Nooks and crannies in the sides of the mountains 

How beautiful is this?

A few side notes: every so often I have these dreams that I am at home in the States.  I am usually sitting on the couch at grandma’s house or chilling with a family member.  Then I realize that it is Saturday and I need to hurry up and get a plane ticket to leave on Sunday so I can get back to Bolivia so I won’t be late for work on Monday.  But then I wake up and realize that I was never home.  It’s a very confusing dream whenever I have it.

Also you may have noticed in some of my photos that my facial hair is getting a bit longer.  I am doing No Shave November.  I am half way there and I’m very interested to see how it will look at the end of the month.  I haven’t shaved anything since Halloween.  I will put up a photo at the end of the month so everyone can see. So make sure to check back.

If anyone has any questions about Bolivia or life here, or wants to leave a comment feel free to do so in the comment section.

 

I thought i would put up a picture of my team that I work with.  SO......

In certain places in the city homes just teeter on the sides of cliffs

My roommates buy some of the most random things at the flea market in El Alto.

Long time no blog

Lago Titicaca

So you may have noticed that I did not write a blog last week.  I was sick for a little bit and didn’t do too much exciting.  I was maybe more than a little sick now that I think about it.  It is one of the difficulties about living here in La Paz.  I was not the only one sick.  Many people here in the house were sick.  It seemed to be a constant theme. But it seems that everyone is doing better now.  I myself had something going on with my stomach that seemed to last for about 2 weeks.  Every time that I thought I was getting better, I would get knocked right back down on my butt, literally…  Between the vomiting, diarrhea, and constant nausea that made it impossible to eat, I ended up losing about 10 pounds.  And since I had already lost some weight before that, I didn’t need to be losing anymore.  Afterwards I was extremely weak and dehydrated which made winning our volleyball game very difficult.  But notice I said we won!  It may have been one of our best games we played.  I was extremely tired but I still managed to spike it over the net multiple times to win the match.  Soon after the match I had to go home and lay down because I was drained and I had to run a 10k race the next day.

 

Me after the race

Me with Zona Sur in the background after the race

All the volunteers after the ra ce and our Bolivian neighbor

I woke up that morning to see rain clouds rolling in.  Standing at the starting line I was beginning to have second thoughts about this race as ice cold rain was falling from the sky.  But I was standing amongst 10,000 other people who were all waiting in the same rain storm.  So the race began and everyone took off.  It was a bit of mayhem trying to get a pace started because there were so many people crammed in together and jockeying for position.  Finally after everyone had spread out I was able to set in my pace and make the long journey to the finish line.  It was not an easy race since I was low on energy and strength.  Also, because of the cold rain my knees were hurting and my hands were frozen and numb.  About have way through the race the rain let up and I began to thaw out.  I remember coming around a turn and seeing a sign that said I only had 2k left to run.  I was amazed to how fast time had gone by but then I started to feel how empty my stomach was.  I didn’t know how I was going to finish the race.  I just kept putting one foot in front of the other using up every little bit of energy that I had.  Next thing I noticed was the sign that said 1k to go, and I could see the finish line off in the distance.  It gave me enough motivation to keep moving.  As I was running across the bridges towards the finish line, a boost of energy came out of nowhere that pushed me across the finish line.  My goal was to finish the race in less than an hour.  My official time was 1 hour and 2 minutes.  So now I am wondering that if I ran a 10k (a little over 6 Miles) race in just over an hour, what would my time be if I had not been sick for two weeks and I had not lost so much weight?

 

Perfect Dinner Menu

First Course: Salad with Calzones

Second Course: Chicken Parmesan, Risotto, and Vegetable melody

Desert: Tiramisu with Pineapple sauce

The night after the race Justus, Silas, and I had to cook our perfect dinner.  We were all drained from the race and were just happy to get our turn out of the way.  Our goal was not to spend all day in the kitchen cooking like the others and not take all night to serve it.  So we decided that the theme for our dinner was going to be Italian.  Man were we surprised about how our dinner turned out.  For our starter plate we served a salad with sliced grapes and nuts with a homemade balsamic dressing.  And on the side we had some homemade calzones.  One calzone had spinach, onion, and cheese.  The second calzone had tomato, onion, and basil.  As we were in the kitchen about to serve, of course we had to try everything to make sure it was fit to eat.  After the first bite my taste buds were overwhelmed with joy.  The salad was amazing and the calzones were some of the best I have ever made in my life.  Thinking maybe it was just a fluke we continued preparing the meal.  For our main course we served chicken parmesan, risotto rice, and a vegetable melody with rosemary.  Again we sampled everything first before we served it.  WOW!!  The chicken parmesan was so tender and amazing it was almost perf, no it WAS perfect.  The vegetable melody and the risotto just pulled the whole plate together.  How was this possible?  How were we able to create something so amazing?  But it was not over yet..  For desert we prepared a tiramisu.  We couldn’t find all the ingredients that we needed so we had to alter the recipe a little bit.  We prepared the desert plates and encompassed the tiramisu in a pineapple sauce that we just so happened to whip up.  After serving them up, we prepared some plates of our own.  What better way to end a perfect dinner than with a perfect desert.  It was incredible.  How did we manage to prepare something so amazing, I don’t know, but I think we have a major shot at winning this competition…    

 

Tanta Wawas

Shrine set up on a grave for todos los santos

Another Shrine set up on a grave

I know this past week in the states was Halloween.  I’m still not exactly sure where we came up with this holiday.  Maybe it was created by the government to boost the economy.  Anyways, it is starting to catch on here in La Paz.  They have haunted houses scattered around the city and there are Halloween decorations everywhere in all the restaurants.  There is even a bunch of Halloween themed parties and kids trick or treating.  But Halloween is not a typical celebrated holiday here in Bolivia.  It is just starting to catch on.  The real holiday celebrated at this time is Todos los Santos (All Saints Day).  It to me is an interesting holiday.  Everyone goes to the graveyards to visit the tombs of their lost loved ones.  But that is not it.  They also decorate the tombs with elaborate structures of sugarcane, bread figures, and the favorite foods of that person.  Each thing had a symbol for example; breads are shaped in the forms on ladders to assist in the ascent and descent of that person from heaven, also they are shaped in the forms of llamas or horses to help that spirit carry their loads of things with them.  Many people go to the grave sites and the family asks them to pray for their loved one who has died.  After praying, the family gives them plates of food as a payment for their prayers.  Usually it consists of bread, oranges, and bananas.  I would recommend looking it up online, it’s pretty interesting.  Sunday we went out to a graveyard near Lake Titicaca to learn a little bit about this holiday.  We entered the graveyard and were immediately wisped away by people wanting us to pray for their loved one.  Afterwards they gave us each a plate of food.  We were asked to pray over and over again at many graves before we had to go.  We left with a box full of fruits and breads from the families. 

 

Farm land over looking the lake: "Im Jealous"

Farm on the edge of the lake

Donkey

Afterward we left the graveyard we made our way down to the lake with the intent of fixing lunch.  We all decided that a swim in the lake would be nice.  To our surprise the water was a bit on the cold side.  I mean like shivering uncontrollably cold.  But after a few minutes it wasn’t so bad.  So with swimming in the lake bombing out, we decided it was time to start a fire and begin preparing for the barbeque.  Now that we have had a bit of practice starting fires, it was a bit easier getting everything started.  We built a fire pit and waited for the coals to burn down, and then we threw the meat on.  Chicken, steaks, and sausages were on the menu.  It was a great time cooking and hanging out around the fire.  After everyone had as much food as they could bare, we decided to enjoy what time we had on the beach and by the lake.  The lake is always so beautiful and the water is so crystal clear.  It is a shame that the water was so cold.  After walking around and seeing who could skip a rock the furthest, we loaded up the bus and began the 3 hour journey home in the city.  On the way home, we started to notice the tingling on our shoulders, backs, and legs.  We may have gotten a little bit too much sun.  It’s not horrible but it lets me know that it is there.  I just hope that it will sink in and that I don’t peel too badly.  It is hard getting use to the sun being so strong here.  I guess that’s what happens when there is not as much atmosphere between you and the sun.  You get twice as much sun in half the time then I normally would back at home.  I’m beginning to learn that eleven and a half thousand feet makes a big difference in day to day life. 

Me by the Lake

I like this picture!