How many nuns can you fit in a pick-up?

The title of this blog sounds like the start to a bad joke, right?  It's 5, plus a driver and 2 gringos in the truck bed.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

A couple months ago, Collin and I took a Sunday off to adventure together.  Incachaca, a well-known waterfall several hours from my house, had been intriguing since my brother first arrived in Bolivia almost 2 years before.  After a wild ride from an erratic driver (local transportation), we got off on the main highway and started hiking along a dirt road to the waterfall.

After over an hour hiking, we came around a corner and were both moved by the pine forest, smack dab in the middle of the jungle.  The moment the rich smell of pine hit our nostrils, we both felt it deep within our being; a sense of being home, of belonging, of everything being right in that moment.  I didn't realize how much I long for the pines of Colorado until I was overwhelmed by their scent.

The falls themselves were beautiful and scary.  Water from deep within rock chasms poured out into the open, only to roar back underground, frothing and icy clear.  I felt a mix of awe and fear, delighting in the intricacies of the water's path and imagining what it would be like to fall in.  We crossed an old bridge with some of the wooden planks missing.  Scenes from action movies of rickety wooden bridges flashed through my mind as I crossed more than a hundred feet above the raging river below.  I stepped carefully and gripped the metal wire support.

After a day of exploring, soaking in the green, the mysterious, the beauty, we trekked back down the dirt road, hoping to hit the main road and catch a passing bus back to Cochabamba before it got dark.  It was Carnaval, a Bolivian holiday known for its wild drinking, and the odds of getting a sober driver back weren't what they should be.  Ten minutes from the highway, a pickup truck full of nuns (aside from the driver) pulled up and asked if we wanted a lift to the main road.  We happily accepted and swung our backpacks up into the truck bed.  As we neared the road, one of the nuns leaned out the window to invite us to ride all the way to Punata, a town nearby Cochabamba.

We settled in, putting on layers as we rose out of the jungle and into the high Andean lake valley.  Little children lined the road, targeting passing cars with their super soakers and buckets of water in honor of Carnaval.  Whenever the pickup would pass a group of them, they'd howl and moan in frustration, yelling "Los gringitos!!  Los gringitos!" bemoaning how they could have let such an easy, fun target pass by unscathed.  We soaked it all in, watching the countryside slide by and the rich jungle emeralds roll into softer Andean greens, the high peaks shrouded in swirling clouds.

It was magical and otherworldly.  We got out in Punata, the gentle words of the nuns as we parted ways guiding our feet and the scenes from our truck ride still rolling over in our minds like a candy coated treat that hasn't lost all its sweetness yet.

Potosí and the wily virus

At 5am, with a stuffy nose, achy muscles and a deep cough, I boarded the bus we hired to drive us to Potosí.  I'd had a cold for several days and figured it was on its way out.  We were headed to remote villages in Potosí (Southern Bolivia) to bring medical supplies, clothing and toys, and the hope of the gospel.  It was my third trip, and the previous two had been powerful and made a big impact in my life.  I was determined not to let a cold get in my way.

 By the time we arrived at our first destination at 8:30pm, I felt feverish and miserable.  Traveling on a bus all day and arriving at a high-altitude, cold town didn't help.  The next morning wasn't any better.  I heard the telltale rumblings of my intestines and sulfur air kept forcing its way up my throat, and felt a little desperate knowing the only bathroom was an exposed clearing in the middle of houses and people.  We'd stored our donations, medical supplies and food in the back of the church we were working in, so I lay down on borrowed blankets, trying unsuccessfully to sleep while the rest of the group left to eat lunch in a nearby house where we were staying.

My fitful efforts were interrupted by a tapping on the door, followed by a Quechua woman poking her head in the door.  She came over to me, jabbering away in Quechua.  Through my feverish haze, I grasped for phrases from my Quechua classes.  "Onqosqa kasani," I said, "I'm sick."  The woman continued to insist, asking where our leader was, where the group was, what I was doing.  She informed me that I was sick either because of bile in my kidneys or my gall bladder.  Then she left, following my directions to find the rest of the group.

Not more than 10 minutes later, I heard the same tapping, but a different Quechua woman came in yelling in Quechua, asking if I was sleeping and what I was doing in the church.  By this time I was really feeling nauseous, trying to hold down my food.  I said forcefully, "Onqosqa kasani!" trying to look as sick as I could.  She didn't get the hint and moved closer, fingering items we'd brought, saying "Give me this" or "Give me that" followed by a serious of questions I didn't know the answers to.  I repeated over and over "Mana yachanichu.  Doctor Jorge yachan!", telling her I didn't know and to ask our leader.  Then I turned over and tried to look like I was asleep.  I heard her poking around in boxes and opening things, and almost as soon as she left, I promptly emptied the contents of my stomach on the church floor.

We went to Tomaycuri the next day, going up in altitude what felt like another 1,000 ft. to my sinuses. This time we were sleeping in the small, adobe church, and there was nowhere private for me to lie down and rest.  I tried to brave the activities with the kids, staying for an hour with the group, but faded quickly and headed back to the church to take a quiet, peaceful nap.  No sooner did I reach the church door, when I saw the entire kid population of Tomaycuri marching behind the clown that traveled with our group, headed straight for my napping spot.  The service for kids spilled into the church service that night, which was still going strong at 10pm.

I lay down on top of the luggage, pulled my thin square of a blanket over me, and was lulled to sleep by hymns in Quechua, voices blending and hands clapping.  It was a picturesque, peaceful scene... An adobe church, indigenous believers wrapped in brightly covered weavings.  It was beautiful!

 Except it wasn't.  My head was pounding from pressure in my sinuses and the high altitude of over 13,000 ft.  My deep coughs wracked my body, compounded by the dust and dry air.  Every few minutes, I tried to stem the stream of thick snot running out of my nose with little squares of toilet paper.  A fever was burning me up, making me shiver and sweat at the same time.  Around midnight, things finally settled down enough for me to crawl into my sleeping bag, coughing the whole night until I decided in the wee hours to go home early, unable to last another day without rest and at high altitude.

Tomaycuri

The trip home was almost as miserable, gaining and losing over 5,000ft during the course of a 12 hour period.  One of the roads was under construction, so we were stopped on a dusty mountain pass for almost two hours before they opened the precarious road again.  An hour van ride, a 6 hour bus ride, another van ride for 2 hours, and a 4 hour car ride later, I finally arrived in Cochabamba.  I stood on the edge of a honking, angry traffic jam, looking for a taxi home, trying to remember that God uses all things for His purposes.

Once in bed, I still hadn't come up with an answer for why I'd gone all the way to Potosí to serve, only to be thwarted by an intense sinus infection, fever and food poisoning.  The whole experience seemed like a perfect set-up for a "moral-of-the-story" lesson, but I sure never found one!  Unless I went all the way to Potosí just to learn to listen to my mom when she tells me to stay home and take care of myself...

Laura Ingalls: the Money Lender

As a blond haired, blue-eyed, white girl, I stick out.  My Bolivian boyfriend told me I look like Laura Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie.  Or Heidi.  I think it's just because I wear my hair in pigtails, and unlike the Quechua women at my church whose thick braids cascade down their back, my pigtails don't make me look a bit more indigenous.  Just more pioneer.  Or Swiss?!?

Being a foreigner has so many layers to it.  My blond hair doesn't just make me stick out; it stands for money in most Bolivians' eyes.  Seems like half the time my phone rings or my door bell sounds, it's someone needing a favor.  I like to help people.  I like to use the resources God has blessed me with.  I don't like to ask for lent money back.  I don't like feeling used.  I don't like being lied to.

That's inevitably what sharing my resources leads to.  There's never an end to emergencies, friends who are desperate.  When I first moved into my house, my little neighbor kids frequently came over asking to borrow 5 bolivianos here, 10 bolivianos there with empty promises to pay me back tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow...  It was always something: an empty gas can in the middle of cooking, a sick kid, short on the month's rent.  Finally, I said I couldn't lend any more money until they were able to pay me back what they owed.  It was hard when the littlest ones would show up asking for just a few bolivianos for some important need.  But I held my ground.

 Then, Christmas Eve, they showed up at my door, persistent, asking for 50Bs loan ($7) for Willy, the littlest one, who had badly burned his arm.  His arm was wrapped in bandages.  I felt the need to stick to my principles, repeating that I couldn't lend them money until they were able to pay me back.  But Willy's face haunted me the rest of the day, and I felt sick to my stomach.  It wasn't his fault his mom wasn't responsible, that his family wasted available money on alcohol.  But how could I lend them the money now without setting a precedent that I'd be their health insurance any time there was an emergency?

Willy

We have a fund at church for emergency needs like little Willy.  I talked to the pastor and she agreed we should help, giving me 50Bs from the fund.  The neighbor kids all came to the midnight service Christmas Eve, including little Willy, sporting his bandages.  I handed Mayra (the oldest) the money, telling her we cared about her, and this wasn't a loan, it was a gift from the church to get little Willy better.

 Then last week, my Compassion child's abuela called me, her voice quivering with suppressed tears.  In the last 3 years of sponsoring Fatima, Abuela Julia has never called me.  She told me her husband (a retired policeman) had been coming home drunk much more than usual and had taken to beating Fatima and her 11 year old cousin, Jhonatan.

The abuelo has a history of abuse, having beaten two of his daughters (Fatima's mother and Jhonatan's mother) so badly that both of them are severely mentally disabled and have been in and out of mental hospitals since their teenage years).  This is the first time I was aware of physical abuse towards his grandkids.

Fatima's home

As I tried to process what she was saying, Abuela Julia continued.  "With the rainy season," she said, "the walls of our home have begun to crack and one of the rooms has opened up to the sky.  We were barely able to move everything out."  The muddy hillside their house is built on often causes adobe houses to fall down during the rainy season.  This year it's Fatima's house.

Abuela Julia, Fatima & me

I felt paralyzed, unable to do anything.  We prayed over the phone together, both our voices breaking with tears.  I promised to call Compassion headquarters in Cochabamba and send some money through their Family Gift program, but I couldn't give her money directly, something she desperately needed to remedy the looming threat to Fatima's safety.

I still don't know the answer.  I don't know how to respond to the request for a couple dollars, a small loan, and the unending need for resources.  The world is a broken, needy place. That, I do know.

Trick-or-treating, a baptism, and...Christmas?

This Christmas season started differently than most years.  For one thing, the rainy season that usually brings cooler temperatures and snow to the mountains overlooking Cochabamba has yet to be seen, meaning during the day the intense, high-altitude sun beats down, making 90 degrees feel more like 100.  Two days before Christmas, we went to a mountain stream in 80 degree weather and two young people from church were baptized.  It felt odd to play in the water and have a picnic instead of sing Christmas carols and drink hot cocoa.

A few days before Christmas, I started seeing large groups of young indigenous children going around my neighborhood ringing doorbells.  A friend of mine explained that it's common for poor kids to go to wealthy homes and ask for handouts, hand-me-down toys and even fruitcake.  He said it's kind of like a Christmas trick-or-treat... the wealthy know to expect them and the kids get a few free toys for Christmas.

On Christmas Eve I went over to open presents with my nephew and his mom Brianna, the only real family I have here in Cochabamba.  We put on Christmas music that Collin, my brother, recorded for Matias, skyped my family in the middle of their journey across Colorado to meet up with the rest of my extended family, and Matias opened his presents.  Or more like I opened his presents and he chewed on the wrapping paper.

I think a 9 month old has trouble really understanding the magic of his first Christmas, but I sure felt a little more Christmasy after putting on a Santa hat with him and pulling shiny wrapping paper off his gifts.


Later on Christmas Eve, we had a service at our church, singing Christmas carols, a short message, and then I prepared a special end to the service.  During the whole evening, kids were running around the church, adults were filtering in and out, gathering outside to chat instead of listening to the message or singing.  I felt frustrated; all that work and no one seemed to care.  But by the end of the service, I was able to get everyone to sit down, the kids to be quiet, and we turned the lights off.

I read:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  In him was life, and that life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

I lit my candle. 

The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

I shared my light with my neighbor and the flame bobbed down the pew rows.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.  

Despite all the commotion and lack of interest in the service, we all finished the evening together, singing Silent Night and smiling at each other in the soft glow of our lights.

The church service got over after midnight, which meant lots of sleepy little kids.

Maria- a neighbor kid

Almost all my little neighbor kids came and seemed pretty engaged with the service.  When the pastor asked what Christmas meant, Liz almost lept out of her seat to yell "Presents!"  Deyvi, her brother, corrected her and said, "The birth of Jesus".  I was really grateful they all got a chance to see the real reason we celebrate Christmas.

Advent has been the one glue that held the season together for me.  We celebrated advent the four Sundays before Christmas, and then once more on Christmas Eve.  I used the advent program we used to use growing up as kids, so old that it was originally typed out on a typewriter!  The Scripture, the carols, and the stillness that the services brought were a balm to my soul.

On actual Christmas Day, I baked a pumpkin pie and hiked up the hill to eat Christmas lunch with Humberto and his family.  I arrived sweaty and hot to a Christmas meal of oven-friend pig, potatoes, corn, oca and Sprite, and everyone eating in shorts and t-shirts.  Not exactly turkey, cranberry sauce and stuffing, but it was special nonetheless.

Even though I was a guest, I immediately felt like part of the family.  It was hard to follow the conversation as most of it was in Quechua, but the smiles, laughter, and even the loud complaints of Humberto's toothless grandma were universal.  Despite the lack of Christmas-ness, it's the most at home I've felt in a long time.  It's amazing how much being with a happy family can lift the spirits.

And it's certainly not Christmas until you've made and flown a kite, right?  Humberto and I spent the afternoon fashioning a kite out of a plastic bag, thread and straw.  It flew beautifully when we took it out into his neighborhood, and I felt like a little kid again, running as fast as I could down the dirt road, pulling the string behind me until I felt the wind catch the kite and draw it upwards.

A walk thru Cochabamban markets

*Photos thanks to Ruth Kinney

                           Papayas, bananas, apples, star fruit, watermelon, grapes, pears, plums, raspberries, strawberries, kiwi, pineapple, cherries, chirimoya, pacay, peaches, oranges, grapefruit, mango, mandarin oranges, apricots... 

Fruit vendors sell slices of watermelon, pineapple,

and cactus fruit by the slice.  Yum!

Because of the beautiful range of cheap flowers available year round (Cochabamba is also known as the garden city), I've gotten into the habit of filling my house with them every week.  Lilies and sunflowers, freesia, roses, diablitos (little devils), strawflowers, cala lilies, daffodils...

Items are almost always displayed attractively, the bright colors drawing you in.  From flip-flops to yarn, every display is designed to draw the eye of the buyer in. 

Cheese is salty, crumbly, and there are few kinds of cheese you can get that melt well when heated.  Cheddar cheese is only for the rich at around $7 a pound, and I find that it's one of the top things on the list of foods I miss!  Despite all that, I really enjoy getting cheese that's fresh and made in the valley.

Bolivians love their carbs... pasta, potatoes, chuño (freeze-dried potatoes), rice... But there's also lots of healthy grains here and plenty of quinoa, you guessed it: CHEAP!

With over 2,000 kinds in Bolivia, most Bolivians don't consider food a meal unless it includes potatoes!  There's a saying here that you know you're ready to marry when you can peel potatoes well.  Very few Bolivian dishes include unpeeled potatoes, making potato peeling and essential skill.  Guess I better start practicing!

My average weekly budget for veggies is about $2.  That includes tomatoes (at 60 cents a kilo), broccoli, lettuce (at 10 cents a head), carrots, spinach, cucumber, green beans, etc!  Sure makes it easy to eat a healthy diet, but few Bolivians eat lots of vegetables as a regular part of their diet.

Maybe I missed this important step in the States, although
I have to admit I didn't do a lot of cooking with meat when
I lived on my own, but here in Bolivia you ALWAYS
wash your meat before cooking and eating it.  This picture
probably gives you a good idea why...

Wathia- A How to Manual

For those of you who have always wanted to know how to cook potatoes in the earth, look no further!

dig a hole
For Cochabamba day, I went with Humberto up into the hills above my house to do a watia:earth-baked potatoes.  Humberto's an expert, having grown up making watias with his family, so I assumed the role of observer/photographer.  To start your oven, dig a shallow, rectangular hole in the ground.

 build oven
The key is to collect dirt clumps that are cohesive enough that they will hold together long enough to hold the oven shape and withstand the heat, but that will also crumble relatively easy once beaten with a rock.  Start by making a sturdy door out of three rocks (flat is best).  Gradually build your igloo shaped oven around the hole and door, balancing the rocks against each other.

add firewood

Build a fire inside the oven until there's a good base of coals.  Carefully remove the top few dirt clumps of the oven and toss potatoes through hole onto the coals below.

adding potatoes
Push the remaining dirt clumps inward over the potatoes and smash the dirt clumps carefully with a rock until the dirt is mostly flat (see video below). Let potatoes sit under the heated earth until cooked (20-30 min).  Carefully scrape dirt away from potatoes with a long stick or pick until all the potatoes are uncovered.

For a more genuine experience and taste, brush the dirt off the potatoes (don't wash them) and dip potatoes in llajwa de maní (spicy peanut sauce).  Accompany your potatoes with a salad, traditionally lettuce, tomato, carrot and a little fresh cheese crumbled in, mixed with a vegetable oil and salt dressing.  Enjoy!

Llajwa de Maní

ingredients:

-1 cup raw peanuts (lightly toasted)

-salt

-1 tsp oil

-ground yellow ají (or red cayenne pepper) to taste

*Blend toasted peanuts with 1-1 1/2 cups of water until paste-like and smooth.  Add to a large pot (to avoid splattering and bubbling over) with 2-3 more cups of water.  Add 1/2 tsp salt to start, oil and spice according to preference.  Let cook for at least an hour, adding water if needed.  Final product should be a paste, not too watery to dip potatoes in!