Spanish is like dancing.

Written a long, long time ago.

Learning a langage is like learning to dance. There's a rhythm to language, a tempo, a pace. Fluidity comes with practice. There is structure, there are rules and technicalities, but there are always exceptions. Everyone has their own twist- a different accent, an extra R or a missing S, an added hip roll or fancy arm placement. In learning a language, you get used to your partner, listening to their words and picking up on their nuances. In dancing, you listen to your partner's body and learn to follow their subtle movements. It's easier to speak with some people than it is with others. Some dance partners will make it feel easy; chemistry is natural. Others take more time, or it's just not there at all. I find few things are more rewarding than busting a move on the dance floor with a partner that's right there in the groove with me. Walking away from a successful conversation in my second language brings the same sense of accomplishment.

I hope I can keep up this tempo in the States,
K

Traveling with Soul

Written Thursday, July 21

I imagine when I go home that I might have to describe my trip to family and friends. In all honesty, I could probably pick a word, any word, and describe part of this six-week adventure with it. eye-opening. exhausting. exhilirating. embarrassing. tearful. challenging. crappy. wicked. wonderous. wild. prayerful. peaceful. More often than not, I imagine I'll just end up saying, "It was good."

How do you describe something life-changing? How do you use words to describe things that can only be felt, and seen? How do you describe a soul? This trip has a soul. It's been dwelling within me for years. It was given life by stories of friends that studied abroad in college, by friends that speak Spanish, by Mad Hot Tap-dancing Spanish-speaking fourth graders, by the students at International High School in Paterson, NJ and their cacophany of Spanglish in the hallways, by the one Spanish teacher who wouldn't let me sit in on her class and told me I wouldn't be much help anyway, by the Salseros in Milwaukee that make me want to sing along to every salsa song, by my bi-lingual brother, by mis companeros, by Wesley and Jonathan, by my professors, by Dr. Haley's encouragement, by the Spanish textbooks that have collecting dust on my shelf. And by countless interactions and memorable moments in Cochabamba.

In Quechuan, there is no equivalent translation for, "Como estas" or "How are you," in the way we ask in English and in Spanish. The Quechuan greeting translates to something like, "How is your soul? Tell me, really." I hope that I get to talk about the soul of my trip.

Love and painful transitions,
K


PS I'm sitting in a coffee shop in Dekalb as I'm posting this and woman next to me is speaking Spanish to a man she called, "professor," and I corrected her in my head after she spoke and then the professor corrected her saying the same thing I said in my head!! EEkk!! I know some Spanish!!)

Peacin' Out

I knew this was coming. Two weeks ago, one of the students mentioned that everyone was going to have to give a 'despedidia,' or farewell speech, in front of everyone at the Institute, and that we would have a week to work on it with one of our professors. On Monday, when the schedule for despedidas was posted, I found out mine was on TUESDAY MORNING. I had a minor freak-out, and then started thinking about ways that I could get out of it. As always, I found my answer in dancing.
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I decided, since I don't like public speaking, that I was going to tap dance my despidada, and Jonathan was going to translate for me. It went something like this:
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Me: Flap step ball change heel brush step, etc.
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Translation (spoken by Jonathan): Yo prefiero bailar frente a grandes grupos de personas mas que hablar, por eso, Jonathan va a traducir para mi.
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Me: Scuff heel step, waltz clog, etc.
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Translation: Quiero comenzar agradeciendo a todos en el Instituto por darnos la bienvenida con tanto carino, y hacer de este un lugar comodo, no solo para estudiar, sino tambien para crear companerismo.
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Me: Cramp roll, heel dig, stomp, etc.
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Translation: Quiero ampliar un especial sincero agradecimiento a mis profesores. Por su capacidad, y su pacienca sin limites. Por ayudarme como una estudiante y como una person. Por compartir su idioma, su cultura, y sus vidas conmigo, y permitirme compartir mi vida con ustedes.
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Me: Traveling time step.
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Translation: Cuando yo regreso a los estados, voy a continuar estudiano y seguir trabajando con estudiantes Latinos. En este modo, ustedes seguiran siendo una parte de mi vida, y para siempre en mi corazon.
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Me: Step brush hop step brush hop step step (x2), step brush heel step brush heel step step, heel brush step heel dig (x2), periddiddle (x4), over-the-top.
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Translation: Muchisimas gracias.
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And in English...
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I prefer to dance in front of large groups of people rather than talk, so Jonathan is going to translate for me.
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I would like to begin by thanking everyone at the institutue for welcoming us so warmly and making this a comfortable place not only to study but also to gather in fellowship.
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I want to extend an especially heartfelt "thank you" to my professors. For your expertise and your endless patience; for caring about me as a student and as a person. For sharing your language, your culture, and your lives with me, and allowing me to share my life with you.
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When I return to the states, I will continue to study Spanish and continue to work with Latino students. In this way, you will all continue to be a part of my life, and will forever be in my heart.
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A million thanks.
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And so went my despedidia. It went over very well. I'm trying to be humble about it, but I think it was pretty baller.
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Love and shuffles,
K

The Amazing Race

Sometimes in life, I pretend I'm on the reality TV show, "The Amazing Race." In the latest episode, our tasks were to: participate in an Andean ritual, ask for directions on the street to a burger joint, break a wine glass in a hippie hangout, find your professor in a wild street fiesta and join her for a drink, and dance with the locals and have you picture taken on the dance floor. Mission accomplished. On Friday after classes, everyone from the Institute was invited to participate in an Andean ritual, meant to bring harmony to the cosmos. In Andean culture, more specifically according to the Aymarans, there are three "worlds" - humanity, nature, and spirits. We are all connected, and no group is better or has superiority over another. What affects humanity affects nature and vice versa. The ceremony consisted of a number of sacrifical offerings, including candy, llama wool, small objects representing health, relationships, education, the Institute, etc., flowers, and a real llama fetus. Calixto, the Andean priest that conducted the ritual, used elements of Catholicism and at one point invited us to pray in whatever language we wanted. I found it interesting that Calixto is both an Andean priest and a Deacon in the Catholic church, and that he is able to reconcile what seems to me to be contradicting beliefs. When asked if Andeans are monotheists or polytheists, he said he could not answer that because it's a different worldview. Andeans are neither mono or polytheists; God is one, but God is also many, in everything. I'm still trying to wrap my head around that. The most difficult part of the ceremony was watching the burning of the llama fetus, and I don't think I need to explain why. I think the main idea of the ritual- to recognize and reconcile the relationship between humanity and nature- is pretty awesome, and I admire how much respect the indigenous culture has for naturaleza. Afterward, I was "interviewed" for a Maryknoll promotional video, which I think you'll be able to find on Facebook eventually.
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After wandering around and asking some locals for directions (my New York style approach scared the poor girl to death), we found the popular burger restaurant we had been craving all day. Having to ask for directions on the street was one of those little victories....I was happily surprised that the women we asked actually understood what I said, and I rejoiced even more over the fact that I could understand what they said. It was defintitely a GCD. On top of that, I had my exit interview on Friday afternoon in Spanish. The Institute will use my recorded session to determine what level of Spanish I am in, and compare it to my entrance interview from five weeks ago. After the interview, the professor, whom I had never met before, asked me how long I had been studying Spanish, and that surely I was practicing regularly in my job before coming to the Institute. This is not the case, so I took that as a compliment to my speaking ability. I should get my final results next week.
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After a good burger, we stumbled upon a small pub full of hippies, to my delight. I'm pretty sure we got charged for breaking a wine glass (it was accidental, and only because the conversation was so exciting), and I finally learned the word for "napkin." There's something about napkins and toilet paper in this country. They treat them like gold and seem to ration them in restaurants and other public places. Beatriz does this at home, too; there are never any extra rolls of tp around, and I always have to ask for a napkin. I wish I knew what this was about. I've learned to always keep a few spare squares in my pocket, just in case.
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After the hippie hangout, we discovered a crowded street festival, full of street food, carnival rides, cookie vendors, and a live band. It was right outside of the Carmelite convent, and the Carmelite church was open for the faithful to pray. I'm led to believe that the church is not open to the public very often, and when Jonathan saw that the doors were open, he lit up like a kid seeing a candy shop for the first time in his life. As well he should have; the church was absolutely beautiful on the inside, and adorned with archway after archway of flowers, welcoming waves of the faithful. It's unclear whether the fiesta was celebrating Saint Carmen, or the founding of La Paz, or both. Making our way through the crowds, one of the professors from the Institute spotted us and bought us a hot, milky alocoholic drink topped with cinnamon called pancha. It was delicious. And with the number of cookie vendors at the festival, we had to buy some, even though it's never advisiable to buy food off the street. Meh, I'm building immunities.
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Here's why I love dancing (Part II!). While munching on our cookies, a band struck up in the middle of the fiesta, and about a dozen people started dancing, with scores of on-lookers around. It took me a few minutes to work up the courage to get out on the dance floor, but we eventually did. We were dancing sort of on outskirts of the dance area, until a woman sort of waved us over to where she was and motioned that we needed to join the line. I hadn't noticed that everyone was dancing in pairs in a straight line. (Jonathan later joked that it was about the only thing in which we have seen Bolivians be organized.) The woman kept talking to us about how to dance and she was acting a little loca. We were just happy to be joining in the fiesta. I can only imagine what on-lookers were thinking about the two comparitively tall rubias dancing among all of the locals. After the song was over, the loca woman came over to us, poured us each a cup of beer, and wanted to take her picture with us. Two other men came over and wanted their picture taken with Jonathan. We're probably floating all over the interenet by now, or at least a topic of conversation at someone's dinner table. The two gentleman chatted with us for a while; it was so great to strike up a conversation with some Cochabambinos, even if the situation was a little weird. So we got a free drink, met a loca mujer, chatted with some cool dudes, and felt famous for half a second when we posed for photos. All because we started dancing.
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Dancing moves people, figuratively and literally. It's an outward expression of emotions that can't be spoken in words. Little kids that can't yet speak spontaneously bop about all the time when music starts playing. Dancing brings friends together. It brings strangers together. It brings communities together in joyful and sorrowful occasions. It makes people smile. Our bodies have a natural rhythm; I'm convinced we are meant to dance. And I'm so glad I took the risk and danced in the middle of this crazy fiesta. It was the perfect way to end the night, and the perfect way to kick off my last week in Cochabamba.
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Love and empanadas!! (I'm going to learn how to make them!),
K
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Whirwhind Weekend

Written Monday, July 11th
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When you live in the country with the "highest navigable lake in the world," that surrounds the island where the Incans think the world began, and you can make a weekend trip happen for under $150, you have to go.
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On Friday, I joined thirteen other students from the Institute for a weekend adventure to La Paz and Copacabana- the original Copacabana, not the beach in Brazil. We kicked off our mini-vacation with a short 35 minute flight to La Paz, home of the highest aiport in the world, and home of Hotel Espana, the most quaint (in a 1920s kind of way) and rustic (in a, "we dont have heat even though it's 30 outside" kind of way) hotel I have ever been in. It brought me back to a Grusenski family vacation when we stayed somewhere in California on the second floor of an old saloon, where the three Grusenski girls slept in one full-sized bed, and the communal bathroom was down the hallway. Except it wasn't California, and I was freezing. The thought of taking off a layer of clothing made me shudder, so I ended up wearing all of the clothes I packed for the weekend to bed, including my jacket.
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Other than the cold, I liked the little I got to see of LaPaz. El Prado, the "Times Square" of the city, was decorated with green and red lights, the city's colors, in anticipation of the upcoming annual festival that celebrates the founding of the Bolivia's capital. Large groups of men and women were practicing different dances in the crowded streets. The city seemed more cosmopolitan that Cbba, and had less of a visible indigenous presence.
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Saturday we had a 6am wake-up call for our 3-hour van ride to Copacobana. It was incredible to see a different side of Bolivia outside of a city. The main road leading out of LaPaz was lined with brick buildings that seemed to be either tiny functioning tiendas or abandoned buildings, with nothing behind them but mountains. This seemed to go on for miles and miles. In places, you could see small clusters of adobe homes- communites, far removed the city and any amentities. Beyond these tiny pueblos were only snow-covered mountains.
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My favorite part of the trip to Copacobana was El Estrecho. During our van ride, we (and many other buses, vans and cars) had to cross Lake Titicaca at a narrow point to get to Copabocana. If we didn't cross the lake here, we would have to go all the way around, which, I can only guess would have added hours and hours to the trip. So we stopped at El Estrecho and I traded one Boliviano for three squares of toilet paper in the public bano, and another Boliviano to pile into a small boat with a few dozen other passengers. Our vehicles were loaded onto very small, flat boats or barge-type things. One student described the vehicles as bobbing on a wine cork across the lake, which is an accurate visual. Apparently in the past, they allowed passengers to stay in their vehicles and bob across the lake within them, until either something terrible happened, or someone decided it was a bad idea. The group, and our vans, made it safely across the Lake.
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We arrived in Copacobana mid-morning and made our way to a privately-chartered "boat" that would take us to Isla del Sol, or Island of the Sun, about two and a half hours from Copacobana. While all of my companeros enjoyed the views from the top deck, I decided to spend some time tap dancing with Iron and Wine in the "main cabin" during our ride.
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The Incans believed that Isla del Sol was where the earth began, and I don't think I've ever been to a place where it was so easy to appreciate Pachamama, or Mother Earth. After walking through a tiny pueblo, complete with mules and wild pigs strolling around, we took a 45-minute hike to Incan ruins on the south of the island, through commnities of a few homes and a few sheep. The views were spectacular, unlike anything I've ever seen. It's no wonder the Incans had such a profound respect the earth. And there we were, 17,000 feet above sea level, with the ruins practically to ourselves, surrounded by a massive lake which could have been an ocean, standing on thousands of years of history, and I kept thinking, "WHAT am I doing here?!" Who am I to deserve this experience, to be standing on top of the world, soaking in the sun, soaking in God's glory. So I danced, of course, because that's what I do when I'm happy and sad and everything else. And then Jonathan and I ran around like kids in a playground, except I was very aware that my playground was and still is part of ancient history. My only regret is that we didn't have more time to spend on top of the Island. Writing this now from Cbba, I feel so far away from Isla del Sol, maybe because it was so peaceful, so untouched, and so isolated from the rest of the world. I wish my soul felt that way more often-peaceful, isolated from the craziness of the world, but grateful for everything surrounding me. Those feelings come easy these days, but I know it will be more of a challenge in two weeks when I return home.
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Back in Copacobana, we settled in to our five dollar per night hotel (including a free endless supply of tea, bananas and oranges, a complimentary breakfast, and a no water in the shower!), before heading out to find a place to for dinner. With all the restaurants in town, I think we picked the worst one. It was a total disaster. I ordered the local specialty, trucha, or trout, which was good but not filling. The rest of the group was unhappy with their meals and the service and it was just an awkward experience altogether. Less than an hour later, we were in an Italian place down the street ordering pesto fettucine. I ended the night huddled under several blankets, sharing a bottle of wine ("Tienes una cosa para abrir esta?") and watching movies with Spanish subtitles. Just my speed :) So it all worked out in the end.
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On Sunday, I attended mass at the Basilica of the Virgen of Copacabana. It turns out that the famous Copacabana in Brazil was named after the Virgen of Copacabana in Bolivia, after a chapel was built there in the 18th century. Devotion to the Virgen is incredibly strong in Copacabana, in Bolivia, and throughout Latin America. One of my professors explained that in indigenous culture, the concept of duality is immensely important. For example, a man cannot exist as a contributing member of the community without a woman, and vice versa. (Evo Morales, the President, is "La Gran Contradiccion," because he is not married; He says the pueblo is his "other half"). So it makes sense that in Bolivia, where seventy percent of the population is indigenous, the Blessed Mother is so important, because God, as male, absolutley cannot exist alone or separate from Mary. At least that's my understanding from class.
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After the mass, in which the entire congregation applauded the Virgen Mother, we witnessed another interesting local ritual. Dozens of cars line the streets in front of the Basilica every Sunday for a special blessing. The faithful can purchase firecrackers, strings and bouquets of flowers, bows, and plastic hats from local vendors to decorate and attach to their cars. Dominican friars carried buckets of holy water to each car, sprinkling it on the heads of the drivers and their families, on the tires, under the hoods; some Bolivians even sprayed their cars with champagne and beer. In my opinion, this could stand as a testament to how crazy the driving is in this country, where red lights are simply suggestions.
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That afternoon, we ate lunch as a group in a rather swanky restaurant, and I tackled my first whole fish. Other than the eyeball staring at me while I ate, it was a great meal, and the perfect way to end a fabulous weekend in hippie-vibin' Copacobana. There were lots of little shops and cafes and restaurants, lots of backpackers, and lots of dreadlocks. Needless to say, I could have hung out there for several days drinking tea, eating trout, and meeting travelers. I'm looking forward to going back someday.
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Love and Romans 12:12,
K

Me le presento...

Written Friday, July 8th

Four weeks down, two weeks to go. PHEW! I think I've made some pretty good progess in the last 14 days. Allow me to introduce you to the team of experts that has been helping me along the way.

Judith.
Judith gets me out of bed in the morning with her rolling Rs. I've never heard anyone roll their Rs so beautifully and with such a contrast of force and grace; she inspires me. In fact, last Friday, for the first time in my life, I rolled an R. I have witnesses. It was great. Judith helps me with my pronunciation and rhythm. We read the Gospel together.

Teresita.
Teresa knows her stuff. She also knows when I DON'T know my stuff, and challenges me in my areas of weakness. I pretend to be upset about this in class, but she knows I'm just joking, and I know that it's good for me. She uses lots of words that I don't understand, and while this is sometimes frustrating, I'm also learning the most vocabulary from her.

Viviana.
I have Viviana for my last class of the day, and together we laugh our way through grammar exercises. Today she asked me if I had a novio, and when I responded, "It's complicated," she said in Spanish, "I'm a love doctor. Tell me everything." So I made up stories about my complicated boyfriend to practice my indirect object pronouns. He never buys me flowers on Valentine's Day. (No me las compra.) Que triste.

Mario.
Mario is my culture class professor. Every week we have a culture-related lecture, and the class prepares us for the topic. Mario grew up in an indigenous community, and was the professor that led the group of students up the mountain to celebrate the Andean New Year. His stories about being raised in el campo are pretty incredible, and his philosophies about community provide a stark contrast to the individualism and materialism that pervade the culture of the United States. He is born to be an educator, and he brings a ton of energy and enthusiasm to the classroom. If I had to pick a favorite of the eight professors I've had so far, he would be it.

Getting to know these four professors has been the best part of the last two weeks. Monday brings a new week, and four different professors, and they're going to have a hard time topping the experiences I have had with this stellar team.

Love and conjugations,
K

That's what I said, but not what I meant.

So here's something that happens a lot- I say something, but I don't really mean it. And it happens all the time with language-learners. Students at the Institute love to swap stories about things that they have said, but didn't really mean. For instance, embarazada could seem like a cognate for embarrassed, but it actually means pregnant. Arboles penes does not mean pine trees, as one student learned this week (this has become a running joke among most of the professors). Instead of telling Beatriz that I eat a hamburger and lots of desserts on the Fourth of July (Un hamburgesa y dulces y dulces y dulces), I just told her that I eat dozens and dozens of hamburgers (Un hamburgesa y doce y doce y doce). I also told her this morning that the fish I ate was like salmon, which sounds just like the Spanish word for semen. She got a kick out of that and told me to check my dictionary. And my favorite blooper so far was ordering a coffee and with "crema" on the side. I thought I was ordering cream for my coffee, but instead, I was ordering a plate of whipped cream. Of course I ate it. It was glorious.

Love and inappropriate cognates,
K

Cravings.

Written Wednesday, July 6th

Raw vegetables. Blueberries. Cesar salad. Hummus. Craisins. Feta cheese crumbles. Mac n cheese. Frozen zebra cakes. Mmm...

Why I Love to Dance, Part I

Written Sunday, July 3, 11pm

Here in Bolivia, as life goes everywhere else, I have good days and bad days. Today was both.

There were two main reasons why it was a bad day. For one, it was a BCD, or a "Bad Communication Day." They happen from time to time for me, and I think, for everyone in an immersion situation like this. I think BCDs are common when you're sick, tired, or just not feeling with it. You're brain is overwhelmed and circuits just aren't firing right. In contrast to GCDs (Good Communication Days), I typically end the day feeling like I learned nothing, or even went backwards. Sometimes, a GCD can actually turn out to be a BCD, which is what I learned today.

The root of my current BCD actually goes back three weeks when Beatriz was trying to tell me about how the whole clothes-washing situation works. She showed me this little basket next to my bed and motioned that I should put my clothes in there. Now, I didn't ever expect her to actually wash them, I just figured that was my personal "hamper" and that I would get to the clothes when I needed to get to them, and she would show me how to do that when I asked. So imagine my surprise when two Mondays ago I came home from class and all of my clothes from the basket-all of them- are strung out on the line off the kitchen. And then it happened again, the following Monday. So I'm thinking, that was a GCD- put the clothes in the hamper, and they get washed.

(I just want to preface this part of the story with the fact that I always offer to do the dishes. Like, every day. And Beatriz lets me wash them about 10% of the time, which is uncomfortable, but I'll take what I can get.) So today, while B. is washing the dishes after lunch, I handed her my little glass jar that I use for water in my bedroom, and asked her if she would wash it for me. Then she turns to me and says, in Spanish, "This is not a hotel, this is your house!" Woah, woah, woah. BCD ALERT! Something bad is about to happen. So we have a conversation about washing things, and I'm not sure what all was said, but I'm committed to trying to wash every single dish that I can for the next three weeks. Because I do live here, and whether B. knows it or not, I'd actually rather wash the dishes than not wash them, and I'm not sure what sort of impression she has of me for having to tell me that this is not a hotel, but I know it can't be a good one.

And then she lays it on me. It's the underwear. She starts talking about washing my underwear. I'm a little upset, and a lot embarrassed, and clearly having a BCD but trying to turn it into a GCD because I'm afraid if I don't, I'm going to misunderstand her and something worse is going to happen. She's talking about how she washed my underwear, and clearly this is not typical. I know for sure that she hasn't done this for students in the past because she said when she washed my intimates, she just, "Offered it as a sacrifice to God." WHAT?! Did I really hear her say that? Yes, the experience was so awful, that she simply took it on as a sacrifice to the Lord. I'm laughing hysterically as I'm writing about this now, but this afternoon, I literally hung my head and covered my face with my hands, I was so embarrassed. After apologizing profusely for putting my underwear in the hamper, and in an effort to make this a GCD, or at least a GC-moment, I asked her why she had not told me this before, and she said that I was young, I probably didn't know any better, and my mom never taught me about these things. And then she repeated the bit about it being a sacrifice to God. I apologized for another five minutes, and then quickly scuttled off to my room to take all of my underwear out of the hamper.

The second main reason I had a bad day was at the giant 100-year anniversary of Maryknoll party at the Institute. It was an enormous gathering of a few hundred people. When I got there, I was feeling very illiterate, surrounded by all these advanced students, Lay Missioners, professors, and native Bolivianos. If you know me, you know that at times I love to work a crowd. It's part of being a WOO; it's part of who I am. I love meeting people. But I couldn't BE ME in the way that I wanted to be at this party. I couldn't just nuzzle up to a group of people and join in on their conversation. I felt defeated. So that was what I had a bad day, part two.

But then, the band struck up. And it wouldn't be a Bolivian party without dancing. It began with a performance of an indigenous dance called, "Tinku," which is modeled after an ancient ritual in which two people would dance/battle until one of them died, and their blood was used as a sacrifice and fertilize the earth. This actual practice is now illegal, but the dance seems to be very widely known and practiced. The dancing quartet of two men and two women was phenomenal. The Institute offers dance classes every Wednesday, and we actually learned a bit of Tinku last week, so it was fun to show off our steps. There were two other dances. One made very little sense and was crazy-all-over-the-place, like everything in Bolivia (including Communion, which is always a free-for-all during mass). It reminded of that scene in my Big Fat Greek Wedding when they're going in a circle doing that traditional Greek dance. Except there where circles inside of circles, crossing other circles, running around outside of the tent, lines and lines of people just being whipped around the whole place- it was absolutley exhausting. The third dance actually seemed to have rhythm and rhyme to it, and it's called la Cueca. The gentlemen line up on one side, and the ladies on the other, and everyone is holding a panuelo- a napkin or a scarf. There's some foot-stomping, some twirling, some guiding of the ladies around in a circle...it was pleasant to watch. Especially to watch other students who claim they either don't like to or don't know how to dance :) "Everything in the universe had rhythm. Everything dances".

A little bit of dancing always seems to negate any frustration I'm having from a BCD, so overall, I would definitely say it was a good day.

Dancing the amoebas right out of my system,
K

Happy Brithday, Maryknoll.

Written Wednesday, June 29

Today marks the 100th Anniversary of the foundation of Maryknoll. I feel blessed to be a student at the Institute during such a commemorative occasion. We celebrated 100 years of service with cake and congratulations, and this weekend will be a special mass with the Archbishop, followed by a fiesta! I'm all for fiestas. I hope there's dancing.

I talked to a lot of people about my trip before coming to cbba (that's Cochabamba's abbreviation for itself, I think). I got some mixed reactions- some positive, a few negative, and lots and lots of, "Why Bolivia?!?" Why would I want to learn Spanish in the poorest country in South America? Why woud I go to a place with a deep history of political unrest, a controversial president, and a drug problem? The answer is Maryknoll's Language Institute.

The Institute was founded in 1965 with a unique mission: to teach Spanish, Aymara and Quechua, and to do it in a sociocultural context, for missionaries to work with the poor in the LatinAmerica. It evolved over the years with changing times and opened its doors to laypeople, like myself, who have the intent of working with Spanish-speaking populations in other parts of the world.

As I learned about Maryknoll this week, I've come to love and respect the Mission. I like their definition of a missionary, "One who is destined to go to a place where they're not wanted, but needed, and where they are destined to stay until they are not needed, but wanted" (Sort of sounds like being a Hall Director). The point is for missionaries to go and empower communities to establish their own churches, inspire local leaders to promote good,learn to speak for themselves and know their rights, and then leave to another place and do it all over again. (It smells a little Freirian to me! I'm lovin' it!). And you have to give credit to a religious organization that is willing to "roll with it" and change its style of mission based on the needs of the populations with whom it seeks to lift up, as Maryknoll has done over the past 100 years. For example, in Cochabamba, the focus changed from rural campos to the city, and the Institute opened its doors to the laity.

I love it here, I love that I came here for Maryknoll, and I'm so grateful to be here to celebrate her (yup, I'm making the mission feminine, although in Spanish, she's actually masculine, but this is my blog, so whatever...), yes, her birthday. I'm also grateful for the exposure to the Mission, and for the deepened respect I have for Katie Coldwell, my former college roommate and a current Maryknoll Lay Missionary in Brazil, dedicating at least three years to living and working among "los mas pobres de los pobres," the poorest of the poor. Maryknoll has accomplished a lot in 100 years, and I will forever be inspired by the work that She does.

Love and fiestas,
K

Beatriz.

Beatriz is a lovely woman. Every day, she wakes up at dawn to have my breakfast waiting at the table. It's always something different; I never know what I'm going to have. Her lunches are delicious, and usually include lots of vegatables, which I greatly appreciate. She accompanies me while I eat dinner, and patiently corrects my Spanish. She tells me about her younger days, when she used to go out dancing. She changes my sheets and washes my clothes every Monday, and hangs my intimates on the line in the room off the kitchen. She brought me tea in bed when I was sick, and didn't get too upset when she had to call the plumber to fix my toilet (apparently I was pressing the button too hard). She fed me marshmallows when my hands were busy washing the dishes. She asks how I'm doing, how my classes are going, what my weekend plans are, and she also respects my privacy. She calls ants "uncles," beause she can't remember the english word for them. When I told her I refer to her as my Cochabamba "mom," she reminded me that I only have two mothers, the one who gave birth to me, and the Virgin. She sings when she cooks. Lovely.

And these were all the things I was trying to remember about Beatriz when I thought I had Amoebas, the most common parasite contracted in cbba, which brought along horrendous stomach cramps, a fever, chills, nausea, and of course, diarrhea. I tried to remember all of these things about Beatriz when she told me the redness in my stool was probably just from the beet salad we ate two days ago. And that I couldn't possibly have a fever if my hands felt cold. And that the diarrhea was because I had two cups of coffee that day. Right.

When I finally felt good enough to pull myself out of bed in the 22nd hour of my illness, I walked over to the lab, received my analysis, and was grateful to find out that I actually had several parasites festering in my instestines, that it wasn't just beet salad, cold hands, and coffee. 24 hours after my first antibiotic, I'm feeling much better. And I still think Beatriz is lovely, even if she doesn't always know best.

Love and snow on the mountains,
K

Poco a poco

Some days, I don't feel like I've learned anything. It's difficult to measure my progress. Every day after three classes of conversation and a grammar review, it's hard to tell if I've actually picked up on anything new. Last Thursday was a rough day for my psyche, but I'm learning to having faith in the process. This Institute wouldn't be here if they weren't doing something right, so I trust that poco a poco, little by little, my brain is capturing new bits of Spanish here and there.

I did have several little victories this weekend that made me feel better after a rough week. Successfully navigating through La Concha with Jonathan (more on that expereince later), ordering a coffee, translating newspaper headlines without my dictionary, asking several book sellers if they carry tiny dictionaries, and asking a vendor if I could try on a sweater by literally saying, "Can I wear that for a minute?" He took a moment to catch on, but eventually understood what I was saying, and now I'll never forget the verb I need to use that means "to try on."

And out I go...

An interesting part of living with Beatriz is that I am forced to go out on the weekends. I don't mean that she's pushing me out the door, although I have the feeling that she would if I was staying in. Whenever I talk about my weekend plans, she always says, "Good! You're young! Go dancing! Go out with your friends! Go have a good time!" I would prefer to stay in, have a glass of wine, and invite some friends over for a rousing game of Yahtzee or charades. That's just not an option here, so out I go. Two nights ago we ventured into the bowling alley. I tried to look up bowling vocabulary to make it an educational event, but the only word I could be sure was the correct translation was "pavo" for "turkey," and I didn't even get to use it. Last night we crossed off number 44 on Lonely Planet's top 70 places to see in Cochabamba, at Lujo's Discoteca and Karaoke Bar. Brother Wes loves himself some karoke. And I guess it's growing on me too, especially when Meatloaf and $2 Tequila Sunrises are involved.

Love in the key of G,
K

A Dominican, A Jesuit, and Me.

Written on Thursday, June 23, 12am

What better way to lose your Karoke virginity than to Michael Jackson's, "The Way You Make Me Feel." In all honesty, I'm not feeling very well and I don't think I've fully recovered from worshipping the porcelan goddess all night on Sunday. I'm glad I went out with Wes and Jonathan, though. Judging from our first interaction at the La Paz airport almost two weeks ago, I didn't think we would ever hang out in Cochabamba, but it turns out they're my favorite people here. We always laugh hard, sometimes space out, and often interrupt each other. And that's how we roll-a Dominican, a Jesuit, and me.

Love and a live band out my window singing my favorite salsa song,
K

Happy New Year!

Written Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Every year in Aymaran culture, the winter solstice marks a celebration of the Sun, and the days becoming longer and longer. This morning at sunrise, I stood on the top of a mountain surrounded by Bolivianos of Incan descent, with our palms outstretched, greeting the first rays of light as they poured over a distant mountain and chanting, "quallalla, Vive Bolivia!" The experience was moving and incredibly beautiful. And then two llamas were slaughtered right in front of me. That experience moved me in different ways than the sunrise.

The night before, a brave group of 13 students from the Institute hopped on board a bus for an hour ride to Sipe Sipe , a "suburb" of Cochabamba. Like most bus rides in Latin America, it was bumpy and at one point we even pulled over because we thought we maybe hit an animal, or worse, but it was just a piece of the bus that fell off. No big deal. When we arrived in Sipe Sipe, we witnessed a local group performing an ancient Incan dance, and at midnight, we left the town square and started our three-hour trek into the mountains. Before we departed, our guide, Mario, a Boliviano of Quechuan descent, said a traditional Quechuan prayer and doled out handfuls of cocoa leaves for us to chew along the way. These are the same cocoa leaves that are manufactured as tea, as a herbal remedy for various ailments, and processed to make coacine.

This was my first really arduous hike, and it was definitely one to remember. The three hours seemed to go pretty quickly, although at times I felt like we climbed for 10 minutes, and rested for twenty. It was dark, and steep, and I was sweaty and out of breath and loving every minute of it. Amazingly, there was a stone path of pseudo-steps most of the way up the mountain, put in place hundreds of years ago by Native Americans. Don't let that fool you- although it helped, it didn't make the climb any less steep.
We arrived at the top of the mountain at 3am, tired but unscathed. The group settled in for a few hours of singing with local Cochabambinos and some drinking. I tried to nestle next to our fire and catch a few minutes of sleep, but with a few hundred people on the mountaintop, dozens of fires, and lots of celebratory drinking, falling asleep in the dirt was a little difficult.

Around 6am, we gathered up our things and headed to a specific location to welcome the sun, and witness the sacrifical llamas. The area with the llamas was gated off. I get the impression Mario, our guide, is a sweet-talker. He was chatting it up with different locals all the way along our hike and throughout the night. He got all 13 of us into the fenced-off area. He could have told the police we were all missionaries, for all I know. In any case, I was front and center with the camera crews, and four feet from the llamas. The llamas were being fed cocoa leaves, and a woman was taking handfuls and brushing leaves through their hair. They were tranquil, but they looked worried. After sunrise, a group of four or five people (it was hard to tell with all the commotion) seemed to tackle the llamas to the ground, slit their throats, and then proceed to fully decapitate them. I was expecting this. What I was not expecting, however, were bowls and bowls of blood, captured from arteries spewing from neck, to be thrown up into the and to land on the crowd of cameramen, police, and me.

Digestive rumblings

Written on Monday, June 20 at 2:30pm

So it's been about 14 hours, and I think my digestive tract rebellion is slowly calming down. It's been a violent battle, keeping me up through the night and keeping me from attending classes this morning, and I think it might be over. Or not.

I should have seen it coming. I had several restaurant meals this weekend and my body was absolutley exhausted from walking all over the city in the sun. Literally, I've never felt the sensations that I did last night before I went to bed. I had an incredibly uncomfortable sensitivity to touch that I can't really explain. And then at midnight, the rumblings began.

I know I should expect to contract some form of amoeba; last year, giardia and e coli seemed to top the list for some students. But I've also been told I need to wait a whole three days to be sure it's actually something substantial before heading to the lab with a sample (as one student, Scott, a seminarian from Albany said, "you'll be squeezing your cheeks the whole way to the lab"). But three days?! Fourteen hours has been more than enough to make me feel pretty miserable about life. I know I've always been a total wimp when it comes to getting sick, but you have to admit it's pretty awful when you're restricted to staying within a 100-foot radius of a toilet, and you're not sure what end it's going to come out of when you get there.

To top it off, tomorrow is a national holiday, the Andean New Year. Tonight at 8pm, Mario, a professor from the Institute is bringing a group of students on an overnight hike into the mountains to partcipate in the indigenous tradition of sacrificing a llama and welcoming the sun with outstreched arms at sunrise. I've been looking forward to this for days. In fact, I'm the one who suggested this excursion to Hermana Cathy, who coordinated it with Mario. I think I need to suck it up and take advantage of this opportunity. I might not be able to forgive myself if I didn't go.

This is the first time I'm really missing home. Clean water, a long hot shower, friends I can call to come over to sit with me in my misery, a television, and some tomato soup from Panera...mmm! I need to stop thinking about it, because that's not my reality right now. Instead, I'm going to try to head out to the pharmacy to buy some altitude pills for this overnight hike and brace myself for this adventure.

Love, patience, and faith,
K

Being comfortable with being uncomfortable.

I was given a lot of advice before I left the states: write everything in your blog, be safe, carry your things close to you and walk like you know where you're going, don't drink the water, buy some mace, go to lake Titicaca. But my sister, Suzanne, gave me the best advice, perhaps something that she learned while living abroad this past semester: You're going to be uncomfortable- don't let that stop you.

Those words resonate with me every day. I am uncomfortable every day, but I know that I need to take risks in order to grow. I need to just go for it, be willing to make mistakes, order that frozen yogurt using words instead of only gestures, ask the guys in the gas truck if I can take their photo, join the porteros in volleyball even though it's going to be embarrassing. It's uncomfortable, yeah, but sometimes the biggest rewards come from taking the biggest risks. The frozen yogurt was delicious, the guy in the gas truck actually posed for me...and I'm still too embarrassed of my volleyball skills to join the locals, but next week, I think I'll take the risk :)

Love and Bolivian abrazos,
K

Toilet paper, taxis, and talking with strangers

Here are some things I'm still getting used to:

A dangerous commute- If I don't look both ways (three times) before crossing the street (even one-way streets), I will surely die.

Studying Spanish all day, every day- It's not like I have a day (or a week, as in grad school) to finish my homework. Taking a break from studying or procrastinating until tomorrow is not really an option.

The taxis- Were there eight other people in that small car with me? Is that taxi driver just a regular guy that put a neon sticker in his window that says "Taxi" ? And did it really only cost me 15 cents??
Putting my toilet paper in the garbage can- Apparently, the plumbing can take my crap, but it can't handle my paper. You don't want to know how many times I've had to fish my TP out of the crapper already, and it's only been six days.

Humanist Heaven- Dr. Haley would applaud the pedagogy here. When I got to one of my grammar classes today, my profesora asked me what I wanted to work on. I thought to myself, "No lo creo!" which means, "I don't believe it," one of my new favorite phrases. It's all about ME!! No rote memorization, no essays about pictures of families in the textbook. I get to talk about mis amigas, EB and gun control in the US, the Jersey Shore, human rights, the UN- it's incredible! All to enhance my education! What an idea, letting the student dictate what they want to learn and talk about. And tomorrow, I have to pick a famous person that I want to talk about for class. Great, and I'm going to bust out my best moonwalk! (Sha'donna would be so proud- I had to look up the words for white glove, "guante blanco"). It's an untraditional approach to learning a language, but I love it. I might not know the parts of the body, but I can carry on a conversation about undocumented citizens in the US, and that's pretty damn awesome.

Speaking Spanish with strangers- It's easy to converse with my profesores, my friends, and Beatriz and Gonzalo. But when Gonzalo invited his son and his wife to lunch, I practically froze. I didn't talk much at lunch today, but when I did, the entire room froze and looked at me very curiously, like I was an alien that finally decided to speak. I know that no one is judging, but it's hard when you know you're making mistakes.

I have gotten used to being stared at in the city. I am a "super-gringita" after all, according to Beatriz. I just smile and keep walking. I've also gotten used to eating so much. The body is an amazing machine, how it adjusts so quickly. Today at lunch, Beatriz's brother kept insisting that I needed to eat more, and Beatriz, in my defense, told him that I have a very good appetitie. She should know, since she serves me every meal and practically counts how many times I chew before I swallow. I just smile and keep chewing.

Love and boiled tap water that I swear is better quality than water in DeKalb,
K

Quit asking me if I'm cold.

Yesterday, I walked to school in a T-shirt in jeans. The temperature was 10*, about 50* F. When I left the house, Beatriz was practically begging me to put on a jacket, because it was so cold outside. Hace frio, she kept saying. Everyone was commuting to work wearing hats and gloves and giant sweaters. I laughed to myself, thinking that if 50 degrees is freezing cold to them, what is the summer like around here?! In the afternoons, it gets up to about 80 degrees every day, and it's too hot to sit in the sun. Chilly, I know.

As for Beatriz, she continues to ask me if I'm cold, even when it's 65 outside, and even when I'm wearing a sweater. I wish our winters were more like this :)

Eat your heart out, Rosetta Stone.

Written Monday, July 13, 7pm

Today was a day of many firsts. It was the first time I met Hermana Cathy, the woman with whom I've been communicating for five months about coming here; the woman who accepted my application to study at the Institute; the woman who told me what vaccinations I needed to have. It was the first time I met my 19 "classmates." All of our lessons are one-on-one, but it's fun to think of the group as a class. Today was my first class, and it was just a simple conversation. "Tell me about yourself," Sara said, and we went from there. It was the first time I wandered around the Maryknoll's goregous compound alone, taking in the flowers, the chapel, the peacefulness of it all. It was also the first time someone here asked me where I live, and the first time I didn't say "circa Chicago," but I said, "Vivo en la Av. Libertador." I live here, in Cochabamba. I live here. Aqui. That's pretty awesome. It was the first time I made Beatriz and Gonzalo laugh, and that was pretty awesome, too. It was a good laugh, solid. And the kind of thing that you joke about again later, and laugh again. (I know this because they lauged about it again later when Beatriz was washing the dishes from dinner). I swear I have personality behind this limited vocabulary, and it's coming out little by little.

All of my instructors are Bolivianos; I have four different teachers, one for an hour each from 8-noon, with a break for tea and bread. In two weeks, I'll have four different instructors, and then again four new ones for the last two weeks. There must be over 20 different language teachers here, and many have been teaching for years and years. I feel like my Spanish speaking skills are in very good hands.
Most of my classmates are college students. This is the youngest six-week module for Maryknoll, since universities are on summer break. During the rest of the year, many older students attend the Institute. I feel a little old, considering I work with students the age of these students, and have pretty good boundaries. It will be interesting to see how friendships form among everyone.

Today we had a couple of hours of orientation- don't go near the bus terminal; you need to wear shoes in the house, it's la cultura; it's ok to ask how to use the shower if you haven't had hot water; is anyone interested in serving on a social committee to plan weekend activties; should we be worried about the wild dogs; where can i practice yoga; how do I hail a taxi; there is more to Bolivia than drugs; etc, etc. It was informative, and the only thing at the Institute that will ever happen in English!

Almost no one working at the Institute speaks fluent English (except Hermana Cathy, the director, and Kitty, the language program coordinator). If I need to exchange money, pay for my books, need help with my computer- everything is done in Spanish. It's awesome. I love it. I can't escape it! As Padre Finch, the Director of the Institute, said today, we don't learn language in a vacuum. We learn it in the context of the culture, the history, by conversing with people. Forget Rosetta Stone, this is definitely how to learn a language.

Love and entire families with babies on motorcycles,
K

nam nam nam.

Written Sunday, June 12, 2011

Let's talk about food.

During a typical day (although as an HD, I'm not sure there is such thing as a typical day), I am hungry. I don't purposefully avoid the dining hall for breakfast, I just prefer to sleep in as late as I can, roll out of bed and shuffle to my office half-awake with a cup a tea (and usually a cardigan, shout out to Adam Reigle). I usually don't schedule office hours during lunch, but something ineviably comes up, unless it's a day when Shandee pesters me (in a good way) to eat with her, probably more to my benefit than hers. I'm pretty good at eating dinner after 3pm classes, but even that sometimes doesn't happen. But I always enjoy Tuesday night dinners with Dan and Sha'Donna, a staple in my week.

When I do eat well, like when I'm at home in NJ, I'm like a bird-scavenger. I'll eat a few blueberries and half a banana for breakfast (I can never eat a whole one, I don't know why). An hour later, maybe I'll consume a bowl of cereal without milk. I like to splurge on lunch and eat a sub or a few slices of Peter's Pizza. My father usually cooks delicious, filling dinners and we eat as a family. And a couple hours later, I'm back to scavenging the fridge for a late evening snack. I consider this healthy eating.

Yesterday, all of that changed. At 1pm, Beatriz served the main meal of the day. It started with homemade soup and bread, followed by a plate full of chicken, potatoes, a light vegetble salad and fried yucca and zucchini. On a regular day, the vegetable salad and a potato would have sufficed for my meal; I thought, "There's no way I'm going to be able to eat all of this." And I was right. I only left one potato and a little bit of chicken, and I felt terrible about it. I toyed with the idea of telling her that I can't possibly eat that much at once, but I didn't, for two reasons. When I think about it, it's probably a little more than the amount a of food I should be eating in one day. And if I didn't eat it all, my stomach would probaby be wondering where it's evening snack was. Secondly, next week, once my body has adjusted to the altitude, I'm going to start training for my November Birthday Race (I've decided that how I'm going to refer to the NYC Marathon. It sounds more festive and something to really look forward to), and I'm going to need lots of fuel.

So I came up with a two-fold strategy to eat successfully. First, avoid the bread with the soup. Easy enough. Secondly, eat the heavier or less-delicious food on my plate first. Today, I ate the potato and steak first, and saved the rice, carrot and raisin salad thing, and fried egg. I can stomach some rice and eggs when I'm full, but there's no way I can finish off potatos and steak if I feel like I've already eaten a full meal.

Aside from the food, dinner conversation was a little different today, as Gonzalo asked me where Jimmy Carter was born, and how many eggs and chickens are consumed in the United States every day.

High & Low:

The Low of my day was not being able to understand everything at dinner. I have to concentrate so hard and dissect every word that Beatriz and Gonzalo are saying, put it back together in my head, and hope that what I come up with makes sense and is correct. Just listeing is very arduous. I'm excited for the day when things come more easily.

The best moment of my day was during mass. I went alone, and during the Our Father, found a tiny Bolivian hand in each of my hands, from a nino on either side of me. It was precious, and I'm crying just thinking about it.

Love and little boys juggling in the streets,
Kathleen

There's something in the air....or maybe that's because there's no oxygen...

Written Saturday, June 11, 2011 3pm

I made it!

It's been a long couple of days, but I would do it all again and again if I had to.

After another delay in Chicago and a nice sprint through the Miami airport, I boarded my flight to La Paz. I sat next to a wonderful LaPaz native, Joel, who told me that Cochabamba was the best place in Bolivia, and assured me that it would be "very easy" to book a flight from LaPaz, and it was.  Going through immigration was a piece of cake. The only thing the officer said in English to me was "money." He didn't even want to see the color photo and the vaccination records I was so worried about having in hand. Go figure.

During my layover in LaPaz, I enjoyed cocoa tea with a Dominican Seminarian (who was able to figure out how to set my watch) and a budding Jesuit (who will be studying for the next six weeks at Maryknoll with me), who were both on their way to Cochabamba. We all felt the effects of the altitude. My stomach was a little queasy, and my lungs felt like I just had a good cardio workout, except I wasn't short of breath. I wandered around the terminal asking kind-looking strangers if I could borrow their cell phones to call Beatriz, and eventually got through to her with my arrival time. My new friends and I found an oxygen bar in the airport to hang out for a while, before narrowly missing our flight to Cochabamba.
I cannot express the magnificence of this city. Flying in over the Andes, Cochabamba appears out of nowhere. The name means "high fertile plain," which is exactly what it is. It's as if God took a tiny rolling pin to the middle of the Andes, and decided to build a city in the clouds. It is very urban, aside from a few civilians on horses galloping through the streets, and Beatriz assures me that her neighborhood is very, very safe. It also feels very secluded, because when you look in any direction, all you see is mountains. I cannot imagine driving through them, but I'm considering taking a bus back to LaPaz to see the country by land.

My flight landed a few minutes early, and I have to admit those few moments of standing around as the only gringa in the airport and looking for Beatriz were a little nerve-racking. She picked me up with her younger brother and brought me "home," a gorgeous, big apartment with a spectacular view, and only a 15 minute walk to the Institute. I even have my own bathroom. And a couch in my bedroom. It's more than I could have asked for, and I have not stopped saying prayers of thanks since I landed.
Beatriz served dinner at 1pm, and her brother joined us. He didn't hesitate to ask my religion, political preferences, if I liked the Bolivian president, and what I thought about Obama, all in Spanish. There was also a 15-minute debate about whether Sabado or Domingo was the Lord's Day (Beatriz observes Sunday, her brother observes Saturday), complete with a reading from the Deuteronomy and a conversation about whether or not it is to be interpreted with the Gregorian Calendar. I'm just impressed I was able to understand the gist of what was going on. I really wanted to say that I didn't think God cared all that much, as long as you're living a good life, but I'm in Latin America and a guest in this house, and I know better than that. And I also don't know enough Spanish to communicate that yet, either.
There were also lighter topics of converation at dinner. I was impressed that I was able to communicate that I had siblings, and a niece, that I lived with univeristy students, and to learn that Beatriz studied German in college and has visited the US several times, and that her brother (Gonzalo) is a lawyer. I didn't understand about half the words, and I didn't pretend to. Beatriz and Gonzalo are very patient with me in re-wording things, and I'm very grateful for that.

It's time for a siesta of sorts. Beatriz cautioned me that I need to be well rested for Monday because after an oral evaluation, I will have four straight hours of instruction, and Spanish will be spilling out of my ears. Bueno, I said, that's the reason I'm here!

Love and mountains beyond mountains,
Kathleen

AFOA

Written Friday, June 10, 2011 4pm

I said I wanted an adventure. An an adventure is what I have.

Yesterday morning (Thursday the 9th) about an hour before Jacque was scheduled to pick me up and drive me to O'Hare, I decided it was a good time to check the Visa requirements for a US tourist in Bolivia. Proof of economic solvency- check. $135 cash- check. Passport, letter of invitation- check. Visa application- wait, there's an application?! I have to fill it out before hand? And what is this about a 4x4 color photograph? And finally, my favorite, an International Travel Certificate for Proof of Vaccination for Yellow Fever. Where can I find one of those?

I'm not really sure what I was thinking. Actually, I'm sure I wasn't thinking, not looking into all of this earlier. So I spent the next two hours panicking about not being able to get into the country. But I'm at the airport now, and I have a lot of people to thank for getting here. Thank you to the seven year-old ballerina at WalMart that probably had an appoinment for her glamor shots to be taken, who let me cut in front of her for my photo, probably because I looked frantic and my eyes were swollen from blinking back tears. Thank you to my sister, who found the visa application on-line so it was ready to print off when I logged on to Karissa's computer. Thank you to Karissa, who, in her infinite patience, just let me have a freak out moment and then told me everything was going to be fine. Thank you to my mom, who left work early to head home to find my proof of vaccination. And to my Dad, who faxed me the document (even though he is hesitant that it will be accepted at the boarder). Thank you to Dana, who wasn't too upset that I didn't call her when we were finally leaving for the aiport, but had impeccable timing and came with us anyway. Thank you to Jacque, fearless Chicago driver that got me where I had to be (after a quick stop in O'Hare's taxi purgatory). Thank you to Paige, who assured me that my vaccination documentation will probably suffice, and calmed my nerves a little (I hope she's right). And to the countless friends that g-chatted, texted, called, facebooked, and e-mailed, reminding me that I am not alone and that this is all part of the "adventure" I've been anticipating for half a year.

So I'm sitting at gate H11B ready to for the first leg of my journey to Miami, take two (yesterday's was delayed several hours, so I would have missed my flight to La Paz). And the adventure is just beginning. When I arrive in La Paz, I'll be on my own to get to Cochabamba. I had a flight booked on BOA, a Bolivian airline, but missed it. So I'm hoping I can navigate my own way from La Paz to Cochabamba without a hitch.

The fact that I have limited communication with my contacts at Maryknoll and that I have to figure this out on my own was enough to motivate me to call my homestay mother, Beatriz. So I did. And it was beautiful. She picked up the phone and almost immediately said my name with exclamation. She was able to tell me that she did not speak much English, and I was able to use my rudimentary Spanish vocabulary to say "Soy en los Estados Unidos. Soy en Cochabamba manana," which I hope she understood as, "Don't try to pick me up at the airport today, I'll be there tomorrow." I think she did, because she asked me what time, and all I could tell her was that I would try to call tomorrow. I got off the phone, and was so full of emotion. Excited that I had communicated with her successfully, happy to know that she would not be waiting for me at the airport, and relieved that I was able to connect with someone who was waiting for me. Sister Cathy of Maryknoll first wrote to me of Beatriz and said, "She will welcome you warmly." From my brief conversation with Beatriz this morning, I can already tell that she will.

Three days to go!

So here is what I know:

On Friday afternoon, after almost 24 hours of traveling, a woman named Beatriz (or someone from her family) is going to meet me at the airport in Cochabamba and drive me to my home for the next six weeks. On Monday, I'll begin an intense, in-depth, love affair with the Spanish language. (I'm praying it doesn't turn out to be a love-hate relationship, although I'm sure we'll have our moments).

And that's about all I can tell you. Having so many unknowns makes me incredibly nervous; I've had a couple of nightmares about traveling alone. I'm also exhilarated by the idea of losing myself in a world that's completely foreign to me, and taking in everything that Bolivia has to offer.

I've been cautioned not to get myself too wrapped up in global travelers, if I should meet them. I'm going to Bolivia for a reason- to be in Bolivia. To meet Bolivians, to learn about Bolivian culture, and, as one Chilean gentleman that I met in Prague said, to learn to speak "Bolvian" (which he was quick to point out, is much different than Chilean). He told me that Bolivians "sing" their Spanish. Well, I love singing, so I think I'm going to love this place.

Bring it on, Bolivia.

It's 51 degrees and cloudy in DeKalb. Students completed their mass exodus from this campus in the corn fields yesterday, and Lincoln Hall is quiet. This is the beginning of summer.

Four thousand miles away, nestled in the Altiplano (or high planes) of the Andes mountains in the landlocked state of Bolivia lies Cochabamba, a city of just over half a million people. For Bolivians, it is almost the beginning of winter.

A month from today, I'll already be in my third day of intensive Spanish classes at the Maryknoll Mission Center. I have lots of expectations for my six week adventure, but at the same time, have no idea what to expect. While I know much about Bolivian history, culture, and adult education programs thanks to my research for Dr. Jeria's final project, I know nothing about the family with whom I'll be staying, what my daily commute to the Center will look like, or how my stomach will adapt to local cuisine. For now, I can anticipate feeling uncomfortable, out of place and unable to communicate, probably a little lonely, and sad that no one will understand my sassy sarcasm. And honestly, I can't wait. This is my adventure. Bring it on, Bolivia.