tejidos, chicha, y bodas

I go to weaving classes on Sundays taught by indigenous women. We meet in an outside area and weave for about three hours. I'm still working on simple patterns with only a few strings, but the pieces are coming out nice. The women use their toes to hold the strings when they weave, but they insert a large metal object in the ground for us to use instead. I think I'm going to refuse the metal next time and use my toe… I've gotta put my fat feet to some good use. The weavings here are incredible… unique patterns and bright colors! I've been reading a lot about weavings (patterns, symbolisms, development projects) in one of our main books (written by a GW professor, Kevin Healy) for my eventual research project and it's all so interesting! Our first travel excursion is to Sucre tomorrow, which is known for its weaving and has a whole museum dedicated to rural weavings.

Weaving class

Things are slowly getting better with Spanish. I can understand things a lot more than I could at the beginning and I'm not so lost during mealtime conversation with my family. I often substitute hand gestures and short skits for words that I don't know… my verbal skills are coming slowly. My family laughs at me a lot, but they like me because I'm a good eater. Eating a lot wins mucho points with Bolivians so maybe that will compensate for the lack of language.

My house

On Thursday, we took a day trip to a country town called Tarata. We were each assigned partners and given tasks based on our interests. I was with a friend, Amy, and we were supposed to find "weaving activities." We were really confused by the assignment so we decided to talk to random women and ask about weaving. Communication was kind of a disaster and kind of great. I stumbled with my words, but was good enough for some basic communication. People laughed at us a lot and we laughed at ourselves a lot and it was kind of fun to be forced into intense animation/ relying on body language and facial expressions. We were invited into several people's homes and saw women making yarn from wool and people tried to force the local alcohol on us (one guy dropped to his knees begging "POR FAVOR!!"). Knowing how the brew is made (it's called chicha - indig. women chew corn and spit into a vase and then their spit ferments into a fruity beer), we declined. Language really isn't necessary for communication…. But it sure does help.

Man drinking chicha in Tarata

I joined a gym here.. it's funny. The Bolivians that hang out there are super glam and jock-ish. I feel like they use the gym as a an excuse to hang out with each other in spandex rather than to exersice. But they have the same system of classes at the JCC in Birmingham… Bodypump, Bodyjam, rpm, etc. Oh, globalization…
I go to spinning classes with two other girls from my program. The instructor knows we are from the U.S. and uses every possible moment to make sure that the rest of class knows as well. He often interrupts the class for stupid translations. Example: once he started class with "Vamos!" and then turned to us, "So..a… we are.. a.. going to star the class." Thanks… we couldn't tell.

I went to a fancy catholic wedding last night and it was out of control. It was pretty similar to a bar mitzvah party (we left during the Grease medley) except that dinner was served at half past midnight and there was a lot more alcohol involved. On each table were center pieces of flowers, a bottle of rum and a bottle of whiskey. I danced with a lot of drunk old men and everyone was trying their sloppy English on me. People with babies and young children had to leave early, around 1 am. Eloisa and I left early also, around 3:30 am, because it was an outdoor wedding and it was getting really cold. I have another wedding next weekend. Oy vey.

My hermana and her boyfriend at the wedding

I just finished a first draft of a 7 page paper (in Spanish!) and my head really hurts. I'm pretty sure its just a jumble of words, but that's what 2nd drafts are for. For those of you following the news about Bolivia, don't worry! The U.S. media is blowing up the situation because of the whole mess with the ambassador, but everything is totally fine in the city I'm in. It's really interesting to be here right now and to here people's perceptions about what's going on.