Gringa in the Garden of Eternal Spring

Well, I´ve been in lovely Cochabamba for almost a week (to the hour). Its been a whirlwind of warm weather, spanish, and gringaness. Yes, gringa--white girl-- is what I am and will forever be. Although I have only had 2 waterballoons, ´globos,´thrown at me and they missed just short of my feet. Waterballoons are a pretty normal part of the culture, especially right before Carnival, a marti gras-ish festival thats a weekend of dancing and getting hit by water balloons.

I will try to give a general summary of the last week without writing a novel. We (SIT students) had orientation or 4 days where we had a crash course in living in Cochabamba. There are 17 students on the program. The second day we had a ´drop off´ where we drove to the top of a large hill where el Cristo is. el Cristo is the largest statue of Jesus in South America by 1 meter, I I think. You can see the whole cityi from there, it is awesome. The city is so beautiful, it is surrounded by gentle green mountains. I love it. Then we took a Gondola down and were given a destination to find with a partner. My partner and I found our way to La Univalle de Tiquipaya (University of Tiquipaya) and our way back to the hotel and only got sort of lost. Saturday our host families picked us up from our hotel and we moved in to our new casas.

A little bity about mi familia nueva: I live in an apartment on Ricardo Jaimes Friente Ave, with the Thames family: my mom Magda, my sister Natalia (22), my brother Sergio (27), and Lucas (4, our dog). Magda works at the Historical Archives of Cochabamba and is workign on planning cities celebration of 200 years in September. Natalia is on summer break right now but starts university in February, where she is studying to be a journalist. Sergio is a folk dance instructor for kids. Natalia is a folk dancer as well. Lucas is a good dog and I think we are going to be good friends. I am the 5th SIT student they have had, so they know the drill pretty well. They are a loving family who like to joke around alot. They are patient with me and my spanish, and always looking out for me. I have also met the other son, Jorge, and his wife Mata. They are expecting una bebe in April!

I started school on Monday. Sergio brought me by Taxi-Truffi. Almost everyone uses public transportation here. There are busses, truffis (prounounced true-fee), taxi-truffis, and taxis. truffis and taxi-truffis are ´fixed-route taxis´so basically like a bus but in a car or van. All of public transporation costs 1.5 bolivianos (7 bolivianos=1 dollar, you do the math.) I have class from 9-12.30, this is a lecture about Bolivia and right now we are talking about history. we have covered basically 1800-1936, from pre-colonialism to the spanish rule to wars of ´independence´and now we´re talking about different states of rule and transition periods. its all intersteing, and i understand about 70% of what our lecturer Rapheal Puente, says. Then I go home for lunch. Lunch, almuerza, is the biggest meal of the day. Everybody goes home for lunch. Breakfast and dinner are both small meals, like bread and coffee, or fruit. Then I have spanish class from 2.45-6.15. My spanish teacher, Chi Chi, is a little crazy but really helpful and energetic. I am on my own now getting to school. I am slowly figuring out the city and streets. But it is exhausting to think in spanish all day.

Thats pretty much it for the general go-around. I´ll try to be more specific about stuff in future blogs. I hope you are well. Oh yes, don´t hate me, but it has been about 80 degrees everyday.