My Bolivian Haircut…And My Not-So Bolivian Haircut

First off, I have not been very good at this blog updating business. My life has been less than spectacular lately so I am lacking in worthy events to recount to the masses. I would like to share that I am a big fan of the new Death Cab for Cutie CD though. At first I wasn’t too impressed (I got bogged down in the 8 minute 25 second track that appears second on the CD) but when you get past that, it’s quite pleasant. After all, how could you resist tunes called “Your New Twin Sized Bed” and “Long Division”? I also have been jamming out (by that I mean sitting in my room by myself bopping around) to the new Gavin DeGraw and Jason Mraz CDs. Both which I would classify as excellent.

Anyways, so a few weeks back I decided it was time to cut off the dead animal on the back of my head that I had been dragging around since August 2007 (I hadn’t had a haircut since I came to Bolivia). It had grown from my normal semi-bowl cut that I had before I came down to this atrocious scraggly mass that I kept in a ponytail about 75% of the time. I planned on meeting my counterpart Vivian to go to a salon that she recommended, “Los Espejos” but when it came time she didn’t show up…but I pushed onward and went to the salon where I got my 25 bs haircut. I had a little difficulty explaining to the woman what I wanted (which was very short, semi-bowl cut style which is my trademark) and I ended up with a bob that was noticeably different and neater than my hair before since she removed all the gross excess parts, but not what I had in mind. I got the feeling that she was afraid to cut it too short since most women here have LONG hair (maybe just so they can put it up in braids for dancing in festivals?) but I guess what I ended up with was kinda cute. My friends in Tarata thought so and I got some good feedback when I came back that first day about how good it looked (when it still was nicely styled and not flipping out in all the wrong directions as it naturally does).

But I wasn’t satisfied. Then this past weekend, Kasia, Lindsay and Sarah all were in town and we decided to take a little trip to Cine Center which is one of the most lujo (luxurious) places that you can go in Cochabamba. It’s just like an American movie theater and mall food court in one, with an internet café and salon and a few restaurants off of it. Lindsay, Sarah and I all decided to splurge on some seriously expensive (like 10 USD!) haircuts and we had spent the night before browsing Vogue and Marie Claire to find our models that we were going to emulate. When we got to the salon I found a cute pixie cut in one of the books of hairstyles and decided that was what I was going to go with. Very short, uneven-ish messy chunks, the type you don’t even comb (you just put some gel in and go) and totally me. So the stylist started cutting. And at one point even told me, “you can’t go back now” after she had hacked off a bit. Perfectly fine with me. I neglected to mention to her that I had my head shaved at one point which probably would have scared her. As she continued to cut, a few other stylists and assistants (hair-washing people?) gathered around to watch my haircut take form. I credit this to the fact that I was getting a haircut shorter than the man that was sitting next to me and they probably don’t see super-short cuts very often there so they are a novelty. In the end the haircut turned out exactly how I had wanted it the first time and it definitely was not your typical Bolivian woman’s hairstyle. The stylist liked it as well, I do believe, and I got some positive nods from the other bystanders along with compliments from Sarah, Lindsay (whose haircuts were also fantastic) and Kasia. But I think that’s where it ends. Vivian actually really liked my haircut and was telling me it was very fashionable and “te queda bien” several times which means it looks good on you. She’s also very fashionable so maybe she’s not as shocked by the supershort cut on a woman though. I would take the lack of comments from my other acquaintances in town (it was a major haircut that you couldn’t not notice) that they didn’t like it so much. I got a few, oh, you got a haircut, it’s a new look…a “why did you cut your hair?!” and a “you cut your hair, it was prettier longer.” I also got a few comments from some punk high school boys that were like, “dude, she looks like a boy.” Haha, too bad I’m used to getting mistaken for “sir” and “son” to actually think their comments were something novel and worthy of paying attention to. But gosh darn it, after this haircut I feel so much more like me. And I look so much cuter. Oh, I’m so egotistical.

The Day a Boy Ran Away From Me

Kelley – You might find this particulary interesting since we are the ones usually doing the running away (brings back memories of a particular incident where we stared at some dude behind the glass without his ID then ran away?).

I’ve seriously been lacking in any good blog material so I though I’d tell a story about something I found amusing (although it could be interpreted as slightly embarrassing). So after some “despedida” (going away) party fun, another volunteer Karen and I decided to go meet up with my counterpart, Vivian, who was out on Pando (street with basically all the discotecas and bars) with three of her friends. We were having a grand old time of a girl’s night out at this place called “La Boom.” Yes, the name is highly suspect. Anyways, so in the middle of the night I found myself making eyes more than once at a very attractive (and tall! so not my type) gentleman and he was definitely looking my way too (this can be confirmed by Karen, and if he wasn’t this story never would have happened). Around 2 am, Karen gave me the signal that she was ready to go home and I told her I wanted to go talk to the “guy in the blue t-shirt” and she told me to go do it. After blowing in her face a few times to make sure I didn’t have bad breath (I couldn’t find my gum), I marched right over there where he was standing with his friend and asked him, “quieres bailar?” or “do you want to dance?” If you know me, I don’t normally do things of this nature, but it might have been the few beers that I had consumed that night while bopping around crazily while dancing (that is normal – and possibly WHY he was looking at me) or as Pat said, it might be that I have been watching too much Sex and the City and was trying to emulate Samantha but apparently lacked the technique that she has (I am so much more Miranda). So his response to this was that he couldn’t dance right now and held up his drinky drink (which I believe was a Red Bull and vodka)…which might possibly have been a line or was the truth? So I continued to make small talk and although I remember everything else about the conversation, his name fails to come back to me, I remember it was something difficult to pronounce that I had to repeat to him to see if I got it right. So it turned out that he was from Brazil (Rio de Janeiro to be exact) and we continued the normal conversation that I have with people which includes him asking where I’m from, I say I’m from the U.S., he says I look Japanese, what do you do, I’m a Peace Corps volunteer…blah blah. So I ask him what he does and it turns out he is a medical student (future McDreamy perhaps?) here and I asked him what year of med school he’s in and about what kind of medicine he plans to practice. He answers “neurosurgery”…and this is where I think I might have gone wrong. I was joking around and was like, “entonces eres muy inteligente, no?” (I think that might have been coupled with a cheshire cat-like grin too on my part) which means “then you’re really smart right?” But come on, if he said he was a rocket scientist I would have made that same comment, you know, there are just some careers that encourage that type of thinking. Then I went to talk to his friend who was standing next to him who turned out also to be from Brazil and in med school and I asked him standard questions like if they knew each other before they came here and stuff. And literally it was like in the (bad) movies. In the moment I was talking to his friend, I turned around, he was gone! He ran away from me! I think he was scared that I was a little too “fuerte” (strong, aka forward) but who knows. There are two theories: 1) he might have really had to use the baño, or 2) he was really scared of me (which I prefer to think because it makes a better story). After he disappeared *poof* into thin air, I kind of just stopped talking to his friend and sauntered over to Karen and told her that the boy ran away from me and we headed out. I did notice when I turned around as we were walking out that he was back with his little friend but I didn’t think to actually stick around to find out if he actually ran away from me or had to put his drink down or something. The reason I think he ran away is that I don’t recall him saying anything to me like, hey, I’ll be right back, going to the bathroom or put my drink down. Así es, pues. I’m still wondering if my failure was due to my outright (scary) flattery, the possibility that maybe he was looking at the girl behind me the whole night, or my grungy clothing (Karen and I were in typical PC attire that is sneakers, jeans, and t-shirts whereas everyone else was in cute little tops and heels) but there will be other opportunities! Seguimos adelante!

New Photos!

Finally. These took a LONG time to upload. Sorry Mom, yours will have to wait.

Click on link at right and it´s under the ¨Bolivia¨set. Wheee!

The Prolific PC Mini-Success

So you would think that after 8 months in a new job that you would be ready to move on to expert (let’s say “verifier” in OTC confirmation-speak) status. But alas, my friend, this is the Peace Corps. After 8 months I’m just getting started. I recently had a mini-success with my tourist survey that I administered at the last fair. I did what I do best, and packaged all my data into a pretty little document brimming with pie charts and the like and I think that my counterpart was semi-impressed (she said she wanted to hire me…too bad for her I already work with her and in some ways for her). Although I think it’s important to know who your clients (aka tourist target market) are, I am hoping that the most important part of that document is the recommendations that I came up with for things that are potential projects that should be supported by the guide association and tourist office. These include giving a workshop to the food vendors on hygiene and santiary food-handling practices and also continuing the involvement with the guides during the fairs where they’ll organize tours during the fairs and festivals along with selling postcards and posters. The thing about being a Peace Corps volunteer is that you try to do the same work as the other volunteers in your project, but the key is to avoid reinventing the wheel, exploit the synergies (ha! what the heck does that even mean, business terminology popping out of my arse) that exist, and leverage the resources that are already at your disposal. Let me say, that was an excellent sentence. I do believe for that reason I am a microenterprise volunteer and not a basic sanitation volunteer building latrines. Anyways, I’ll keep you updated on my work in tourism; I think (cross your fingers) it might be going somewhere!

I found this article (along with the readers’ comments) in the yuppy NY Times on public service careers and the incentives for going into them kind of interesting. I agree that until you can change the view people have of under-valued and under-appreciated careers such as teaching – followed by a major adjustment in salary (hmm…let’s think, if I want to make a lot of money do I teach 9th grade math or be an investment banker?), you can’t incentivize bright, practical, economically-conscious (some with large student loan debts) people to go into public service as a career. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/education/23careers.html?scp=1&sq=public+service&st=nyt

In more important news, after reading the June issue of Vogue, I’ve decided that I am a fan of Alexander McQueen dresses. Although completely irrelevant to my current situation, I still have the ability to admire couture fashion and fantasize about prancing around in frilly dresses and 4-inch stilletto heels.

Bloggy Blog Blog

As evidenced by my lack of postings, I’ve been suffering from a lack of inspiration as of late. At the end of May, my mom came for a very lovely visit and since then I’ve settled back into my daily rituals and work. I think that life here has ceased existing as a novelty and is just work as usual now so I don’t find anything noteworthy (or blog-worthy). This past weekend was the annual chicha and chorizo (corn beer/liquor and skinny sausage) fair in my town and Pat and I indulged in both chorizo and some beer, but stayed away from the chicha which we blame our most severe gastrointestinal illnesses on. We had a nice (but short) visit from several other volunteers (actually 5 volunteers and 2 other American girls that are working with one of the volunteers at an orphanage) so it was nice to show them our site. I think of Tarata as my baby and I am the proud mother that likes to parade it around; the colonial architecture, pretty views, and of course the lovely homes that Pat and I live in. Also, the fair marked what I might consider to be my first substantial work in tourism that I initiated since I’ve been here. I wrote up a tourist survey and organized the guides that are in the tourist guide association (started up by the prior volunteer) to have a stand during the fair where they sold postcards and posters and administered the survey that I wrote up (with the reward of free homebaked cookies that I contributed – chocolate chunk and oatmeal raisin). All in all, I think they did a pretty good job during the fair and I was glad to have them running the stand themselves since they should be involved in big tourist events in town.

I also finally got my kitchen set up while my mom was here (still missing a fridge and a table but will hopefully be getting those two things in the next month from a volunteer that leaves at the end of July) and have been making good use of it. I baked the cookies for the fair, a messed up pan of brownies (that I am eating all by myself), two birthday cakes (tangerine and chocolate), and made up a little stirfry of broccoli, chicken and bean thread noodles (that the grocery store inexplicably carried at one point and no longer are selling). There are a few upcoming events that I am looking forward to…such as my counterpart’s birthday (I haven’t been out since January, it’s very pathetic) which I am sure will be oodles of fun. Also, I’m trying to get down to Sarah’s site and Oruro in the next month to finally see where she lives (and spend more than ½ hr in Oruro from an inadvertent bus detour – which some may label as a stupid error). After that, Chile and Easter Island! I will be heading out on my first solo vacation to explore the archeological mysteries on Easter Island and hopefully also get a taste of Santiago and Valparaíso.

In other news, something right now in my room smells like rotting vegetables (not pleasant) and I’m trying to figure out if it’s me. I have also, as of late, started studying for the GMAT since rumors are that the 2nd year of service flies by and if I don’t start now I’m going to be sitting there in November 2009 wondering what the heck I should do with my life when I get back to the States. I’m not so much a fan of the reading comprehension and data sufficiency question types. I know, you must think, how difficult can reading comprehension be? But I find myself struggling with those questions the most on the verbal section (ha! I have declared a truce with sentence correction questions – my old nemesis on that PSAT that I took, I think with a little more grammar study I might be alright) and there’s not much you can do to study for that section. It’s all good though, I still have the decision to make of where I want to take the test…there is a testing center in La Paz, but I think I might be more comfortable if I took a vacation back to the States and took it there (or that could totally backfire and I actually might be better off taking the test here in my little Bolivian bubble). Vamos a ver.

This is the Peace Corps. For Real.

Some people say that Peace Corps is a life-changing experience. Within the microcosm of this 27 months though, there are also service-changing experiences. My past week was spent adjusting my outlook that had unfortunately become very pessimistic and skeptical during the first six months of my service (holy baloney, I’m 25% done with my service!). I had started to think that the work that Peace Corps thinks that us volunteers will accomplish is nothing but a…uhh…pelican? (haha, from The Pelican Brief, does that mean it’s imaginary?) whatever, I mean that it was a figment of their imagination, impossible, unattainable, not viable. I have changed that attitude after my 5 day trip to Independencia to visit Dorinda, a volunteer from B-43 (microenterprise volunteer that started her service one year ahead of me) that recently decided to extend her service one more year so she’s now going to COS (close of service, aka finish her service) with my group, B-46. I initially went up there with Karen (another microenterprise volunteer from B-43) to get to know Independencia (which is about 7.5 hours from Coch on a really crappy yet beautiful dirt road through the mountains and happens to be in the middle of nowhere, literally) because Karen was doing an informal tech exchange to teach Dorinda’s group of kids that she teaches life skills to how to manejar (uhh…what’s the verb for that in English? Maintain? Use?) a cash box and contabilidad (aka the wonderful world of accounting and book-keeping). The Sunday that I was there was the biggest fair in the town, Feria de la Chirimoya (yes, that is the famed globby custard apple that is oh-so-delicious). The kids were baking cakes (that were ridiculously delicious btw, so many repeat customers once they got a taste of it) to sell at the fair and Dorinda was doing an artesania exhibition at their stand to sell the products (woven out of lambswool and dyed using all natural dyes – think plants, wood ash, etc.). So I probably did the most work I’ve done continuously since I’ve been here…preparations for the fair (and we didn’t even help with the baking!) included making signs, moving things, organizing things, transporting things (dude, I totally used a wheelbarrow for the first time and pushed things up and down hills with it, I felt like I was on a farm or something). Anyways, Dorinda is totally the model volunteer, doing really great work, meaningful work. The grassroots, get your hands dirty, make a difference work that we can all hope to accomplish while we’re here. She is one cool lady that went to culinary school, is vegetarian, environmentally conscious, spent years working in Alaska at Denali National Park…which makes her ridiculously outdoorsy and hardcore. She probably has 30 years on me but is 10x stronger than me (as evidenced by our comparative wheelbarrow-pushing abilities). Anyways, she’s doing what volunteers SHOULD be doing…capitalizing on their strengths to create projects around them that “aprovechar” the unique assets of each volunteer. She made me want to be a better volunteer. Or maybe just a little like her, haha. She has done a lot of traveling that makes me jealous. Plus she’s so HAPPY in her site, I mean, I should be as well right? My name is Joy. So after this experience of watching her work on the most important day of the year for microenterprise in Independencia, I came back to Tarata all hyped up to try to be a better volunteer. I have notions of maybe taking some of her ideas and modifying them for implementation in Tarata (perhaps with the Kid’s Club) and really going at it to make a difference in tourism and microenterprise. I guess what I was so impressed with wasn’t just her work, but the other little things she does like her environmental efforts of composting, growing lettuce, herbs and flowers, her resourcefulness (surprisingly good diet for not having a fridge and being 8 hours away from a city), and overall badas*ness of being able to handle the flota (bus) ride just to come to Cochabamba each time. Plus she makes great salads with cabbage, avocado, cucumber, carrot, tomato, campo cheese, salt and pepper, oil and vinegar. And she makes her own granola, pizza crust and bread since they use lard in the bread around here (but dang is it tasty). In conclusion, I am an incompetent sissy. There, I said it, and it has been confirmed the truth now that I’ve seen where and how a real volunteer lives and works.

I have to leave you with a tidbit of how hardcore the flota ride is to Independencia is though. One time apparently Dorinda stood up the whole way there. That is ridiculous. It’s hard enough when you are sitting down…the regular schedule is that it leaves Coch at 5 am, and then it leaves Independencia at 4 am (and it’s freaking COLD…I took my sleeping bag with me on the way back because I nearly froze without it on the way there, luckily Karen shared her blankie with me). Anyways, so on the way there, through the winding roads, my stomach sometimes can’t handle it, and the old woman next to me (who was sitting in the aisle on a bundle of something or other…which is a perfectly acceptable seat around here for a passenger) was barfing into a bag for about 2 hours of the trip. You know when the Bolivians can’t handle it, it’s a little rough. And on the way back, while I was sleeping, Karen said she noticed a rank odor so strong that she had to open the window. She cautiously checked her backpack that was on the ground and her sneakers to see if someone had pissed on the ground and it was dribbling towards her stuff. Nope, nothing was there. So once at the first stop near Coch about half the passengers got out and I moved to sit in the seat behind me (that had been next to Dorinda) and give Karen more room with her stuff. At some point Karen looked down and gasped in horror. The seat had previously been occupied by a woman with her young child. There it was, a pile of poop under the seat I was sitting in. Yes, human excrement. Along with a little plastic bag, which apparently was supposed to catch the poop being expelled by the child, and which apparently was unsuccessful in its mission. And the woman also made the executive decision to leave the poop and bag in a pile on the bus where it landed instead of trying to clean it up. Thankfully, I did not step in it. The End.

In other news, I officially bought my ticket to Chile and Easter Island for August so I am off on my vacation! I am still looking for travel partners if anyone is looking to get in on it. As of now, it’s uhh…just me. So whoever comes will get some quality time with the Joy Dog. Joyster. Joy-a-rama. Joylicious. Joyimal (that’s for you, Dan). Joymeister. Fluffmeister (that’s the name of a pillow on an airplane, once upon a time, Helen, I know you didn’t change them, I had the Fluffmeister and you were just jealous). Okay, that was really random. I’m done now. Feel free to navigate away from this page and ignore me. I am the biggest dork you know.

Oh, but one more thing, my mom is springing a surprise visit on me that was supposed to happen in June/July. She will be here in about a WEEK! May 19th – 28th…so I know you are rushing to the post office to send a package to her express to bring to me so let me know if you need the address (aka if you love me) :) This way there is no ridiculous postage and I don’t have to wait 3 months to get it. Win-win situation right?

An Inconvenient Truth

Pat and I recently watched this movie during one of our infamous “movie and chocolate” nights. Although the cover categorized the film as “documentary,” I would deem it more to be of the “horror” variety. The picture that was painted of global warming’s impact on climate change was kind of scary. The idea of a drastic change in global temperature causing Greenland and/or western Antarctica to melt and raise sea level by 20 ft…not exactly an ideal situation I would think. Goodbye New Orleans and all other low lying places on Earth, hello lots of scary diseases, storms, droughts and all sorts of other catastrophes…how about 100 million displaced people from low-lying areas? I have always believed scientific evidence to be the most convincing form of persuasion and in this case I saw more than enough statistics to make me believe. And I also was surprised by some of the facts…such as the emissions regulations that in the States are way lower than other developed countries and how auto companies are throwing hissy fits over Cali’s proposed tightening of regulations over several years that would put the state on par with China’s current standards. In conclusion, it served its purpose to make you think about your impact on the situation and what your role as an individual is in having a positive influence.

Although I am a PCV, I am probably as far away from a tree-hugging hippie as you get. I am guilty of eating more meat than the average person, driving a car when I could have walked (for 3 years), and doing more than my fair share of travel via airplane. I don’t believe that I am a wasteful person, although I can see through my experience here how living in the U.S. easily lends itself to the levels of consumption that makes Americans the biggest culprits of the causes of global warming. Here’s where the hope comes in though (we’re trying to avoid the denial to despair sequence that Gore spoke about), if we are the ones that are most at fault…that also means that if we change our habits, that we can also have the biggest positive impact on reducing the effects of global warming and thereby “saving our future.” In evaluating my lifestyle here, I notice the little details in things that demonstrate the lower level of consumption in a country such as Bolivia in comparison to the States. Take something near and dear to my heart for example, food (and the packaging it comes in). I buy chicken in plastic wrap and styrafoam in the U.S., in Bolivia they throw it in a plastic bag for you to take with you. In the U.S. you can find disposable cups at every corner (think Starbucks) and I have yet to see coffee for takeout here and the beverages served from carts in the market either come in plastic bags or are served in glass cups to be downed in one gulp. And although two frequent methods of waste disposal in my town are for trash to get burned or thrown in a pile by the river where some people wash their clothes, the reality is that there is a lot less trash and waste that results from the lifestyle here.

So what to do about it all? I’m no environmental expert or activist, but I figure when I go back to the States I should make some commitments to do my little part in this all. It seems too overwhelming and ominous sometimes when you think about the big picture, but I truly believe that if every little person does his/her own part it will make a difference in the end. It’s stuff like using those $1 green cloth bags when you go grocery shopping, buying the energy efficient lightbulbs that last like 20 years, not drinking bottled water (c’mon, there’s no giardia or amoebas in the water over there) whenever possible, buying a hybrid car (or at least energy efficient compact car if you can’t afford the hybrid), using heating and AC more efficiently and only when really needed, walking or biking or using public transport whenever possible, and trying out the methods of clothes-drying without using a dryer. As a “businessperson” (with no soul, as we microenterprise volunteers are sometimes labeled), the question of how trying to help the environment will affect the economy is an important one. I think so far the verdict is still out on whether being a leader in being environmentally conscious helps or hurts the bottom line, but I strongly believe that if these widespread initiatives are to succeed, action will have to come from all angles. From the individuals changing their habits, to politicians putting in place incentives (aka laws and subsidies) for people and businesses to change their behaviors, and also the companies that consciously decide to be leaders in taking on this “moral” issue…I think that if everyone works together there just might be some hope for the outcome that is desired. It has been proven though that humans are rational creatures (usually) and will only act to help the environment if it serves in their best interest; the conundrum is how to make it so that everyone (individuals, businesses, politicians, etc.) sees that trying to stop global warming is in their best interest and then they will willingly make the sacrifices necessary to do something about the problem. I think that the way that economies and technology have developed is a double-edged sword that creates necessity of some of the wasteful practices while providing promising technological solutions to solving the problem that might not have been there in the first place…but what can you do. It is what it is. Así es, pues! A stone’s a stone! Haha…okay, I’m done ranting and raving. A reader might want to hear more about the Peace Corps experience rather than my psychotic rantings…but I’m not very good at talking about that. I will throw in a related tidbit here though, that for Kid’s Club I would like to do some environmentally-oriented activities and sometime in the future I would like to work on a garbage cleanup in the town and maybe work with children on environmental awareness (man, where are those environmental education volunteers when you need them). That’s all I got for now though. Chau!