Never a Dull Day

So today in the plaza I was killing time before one of my many English classes by studying up on one of three languages that I’m trying to improve, Chinese. I was minding my own business, mumbling to myself with “Learn to Speak Chinese: Book 2” in hand while sitting on a bench when a coca-chewing, rubber sandal wearing man joined me on the bench and started blabbering to me in Quechua. I managed to sputter out a lame “Mana Qweshwata parlanichu” (what I believe is the translation of I don’t speak Quechua) and he proceeded to talk to me in what I think is Quechua after repeated “no entiendo’s” from me (I don’t understand in Spanish). Then he kept on saying “sal sabía” or at least I thought he was saying that which means “did you know salt?” Hmm…then he took out his wallet and whipped out a little scrap of paper and handed it to me…and I kept on asking “sal como sal para comida?” (salt as in salt for food?) and I think I got an affirmative response to that. At this point I think he might have been asking for the Chinese translation for salt (yes, very odd I know) but I couldn’t think of how to write the character “yán” (and I wasn’t even sure that was the word for it, I double-checked myself after he left) so lamely I wrote “sal” and then “salt” on his little scrap of paper which he tucked back into his wallet and then went on his merry way. Haha, hopefully he’s not going to go find some Chinese person and try to communicate with them by saying “salt”…and I’m not even sure that’s what he was trying to get at in the first place…but oh well, I tried to “help.”

I think the general consensus is also that we should start a “Heard in Bolivia” like how they have the “Heard in NYC” website where people post random nonsense of stuff they heard on the streets or in the city. I was walking back to my house today when along the way there were two little boys and one was shrieking about “día de la víbora” which means “day of the snake” and then they proceeded to whap each other with these large branches. I’m telling ya, never a dull day. (Okay, that’s a lie, I have plenty of boredom in my life but these little incidents keep me entertained)

Also, I am hoping to start a “women’s club” soon (modeled after the famous women’s club of Taiwanese women in Rochester). Well actually there’s a group of young professional ladies in Tarata that I eat lunch with and they told me today that they wanted English classes in the evenings (and they even suggested having it at different peoples’ houses each time) so we’re supposed to be starting this class next week on Wednesday and Friday evenings. My ulterior motive is that I’d like to teach English if they want it, but to have a little women’s club where we can bake cookies, cakes, pies, cobblers, tortes, brownies, pastries, and fattening things and gossip about men. After all, correct me if I’m wrong, isn’t that what Peace Corps is about…dessert and men?

The 2 Hour Wakeup

It takes me 2 hours to get ready in the morning. My routine doesn’t even involve primping (unless you take into account running a comb through your hair a few times or putting sunscreen on) or even showering. What it does include is several games of Free Cell (which I’ve gotten very good at) with a few games of Hearts or Spider Solitare scattered in there. I jam to a few songs on iTunes (I’ve been enjoying some Enrique Iglesias and Jason Mraz lately), drink a little instant coffee or tea, eat a piece of bread, change my underwear and pants (I tend to wear the same t-shirt to sleep and during the day for several days in a row)…and all of this done at a leisurely pace. Oh. My. God. How am I ever going to go back to the U.S. and the world of rushing around like a madman in the morning to get to work on time? I do recall the days (not so long ago) when I used to get ready for work (including shower, cup of tea, and full change of clothes) in half an hour. I think this new routine fits my non-morning person personality quite well although I fear the ramifications of getting too accustomed to not having anything to do until noon (or maybe 10 am if it’s an ambitious day). I really need to get back into the routine of running (haven’t done so in probably at least 3 weeks) but then again you really aren’t a PC volunteer unless you’ve eschewed all forms of exercise (excluding games of soccer or basketball with young children which I don’t participate in anyways). Only weirdos go running through the cobblestone streets for no reason and if anyone catches you they’ll think you are trying to lose weight and they’ll try to sell you Herbalife. I’m still not quite sure what that is, but I think it’s some system of powdered drinks or pills for weight loss.

In other news, Sarah informed me that today is our 200 day anniversary in PC (woohoo! definitely need to have a party with myself) and that she has 216 days until she goes back to the U.S. for her sister’s wedding and vacation. She’d better start packing, it’s casi aquí.

Pat recently told me an amusing story involving stray dogs and bread. She took her puppy Rumi (which means Rock in Quechua) to the tienda to pick up a few essentials and had her hands full on the way back to her house. She bent down to adjust the leash on Rumi and had a plastic baggie with a few rolls that she had just purchased in her hand and a street dog ran by and snatched the bread out of her hand, one of the rolls falling on the ground and the other still in the plastic bag in the stray dog’s mouth. Of course such incidents cannot happen without some witnesses (the lady in the tienda who was laughing heartily at her) and Pat had to go back to the tienda to repurchase her bread to replace that which was lost in the run by bread snatching by the stray dog. I’ve discovered such episodes tend to happen to Pat…she was also the one who was walking down the street with a bag of tostadas (big popped corn that is slightly sweetened) one day and was approached by a donkey giving her sideways glances and pulling it’s owner in her direction (aka the direction of the tostadas).

Scrabble Word of the Day: FOZY

I’m not quite sure what it means, but it’s a valid word in Scrabble. I was playing the free trial edition on Pat’s computer (man, computers these days come with all sorts of cool games like Scrabble and Bejeweled) and they have a “hint” button and I was seeing what words the oh-so-smart computer could come up with…and it had to be some kind of record…by using the word FOZY with a triple word score it came up with 56 points or something ridiculous like that. That will be my second Scrabble specific word that will be ingrained in my memory forever (the first is “QAT” my favorite Q without U word). Another good one (in the category of words made up purely of vowels) is “AI” which if I remember correctly means “a three-toed sloth.”

Graphing Fun

In addition to drinking instant coffee, Free Cell, and staring at the wall, Sarah has recently discovered the fun of creating nonsense graphs in Microsoft Word. She has a new edition of Office on her computer and determined that there are some very fancy schmancy designs (graphs in 3-D bubbles with all sorts of cool colors) and set to work on making some graphs in her journal with fake data (usually doctored so it would create the pretty pattern that was desired in the graph). These graphs showed things such as the correlation between boredom and mental well-being and actually proved that there is no correlation between the number of tasks that a PC volunteer has on their to-do list and the level of boredom (aka you could have a ton of stuff to do or nothing to do and still be bored). Also a graph of her mental well-being on a gobbledygook (I just used the thesaurus to look up a synonym to nonsense) scale…of course 10 (total elation over life) and 0 (suicidal) being unattainable; I was impressed that she had maintained a rating of 8 throughout training. Then I showed her my PC time tracking spreadsheet that included conditional formatting which I think thoroughly awed her. And I decided to create a nonsense pie chart of how I spend my time here (the largest slice being the stimulating activity of waiting for other people). I will admit that I miss the thrills of using Excel everyday and I’m afraid I’m losing my memory of all the handy keyboard shortcuts in Excel, but alas, I am striving to maintain a little knowledge of these things.

Sarah is visiting me right now and beyond creating graphs in Excel, we engaged in some wonderfully exciting activities…such as a game of cacho (Bolivian Yahtzee), watching several episodes of Sex and the City, trying yerba mate for the first time (this very natural, earthy seeming tea of herbs that volunteers in the Chaco swear by), and a rousing game of Scrabble (travel set). Sarah beat me thoroughly although I was trying to make a comeback, we both had best plays of 27 points (“twigs” for me and “etch” for Sarah, both triple word scores). She seems to be a master of the two-letter words which I will need to improve on if I intend to compete in her league.

My Top 5 Bolivian Guilty Pleasures

1. Formas, the fingerprint identification gym. I have to admit I’ve been there twice in the past week when I was in Cochabamba taking care of some other errands. I huffed and puffed my way through a few miles on the treadmill each time (pathetic, I know) and then elatedly reunited with the joys of weight training. Trying to turn that flab into rock hard muscle and this is one thing I will not mind spending a little money on while I’m down here. Plus the weight room at the gym is prime zone for eye-candy. What Conti would lovingly call “man beef.” I recently also saw some interesting articles in the NYT (beyond the Spitzer scandal) about how a push-up is the sign of overall physical fitness, I should be able to do 16 (yeah freaking right, dream on) and women over 60 should be able to do 6. Another article confirmed that distance runners do not need to stretch and are probably better off if they don’t because they use energy more efficiently in their movement if they’re less flexible. Forget that yoga crap.
2. Oreos. I need to stop my pack-a-day habit. But they’re just so yummy. And sometimes they have the peanut butter cream or my favorite, the chocolate cream on chocolate cookie. Yes, they are twice the cost of cremositas, but the chocolate cookie of an Oreo is hard to beat.
3. Laverap. It’s the laundromat that all volunteers swear by. The lady that runs it is super-nice and the clothes come out super-clean and super-smelling. No stiff jeans or cotton t-shirts. I actually don’t mind doing my own laundry by hand but sometimes you just need that little bit of luxury. Or you need to wash your sheets or blankets, not an easy task to do by hand.
4. Sex and the City. Sarah recently came to visit me and so kindly let me borrow the 2nd season. Pat and I have been indulging here and there. If anyone wants to send me something that I will forever be indebted to them for…Sex and the City! The collector’s edition of all the seasons for like $200. Thank you all my rich friends. The show is just that much more amusing nowadays when I see what they’re wearing and I crave the tantalizing food and drink that’s on the show.
5. Not showering. Yes, you knew it was about time that a comment about my personal hygiene made an appearance. I haven’t showered in 6 days and I worked out two days ago and sweated like a pig. Surprisingly, I don’t feel that gross and I am seriously considering switching from the every 5 day plan to the every 6 day plan. Sarah’s on the Sunday bathing plan (7 day plan) and has gotten comments that she smells good so I figure I have some leeway here.

I Said I Loved You, But I Lied

My latest triumph in overall work productivity was a visit to Sonia’s house to get some “computación” work started (means computer skills). I ended up taking a gander at all the music that came on the computer when they bought it which included lots of American ballads. I ended up doing the service to them of listening to a few songs and typing the lyrics that I heard (probably with lots of typos, you know how clear songs can be) so they could practice their English. Of course there were songs by Guns and Roses, Michael Bolton, the Carpenters, and the Beatles, and a little Avril Lavigne in there for the teenage son. Let’s just say that it’s very difficult to type out the lyrics to “Complicated” at the pace that Avril belts it out. Or maybe my typing speed is decreasing due to lack of practice…noooooo!

Newsflash! Soda is healthy!

So I recently noticed the label on a 2L bottle of Coca-Cola that I was consuming. It was following 2 days of gastrointestinal distress and not eating that I polished off 2L of Coca-Cola in a day and it did wonders for my body. I know it’s not healthy to drink so much soda at one time, basically half your daily calories in soda, but whatever, I figure it was making up for lost calories in the days that I couldn’t eat. Anyways, back to the Coke label. They have this “movimiento bienestar” here which means “well-being movement” and they tout the benefits of “walking for 30 minutes daily and smiling” as part of well-being. I also recently noticed the part that says that “each portion has 84 calories,” it’s a “fountain of hydration,” and “low in sodium.” I had to laugh when I saw this. I’m not sure if they intended the 84 calories part to be impressive (as if it were healthier than milk, water, or juice and besides, my super-size American view knows that the portion size is only 6 oz, half the size of a can of soda which I think is puny) and then certainly soda as a source of hydration should not be a selling point (how many people drink soda while they workout? especially in 6 oz portions that can’t be effective). I think they intended their saving grace to be that their full-sugar soda was low in sodium (ta da!)…are they comparing it with all those salty beverages out there that are worse choices in drinks such as V8 and…umm…chicken broth? Right. I’m thinking that this could be considered misleading advertising in the U.S. that would cause a problem. I love Coke just as much as the next person (maybe even more) but find this little bit of advertising to be disturbing for those mothers out there that may give their young children Coke since these little tidbits make it seem like a healthy choice for a beverage. That’s just my two cents.