Goaaaaaaaaaaallllllllll!!!!!

Many thanks to Tonchi for allowing us to use his tv today so we could watch the gold medal hockey game.  It was definitely the strangest hockey watching scenario I have ever had.  Picture it.  32 degrees Celsius, ESPN Spanish broadcast with Spanish announcers, 4 locals who have no idea what hockey is about and 3 Canadians screaming their heads off.  It was almost amusing to hear the announcers ramble on in Spanish and then hear them say Sydney Crosby or Roberto Luongo with a really heavy accent.  The announcers really liked saying Jack Johnson's name alot for some reason and put alot of emphasis on the "John" part of Johnson.  Everybody thought it was funny to see the Canadians go crazy with every goal, hit or penalty and to see us crumple when the US scored with 24 seconds left.

It was a slow day overall with church, followed by once again a lunch of chicken, rice, yuca, french fries and plantains.  You have to understand that chicken places here are like the Model T.  You can have any combination you want as long as its chicken, rice, yuca, french fries and plantains.  Your only real decision is whether you want to go to a chicken place where the chicken is fried or roasted.  Other than that, its chicken, rice, yuca, french fries and plantains.

Short post today.  Way to go Canada.

No Earthquake Here

Before all the emails etc start pouring in, no, we didn't feel any earthquake here in Santa Cruz.  We are actually quite a long distance from where the earthquake took place in Chile as you can see by the picture below.

Speed

Sorry I didn't post last night, but the kids were a little unruly and we were out a little later than usual down at the plaza.  Its apparently some sort of bicentennial this week.  We haven't been able to get the exact description of what as of yet, but things are hopping downtown.  We had gone done last night to try to track down a guy we had seen the other night who was selling beautiful cloth maps of South America that neither one of us said "hey I want that" until we got back home.  Anyways, we went down again last night and should have known something was up by the traffic all the way down there, but didn't until we saw all the people in the plaza and heard the music.  There was a stage setup with people singing and playing traditional music and vendors selling everything from coffee to little helicopter toys for kids.

We never did find the guy selling the map, but we did get to hear some traditional music and stayed out too late for the kids to be good at bed time as we learned when we got home.  Anyways, today's post is in honor of the internet speed down here.  Its been bugging me for a while for a few reasons:
1.  The olympics are on, and I haven't seen a single event and haven't found anywhere that is broadcasting any of it.  There are two ESPN channels here which show soccer all the time even though they show the olympic rings int he corner of the screen.  The internet is too slow for video so its no go on the Olympics.
2.  All the software I brought with me to work on computers is of course English.  After I install them on the computers, I have to download the spanish language files, or download the spanish version so that people here can use them.  It took over an hour and a half to download the spanish language files for Avast antivirus.  That is something that is accomplished in about 2 minutes at home.
3. Have you noticed that the blog is a little light on pictures?  Thats cause I can't wait all night for them to upload when I write a post.  So, if you haven't found them already, I let my computer upload my pictures overnight to my picasa web album site.  It is located here: http://picasaweb.google.com/whoopiis/BoliviaPics
If you want to see more pictures, they are all located there.  I haven't uploaded any of Lukas' pictures because I just don't have the internet time to do so.
4.  The internet speed is too slow for Lukas to do some of the homework he was supposed to do.  Mrs. Soles, if you are reading this, Lukas is really torn up about it. :)

Given the internet speed here, I have had to up my reading time substantially.  I brought 3 books down with me thinking it would be enough to pass the entire time.  I brought Slaughter House Five, Brave New World and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance with me.  I had never read Slaughter House Five and had not read the other two since high school.  As of today, those are done, and I am now reading Lukas' copy of the Hobbit until I can find a source of more English books to read. 

P.S.  One last thing.  Brenda if you are reading this, congratulations on getting married.

Smoothest Highway Ever....Not

Today, Ken took us out to another boys home that is about an hour drive south of the Santa Cruz.  This home has 35 boys ranging from 4 to 17 years old, all of whom are orphans from the street.  The home has an agreement with the private Christian school in the town next to it to provide them an education along with what they are taught at the home itself.  I was pretty surprised at the quality of the home overall.  They have 3 long dorms where the boys sleep on bunk beds and have their individual little closets.  They have a big kitchen and covered eating area, a classroom, and a very small computer room.  In addition, they have a pretty decent soccer field, basketball court, and beach volleyball.  They also raise their own chickens and rabbits to help with their food bill.

All the boys have to do their own laundry in a row of little sinks, and take care of their own living areas.  All of them have choirs to do on top of their studies.  We spoke with one young guy who explained that they lose a few guys back to the street every once in a while because the street will always take them back and it feels like home because it was home for so long.

 

I have a bunch more pictures of the place, but unfortunately, the internet is a little slow tonight.  Oh, one more thing, I wanted to show you what a typical meat shop looks like.  They do have supermarkets, but the prices are much higher than the market.  We have been buying meat at the supermarket for the reason you will see below.

Yup, that's right, 3 dogs and only 2 people.  What ya thinks in the burgers?  ( please tell me Curtis isn't the only one to get that line)

Would You Eat It?

Today was pretty uneventful with the exception of a trip to the third major market in Santa Cruz.  The trip was necessary, because Lukas, Ruddy and Yimy (pronounced Jimmy) all needed new shoes, and we are still looking for a Bolivian guitar with a neck small enough for Lukas' hand to fit around.  This market is where there is a fair bit of shoes, fruit stands, the usual electronics and wood furniture.  This one isn't so much a huge building with stalls like the main market, but is more made out of suspended tarps dividing each store and is a real maze.

There were some really interesting things at this market that I hadn't seen at the other ones as of yet including this little gem.

 

The first question is:  Would you eat it?

To give you a description, it is called Pacay and is once again, a strange fruit.  It grows on trees and hangs like a long seed pod which is exactly what it is.  You split it open like a pea pod, and inside are a bunch of hard black seeds covered in what looks and feels exactly like white fur.  Now, who can guess which part you eat????  That's right little Billy, you get a lollipop.  You eat the white fur.  If you can get past the way it feels in your mouth, it tastes very much like a slightly green banana.  There isn't much fur on each seed, so its a little labor intensive but worth the experience.  They are also dirt cheap at 4 pods for 5 Bolivianos or roughly 75 cents.  To give perspective, each pod is about the size of a cucumber and the seeds are the size of a quarter.

After trying the Pacay, we continued on our search for shoes and were lucky enough to find a pair for Lukas and a pair for Ruddy but Yimy was not able to find exactly what he wanted.  Its amazing to see how cheap some of the brand names we buy back home are here.  A new pair of sketchers for me costs $45 to $50 without being on sale.  These are the real deal, not knock offs.  You can tell because they are behind glass instead of piled on a mound of other shoes or just sitting on a shelf.

There were lots of other foods being cooked and prepared which were recognizable and smelled decent but I steered clear of due to concerns over my health.  If it would have been in a restaurant, I would have tried several of the "pork parts" dishes that were available.  There was fried pig skin, dried llama (with the leg still attached), beef tripe and lots of different chicken parts.  We did break down and buy some candy which was basically sugar balls dyed pink.  We didn't know that we were not supposed to eat them until after we had finished a bunch off.  Yimy explained that those candies, although edible, are meant to be thrown into a fire and burned for Mother Earth.  Oops.

Tomorrow is a full day of teaching for Melody and a full day of computer fixing for me and Lukas.  Jordan and Logan will be hanging out with the Bolivian kids in the daycare for most of the day.

Since some of you may be getting bored with my style, I am going to have special guest writers this week and let Melody and Lukas put up a post or two, so you get their opinion on things.

Space Bubbles and The Search

We went to church this morning and one thing became very quickly clear.  This culture has no consideration for space bubbles.  It is customary when arriving at church, to shake hands with the men, and to hug and kiss the cheek of each person in the church.  For those of you who are not aware, I have a space bubble and it is usually about 5 feet in diameter.  In Canada, where space bubbles are known to exist, most people will respect the bubble.  Down here, the space bubble is an unknown entity and it is my job to fit in here, not the other way around.  This means that the morning was spent having my bubble popped at very regular intervals.

Church was thankfully air conditioned and one other item crosses cultural borders.  That item is that if a computer/audio/visual aid is not functioning, the Information Technology Professional will be pointed out in the crowd and brought to the front to troubleshoot and fix whatever the problem is.  In this case, the problem was the usual projector/laptop issue that I am quite familiar with thanks to my work and life outside of work.  Unfortunately, the problem was a broken pin on the cable and there was no spare available.  Ironically enough, there was a computer business right next door and I could see the cable we needed through the window of the business.

After church, the world wide tradition of lunch out is still applicable, except here instead of Grainfields or Smitty's, it was Hot Burger.  It was actually better than it sounds.  Now the search is on to find a television somewhere in this city to watch the Canada vs. USA game from the Olympics tonight.

Saturday at the Market

Melody needed to track down a bunch of spa related supplies for her next class if they existed here, so we all headed down to the big market to look for them.  If it exists in Bolivia, its somewhere in the market.  To give you an idea of what the big market is like, picture two superstores each across the street from each other, filled with 10 foot square individual stalls filled from floor to ceiling with whatever they are specializing in.  Then picture the walking space between the aisles at about 2 and a half feet.  There is everything from audio adapters to real ambercrombie and fitch clothes.  There is also a ton of very good knock off items ranging from Prada to Gucci and every trendy brand in between.  Some of them are pretty high quality and can be bought for next to nothing.  Then in the aisles, there are people pushing carts with snacks, drinks or one off items that they try to sell you as you squeeze through.  The one offs tend to be expensive watches (the real deal) at bargain prices for some reason......

We found a stall that sold soccer jerseys and bought each of the kids a soccer uniform (jersey and matching shorts).  Jordan and Logan went for Santa Cruz Oriente (the green Santa Cruz team) favored by Rudy, and Lukas went for the Santa Cruz Blooming (the blue Santa Cruz team) favored by Ken.  Each person in Santa Cruz has their favorite local team and when you think of passionate fans, multiply that by 100 and you are getting close to the way these people love their team and despise the other one.  Grown men regularly cry at soccer games here when their beloved team loses a regular season game.   Anyways, we got all three kids uniforms for 135 Bolivianos which converts to about $19.

There are other parts of the market that I was not so fond of however.  There is an area along the side of the building on the outside, that is the pet market.  Here you find people selling puppies of various kinds and other animals.  Its the other animals I didn't like so much.  The picture below shows two baby parrots for sale in a box.  Normally, these birds are taken from the wild and sold, which doesn't help the wild population and usually results in birds that are either unhealthy physically or mentally.

One other fun treat about shopping here is that your meat is usually very fresh.  You can tell by the heads on the chickens.  Yes, those are indeed chicken heads. Doesn't bother me so much, but its a whole different world here shopping for meat.  You don't go to the market or even the supermarket looking for a cut of meat.  You go in and look at a big section of the animal and ask them to cut whatever you want off of it.  So, in my case, since I know my animals due to my love of cholesterol, its almost a perfect scenario except for the flies.

Tomorrow, we are going to the local church in the morning to experience what a typical church service is like.  There wasn't any church to attend last week due to Carnival, so this is our first opportunity to see how things work.   We are told it is very informal and to dress like its hot, because its going to be.

Everybody is doing well and staying properly hydrated.  Its 33 degrees out at 8 oclock at night right now, and it is only going to go down to 28 overnight.  Some of you might be saying, I wish I could trade you, but believe me, with the humidity to go with it, and the pitiful air conditioning (virtually none), you don't.  Everybody says hi,.

Achachairu, Classes and Ice Cream

Melody had a long day today since she taught two classes today.  This morning was a 1 on 1 session with a girl who has been doing manicures and pedicures already.  Melody said she was pretty good, but needed to work on her cleanliness and be more careful not to knick her clients when trimming the cuticles.  The afternoon class had 7 girls show up.  This class was a fair bit more challenging because none of them had done any spa services before, she had to work with the translator and most of these girls have not had more than a grade 2 education, so everything moved along very slowly.  Overall the day was pretty successful.

If any of the girls have kids of their own, they are provided childrens activities in another room and a snack to keep them busy while their moms are in class.  The kids room has lots of little toys that have been donated and just lets the kids be kids for a while.

Like I mentioned before, lunch time here runs from about noon to 2:30 in the afternoon, which bugs the heck out of me, but thats the way it is.  One of the new things we have come to enjoy is a fruit called achachairu.  Its a strange little fruit that has a thick rind on it that you crack with your thumb nail, then you squeeze it until it splits open.  Inside you find a fuzzy white ball which doesn't look very appealing, but trust me it tastes great.  It has couple of big seeds in the middle, so you don't get much for your work, but they are dirt cheap so there is lots to go around.  Here are some pictures.

It was a ridiculously hot day today and very humid, so Ken suggested we go down to the plaza tonight for some ice cream.  He has been bragging about it ever since we got here so we agreed.  I have to say he was right.  It was some of the best ice cream I've ever had.  I tried a berry flavor called mora which is very similar to blackberry and will be trying to find some fresh ones at the market the next time we go.  I also tried to take a couple of pictures of the Cathedral but didn't have my tripod so this is the best I could do.

Sick

I must have swallowed some of the water during the Carnival warfare earlier in the week, because last night was not very good at all.  My guts were all messed up and I had a fever shoot way up.  I can tell you its very strange to be in a place that is 30 degrees and feel absolutely freezing cold.  Luckily, Melody brought most of a pharmacy with her, so I took a wonderful cocktail of medications before bed last night and feel much better today.  I kept my food intake fairly basic today with a lot of toast and not much else and think I will be back to my normal self by morning.

Today was spent finalizing notes for class which starts full time tomorrow, doing homework with the kids and of course going to pick up my new glasses.  The kids also spent a fair amount of time outside today looking for snails which they caught and put in a plastic Fanta bottle.

On the way to pick up my glasses downtown, I took a couple of pictures that I found interesting.  The first one is of billboards for Canada.  The translated words are Canada, your door to the future.  Its not actually advertisements paid by our government, but its an ad for a company that fills out the immigration papers to try to get you into Canada as an immigrant.

Bolivians as a culture, seem to feel that "American" goods like clothes etc are the best so they very often will label something as American.  This picture is of a wall that had this same thing painted about 5 times all the way down the wall.  Its an ad for latex paint.

There are restaurants called American, mechanic shops called American and even things like Farmacia American (American Pharmacy).  These places are no different than their competitors except they like to add the name American to their business.

Now, since you have all waited so long, here are my new glasses.  Thanks to Lukas for taking the picture.

The Search for Glasses

For me, today was a search for glasses.  Surprisingly, it wasn't that hard at all.  After meeting with our translator for a couple hours going over our teaching notes, we went downtown by the plaza, because that is where most of the tourist/foreigner stores are located and figured that would be where the eyeglass places are as well.  After walking around a little while, we found what we thought was an eyeglass store.  It was all marble and glass, and had a security guard with a shotgun.  Almost every atm and bank as well as high end store has an armed security guard here.  They never talk or do anything other than open the door, but they are there none the less.

Turns out that the store we went into is only for high end sunglasses, so we had to move along.  Ken explained that the tourists and the kids of the super rich Bolivians always like to buy the high end sun glasses and this store caters only to that market.  We walked a little further along and found an eyeglass dispensary.  The store was small, but very well kept and my prescription was in the same format that they used at that store, so we were good to go.  We picked out a nice pair of Tommy Hilfiger frames and she upsold us on the anti-glare lenses etc and the total was $190.  The same thing in Canada would run me $500 or $600 for sure.  Makes you wonder what the markup is in Canada if they can import the frames from the US, make the lenses, mark them up for profit and still charge only $190.

Long story short, they will be ready tomorrow afternoon and I will be able to see again.  Definitely the most expensive water balloon fight I have ever been a part of.

Slow Day

Today was a slow paced day for the most part.  The morning was spent with the kids doing their homework and Lukas doing a math test that his teacher sent with him.  Later in the morning, we went to the market to buy some more fruit.  This was our first time to the market which is basically comprised of a whole bunch of little tiny kiosks selling everything from chickens to cell phones.  We figured we should do it today even though it was still Carnival because we have meetings tomorrow with the translator to go over the class material.  Following that meeting, I will be heading out to look for some new glasses.

Apparently I wasn't clear enough last night in my post.  Yes I lost my glasses in the giant water balloon fight.  They were knocked from my face by a direct hit which caused them to fly off my head, out the back of the truck and under the car behind us in the muddy street, never to be seen again.  No, I did not bring a spare pair.  We did however bring our prescriptions down just for a situation like this. So for those of you wondering, this what I looked light about 10 seconds after losing my glasses yesterday.   Its been one long squint session since then.

Anyways, the market is a great place to buy fruit because it is trucked in very frequently, and there are lots of competing stands there so the prices are better than the store.  I would say the same thing about the meat stands as far as the price goes, but I wouldn't buy anything from them unless you like to take your chances since everything is unrefrigerated and there are a few flies buzzing around.

The market is always packed, and its the kind of place where you want to hang on to your purse and wallet rather tightly since you are always rubbing or bumping into people as you walk.  We didn't have any problems, but Ken advised us not to take our good camera in for safety reasons.

Following the market, we went to Kens for lunch which was cooked by Sandro, who made the most wonderful chicken dish in the oven.  It was definitely the best food we have had since we arrived.

Kens boys went out water ballooning again, but we decided it was best if we rode inside the truck this time for obvious reasons, so we toured a little bit more of the different areas of the city.  Day 3 of the water balloon fight gets a little more hairy as you can see by the picture below. This block of people, setup a roadblock on their street so any vehicle coming in would be cornered and unable to get away without taking a few good shots from their balloons.

Nobody cared today whether they got hit or not, since it rained from the time we got up until the time we got home anyways.

The real work starts tomorrow now that Carnival is over, so we are hitting the hay early tonight.

Once Was Blind .....But Now I Can't See

If you have never taken part in a city wide water and paint balloon fight, I do recommend trying it once.  I would also recommend that you wear a helmet, safety goggles and a flak jacket.

Ken picked us up in his truck with 5 of his boys in the back along with 4 rubbermade garbage cans full of water balloons.  Most of ours were just plain water, except for one special barrel which was reserved for people dressed in "temporary clothes".  By temporary clothes, I am referring to full length cotton smocks of various colors that the hard core participants buy and wear just for Carnival.  The special barrel was of course filled with balloons filled with dye of various colors.  This dye is more like paint in actuality because it really doesn't wash off that easily at all.  Many consider it a badge of honor to return to work on Wednesday after Carnival dyed from head to toe in a multicolor rainbow.

There is really nothing we do in Canada that compares to a festival of like this.  Everybody (and I mean Everybody) knows that people are going to throw water balloons at them, so they just smile and wave when they get hit, or pull out their own stash from their hidden supply.

It all started out great with the 5 of Kens boys, Myself, Lukas and Logan in the back of a truck.   (All you over-protective parents, please close your eyes for this part)  We drove around a few blocks and flung a few balloons and dodged a few coming back at us.  All was well until we went to what Ken described as one of the poorer areas of town.  Apparently, the poor have more time to plan ambushes.  When we got half way down the street, balloons started coming from all angles.  They came from the left, right, front, back, and there were even people on the rooftops hurling balloons into the truck.  I was first struck on the back of the head, as was Logan and Lukas.  Then the paint balloons started coming in and I was hit just below my left arm.  That one was obviously thrown by somebody large because that one really hurt.  Apparently when you run out of balloons, some people choose to throw soft mud.  This was not mentioned in the rules at all.  I took one of these soft mud balls directly in the forehead, and a few seconds later, I took a water balloon to the left temple which shot my glasses out of the truck, never to be seen again.

Nobody was hurt other than a slight welt and some bruised pride, and it was all good fun and everyone was left smiling at the end.  Its really nice to see an event where everybody no matter how rich or poor takes part and just has fun.

A Taste of Home

Since we are trying to avoid the giant paint and water balloon fight that is Carnival (at least until Tuesday when we plan to pile into the back of Kens truck and unleash our fury on the locals), Ken thought it would be nice for us to cook the guys a meal like we would have in Canada.  So yesterday, we went to the butcher and picked up a big sirloin tip roast.  Then we went to the store and picked up some potatoes, lettuce and some other salad stuff.

Surprisingly enough, the food down here is quite bland.  They don't use much seasoning at all other than salt, so Ken warned that some of the boys might not like our food, especially the gravy.  Ken has not had a roast beef, potatoes and gravy meal in a really long time, and he was quite excited to have some.  He also mentioned that the last time he tried to make gravy, it didn't turn out well at all, so he was hoping we could show him how to make proper gravy.  If there is one thing I know, its how to make anything that goes with cooked meat, and gravy is no exception.

The roast went in early this morning, and there was lots of drippings to use for the gravy.  The boys made a big pot of rice to have with their meal since it isn't a meal down here without rice (and they weren't sure if they were going to like our food).  Rice at home takes 15 minutes or so.  Rice down here takes a good hour.  The time in the water is the same, but they always toast their rice in a pan with oil for a good half hour before they add any water.

The meat, gravy and mashed potatoes turned out perfectly, and all 14 people ate until everything was gone.  Everybody loved the gravy (which they called carne sauce because they don't make gravy at all with any meat).  Some of them asked how it was made and if we make it with other meats and if we could show them how to make it.

Overall, everything went well and but we came home a little early because Lukas had a migraine.  We did have a little excitement on the way home because we were ambushed coming around a corner by a bunch of carnival water balloon throwers.   We just got our windows up in time for them to splash on the side of the truck instead of our laps.

Avoiding Carnival

Carnival started yesterday, and around Santa Cruz, the first day means everybody starts throwing waterballoons filled with either water or paint. Instead of spending the day dodging projectiles, Ken called and said he was taking a 7 of the boys to an eco resort that had a pool and asked if we wanted to go. Paint filled balloons are tempting (especially to the boys), but we agreed to go. So the 7 Bolivian boys piled into the back of Kens truck and the rest of us piled into the front and off we went.

When we got there, most of the boys scattered to where they wanted to be, because they had been there before and each had their own interests. Our kids headed for the pool to cool off with a couple of the other guys. I decided to take a walk around the place to see what all was going on. I ended up a little off the beaten path in a forested area which had a whole bunch of different butterflies and large ants. The ant hills here outside the city stand about 2 feet tall and the ants range from the size of a dust speck to 3/4 of an inch long. I kept on walking and eventually heard some talking. Down the hill was the edge of a lake, where 3 guys were fishing without rods. They would throw their line in the water using a Y shaped stick and pull it in by hand. One guy was just pulling the fish in the picture in when I arrived.

Everybody had a good day overall, and after I accidentally ordered 2 large bottles of coke instead of 2 personal bottles of coke (so I asked for 10 glasses to go with them), we all had a refreshing drink and headed home a few hours after we arrived.

Carnival really kicked up later in the evening, and the music and fireworks continued on into the wee hours of the morning. Our place is just a couple blocks off the parade route so we didn't get a lot of sleep, but thankfully, it is all over on Tuesday. :)

Home

Up to now, we had been having orientation meetings, getting settled in to our place, and getting used to day to day life in Bolivia. Today, we were picked up by Ken and taken over to his place for lunch. We were supposed to go about an hour out of town to a home for either street boys or orphaned boys, but the rain came down so hard this morning that the many streets were flooded and Ken said there was no way we would get across the bridge on the road out to the boys home. Instead, we had the opportunity to drive around the town a bit and to take one of Ken's boys to his soccer game. One of the ways that some of the boys get into school/university is to try out for soccer teams and try to get scholarships. Its not easy to do, since everyone here plays soccer, but its worth a shot, and David is pretty darn good at it.

On the way across town, we passed through some of the wealthy area and through some of the poorer areas of the city. The picture here is of a "home" we passed along the way. This particular house is made up of many different pieces of houses that have been scavanged from the ruins or other houses. These people will soon be moved along by the authorities because their home is right where the city is building another road.

We talked with Ken and David on the way to the soccer field about these people and the street kids. You see the street kids at almost every corner trying to make money one way or another. The young ones are either trying to shine shoes, or doing circus tricks like juggling to get money, the older ones are cleaning windshields as the cars stop, still others are running up to the cars trying to sell fruit they have picked. Some cars give a coin or two, but most continue past. I can't blame them really. If you gave a coin or two to every person you passed at the intersections, you wouldn't have any money for yourself and your family.

We eventually got to David's tryout and dropped him off. I obviously had been picturing a Canadian soccer field in my head, because when I saw the field that the University soccer tryout game was being played on, I was completely shocked. The field had grass about 5 inches long, was as bumpy as any washboard gravel road back home and in front of each net was a 10ft by 30ft mud puddle about 3 inches deep. I was also amazed at the skill of most of these young guys have and at the level of violence that they play the game with. This soccer game was as violent as most hockey games back home but with no fights.

David is a little out of shape since he hasn't had much opportunity to play soccer lately, but although he couldn't run as far or as fast as the others right now, he did show great skill with the ball. He impressed so much that he was one of the lucky ones to be told by the coach that his name was being submitted to receive a scholarship. To put that in perspective, this University which these guys were all killing themselves on the soccer field to get a scholarship to has a monthly tuition of about $100 Canadian dollars. That may not seem like much to use, but the average monthly income here is pretty much exactly the same, so you can see how hard it is for people to get their education, especially when they come from the streets. For those interested, David's team fell behind 2-0 but came back in the second half and won the game 3-2 on a beautiful corner kick play.

The Little Can & The Big Wind

There are lots of things that are different from Canada, but the bathroom alone is a totally different experience. The morning shower here really gets you going. The reason for this is that you get a shock every time you adjust the water. You see, there are no water heaters here so every shower has an electric water heater wired right in that tries to heat the water as it comes out. It never gets more than warm, and the temperature is regulated by the flow of water. The more water, the colder it is. So the attempt is to find a happy medium between a small warm trickle and an ice cold torrent. You really want to get it right the first time because successive shocks are not my idea of a good time. As you can see from the picture, its all expertly wired and really safe.

The next item that is different is the quality of plumbing. Upon our arrival, we were immediately informed that the sewage lines here are not up to North American standards and that toilet paper cannot be flushed down the toilets. This is where the little can next to the toilet comes in. Used toilet paper is placed in the bin and emptied daily for obvious reasons.

All of this sounds quite terrible, but its not so bad. For one thing, the showers are HUGE. They are all at least 6 feet long by 3 feet wide with a drain in the floor. There are no tubs so hence no baths.

Last night was both thrilling and scary at the same time. At night, we open all the windows to try and cool everything off, but at 3am, we were awakened by very loud rain and very strong wind. If you have seen Forest Gump, you have heard about the big ol fat rain, and the rain that comes straight up, but this was the first time I had ever seen rain go sideways. The overhangs above the windows stretch out a good 4 to 5 feet, but the wind and rain was so strong last night that it was coming straight in through the windows. We ran around and closed all the windows to stop the rain coming in, but then we were a little worried that the glass in the windows was going to break due to the wind. It all stopped about an hour later and we mopped up water that came in under the door in the morning. We checked the weather report this morning, and it reported the winds got up to near hurricane force during that hour.

Today we spent the morning with the kids working on the homework that they need to get done for school and we are expecting to be picked up right away for another preparation meeting and supper with a friend. As long as the internet stays up, I will post some more pictures later tonight.

Forgot One Thing

I can't believe I forgot the highlight of the day. If you go to the pictures on the post below, the last picture or two are of this huge spider Melody found when she was looking next to her bed. If any of you know Melody well, you will also know that Melody absolutely HATES spiders and she set a new land speed record out of the bedroom when she saw it. The boys of course thought it was great and we took pictures before it met its end.

Observations from the First Full Day

Today was a bit of an orientation day and some basic shopping for food etc that we need to survive. First thing in the morning, we went to El Jordan which is actually a couple of blocks away from where we are staying, and had an orientation meeting and a tour of the school. They actually have a fairly large building, but most of it is still quite empty. The computers were a little better than I had expected so I don't think cleaning them up will be as bad as I expected.

After our meeting, Ken came by and we all went over to his house to meet the boys and have some lunch. Time isn't really important here, so by the time the food was ready, it was 2:30. We were all really hungry by then and luckily, the food was pretty good. The meal consisted of a mixture of ground meat, rice, potatoes, and some other vegetable type plants. This was served with a side of fried plantains (really starchy bananas) and topped with a fried egg. Don't know why, but they love to put a fried egg on top of pretty much anything. Either way, we were all hungry and it was all pretty good.

We then went to get some fruit. Since we have figured out that meal times may vary, we decided it would be best to get some fruit to take with us for such a situation. We purchased a bag of peaches, bag of plums, 2 pineapples, and a bag of a strange fruit with a hard shell. Each bag was about 1 kilogram each and the whole batch cost us about 8 dollars. I will put a picture of the strange fruit when I get a chance to take some. It has a sort of white almost fuzzy looking flesh on it around a very large pit. Tastes like a peppery banana but quite juicy and shaped like a small plum. The fruit stand was fun and there are lots of other kinds to try. I know we also paid a "gringo" price but it was all still a lot cheaper than at home.

From there, Ken took us out to a "hotel" as he called it, but to me it was more of a ranch with two cabins on it where he is hoping to take us this weekend to avoid the full on carnival treatment. The weekend of Carnival turns into one giant water balloon and paint balloon fight in Santa Cruz where people will drive around heaving balloons at anyone they feel like. He said with kids, it is best to leave town for the weekend, so that is the plan. The ranch had a small lake and lots of nicely cared for gardens. They also had two small pigs that followed us around everywhere and a howler monkey which liked the kids but did not like the adults very much.

One interesting thing about Bolivia that is very different from Canada is what I like to call the "Tableau of Smells". The tableau is not necessarily a bad thing. As you drive or walk, every hundred yards or so, you experience a totally different smell. Sometimes its flowers from the plants or tiny stores nearby, and sometimes its sewage. On the drive to the ranch, we experienced the sweet smell of sugar cane fields, the vegetable oil plant and some of the fragrant trees. We also experienced the smell of rotting fruit discarded from the fruit stands, manure from the farms we passed, and my personal favorite, which was some kind of unidentified stench from some factory we passed.

Overall, the day was good and we have learned a fair bit about the day to day things that need to be done or not done here. Tomorrow, I will explain about the driving habits, and also about the little garbage can next to the toilet.

Here is a link to some pictures of our trip and first day.

Bruce: The Video

Here is a short video of Bruce in action.

Say Hello To Bruce

Bruce is the one without the shocked look on his face in case you were confused. Melody has the look on her face because Bruce just squished the grape he was eating on her back. Bruce likes to climb up on people and sit on their shoulders with his tail wrapped around the neck for support. He has an amazingly strong grip with his tail and sometimes he squeezes a little too tight. The kids were all over Bruce and he helped brighten up the afternoon of our arrival since we were all tired and a little sick from the altitude in La Paz.

RAIN!!!!!

I know the picture is a little small, but the internet is spotty and slow here at the moment. What you are looking at is a picture taken from inside the truck we were driving in on the way to the school this morning. What you see looks like a lake because it was raining hard.

In some spots, the water was up to a foot deep, but people are so used to it, they just drive on through.

Trip and Arrival

Definitely one of the longest days of our lives.  We got up at 3:30 in the morning in Saskatoon to get to the airport.  The taxi driver had a "hernia" issue so was unable to help at all with the bags.  Saskatoon went smoothly and the flight to Toronto was fine.  Toronto became another story altogether.

We were scheduled to have a 4 hour wait in Toronto which is fine since we had to grab all our 10 bags and check them through US Customs which took a little while.  By the time we got through, we had about 2.5 hours to wait.  Just before boarding time, we got the news that there was a little problem with the fuel line in the one engine, so they delayed us an hour and moved us to another gate.  Everybody got up and walked across the entire terminal to the other gate, only to arrive in time for them to announce that they were going to fix the first plane, and delay us another hour.  Everybody was very happy of course to hear that news and the whole army of us walked all the way back to the original gate.

Eventually, we boarded the plane about 2.5 hours later than we were supposed to which of course made our time in Miami a lot tighter than it was planned to be.  For those who haven't been to miami airport, flights from Canada are about six million miles away from the gates for South American flights.  It was a good half hour walk to our new gate with all the information and people movers shut down for the night.

We got on the plane finally and made the very uncomfortable to sleep on trip to La Paz, where we quickly figured out what altitude sickness feels like with all three kids getting sick, and the adults not feeling well either.  We also figured out luckily that our bags were scheduled to stop in La Paz and not continue to Santa Cruz.  They apparently always have pursers on the planes to South America and he was very helpful in getting our bags back on the plane to Santa Cruz.

Either way, we all ended up arriving with all our bags intact.

Strange Requests

We are all packed and ready to go now and almost all the little details are out of the way.  Our house sitter came by for a tour to learn all the quirks and more importantly, how to use the entertainment gear.  We have managed to split the weight pretty evenly through the 10 bags and have managed to keep them all a few pounds under the 50lb limit.

We have received some interesting requests from our friends in Bolivia.  Apparently there are some items that they miss and can't get down there.  So, when we hit Saskatoon and head to our hotel, we are going to have to make a Costco run.  The shopping list includes:

• Pancake Mix
• O'Henry Bars
• Cheerios
• Arrowroot Cookies
• Chocolate Chips

This of course has made me wonder what other items that we take for granted will not be available anywhere.  I sure hope they have bacon.