This is a picture of me in Cochabamba. It can also be found on my Facebook page.

I arrived safely in Moro Moro Monday night. It feels good to finally be at my final destination where I will be serving until next July. Moro Moro is vastly different from any other place I've ever lived before to try to explain everything in one blog post would be way too much and then I wouldn't have anything to write about for the rest of the year. So this blog post will focus on roads and transportation.

Leaving Santa Cruz the roads are all paved, but once you get further out into the campo (countryside) the roads are no longer paved. Not only are they not paved, but they can be pretty rocky and uneven. Gravel roads are unheard of here, the roads are a mixture of clay, dust, rock, and sand, whatever is the natural terrain. Car rides are very bumpy and are only somewhat faster than walking. The roads zig zag up and down mountains and in many places the roads are not wide enough for two vehicles to pass. The custom when going around a blind curve is to blow your horn.

Only in the past few years have people in Moro Moro been able to earn enough to buy vehicles. The most common vehicles found in Moro Moro are motorcycles, station wagons, and trucks for transporting agricultural goods. The station wagons here are almost all illegal imports from Japan that originally had the steering wheel on the right side of the car, but have been switched to have the steering wheel on the left side, not that it really matters when there is really only one lane of traffic. Most cars here don't have license plates because there isn't much of a police presence in Moro Moro. Hitchhiking is standard practice here. If you want to go somewhere like Vallegrande, you just wait along the road that leaves town and ask passing vehicles where they're going. Yesterday on the way back from doing some work in preparation for a potable water system we hitched a ride in the back of an ambulance that was returning from doing an animal vaccination campaign in a rural community. That's all for now, next I'll tell you more about my work.

A week in Santa Cruz

Today I will be traveling to Moro Moro, the town where I'll be working for the rest of my time here in Bolivia. I'm very excited to finally get there because I've been in Bolivia a month now, but still haven't gotten to see the place where I will be working. I've been told the climate is very nice and mountain scenery is gorgeous. I'm glad I will be traveling mostly during the day so I can see the scenery as we travel. I will be going in a truck with fellow MCCer Nathan Harder who came as a one year SALTer, but decided to stay on and has now been here for four years.

My time in Santa Cruz has been very pleasant. With the other SALTers we visited all the workplaces of the volunteers that are staying in Santa Cruz. We visited Talitha Kumi, an orphanage for abandoned children, Guarderia Moises which is part of the Stansberry Children´s home (Guarderia means daycare/preschool), Guarderia Samuelito, and Centro Menno (the drop in center for low German speaking Mennonite colonists in Bolivia). We also visited a Mennonite colony outside of Santa Cruz. We got to see a Mennonite run mozzarella cheese factory. The Mennonite colonists in Bolivia are much like the Amish in North America. After visiting the Mennonite colony we went back to Santa Cruz to see the area of town that caters to the Mennonites. Our lunch was a very interesting cultural experience. Our international group of Americans, a Canadian, a Nicaraguan, and a Bolivian ate lunch in a restaurant that is owned by Asians, serves Mexican tacos, is patronized by low German speaking Mennonites, and is located in Bolivia. If that isn't globalization I don't know what is.

This week I've been living with a wonderful family in Santa Cruz. The parents are doctors and they have a one year old little girl. Being doctors, they have significantly more money than average Bolivian. It has been a little awkward for me to be living such a posh lifestyle this week when I know that it is not the reality for most Bolivians at all. To make things more complicated I've been reading Shane Claiborne's book "Irresistible Revolution" that talks about leaving sheltered lifestyles and putting oneself in the midst of the poor to be able to minister to them by sharing their joys and sorrows. This month of Spanish lessons and orientation has been good for me to learn about the variety of experiences in Bolivia, but now I am ready to dive into my work and life in Moro Moro. Pray for me that I may find the things that God wants me to be doing in Moro Moro.

Time winding down in Cochabamba

This weekend the rest of the SALTers in Bolivia that didn´t need language studies came to Cochabamba along with some other MCC staff. On Saturday we visited MaryKnoll which is more or less the Catholic equivalent of MCC. There we had two lectures. The first was on Andean cosmovision, essentially how people from the Andes Mountains region view the world, time, space, and spirituality. It was interesting to learn about. Andean people have a lot of symbolism that is represented in many different things. They view the world as containing three parts, the depths, the earth, and the heights. Many Christians would see this as hell, earth, and heaven, but we were told that in the Andea cosmovision the depths do not have a negative conotation, nor do the heights have an inherently positive connotation. They are just different realms that are inhabited by different creatures. For example, fish live in the depths, birds and deities in the heights, and most mammals in the earth, but some animals like frogs bridge the realms of the depths and the earth. Humans are supposed balance living in all three realms. I found this talk interesting, but did not find much meaning in it for myself. I do think that it is good for me to understand how people here think so that I can appropriately relate to them. We then shared a traditional Andean picnic which was followed by a discussion about coca.

Coca leaves are most notoriously known in the United States as the precursor to cocaine, a highly addictive and harmful drug. However, what most Americans don't realize is that the coca leaf is a very nutritional vitamin supplement. It just so happens that with extensive processing you can extract a miniscule amount of a very potent chemical, the cocaine alkaloid. By chewing coca leaves or drinking tea made from them a person receives essential vitamins, A, D, and calcium. The miniscule amount of the cocaine alkaloid is easily digested by the body's digestive system without getting high or receiving any toxic effects. The coca leaf is revered in Andean tradition with traditions surrounding how it is shared and chewed. The U.S. sponsored war on drugs in Bolivia has caused massive tension and extensive violence without significantly reducing the amount of cocaine that makes its way to the U.S. The war on drugs in Bolivia is not working, maybe it's time a different approach was taken like trying to reduce the consumption of cocaine in the U.S. or making products such as coca tea and coca candies legal in the U.S. so that coca farmers have a legitimate market for their coca.

Sunday was pedestrian day in Cochabamba. That means no cars, buses, or motorcycles from 8:00 am until 6:00 pm. It was an awesome sight to see the busy streets of Cochabamba void of all motorized vehicles. The streets were taken over by bicycles. Downtown a mechanical bull was set up in the middle of the street, and of course I just had to ride it. I managed to stay on a full 22 seconds just shy of the 26 seconds that Andy stayed on. It was fun. We witnessed a kid's bike race with a small girl pedaling a tricycle coming first in her division. We walked all the way to the edge of town where a the world's largest statue of Christ sits atop a hill overlooking Cochabamba. We rode the gondola up the hill to see it. I thought that this was a very cool symbol. I wish more cities had statues of Christ as opposed to ubiquitous statues of military generals that dot parks and intersections.

Monday and Tuesday I had more Spanish classes and in the afternoons with the other MCCers we had lectures on Bolivian culture and history. Tuesday we were introduced to the concept of "vivir bien" meaning to live well. It is an Andean concept of living well by sharing with and receiving from others. It is different from the western concept of living better, (which happens to be part of WalMart's slogan, "Save money, live better"). Vivir bien means to live well without striving to receive more and more, and if you have more and more you should share more and more while still being open to receive from others. This is a really neat concept to me that I'd like to learn more about, it really seems to fit into the lifestyle that Jesus led.

This Friday night I will take a bus back to Santa Cruz where I will spend a week and then I will head out to Moro Moro. May peace be with you all!

More from Cochabamba

Hi folks. Things continue to go well here in Bolivia. Spanish studies continue to go well. This past weekend I got to experience some interesting Bolivian traditions. I was invited to a birthday party for the grandson of my host family. I was told the party was to start at four. Then when I asked my host family what time I should get there they suggested around 5:00. I was playing card games with the other SALTers in Cochabamba and figured that 5:30 wouldn't be too late to arrive to the party. So I went back to my house a bit after 5:30 and no one had left yet. So by a little after six we walked across the street to the party and the party was just starting. The German guy that lived with my host family before me was also at the party, but he had rushed to get there by 5:00 figuring that he would be late. He ended up being the first one to arrive. This phenomenon of things not starting on time is called "La hora Latina Americana" (Latin American time). At the party we ate, sat around and chatted, ate cake, and played a game called rayuelas. Before the birthday boy blew out the candles on the cake we sang "Hoppy Baretday To Jou" and "Cumpleaños Feliz." After blowing out the candles the birthday boy had his face smashed into the cake, I guess that's the tradition around here. The cake was delicioius. Later we played rayuelas which is similar to corn hole or washers. There is a small platform with a small hole in it and you throw coins and try to get them in the hole or land on the platform. It's a whole lot harder with small coins than with beanbags or large washers.




On Sunday afternoon my host family took me to the neighboring city of Quillacollo (Key-ya-co-yo) to witness the traditions surrounding the Virgin of Urkupiña. This is one of those mixing catholicism with folk beliefs. I don't really understand the whole tradition. We arrived in Quillacollo to find hundreds of vendors selling miniature versions of everthing you could imagine, houses, cars, money, vegetables, fake diplomas, etc. My host family bought a few of the things and explained to me that the belief is that if you buy these things here and perform this traditional ritual you will have these things in the next year. Then, with miniature house and fake money in tow, we made our way up the rocky hill to where people were breaking pieces of rock with sledge hammers and setting off fire crackers. We searched for a place where we could do the same. Before starting working at breaking up some rocks, beer was poured on the rock for Pachamama (Mother Earth). Then the broken rocks were placed in a bag with confetti and fake money and chicha (corn beer) was poured over it with each person asking for things in the year to come, health, money, etc. Next we went to a place where a woman was selling meter square plots of land. There was a similar ceremony with chicha and beer blessing the plot of land.

The whole experience was quite interesting, but was entirely empty of meaning for me. It seemed like more of a commercial adventure for those selling things than a religious experience of any kind. It reminded me of the vendors in the temple that Jesus drove out. It is unfortunate to me to see such a mixing of Christianity and paganism. To some degree I appreciate the Andean tradition of Pachamama (mother earth) because I believe it helps people respect the earth, but the earth is nothing to be worshiped.

I finally got to meet Andy and Cassie Herringshaw who I will be working with in Moro Moro. They are here in Cochabamba for some Spanish refresher courses. More MCCers are coming to Cochabamba this weekend for a get together.