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

Sunday,Jan 1 2006, 06:36:42 PMNew years eve

Happy new years eve. At least mine was . . . other than no new years eve kiss and having to settle for the pec from shannon. What can you do though? So last night was a lot of fun we went to a mexican restaurant and ate food drank some and rang in the new year on one of the main streets here in Santa Cruz. There was lots of people in the street and a pretty cool fireworks that were nice to see. Ashley and Dave's parents were with us and I think that they enjoyed themselves as well.

After that we went to a club and danced the night away at least till ...

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Wednesday,Dec 28 2005, 12:59:24 PMPosted December 28th 2005

Wed 28th of January 2005 9:06 am Santa Cruz

So right now if you look below at the other entry you might think well what happened to the entire month of December. I mean no journal entries or anything. Well the fact of the matter was I was busy. I now have an amazing laptop thanks to my very generous parents who sent it down here and also Ashley’s parents for lugging it all the way from Dallas for me. December has gone well and I am integrating into my site fairly well. I have made lots of friends and am starting to get a feel for the community. I am ...

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Wednesday,Nov 23 2005, 06:27:40 PMDog of the Month

So check out the dog of the Month. A new section I chose to showcase the fine breeding of Bolivian Street Dogs.

Geoff

Wednesday,Nov 23 2005, 12:38:41 PMNew Journal updates from the Jungle

My new cell number 710-246-74

Monday 21ar of November 2005 3:30 PM San Antonio de Lomerio

Ah the last few days. Well Vanessa and I, my near site mate, finally coordinated to get to Puquio a town about 10 miles from my site. So on Sunday Morning I got on the Micro, it had been raining for a while so the road was feo feo, or in Bad shape. We definately had to get out in 2 feet of mud and push the thing out. Lots of fun. If I can work my picutres out I will post them. So the party in the town was good. I ate lots of food, grilled steak, rice, yuca, that ...

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