¡En español, por favor!

Only ten, four hour classes left to go, and we decided we had better get serious about learning this language. Over the last couple of weeks we’ve slacked a bit in the homework area while our volunteering and other activities have taken over!

However, now that we are getting into the more difficult aspects of the language, there are times where we both would love to just be done with it. We’ve come up with some alternate strategies to seeing this through – one includes stealing a local kid that knows both languages and taking he/she with us (bonus if he/she can carry our bags!) or we could play rock/paper/scissors to see which one of us has to continue on with school while the other gives it up! Hmmm.

We have scoped out one kid. Thelma is the daughter of our hostel’s owners - she is six years old and has attached herself to us whenever we are around, even sneaking into our room through the window (she gets in trouble from her parents for bugging us). We have a good arrangement – she helps us with our Spanish, and in return we let her play with our IPods.

Neither are particularly good strategies, we’ll admit. But both easily seem more appealing then class on some days…especially on Monday when I actually asked our teacher: “¿Tu tienes una arma?” Translation: “Do you have a gun???” Do we really need to learn 4 past tenses and 3 future tenses? Please put us out of our misery.

In English, please!

Pete’s introductory English classes have taken off! Yesterday was the first one, and an overwhelming 15 kids showed up – 5 more than the maximum that Pete tried to impose! Pete and Andy (another volunteer) first reviewed the numbers 1-20 in English, and then proceeded to play three games of bingo. The games were a big hit, with the winners each getting to choose one item from a bag of candies that we bought as prizes.

Then Pete reviewed simple phrases of introduction and each kid had to use one salutation and introduction in order to dip into the bag of goodies. Some of them obviously knew more than others so it was an easy treat…but the other kids did also seem very eager to learn.

Friday will be more bingo (will teach numbers 20-40) and then either about family or body parts – I’ve been busy helping Pete by making search-a-words and a crossword for the kids to play and earn their prizes.

I think we are having as much fun with this as they are!

A pretty tame weekend for us after a very busy week!

Friday was our usual mixture of Spanish classes in the morning, swimming for me in the afternoon while Pete started to prep for giving English classes next week. I only had three kids for swimming, which was the smallest group yet, and let me spend a lot of time with one kid who needed some help with his backstroke. Every day for the last ten minutes, the kids are allowed to just play in the water (“bano libre” – free swim!), during which now some of the older kids constantly want to race against me. Now, for my beloved friends and family who know me well, it is NOT in my nature to lose on purpose…I had to show these kids my moves! I won two races easily, and had a very close match in my third race. I’m giving them incentive to work harder and beat me – that’s a legitimate teaching technique, no??

The class was smaller on Friday partially because two of the kids I regularly help have “graduated” to join the groups in the deep end. While I barely had anything to do with that, it still made me feel a little proud!

We went out for dinner that night with friends from school and joined them for a few drinks afterwards, but bailed as they headed out to hit the “happy hour” circuit among the gringo restaurants.

Slept for about 10 hours that night, and then had a 3 hour mid-morning nap on Saturday after volunteering some more time at the swimming pool that morning (every two weeks, the club meets to do time trials of all the participants – allowing them to track progress). Late in the week I hadn’t been able to shake the feeling of always being completely exhausted and lethargic. Then I realized the likely cause – with no red meat in our diets, I am missing out on a required dose of iron!

Over lunch in the hostel yesterday, I was discussing this with another girl in the hostel and she suggested one place in Sucre that she knows which served good steak. Well, as soon as the words came out of her mouth, Pete and I had made our plans for dinner that night!

After yet another quick siesta in the afternoon and before dinner, we ventured over to one of the most highly regarded local museums. The ASUR museum houses displays of the textile industry (very important in the Bolivian culture). Small indigenous villages throughout Bolivia are characterized by the dress code they follow as well as the type of weavings that they produce. Was extremely interesting to see, and I will try to upload some pictures later.

And then – onto DINNER! I was never more excited for food then I was last night! And the restaurant didn’t disappoint. Pete had potatoes stuffed with goat cheese and cavier as a starter, and we both had filet mignon for dinner - Pete’s in a red wine sauce with mushrooms and mine with a roquefort cheese sauce. I could have cried I was so happy, it tasted so good! All of that, with a couple of drinks, for about $25 CDN. Oh…you can bet we are doing that again! On the way home, we also stopped at a “farmacia” and picked up some multi-vitamins. Hopefully this will help boost my energy levels this week.

However, this upcoming week should prove to be a little slower for me. There is no swimming at all, the pool is hosting the Bolivian national championships next weekend so is closed all week to prep. I’ll probably spend my spare time helping Pete, who has decided to host games with prizes to help the kids learn English (i.e. bingo)! Otherwise, I will also start planning out our next route. With only four weeks left in Sucre, we need to start thinking about where we are going to go next!

Dirty Spanish!

In our Spanish classes lately, we spend a good half of the class just conversing with our teacher, which has been very helpful for us. We talk about everything from what other countries we have visited to the work that we do at Nanta every day.

On Friday we were talking about Canada and Bolivia – comparing what we liked and disliked about each. We were explaining to her how we think the chocolate from Sucre is so good and unlike anything we have ever had before. Pete started to say how he thinks it might be because there are no preservatives in the chocolates here. Not knowing the Spanish word for “preservatives”, he just guessed by saying “preservativos” – this technique of just adding an “o” to the end of the English word does works sometimes!

Well, it didn’t work this time. The correct Spanish word is “conservatives”. “Preservativos” are condoms. Our teacher’s face went slightly red… =)

FOOD!

Despite eating Oreo’s for breakfast this morning and stopping at the store Chocolate Parati a little too often, I’m pretty sure I’ve lost quite a few lbs since leaving Canada, and Pete is sure he has lost something substantial too. There are a couple of reasons for this – one being that neither of us has been in a car since our taxi from the airport. We can walk to just about everything we need, which can amount to a lot in one day. Yesterday I walked for almost 2 hours in total – to and from school, to and from the swimming pool, back close to the swimming pool for walleyball (volleyball in a squash court), and then out for a beer after walleyball and back to our room. Yesterday was pretty extreme, and I am feeling the effects of it this morning, but I would say on average every day I am walking close to an hour.

Another reason is the food. We aren’t starving ourselves by any means, but with the absence of any kind of red meat in our diet and ingesting so many of their insanely tasty vegetables, everything is fitting a little looser these days!

Check this out – in the central market, there are two rows of ladies who do nothing but make fresh fruit juices – patrons pick out the type of fruit(s) they want, they are blended along with their choice of base (orange juice, milk, etc.), and voila! Pete and I each got almost two full glasses of fresh juice for just over $1 total. SOOO good!!


I am sure once we hit Chile and Argentina and park ourselves in their wine region for a couple of weeks while enjoying their famous barbeque, all of our health/weight loss progress will disappear… =)

Tuesday night we had the most tremendous dinner with some of the people in our hostel. We were invited to join in on a traditional English feast with some newcomers. Pete contributed some bruschetta, and then later we feasted on roast chicken and potatoes, leeks, cauliflower with cheese sauce, broccoli, peas and carrots – all smothered in a light gravy. Oh, and there might have been a bit of wine involved. It was by far the tastiest thing we’ve had since we got there, and was a great chance to converse with some really incredible people who have been many of the places that we are going.

Pete cooking in our wee shared kitchen.

VOLUNTEERING!

This week in the pool has been MUCH better for me. Albert and Randi, an older Dutch couple (of course – we live in Little Hollandia!) who run the swim club, got back from their holidays this week. Things are now much more organized and they have promised that I will never be left alone in the pool again. Next week, however, we will be without the “real” instructor and another volunteer (again, a Dutch guy!) is going to join me in the pool instead so that the club can help save some money. It will be a little nerve-wracking to be on our own, but I feel much more confident that I can handle it. Now that I have been there every day for a week, the kids are used to me and even listen to what I say (sometimes). A tremendous feat…for me, anyways!

Pete isn’t having much better luck from last week. Kids aren’t showing up for their scheduled English lessons, and being in the bakery can still be pretty frustrating with the other people that speak only Spanish. Rather then just having scheduled “open-house” English classes, he’s going to create little lesson plans about specific situations (i.e. “Introductions”, or “In The Kitchen”!) and even advertise for them.

We’ve got just over 4 more weeks to go here - I really hope that this works out for him and he can get more out of this experience that so far has been pretty discouraging. Hard to believe that yesterday marked one month since we left Canada…how time flies…

Happy Love Day!

Chalk it up to things I never thought I would do in my entire lifetime…

Celebrate Valentine’s Day and the first day of spring in September, at a bar packed with equal parts Bolivian and Dutch, while listening to live Bolivian folk music and then watching Pete participate in a Bolivian vs. Gringo drinking game. The Gringo’s lost - but I must note that Pete represented well as the team anchor (two wee Dutch girls lost it for the team).

Surreal. But incredible!

Have I mentioned that Sucre should be dubbed Little Hollandia? I swear – about every fourth or fifth person we meet is Dutch. We still have only met one other Canadian and one American. We are truly out of our element.

Again, just searching for another reason to party, Sucre celebrated “el dia de amor” (the day of love) yesterday – while the Bolivians (not sure if it is all of South America?) do recognize St Valentine’s Day in February, yesterday was their BIG day, meant to coincide with the first day of spring. After our Spanish classes yesterday, we walked through the park right beside our school amidst tables and tables loaded with cakes, chocolates, and cards. Pete bought me a piece of chocolate cake (less than $1!) for my present. You can’t beat a day that allows you to have cake for lunch!

We spent last evening also celebrating the one year anniversary of Café Amsterdam – a little pub not far from our hostel that is a strong supporter of Nanta. Last night was a party for the volunteers of Nanta – jars of sangria and chuflay were dished out like candy. I swear that neither Pete nor I were drunk, yet hangovers plague both of us today. Must be the altitude.

Hi Uncle Ken - this one's for you...

Hey Uncle Ken!

We're still alive.

We just had lunch and now we're going to head back to our place.

Love, Spud

P.S. I hope this wasn't too long for you...xoxoxo