Friday,Feb 24 2006, 02:08:52 PMFebruary 2006

Saturday, February 11, 2006               08:48 AM San Antonio

          Here I am back here in San Antonio. I had a wonderful time in Santa Cruz even if I was in the office for 4 days working on an application for some grant money. We did go to Aqualand last Saturday. It was awesome! Aqualand is like wet and wild with slides and all of that with a few exceptions, Brazilian style bikinis, swim up bars on the lazy river ever 100 yards, and slides that you can go down head first and backwards if you like. I loved it and there are some good photos in the album. http://www.zorpia.com/cgi/album.cgi?action=upload_results&upload_id=geoffinbolivia-1140790744-593&album_id=409512&start=all

            So last night I once again had to prove my manliness out here! No I didn’t beat the girl across the street in Monopoly, I am waiting till I feel perfect and the day is good for our final showdown. Last night we didn’t have electricity because the truck with diesel for the generator didn’t arrive. Well I decided to go to bed early (8) and read and go to sleep. Well I light my candles and get my book out to notice something flying around my room. So this is a little disturbing to me as I soon realize it is a bat. Now I have some options here because I am asleep soundly in my mosquito net but that won’t get the bat out of my room.

            Don’t get me wrong I like bats, just not flying around my head! So I do the manly thing! I get my machete, and kill it. Now hitting a flying bat with a machete takes a few swings but I eventually got the hang of it and almost felt like doing an Ozzie Osborn at the end of it but decided on taking photos with my ferocious prize at the end of the night. http://www.zorpia.com/cgi/photo.cgi?9266018.2f4cfb

 You might laugh at the size of this thing and at me for being scared by it, but I know half of you would be screaming like little girls if you were trying to sleep and a species of flying mammal was making your headroom its personal airspace. That is it for today.

Geoff

Wednesday, February 15, 2006           8:46 PM San Antonio

 

The past few days have been interesting to say the least. First off my boss was supposed to be here at 4 pm today and still has not showed. I am actually starting to get worried because he probably would have called if something was really wrong. Oh well what can I do?

            Something funny that happened the other day regards my eating habits and how they conflict with those of the Bolivian people here. Well as most of you know I like to eat fruit and or Vegetables. To me it is not really food or a meal without at least one fruit or one vegetable. So the other day I made this Broccoli, eggplant casserole thing and I took some to the Empenada lady. She said it was great but told me what their daughters had named it. They had named my dish, “Arbolito” or little tree. To them there were so many vegetables in it that they decided the dish was the equivalent to eating a small tree.
            Yeah and also let me tell you how much fun having food poisoning is out here in San Antonio. On Monday night, or Tuesday early morning, either way at 1AM I awoke and knew I was going to be sick. I went outside and threw up in the yard. This cycle continued at least 12 times over the next 12 hours and I was pretty much useless up until today. My abdominal muscles hurt so bad to day from the excessive force with which I was sick. What was I to do though? The only transport from here leaves in the morning and there is no way I am going to get on a short bus for 12 hours throwing up every hour. The only other way out of here is to call Santa Cruz and get them to send the Land Cruiser which would take at least 5 hours to get here and 5 back to Santa Cruz. So I guess I did what I had to do and toughed it out.

            I can tell you one thing though. For the first time since I have been here in Bolivia did I truly want to be back home, drinking a Gatorade, lying in bed with AC, and a flush toilet nearby. Little things . . .

Geoff

Friday, February 17, 2006                   8:22 PM    San Antonio

 

            So my boss Marko visited my site yesterday just to see how my work is going, to give me advice, make sure I am not suicidal, partake in our wonderful cuisine, and basically just see how things are going for me out here in San Antonio. He was here late due to delays that happened on the road from San Ramon. As the photos show the road sucks which I have proved time and time again. http://www.zorpia.com/cgi/photo.cgi?9266112.fbb3d9

 When he finally got here it was a good time as I got to sit in the air conditioning of the Land Cruiser when we went to Vanessa’s sight last night for a meeting. In the LC it only takes about 25 minutes to what takes an hour in the micro. On a side note I don’t think after two years I will ever voluntarily ride a bus again.

Marko pretty much liked what I was doing and just encouraged me to keep on working hard because everything here moves so slowly. It is not like in the states where people get to the point. People here love to hear their voices more than anything. They may not have anything constructive to add to the conversation, but inevitably if they are thinking about something, even if it is repeating what the person that just spoke talked about for 15 minutes, they will go ahead and repeat what the other person said. For another 15 minutes. And they are not using the Readers Digest condensed version of the story. They tell the unabridged full War and Peace version of the story. The funny thing is that these speeches, hardly ever offer solutions, actionable advice, measurable plans, fixed dates or anything like that. They talk in generalities round and round and say a lot but never really get anywhere. This is something I don’t think I will ever be able to change.

            Sometimes I will be sitting in a meeting with these guys and glance around to notice that half the rest are talking, some are in various states of sleep, and maybe one are two are listening. Oftentimes I find myself sitting their looking at this guy who is talking and think to myself, “what the hell is this guy talking about, what does it have to do with this meeting, how long can he really talk in generalities, please don’t let the next guy repeat what this guy is saying, and what would happen if I got up and shouted get to the damn point ace”

I have yet to bud in like this as I figure this is the way they do things here as inefficient, ineffective and so forth it might be and I am not here to change culture.

            The funny moment of this journal entry is the following which occurred last night when we meeting with Vanessa’s group of ladies that she is trying to work with. Marko asked the ladies how she is doing in the community, if she is socializing if they have any concerns about her etc. Well it turns out Vanessa got really sick and was in Santa Cruz for a while in the hospital with all sorts of bacteria, jiardia, amoebas and other really horrible stomach things that believe me suck.

            One of the ladies in her group spoke up that she was worried that Vanessa was doing risky behavior and that what is causing her to get sick and have to go to the hospital. What was this risky behavior? Eating bad food, drinking bad water, bad sanitation practices, people who make food never washing hands? No says the Bolivian lady, Vanessa sits on hot rocks in town and everyone knows that sitting on hot rocks will make you sick! The ladies were worried that if Vanessa keeps sitting on hot rocks she is going to keep getting sick.

            Her sickness of course had nothing to do with bacteria, rotten food, unsanitary water, virus or other medical explanations. It was because of a hot rock. Ha Ha Ha. The people here think you get sick for the silliest reasons. Now believe me. If you got what I had earlier this month, it is from eating something bad or from a virus, not from hot rocks, tarantula hair that you inhale, or some other old wives tale. The worst part about it all is when I tell them that you can’t get sick from hot rocks! You cannot get sick from hot rocks! I repeat hot rocks do not make you sick! All hot rocks can do is burn you and possibly give you a crick in your butt if you sit on them to long! Even so they argue with me and tell me that I am wrong and even if I am right it is better to not take chances with hot rocks!

I guess tonight I am going to end on this note. Thank God I am not a health education volunteer!

Geoff

Sunday, February 19, 2006        8:00 AM   San Antonio

            Last night was the crowning of the Carnival princess here in town. I took a lot of photos. It was pretty interesting but nothing so wowing that it took my breath away. Basically the drunk guy with the microphone called out last years princess who danced to the porch where she sat in the princess seat. Then the old lady to bless the ceremony with chicha danced up there with an empty gourd. Finally the candidates and the new princess made it up to the stage.

            The rest of the people either watched or drank, or the men who were wasted, yelled “mamita” with all their drunken might at the princesses as they danced to the stage. And believe me there were plenty of said wasted men. As usual it is not one drink but rather drink till you are falling down, nodding off at your table, can’t speak clearly, urinating in your pants drunk. I hate the drunks here! And even more the fact that every time there is a public event I have to confront men in such a state.

 It doesn’t even remind me like in college, where believe me a lot of drinking goes on. In College if you get really wasted once, okay. Twice people will be like man he likes to drink. But if every time you drink you get wasted out of your skull people view you as a drunk and think you have a problem. I think in the States the point of the party is to share good times with friends. This may involve drinking but more often then night the goal is not to get so tanked where you are passed out in the yard. Here the point is to drink yourself to such oblivion that you are useless for at least 24 hours after the party.

            Now I am not going to be anyone to say hey don’t drink because that would be hypocritical, but man I truly wish I could somehow wave a magic wand and make alcohol disappear here in San Antonio.

Well that’s it,

            Geoff

Tuesday, February 21, 2006       8:05 AM   San Antonio

         

            So Vanessa has been here for the past 2 days as we have been working on a technical exchange program that three of us volunteers are going to do with the respective artisan groups that we work with,

            Vanessa reminded me of a point which is really funny that I forgot to write about when describing Marko, my boss’, visit here to San Antonio that happened the other day.

Here it goes!

So we were having out meeting and here in Bolivia they don’t get to the point right away. They are all about saying a lot of flattering, beautiful, words meant to put prestige on the person and they beat around the bush a lot. In English we would probably call it kissing ass. For instance when the mayor talks to someone in public they start by saying the honorable magnificent mayor that has made these beautiful projects that the mayor, through his position of honor and prestige, representing the wonderful community and rich and deep indigenous cultures that exist San Antonio, in the picturesque region of the Lomerío . . . and on and on and on. This goes on in every meeting and to me seems like a waste in time with unnecessary and insincere flattery. I know that this is just my U.S. cultural lens talking though.

            That gives you an idea of how meetings always start. It is never to the point and me being a logical person tends to get frustrated when more time is wasted on formalities than substance.

So here Juan, my counterpart and president of the Artisans, starts talking about how great I am and all the wonderful ways in which I have shared with them and etc . . . (Personally I think it is a little overdone but by now I am used to this kind of talk, and heck this time it was about me!) So Juan keeps talking and he says and I will translate from Spanish, and Lucas our flamante, a word in Spanish, volunteer. . . .

At this point Vanessa and Darren, the third year volunteer coordinator who lives in Santa Cruz and came with Marko, look at each other and are both like. Did they just call Geoff their flamboyant volunteer? Needless to say, I was kind of thinking the same thing. Now in this masculine culture that is Bolivia being flamboyant I know is definitely not a good thing to be. I wasn’t really worried but more like, what the hell was that about? Flamboyant my ass! Where do they get that from? It is not like I am running around here with sparkly shirts and hot pink sunglasses in some sort of faux Elton John 1970’s getup. Where the hell do they get this whole Flamboyant thing? Not that I am defensive about it or anything ;)

            Well luckily for me I have a dictionary that was able to confirm that flamante does not mean flamboyant in Spanish even if the two words sound familiar. Flamante is defined as splendid, magnificent, brilliant etc . . . and in Spanish brings connotations of someone who always brings a lot of energy to what they do. That I can deal with.

So there it is the funny story for the day.

Geoff

Thursday,Feb 2 2006, 01:31:21 PMJanuary 2006 Journal

 

Monday, January 02, 2006                  7:57 PM    San Antonio

 

Finally back at home. Once again the trip back was interesting due to the constant rain. We had to push the micro about 5 times and almost ended up staying on the side of the road for the night. What can you do though right? So here I am finally relaxing after a long day of traveling and pushing the micro. I arrived completely wet, shoeless because I took off my shoes in order to push in the knee deep mud, and hungry.

           

I was greeted by about 5 little kids who just kept yelling Lucas, Lucas. I think that they might have an unsaid competition to see who can get more of my attention and acknowledgment but that is fine with me. It is nice to arrive someplace with little kids that shout your name and are generally just excited to see you. Now being tired I “aprovechared” it is a Spanglish version of the verb aprovechar which means to take advantage of but in a good sense, not like rob someone. I definitely aprovechared the help of the kids with my bags as I was really soaked from all of the rain and would have to make a few trips to the bus stop if I wanted to carry my luggage all by myself. I gave them all a few B’s to go get some candy, food, or whatever they wanted with their newfound wealth and they went on there way. Oh and also awaiting my arrival was a town that doesn’t have electricity as they are out of diesel for the generator, but manana right . . . right.

           

Well that is it for today off to bed and then to wake up and organize all of my stuff tomorrow.

Geoff

Tuesday, January 03, 2006                            7:17 PM    San Antonio

 

Today was pretty good. I unpacked my things to find that everything had basically arrived safely other than my clothing which was damp. That was ok though because it was all dirty and I need to get the lady who lives across the street to wash it for me anyways. I also found that my family, actually the mom, had put another table in the kitchen for me and had cleaned things up a bit. That and they informed me that they had killed the rat, which turned out be 5 rats, who had been stealing food from my stock in the kitchen. Before I left for Santa Cruz I joked that the rat must have been preparing to make a cake or something because the first day he took some flour, the next some sugar, then salt and some raisins. I said all he needed was the lighter for my stove and a pan to bake with and he was set. They all laughed but I didn’t think it was all that funny.

           

Tonight is the second night without electricity so I fear that for a few days my laptop may be a big paperweight. I have been assured however that we will have electricity tomorrow manana once again. If not I can always role on down to the mayors office and power my laptop off of their generator.

 

Geoff

 

Wednesday, January 04, 2006             9:18 PM    San Antonio

 

Electricity is back. Oh yeah. Can anyone say time to sit in front of the fan? Today I walked around town and came one day closer to my charla or presentation on accounting and production/inventory control. We also tentatively agreed to go to another volunteer’s site to do an exchange with them and check out how they have their artisan store set up. More than anything I want to have the artisans over there testify that they like the system that they have, it is working, and that though they were skeptical at first with the volunteers ideas it has actually turned out the strange gringa that was working with them had some good ideas even if they were new and weird.

           

I suppose I have taken the strategy that none of the ideas or projects that I see a need to undertake will be mine but my counterparts or someone else’s in the organization. I hope to make them the champion of the projects as I have some things working against me here that I can’t change or will only change with proven successes and time including:

           

1. I am not from San Antonio

2. I am young. Sometimes it is hard for them to believe, especially the older town members that I at 23 almost 24 now and that I am a licenciado or degree holder

3. There has been a touchy relationship with another worker from an NGO in the past

I am not worried about any of this as the people like me because I am living here, I will be living here, I share in their daily lives by sitting and doing a lot of porch chatting trying to not only build some good friendships but also get some people in my camp for when I think we should do something that seems very skeptical to some of the more conservative artisan members.

Geoff

Thursday, January 05, 2006                6:09 PM    San Antonio               

What an amazing site today. There were literally hundreds of white butterflies fluttering around San Antonio combined with an amazing, though not unusual for here, sunset. That and the complementing cool breeze and sunshine made today a very beautiful day for SA. I also made an attempt at homemade granola that actually turned out really well. I must say that I am becoming quite the survival cook slash PC oddity. In some ways I feel very manly out here. I use machetes, help dig holes, walk around without a shirt on if it is hot, think about killing animals to eat (though I have not yet done it, only watched so far), don’t shave often, live basically, and generally just do very manly things. On the other hand though I have baked cookies, made homemade granola, drink gourmet coffee out of a French press, read books ranging from Les Miserables to Lance Armstrong’s book which I completed today, as well as doing a host of other not so manly things. One thing is for sure though I think I might just be the most self sufficient domestic male in all of Texas and possibly the entire U.S. when I get done with this whole trip. Well till later, I am off to go and kick it with the empanada lady for a while.

Geoff

8:25 PM

 

I just got the most amazing news that is completely going to change my life and couldn’t wait to write this down. We got an icebox. Somehow, I don’t know where, I don’t know how and I don’t really care why but tonight in the bucket shower area the profe, click here for photo, http://www.zorpia.com/cgi/photo.cgi?8821191.2cd5f2

 asked me if I had a problem with the big ice box/freezer/fridge see photos Link http://www.zorpia.com/cgi/photo.cgi?8821524.f16892

being here in the kitchen. Uh heck no! For those of you in the comfort of homes back in the States, in Europe, South Africa, and the cities of South America, with modern amenities who don’t understand. This is going to completely change my life. Already running through my head are all of the things that I can buy and keep now that I know that they won’t spoil once I get here to San Antonio. Already I know I am going to buy cheese, a few negro modelos, Dr. Peppers, a bottle of white wine, yogurt, yogurt, yogurt and I may even try to bring a little bit of milk out here. Oh the possibilities. Things out here just keep getting better every day, knock on wood!!! The profe even asked me if I would have a problem if he put a case of beer in the freezer. Ha Ha Ha.

           

If you are interested basically the freezer apparatus will work like this. During the 4 hours of the day with electricity (side note –the people here say we have 4 hours of electricity but it only runs from about 7:05 PM to 10 PM –I call that a Bolivian 4 hours) the freezer will get super cold and then hold the temperature for most of the day. You couldn’t keep ice or anything like that but it should work for keeping the above mentioned things cold. I can already see myself being the only person within 1000 miles from here who will be eating a slice of Gouda, typing on a laptop, listening to Jack Johnson and drinking a

COLD Dr.

Pepper all at the same time.

 

Geoff

Sunday, January 08, 2006          9:32 AM   San Antonio

          The heat and humidity have returned after about 3 days of relatively nice weather. I guess it could be way worse. I could be someplace where it doesn’t get above freezing for a large part of the year. We have some volunteers in the altiplano which is very high and cold. They don’t shower but once every 2 weeks because it is to cold to shower. They also say that because of the cold it is very hard to meet people because no one really socializes.

           

For those of you interested I finally got two pictures of 50 cent. LINK  http://www.zorpia.com/cgi/photo.cgi?8820428.bfaafd

For those of you who haven’t been reading 50 cent is the man in town who is a little out of it and asks you if you have 50 centavos. If you say no then he asks if you don’t have, ni un peso? To which I always reply, ni un peso. So now you know what the infamous 50 cent looks like. In a lot of ways I think that this guy is pretty lucky living here in San Antonio. If he was in a larger city without a strong community feeling he would surely be homeless and probably die being unable to survive. Here in San Antonio he lives with his family and the community, while they laugh at his antics sometimes, they also feed him and basically leave him alone to do as he pleases and they make sure he doesn’t get abused.

           

Wednesday, January 11, 2006             8:44 PM    San Antonio
         

            Things are going well here. Today I started my production assessment of our group that makes the seed jewelry. They have a big order from Japan and I figure it will give me a good opportunity to see how much they are capable of producing and at the end of the month using it as an example during a presentation to implement a system like this with all of the different product lines.

           

I have also been busy helping Chris with his ecological bathroom building. My house and my counterpart’s house are getting these bathrooms that produce compost after a six month cycle that can be used in the garden. Basically we have been laying bricks and building the two divisions, PHOTO,  http://www.zorpia.com/cgi/photo.cgi?8821136.d5d732

that will house the “compost”, one side of the latrine drying while the other one is being used. So I have been busy doing that and coming up with creative ways to feed myself!

           

There haven’t been vegetables here in town for about a week now so tonight for dinner I used my spinach pasta, and covered it with a garlic, butter, lime, basil sauce. It sounds kind of gross but I thought it was pretty darn good. I used my last tomato as well so hopefully I can find some tomorrow or maybe if I am really lucky someone will have brought some vegetables to town to sell.

           

I can already tell that in 3 weeks when I head back into Santa Cruz I will be craving many of the food things that don’t even exist here. I think about food all the time. You know how they say that the average male thinks about sex with some ridiculous frequency like every five seconds? I know that this is not true for male Peace Corps volunteers and especially me as I think about food every 5 seconds instead. With that being said I am going to go dream of krispy creams, salad, steamed broccoli, Moms cooking, and Ice Cold beer accompanied by spicy cheesy nachos, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm spicy nachos . . . . . . . .

Sunday, January 15, 2006                    10:22AM  San Antonio

 

            The last few days here haven’t been that fun. I have a little case of Atahualpa’s revenge and haven’t really been able to do that much as far as moving around goes. Not that anyone cares but it pretty much just sucks. At least I have toilet paper though, if I had to use leaves the surrounding jungle would quickly reach a point of environmental depletion. I figure that this is a cycle that most volunteers encounter every couple of months or so, at least that is what I have heard so this is unfortunately abnormal.

           

I have started to analyze the jewelry group’s production as we are doing about a 1200 dollar order for some Japanese firm. It will be interesting and I think it will make a great base to give my presentation on production and accounting using there group and this order as an example of what the possible things that we can do. The sun has finally come out after about a week of cloudiness with rain. It is good to see the sun again but with the sun comes the infernal heat and humidity.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006                  5:16 PM    San Antonio

            So tonight is the first meeting of our now set schedule “monthly meetings” with our artisan group. If this works I will consider it a triumph to have a monthly meeting on the same day every month instead of just walking around town a few hours before and saying that we are having a meeting. Needless to say this existing system doesn’t really work all that well as indefinitely someone is cooking, someone else taking care of the kids, someone not home etc . . . this basically leaves us with about 25% of our artisan group that make it to these so called scheduled meetings, they say scheduled because impromptu here means seeing more than one person and talking with them.

           

Today another funny thing happened that I think is pretty funny once the context is known. Well I went to our one phone to go and make a call and somehow the toll free line to Peace Corps was out and I was about to leave when the phone rang. Now the customary greeting is buenas tardes San Antonio and then they say is so and so there. I then think sarcastically yeah he just happens to be hanging out by the phone, fools! So after saying that in fact no they are not by the phone the other person thinks for a few seconds in confused contemplation. After that he asks if I can go and gritar, or shout for them. Then I am like ok who do you wish to speak to they proceed with a mumbled version of the name. (For some reason out here the Bolivians have a problem with speaking loudly and clearly into the telephone and surely. They speak without confidence as if someone might be waiting to strike them from behind if said striker were to hear a grammatical error or something.)

           

So now I know they are looking for Ignacio Chubiru and I tell them to call back in 10 minutes. (I must sympathize with them as they are probably really confused as to why someone who is definitely not Bolivian answered the phone) So I ask this guy who lives at the phone place where this Ignacio Chubiru lives. He says which one! I say the Professor Ignacio Chubiru. Which one? Apparently in my town of 1500 people there are 4 Ignacio Chubiru’s, 2 of which use the title Profe. Ha ha ha.

           

I can understand now why they use 2 last names. Most of the people here in town have one of 5 last names as they have been here for a long time and all intermingled and most are related in some way. I think that unfortunately this also has a lot to do with the high percentage, considering the size of the town, of the disabled people here in town. It might also explain why when the men get drunk they try and hook me up with their daughters “mejor la raza” or better the race here in San Antonio.

            Well that’s all I have for now off to clean up then to my meeting.

Geoff

Sunday, January 22, 2006                    8:10 PM    San Antonio

 

            Things have been progressing well here. I found out through Chris that we are going to have access to some money that was raised in memory of Steve, the volunteer who preceded Chris and passed away in the plane crash in Peru with his mother shortly after his service ended here. That is good as it will enable Chris to build more ecological latrines and water tanks and will help me get a few important things accomplished with the artisans that I have till this point just written off.

           

            I plan to work with the artisans to make a thread library and leather library in the artisan center. This plan has worked successfully with other micro-enterprise volunteers in other sites. It basically works like this. With seed money such as this money for Steve, you invest about 200 dollars in yarn and other raw materials that the artisans use to make their products. You put all of this raw material in a room that is locked and which only the librarian has access to. The artisans can check out the material for free and it is noted in weight how much yarn they take. When they are done making their product they bring the unused yarn back to the library and it is weighed again. You note how much yarn they used and calculate the cost. When the item is sold they pay for the cost of the raw materials plus 5% interest. This money goes back into the revolving library fund and is used to buy more yarn when the supply in the library runs low.

           

            This accomplishes several good things for the artisans. Currently each artisan buys yarn individually or if there is a big order the order fronts money for the raw materials. The problem with this is that most of the time the individual artisans do not have enough money to buy individual raw materials and even if they do they are missing out on bulk discounts. With the library their will always be an availability of materials to work with and hopefully in turn this will boost our production. While I realize this is a great opportunity for us I am not blind to the fact that control and proper use of these raw materials will be difficult to police. I therefore plan to put two different locks on the library so two people will have to be there in order to access the library. We are also going to make the artisans have a fund raiser to raise between 10% and 20% of the money themselves.

           

            In the past unfortunately a lot of development work was not development at all but was basically just hand outs from NGOs or foreign governments. More often these projects have hurt more than they have helped. Many of the projects fall in to disrepair and others create a culture of entitlement and dependence on outside money. That is why the PC is very big on community involvement, contribution, and training as this all leads to out main goal which is sustainable development.

            Enough with the serious talk though. Several funny things happened today that I would like to share. First I got up this morning and went to the 9 AM mass here in town. Now mass here is very different from any Catholic service I have ever been two back home. While basically the same structure it is worked in to a 40 minute time frame and is much more relaxed. Well about 20 minutes into the service I look to my right and a few seats over a lady has her boob out and is breast feeding her baby. My first thought was, is that lady really doing this in Church during the service. After I got over my initial shock though, I realized that we Americans are the ones who have been conditioned to be shocked by a lady who is breastfeeding her baby in public. In their minds it is very simple, and after some contemplation I realized it really isn’t that big a deal either but pretty simple. The baby was hungry so she fed it. Could you imagine this happening in a church back home, some of which don’t even allow parishioners to dance?

The second thing that happened was about 30 minutes into the service when the father’s big chocolate lab, the only well fed dog in town, strolled in through the door and proceeded to lay down right next to the altar. I thought what is this, in the name of the Father, Son, and fathers chocolate lab. I was also wondering what would happen if the dog by some miracle was able to steal some of the communion bread. I mean how comical would that have been if the father’s dog ended up taking off with the communion wafers leaving all of us standing there in shock. Without consequence the dog eventually left with the same indifference that he came into the church.

The other funny thing that happened today was Chris and my defeat in the third straight game of monopoly with the little girls that live across the street. We have played three times now and each time these girls take us for all that we are worth. Chris and I attribute this to the lucky throw of the dice because there is no way a 6 and 9 year old can beat us, two degree holding 20 somethings, by any other than luck. As this is the third time in a row for our loss I for one am starting to have some doubts. At least Chris and I don’t have to watch our tongues around the girls as they don’t speak English and we can yell profanities when we land on their hotels comfortably situated on Pennsylvania Avenue or Boardwalk. So if any of you have any strategy tips for monopoly I would love to hear them. There are only so many times you can lose to 6 and 9 year olds before you start to question your self worth.

Geoff

Wednesday, January 25, 2006             5:30 AM   San Antonio

 

            So who else reading this could possibly have been woken up in the same manner that I was today. At about 4:30 this morning I started to hear some noise. Not all that strange here in San Antonio as the people like to take advantage of the coolness of the day and the fact that other people, gringos, like to sleep till at least 6 am. So after lying here listening to this awful noise I decided I might as well get up and make a cup of coffee and get the day started.

           

            What was this noise you might ask yourself. Well the profe, decided to sell a cow of his to pay for stocking our new freezer with beer, soda, and things like that to sell to people in town. They were slaughtering one of his cows this morning in order to sell it. It just turns out that they decided to do this at 4:30 in the morning right in front of my window, as this is the most obvious place to slaughter a cow. See the accompanying photos.

           

            I watched the whole procedure while drinking 3 cups of strong coffee and being on vigilante detail to keep the dogs away which made for some interesting rock throwing and even easier targets. One thing that was really bad, as far as sanitation is concerned, (other than the fact that the meat is just hanging outside, being cut with machetes that have never been washed, not going to be refrigerated, left to collect flies and numerous other health code violations) is that the meat was being put into the same plastic container as their clothes are washed out of and that the gord I use to shower was used for collecting the cow blood.

            Needless to say there is something disturbing about having to wash blood out of your bathing utensil. But the world keeps turning, the birds keep singing, and the donkeys keep braying at 5 in the morning with an uncanny sense that I must be the only person in town who is still sleeping. I guess what I am trying to say is that no matter how weird and difficult it is, life goes on . . .

Even if it does involve the sounds of natures most annoying animals.

           

Geoff

Thursday, January 26, 2006                11:41 PM San Antonio

 

            So Chris and I have become convinced that the young girl who we play monopoly with about ever other day has to be cheating somehow. The odds are now being tested to the limit as to how many times we can loose. Surely the game is being altered in some form or fashion. We lost again tonight thus making it almost ten games in a row. Chris went out first tonight and I put up a good battle before succumbing to the ruthlessness of this particular pre-teens domination.

Later on in the evening I met up with Chris near the center of town and our first subject was how the hell do we keep loosing to this girl? I mean she didn’t even know how to play the game correctly the first time we played. Chris told me tonight, and I quote, “tonight as I was leaving your house I had to keep telling myself that it is only a game” Normally I would laugh at how he was feeling but the truth of the matter is that  about an hour after he left I found myself reminding myself of the same thing.

I swear that this girl has mastered palming money, dice throwing techniques, or some other deceit in order to thwart Chris and myself. At this point I wouldn’t even rule out some sort of Faust like compact with monopoly dominance being the trade off.

Geoff

Wednesday, February 01, 2006           5:50 AM   San Antonio

            Off to Santa Cruz here in a few minutes. Yeah! Luckily the bus arrived last night at about midnight. Lately the road here has been washed out and the bus arriving is a hit or miss thing and Chris and I were for sure last night that we were out of luck as by 1030pm the bus had not shown up yet. But there it is. Well that’s it for this month . . .

Geoff