Ok, you were warned.

After a week of the spurts I broke down and got a poop test and started some cipro, I wrote a song-spoof to commemorate my second use of cipro in 30 days time.

Cipro my permanent accessory

Cipro a Bolivian necessity

Cipro an alternative to diar reh-ea

Oh cipro, how you do improve my health

I love you more than I did the month before

I ate all that poison food

Forget the tomatoes, screw the lettuce and the fruit

A nidazol and flagyl for you, a cipro n sprite for me

Cipro you conquer the bugs like my body never will, when someone else is cooking all my food

I love you more than I did the month before

I changed diarrhea diapers

Oh cipro, would you please forgive me?   Because I cannot stop myself; I work with children

I thought that cipro was just for those who had no hygiene

I thought that eating just to get sick was a waste of precious food

but now I know that there’s a cost to every tasty looking meal

Salad is a fine line between self control and self abuse

(guitar solo)

I love you more that I did the month before

I ate all that poison food

Would you please ignore, the smell coming from the toilet

and that we’re out of paper again

Oh cipro, would you please forgive me? Because I cannot stop myself; I like vegetables.

Stomach, would you please forgive me?  would you please forgive me…..

“Alcohol” – Barenaked Ladies, for those of you not familiar with the tune.  (Note the original lyrics should be taken tongue-in-cheek)

This has been a frustrating week for me as I felt like I was watching an out-of-control runaway train, constantly braced for disaster.  There are more children here than we can handle.  There aren’t enough schools and so the schools that are here are jam-packed.  Our class sizes at the Kinder are 32-37 students per one professor (and we turned another 50 some away).  At the grade school next door first grade starts with 45 students per classroom and that continues up to 12th grade.  And even with that, students only go to school for half a day (about 4 hours), there’s a morning, afternoon and evening shift.   I heard at another Kinder in town they have 5 classrooms with 40 students each.  I have read multiple stories of places like Egypt, Afghanistan where class sizes top 100 per classroom.  Even with very strict discipline this makes for an incredibly difficult (and draining) teaching environment.  You go from no child left behind, to practically every child left behind as it’s impossible to give any personalized attention to anyone.  And if they have a learning disability, well then just forget it.  They’ll get ridiculed and punched by the other students for being stupid but the teacher doesn’t even have time to police that.

And then there are the Guarderias/Preschools.  After opening on Monday, the city government sent out a statement Tuesday that they weren’t paying the workers or paying for food until March.  However all the other schools started on Tuesday so there are no older siblings around to watch younger ones for the month of February.  So the Sisters said they would pay 3 workers and pay for food in February and I guess because they have no other option, 39 parents still brought their kids on Wednesday.  This left one worker cooking, one worker with 12 babies 6 months- 24 months and one worker with 27 kids aged 2-7, and me bouncing around helping out wherever I could.

Here are the results of this type of situation (all of this just happened yesterday):

- We lost two kids from the Guarderia- they ran out the door into the market.  One was found at his mom’s stall, the other was still missing at 5pm.

- At the Kinder a motorcycle fell over on a 6 year old.  (he was okay, maybe broken finger)

- I had to literally grab a girl from the Hogar and yank her back from in front of a moving car.  There are 12 kids from the Hogar at the Kinder and they keep forgetting to come pick them up.

I’m not looking to place the blame specifically on any one group for this.  But I’m frustrated because if education is the root out of poverty, as I have always believed it is, we’re not making any progress here.

We had an explosive start to the school year today!  The day started with Tom working on  class prep and me washing laundry.  Then I headed over to the Guarderia at 8:30am to help for the second day in the baby room (6 months to walking basically).  Today we had 8!  We only have 5 cribs, a bed and one full-time worker so that’s pretty overwhelming for us.  There was never a time when a baby wasn’t screaming.  We just rotated through giving bottles, rocking babies to sleep and changing diapers -many of which contained explosive diarrhea, which meant a bath and clothes change too.  And, 24 hrs after changing my first diarrhea diaper yesterday I too have that pleasure.  At 12:00 Tom showed up ready to eat lunch but I stayed with the babies until 12:30 as I was trying to get the diarrhea-baths under control (what can I say, I feel their pain).  Tom had a frustrating morning and so he took our food back and ate lunch.  Turns out, he found out the day classes start that he’s teaching 2 sections of his class!  Which means 2 more hours a day he can’t be writing course material so he was understandably perturbed.  Depending upon enrollment sections may be merged however, the bigger point is just that that is so Bolivia to not bother to tell him that there were two sections scheduled…TIB.

After lunch Tom got ready to teach his first section and I headed over to the chaos that is the first day at a 250-student Kindergarten!  Oh buddy.  I started by rushing around helping the teachers with last minute preparations when the group of girls from the Hogar flagged me down.  Three older girls had brought over the 10 children attending Kinder from the Hogar this year and asked me to stay with the girls because they needed to run an errand.  I agreed, not really thinking it through but they seemed in a hurry to leave.   Now I was in charge of 9 girls, 1 boy and I didn’t even know all of their names.  I herded them around with all the other parents with their scanty 1 or 2 children- humph!  But when the teachers started calling names to sort the children into classrooms things went south.  They were calling names last-name first and I didn’t know any of the girl’s last names and they were not forth-coming with providing them, particularly the 4 year olds.   So as I was attempting to listen to the names and remember in my head 10 different new names to listen for, 2 girls wander off (and then there were 8).  A lady comes and tells me that one of the girls went to the bathroom.  I find Saray (4) hiding behind a flowerpot and she’s had an explosive diarrhea event all over her dress!   Well I have no choice but to leave the flock to care for the one, so I tell the other 7 to stay together and take Saray and Sandra D. with me to the Guarderia next door.  There I shower-off Saray and Madre Inez rummages around and finds some new clothes  for her to wear.   With clean clothes we go back over (names still being called) hoping to find the group of 7 still intact.  They are, plus the other wanderer so I have 10 again when two go to the bathroom, and I have 8.   I recognize a few names and so I take one girl at a time up to try to match her with her teacher, leaving the others.  It was a losing battle though.  We ended up calling in the Prof. from the Hogar who has a list of the girls’ last names (and is furious about the other girls not staying, as is Madre Clara and I’m kind of caught in the middle).   We finally did get them all sorted out, the girls who left got yelled at and everything ended okay.

I got home in time to eat grilled cheese with Tom before he headed off to teach his second section.  We have cheddar cheese right now which is very exciting and we managed to find some sliced bread also!  It’s the little things….   We’re both home now and happy to have lived this day but also happy to put it behind us.

So this last weekend Laura and I decided to make a short getaway before school gets going this week. (first students come tomorrow!)  We headed about an hour west of Montero to the scenic town of Buena Vista to spend a night at the Amboro Eco Resort (so called because during the non-rainy season they have tours that go into Amboro national park).  The big draw for us was that this place has a pretty good swimming pool, and we haven’t been swimming since last August, despite the fact that we’ve been living in perpetual summer.

So we got there at about 8:15, and saw (to our somewhat suprise) that the pool was lit up, so why wait…after quickly changing in our room we jumped right in!  It was great, very refreshing, and actually a pretty nice resort pool.  There was a small bar on an island in the middle of it, and a waterway stretching around that we could swim through. But mostly we sat around and were enjoying the stars.

After about an hour, we were thinking it might be time to get up and go, when we look up to see a peccary (a type of wild pig) has walked right up to the edge of the pool, in the middle of the resort!  We got set to quickly get out of the opposite edge if it decided to jump in, but it didn’t.  We were able to watch it for a few more minutes as it moseyed around on the pool deck, at one point digging through a purse that had been there, and apparently not finding any food in it.  Then after a few minutes, it just wandered away.

Sadly, we didn’t have a camera with us, I know a picture of this would have been a great addition to this story.  Needless to say, it was quite surprising, but hey, this is bolivia, you never know what you’re going to run into.

In lieu of a picture of the pig, here’s a picture of some horses by the pool the next morning.

Thanks to all the generous people who donated towards the project, we now have a brand new computer lab up and running!

Over the last couple weeks, Henry, the nephew of one of the sisters I work with, and I purchased, assembled (from parts), and installed software on 16 brand new computers (14 students, one teacher, and a server). It was a lot of work, but now they are all set for the students to start class next week.

I still have quite a lot of work to go getting the material for the course completed, but that doesn’t all have to be done the first day. I specifically only have one section for the first semester (Feb-June), so I will have time to finish up the text and plans.

I’m still looking for feedback on them, if you can spare an hour and want to learn about photo editing (for free!), the first two sections (Introduction and Photos) are up online.

I took a couple pictures and made a short movie of the classroom. There will be lots more once the students get here.

One of the computers in operation.

The computers sitting ready for use.

The Video:

Get it in 720p.
Also on Youtube

So after our disaster vacation attempt after Christmas and the ensuing two weeks of sickness, I needed a renewal of spirit before work started back up in February (we’re both healthy again btw- thanks for all the prayers).  So, one of the Hogar volunteers, Andrea, and I flew to Sucre for a long weekend to hang out with Susan who was taking Spanish classes there. (Susan’s a volunteer in Okinawa and teaches English classes and catechism)  Sucre was just what we needed!  It is so clean and beautiful and the climate is so much drier and cooler.  We even got to go out into the Andes for a day of hiking.  AND our hostel had HOT natural-gas-heated showers!  Very rejuvenating. Unfortunately Tom had to stay behind in Montero and work but he also enjoyed a relaxing weekend and got to stock up on some alone-time.

Here are some photo highlights of the trip:

This sign is on the way to the airport in Santa Cruz, it says “Caution, wild animal crossing.”  The picture is of an ostrich which we don’t have in Bolivia (wild at least) but we do have rheas which I have seen on multiple occasions walking around the airport.

Lovin’ the Andes!  This ridge is called the Cordilleras de los Frailes because it’s where the Jesuits hid in the 1700′s when the Spanish King decided he wanted to put them all in jail or force them to leave Spanish lands.  The line across the mountains is a huge pipeline that brings in ALL of Sucre’s potable water from Potosi, a city 4000 feet higher.   The Andes are extremely dry in this region.

Hiking one of the remaining segments of the Inca Trail with Andrea (left) and Susan (right).  This portion of the trail has been restored and is still used because parts of the mountains are considered sacred.  People erect these piles of rocks that they believe contain spirits- and sometimes human skulls.   Along the trail there are many spirit-rock piles.  The Incans constructed these foot paths for trade and communication between Macchu Pichu, Tiwanaku and the outer reaches of their empire.

Ancient volcanic crater of Maragua.   Now the village of Maragua lies in the middle of the crater where they grow wheat, potatoes, and quinoa.  Lots of beautiful colors of volcanic rock!  And look at the soil, it’s almost magenta!

The Devils Mouth.  This is a cave in one of the cliffs surrounding the crater of Maragua.  It is never visited by the local people because they believe it’s bad luck or evil;  the story is told that a man went in the cave once and never came out.   If you look above my head to the right and left you can see the teeth of the mouth- eerily realistic!  Also the steps leading down to the cave are made of stone but no ones who put them there.  The earliest record of people arriving at the crater claims that the steps were already there.

Beautiful city park in Sucre built by the Spanish.  I believe some of the larger trees still there were even planted by the Spanish.  All the trees here are painted white to keep out termites, ants, etc.

Church built by one of the early missionary groups in Bolivia, I’m sorry I don’t know which order.  Very ornate however, supposedly it used to contain real gold but all the gold has since been removed and replaced with paint.

Soon to come: more pictures of Tom and Laura actually working!  Not as pretty but more realistic of our day to day.

So for those of you watching International news you’ll have seen by now that not a week after the surprise ending of the fuel subsidy, Evo Morales re-instated it.  Turns out that his main base of lower-income indigenous supporters didn’t appreciate the price hike in commodities and transportation and there was wide-spread rioting and transportation strikes on the 30th and 31st.   This has just been baffling from the beginning and the apparent ‘surprise’ that the administration had from the negative reaction is even more so.   It just comes off as embarrassing, I think, that they could have had so little economic sense.  All I can think is that there must have been more things going on behind closed doors that we don’t understand.   And now we just have to hope that all the prices that did go up, come back down.

In other news, Tom and I had both been sick ever since an ill-fated Anniversary trip after Christmas.   We got our first parasite tests done this week and preliminary results look like Tom may have a bacterial infection like E. coli and I possibly picked up some Giardia.  This is good news because both are easily treatable.  With poop-tests it’s often hard to get a positive finding even though you’re really sick because the parasites don’t always show up, especially Giardia.  So, hopefully in a few days we’ll be back to normal.  I mention this not to gross anyone out but because it’s just a daily reality here.  There are commonly girls over at the Hogar getting treated for roundworms, giardia, ringworm (a fungus), skin infections, etc.  Just the other day we talked to Andrea and she said, oh yeah three of the toddlers showed up with bloody diarrhea today.  And, one of the volunteers over there is also on treatment for roundworms right now.  When the environment’s not clean, domestic animals roam freely and the food is not clean, people get sick.   And so in Bolivia people just get sick more and kids especially get sick more.  Tom, I and the other volunteers attempt to keep very good hygiene; we boil our water, always use antibacterial soap and we’re very careful about what we eat but even still we pick things up.  It’s not a good thing but it’s a recognized part of life here.  The Bolivian doctor I saw even joked with me about the ‘cleanliness’ of food in Bolivia and told me to never eat uncooked vegetables in a restaurant.  (I caved and had a plateful of fresh fruit during our anniversary trip to Semaipata, prob how I picked up my parasites.)  And you might say, well the U.S. has salmonella outbreaks in its eggs and E. coli on its organic spinach and what was that recent one from sprouts in Illinois?  So yeah, these problems are universal but in the U.S. threats are identified, recalls are made, production systems are (hopefully) shut down or cleaned up.  In Bolivia you just learn that restaurant is clean, that other one is not, or don’t buy meat after 8am in the morning or don’t eat the vegetables.   It’s more of a “live and learn” than a “public health risk alert” kind of approach.  BUT almost all of our food is hormone-free, antibiotic-free, pesticide-free and locally grown.  These are the trade-offs.  So enjoy your raw carrot sticks and lettuce salads- you’re lucky to have them!

Yesterday (in addition to being New Years) was a big day at the Institute (Vocational School), thanks to many of your generous donations, we got our first computer for the new lab up and running!

Here’s a picture of Henry (one of the people who has been working with me on this) using it:

Thanks to everyone who has contributed, we are almost at our goal!  (If you’ve been wanting to and haven’t yet, its not too late though.)  If all goes well I’ll have another update in a couple weeks with the whole lab there!

Wow, I thought there were a lot of fireworks around on Christmas Eve, but as John Donaghy pointed out in the comments below, that was nothing compared to New Years! Just about every block (except ours with the convent on it) had someone who was shooting off big ones, and almost every house had people shooting off smaller ones. It was absolutely amazing. We watched from up on a balcony, and I tried to get video of it just to give an idea….but it didn’t turn out too awesome. Most of the big fireworks you see in it are between 200yds and 3/4 mile away, but we could see them going all the way to the horizon.

Get it in HD, also on Youtube