¡Adios Marquina!

So after Tech Week we had our despedida (farewell party) with our families in the community which consisted of a lovely lunch of mushroom chicken and then the presentation of certificates to the families for hosting us…this was then followed by a musical performance by some of the staff and then our presentation to the families of our special surprise which was the electric slide…or the tobogan electrico en espanol. The last part of the party was the cueca (a Bolivian dance) competition where I was Sarah’s partner and we were one of the three groups that won (out of the 9 groups)! We learned the dance in Spanish class the day before and I’d have to say our gimmicky plan where Sarah dressed up as the man in her host grandpa’s hat and suit jacket (albeit wearing a floral dress underneath with lace) allowed us an advantage…

Yesterday we finally left Marquina (the community where our homestay was) after our two-month stay there for training. It was a bittersweet moment because my host family was AWESOME (they gave Sarah and me these tinku (from one of the traditional Bolivian dances) scarves) but I think it was time for us to finally move on and get ready to head out to our sites which we’ll be staying in for the next two years! The last week with my family I spent cooking and hanging out…we had tests all week for the technical, cultural, and PC policies stuff we had learned and also had to finish up our big project and turn in our paper so that kept us occupied and then on Friday, Sarah and I started learned Quechua with our language teacher…it’s a pretty cool language that has some of these clicking noises in it and in both of our sites lots of people speak it so we’re trying to get a head start so at least we can greet people and say “Joy sutiy” which means I am Joy and know the difference between tanta (which means old thing) and t’anta (which has a clicky noise in it and means bread!)…with my family I made apple crisp last Sunday, brownies on Thursday (which were sooo yummy), chocolate chip pancakes with peaches and bananas on top in Spanish class on Friday, and then I took the family out to dinner to a pizza restaurant on Friday night. All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a better host family for my first two months and they’re already planning on coming out to visit me in my site sometime in January when the host son that was at college in Oruro gets back for vacation…I am really hoping I have my own kitchen in my site to cook! And I also want to start a kitchen garden (huerto familiar as they call it around here) since Christa (one of the trainers) taught a bunch of us last Saturday how we prepare the land for the garden and what are good things to plant and how to care for it…hopefully by the time some of you come down and visit me I’ll be plucking vegetables out of a garden to cook a nice little meal for you!

So the next two weeks the plans are for everyone to go off to their sites for a week on the official Site Visit where we get to see our housing, meet our counterparts and get an idea of the pueblo where we’ll be for the next two years…some people headed off to Sucre last night, others to Santa Cruz this morning, a few to Tarija via plane this afternoon, and then Sarah, 3 other volunteers, and I are hanging in Coch until tomorrow morning when we have an orientation meeting with our counterparts at a hotel somewhere around here. It’s nice being able to be in the city for a few days though and staying in a hostel…I finally got to shower! Woohoo…we were having a water problem in Marquina and for the last 4 days there wasn’t any water so it meant my host dad going around trying to find some to fill up some kind of tank where we could flush the toilet and use the sink…and that meant no showers at all so basically until this morning I hadn’t washed my hair for 6 days…was trying to go for the week long but had to give in. Last night we were walking around and happened to go to the plaza where there were this awesome capoeira (sp.?) group performing…totally reminded me of being in Salvador on Semester at Sea…it’s definitely one of the coolest art forms there is out there…requires a lot of coordination with another person (I think it’s some form of shadow boxing), the athletic ability of a gymnast (definitely they threw in some back handsprings in there), and the grace of a dancer. I’m psyched to finally get to see where I’m living in Tarata…some people are getting lots of surprises this weekend because they haven’t seen their regional cities yet (Santa Cruz, Tarija, or Sucre), nor their sites, nor met their counterparties or seen their housing. For me and some others, we don’t have many surprises because we already traveled to Tarata for Tech Weekend a few weekends ago, I met my counterpart at the Tourism Fair that we had a booth at, and well…I’m here in Coch right now! I definitely like Coch as a city though…it’s pretty metropolitan and we’re finding all the good places to get food (although not so much experiencing any nightlife at this point)…and of course we have our favorite ice cream (or frozen yogurt) place that we go to called Flavor Burst. Yesterday Sarah and I got these yummy java freeze things that were like icy coffee (think frappucino) with vanilla frozen yogurt on top! And my lovely purchase for today was when we went to the awesomest grocery store in Coch and I got this peppermint foot scrub that I am very excited to use since my feet are kind of gross (somehow being in Bolivia has made my feet smell bad whereas I never had a problem with foot odor before) and I need to exfoliate!

So after we get back from our Site Visits we basically have one more week together with B-46 before we all head out to our sites for good and we probably won’t see a lot of the people for three months until we have our reconnect conference where we all come back to Coch to see how everything is going…our last week we have lots of fun stuff going on like our last bits of training and then swear in! (which is when we FINALLY become volunteers and no longer trainees! Yeehaw! Next week is also Halloween which will be fun because Lindsay, Sarah and I are doing a group costume as “Potatoes of Bolivia” which is a tribute to the number of potatoes that we’ve eaten since we’ve been here since it’s quite the popular food (along with rice and noodles)…Lindsay is going as a chuno (basically a black hard little freeze dried potato), Sarah as a papalisa (this yellow colored potato that has pinkish-red splotches or veins running through it), and I’m going as a yucca (the potato substitute that is most popular in the department of Santa Cruz…oh to be a fried yucca or yucca used in a cunape…that delicious little pastry of yucca and cheese)…best part is that my host mom (who is quite the seamstress along with being an amazing cook) made all of our costumes and we have matching gorros (hats) for them which are so freaking cute! Hehe…I will definitely post some pictures after Halloween…and Steph, don’t worry, although this was a good idea, we’re not nuts and the Almond Joy is definitely more clever! It was also fun this week because we finally got our Cuerpo de Paz (PC) fleece jackets that we had ordered and then we also got our B-46 poleras (t-shirts) which Kasia designed so they have the PC logo on the sleeve and the cutest llama on the back with a little blankie over it’s back that says B-46…hehe.

Ok everyone, that’s all I have for now…hope all is well in the U.S. or wherever you are (seems like everyone has been doing some ridiculous traveling lately…Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Ireland, Cyprus, Switzerland, Greek Islands, Turkey…or maybe that’s mostly just Kelley being ridiculous with her traveling as usual…jealousy! For real!). Miss you and love you all!