christmas in patagonia (the place where they make all the cool outdoor gear?)

No no, it's the magical land where you go once you've bought all that expensive and colorful gortex garb. And we're on our way.

Ho ho ho and a happy new year!

We've been in Bolivia nearly eight months, and Tom and I are about to embark on our first ever south american vacation. We've toured various parts of Bolivia (all amazing) under the guise of getting some work done, but now we're about to head into Argentina, land of good wine, chocolate, ocean, and patagonia. Perhaps it has even more than those to offer, but them are good enough for me.

On Christmas we're flying into San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina for a week and some to play with Maggie and Matt, good buds of ours from home. They picked this town as a meeting point based on its mountain and lake awesomeness. We can't freakin wait.

Today is the first day of winter. There is snow back home, Christmas music, red ribbons and green wreaths -I can picture it all so clearly. And here we are, sweating our socks off in 99 degree humidity. They put up Christmas lights here too, and sometimes you hear strange versions of spanish dubbed christmas tunes, but man, sure feels like summer. I can't wait to get down to patagonia, spend some nights under the stars, play in the mountains, take a dip in a crystal clear lake, and play with some fine old friends. That sounds like a holiday to me.


So here's Chile and Arge, and the orange part is Patagonia. We'll be sort of nestled between the H of cHile and the G of arGentina.

It's reported to look kind of like this:

But I haven't been yet and stole these pictures off someone else's blog. Hope we get to see some views as sweet as this.

And this is a picture of the hostel where we're staying for five dollars a night:

As if. You can only find a deal that sweet in Bolivia. Come find out for yourselves. I'm serious.

we don't want no civil war

Got a phone call from my ma yesterday, after she'd received a call from a friend who'd heard that Bolivia is heading into civil war. I assured here that, despite being held captive in Cochabamba going on four weeks now, we are safe and sound and should be allowed to return to Santa Cruz any day now. The news here isn't talking of civil war, but there are a lot of demonstrations, a lot of riots and blocades, and a few million people who are willing to fight for what they want. So, yeah, sounds like civil war could be on it's way.

The news here in short: last week the constitutional assembly passed a new constitution giving more power and rights to the indiginous people of Bolivia, who make up roughly 60% of the population. Essentially asking the non-indiginous crowd to work together with them for a more equitable Bolivia (think affirmative action, but on a broader scale). Trouble is, it was an impromptu session and most of the assembly members who would have voted against it were not present. So people are upset. Three days later, the departments of Santa Cruz and Tarija more or less rejected the new constitution and declared autonomy from the rest of the country in order to keep their financial resources within. Essentially, screw you guys, we're better off on our own.

So things are tense, major highways are blocked, demonstrations are getting violent. But this is nothing new. Bolivia is a country of revolutions and constant changes. While the American slaps on a bumper sticker that listlessly asks if it's been four years yet, the Bolivian takes to the street, marching, chanting, fighting for change. This kind of upheavel comes and goes a few times every year, but no one seems to know how this episode will end.

The U.S. government recently issued a travel warning on Bolivia that says, (i'm paraphrasing here) "It's dangerous. Do not travel to Bolivia unless it's absolutely necessary." Well humph, we were hoping for some visitors this year. I don't mean to make light of the political situation, but we, as individuals, do not feel in danger. Really we just want to go back home to podunk Oki where all is normal and quiet in its special japanese-bolivian way. All roads to Santa Cruz are currently blocked off, unfortunately, and for now, we're just waiting and watching.

If you want my opinion, you should still come visit us.

tom and anna love aiquile!

After two good weeks in Cochabamba, where we were getting further language training, learning how to design and write up projects, and staying out too late with friends for too many nights in a row, we took a trip to Aiquile, a small friendly town a few hours outside of Coch. It's home to Emily and Jasmine, two of our peace corps friends who are helping out the orphans and teaching good things to the kids of the area.

We went to Aiquile for a water testing workshop and learned all about how to make petri dishes and test chlorine and ph levels and look for poop in the water. Our plan is to install a similar lab at the water cooperative in Okinawa. Good fun. Kind of like chemistry class. Except we took lots of field trips, drank beers at lunch, and played wolley ball with our teachers afterwards. So, better than chemistry class. It was a great trip, Emily and Jasmine treated us like royalty, and we got to check out yet another beautiful part of the country. We planned to head back to Oki on Friday, but alas, all roads are blocked on account of political mayhem. So we're back in coch. Maybe tomorrow we can go home. . .

Road to .......

Bolivia’s future is probably about to change, and that road may be a difficult and long one.

First and foremost we are as safe as can be and have no concerns about our security and wellbeing, Peace Corps is doing a fantastic job keeping us informed, daily, of the happenings around Bolivia.

Alright, so the situation, politically and civically speaking, is not as peaceful as it could be. There are groups, some indigenous and some not, that want specific changes made to the constitution, which is now being revised under a constitutional referendum. I could talk about this all day but I’ll spare you the joy of the intricacies of the constitutional assembly and how they are rewriting the constitution. The main gist of it is that some people do not agree with the constitutional reforms and others do, so what you have is opposing groups who do not like each other. That is as basically what is going on.

I’d love to delve into this more but I feel I should take a ‘middle of the road’ and objective approach, mainly because I’m an employee of the United States government and shouldn’t be making political and or opinionated statements about the country I live in.
Because of the opposing viewpoints of specific groups here in Bolivia there have been strikes, protests and sometimes violence. The situation here is tense to say the least and let me reiterate; we are completely safe and in no jeopardy. I have emailed some of you in the past couple of weeks talking about the situation here and I’m sure that there will be some stories in the newspapers in the next couple of weeks regarding Bolivia and the constitutional referendum. Next week is when the reformed constitution will be voted on and approved by the assembly. I think next week will be a critical time for this country and its mainy different ethnic groups.

On the lighter side of things, Anna and I have been in Cochabamba for two weeks in a hostal with free internet and reasonable rates and I’m not looking forward to returning to the tropical heat of our site, Cochabamba’s weather is amazing. Next week Anna and I will be headed to a town called Aiquile, about four hours south of here, for a water testing workshop. Should be loads of fun, I’ll take tons of pictures on how to test for bacteria and levels of chlorine and all the cool water testing equipment, wow. We miss you all, especially with the holidays passing by. Merry kwanmasunkah! and we’ll write again soon.

how them bolivian roads?

This question from my bud sarah warrants its own blog. Fact is, these roads are bad.

Her question came after reading an article about BBC journalist Lola Almudevar, who was killed last week in a car accident near Bolivia's capital, La Paz. Sad story. Common story. She was in a taxi on the road in the picture above. This mountain pass is officially named Yungas, but it's better known by its nickname: The Most Dangerous Road in the World.

Bolivia has its host of threats: diseases, political unrest, crime, drug trafficking, but getting into a cab or stepping up on a bus is probably the most dangerous thing we do here. The last time I took the ten hour trip from Cochabamba to Santa Cruz, my friend Kyle and I were in the front seats on the upper deck of a large, lazy boy style bus. The view was phenomenal, and despite having stayed up all night before catching our ride at seven in the morning, I was wide-eyed, taking in the beautiful mountains and valleys sliding by. We got stuck in traffic at one point, and, from my high position, I could see past the cars and buses ahead of us. There were hundreds of people standing on the side of the road, all peering down into the steep valley that dropped off to the right. As we eked by, I saw what they saw: an overturned bus a hundred yards down the hill. I learned later that the bus, also headed for Santa Cruz, had left the bus station in Cochabamba just thirty minutes before us. Thirty people were killed. Many more seriously injured. The driver had fallen asleep.

I closed my eyes for the rest of the trip.

It's not just the lack of guard rails, seat belts, and pavement that make traveling the thrill it is here. The drunk drivers, poorly maintained vehicles, half blind cabbies, and love for passing on blind curves add their flavor to the punch. We plan on blindfolding our parents during cab rides when they come to visit. There are plenty of beautiful things to see in Bolivia, but the roads are not one of them.

While we are on the subject of life threatening elements of living in Bolivia, a friend of ours was held up at gun point the other day because someone wanted his cell phone, another is in the hospital from eating some less than clean food, and another with dengue fever. Far graver, four people were killed in Sucre last week during the riots sparked by potential changes to the constitution. It's a crazy place here. Impoverished, unstable, and ever bursting with political change. And yet I don't feel unsafe. It's not exactly the farm life in Free Union, but it's home for now, and I like it.

would you do the peace corps?

Blogger's got this clever new survey bit you can put on your blog, and I'm forever full of questions, so I'm putting it to good use. To kick it off, a simple querry: would you do the peace corps?

And let me know if the options are insufficient and I should add another answer to the list. I am curious if our delicious blog makes you want a slice of this third world unpaid labor pie. Or if you just follow our story out of pity/admiration/missing us/nothing better to do at your desk job.

So take two seconds to answer the survey on the right, and another two to check out what others have said.

how do you do your do?

Perhaps half a year away from mirrors is taking its toll on our dress code, but I have to say that our hair is really looking pretty good these days. Tom's is long and wild and pretty much awesome. I cut mine off a few weeks ago in an effort to reduce my perpetual sweating face problem, and I think it turned out quite nice.


Tom, in super rad llama sweater, looking all rugged and smashing




Me with my new hair getup, choppin mangos (there are about forty million mangos in our neighborhood, and you can pick them for free everywhere you go. I tell our neighbors here that they cost a dollar each in the states, and they just laaauuugh.)







In other news, we found some mushrooms growing on our bedroom door the other day. Kind of reminds me of college, where we had mushrooms growing out of the bathroom floor. It's not that we're slobs or live in filth (well, we were in college, but this is different) it's just very humid and dusty/muddy, which is a nice climate for mushrooms. We didn't eat them, for the record.

And this here is a really enormous bug that was in our bathroom. Yikes.

what a way to make a living

Our work these days is glamorous as a girl could dream. Trapeze artist for the Ringling Bros., professional metal sculptor, dolphin trainer at Sea World, lifeguard at the beach: these were a few of my dreams of the past. But now, watch out world, here I come, I’m going door to door asking people if I can take a look at their outhouses. YES! I’ve finally made it to the top.

Turns out most outhouses are really gross. Go figure. Oddly enough, no one asked us to do this. We just thought it would be a good idea to get a sense of how people are maintaining their bathrooms before we build more. It’s possible I’m getting less smart with age. Certainly less picky.

If any of you struggle with pickiness, fussiness, impatience, or any other form of high standards that leave you unsatisfied, I recommend a few years in the third world. It’ll cure you quick.

our six month anniversary

Well my how time flies

It was six months ago today, The 9th of May, that we met Bolivia. We flew in from Miami and landed at dawn in La Paz, the highest capital city in the world. She flashed her mountains. My stomach dropped and my throat got tight. It was love at first site.

Or maybe it was altitude sickness.

Regardless, here we are, half a year later, loving and living Bolivia. She is the girlfriend you want to take home, take pictures of, understand better, introduce to your friends, travel with, sleep with, eat with, laugh with. Spend the rest of your life with? Umm, probably not. But it’s good fun for now.

I keep saying it, but it feels like we’re finally settling in, getting used to Okinawa, making friends and making our home here. Maybe what this means is that life here feels just a little less weird than it used to. And in three months I’ll say again, “Now it really feels like we’re getting used to this,” and so on and so forth until it’s time to go back to America, which will feel nothing like home anymore. So it goes.

The road to Oki

carving the jack-o-melon

Pumpkins are out this year, folks. Down here in Bo Bo it's watermelon season, so at our halloween extravaganza this year we carved up some beautiful pink and green melons, threw a bottle of vodka on their innards, and enjoyed the night. Dressed up like freaks of course.

I was a happy camper. Tom a kung fu fighter. Our friend Elizabeth created a ball toss game out of a coat rack, some cut up 2 liter bottles, and a tennis ball. She's a carnie at heart. A clever one, too. The vodka took its toll, so I don't think anyone ever scored enough points to be declared winner, but it was a good game. A good night, a fond and fuzzy embrace of traditions from our homeland.

the jack-o-melons

Their chief drawback is that they rot in about twelve hours. Their chief asset is that pumpkin carving is not a Bolivian tradition, so the kids here don't know to smash the rotten remains on your front porch.

we dug a hole!

Last week Tom and I joined some friends to drill a well a few hours from our site, prividing water for a family way out in the jungle. It´s a muddy business, well drilling, and I like it.

On the bus on the way to Hardemann, where our friend Ben lives. His cousin Seth came down from Cincinnati to play, too. And Brian and Andy, two other volunteers who know what they´re doing, joined up with us, too. Fun times.

Our bus, stuck in the mud, on the way to Ben´s site

The fam we dug the well for, and the truck we rode in to get there. Eight of us, along with a whole lot of pipes and gear for drilling, hung onto the back for the two hour treck into the jungle.

Tom and Andy working at the well rig. It´s pretty sweet business getting all covered in mud, which you can´t wash off until you hit water and get the pump running -good motivation.

I never realized, until this week, that rubber chickens are based on the dead, plucked sort. Look at that thing. Straight out of a bag of gags. The kid in the family chased it around the yard and caught it with his bare hands. His mom broke its neck. His dad plucked it. We ate it for lunch. It was good.

And then a dog tried to eat Tom for lunch. Not all bad though -he had to go to the city to get rabies shots, so we got four free days at a hotel chilling out at the pool. Life is good, even when it´s not.

A big, big bird. Up up in the sky.

Bolivia is full of beautiful things.

p.s. the title reference, ´we dug a hole!´is from the movie ¨The Castle.¨ Highly recommend it.

brief summary of our work and language acquisition

Wanting to give a little more structure to our jobs as basic sanitation volunteers, Tom and I typed up a list of the goals and projects we hope to accomplish in our time here in Okinawa. We presented the document to our work counterpart, Pedro, who is the president of the water cooperative in town, and is hopeful of being the mayor in a few years.

At the top of the page was the title, Metas por los Próximos Dos Anos, followed by our names and titles. This translates to Goals for the Next Two Years. Or it would have, had I spelled it right. Instead, it read Goals for the Next Two Assholes, Tom and Anna Sullivan, Peace Corps Volunteers.

Pedro chuckled and pointed out the error, kindly, before we handed a copy to the mayor and city council members.

Perhaps we have not made any great strides in our work yet because we are buffoons and no one takes us seriously. This is compounded by the fact that we can’t understand what anyone is saying, but we remain hopeful and enjoy the ten hours of free time we have each day.

I have started doing sit-ups and exercising daily along with Tom. Evidence of a six pack is emerging, which gives me reason to live. If I get nothing from these two years in Bolivia besides some abs of steel and a less embarrassing grasp on Spanish, we’ll consider it time well spent.

the days are just full of surprises

You know when you open the trunk of a car to put your bags down, and you find the head of a cow in there?

Yeah, life is just that weird here.

christmas in october

When we were in the city last week throwing down for our anniversary, we stopped by the office to see if we had any mail. Oh my lord. Count ém -one two three four -packages!!! One from my mom and dad, one from dear dear Cat who runs an orphanage in Columbia, and two (his and hers) from Anthony and Michelle in Omaha. It was Christmas morning when we got home and tore into them.

What can we say but thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. We feel loved. And we ate beef jerky for lunch all week, which, goes without saying, is the good life.

Q: sex, dating, and keeping the spirit fresh

Our friend Sarah from Duluth has posed some good questions for discussion: How’s the sex, have you gone on any dates, and what are you doing for yourselves to keep your spirit and soul fresh. I’m a little wary thinking of my parents, in-laws, and former bosses reading my response to the fist, but what the hey. I’ve never been known for my modesty.

Sex: While the Peace Corps isn’t a particularly easy job, it does allow for a lot of free time. If you had two to ten hours to kill every day, what would you do? I’ll leave it at that.

Dates: Not to be a sap, but every night is a great date with Tom. We take turns cooking dinner –whoever feels like it or has a good idea for what to make- and we sit in our hammock chairs side by side with a beer (cheap, not tasty) or a tin cup of wine (also cheap, and kind of tasty) and enjoy each other’s company over a good meal. My favorite though is our morning date when Tom brings me coffee in bed (my birthday present this year was free coffee in bed for the rest of my life –excellent). We sit under our big mosquito net and talk about the things we hope to do and the people and places we love. Don’t barf just yet. It’s not all peaches and perfect. But really, I landed an awesome man, and I enjoy his good company.

We go into the city every month to get our mail, monthly living allowance, see some friends, and have a nice dinner. La Casona is our favorite place to eat. It’s a German restaurant in a beautiful 150 year old house with an open courtyard, and they have the best bratwurst and mashed potatoes in Bolivia (maybe the only brats in Bolivia, come to think). And bottles of wine or jugs of passion fruit juice for three bucks. Can’t beat it. Last week we celebrated our four year wedding anniversary with lunch there, followed by a swim at the posh hotel where we were staying ($10 a night for both of us), a baseball game viewed from our big bed, and dinner at a French restaurant where we ate spinach and beef stroganoff crepes and filet mignon. Amazing. This might sound like normal life to some of you, but you’ve got to understand that watching a baseball game and going for a swim is the kind of thing we spend weeks fantasizing about.

Tom at La Casona

Keeping the spirit and soul fresh: I think the first two questions answer a lot of this one: love, friendship, celebration –that’s what feeds my spirit. Our job here is very undefined and, it’s not easy to see progress or know when we’re on the right track. I can get pretty frustrated with our work, and it helps immensely that we do a lot of things for ourselves to be proud of and excited about. We cook up great meals (weird sometimes, on account of the available ingredients, but great nonetheless), go for long bike rides, read up on things of interest, play the guitar, write letters, think, talk, nap, exercise, build things, plant things, plan things. And always there is music in our house. And a fan blowing. Which, anyone who has lived in the 100 degree, a.c.-less tropics can tell you, is a spiritual thing.

Nature has always been my outlet, the thing that refreshes me, and it’s harder than I thought it would be for us to get out in the midst of it here. What was jungle fifty years ago is now farmland spreading out for miles in every direction, and our only mode of transportation is our bikes. There is a small lagoon a few miles away, which is home to a bazillion beautiful birds, a pile of crocodiles, and a few jungle mammals that I can’t pronounce. We bike there every week or so to feel like we’re somewhere far from town, and for the hour or two that we are there I feel refreshed.

The lagoon near our house

why we do not swim in it

Q & A time

According to the tracker down to the right, fifteen hundred of you have been purusing our blog. I love it! But I figure the little stories and pictures we share don´t really paint a complete picture, and I thought I´d invite questions from friends, fam, and whoever else is reading our blog.

If you´re wondering what life in Bolivia is like, what we spend our days doing, why there is a Japanese colony in the middle of south america, what´s good to eat around here, why the weather forecast currently says 'smoky,' anything you´re curious about, just ask. You can create a comment on this article with a question or you can email me (annabsullivan@gmail.com). We´ll make a blog out of your question and give you our most colorful reply, complete with pictures and (slightly slanted) commentary.

smoky oki

clues that we are not in america

When you've been traveling a while you get accustomed to the newness of every day. You call any bed with your backpack on it home, you pick up enough phrases to get by in the markets and restaurants, you get used to throwing your t.p. in a basket instead of in the toilet. After a while the things that first struck you as bizarre and unfamiliar become normal.

Still, after five months in Bolivia, every day something reminds me just how far from home I am. This is not America (well, the north part anyway).

I discovered a street vendor selling a good array of herbs and spices the other day. She had about twenty bags filled with various dried leaves and ground spices, and while perusing the selection I noticed a dead mouse on top of the chamomile. It's not easy to find spices here, and I couldn't let a little rodent keep me from a good find, so I bagged up some rosemary and whole nutmeg, paid fifteen cents, and thanked the vendor. From my American point of view it's hard to figure why she didn't bother to get rid of the mouse –maybe it wasn't keeping other people from buying their chamomile tea, but I opted out on that one.

Driving is another thing – nothing like home. There are no stop signs or stop lights in town, and when you come to a four way intersection you either slow down to see who's coming or speed up and lay on the horn.

A lot of cars don't have headlights, but that doesn't keep anyone from driving in the dark. Sometimes you'll be cruising down the highway at night and come flying up on an invisible 18 wheeler loaded down with sugarcane. Same remedy as with intersections –either slam on the brakes, or fly around it with your thumb on the horn.

It's not unusual to see a family of four bouncing down the road all squished on a motorcycle. Six is the record we've sighted though. Incredible - flip flops and heads poking out everywhere.

I was hanging out with a woman at her house the other day, and her 18 month old was being fussy, so she asked her husband to take him for a ride on the motorcycle. Dad scooped up the baby and plopped him on the gas tank in front of him. The little guy grabbed the handle bars as though he'd done this dozens of times, and off they went down the bumpy gravel road at forty miles an hour, baby smiling and hanging on.

I like to imagine driving through charlottesville and being passed by a guy on a motorcycle with a barefoot baby sitting on the tank in front of him, chubby little fingers gripping the handlebars. Would that baby's delighted smile keep some horrified mom in a minivan from calling the cops? Doubt it.

When you're gassing up at the station, they ask everyone to get out of the car and stand to the side –apparently there is a frequency of blow-ups here.

Instead of cutting the grass, people just light the yard on fire every few weeks.

When you greet a woman you haven't seen in a few weeks she either tells you, "ewww, you've gotten fat, eh?" or, "ohhh, you're skinnier than you were last week." Apparently, they're both meant as compliments.

So while we're getting comfortable and accustomed to our simple, chill life here, there are still surprises to keep in interesting. And these are the moments that let me know I'm in the middle of the adventure I was hoping for.

I bet when we are back in the states it will be a struggle not to pack the children up and put them on the motorcycle for a trip to town –so fuel efficient and quite a bit more fun, anyway.

feeling a little ill

Here´s a little video I took while Anna and I sat for about two hours waiting for the taxi to take us to a community about 45 mins away where we ended up giving a spur of the moment presentation to about 30 people about bathrooms and grey water systems. All in all a productive day, Even though Anna wasn´t feeling well. take care everybody, we´ll write again soon.

Good morning America

thanks, ma and pa

We just opened a package from mom and dad Montgomery. It is full of the most valuable treasures imaginable: chocolate, fruit leathers, packets of seeds to start a veggie garden, letters from home, a good pen, dehydrated sour dough starter (my mom is a magician as well as a good cook), Dublin Morning tea bags, and a book on composting.

What a gift. My parents are endlessly generous and supportive, and I would like to make a little public announcement here about what rad people they are. A few thank-yous for all they do to show their love and make me glad to be their daughter:

Thank you, ma and pa, for the package. We are grateful and wish we could share the chocolate with you, but we ate it already.

Thank you, ma and pa, for your support. We’re far from home on this grand adventure, and it helps immensely that you are behind us in what we’re doing. Know that I cheer for you everyday, too.

Thank you, ma and pa, for believing in me. You have tempted me to think that I can achieve anything I set my heart on. So far, it’s worked out pretty well.

Thank you, ma and pa, for taking risks in your own lives. You have shown me that your path is what you make it, that no one else will make it for you, and that you should take the weird way sometimes to keep it interesting.

Thank you, ma and pa, for being fun. You played legos with me and laughed at my jokes and taught me to ski and played word games with me on our long road trips to the cottage. I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t have a little fun, and I’ll credit you for showing me how to enjoy the small bits of each one.

Thank you, ma and pa, for being so freakin’ awesome. I admire our family tremendously and think we belong in a museum (plaque would read, ‘Freakin’ awesome family of six. Notice genial nature and general gayety of members’). Of course, we’d never stay in the museum –too many plants to be planted and trails to be explored to sit inside all day.

I love you guys and am grateful for all the hope and confidence and comfort you’ve put into me over the years. You did good. I turned out all right. My sister, too. And even our husbands and good. Consider the job well done.

So, a toast to my ma and pa, and all our ma’s and pa’s, for the good they’ve done in bringing us up. And thanks for the tea. It’s delicious.

so this is work?

This peace corps work is not your normal occupation. There are no office hours, no boss, no guidelines as to what we should accomplish on any given day, and no one watching, besides a few hundred curious neighbors. It’s a little unnerving to face the projects we came here to do without any of the structures we’re used to, but I tend to like it. Most days.

The first steps in our work as Basic Sanitation Volunteers are to meet people, get to know the community, and find out what sanitation needs we might be able to address in our two years here. Later we will ask someone important (local municipality officials or non-government organizations at work in the area) to give us money to carry out these projects. Once we have funding, we will find skilled laborers who are willing to work for next to nothing, decide which families are the most worthy of receiving a bathroom, water system, well, or worm farm, and then build something in hopes that it will make someone’s life healthier and happier. Where to begin . . .?

Today, I felt like I was on the right track when a woman I have met a few times invited me to the neighborhood mothers’ club. Mom clubs are common in Bolivia and are comprised of moms of all ages who get together to do something. Or not do something. Either way, they are well organized groups with elected presidents, treasurers, and the like, and they meet weekly or monthly to do an activity (knitting is a good bet) and chat it up. This is a good opportunity for me to get to know people, find out about the needs of the community, and enlighten a captive audience on my current favorite topics: the dangers of burning plastics, pooping in your yard, or eating without washing your hands.

A little before 3:00 I go out and sit on the log in front of our house to wait for my friend. At 4:00 she appears, no apologies or mention of the time, (an hour delay is pretty close to punctual here), and off we walk to the ‘club de madres’. The first to arrive, we find the host in the back yard at a table braiding her mother’s hair. The yard of swept dirt has a few smoke stained, grass roofed buildings, a fire pit, a concrete sink that drains into the street, and enough ducks, chickens, and dogs to staff a carnival. A rooster torments a small, half-haired, flea-carpeted puppy until a little girl comes to its rescue, picking up the pup by an ear and a leg. I think of the lucky dogs born in America –bags of lamb and rice kibbles, a bed in the house, baths, obedience school. Different world here.

After introductions the host shouts in a few directions, and soon other women appear. They invite me to a seat at the end of the table. I scrape the pile of fresh duck poo off the bench with my notebook before taking a seat. I just did laundry yesterday after all.

The women chat of this and that, show me the purses, dresses, belts, and blankets they’ve knitted, and explain that they don’t presently have money for more yarn, so there will be no knitting today. I watch a duck eat a bicycle tire while talking with the ladies about the projects I hope to carry out in Okinawa: bathrooms, trash programs, and the like. They seem mildly interested. I ask the host what she does with the ducks. “We eat them,” she says. “Ever eaten a duck?” Not that I can remember I say, and next thing I know a duck roasting party is in the works for next week. I am to bring nothing but a hungry belly and my husband, and they will kill their biggest baddest duck and roast it up for all to share. Awesome.

So this is my job. This is how we get started on the long, unfamiliar road of unfunded development work. We hang out with our neighbors, go to get togethers when we catch wind of them, and talk about bathrooms. If we ever come across some funds to construct one, the pace may change. For now, we will enjoy the newness of it all and eat the ducks when invited to.

This is a pretty tree in a pretty field near Oki. All is flat here. Kind of like a tropical Oklahoma

Exploring!

Hello Friends and Fam! Hope all is well in north america. Alright, I´m trying to load video on a internet connection that is similar to our old phone modems in the states, so, I hope this works. It is a brief video that my blossoming director of a wife made the other day biking down a gravel road outside okinawa.

This picture is of Anna´s never ending battle against the leaf cutting ants that play havoc upon her vegetables and garden.

The Rio Grande, this river, in places, is twice as wide as the Mississippi and drains into the amazon. The people standing with me are local community leaders. Anna and I spent about seven hours driving around with two other community leaders inspecting, interviewing and talking with the other communitys which are in our juristiction. We covered roughly 70 kilometers on gravel roads in a car with a large hole in the floorboard, the amount of dust covering us was astounding.

Anna and I with our new Bikes! Goldie and Shamoo, We love them. Anna and I went to Santa Cruz last weekend and bought two new mountain bikes for around four thousand Bolivian Dollars. A week later we have sore muscles we never knew we had but it is well worth it, I had forgotten how much fun (and quicker) traveling is with a bike.


Anna O., Anna Bird, and Kevin (a Catholic Saligence volunteer in our site) Making sushie in Japanese Bolivia.

Mango tree in our backyard!

The new fishing hole. Its a fairly large lagoon about two miles from our house on our bikes.

Usually what our free time consists of, I can´t and won´t put the other free time pictures on here.

all i want for christmas

That's a long way off, I know. But a number of friends have said they would like to send us a package and are wondering what to put inside. No way would we turn that down. So happens that my birthday is in a few weeks, too, so to make it easy on all you wonderful people that want to send some love and joy in the mail, here's some ideas of lightweight treasure I would kill for (and a few for Tom of course):

good coffee and tea
dried fruit, almonds, walnuts
your fave spice or herb mix (we have oregano, salt, and pepper here, nada mas)
any burts bees products
bars of hippie chocolate (endangered species chocolate, eg)
hemp, string and beads
pictures of the fun you're up to
mixed cd's
yummy lip balms and chapsticks
good pens
magazines (backpacker, NG, any trashy smut that I would never read at home but somehow find comforting when I'm so far removed)
mach 3 blades
beef jerky
favorite recipes

Any package should be under four pounds or it will cost an arm and a leg to send and pick up. Also, regardless of what you put inside, say that the contents are religious materials (put a little prayer and verse in there if you don't want to lie) or pictures and letters, and declare the value as zero dollars. Otherwise, we will have to pay the value of the package, which, I assure you, we can't afford. Our address is on the right. Our love and gratitude are in the air for all who are thinking of us and supporting us on this grand adventure.

As always, we miss you wonderful people and wish we could hang out for an evening. Soon enough.

got my man back

Having Tom back by my side makes me feel like I’m home. We are home, I guess. Two years here will be as long as we’ve lived anywhere else, and we’re doing a fine job of settling in, making this pink box a home, and getting to know our neighbors and our town. I like it here. There’s plenty of work for us to do, plenty of good people to get to know, plenty of hours in every day.

This is not a place of rushing. From noon to three every day the town takes a nap –stores close, people go home, food is eaten, rests are taken. Life is good. When we walk by a store, the owner invites us in and puts a snack in our hands. When we pass a house of people we’ve recently met, they holler at us to stop in for a bit. People are kind, the weather is gorgeous, the breeze is constant, the love of my life is here. Not much to complain about.

Tom, Rudy (the peace corps volunteer who was here before us), Tomoko, and Shinobu, a few new friends we have made. They took us out to their farm to play in the wheat -so beautiful.

We took a tour of the local grain factory to see how fields of wheat are magically turned into bags of flour. This is us playing in a giant warehouse of soy beans. Good fun.

Our first pet. His name is senor gecko.

good harvest, good party

Tom rolled into Okinawa yesterday morning, just in time for Okinawa’s annual Dia de Buena Cosecha –the day of good harvest. This fest is a kickoff for the crop harvest that will take place over the next few weeks. Wheat, rice, and soy are the economic backbone of this jungle-turned-farmland, and the harvest season is, for some, the only payday of the year. So there is much to celebrate.

Picture a county fair, complete with tractors, food vendors, dancing, music, high schoolers hooking up, games, rides, drunks, and weirdoes –but in place of Tim McGraw in the background it’s everyone’s favorite Bolivian tunes. And instead of the bluegrass band on stage, there’s a two hundred strong troupe performing a traditional Japanese drum pounding, feet flying dance marathon. This fest was rockin. Granted, the ferris wheel was made out of an old car axle and turned with a hand crank, but the display of talent, the melding of Japanese and Bolivian culture, and the air of good cheer was knock your socks off delightful. We danced into the night, ate the cotton candy, and woke up with three out of towners on our floor. It was a good party.

One of the Bolivian dance performances at the festival.

A traditional Argentinian dance.

And to celebrate the Japanese side of life, there was a lot of karate going on.

This is a whole lot of people in really cool costumes doing a really impressive dance. Photos dont really do this kind of thing justice.