Odds and Ends

The problem with working in a bakery is that getting a cold will put you out of commission. As a side note, this is the fifth cold I've gotten in the last seven months. I've come to the conclusion that it is a result of my extensive use of public transportation. I don't have any choice in that regard but I'll have to be more vigilant in washing my hands and utilizing hand sanitizer. So, as an alternative to work I thought I'd update the ol' blog.

The women at the bakery are opening up more to me with each passing day. They engage me in conversation and ask a lot of questions. As of late, they have been asking me to help them with various areas of study. A lot of them have trouble reading and have asked if I can help them practice. They also want to learn multiplication and division. I'm very excited that they have taken the initiative to ask me for these programs. It means so much more if they want it, as opposed to me imposing on them what I think they need. They have also asked me for a cooking class of sorts to learn new recipes. I shared some of my mom's homemade chocolate chip cookies, and they wanted to learned immediately how to made them. Unfortunately, chocolate, nuts, and peanut butter are expensive here so I am trying to come up with cost effective desserts that they can make. They are especially interested in learning how to cook with Carne de Soya (vegetarian meat substitute) because meat is also expensive. It would be healthier and cheaper for them to have vegetarian-ish diets. I think I'll have to have Betty give me my own cooking class with the carne de soya before I can give one. There is a middle (wo)man in all of this. The director of women's programming has her own ideas of what I should be doing with them, so I hope that the women assert themselves and tell her what they want.

The exchange rate of Bolivianos to US Dollars is about 8 to 1 and small denominations of Boliviano centavos are rare, almost non-existent. Last night as we were sitting around the supper table the topic of currency was brought up and Rick darted upstairs to retrieve something none of us had yet laid eyes on while in Bolivia. A 2 centavo piece (pictured below) is worth about 1/4th of a US cent.
The 50 centavo piece is widely used because most public transportation costs 1.5 Bs. The 20 centavo is only really seen in the grocery stores and are fairly useless anywhere else. They've become my Sunday collection donation. The 10 centavo is pretty rare. In fact, at the grocery stores and tiendas they will often give you candy as change to round up to the nearest half Boliviano because there just aren't many 10 centavo pieces in circulation. None of us have gotten up the gumption to try and pay with candy yet, but I'm sure it'll happen. So needless to say we were all shocked to see a 2 centavo piece appear on the table. It is completely worthless even in Bolivia, because nothing is priced to the hundredths place, but it is cute!

From left to right and from most valuable to least, is the spectrum of coin money in Bolivia: 5 Bs, 2 Bs, 1 B, 50 centavos, 20 cents, 10 cents, and 2 cents. There is paper money at values of 10, 20, 50 , 100, and 200 Bs.