Keeping up

It has been hard to write recently. I have been working long hours and when I have free time it’s hard to want to sit down in front of a computer. It’s not that I don’t see a lot and have a lot to say, but I’m just tired!

·      That being said, I have basically gained an entire page of “work experience” to my resume. In the past two weeks I have done the following:

·      Presented my project to ministry officials, UNICEF, and NGOs in Spanish and on-the-fly.

·      Translated project materials from English to Spanish

·      Explained and pushed for a letter from the Ministry of Education giving us permission to work in Cochabamba

·      Negotiated salaries and budgets with UNICEF

·      Chosen 12 schools to collect data from in rural areas of Cochabamba

·      Interviewed 5 people for a research team

Next week I begin training a team and possibly go into the field as early as Thursday for my first pilot. It’s pretty exciting.

On the other hand, I have also been adjusting to life in Cochabamba. A few days ago I moved into the equivalent of a carriage house… it’s not going to work out. It is a beautiful space with two nice bedrooms and a bathroom, living room and dining room table….but come to realize it doesn’t have a kitchen. Also, the electricity is a little shaky and the wireless internet is weak. It was also never cleaned after the last person/s left. So it’s a little gross. Unfortunately, these things (aside from the non-existent kitchen which I should have noticed) one can’t know until they’ve moved in. Last night while Bethany was showering we had a circuit short and all the lights went out suddenly. Worse for Bethany, the electricity heating the water also turned off. Mind you, it’s 40 degrees at night and these houses do not have heat. I’ve also realized that this neighborhood is too far from where I work. I know this because the taxis either don’t know the neighborhood I live in, but also b/c today the taxi service that has been taking us home told us that it does not go all the way to the side of town where we work. It’s kind of been a mess, but I guess that’s how these things go. Luckily, an Italian girl from UNICEF is moving into a new place and has a room for me—I will have to buy a bed, BUT even with the bed and the rent, I am paying less there than I do in this carriage house. It will also be a more central location.

It’s hard to explain Cochabamba. Like most LA cities, driving is crazy here and the most dangerous thing you can do here is cross the street, get in a cab, or drink the water. There are nice and not so nice parts of town, but much like La Paz, everything generally looks very worn down. Sidewalks have huge cracks, paint is chipping, there are lots of stray dogs and people throw their trash around. I have seen two people urinate in very public places; one girl on the curb behind a car and one guy in a large plaza in the park on a tree in a pretty well-lit area. For this reason, I never assume wet spots on the sidewalk are water and I never step in them; it’s either dog or human pee.

The poverty here is also incredible. Women and children are usually the ones begging in the streets, not men. Yesterday I saw a five-year-old girl sitting on a blanket on the sidewalk holding an infant and watching a 2 year; the 2 year old was crying, they were dressed in rags and looked like they hadn’t showered in weeks. I don’t know where their mother was. Today I say a group of 5 boys, all under the age of 12 dancing between cars at a roundabout to earn money—hurling themselves in front of street cars and doing cartwheels for change. I don’t even want to know how often the boys get hit by cars.