You may remember Madre Clara from our visa-related posts; she’s a highly-effective, spunky Sister that runs the Kinder and the Institute.   She and Madre Inez are in charge of giving us work to do and making sure we have what we need in our house.   And with Madre Clara around you just never know what’s going to come at you next.

Thursday morning we were bustling around getting things ready for the Thanksgiving meal that we were cooking for the Sisters, when I walked out of the convent through a group of sisters holding a baby.   I was passing along to do my work when Madre Clara calls, “Laura, someone left a baby for you.”  I gave her a funny look thinking I hadn’t understood correctly.  And so she says again, “For you, a baby was left.”  I say, “for me?” and she and the others sisters get excited and say, “Oh yes, a gift, for you.”  So I walk over and they hand me this 5-6 month old baby.   Madre Inez says, “Mama Laurita” and smiles while Madre Clara starts trying to teach it to say, “Papa Tomas, Papa Tomas.”   I look the baby over and say, “Thanks, bye” and pretend to walk away with it.  They laugh and I ask where the baby came from.  Apparently that morning two women showed up at the convent with this baby.  The story they told was that the mother of the baby was 16 and the father was 17.  The girl’s father said she had to get rid of the baby or he would kill it.  So this older woman who had 4 other children took it in.  But her husband got mad and said they didn’t have enough money to feed it so she showed up at the convent with it.   I started to feel uncomfortable as the Sisters continued to joke about me being the baby’s mother so I handed her back to one of the Sisters who gave her to one of the older girls from the orphanage saying, “Here take your new sister.”  She didn’t come with a name or a birth date but later that day at the doctor’s office they created a birth certificate for her, named her Dayana and estimated she was about 6 months old.  Overall it was a really unsettling experience for me to see this unwanted baby get passed around and to hold her knowing she needed a mother.  They know that we can’t adopt any children here (Bolivia doesn’t allow adoptions from the U.S.) but a part of me just wanted to give this baby a loving family.  It felt like in that moment no one would really have been affected if this baby were alive or dead.  That breaks my heart.

Tonight we had pineapple for dinner.  To be exact, tonight we each had a WHOLE pineapple for dinner.   To be fair though they were single-serving size and it tasted really good after a 90 degree day (no we haven’t switched our brains to Celsius yet, we may never).  Fruit is definitely a different experience here.  We already shared about the many kinds of bananas and mangas but beyond that fruit is so much a part of daily life here.  There’s always fresh fruit juice for sale on the street and fruit is overall pretty inexpensive.  Sometimes you can buy 7-9 mangas for 1 boliviano.  That’s practically a penny a piece.  And, the Sisters always keep themselves and us pretty well stocked with a variety of fruit.

Some fruit is eaten a little bit differently however.  Apples, peaches, and oranges are peeled completely before eaten.  However oranges are peeled with a knife.  Oranges here are yellow/green, never orange, and the peel is so thin and hard that it’s impossible to peel by hand.  So they peel the whole thing with a paring knife and then cut it in half and suck the orange out of the white part.  Also seedless oranges don’t exist so that makes the seed extraction easier.  Mangoes on the other hand are not peeled.  Most small mangoes are just bitten open and then the mango part is squished with your hands and sucked out of the hole.  For larger mangoes the fruit is cut off of the seed and eaten out of the peel.  Both of which are amazingly mess-free.

In the Guarderia it often falls to me to prepare the kids’ snacks for them.  The morning snack is always fruit that the kids bring from home.   Some kids bring easy things like bananas and mangoes; I just wash them and give them to the child, sometimes I help them peel it.   Then there are the kids who bring apples and oranges which are a bit more stressful because I have one dull paring knife and 16 kids clamoring around me but I get it done.  One was kind enough to say one day, “The other Tia (what they call us) peels a lot faster than you do.”  Yeah, thanks.  Then there are the kids that show up with whole papayas and pineapples that they just hand to you and expect you to hand back to them in edible form.  Today for example, I was handed three pineapples, a bag of (tiny) plums, 2 apples and 5 bananas.  I ended up leaving the other Tia with the plums, apples and bananas and escaping to the kitchen to get the pineapple situation under control.  As I was frantically carving up the pineapples, the other Tia strolls in and sees that I’m only on my second and says, “Oh is this hard for you?”  Feeling a little frustrated I’m thinking in my head “Actually, where I come from it’s considered hard for most people.”  But I just said, “Yes, it’s always difficult for me.”  Perhaps I should have added, actually this is possibly the 5th pineapple I’ve ever cut in my life, the first being just 2 weeks ago!  Sigh, the standard skill-set for a woman of my age is definitely different here.

Tom and I naively thought we were going to be able to avoid our awful poison ivy allergy for two whole years by coming to South America.  (Note: not the only reason we came)  This has backfired in a most unfortunate way.  Turns out mangoes are in the same plant family as poison ivy and poison oak and contain the same irritant in their sap!  Curse you world!   Not only are they extremely delicious, and probably my favorite fruit, but they’re in season right now and all over the place!   The good news however is that I have probably found an explanation for the itchy/burning weird rash I’ve had on my mouth and face for the last week and a half (which was starting to show up on other parts of my body also- just like poison ivy!).   No more mangoes for awhile .

So there are more interesting things that we see/experience here everyday then we can possibly share with you all but here are a few of my favorites from the last month.

Need a dead baby llama and are just not sure which tienda will give you the best price?  Seek no longer, friend.  The colored squares beneath the llama I believe are some how made from llama parts and are associated with some form of traditional spirituality / witchcraft.   Will let you know when I learn more about it.

mmm…tasty.  We spied these behind one of the meat counters at the market.  Sometimes you can see the guys in the back with saws cutting up the animals.  All I espoused for years about eating fresh, local meat and vegetables is  really coming back to haunt me here.  I am literally eating my words.  For those of you good at eye-spy you might notice a chicken foot in there also.

There’s no such thing as a banana, sorry to burst everyone’s Northern-hemisphere bubble.  These are cajitas dulces (above) which are very tasty and have a very thin skin, at lunch today I had something slightly larger that’s called a guineo.  The next size up which is more what you might imagine as a banana is a walele, and there are about 100 more kinds that I haven’t learned yet.  Then of course there are your larger platanos which are specifically called platanos machos and they have an almost sweet potato-like texture, look like a banana but aren’t sweet.   They do taste delicious fried however.   The overall name for this whole group of fruits is platanos.

Dyslexic graphic designer?  Under-educated editor?  You be the judge.  English, like in many places in the world is “cool” here.  But unfortunately English is poorly taught in schools and so no one really knows much, but they try not to let on.  Everybody has shirts with English on them that they have no idea what they say and store owners are constantly trying to use English in their advertisement.  One haircut place is called “Leidy” which is funny because it’s clear they sounded out the vowel sounds using spanish vowels but somehow still managed to keep the “dy” at the end.

This is what the Capilla that we attend on Sundays looks like.  It’s really quite pretty.  In this picture you can see part of the 150 or so strong First Communion class that had their celebration today (which meant an hour an half mass in a VERY hot and crowded church) but anyway yay for them.  The interesting thing was today lots of extra people actually went to communion, beyond the usuals.  Maybe they’re just special occasion Communion-goers?

Here’s one of the little geckos that lives in our house.  It was one of these that I saw crawl under the couch about a week ago, we’ve seen them from 2 inches to about 6-7 inches long.  Not sure about the species yet, could be multiple.  We had a really exciting show last night, there were a bunch of bugs flittering around outside our windows because we had the indoor lights on, then two geckos showed up to eat their evening meal.  We got to watch them stalk and catch the moths through the window, it was great!  Like a live Animal Planet or Discovery Channel.  Which is great because we don’t have a tv here.  As I was writing this, another little guy ran under my chair, they’re hard to get pictures of because they’re fast and think we want to eat them.  None has asked us to buy car insurance yet but we’re prepared to say no if they do (it’s actually not required here- scary considering the way people drive).

I feel like we’ve had varied enough experience now that I can make some overall comments about the Catholic experience in Bolivia.  First off, it’s just overall rougher.  The pews are not comfortable and you can forget about cushions (and Tom can attest that they’re all made for 5 ft tall people).  Also, none of the kneelers have cushions they’re just plain wood, but that’s if you’re even lucky enough to get a kneeler.  In some churches, the first half has pews but the back half just has benches and you’re expected to just kneel on the floor.  I had decided to politely sit and bow my head but when the 60 year-old woman next to me got done on the floor I was shamed into doing so also.  Not comfortable on the knees.  Also the churches themselves don’t generally own instruments or song books.  Usually a musician will come with their synthesizer or guitar, hook up to a speaker and play whatever songs they know.  If you’re lucky you’ll get a whole band but it’s still electric instruments generally.  We were in one Cathedral with a pipe organ, but that’s pretty high-society here.  This makes the music more unpredictable and hard for me to learn, particularly when I can’t see the words or notes.  Also, every time there’s any kind of discernible beat to the song everybody claps.  Which is great…if they were all clapping on the same beat.  It seems to only matter that you are clapping not when exactly you clap so everyone is just clapping at their own rhythm.   Sometimes a Sister will get up and lead the clapping and that helps.

As far as the mass itself, everything is pretty much identical except in Spanish.  Things get funny again around Communion.   There’s no pew-by-pew here.  Getting into the Communion line is just chaos, you get up whenever you want and walk towards the center aisle.  This would be a problem except that only 10% of the people actually go to Communion, sometimes less.  The Sisters here (Bolivian Sisters) have expressed their frustration at this as well.  It’s possible that some of the people have never had their 1st Communion.  Despite being a very Catholic country, receiving Sacraments seems to get overlooked often.  You will find children of all ages not Baptized or without 1st Communion.  In the current 1st Communion class the ages range from 8-18.  But the Sisters say they know some of the people are practicing Catholics and can’t possibly have mortal sins every week, and so they really don’t know why people don’t receive Communion.  Another note about Communion, it’s pretty much always by mouth and there’s almost never wine.   The receiving-by-mouth really threw me at first but now I like it because my hands are never clean here, it actually makes some sense.  I just had some awkward moments the first few weeks when I would get up there and forget.

So everybody stays seated during Communion, but if the priest comes out with some holy water after church to give blessings to people, sculptures, flowers, or whatever else some trotted into church with, the pews clear in SECONDS.  Elderly women are hauling ass, throwing elbows to be the first in line to get sprinkled with holy water.  I do not understand this.  It’s almost like that’s the whole reason they came to church.  It seems to me somehow equivalent to Communion to them.  Anyone that can shed light on this for me, please go ahead.  I plan to try asking the sisters about it some more this week.

Today, by the way is the Dia de los muertos and with yesterday being All Saints Day and the previous day Sunday, we’re on a three-day streak for going to mass here so I’ve been thinking about these things a lot.  Last night there was seriously a stampede to get to the altar when the priest came forward with the holy water bucket, you would think he were giving away gold coins.  A few other interesting things from last night were before mass started, a stray dog was wandering around the church, a girl walked in holding a Chihuahua and proceeded to sit it down next to her all through mass, the man in front of us answered his cellphone during the Opening Prayer/Hosana and just stood there talking on it, and they read a list of names of dead people for 40 minutes straight.  Apparently the Sisters have this thing going where people pay them to write down the names of ALL of their family members who have ever died and then the Sisters read those names at mass.  The Sisters must be raking it in because the list is ridiculous.

Happy Day of the Dead, and too bad we have to go back to work tomorrow : (.  We enjoyed the surprise four day weekend.

We officially have a God daughter!

Her name is Maria del Carmen Ribera Rivera, she´s 6 and just got baptized tonight.  She and her 2 other sisters came to the orphanage because their mother is in a long-term tuberculosis treatment facility and she couldn´t take care of them.   I´m unsure if there are any other family members active in their lives.   It is currently unknown if the sisters will ever be able to go back to living with their mother, but with her living, they can´t be adopted so for the time being they will be at the orphanage.  We plan to keep in touch with Maria even after we leave Bolivia if at all possible which will be easier if she stays at the orphanage but I hope for their sake that their mother can stay a part of their lives.   About 10 other children from the orphanage were also baptized tonight, ages 1-14.  We had a special dinner afterwards which was REALLY tasty.  It was a fun time.

It’s Friday night and we survived another week in Montero.  In some ways it’s getting easier, in others harder.  As we understand more of what’s going on around us we feel more connected but it raises new cultural questions.   Just a few highlights from this week:

Every day at lunch time 12-2pm the marching band at the neighboring high school (colegio) practices.  So far their regime consists of “The Ants Go Marching,” and the  Marines’ Hymn and a third we don’t recognize.  We’re slightly curious if they know the association of the Marines’ Hymn with the U.S. Marines.

The city’s main vegetable market is just across the street from our house.  Somewhere in the market between 5-6:30am every morning someone feels the need to blare traditional Bolivian music for about an hour.  I appreciate the culture, but this disrupts my sleep pattern immensely.

It rained today!  The rain here is like a water spigot.  It turns on full blast and then turns off completely.  There’s not much inbetween (yet).  Everything got soaked and flooded, including our living room, from 5:30-6:30pm and then it was done.   By 7:30 most stuff was drying out except for the dirt roads.

Crazy kids.  I’ve been in the Preschool (Guarderia) all week in the mornings.  The kids are cute, sometimes, but the kindergarten-age ones are really out of control.  They don’t listen, they don’t stay inside, they don’t sit still.   Twice the teacher left me alone with them this week.  The first time I hadn’t figured out to lock the door yet so when I turned my back, kids would just run out the door and then not come back when I yelled.  One climbed the fence and ran out to the market and came back with two ice cream bars he had bought!  Unfortunately my spanish is not good enough to make children feel ashamed of their actions yet (which I have realized does take a certain amount of sophistication and knowledge about the culture and the child) so I couldn’t do anything.  Keep in mind that this kid is 5, maybe 6.  They are just crazy precocious.  They’re not smart though.  A lot of these kids can barely count to 10 and can’t write their names or numbers, but they have a lot of street smarts.   Today I finally calmed them down with some hokey-pokey singing but that was only after two other workers came over and yelled at them for me (and chased some of them down and returned them).  I had the door locked today too.

In other events, one of the 3-4 years olds dropped his pants and pooped in the playground (dirt floor) and then proceeded to bury it like a cat, acting as though this were normal.  I’m concerned that it might be.  The kids in the kindergarten are taught how to brush their teeth once a week but they do it in the playground area and all just spit on the ground.  Lesson learned:  never touch the dirt in Bolivian playgrounds.

Fireworks. We had fireworks tonight.  I think we may have mentioned this in a Sucre post but you will see fireworks here any time of the day or night, anywhere.  Oftentimes you will see them outside churches after weddings and at futbol (read: soccer) games.  Sometimes they’ll just be going off in the middle of the day which scares me because it kind of sounds like gun fire but I don’t think guns are very common here.  My point here though is that there are NO regulations against fireworks anywhere at anytime.  Even in VERY dry places such as Sucre we constantly heard fireworks.  At the Sucre Expo we were practically hit with one (these are city sanctioned fireworks), they were shooting them off so low that the fire balls were coming down in the crowd.  It’s just….surprising for a place where life already has plenty of obstacles to staying alive without having to worry about exploding fireballs.  (It’s like I’m living in a Super Mario Bros game, if I could just find one of those sparkly stars….)

Also, there’s an American kid at the Kindergarten.  I haven’t gotten his whole story yet but he was born I think in the US and knows limited English (he’s only 6).   He looks as if at least one parent is from the US.  I’m not sure why you’d move to Montero for business, but I’m sure there most be a reason, maybe family.