Since meeting up with the entire group on the 11th we´ve been pretty busy with traveling on windowless buses, hiking to green lagunas, building brick houses amist great dust tornadoes, and surviving a bout of a mysterious stomach virus. I haven´t had a lot of time or consistent email access to insert new entries, so I´m going to do a little summary in a series of ups and one down. Here goes:
THE UPS
1. The group - There are now 14 of us Gringos in our Habitat group. Originally there were 12, however, 2 long term Habitat volunteers living in Cochabamba (an hour or so from La Paz) joined us to help us get situated and going on our trip. Everyone is very cool. There are several teachers, a couple of lawyers, a nurse, a recent college grad, an IT guy, an architect, and a toxicologist. What´s cool though is that it´s a group with similar interests in volunteerism (at a cost?) and travel. We´ve all become pretty good friends and have now stories to tell about our shared experiences in Bolivia.
2. Sorata - On the 11th we all arrived in La Paz which sits at 13,000 feet or so and headed to Sorata, a small valley mountain village which sits at about 6,000 feet. We went to Sorata for orientation and to help us adjust to the high altitude. Sorata was a very cool and tranquilo little mountain village. We stayed at this old hotel built in the 1940s. This hotel, called the Ex-profectoral, is huge with high ceiling walls, dim lighting, and creaking hardwood floors. It is a bit reminiscent of the Bolivian version of the hotel in the Shining. Red-rum. Very beautiful, but a bit creepy at night.
On our second day in Sorata most of our group ventured on a hike to Laguna Chilata. 13 of us jumped into the back of a pick-up truck with guard rails and drove on oh-so narrow and steep roads to the hiking trail head. We then ascended up about 500 feet to this green water lagoon just below snow-capped mountains. The hike was difficult, but the views from the top were magnificent.
3. Oruro - We traveled from Sorata to Oruro, which is about a 7 hour drive. Our bus mysteriously lost it´s front driver´s side window so plastic and tape covered the hole. Oruro is the capital city of the state of Oruro. Some guide books say that Oruro is where most of the indigenous population lives or is from. Most Oruro-ians speak either Ayemara or Quechua, but all speak Spanish. The Ayemara were before the Incans and the Quechua were after the Incans. Oruro is a very poor region of the country. Bolivia is in fact the poorest country in all of South America and second only to Haiti for the entire Western hemispere. Oruro is a place of parades. We have seen or heard a parade every day since we´ve been here. Oruro is also home to the Carnival which takes place in February. The people here seem very proud of their heritage and their history and their parades. It´s a very lively place. I don´t quite know how the two are connected. It´s very poor, but lively. Perhaps monetary wealth and happiness are two separate things. Sure they are. There are other aspects, however, to look at as well, such as health care, education, housing facilities. I haven´t been here long enough to get a true sense of what that means for Bolivians. As a travelor you get a perspective, but not necessarily the perspective that helps you understand the people.
3. Habitat Bolivia - HFH Bolivia is very organized and on-point. They have purchased a plot of land just outside the center of Oruro called El Barrio. They have completed already 120-some houses and are to add another 20 by the end of the year. Our group is helping with three different families. The houses are made of red brick. The model home we are working on are two-story homes. The three houses are in different stages on development so we have seen how each part of the construction goes. On the first day I helped to lay brick on a house that already had the foundation up. On the second and third day, however, I worked on a different home and had different jobs. First we were putting in the foundation and needed rocks to be mixed with the cement. So, I was given a sledgehammer and went at it breaking up these huge rocks so they could be used in with the foundation. That was a hard job. I was real soar by the end of the day and had broken two different sledgehammers. It was cool though.
Each home has its own albanel - who is basically in charge of the building. A fellow by the name of Eddson is in charge of all the building. Eddson, a Bolivian, is very hard working and makes sure that each of us volunteers has a job and is not idle. He has had us mixing cement, breaking rocks, laying bricks, putting in posts for the home layout.
THE DOWN
1. Diarrhea - sorry to be so blatant. Our group got something. At one point this past weekend, 12 of 14 of us were under the weather with some kind of stomach virus. We are recovering however, and most of us are on the up and up.
There´s definetely more to write and the ups overwhelmingly outweigh the down. More to come...hasta pronto!
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