So moving thousands of miles from home has its differences. I’m not sure where to begin with all those differences so I’ll just write about general happenings. Alright, just for a moment I’ll digress: not throwing toilet paper in the toilet, a difference that takes some getting used to.
Anyway, in general Anna and I are having a good time. At most times we are extremely busy, whether it is language class, technical class, planning community development projects, or trying to fit/jive with our families. It should be fun trying to find our niche and accomplish something good and/or practical.
Anna and I live in different houses……(I’ll return to this later). We live about a block apart in a rural area approx 15 kilometers northwest (I think that’s right) of Cochabamba in a town called Matenda. My family is amazing, mom, dad, a fourteen year old boy, a sixteen year old girl, and a four month old boy, I’m the first volunteer this family has housed. The father, from what I can understand, is a construction foreman and the house I live in is relatively brand new, electricity, toilet, hot shower, roof, etc.
So, as I expected, my language evaluation by the Peace Corps was labeled as ‘basic,’ which means that I can count to ten in Spanish and that’s about it. Because of this evaluation the peace corps asked us if living apart for the first three months of training would be ok, with frequent visits and ‘permission’ to spend the night at each others houses. Sure no problema. Well, Anna lives in a dark cement hole with a family that resembles…..well this is public information, and I don’t want any retaliation to occur. . .
So at our first training meeting we brought up the idea about moving in together with our training director and it was great talking with him about our disagreeable living situations, he was open to Anna moving into my place but stressed that we need to do it slowly in order for Anna’s family to save face, our first cultural sensitivity lesson. So hopefully by the end of the month Anna will be moved into my place.
Our days are exceedingly jam-packed and we’ve been informed by current volunteers that this is normal for the first three months, which is called Pre-service Training (PST). Language class begins at 8-8:30am and goes to 12:30, one hour for lunch, then its technical training, community development, medical lectures, cultural sensitivity lectures, or some other training until 6pm, this makes for one heck of a long day. And this schedule goes from Monday thru Saturday, with our free day being Sunday. Fun but exhausting. I’ll write again soon, I began this correspondence on this Monday and it won’t be until Friday or Saturday that I’ll be able to walk twenty minutes to the local internet café to send it off. Oh yeah, dad you’ll get a kick out of this, my project director’s last name sounds like mcclellan and he acts about the same and he was an assistant scout master for 20 years, and no I haven’t put anything in his water.
Hopefully we will be getting a cell phone, fairly cheap here, and I’ll post our number up soon. We miss everybody, Take care, Tom and Anna.
Anyway, in general Anna and I are having a good time. At most times we are extremely busy, whether it is language class, technical class, planning community development projects, or trying to fit/jive with our families. It should be fun trying to find our niche and accomplish something good and/or practical.
Anna and I live in different houses……(I’ll return to this later). We live about a block apart in a rural area approx 15 kilometers northwest (I think that’s right) of Cochabamba in a town called Matenda. My family is amazing, mom, dad, a fourteen year old boy, a sixteen year old girl, and a four month old boy, I’m the first volunteer this family has housed. The father, from what I can understand, is a construction foreman and the house I live in is relatively brand new, electricity, toilet, hot shower, roof, etc.
So, as I expected, my language evaluation by the Peace Corps was labeled as ‘basic,’ which means that I can count to ten in Spanish and that’s about it. Because of this evaluation the peace corps asked us if living apart for the first three months of training would be ok, with frequent visits and ‘permission’ to spend the night at each others houses. Sure no problema. Well, Anna lives in a dark cement hole with a family that resembles…..well this is public information, and I don’t want any retaliation to occur. . .
So at our first training meeting we brought up the idea about moving in together with our training director and it was great talking with him about our disagreeable living situations, he was open to Anna moving into my place but stressed that we need to do it slowly in order for Anna’s family to save face, our first cultural sensitivity lesson. So hopefully by the end of the month Anna will be moved into my place.
Our days are exceedingly jam-packed and we’ve been informed by current volunteers that this is normal for the first three months, which is called Pre-service Training (PST). Language class begins at 8-8:30am and goes to 12:30, one hour for lunch, then its technical training, community development, medical lectures, cultural sensitivity lectures, or some other training until 6pm, this makes for one heck of a long day. And this schedule goes from Monday thru Saturday, with our free day being Sunday. Fun but exhausting. I’ll write again soon, I began this correspondence on this Monday and it won’t be until Friday or Saturday that I’ll be able to walk twenty minutes to the local internet café to send it off. Oh yeah, dad you’ll get a kick out of this, my project director’s last name sounds like mcclellan and he acts about the same and he was an assistant scout master for 20 years, and no I haven’t put anything in his water.
Hopefully we will be getting a cell phone, fairly cheap here, and I’ll post our number up soon. We miss everybody, Take care, Tom and Anna.
2 comments:
Yay! The first post from Bolivia! How exciting. I hope everything works out well with the housing situation. Can't wait 'til you can post more pictures. I'll be looking forward to it. Love - Shanee.
Thanks for the reply shanee, looks like your the only one who´s figured out how to post a comment, anna and i were just talking about how nice it would be to be swimming like atlantic beach for example, but no pools, lakes, or rivers anywhere close by. take care T&A.
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