Cotidiano

So I´ve been back here in Cochabamba for the past week or so. It has been nice to be back and see my family and have more of a routine than our excursions. Cotidiano means daily life. It is easy to journal and blog about huge trips and experiences but I think that daily life in another culture is equally, if not more, important. Experiencing as much as I can the daily life of a Cochabambina changes my experiences and what I learn immensly, because it is less about being a tourist and checking of sites to see and more about being open to what the culture has to teach you.

Normal day, I wake up around 7 and run. I eat a breakfast of coffee and a bread or a piece of fruit and then I take a Truffi to school. Lately I have been walking because my host brother told me he used to walk downtown when he was in college. Truffi-ing takes about 30 minutes, if traffic is bad, which it almost always is and walking takes about 45 minutes. My brother also told me he is going to fix his bike tomorrow so I can ride to school. This should take me about 15 minutes, if I survive. I am excited for the challenge.

I then have class from 9-12.30. Recently, we have been focusing on topics assoicated with globalization and how this affects Bolivia. A lot of it has to do with resources and who controls them, Bolivia or private companies. A lot of Bolivia´s problems and poverty has come from the fact that they have not profited from their abundance of natural resources (like silver, tin, gas, etc.). Who is making the money? Well, international companies who exploit labor and resources to add millions to their billions. This causes Bolivia and other countries like it to depend on foreign support from other countries and institutions like the World Bank. However, all help comes with strings, and big ones at that. For many many years, Bolivia has been not governed by Bolivia but by really rich Americans and Europeans who want to get richer and threaten to take away funding if Bolivia does not comply with its requests. I am going to put it lightly and call it a viscious cycle. Recently, the Bolivian government has been trying to change this and make sure Bolivia profits from Bolivia´s resources, but the process is slow and complicated.

Anyway, I could go on about neoliberal policy and yada yada forever, but before you all either a. go to sleep with too much jargon or b. break your computer because it is all very upsetting, we all go home for lunch. My host brother works in the evenings, so most often he cooks lunch. For example, today we had avocado, tomato and onion salad, potatoes, and beef. I haven´t had one meal I haven´t liked. We sit and eat and chat, and if there´s time, descansa (rest). I begin Spanish at 2.45 until 6.15. My most frequent spanish teacher is Chi Chi. She is fantastic, fantastic, fantastic. We have practiced a lot of conversation, practiced a lot of subjunctive and sometimes visit intersting places in Cochabamba or have speakers. For example, yesterday we visited a therapy and legal help center for sexually abused children. Another day, we got to speak with Oscar Olivera, one of the huge leaders of the Water War in Cochabamba in 2000. I could go on forever about the Water War and and how incredible it is that we met Oscar. Look it up. It is a classic example of Bolivians fighting for what they want ( or don´t want, which in this case is to pay for rain water) and a lot of what happened, happened right where I go to school--the streets, the plaza, everything. We have learned a lot about the importance of the Water War in many classes from many perspectives, including, at least for me, my host family, who actively participated.

After Spanish, I either go home, or go to an internet cafe to do homework. The rest of the night I watch TV, eat a little bit, do homework, pretty normal stuff. It goes so fast. There are not enough hours in the day. Next week, we are going to Potoci and Sucre, old mining towns. Hasta luego.