Running Water!!

Running water in Mineros San Juan might be a reality before the end of 2008. People, mainly women as the men work all day, have been slaving for months now on digging ditches to lay water pipes. The barrio was officially formed in 1995 with people finally having houses instead of living in tents around 2000 (though there are certainly still those that live in tarp covered lean-tos). Water continues to be delivered by big tankards into the used oil drums that everyone has outside their houses. Needless to say this is a huge milestone in the lives of the people and you can sense a certain buzz of excitement in the air. Honestly, I am skeptical of what will come to pass once the water is actually turned out. There has been no education regarding responsible water use and I can imagine people leaving their faucets running all day because they don't have a sense of were the water is coming from or where it is going.
The picture shows one such ditch ready for the water pipes. Those huge rocks along the side are what the ground is made out of in Mineros. It was startling the first time I heard dynamite go off in the neighborhood but now it is just part of the ambient noise as I'm teaching my classes. In a country that was built and sustained on mining, dynamite is easily accessible and readily used. The horrific side of that coin is the history of the Mineros San Juan neighborhood where there were violent confrontations between the land owners and squatters leading to dynamite wars and left many people, including children dead. The opptomistic side is the facilitation of digging ditches for running water. I'm not sure it balances out.

Little by little

I am happy to report that I have really fallen into a routine with the classes. I still have around 25 different classes a week and the only difference is that they have different kids. I teach the same content which means that by the end of the week I am speaking without thinking and anticipating all the snags. The week wraps up with the 8th graders who are clearly the most fortunate because after 24 tries what I present to them is about as good as I can get it. The poor 5th graders at the beginning of the week get the first draft and unfortunately all of my frustration when it doesn't go well. They are long days and I'm not sure I can honestly say that I love it but I'm willing to stick it out because I see the value in it. It has only been a month so I expect that things will only get better. As I begin to get to know the kids better and get to relax a little more I think I'll be a little happier.
It has been nice to be exposed to a different population within the neighborhood. For a year I was working exclusively with women and just a small group of 30 at that. Now I have around 300 different kids ranging from 5-15 years old and a group of 15 kids from the city. They live in a boys home for kids directly off the street and the majority dealing with addictions. I have just moved around the corner from the bakery but I feel my ministry has opened up tremendously and I am experiencing a reality of Bolivia that I hadn't before.
I have been able to maintain my relationships with the women, specifically those that work in the bakery. I each lunch with them everyday and on Saturdays I take a break from computer lab free-time and go visit them in their houses. Yesterday I had a long lunch at one house and it was really nice to just sit and talk and play with the kids. I hopeful that this can continue and I can reap the benefits of both ministries :-)

End Week 1 of classes

Thanks to everyone for the encouraging and supportive words. I wish I had the energy to give you a more full accounting of my first week as a fulltime computer teacher. I am up at 6am and leave the house at 7:30 to arrive between 8:15 and 8:30 for my first class which starts at 9am. I have one hour blocks of class from 9am to 6pm with a one hour break for lunch, five and a half days a week. You'll note the timestamp on this post. I need to be getting to sleep because 6am comes pretty early, as most of you readers know. I don't pretend to be special. Lots of people get up at 6am, or earlier. I digress. It has been a pretty boring week because I have to administer pre-tests to all the kids except for my Kindergarten students because they can't read. They have been a joy. They are currently playing a educational software program to learn how to use the mouse. They are incredibly fast learners and so enthusiastic and so exhausting!! I'll try and write a more detailed account at some point in the not too distant future but for now I will sum up. This has been a transformative week in my ministry here in Bolivia and while it has been a little boring and yet overwhelming I am looking forward to seeing how it unfolds.

Computer Lab

Well folks it has finally happened. After nearly a year of waiting with baited anticipation, my computer lab has finally arrived. Sixteen computers equipped with speakers, headphones, and webcams, two printers and all in a freshly renovated room. Excitement doesn't begin to describe the last couple of weeks. I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Things seem to be working fairly well for now. I've had some problems with the printers but I can make it work, not really the way it was intended, but if I can get a document from the computer to a piece of paper then that is enough.
One of the places I've been running frantically to is meetings. Everyone wants a piece of the computer lab, from kindergarten to adults attending night school and there are really only so many hours in a day. So far I've got the kids in kindergarten, fourth through eighth grade, the night school, and three separate groups of kids from the orphanage system, Amanecer, that will be coming from the city. Still to fit in is women from Tantakuna, the women's group. Oh, and free time where everyone can come and practice. It sounds like a lot and completely overwhelming and it probably will be but pictured below was Friday afternoon. I was sitting with the bakery women and said "I'm not going to print out any more accounting sheets for you. You're going to come to the computer lab and do it directly on the computer." They were very apprehensive and intimidated at the idea but we went and did some practice with the last weeks numbers. They did great and were so amazed and impressed by the capabilities of MS Excel to do all the calculations for them. Just sitting there watching them take control of their bookkeeping (entering the data into the computer is what I've done since last year) brought such joy and pride in my heart that I know all the stress and frustration that awaits me will be worthwhile.

Pumpkin Pie

While I was back in the States visiting in February my grandma bought me a Mennonite cookbook which I thought would be really helpful for new ideas in the bakery. My prejudice led me to believe that the cookbook would have recipes that had only basic ingredients, i.e. nothing special that had to be bought in the grocery store like Cool Whip or pudding. Big mistake. Those Mennonites love their processed ingredients but it wasn't all for not. There are a few basic recipes as well. At the beginning of this week the women were asking me for different pie recipes since our venture into apple pie turned out so well. Pumpkin was among the list and they jumped on it. Pumpkin is super cheap which was a huge plus. The recipe from the cookbook was nothing like Libby's but I decided to give it a go, also having never cooked pumpkin and always relied on the canned version, I was full of trepidation. From beginning to end I thought that there was no way that it was going to turn out well. I think the sign of a good chef is knowing when something is going to be awful...and it was. Okay, maybe not awful, people said they liked it but it was really liquidy and the flavor was all off. It was sweet so that is probably why people liked it. Here are my theories about what went wrong. First and foremost, I cooked the pumpkin and then mashed it and put it straight into the bowl. Turns out that pumpkin holds a lot of water so next I'm going to cook, mash, and then cook again to evaporate as much water as I can. Second, the recipe called for cinnamon and nutmeg, where as Libby's says cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. Third, the recipe called for only three tablespoons of pumpkin where as I'm pretty sure that there is at least a cup if not more in a can of pumpkin. All signs point to a much more successful second attempt.

Food Prices

All it takes is a brief glance at the headlines to see that the prices of food around the world are increasing at an alarming rate. Bolivia is no different. In the last several months everything seems to have gone up, except for the value of the dollar that is but that's another story. This new way of life affects me most in the bakery, as you can imagine, because when it comes to our own food supply all it takes is a simple call to the FMS office to get an increase in our food stipend. One of the biggest issues in Bolivia with the rise in food prices is the exponential increase in flour. When I started spending time in the bakery a 50kg (quintal) bag of flour cost around 186Bs and as of last week the women bought a quintal for 340Bs. Almost a 200% increase in less than a year.
What does this mean for Bolivians? As a result of the flour prices, the price of bread has also skyrocketed. Again when I started in the bakery we were selling bread at 5 rolls for 1B and now it has gone up to 2 for 1B or 50 centavos for one roll. That is outside the city where prices are lower. In the city it is not uncommon to see one roll being sold for 60 or 70 centavos or not at all. Bread used to be sold on every corner but now it takes a bit more searching to find it. I'm sure Dr. Atkins would say "So what? Bread isn't that good for you anyway." Well bread is essential to life in Bolivia. Breakfast consists of a cup of coffee and a piece of bread. Snacking between the day is a piece of bread. For some, supper is nothing but bread. Additionally it may seem insignificant the difference between 20 and 50 centavos but it adds up with the number of children one has and the amount of money one has coming in monthly.
What does this mean for a baker? We're still trying to figure that out. The women that work in the bakery are also members of the neighborhood and can't bring themselves to raise the price so their net earnings have dropped off significantly. To try and keep in the black they are making the bread smaller so they can get more out of 12kg (aroba) batch but things are becoming desperate. For most a piece of bread the size of my palm is all there is until lunchtime. I'm still trying to figure out what there is I can actually do to help but I'm not coming up with a whole lot. More to follow I suppose

Gringuita

There are many...many words that Bolivians use to name a white person from the mildly derogatory to the very derogatory. My favorite is the title of the blog gringuita. This is a cute affectionate name with the root word gringa. Gringa/gringo is probably the most common word used and pretty much means stupid foreigner, specifically those from the United States. I'm pretty sure with Spanish in general but certainly in Bolivia adding ita/ito at the end of a name or anything really is a way to show affection or indicate that something is little and/or cute. So basically gringuita is "you're a stupid foreigner but you're cute and I've grown fond of you" all in one word. Aren't languages fun?
In all seriousness I have learned not to expect race to disappear as an issue but sometimes I am taken aback at how people are still fascinated at the color of my skin. Some anecdotes:
There was a big Easter celebration out in Mineros San Juan on Easter Sunday and I was walking around taking pictures for the bulletin. I was focused on trying to get the best angle for the kids that were dancing and not really paying attention to where I was walking. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shin, I whirled around quickly and saw an elderly indigenous woman sitting on the ground. I was horrified to think that I was just kicked her as I was walking by. As I was trying desperately to remember the phrase for "excuse me" in Quechua she continued to pinch and rub my leg (since I was in a skirt). I realized at that point that I had been walking by and she just had to reach out and touch this white skin that had entered her field of vision. I politely smiled and continued on my way.
Just a couple weeks ago I was in the bakery helping with the bookkeeping. I had been gone for a week and the women didn't get their spreadsheets so there was a weeks worth of notes on the white board to sort out and all three women were there to help remember. I was torn away from deep concentration because someone was pulling my arm hair. I look over and the youngest of the women in the bakery, 23 years old, was playing with my arm hair. When she saw me looking she said, "it is just so blonde....is it natural?" Do people actually dye their arm hair?
Finally, just yesterday I was shooting the breeze in the bakery with another woman and her daughter. We had just finished baking everything so the room was pretty toasty. I rolled up my pant legs to cool off a bit the woman said "Emily! You don't need a nightlight" Yes apparently my legs are so white that they glow in the dark. I have posted a picture below. I don't think they are quite that pale.
In a country of around 75% indigenous and sites that attract the bare minimum of backpacking tourists it is not surprising that people look upon those with a different skin tone or eye color with intrigue. I do find it surprising that the people that I have spent almost every day with for the last year are still caught up by it. I suppose that I could give them the benefit of the doubt. I've been known to give my friends a little ribbing about needing to emerge from the basement and get some sun. Maybe it is a little of both. Either way I continue to gain empathy for those in the minority and wonder if that is really the most tangible thing I am getting out of this experience.
So what do you think? As good as a nightlight?