Reason #563 Why I Love My Host Family: Taxidermy

Strange but true stories…Lisa, I’m sure you would appreciate this. So last night after dinner I was sitting around chatting with my host parents as usual and after the Tourism Fair yesterday (basically us standing around in a booth with informational posters that we had created). Most popular question during the Tourism Fair from Bolivians that I got was “How do I join the Peace Corps?” which I explained by saying umm…well it’s an American organization of volunteers that just work in Bolivia. Other interesting comments included a guy that told me that Bolivians and Chinese people look alike (at first I thought he said Bolivians like Chinese people and I was like, oh yeah, Evo was in the paper for saying he dreamed for Bolivia to have the same economic growth/prosperity as China…yeah. Lost in Translation) and then we also got this guy that looked like a monk asking us if we taught morals or what we were teaching. Um yeah. But some of the trainees did get interviewed by the local television! And I got to have a real cup of coffee yesterday morning so that was exciting as well.

Anyways, back to taxidermy. So it turns out that I think there is a 90% chance that I’m going to be headed to Tarata, a little colonial town outside of Coch by about an hour, the place we went for Tech Weekend. I’ll be working on tourism and with artesania along with probably teaching some English and hopefully working on a pilot program with Save the Children where I get to teach computer courses (yay computers!). My future boss Daniel (who is also responsible for site placement) came over to me yesterday and was like, how’s it going…and then was like it’ll be good if you go over to the Tarata booth to talk to Vivian (the woman who’s going to be my counterpart) and get to know her and he pretty much only says things like that when he’s pretty sure about who’s going where. Although I’d like to go somewhere else in Bolivia to see it, I can definitely see the benefits of being close to Coch and the site. I kind of wanted to go to Santa Cruz because more than 50% of the volunteers are there (tropical area and very social for volunteers) but I guess the weather is more bearable near Coch. Also, I already know Coch so it’s nice and it’s pretty accessible to my site for anyone that wants to come visit me…in Santa Cruz the closest site is about 4 hours away from the city. Tarata is about an hour from Coch so I can come in on the weekends pretty easily to get groceries or whatever. Tarata is nice because it has a lot of history and it’s easy for tourists to get there so it has a lot of tourist potential. Also, I’ll be living with the family of a Bolivian guy who got engaged to the volunteer that I’m replacing and the guy is moving to the US with the girl when she’s done with her service in November when I arrive (yes, kind of weird that that’s the housing arrangement) so at least they’ll get the idea of what Peace Corps is and it’ll be fairly easy to assimilate in the community. Also, I will have a site mate that’s an older woman in Integrated Ed that just arrived to the site around 2 months ago so I’ll have another gringo to talk to in the community and hopefully work on some projects with.

Ok, really, about the taxidermy. So we were talking about the weather in Santa Cruz and then my family was talking about how there are huge bugs there because I mentioned a volunteer that was helping out with training that had a site in Santa Cruz and he showed us pics of the tarantulas that he saw there and he had snakes in his house. Ew. Anyways, so my host dad busts out this huge grasshopper thing in plastic to show me, and then he gets this head of this lizard filled with cement (only the head because he told me that the other part broke off because it used to be mounted on the wall but one day it just fell down and all that’s left now is the head)…and if that isn’t enough…then he gets this Styrofoam tray…that has all these beetles, scorpions, etc. pinned on it and brings it out to show me! Apparently they found those when they were digging up the foundation for their house…but the dad’s brother is also into taxidermy…haha, Lisa, I told my family I have a friend that has a dad that likes to hunt and then keeps a fridge full of animals. Tee hee. So that’s just one more random reason to love my host family…they’re into the randomness too. Ah yes…I need to learn some more animal vocabulary. The family did talk about A Bug’s Life though and what we do have in common is that we both enjoyed the movie. That’s all I got for now! Talk to you later!

P.S. Thanks Mom for the cookbook!