a true taste of bolivia

My mom and sister, Alison and Leah, made the brave and long trek to come pay us a visit here in Bolivia last week. For week we’d been anticipating their arrival and stocking their itinerary with plans to see the best of Bolivia. We were going to explore the jungles of Samaipata, let them experience the daily grind of Peace Corps life in Okinawa, and then whisk them away to La Paz and Lake Titicaca to spend a few heavenly days on Isla Del Sol. What we did instead, however, was feed them both some amoebas the first day they got here.

Amoebas, if you haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing them yourself, are a ferocious little bug that multiply quickly and send you to the toilet faster than you can say, “is that juice safe to drink?” The probiotics and grapefruit seed extracts they’d been taking were no match for these Bolivian bugs. Poor mum and Leah. Instead of enjoying the tranquility of the shores of Lake Titicaca, they spent three days and three nights in our little Japanese hospital in Okinawa, iv’s in their arms, and bathroom within sprinting distance. It looked like a gruesome battle, but they came out on top, and, always the optimists, reported that the view out their hospital window was quite nice, and that the nursing staff was superb. They deserve an award.

Amoebas mostly having been ejected, (I’ll spare you the details) they were back on their feet in a few days, and we spent the last few nights of their brief stay in Bolivia hanging with our friends in Okinawa, and taking a trip to Buena Vista, a beautiful area not far from us which borders Amboro national park. On a hike there we saw all sorts of exciting flowers and butterflies, some cows and horses, some cute kids in their undies, lots of coffee plants, and a dozen or so monkeys. Ah, nature.

Though we didn’t make it to see the far reaches of this gorgeous country, we did get some much appreciated quality time together. It had been nearly a year since the Montgomery women were all together, and I was so glad to be with them, catching up, hearing their voices, being next to them, and bringing applesauce, boiled water, and plain rice to their beside.

They left in good spirits and (almost) good health and assured me that Bolivia was a lovely place and they were glad they’d come. I was glad, too. It was not quite the vacation we were expecting, but we agreed that a trip to Bolivia is one of the better weight loss programs on the market, and they even hinted at the possibility of coming back for round two. Brave and wonderful souls they are.

It would have been hard to say goodbye if Tom and I weren’t planning to go home for a visit in a little over a month, but with that to look forward to, we said see you soon, and Tom and I left them at the airport to begin their twenty hour journey home. I miss them, as I miss many people and things from our pre-bolivian life, but being around my family reminded me of how good we’ve got it back home. Though we’ll be here a year and some more still, it’s nice to think on all the wonderful things we have to look forward to upon our return. Family, friends, familiarity.

In the mean time, we’re rockin Bolivia, have got our hands full of good work here in our community, and are enjoying the people and places around us. If you’re not deterred by the above story, we would love to have more friends come down to visit us and experience life on the other side for a bit. We’ll do our best to fend off the parasites and show you the sweeter side of third world living. Of course, if you want the authentic Bolivian experience, I’m sure we could arrange that, too.

Some pictures from our time together:

That first wonderful day we took a lovely hike up the river.

And then the next morning the excitement began. Ah, fond memories from the room where they spent most of their vacation. Here's mom and Leah are getting hooked up to their iv's.

Leah, sprung free from the hospital at last




Ma made her break for it a few hours later. Here we are, chillin in the hammock at our house in Oki, watching the motorcycles with their families of four go by.

Me and Leah and mom at La Casona, our favorite restaurant in Santa Cruz. Once they were off the applesauce and back on chewable food, the fun really picked up.



Me and Leah by the pool at the Japanese clubhouse in Oki. I thought when we signed up for the peace corps we'd be bathing in buckets and cooking over a wood fire for two years. Alas, we have electricity, cell phone service, and an olympic sized pool. Strange, I know. We didn't ask for such luxuries, but since we've got them, might as well enjoy them, eh?

Me and ma, weaving with hemp. She plans to teach the kids at the farmers' market back home how to weave. My mom's so cool.

Leah, with our little friend from Buena Vista

Mom and Leah with my friend Tomasa, outside our house in Okinawa.

I miss you guys. Thanks for coming to play with us! See you again soon.

saint paddy had to wait for lent to end

On account of this year’s rare incidence of lent coinciding with Mr. Saint Patrick’s fest, we thought it best to delay the celebrations until our self-restraining friends were up for the drink again. After all, what’s an Irish holiday without a gallon of green beer going around the table?

So, Easter come and gone, and all vices resumed, we donned our green and dyed our beer and celebrated the good luck of the Irish in Bolivia in early April.

In addition to our six thousand Bolivian and Japanese neighbors here in Okinawa, we’ve got the good pleasure of having three other Americans around. Jeremy, Marie, and Elizabeth are Silesian catholic volunteers, and they teach English in the schools and work with the kids and mothers clubs in the communities around us.

We have a community dinner every Tuesday with them and tend to call each other up for a hand of euchre or game of frisbee or movie night once or twice a week. They’re great company, and they speak English, my favorite language. I’ve been working with the girls lately, going out to the communities to teach sanitation and women’s health to the mom’s clubs, which is a rockin’ good time.

anna and anna in san jose

I went out to visit my friend Anna O a few weeks ago in her site, San Jose de Chiquitos. San Jose is one of the Jesuit Mission communities, with a beautiful church dating to the mid 1800’s. It a cool little town, and while I was there we worked on a trash program together (sorry, no pictures of the trash), went for an awesome hike







took a tour of the church, where they're doing restoration work to reveal the original artistry and architecture of the beautiful buildings








watched a local artist at work

and hung out with some of Anna's friends around town

It was really cool to hang out with Anna in her site, to see her work, meet her friends, and be part of her life there for a few days. I hope we can do more of that in the future.

It’s so encouraging seeing volunteer’s projects, and it's always a pleasure to get to know new parts of Bolivia. This is such a diverse and broad country, and visiting volunteers has to be one of the best ways to experience the culture, food, sites, people, and way of life in each region.

Thanks for a great visit, Anna O!

Buses, Friends and Discoveries

Hello and good day family and friends. Anna and I just got back from Cochabamba last Saturday after a nice long bus ride, well the views were nice, the bus and its contents had a curious odor and the closer we got to Santa Cruz the hotter it got on the bus, needless to say the smells got more…….intense. Ahhh to travel by bus. Our time in Cochabamba was well spent, we received flu vaccines (in which both of us got the flu for a day and a half), we toured a composting operation in the beautiful city of Tiquipaya, I scoured the library for water testing literature and we got to hang out with one of our great buds from our PC group George McGarnikle. Over all a great trip and the weather in Cochabamba is fantastic, especially compared with the weather of Okinawa.
Anna and I decided/discovered that Okinawa is hot and humid for seven months out of the year and to be honest, that is just uncalled for. Next week Anna’s mama and sister are coming from Charlottesville to visit us and we are exited to show them our host country. It looks as though we’ll be heading up to Isla de Sol which is on Lago Titicaca, (the word Titicaca is combination of Quechaua and Aymara (a language spoken before and after the Incans) for ‘the scared rock of the puma’, and not what an eight grader would think, shame on you). We should get some excellent pictures from the world’s highest largest navigable body of water and pre-Incan (Tihaunacu) archaeological sites and all of this enjoyed at roughly at twelve thousand feet.

This next blog is about recent political happenings, insight and information which could change in the two seconds before I publish this blog.

Sorry no pictures this time, we´ll make up for it with the trip to La Paz. Tom.

A view into the politics here.

Every four months is a revolving door in Peace Corps Bolivia. We receive a new batch of volunteers to replace the batch of volunteers who leave every four months. Due to the recent defensive and political posturing of departmental governments and the national government and the likelihood of a future conflict between the two Peace Corps has cancelled the next batch of volunteers. The new volunteers were to arrive three days after the nationwide vote on the referendums on the approval of the new constitution which is supported by roughly half of the country, strenuously opposed by about thirty percent and with the remainder of the country being fairly neutral. This is disappointing, to say the least. The new group of volunteers would’ve been in basic sanitation and integrated education which is what our group was and that would’ve made them our “shadow group”. We had already started planning training sessions, site placement and logistical support, but no dice, no new group of volunteers to mentor and mold.
Bolivia is not new to political strife, regional tensions or bloqueos (blockades of highways and city streets, usually with autos and trucks, burning tires and trash) but in light of the recent heightened tensions between the “media luna” (basically the departments of Santa Cruz, Tarija, and Sucre) and the more MAS centered political area in and around La Paz the Peace Corps decided that sending in a new group into a possibility of large amounts of social unrest would not be prudent. I wonder about this decision and try not to draw too many conclusions but I feel there is probably more to this decision than just political discord in Bolivia. There have been Peace Corps Bolivia volunteers that have arrived in country amid similar periods of unrest and I’m not so sure this is any different. I think that the constant rhetoric spoken by the national government here about our own government has something to do with this decision as well but far be it from me to suggest any such ulterior motive I’m sure the decision is for the best and I may have a little too much free time to conjure up conspiracies.
We are safe and sound in our little Japanese village and will continue that way revolution or not, more to come for sure, especially the closer it gets to May 4th (Santa Cruz’s election day) and May 5th the national election day.