Leaving and changing is always particularly difficult for me, although I do seem to make special efforts to provoke it. Here’s the lovely way it started: My flight to Miami was diverted to Fort Meyers to refuel due to a thunderstorm, so I got to enjoy an extra takeoff and landing. I arrived right when they started boarding my next flight, but the plane was suddenly declared “out of service” by maintenance. The flight was delayed as they searched for an extra plane, so I of course arrived late to La Paz. In a half hour I managed to get another flight to Cocha, discover that something smelling of gardenia had exploded stickily all over one of my bags, unwittingly contract the labor of Jaime (who helped me with my luggage) and momentarily lose my ATM card after paying him way too much for said labor. All things considered, the flights themselves weren’t too harrowing, especially the dreaded final one.
My “partner” Mauricio picked me up at the Cochabamba airport amidst a pile of bags right as my eyes were starting to close and whisked me away to my host family. He was perfect – not too overwhelming, not distant, just really matter of fact and welcoming. Plus he has a very kind wife and an adorable daughter named Carolina (who immediately offered me cookies – she is probably pretty accustomed to seeing her dad cart around all sorts of foreigners). My host family lives in a large house with a colorful garden (ay, with an avocado tree – called palto here, not aguacate) and consists of an older couple, Lili and Fredi, and their four kids, Juanca, Magi, Pablo and Helen, all in their 20s and 30s. Plus Olivia and her seven year old son Carlitos, who are ambiguously the household help and simultaneously part of the family – a situation that seems to be quite common down here. They are all extremely accommodating and seem excited by the fact that I speak Spanish. They’re fun to be around, spend hours eating and talking and laughing, making special efforts to include me.
I spent my second day with Ashley, my coordinator partner who arrived a week ago (really good to see her). She also has a great family, who invited me to spend the day with them at a fiesta in the campo for the big festival that’s going on right now in Cochabamba, in celebration of the Virgen de Urkupiña. There was a short misa (mass) and lots of dancing to live traditional music (and even some more recent classics of the likes of Camisa Negra). I tried sopa de mani (peanut soup), a chicken dish without the chicken (seriously, everyone has been so unexpectedly accommodating to the vegetarian thing, maybe I won’t have to adapt), and lots of beer and the famous chicha cochabambina. It’s a beer made from fermented maize, served in a bucket with a little wooden bowl of sorts. It’s super dangerous because before drinking a serving for yourself you have to say “te invito” (I invite/treat you), and then scoop someone else a serving. Turns into a vicious cycle -- luckily I had the excuse of just arriving and a delicate stomach, so I only tried a bit.
Ashley’s family is enormous, parents, kids and grandkids, and hilarious. They drove me home at the end of the party and, even as well-established natives, couldn’t find my street. Streets are rarely labeled here and I am totally confused by this city (not to mention the traffic, ay dios). The dad just kept cracking jokes, telling a story about his stolen motorcycle and saying “preguntando uno llega a Roma” (by asking, you can get to Rome). We finally found my house doing just that, but my immediate plans definitely include orienting myself a little better. It’s an awful feeling not knowing your way around at all and looks like even a map won’t be magically empowering here.
Wednesday the Fiesta de la Virgen de Urkupiña was still raging, and I went to the Calvario with the younger generation of my host family. Basically what happens is a mass pilgrimage to an enormous hill in Quillacollo, at the edge of the city, where people go to ask things of the Virgin. Hundreds of thousands of people come and buy little miniatures of the things they desire, houses, fake marriage and job certificates, baskets of food, piles of counterfeit dollars, euros and bolivianos. Everything gets put in a bag and you then take a sledgehammer to the rock in the hill, chipping off pieces to add to your bag, which you then cover with confetti and chicha for good measure. My host sister Helen swears that all wishes get fulfilled, as last year she asked for a car, and indeed, she now has a car. (I didn’t ask for anything, by the way, since I couldn’t find any miniatures representing fluency in Spanish, domain of the city and its customs, etc.) The bags are carried back home, and I’ve gotten ambiguous answers about what happens next to them… this does happen every year and I wonder if there’s some closet full of chicha-smelling bags of fake money and miniature houses.
The masses of people, dust, and smoke made me feel a bit dizzy and sick for the first time, but the whole event was a sight to behold. El presidente Evo Morales even showed up in a helicopter – my host dad says they showed him dancing on the news.
I don’t quite feel comfortable taking pictures yet, and I’m holding off until the fiesta ends (as much as I longed to capture and convey how immense this celebration is). Ashley went the first day, and everyone she went with had neat little slits cut in their purses. Cell phones, cameras were stolen… I went the route of sticking my wallet down my pants and carrying nothing. But pictures soon, I hope.
Overall, so far I’m doing well and keeping busy, albeit a little intimidated by how much more of a challenge feeling confident in this city is going to be, without a doubt, the least accessible I’ve ever experienced. I’m looking forward to spending more time with Mauricio and Rebecca (my predecessor) for insight. Before interns come and I’m supposed to be some sort of authority.
