Sunday,Oct 1 2006, 06:40:48 PMIt's been a long september . . .

Friday, September 08, 2006    7:15 AM          San Antonio de Lomerío

 

So guess what? The motor is fixed. Although now the motor has to be broken in for a few days before it will work again. That and they do not have diesel for it now. I also heard that the telephone is working again. Needless to say I believe that two things are likely to happen very soon. A – the entire town of San Antonio will spontaneously combust because it is now, with the motor fixed and telephone, tempting the universe with such a high level of irregularities. B – Is going to snow for the first time in like 500 years here. I really can’t believe it, but I guess that I still have a few more days till I actually have a light bulb that works in my house so let’s knock on wood.

            The ride back here was fairly comfortable yesterday, all things considered, and other than having to wait at a gas station for about 30 minutes because of a diesel problem right now in Bolivia it went really well. On the way back I saw more animals then I have ever seen on the road here, unfortunately due to burning, which is driving the animals from their hiding places in the forest.

            Last night I also had my economics class with the Profes and as far as I am concerned the interesting part of economics started last night. Last night we talked about costs in terms of economics, opportunity costs, and I think it completely blew their mind to think of the cost of things as a loss of opportunity not just money. It went really well and apparently the econ class is one of the talks of the town so that is really encouraging.

 

Geoff

 

Sunday, September 10, 2006  9:00 AM          San Antonio de Lomerío

 

            Who would have believed it? Yesterday our dry cycle was ended by light but continuous rains for almost half of the day. I danced a little jig in celebration and it was definitely nice to see water falling from the sky. We also had a neighborhood well cleaning where all of the men in my sector went down to dismantle the well and clean all of the mud off the filter and from the inside of the 40 meters of tubes. Chris and I were definitely giving each other looks as we were taking the steel tubes out of the well hole and thunder was heard nearby. I thought that somehow we might get unlucky and demonstrate Benjamin Franklin’s experiment again to the local townspeople.

            Yesterday Peace Corps finally got a hold of us after trying since Thursday to tell us that we were in the alert stage of the emergency plan. Basically we couldn’t travel. The PC was about to send people out here to San Antonio to look for us as they were going to declare us missing volunteers.

 

Geoff

 

Monday, September 11, 2006 4:05 PM         San Antonio de Lomerío

 

            I am back in the mayor’s office as there is still no light in town. It turns out that the motor is fixed, but now they don’t have any diesel in order to break in the motor or supply electricity to the town. Yesterday I had about 6 of the neighborhood kids over to play an Uno like card game at my house yesterday. I also made a huge plate of banana bread, which didn’t last but about 10 minutes with all of the 8-14 year olds over at the house. I definitely think that the games will work. Now all I have to do is get some money in order to buy the games because these next few months are going to be pretty expensive on my PC salary.

            The monthly market day here is moving along rather well. The ads are printed and our mayor has even helped even more by securing the meeting of the state government to be convened here in San Antonio for the first time ever. This should be interesting as the Governor of Santa Cruz is one of the strongest proponents of autonomy. Who cares about all of that? I am just imagining all of the money that can be made by the people with a sudden influx of politicians of Santa Cruz, the Governor, and their staffs.

            Chris and I had a good laugh today and I had an I told you so moment with Chris. About 6 months ago Chris sold his hammock to another volunteer with the intention of getting another one made, bigger and better in order to replace his. He ended up asking this lady in town to make it for him. I was like, what the hell dude, why didn’t you get it made through the Artisans who I am working with. There was really no excuse but it was no big deal. So mistake one: not going through the artisan group in town but contracting privately through some lady. Then he paid her 300 bs or 75% of the hammocks price up front. Mistake number 2, never pay for anything here until you physically have it in your hand or else it will never get done.

            So today, 6 months later, Chris goes to get his hammock, which he ordered pure red and black from the Señora. (Side note -  Chris is color blind and has a hard time distinguishing between greens, reds, and grays, which makes it even funnier that he offered to help me do the color wheel with the artisan group, but that is another story) So he comes to my house, and has this hammock which is fuchsia, black, peach, and red orange. He said he could tell that the colors were off but that he didn’t know how bad. So here is Chris with this hammock that looks like some horrible hyper color shirt that was left over from some 1980’s music video. On top of that the hammock is perhaps the most poorly woven piece of artisan work I have seen in a long time. Either way my mom just keept saying, “Hay, Chris” and we all laughed for a long time. At least he learned the lesson and is now going to order another hammock from my Artisan Group.

           

Geoff

 

Thursday, September 14, 2006 7:08 AM                    San Antonio de Lomerío

 

So still no motor, still no telephone. I guess San Antonio is not going to spontaneously combust after all, the universe is still in balance, and you are all safe for a while. That is all.

 

Wednesday, September 20, 2006 3:40 PM                Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz

 

Well here I sit in the PC office in Santa Cruz trying to figure out if I am going to Cochabamba to help with training of the new group who just arrived to Bolivia. Right now all of the main roads out of Santa Cruz are shut down by socialist campesinos who are demanding more money from the government amongst other things. Either way it is pretty frustrating as I might be stuck here in the city and not get to go and escape the heat for a little while.

 

Thursday, September 21, 2006 6:19 AM                    Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz

 

            Well here I sit in the airport in Santa Cruz using the wifi connection waiting for my flight to Cochabamba. In the meantime I hope that they resolve the issues of social unrest as the people who are really suffering from this blockade are my artisans who won’t be able to attend the trade fair here in santa cruz and may be out as much as 40% of their yearly income. Agggggggggggg.

 

Geoff

 

Friday, September 22, 2006    9:10 AM                      Cochabamba, Bolivia

 

Wow I just want to comment on how nice it is to be up in the mountains where it is not humid, tropical and hot like in Santa Cruz, although this heat and tropical culture in Santa Cruz has its advantages as well. Most of the advantages have to do with the clothing selections of the female variety. Well that being said I am still glad to be here even if it is for a day or 2.

            So for some reason I am really lucky right now because as I sit in the hostel I am watching Sports Center, which is being broadcast on ESPN Latin America for some reason. I don’t really care it is just awesome to watch sports center.

            Ok well I miss everyone bunches and will see you soon.

Geoff

 

Tuesday, September 26, 2006             9:00 PM          Santa Cruz, Bolivia

 

            So here I sit in the hot hotel room here in Santa Cruz. The past few days I really haven’t gotten a whole lot accomplished other then checking up with the artisans at the fair called Expocruz which is basically a huge state fair that accounts for something along the lines of 10% of Bolivia’s GDP so needless to say it is a pretty big deal. Unlike at the state fairs back home all of the people who are trying to sell stuff are models! Yeah! SO needless to say I have come pretty close over the past few days to buying a thresher, bags of cement, and other things that I really don’t need but the prospect of talking with such beautiful women is such a draw that I might end up buying something I don’t need before the week is out.

 

Friday, September 29, 2006                3:30 PM          Santa Cruz, Bolivia

 

            The past few days have been pretty interesting. So far I have been able to hold out from buying anything really unnecessary such as cement, bricks, livestock or anything else but alas I am going to Expocruz one last time tonight so it should be pretty interesting! I plan to take quite a few pictures with the hot women of models but we will see how that turns out.

            The artisans are doing well except that they are out 150$ because the fools didn’t listen to me. Sometime I feel like I am banging my head against the wall and the following story makes me want to punch something, bang my head against a wall, and scream all at the same time. Before I left for Cochabamba the artisans had a big meeting at which I explained the benefits of using a cash register, which I helped the artisans make. The cash register as us Americans know it does not really exist in Bolivia except for high end restaurants, stores, and a few other random places. Most medium sized or small sized businesses take care of their cash in the following way. They basically have an envelope, pocket, or if you are really lucky a dedicated drawer where they just drop all of the bills and coins without any sort of method or system. I told them this was not going to fly with me as money was bound to get lost, they can never make change fast enough with this system, and a myriad of other problems that just throwing cash in a box posses in a hectic situation like Expocruz. So when I went the other day to check up on them I was thoroughly astonished that they were using the cash box. They were all like wow Lucas, it is so much easier to make change and stuff with this cash box. So that was victory number 1 for the fair.

            Victory number two comes in the form of the inventory registration system that I helped them with and that they were also actually using. You see, pre-Lucas, I like to define the artisans in these terms, they once again just went to the fair and sold stuff and figured it out when they got back to san antonio. So that didn’t go so well.

            So there are the two victories. The big loss is that before they left for the feria I told them that they had to get a machine to detect fake dollar bills and Boliviano bills. I even offered to help them do this but warned them that it makes no sense to not spend 10 dollars on a machine that can avert large losses of cash. It turns out that they never did go get the machine because they didn’t have time to get it. AKA they didn’t believe me that it was important and now have in their possession a hundred dollar and a fifty dollar fake bill.

 

So please think of me and send me some positive vibes so that I don’t end up slowly banging all of my brains out of my head.

 

Till next month,

Geoff

           

Wednesday,Sep 6 2006, 04:01:47 PMAugust and everything after . . .

Monday, August 14, 2006 7:00 AM San Antonio de Lomerío

Back here in San Antonio after a fun dust filled micro ride of 10 hours. Yeah. Well tomorrow will mark two months since the motor has been broken and I have been assured that the mechanic is going to start working on this motor today! Yeah. I really hope he gets it done because the relative comfort of 80’s temperature wise is slowly disappearing in favor of the 100’s that it is going to be for the rest of the year and the possibility of sitting front of the fan for 3 hours a day is looking ...

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Monday,Aug 7 2006, 12:03:43 PMJuly Journal

Thursday, July 06, 2006 7:20 AM San Antonio de Lomerío

Ah San Antonio. What a crazy, work filled, few days it has been since coming back from Santa Cruz. Sunday the 2nd was the day of elections for the constitutional assembly. Bolivia is going to rewrite their constitution so we will see how that process evolves over the next several months, right? On Sunday my host mother had her first day of selling food and chicha at the house. She is going to open every other Sunday and sell plates of chicken, pork, chicha, beer etc . . . Needless to say once the ...

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Friday,Jun 30 2006, 02:34:38 PMJune Journal

Friday, June 30, 20 9:07 AM Santa Cruz

Things I have done in the last month.

Danced with a 6 year old ...

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Wednesday,May 31 2006, 03:19:30 PMStarting Thursday may 25th

Thursday, May 25, 2006 7:31 AM San Antonio

Well back here in San Antonio for another week. I got here on Monday evening after yet another exciting bus ride! Basically it was horrible as always. This time it was a little bit more bearable as Chris, Lauren, Vanessa, and I all rode back together on the 20 de Enero, the name of the micro line syndicate.
We all had a good time in the Scru as it was the going away party for B-36, the group that is about to finish their service on Saturday. Unfortunately it was really cold when we went to the resort area and ...

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