Bienvenidos a Bolivia

Hola! I've made it through my first week in Bolivia. This country is way underrated. I'm living in a city called Cochabamba - a crowded valley surrounded by the Andes mountains. The city has typical "developing country" characteristics… crowded and dusty streets, mansions next to slums, street dogs, political graffiti, loud busy markets, street vendors everywhere, child beggars, colorful buildings, etc… but when I'm in a crowded street and look up to see the Andes skyline, the contrast is breathtaking. And the people here are beautiful! All of them!

El Cristo

After we arrived, we had a welcome dinner at Ismael's, one of our Academic Directors, house. He's a Bolivian vegetarian artist and Tai-chi instructor. Before dinner his wife led a two-hour Hare Krishna/Bolivian fusion ceremony where we made offerings with Coca leaves and colorful paper, poured alcohol on the floors for Pachamama (mother earth), and sprinkled grains in a fire. After dinner we meditated. My first Bolivian experience was not what I had in mind before I left. On my third day here, I was walking with five girls to the city center. We got separated at a cross street and I got stuck behind with two girls. When we crossed the street a few seconds later, the two girls ahead of us were running into a restaurant, so we followed them. A young boy, probably eight years old, had approached the girls and robbed one of them at knifepoint. She only lost 20 US dollars, but how crazy! It was about 3pm and there were people everywhere watching. Apparently that happens a lot here…


There are 23 students in my group and everyone is super nice. I'm probably the worst Spanish speaker... It's a challenge to communicate with people because I'm not outgoing and I don't like to make mistakes in front of large groups. Our lectures are all in Spanish too! I try so hard to focus during the lectures but towards the end I get completely overwhelmed with the language. Not being able to fully understand lectures and instructions is the worst thing ever. It's hard not to get frustrated with myself, but I'm trying to look at it as a fun learning game rather than a language barrier problem.

I'm living with a family in a cute neighborhood 20 minutes by bus to my school. Although they might think I'm mentally deranged, the whole family is incredibly nice and understanding of my language skills. During meals, I feel like I'm in a skit for Spanish class or something… it doesn't feel real - I struggle to link vocabulary together and the family just smiles and nods at me. It gets a little better each day, but it's hard living with people whom I can't fully communicate with. The father, Carlos, is a farmer and the mother, Esther, is a nurse. I have two siblings, a 14 year old brother, Samuel, and a 19 year old sister, Eloisa.

Mis padres

Saturday night, Eloisa, her boyfriend, and her cousin took me to a concert. After circling around the concert area 6 or 7 times with the windows down and music blasting, we finally parked on the side of the road to join the others tailgaiting with rum and redbull and Spanish electronica. We met up with Eloisa's friends and had a street-side dance party (not listening to or seeing the concert at all) for 4 hours. All of her friends were super posh and I was little out of place... I felt like I needed to trade my outfit for clothes two sizes smaller. Lined with the Andes, the area was filled with tons of glam Bolivians and every once in a while, a street child, or an indigenous woman dressed in the traditional outfit, would come through selling gum and cigarettes. What an authentic experience.

Bolivian tailgate

Sunday was El Dia de Peatons, The Day of the Patrons. No cars or buses were allowed on the streets ad everyone had their bicycles out. There were concerts and vendors and people everywhere. It was really nice.
That's it for now. Hope everyone is doing well and for those of you who started school, buena suerte with this semester!