Concepción y Santa Rita

So after what seemed like approximately no time back in Cochabamba after our La Paz excursion we left for our Santa Cruz trip. They called it our Santa Cruz trip but in reality we spent most of our time outside of the city in a small town called Concepción and one night in a village stay in Santa Rita.

As soon as I stepped off the plane, I could tell that we had entered Las tierras bajas. The lowlands. It was as humid as Connecticut in August and could not have been more different than the cold rain we had left behind in Cochabamba. We got right on the bus and headed to a reforestation project outside of the city. Most of what I remember from that visit was the amazing food: yucca and cheese on a stick, fried and boiled humitas (ground corn cooked in husks), juice and FRUIT. So good. After that I was in a food coma. We planted some trees, took a tour, and got back on the bus.

Maddy mid-bite at our hotel in
Concepción

Something like 6 or 7 hours later we finally arrived in Concepción. Everybody was overheated and exhausted but before we had even dropped our stuff off in our rooms, we were informed we had class. Rude. Oh, also, our stuff had been tied to the roof of the bus and obviously it had been raining for a good part of the trip so our bags were mostly soaked.

Laura, Erin, Maddy, Olivia and I were in a room together and it immediately began to smell like must after all of us and hung up our wet clothes in every part of the room. Wow, I am making this sound really unpleasant when it wasn't. Our room was awesome, Maddy and I shared a huge bed (because I wouldn't sleep in the uncomfortable twin bed by myself) and the other three were in the loft. Our hotel also had a patio area with hammocks and a pool. Also, the food was AMAZING. Life was good. Minus having to go to class.

The next day we were supposed to go to our village stay. We all packed up all our stuff only to be told that because of all the rain there had been a change of plans and we were going to be going to the village stay the next day instead. It is Bolivia, where plans are meant to be changed and people are supposed to be flexible. That day nobody had any idea what was going on until we arrived wherever we were going. We got to listen to some baroque music, visit a sawmill, go swimming in some sort of laguna, visit one of the most amazing churches in the world, and go to a museum. Also, we once again had an awesome dinner.

The best meal ever

The next day after eating approximately an entire papaya at breakfast I packed up my stuff and we finally actually went to our village stay. When we arrived we watched some of the kids from the village dance and then danced with them, played some games, listened to some drumming. After getting a brief introduction to the village we had the best meal I've had since being in Bolivia. There were fried platano and cheese balls (sounds weird but they were awesome), this really good cabbage stuff, some type of amazing fried rice, yucca, vegetables. Basically, it was great. After eating myself into yet another food coma Olivia, Maddy, Laura and I were introduced to our host mom and left to go get settled.

Our room

Our house

Our host family was AWESOME. All six of the host mothers that my group was with were part of the weaving cooperative in the village. They make amazing scarves and sell them at the baroque music festival that happens once a year in Concepción. We also had several host siblings including one who rivals my sister Kate in the incredibly tight french braid department. It was really interesting to spend time in a chiquitano village after having spent time in Tocoli, an Aymara village. There are so many different indigenous groups in the lowlands in Bolivia and their culture is completely different from the indigenous quechua and aymara people of the highlands. For me, the biggest difference was how open the people of Santa Rita were. They were friendly and excited and it didn't take any time to break down walls.

Us and the family, minus the older kids who were at school

My host mom and her
weavings

We spent the afternoon swimming in a pond (?) and eating pan de arroz and super sweet coffee. We also watched a weird soap opera with our host family. Our room had a double bed, twin bed, a hammock and no walls. I got the hammock so that was cool. My mosquito net was not very secure and I didn't feel like I could move much in my sleep for fear of getting dengue or falling out, but it was a cool experience.

The family hanging out on my bed

Our attempt to take a picture of our host sisters.
Everybody ended up wanting to be in it.

The next morning we had homemade empanadas that were fried in approximately 8 cups of oil but could not have been more delicious. After breakfast we left the village and started our long bus drive to Santa Cruz. We found out a little ways in that there was a road block on our route and the alternate route was too muddy from the rain. We weren't sure what we were going to have to do and ended up walking over the blockade and finding other buses to take on the other side. It was a pretty unique experience to walk over a road block and our director told us it was the first time in her 15 years of working for SIT that she had had to do that with a group. So basically we are famous.

Overall my time in Concepción and Santa Rita was awesome. It was a lesson in flexibility and going with the flow. Also in dealing with an absurd amount of mosquito bites and class in the amazonian humidity. The one thing I did not learn to do was to not eat until the point of feeling ill. So worth it. 

A Baking Disaster

So for one of my last spanish classes our assignment was to cook something and then explain the recipe using commands. Sounds simple, right? Wrong.

I decided that an easy thing for me to make was brownies. I went through a phase in 6th or 7th grade of baking brownies almost every week, so I basically have the Baker's Chocolate one bowl brownie recipe memorized. Plus, is there anything more delicious than those brownies? Probs not.

the second fail

I decided to make my brownies on Sunday since the assignment was due on Monday afternoon. I went to the grocery store after lunch and bought a HUGE thing of baking chocolate (after asking the lady at the store if this was in fact baking chocolate), eggs, and butter. My host family had sugar, vanilla, and flour that they said I could use. Here lies my first mistake.

After getting back home I made a double batch of brownies because I had gotten about 10 times as much chocolate as I needed. It tasted slightly different because it was sweetened chocolate but mostly the same and seemed to have the same consistency. Our oven here has the settings low, medium, and high so I just kind of guessed and stayed in the kitchen so I could make sure they wouldn't burn. Ah, it is making me nervous just writing this.

Anyway, after about 15 minutes in the oven it started to smell like burning so I quickly checked on my brownies. They had risen an absurd amount and the batter had proceeded to spill EVERYWHERE in the oven. I immediately started to panic and didn't know what to do. This was so awkward. My host family already assumed that I had no idea how to cook and now I just felt like an idiot.

Who knows if it will work

My host mom came in and told me that I had used too shallow a pan, but those brownies never rise so that didn't make sense to me. My host sister came and said maybe I had done some conversions wrong or perhaps it had happened because of the altitude. I felt really stupid but they were both super nice and laughed it off. They helped me clean up the mess and then my host mom and I found a different recipe that needed no conversions and tried again. The batter wasn't quite as good, but it seemed fine. We put them in the oven and what do you know? It happened again. My host mom was so shocked and confused. She told me that I must've bought the wrong kind of chocolate and once again I felt like an idiot.

At this point I had spent about 4 hours or so making batter, cleaning dishes, cleaning out the oven, and then repeating each step. I had also wasted like 10 eggs and tons of other ingredients. I was so frustrated that I just left the kitchen and decided I would either make something the next day that didn't involve using the oven, or just show up to spanish without anything.

Finally success!

My host sister came home that night and informed me that it was not the chocolate that I had gotten but the fact that we had accidentally been using self-rising flour. So it wasn't my fault! Hooray! She searched for a recipe that called for self rising flour and while I was skyping she ended up making me new brownies (don't tell my spanish teachers)

I apologized and thanked her many many times and I was just so relieved when that spanish presentation was over and I could stop thinking about my baking disaster. I will have to cook for my host family in the future to prove I am not an idiot in the kitchen, but for now I would just like to forget about the whole thing. My sister thinks it was funny and assured me that "it is all part of the adventure."

Toccoli (Village Stay)

You can kind of see my host family's house in the middle of that clump of trees

The view of the lake from my host family's house

After leaving La Paz at 5:45AM (horrible) we took a long bus ride to Toccoli, a small village right on the edge of Lake Titicaca. The bus ride down the narrow dirt road to the center of town was terrifying but we all made it alive and were greeted by most of the adults in the village. We had a welcome ceremony that included wearing aguayos filled with flowers, greeting everybody with an awkward almost hug (multiple times), and a lunch of potatoes, platanos, chuño (freeze dried potatoes that taste like dirt) and some tiny fish that I forget the name of.

Greetings with the community

Lunch
We were instructed beforehand to never
step over the food. It seemed like a weird piece of
advice but now it makes sense.

Olivia in her Aguayo

Nina and I lived in the room upstairs, to
the right is the kitchen and to the left is the
pen where they keep their animals

That evening Nina and I got assigned our host family and followed our host mother (who didn't say anything to us at first) up an incredibly steep hill for around 45 minutes until we reached our house. It was touch and go if I was going to make it while carrying the huge bag of vegetables we had been given to give our families as gifts, but luckily after about 10 minutes of struggling my host mom distributed them between some of her neighbors so I was left only carrying my own stuff.

Me, Beethoven, my host brother (Miguel
Angél and my little host sister

In our family there was the mom, the dad, a thirteen year old daughter, a 9 year old son, and then a 3 year old daughter. They also had two tiny kittens, a dog named Beethoven, sheep, a rooster, a mule, and a cow. Although our host mom seemed less than enthused to meet us, she opened up and started answering our questions and even asking us some questions once her husband came home. I think I only heard the oldest daughter speak about 3 words, but our host brother was incredibly friendly and seemed excited to have us there. We had tea (warm sugar water), soup, and bread for dinner and went to bed at about 9:00PM because we had mother else to do. It was freezing cold all night and I got pretty sick in the middle of the night but other than that I had survived my first day of the village stay.

The next day we were invited to The Festival of the Cross that was in a slightly larger pueblo about a half hour drive away. After our bus picked us up two hours late, we arrived at the church armed with flowered crosses that our host families had made us. The service was interesting but long: all in Aymara, the indigenous language which obviously I don't understand, plus no seats so lots of standing. The coolest part was when we all walked around the town square and sang.

Nina and me with our flower crosses

Church

Lunch 

I also found out when I got on the bus that morning that besides one student being left sick in La Paz, there were two others who had gotten bien ill during the night. That afternoon I accompanied Maddy to the local hospital, then that night somebody else from our group ended up joining her. Apparently our group won the prize for most sick students so I'm glad I made it out alive.

After getting back Nina and I herded sheep with our host brother. While the sheep were eating in various different fields we built houses (and schools, hospitals etc) out of rocks and sticks. Apparently when he has to herd sheep that is how he occupies his time and he was really excited to have some people to do it with. It is amazing to think that he is only nine. I can't imagine myself at nine years old spending so much time working alone and occupying myself with rocks and sticks. His parents both work outside of the village though, and sometimes it is just him and his older sister so I guess he is used to working hard.

Me and Nina. Why was I wearing my hat backwards?
Because it is cool looking, obvi.

Our adorable host brother

The next day Nina and I "helped" our mother. AKA we watched while she herded sheep, then each carried one log walking behind her with a huge pile of logs on her back. It was pretty comical how much we couldn't help, however my potato peeling skills have greatly improved and I like to think I was at least a little helpful in the kitchen. 

Nina loved the cats

That afternoon we had a closing/goodbye ceremony with Calixto, the catholic shaman from orientation who is SIT's contact in the village. It was really interesting and we all danced as a family at the end. My host mom and brother danced with Nina and me and my host mom seemed much more enthusiastic and warm towards us than she had in the past.

The next morning after another meal of tea, bread, and soup (they literally eat that for every meal) we got on the bus to head back to La Paz, the airport, and eventually our host families in Cochabamba. We stopped at a restaurant for lunch and had trout which was amazing especially after subsisting on potatoes and bread for three days. I was a little disappointed we didn't get to spend longer in the village and really get to know our host families. Between the language barrier (most of them speak spanish and aymara but mostly aymara to each other) and the fact that they took a while to warm up to us it was hard to feel comfortable in such a short amount of time. However, it was an amazing learning experience and I am so glad we got to do it, even if my host mother here may or may not have been disgusted to have me sit in her kitchen after not showering for four days. yolo, amiright?

Me and the family minus the older sister who had gone to school, and yes that is the view from their yard. Amazing.