Peace Corps Take 2: The Gambia

The Best, The Worst, The Unforgettable

2010-02-18T11:19:00.000-08:00

Location: Morocco, North Africa

Cities Visited: Casablanca, Fes, Chefchaouen, Merzouga, Marrakesh

The Best: Miniature cakes, avocado smoothies, coffee, fruit, roses, camel treks, privacy, Art Deco buildings, handmade rugs, street food, and Arabic music.

The Worst: Frantically deciding how to descend from a cliff and Matt yelling “JUMP!” as three boys hurl huge rocks at our heads for refusing to give them a tip after an unsolicited explanation of Fes at sunset. Also, freezing in the hotel rooms that never had heat but always had blankets I was allergic to. Oh, and all the times we had to pee in the shower cause rooms just don’t have toilets.

The Unforgettable: The first bites of cous cous and tajine- Morocco’s classic, delectable cuisines- and wondering if I really could still be in Africa.

Location: Madrid, Spain

The Best: Riding the metro. Experiencing fabric softener. Huge burgers, not from McDonalds. Tapas with the tapa expert of Madrid.

The Worst: Throwing up after consuming huge amounts of ham and paella after realizing my body had no idea how to digest fats anymore.

The Unforgettable: “HELLO MADRID!”- Matt’s reaction to a girl wearing a short skirt and tights in his first minutes of being off the African continent in over 28 months, and his exit from the Muslim world where knees are never seen. Later, a moment of ecstasy in the form of the tortilla Española.

Location: Italia

Cities Visited: Rome and Venice

The Best: A bed & breakfast in Chinatown. Italian accents. Riding boat taxis all over Venice. Shopping for Carnaval masks with my mom. Eating gelato and more gelato, tasting horsemeat, and buying pizza by the kilo. Watching glassblowers make a horse.

The Worst: N/A. Is that a serious question???

The Unforgettable: Seeing my parents get off the train after two hours of waiting and running around the terminal convinced they were wondering aimlessly, lost somewhere in Rome.

Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA!!!

The Best: Making it back in time for my best friend’s birthday! Seeing my brother and old friends. Being home.

The Worst: Bringing home itchy skin lesions from the Gamb, and getting a letter in the mail saying it was likely to be Schistosomiasis, a parasite that enters the body after contact with contaminated river water. Only thing is, I was never in a river. So then a visit to a dermatologist with the conclusion that they are probably blocked hair follicles, 20 of them, in areas where I do not have hair. Treatment- One month of antibiotics with side effects of intense heartburn and uncontrollable gas.

The Unforgettable: Walking into Mall of America with the intention of buying clothes but getting totally distracted by Dairy Queen and its strawberry sundaes. And then Matt, stunned by the sight, grabs my arm and says dreamily, “Look, Tam, roller coasters……!” So of course we ride roller coasters and eat ice cream and leave, without buying a thing.

To see more pictures of Italy, click here.
For more pics of Morocco, check here.

It's been a wild ride, but boy is it good to be home.

Tam in the Gam- The Official Record

2009-12-03T11:10:00.000-08:00

Between the laughing and the crying, through pouring rain and scorching heat, after dropping dead mice down the latrine and before cooking mac ‘n cheese for the millionth time to quell the unstoppable hunger pains, I actually did squeeze in some work.

I know I have tried to explain what I do, but I always seem to get off track with some story about a gecko secretly pooping on my bedsheet or my friend eating a boa constrictor or the ram that sits next to us on public transport. So here, I am posting an official record of the work I did. Just in case you wanted to know, just in case you wonder what I did with my time, and just in case you know of a job I can get based on my stunning qualifications.

*********************

Volunteer Name: Ms. Minh-Tam (Tammy) Truong
Country of Service: The Gambia, West Africa

Ms. Minh-Tam (Tammy) Truong began her work with Peace Corps in Bolivia, South America but her service was interrupted when volunteers were evacuated from the country in September 2008 due to political unrest. She then elected to transfer to the Gambia, West Africa where she served as a volunteer in the Environment and Natural Resource Management program.

Training Summary

Ms. Truong arrived in country on October 23, 2008 and took part in a three month training program consisting of:

Technical Training and Trainee Directed Activities (136 hours): Covered environmental challenges faced in the Gambia and proactive agro-forestry practices, improved agriculture and horticulture techniques, natural resource management strategies, and environmental education skills.

Language Training (150 hours): Formal and informal Mandinka language lessons enhanced by living with a Mandinka host family. Rated at Intermediate-High language proficiency level at close of training.

Cross-cultural Training (20 hours): Increased awareness and understanding of Gambian culture, history and politics of the Gambia, Islam in the Gambian context, traditional beliefs and taboos, gender roles, and non-verbal communication.

Health Sessions (30 hours): Included preventative health measures, self-diagnosis, and basic medical treatment

Safety and Security Sessions (8 hours): Emphasized a lifestyle that reduces risk at home, work, and during travels, dealing with unwanted attention, and emergency action plans.

Work Summary

Ms. Truong was based in the coastal village of Sanyang, approximate population of 10,000. Her work included management and coordination of the Sanyang Women’s Community Garden and Skills Center and performing market research, informational surveys, and sales and marketing training in her role as a business consultant for Gambia is Good, a U.K. based NGO. She was also a fundraising coordinator for the Against Malaria bed net campaign raising $15,000. In her free time she completed various projects in graphic design and wrote blog entries detailing her Peace Corps experience to share with those back home.

Detailed Project Descriptions

Gambia is Good
Pro-poor horticulture marketing NGO linking rural farmers to the tourism industry. Promoting locally grown fruits and vegetables and reducing imported products, Gambia is Good helps its farmers move from subsistence agriculture to commercial enterprise to create sustainable livelihoods

Gambia is Good Business Consultant

Training of Sales and Marketing Team- Established customer database, led training sessions on sales techniques, customer service, marketing and advertising. Helped to improve inefficiencies.

Promotion and Sales- Designed display stand to increase impulse buys at point-of-sale, designed awards to recognize highest-volume vendors, and wrote script for radio ads.

New Item Feasibility and Customer Satisfaction Surveys- Designed and executed detailed surveys through interviews with purchasing officers, chefs, and general managers of major customers.

Competitor Benchmarking- Researched pricing, product availability, and selection of major competitors.

Agricultural Excursion Tour- Designed tour taking into account logistics, time-frames, and feasibility. Composed tour description for marketing product to tour operators.

World Bank Mango Processing Facility Project- Local Market Researcher

Conducted detailed market analysis seeking most compelling opportunities to maximize value of mangos, including both fresh and processed products. Results of market analysis used to carry out feasibility study and business plan to capture identified opportunities. Estimated local demand for mango products through interviews with importers, wholesalers, and retailers.

Agricultural Extension Support Officer- Liaison between Gambia is Good and Sanyang Women’s Community Garden and Skills Center, a key vegetable production site. Duties included:

Increasing technical capacities and horticultural capabilities among associated farmers

Coordinating with production managers to ensure timely sowing of correct varieties
Reporting activities and progress of producers to Gambia is good general manager and production managers

Sanyang Women’s Community Garden and Skills Center- Joint project between the Gam-Holland Foundation and Sanyang community aiming to provide income generating opportunities to increase rural female earning potential.

Managed various activities within the garden including inventory control, garden bed layout and demarcation, and supervision of reservoir and fence construction teams.

Nominated to Board of Directors as garden expanded from 4 to 12 hectares, and membership increased from 300 to 600 members. Planned long term objectives and membership rights and privileges. Instrumental in devising simple database management strategy for recordkeeping of member registration fees.

Represented the community organization at the Association of Small Scale Enterprises (ASSET). Networked with other member organizations, gaining access to tourism fairs for marketing and promotion and coordinating with Dutch agricultural expert to bring specialized trainings in improved gardening techniques

Wrote grants to secure additional funding for continuing expansion and improvement of garden and skill center.

Against Malaria Bed Net Campaign- Teamed with U.K. based organization Against Malaria, and U.S.’s Suto Yediya, initiative focused on raising money and building awareness to help prevent the transmission of malaria through distribution and proper instruction on the use of treated bed nets.

Co-chair of country’s web-based fundraising efforts. Personally raised over $1800 in an effort that yielded $15,000 over the course of five months.
Published newsletters to motivate fellow volunteers and track fundraising progress

Graphic Design Projects

Worked with local restaurant owner in tourism sector to plan and design menus for upcoming season

Performed edits and created publication design of “Freebee-The Gambia”, a beekeeping manual to be distributed to 30 communities.

Intercultural Exchange- Posted over 80 blog entries detailing life in a developing country through the eyes of a volunteer, initiating dialogue and facilitating cultural exchange to fulfill one of Peace Corps main goals. Online readership of several hundred individuals.

Only Africans Can Help Africa

2009-10-21T04:16:00.000-07:00

*Disclaimer: You know how you have those down times but you pick yourself up and go on, and realize it's not that bad? This is one of those down times. It's not representative of my entire emotional state of being but I did want to include some honest truths along with all the rah-rah-schish-boom-bah that happens when you save the world. Though I do appreciate all of the concern and support from friends and family. I love you guys!

I am tired. I am tired of sweating all the time. Of oppressive heat and the feeling of suffocation. Of never having a clean house, clean kids, or clean me. I am tired of people who cannot see a different perspective, who expect me to assimilate 100% to their way of life but will make no concessions to mine. I am tired of a host mom who takes every opportunity to tell me in the most indirect, confusing manner ever that my boyfriend is not welcome in the compund because we are not married and I am living in sin.

I am tired of skinny, starving children. Of poor medical care. Of collecting rain water to drink. And of never having a COLD drink. Of communicating with only two year olds. Of trying to watch DVD’s to escape it all, but having to give up when they skip from all the dust in the air, and I just bought them that afternoon.

I am tired of the begging. Of people who feel they are entitled to everything I might own. Of everyone who won’t listen. Of everyone who cannot formulate a single original thought. Of being told that I should observe all Muslim customs and holidays, when clearly, I AM NOT MUSLIM.

I am tired of bathing outside with the mosquitoes. And waiting for the middle of the night to sneak out to use the bathroom cause the privacy fence around my latrine fell down. I’m tired of everything in my house filling with mold and mildew from the rains and of cleaning up after the mice and geckos who share my living space.

I am tired of testing my patience to the breaking point. I am tired of hot, dirty, unsafe public transport with a fat woman sitting on me and squishing my leg. I am tired of people yelling at me as I walk down the road and people who invade my personal space.

I am tired of being fed up with this country, these people, this life. I am just so tired. I want to go home.

-Journal Entry, September 2009

It’s not always rainbows and butterflies…sometimes it’s just a lot of mosquitoes and malaria pills and Gold Bond Medicated Body Powder. Somehow the founders of Peace Corps knew that two years is the breaking point for most people. That after two years pass, minor irritations have become major frustrations. It's the point where you can’t remember exactly why running off to live in the Bolivian mountainside or African bush was ever a good idea and when you decide that maybe the world doesn't need saving after all.

My Peace Corps journey started in August of 2007 and will come to an end on Nov 27, 2009, when at the stroke of midnight I will be carried away to the airport in the last Gambian taxi I might ever have to take in my entire life.

At three in the morning my plane takes off and whisks me away from the Gambia, out of the life that I was wildly thrust into a year ago. After a service filled with ups and downs, evacuations, surprise reunions and new beginnings, I must admit that I am exhausted yet still enormously thankful for the opportunity. I leave with no regrets, only a true belief in the words of President Obama when he says, “Only Africans can help Africa." (And maybe only Bolivians can help Bolivia.)

So as I leave the development of Africa to the Africans, my boyfriend and I are off to take romantic camel rides across the Sahara of Morocco, spend Christmas in Rome with my parents, and finish off somewhere in Greece. If you’d like to meet up anywhere, let me know. If not, I’ll see you back Stateside early next year. Party planning can start now!

Sensory Overload: Metros & Starbucks & McDonalds & More

2009-07-23T12:45:00.000-07:00

Travel can be glamourous and exciting. Traveling in Peace Corps countries is often not. Taking advantage of my proximity to the developed world, I recently took a little trip to the land of milk and honey. Otherwise known as Spain.

We started our tour of Spain in France. I was fascinated by the pink house.

And the harbor.

And the food, once back in Spain. I found an old friend who happened to be living in Madrid. He invited us to his hometown where his parents took us out for a night of traditional San Sebastian eating. It's called Tapa Bar Hopping. You get tapas, little appetizer sized portions of food and drink, and you consume a little at one bar before heading to the next.

Obviously, Kasey and I have been a bit food deprived in the Gambia.

And ice cream melts under the African sun.

That's Alex, #1 Spanish Guide, buying us drinks at the world's #1 Bartender's bar.

We caught a glimpse of San Sebastian from above when we went to check out a castle.

And then the castle happened to have a thrilling roller coaster ride, which was in fact scarier than initially thought to be.

I then took a night train to Barcelona. My brother Tony met up with me for some traveling and quality time, and I must say I embarrased him with my Peace Corps habits. One being- always take advantage of the luxuries. That includes grabbing extra free mints at the hotels, buying food when it's available even if you're not hungry, and of course, stretching out in the extra leg room on public transport.

We saw one of the most amazing sights as we stepped off the metro in Barcelona- The Sagrada Familia Cathedral.

Tony loves the sights, I love the food. I also really really loved the human statues. I tricked this particular statue into moving several days in a row. And on the last day in Grenada I paid him a few Euro cents and he did a robot dance for me and blew me a kiss.

Lots of Gaudi, not gaudy, art. I learned this trick from a friend. You can now photoshop yourself into the picture and it will look like I have my arm around you. Oh, memories!

My bro Tony, after lots of European shopping, right before attending a meeting for Shopaholics Anonymous.

Food. Ham. I don't get ham in the Gam. It's Muslim.

We then went to see a palace in Grenada. Unfortunately we got lost heading up there. We did find a water spout.

And then we decided to have some fun with the water spout.

Eventually we got to see the palace after first finding out that the tickets we bought online were for the day before. And the only way to get in without paying again was to be elderly or disabled. The ticket man told me to cut off my arm and we could get in free. I opted not.

More palace-y stuff...

And a little more. The palace was too big for my taste.

And then we got lost going up to see the palace from the hillside at sunset. But it was beaUtiful.

Back in Madrid, I found that the Spanish are still making fun of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

And then I got back to the serious business of eating delicious things.

And staring at delicious things...

And returning to the same delicious place for more delicious things.

We also got down to business doing what I'm kinda known for... Clubbing.

And clubbing some more.

We cracked ourselves up as we were riding the metros, eating, shopping, sightseeing, catching up, gossiping, and remembering the old times. And then, because he loves me so much, Tones put on the African outfit my host mom had made for him.

Trip summary:

Cost of bush taxis, ferry, horse cart and flight to Madrid: $450

Cost of incidentals while in Spain, including Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts, tapas, sangria, chocolate eclairs, sushi, and Chinese buffets: $900

Sitting down to a McDonald's Happy Meal after eight months in the African bush: PRICELESS.

Saving The World, One Bednet At A Time

2009-07-07T10:52:00.000-07:00

New Project: Fighting Malaria. And you can help. Check out my website, make a donation, and spread the word.

From all of us in the Gambs, THANK YOU!

http://www.AgainstMalaria.com/tammy

The U.S. eradicated malaria in the early 1950’s. It is now 2009, and the Gambia still has not. With the rainy season that brings beauty and life back to the land comes a darker side: the proliferation of the mosquito that transmits malaria and results in the loss of human lives. It’s a disease that infects almost every Gambian at least once in his or her life, and though there is a cure, for many it is painfully out of reach.

Peace Corps The Gambia is embarking on a campaign with the U.K. based organization Against Malaria. Our goal is to help prevent the transmission of malaria through distribution of and proper instruction on the use of treated bednets. Each net costs just under $5. We aim to raise $40,000, and with a dollar-for-dollar match from a generous donor this will allow the purchase of approximately 16,000 nets.

Epidemiological studies have suggested that for every 20 bednets used in Africa, 1 life is saved. Join me in helping to save 800 lives, one bednet at a time.

It's an Ugly World Out There: Part I

2009-06-16T10:50:00.000-07:00

(Slightly dated, I know. But I'm trying.)

Bolivia Plot: Assassins or Victims?

By PAOLA FLORES and FRANK BAJAK – May 2, 2009

SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia (AP) — Airlifted in from Bolivia's western highlands, some two dozen elite officers in green helmets and flak jackets entered the Las Americas Hotel just before 4 a.m., disabled its surveillance cameras and stealthily made for the fourth floor. A bomb exploded. After 15 minutes of gunfire, three men were dead in their underwear on separate hotel room floors: A Bolivian-born Hungarian, an Irishman and a Romanian. Two of their comrades with ties to Croatia and Hungary were arrested in rooms down the hall.

A few hours later, President Evo Morales announced during a visit to Venezuela that an assassination plot against him, hatched by right-wing extremists and employing foreign mercenaries, had been foiled on his instructions."Before I left," he said, "I gave the order."The strange events of April 16 have only deepened political and social rifts in this nation of 10 million, where Morales, an Indian and a strident leftist, faces an intransigent foe in the light-skinned elite of this provincial capital.

Vice President Alvaro Garcia has blamed the alleged plot on "the fascist and racist right" of Santa Cruz. Morales' opponents in turn claim the government is trying to discredit them and bolster his campaign for re-election in December.The killings have also brought Bolivia to the attention of four European countries impatient for an explanation. Hungary, Ireland, Romania and Croatia have all asked for what the latter called "a full and impartial" accounting. Was it not possible to wait a few hours and capture the alleged conspirators peacefully at breakfast?"The Irish government has a legitimate right to seek the facts of how one of its citizens came to be killed by the security forces of another state," said Ireland's foreign minister, Michael Martin.

Yet more than two weeks after the raid, Bolivia has yet to provide persuasive details of the alleged conspiracy. It's a puzzle, in the words of Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Balazs, in which the pieces don't fit.An indignant Morales at first resisted the calls for explanation. Then, at the United Nations on April 22, he said he was willing to accept an international investigation.

Such a probe would almost certainly begin with Eduardo Rozsa Flores, the only one of the slain men with clear warrior credentials.In September, he told a TV journalist in Hungary that he was returning home to organize a militia. You can only broadcast the interview, Rozsa said, if I don't return alive.

Born in Santa Cruz 49 years ago to a Hungarian father and Bolivian mother, Rozsa boasted in interviews and in a blog of serving as a translator for "Carlos the Jackal" when the Venezuelan terrorist was living in then-communist Hungary.

After the Berlin Wall fell, Rozsa became a minor celebrity in Croatia for commanding a brigade of foreign volunteers in its 1991 independence war. A poet, journalist and recent convert to Islam, he later starred as himself in "Chico," a biopic that won best film in Hungary's national cinema festival in 2002.

The other two slain men apparently lacked Rozsa's combat experience, if not his sense of adventure. So under what premise — and for what exactly — did he recruit them?Michael Dwyer was a 24-year-old Irish security guard whose family said he went to Bolivia in October looking for work. His Facebook pages show he liked to play Airsoft, a non-lethal military game like paintball where participants shoot nonmetallic pellets at each other.

Arpad Magyarosi, 29, was an ethnic Hungarian rock musician and schoolteacher from Romania who relatives said loved to travel. Neither of the men apparently told their families back home exactly what they were doing in distant Bolivia.

Authorities said Las Americas was the third four-star or better hotel in which the men had lodged.The raid's two survivors were flown to the highlands capital of La Paz and jailed without bail on terrorism charges after a closed hearing. They are Mario Tadic, a 51-year-old Bolivia-Croat comrade-in-arms of Rozsa from the Balkans, and Hungarian computer technician Elod Toaso.Bolivian Defense Minister Walker San Miguel said Rozsa recruited Toaso, 28, through the Szekler Legion, a right-wing group that promotes autonomy for Romania's ethnic Hungarians.

Hungary's ambassador, Matyas Jozsa, told The Associated Press after visiting Toaso in jail that the former bank employee may not have understood what he was getting into."My impression is that far from being a terrorist, he's fearful. Little by little he came to realize what he was involved in and that he'd made a big mistake," said Jozsa.He believes the slain men never had a chance to surrender and said Toaso saved himself by diving face-down to the floor, putting his hands on the back of his neck.

How Tadic survived is unclear. No relative has emerged, and a human rights lawyer who visited him said only that he was prepared to cooperate with authorities.The hotel's manager, Hernan Rossell, told the AP he arrived on the scene 10 minutes after the shooting ended and saw Rozsa's body on the floor, a revolver about 40 centimeters (16 inches) from his right hand, a bullet wound in his face. It was the only weapon Rossell said he saw on the fourth floor not wielded by the police, none of whom were injured in the raid.Julio Larrea, a police investigator, said the alleged mercenaries set off a C4 plastic explosives charge just before the shootout began. He said police recovered guns at the scene, though he didn't specify how many or where, except that a handgun and a silencer were found in Rozsa's room.

Authorities have offered no evidence that the slain men fired weapons. An autopsy done on Dwyer's badly decomposed body in Ireland determined he was killed by a single gunshot to the chest, but apparently little more.Many aspects of the case are still a mystery.On the day of the raid, Bolivian police confiscated about a dozen weapons at a convention center booth that they said the alleged assassins had rented through a local telecommunications company or a business fair. Prosecutor Marcelo Sosa later showed photos he said were found at the convention center booth of all the alleged mercenaries but Tadic posing with guns. In one, Dwyer has a pistol in each hand.

Police also said the men were responsible for a dynamite blast the day before at the home of the local Roman Catholic cardinal, in which nobody was hurt and minor damage incurred. They presented another man, Juan Carlos Gueder, who has been arrested on terrorism charges. Gueder told reporters he sold Rozsa a pistol, and that Rozsa said he planned to assassinate Santa Cruz's governor, Ruben Costas, to make him "a martyr."Garcia, the vice president, says the alleged mercenaries were planning to kill him and Morales, then "organize civilian groups for an armed resistance to violently seize power." Pro-autonomy groups in Bolivia are especially upset by Morales' plan to to seize fallow cropland from big landholders, many of whom are based in Santa Cruz, and "return" it to members of Bolivia's indigenous majority. However, the opposition vehemently denies involvement in any assassination plot.

The evidence authorities have provided to date is a three-minute video that Sosa says was obtained from an informant. He says it shows the three slain men lamenting missing a chance to bomb a boat on which Morales held a Cabinet meeting in Lake Titicaca in early April.The accompanying audio is unclear, however. Reporters who viewed it could make out words including "Titicaca," "wetsuit" and "explosives" but no clear narrative.

Another piece of the mystery surrounds the men's stay in Bolivia. The police investigator, Larrea, said Rozsa had taken Toasa and Tadic's passports from them so they couldn't travel.In the Sept. 8 interview where he laid out his plan to form a militia in Bolivia, Rozsa told Hungarian television anchor Andras Kepes that he intended to sneak in through Brazil. He said he was going not as an agitator, but as a defender."I have been called to organize the defense of the city and province of Santa Cruz," he said. "This isn't about me going to the Bolivian jungle to play Che Guevara." Guevara, a hero of Cuba's revolution, was executed in Bolivia in 1967 after failing to launch a communist uprising.

Rozsa insisted his mission was not "to attack La Paz or to help organize an attack on the capital and to drive away the president." Kepes said the videotaped interview could be considered Rozsa's "last will and testament."But more could be coming. Bolivian authorities seized five laptops in the raid.In the movie "Chico," playing himself, Rozsa quotes the 19th-century Cuban independence leader and poet Jose Marti in explaining to a Croat military officer why he's enlisting in another nation's fight."It's criminal to promote a war that can be avoided," he says, "and it is also criminal not to support a war that is inevitable."

Associated Press writers Carlos Valdez in La Paz, Pablo Gorondi in Budapest, Hungary, Alison Mutler in Bucharest, Romania, Snjezana Vukic in Zagreb, Croatia, and Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin, Ireland, contributed to this report. Bajak reported from Bogota, Colombia.

It's an Ugly World Out There: Part II

2009-06-16T10:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.whcaware.com/gambia/Gambia.htm

Changing the World, One Grandma at a Time

2009-06-01T11:35:00.000-07:00

"Most of the things we try to accomplish in the Peace Corps go flying off the roof of the bus; in the end you're lucky if the thing rolls into the station at all. More than likely however you will end up sitting on the side of the road while the drunk busdriver tries to rig a new tire out of an old pair of socks and a cigarette filter. You hardly ever get where you wanted to go, but hey- in the end you're sitting on the side of the road enjoying a very nice sunset chatting it up with someone's grandma. And I personally would rather change the world one grandma at a time. "

~Britta Lilley Hansen, Returned Peace Corps Volunteer

Weddings and Babies and Puppies and More

2009-05-22T06:53:00.000-07:00

Mbaa. That’s the word for “mom” in Mandinka. That’s what I call my host mother here. In the beginning I was a bit apprehensive and uncomfortable using that title with her. To me, it is a title bestowed solely upon the woman who raised and nurtured me. The woman who rubbed medicated oil on my stomach when I was sick, who tried to make me pretty for my first-grade class photo by putting my hair in braids but forgot I would run around too much at recess and end up looking like a disheveled nutcase by the time the camera flashed in my face. The woman who calls and gets so excited to hear about the new country, new foods, new clothes, new boyfriend, and new life I now have all the way in West Africa.

Though she is not my real mom, Mbaa is a pretty good substitute. She owns a fabric shop and dresses so beautifully that I feel like an African queen is entering the room each night she returns home and throws open the curtain door with a flourish. She speaks only Mandinka and delights at every new sentence I put together. My first week in site she asked me which fabric I liked best in her shop and then took it to make a new outfit for me to wear to meet her parents, since she wanted me to make a good impression in my “African Dress.”

Mbaa treats me as one of her own, as best she can, and with that comes the unavoidable conversations about my marital status. She was so excited to meet my boyfriend Matt, or Lamin, as they know him here. She wants to know if I will marry him. She wants to know whether I want her plot of land next door so once Lamin and I are married, we can build our own compound here in the Gambia and be Mbaa’s neighbors. She asked me if she could throw a naming ceremony for my firstborn, and if Lamin and I would name the child after her. I told her “Mundow” was too difficult a name. She told me not to worry, her real name is Hawa.

Once we settled on that, I regrettably had to inform her that the birth of my first child would probably not be in the Gambia, and that I would probably not be present for the naming ceremony. “EHHHH!” she told me. Not a problem. Just let her know when the child is born and she would have a tiny little outfit made and sent to America so I could have a proper Gambian naming ceremony there, while she threw one here, in my honor.

I must admit, I'm a little flattered. I think I'm getting this integration thing down. That little exchange above, as you can imagine, has to be one of the most tedious conversations ever! Not for me, but for Mbaa. Imagine the patience required to have some strange visitor sitting on your couch, not understanding what you say, repeating each phrase out of your mouth in her own version of three-year-old Mandinka. Then each time this pale-skinned girl who glows in the dark interprets incorrectly, you have to try to speak slower, with simpler words so that maybe she can figure out what the conversation is even about.

I always have to give this woman credit. She certainly does try. I don’t know if I would have the same patience. I am the first Peace Corps volunteer living with her family so much of the time she does not know what to make of me or what to do with me, I am just so strange. But isn't that what it's about? Uncomfortable silences that stretch so long they become comfortable. Weird exchanges that take place so often they become normal. It's all part and parcel of volunteer life.

At any rate, in the event that I for some reason decide I will take her up on the offer, I got a glimpse of what a wedding in the Gambia would look like. The following are photos from my host cousin Adama’s wedding. I am still puzzled at why almost all of the 1000 attendants were women. Equally puzzling was the fact that I never did identify the groom. And the unveiling of a new bedroom set in the middle of the compound was later explained to be a part of the dowry, a gift from the groom to my host mom. Though I still don’t understand that either, since she is technically the bride’s aunt, not her mother. I guess some things in this life just can’t be explained.

Over 1000 people showed up for the wedding. Speakers stacked right outside my door. Partying stopped at 2 in the morn. Rather early, actually.

Drums. Dancing. Drums and dancing.

African Dance Queen teaching me how to dance.

Asian-American Dance Queen turning it back around on them!

Kids in their matching outfits, known as "asobees." You dress according to your age group. Mine consists of many women with infants and toddlers. Apparently I missed the boat.

The older lady asobees.

Where's Waldo? I mean, Kaddy.

Hint: She glows in the dark. (They actually told me I did.)

My host bro Lamin with my host niece Sally. I loved her outfit and wanted to get it copied. Then I realized I would be dressing like a two-year-old.

Host sis Asa who thinks I am hilarious. She was once in a near death state with malaria when I came in the house. I didn't realize she was sick she was so animated. Then she told me it was only because I was so funny she couldn't help but laugh and forget she was sick. She got well again soon. Apparently malaria is not always fatal. Whew.

The bridal party. Or so I assumed. The third girl in with the Macy Gray hair is my sister Rohey, Sally's mom.

Bride on the left, Rohey on the right. Look guys, one day that could be me!

I'm So Out Of My Element I'm In It.

2009-05-22T06:01:00.000-07:00

Skin fungus. Parasites. Flies that hatch from your body. Relentless harassment. Language barriers. Children chasing after you. Rocks flung as you ride your bike. Faces peeping through doors and windows to glimpse the Toubab. Latrines and bucket baths. The same conversation over and over and OVER. Hiding in the hut because you are so overwhelmed and just wish for one second, just ONE second, that you could be in a world with McDonalds and Chinese buffets and supermarkets and hot showers.

All that in mind, does one have to be absolutely crazy, absolutely mad to choose this lifestyle? Of course every one wants to know (at times, myself included), why do I do Peace Corps? How could I have transferred knowing what it’s like? How do I get by and continue on and most of all, how could I love it?

Really, this is a very difficult question to answer. You know when a friend tells you about something funny that happened and you don’t really laugh, and they finish lamely with a “Guess you just had to be there?” Sometimes I feel that’s what Peace Corps is like. It’s not something that can necessarily be explained, it’s something that must be lived and felt. However, because I do want to impart to you why I continue to do what I do, I will describe it the best I can.

My journey with Peace Corps actually started back in second semester of my junior year in college. At that time I decided that in order to land my dream job with P&G, I really needed to have some international experience on my resume. The quickest and easiest route was to do a trip over spring break, and so that’s what I did. I heard about the Timmy Foundation through a friend and learned that there would be a building brigade going to Honduras. I signed up and went. I had always heard that these trips could be “life-changing experiences.” I wasn’t really interested in all that. I just wanted to go abroad in the most painless way possible.

Too bad I met one of the most beautiful souls on earth during that trip. Too bad he inspired me to the point that I hastily changed school plans in order to study abroad first semester the following year. Too bad I went back to Honduras that next year with near-fluent Spanish and realized just what an impact I had made on Walter, and Walter had made on me, and how that one relationship could be generalized across so many other relationships with the children I met at this all-boys school/farm/orphanage.

It’s hard to put in words what happened there, but the best that I can describe it, at the risk of sounding insanely cheesy, is that it was an experience that made my heart and soul sing. Honduras was the first time I felt it; Peace Corps Bolivia was the first time I lived it.

Peace Corps is not only about providing technical assistance, it also focuses on cultural exchange. That is one thing that differentiates this organization from other aid organizations and NGO’s. Aside from the fact that volunteers are paid only what the average host country national earns (meaning that we often rely on hand-me-down clothing from exiting volunteers, regularly wear shirts dotted with holes and pants that have obviously seen better days, bargain with anyone and everyone, and count each and every penny- dalasi actually- before stepping foot into a “regular” restaurant), volunteers can easily be distinguished from other Toubabs by their level of cultural integration.

In other words, we speak local languages and observe the traditions and customs of the people around us. We don’t get to live in the nicest areas of town, drive around in air-conditioned cars, or hang out exclusively with other ex-pats. We do, however, sit in overcrowded vehicles with crying babies placed into our laps whether we know the child or not. We hitchhike. We live in small communities and rural villages where we have to try as best we can to communicate with those around us.

It’s that cultural exchange that keeps me coming back for more. One week in Honduras, one month in Vietnam, one semester in Costa Rica, one year in Bolivia. Each time I go abroad and immerse myself in the life and language of people so different from myself I walk away with a greater understanding of not just who they are, but who I am. It provides a higher level of awareness and insight that I would struggle to achieve while in the U.S. And it would take ten times longer, if it happened at all.

Once I discovered how much joy I gained from going and out and seeing what the world has to offer, and what I can offer to the world, I just didn’t want to miss out. Extreme hunger pains aside, despite hot weather and crowded, unpredictable, sweaty transport, I must admit that when my little host brother walks in my hut each morning grinning his little smile with the missing two front teeth, I can’t help but smile right back.

Ultimately, Peace Corps reminds me that life should be lived. It should make you laugh. It can make you cry. It should make you learn and grow. It surprises you. It frustrates, it puzzles, it delights. It shows that even with the different languages and cultures, customs and religions, the different levels of wealth and education, there are common threads that link us all and at the end of the day we really can sit down and brew a cup of attaya tea and chat. We have so much to share and to gain from one another.

Whether it be with random strangers or with the host family, I think that on both sides, the impressions made will last a lifetime. I took the dive into Peace Corps and day in and day out, I find myself in situations where I’m so out of my element, I’m in it. And though sometimes I would die for a Big-Mac, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

The Real Deal

2009-05-08T04:17:00.000-07:00

Straight from the source, check out real Peace Corps life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMI-tsTLVcw

(This guy also happens to be my love interest. Whatcha think 'bout THAT?)

All in a Day's Work

2009-05-06T15:26:00.000-07:00

Survey Responses: Britta Hansen (aka The Greatest Sitemate in the WORLD!)

1. Who are you and how did you find my blog?

Hey Tammers Its Britta. I found YOU one day walking around Samaipata. ME-"Hmmm I wonder who that Asian chick is over by Amboro tours... no she couldn't be PeaceCorps, those pants are way to to hot and ummm, are those highlights in her hair... Definitely not PeaceCorps." You- "O my god, who is that dirty hippie with those nasty stinky chacos, yuck, oh god i hope shes not in PeaceCorps too. What would we talk about..." Us, two days later "Holy shit you are the funniest person ever, oh my god I cant believe we just ate so many pancakes!" Thats how i met you, fell in love and found your blog!

2. What were you in the middle of doing just now? (If it was eating a McDonald’s cheeseburger and fries, OMG AM I JEALOUS!!!).

I was just posting some photos on FB from a totally fun weekend up at Lusten, Old friends good times. And i thought i would check out if anything new was going on with you.

3. What burning question do you have for me that I have not yet answered?

I want to know... a day in the life... do a post about just an average day in your life..."got up at bla bla ate rice with hot shit on it, had lots of latrine time, Thank god for the newsweeks..." you know all the little stuff you do each day.

4. How many times have you laughed, cried, and/or thrown up as you have read my blog?

I have totally cried, sorry its true, i miss you and honestly im a bit jealous that you are doing all this way badass cool fun stuff in AFRICA no less, and here i am driving my ass down 94 everymorning at 730 to go to work with the rest of the shmucks. I have laughed too, and worried about your poor little stomach.

5. What is the best/worst/funniest recent moment in your life for which I have been absent?

Oh so many moments you have missed, like a fun evening at the VFW on Hennepin, whoa. The rest of Bolivia. We will have time to make many more memories.

6. And last of all, what do you miss most about me???

Again so much i miss about you, I miss your gate with the ants marching across the top, and your little garden that could, i miss staying up late and talking about boys, and eating Kilos brownies, you teaching me how to be a lady, and me teaching you how to set up a tent and that a head lamp can be used for more than a reading light! Mostly i miss your beautiful face and smile, and the way you make me laugh and think about the world... now im crying again... Im so happy for you and i will try to skype call you as soon as i can.

A Day in the Life.

Señora, this one's for you!!!

I awaken to the sound of crowing roosters outside my door, the squeak of the well wheel as water is drawn, and the shouting from a wide awake host family who has been up since the dawn prayer call.

Next, pit stop at the pit latrine. That little block in the background? My shower.

The two sweet little host family kids, Sally and Njaka, check up on me each morning. They do things like take one bite of a cashew apple, just one, and leave the rest neatly on my table and hope I don't notice.

After a breakfast of sugary tea and bread with unsalted butter, I strap on my Peace Corps standard issue helmet and head out to work at the women's garden.

There are about 300 women in this 12 hectare garden, with 300 more to join soon. I was recently named to the board of directors. This consists of endless meetings to determine rules and bylaws, a lot of screaming in Mandinka that I don't understand, exhaustion, frustration, yet the tiniest glimmer of hope that we might be getting somewhere.

These women are working on a vegetable production trial that I headed up. It was my first effort in which I ran the show. And I think they understood maybe 10% of what I said. But we got it done!

Manual labor, backbreaking labor, more manual labor. That's what gardening here is all about.

Around 1:00 I head home for lunch. The bike ride home includes children screaming "HELLO! GIVE ME PEN! GIVE ME MINTY!" And from the ones that know me, "KADDYYYY BOJANGGGG!!!!" Also there are the cops who harass me and try to pull me over, on my bike no less. The alleged infraction? Not saying hello. The real reason? To ask if I will marry them. To which I respond to with a tongue lashing in Mandinka, at which time they decide I would probably be too much trouble as a second wife.

Home for lunch. Everyday, rice & sauce. Leaf sauce, peanut sauce, ground up fish in sauce...

After lunch, back to work. The family has a 12-year-old maid. I hate making her wash clothes. But so far I can handle only washing the unmentionables, since hauling water is hard work. And I have a lot of garden plots to care for.

Carrying that water back G-style baby!

It's kinda hot here. (Time is inaccurate. It's about 2:00 by now. I bought a satellite clock that only works in the U.S. It is so confused here.)

Washing and washing. Wish I had that nice little running tap I had in the old country.

My clothesline, in the bath area, tied to a fence made of coos stalk that I had to paint with motor oil to prevent complete consumption and destruction by termites. But not before they had eaten enough that people can kinda peek through.

more garden plots. You first double dig to allow aeration. Then add leaves for nitrogen and soil improvement. Then add manure that I collect for half an hour a day with a shovel and a bucket by jumping my wall to get next door.

They call me an ag-fo supastar. I no longer have a little garden that could. These days, my little garden ROCKS IT!

But even supastars get tired. Break!

Breaktime is cashew hunting time. Quite the delicacy. They are delicious, provide tons of vitamin C, and replenish a dehydrated body. Yum.

Tossing rocks to knock down a cashew. My aim sucks. I toss about 15 to knock down one.

Sweet success.

Done with work for the day. I live near the beach, better APROVECHAR!

Kids chasing. They like to try to catch the Toubab. Remember the staging videos where volunteers have rocks flung at them by the native children? It's no joke...

Sand.....

Cows....

Gardens...

A quick 10 min ride and I arrive at the beach, a little thirsty. Eight cents later, problem solved.

Destination: Paradise Beach. And in tribute to those who did, those who are, and those who wish they still were, I go on livin' the dream. Just livin' the dream......

Your Mouth is Short

2009-03-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

My mom called again the other day. Among other things we discussed my infrequency of blogging and the flurry of activity that happens in the Kokomo Housing Authority office at the end of each period of anxious anticipation for the next installment of My Peace Corps Life.

So, to the ladies of KHA, here you go. Pace yourselves. Make it last. (Oh, and if you did not answer my survey questions, go back and do it, cause that’s what these next few entries are about. It’s just the all the answers to all your questions.)

Survey Responses: Le Nguyen (aka Mom)

1. Who are you and how did you find my blog?

Lady, I forward your blogs to the PC volunteer mom. The mom, Lydia Thompson encourages one of us who has a son or daughter serve in Africa, to join the email to share thought and ideas.

2. What were you in the middle of doing just now? (If it was eating a McDonald’s cheeseburger and fries, OMG AM I JEALOUS!!!).

Working and starting to read your blog as Mariella, coworker told me , Tammy blogs is updated.

3. What burning question do you have for me that I have not yet answered?

How are your native language going? Do you speak well now?

4. How many times have you laughed, cried, and/or thrown up as you have read my blog?

I laughed or giggle myself many times for you are hilarious not thrown up yet.

5. What is the best/worst/funniest recent moment in your life for which I have been absent?

I miss you the most for not be talking to you on the phone.

6. And last of all, what do you miss most about me???

Your hugs and kisses.

So she wants to know how language is going. How indeed.

Language is a relentless struggle punctuated with an occasional shining moment of glory right when the outlook is so dismal that I am ready to throw in the towel. As the Gambians like to put it, I’m learning slowly slowly.

Learning Mandinka is particularly complex and puzzling in ways that learning Spanish never was. And though I speak Vietnamese, I never actually had to sit and learn it- it just seeped into my brain as I grew up, though I must admit I can barely read and write due to my inattention during Vietnamese lessons the summer after second and third grade. I am thus regrettably illiterate. Sorry Mom.

At any rate, being that I am on my fourth language, you would think I have learned some secrets by now. If you happen to be good at languages like I mistakenly thought I was, or if you have never studied a language before and can’t imagine why Mandinka would be any different from any other, let me outline a few challenges for you now.

Challenge #1: Mandinka is not a written language. It has been passed down orally throughout the years, and the majority of efforts to capture it in writing have been done by missionary groups or Peace Corps. As a result, words are always spelled three different ways by three different teachers and/or books, and being that I am a book studier, each time I run into a different spelling I think I am running into a new word.

Challenge #2: Words have multiple meanings. For example, I ask where my brother Lamen is. They say “A be wuloo kono.” I hear, “He is in the dog.” What they mean is, “He is in the bush.” And when I say bush, I don’t mean a shrub. What I mean is the African countryside. The African bush. Leading to Challenge #3…

Challenge #3: I don’t even understand the English. Tentengo is a “basket for winnowing.” I thought winnowing was some sort of fishing technique. Then I realized I was thinking of minnows. Winnowing is actually the action of tossing rice in the air after it has been pounded in order to separate the grain from the husk. I believe that is what you call it, the cover of the rice is the husk, right?

Then there is kalamaa- “a small calabash.” I thought a calabash might be some sort of bush. The Gambian man sitting next to me told me it was a pot for washing rice. A volunteer told me it was a squash. It finally dawned on me. A kalamaa is the half gourd that makes a cute little bowl! Moving on…

Challenge #4: Translations have no meaning. Either because their English is different from my English, or because literal translations just make no sense. A typical greeting, repeated at least once to every person I meet, every day, regardless if I already know them or not:

Me: Peace be upon you.
Them: Peace be upon you too.

Me: Where are the compound people?
Them: They are there.

Me: You are at peace?
Them: Peace only.

Me: Hope there is no trouble there?
Them: There is no trouble there.

I cease to wonder what that means. If I come upon a group of 15 old men hanging on the side of the road, I must go down the line and shake all their hands and say that entire script to each and every one of them, individually. Which may explain why I generally try to avoid large groups.

Once past the rote memorization greetings, things can get even more confusing. Such as, in response to me saying I am from America, I am asked, “What is there?” The first time it happened I stood there stumped with a puzzled expression on my face as my mind raced through the realm of possible answers. Nothing seemed appropriate. And as I was pondering the question, repeating it out loud during my few moments of contemplation, I must have stalled too long because the woman shouts “She does not hear Mandinka!” To which I think, “I hear Mandinka just fine. What I don’t hear, though, is what I should answer with.”

Next time I’m just going to say, “Obama is there.”

Challenge #5: The dictionary cracks me up. That’s what it is best used for. Yesterday I wanted to buy fabric and thought I should prepare for the event by learning the colors. I had the typical black, white, red, and blue in my notes, but nothing about the colors I really like in clothing. So I went to look up pink, and there is no entry for pink, but there is a word for Pink Peanut. I then move on to purple, and sure enough, no entry found for that word, but there is a word for Purple Heron. I also had tasted some kind of vaguely familiar fruit the other day. After going outside to ask again the word in Mandinka, I go to look it up. Definition: Some kind of fruit.

Challenge #6: Definitions don’t help even when you have them. My host mum yelled at the six-year-old. I didn’t quite know what she said. Turns out he was told, “Your mouth is short.” I don’t know what that means.

Challenge #7: The language is rather fanciful. One time I was told “Your head is not on it on it.” They meant, “You forgot.” To say Chinese people and Vietnamese people are different, I must say, “Chinese people and Vietnamese people are not one.”

But you know, I’m starting to get the hang of it. I had to ask my host mom about moving furniture the other day and was lacking a few key words. Furniture being one. I find it and in trying to memorize it, I realize it is actually a compound word that means “things-in-the-house.” I then need the word for “truck,” and as I subconsciously will my mind to THINK Mandinka, FEEL Mandinka, BE Mandinka, I begin to think speculate that I would be understood if I call the truck a “big car.” But a little obsessively, I look it up anyway. And what do we have? “Moto baa.” Big car.

Ah Haaa! Mandinka, I think I got you figured out!!!

It’s Like Giving Birth to a Demon

2009-03-28T10:14:00.000-07:00

Peace Corps gets this great deal here with the mobile phone company Africell. For just 50 Dalasis (~$2) a month volunteers can have unlimited texting amongst themselves. For just 50 more Dalasis, we can have unlimited calling between the hours of 12 a.m. to 5 p.m. Being that most don’t have electricity to charge cell phones we try to maximize battery life by sending texts. I now present to you a representation of exchanges that take place in a typical day in my following compilation, “A Day in the Texts.”

Be forewarned, among volunteers, bowel movements are popular topic of conversation. If you don’t want to know, don’t continue reading.

A Day in the Texts

“My one eyed 90 year old grandma just grabbed a goat by its leg and started beating it with a stick while all the kids danced around singing.”

“My foot just slipped into the latrine hole! I’m going to vomit!”

“Thought you might like to know that I ate a can of Spaghetti O’s straight out of the can, unheated with no utensils, and it was ten pm at the hospital, so I secretly went outside and did it in the dark, so no one would see… And [I] have been consistently eating Chef Boyardee unheated this last week AND drinking the leftover sauce afterwards. I felt so embarrassed every time… Eating in secret makes it SO much worse for some reason.”

“I’m patiently waiting for my host sister to finish taking a sh*t in the middle of the road.”

“I just put moldy sauce on my pasta. It’s not delicious yet I’m still eating it.”

“It’s like giving birth to a demon.” (In reference to what it feels like to have the runs, on a daily basis)

“My house has smelled like rotting animal carcass with an overdraft of cow sh*t all day. I have searched high and low. Just went outside to look around… Lo and behold, Dead Chicken #5, complete with half a head and maggots, rotting delicately beneath my open window.”

“I had a cockroach crawl on my foot today while I was lost in thought on the latrine. Aka giving birth. I thought it was one of the kittens until a LIZARD ran up and took it right off my foot. I couldn’t finish pooping, I was so disturbed.”

“Some times I get so homesick up here I think I could die… then I think of your texts and I start laughing.”

[Editor’s Note: Ok, truth be told, pretty much all those messages come from one source. Her name is Kasey and she and I like to entertain one another with outrageous texts. None of mine are quoted here but generally we play this game and it’s a tie. I will leave the rest to your imagination.]

Vacay: Take II

2009-03-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

Attention all vacationers! If you do not yet have plans, meet me in Madrid! I will be there June 4-14. I know the last vacation rendezvous didn’t quite work out since I made it to Peru on evacuation two weeks before Mollie & Friends, but I want to try again. I hear rumors that my long lost bro and girlfriend may be meeting me? And perhaps my dear mother as well? Anyone else who would like to join, bienvenidos!

P.S. I still have quite a bit of vacation days. If you have a destination in mind, let me know. Most of Europe is rather reasonable if it is a more appealing option than where I currently reside, though I would be more than happy to give the grand tour of The Gam.

Rebuild the Peace Corps

2009-03-03T02:46:00.000-08:00

More than ever, the world needs ‘underutilized’ organization

By Bob Shacochis
USA Today
McLean, Va.
February 25, 2009

Last month in central Mozambique, one of the planet's poorest countries, I stood among the thatched mud-and-wattle huts of the village of Vinho. I was admiring the subsistence farming community's handsome new school with Greg Carr, an American philanthropist who had built that school. Since 2004, Carr, who made his fortune in the information technology boom of the '90s, has devoted his wealth, time and considerable energy to the rehabilitation of Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park. Once considered Africa's premier game preserve, Gorongosa had been destroyed by decades of war and lawlessness.

The school is a small part of the comprehensive vision of Carr and Mozambique to use the restoration of the park as a development engine for the hundreds of thousands of desperately impoverished peasants who live in the forests and hills surrounding Gorongosa. The 20-year-long hand-back agreement between the government and the Carr Foundation is an exemplary model for the marriage of private altruism and public policy in the Third World.

Even so, the day Carr and I toured the school, marveling at its solar-powered electricity and computer lab, his voice grew somber as he responded to my questions.

How many students?

Two hundred.

How many teachers?

Five.

Carr explained that the government had an uphill battle trying to staff its schools with qualified teachers. Even when a teacher was hired, his or her tenure was a daily concern because of the high rate of attrition caused by AIDS, malaria or other diseases. Vinho's five teachers had dwindled to three. Carr thought the best hope for fully staffing the school had only one apparent solution: the Peace Corps. But he wasn't optimistic. There were only two Peace Corps volunteers — much-loved teachers — in the entire district, based in a town an hour's drive away.

Does Mozambique want more Peace Corps volunteers assigned to the country? Absolutely. The Peace Corps has been in Mozambique since 1998, after its civil war ended and its once Marxist-Leninist leaders changed ideological direction. The nation held free multiparty elections and did everything possible to make itself one of the most progressive countries in the region. There are 163 volunteers in Mozambique, where Portuguese is the official language. Carr and his Portuguese communications director, Vasco Galante, guessed the country could absorb 10,000 volunteers.

So here we find ourselves, celebrating the inauguration of President Obama, a farsighted leader who has inspired millions of young Americans with his call to service. We also find ourselves on the threshold of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's new diplomatic initiative, the exercise of "smart power" in a multifaceted effort to reclaim our moral and political integrity in the eyes of the world. The obvious equation seems written in neon: "Call to service" plus "smart power" equals Peace Corps.

Dollar for dollar, you cannot get a more reliable, cost-effective answer than the Peace Corps when the challenge is to win hearts and minds around the globe. For all of Africa's wars since President Kennedy launched the Peace Corps in 1961, one of the continent's most liberating achievements in the intervening decades has been the education of millions of African children by Peace Corps volunteers. Those once illiterate students are now Africa's middle class, civil servants and leaders, struggling to meet their nations' basic needs.

Today, the U.S. sends fewer than 4,000 Peace Corps volunteers overseas annually — half the number we sent four decades ago. The agency, which is underfunded, underappreciated and underutilized, turns away too many prospective volunteers for lack of resources. More than 20 countries that do not have Peace Corps programs are waiting for Congress to keep its bipartisan promise to double the Peace Corps' size. But that promise is likely to wither on the vine of our shrinking economy without Obama's support, which would be the equivalent, in budgetary terms, of upgrading a shoestring to a bootstrap.

Throughout Africa's villages and cities, portraits of Obama have already been tacked on walls next to images of the Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela. It's impossible to go anywhere in Mozambique without hearing someone repeat what has become the world's marching order for a better future: Sim, podemos. Yes, we can.

Obama, our No. 44, who has a passion for saluting the creative legacies of his predecessors by assimilating their sensibilities into his own actions, should continue that fine habit by adapting a slogan of No. 43 to No. 35's powerful enduring vision of international service: No Volunteer Left Behind.

And in the eyes of the world, Mr. President, if you want the biggest symbolic bang for your ever dwindling buck, rebuild the Peace Corps.

I Am Temporarily Lactose Intolerant

2009-02-27T10:54:00.001-08:00

Thank god I already have a boyfriend…

Physically, I probably look like I’ve aged ten years since I’ve come here. My feet are not just dirty, they’re dry and cracked. I am growing fungus on my side. I thought it was just a mosquito bite. My skin has little lines in it, I believe some of them are called wrinkles, but the rest of them are just from the dryness. [Note to Readers: If you need an idea for a care package, Bath & Body Works lotion works miracles. It’s the only thing that does. Just make sure not to get bug-friendly scents.]

I also went through four months of strange stomach illnesses. I sent in a sample to the lab to be tested, and unlike the 24-hour turnaround that I was used to in Bolivia, here we have to send things to the U.S. to be tested, and I have been waiting since Thanksgiving to hear my results. I thought I had amoebas, giardia, or other horrific parasites. My stomach was incredibly swollen and I had stomach cramps and spent many nights on the latrine. Then a doctor comes along from the States to help out at our med unit. Previously we had two RN’s, who did great work, but could not diagnose my illness.

So the doc comes and tests me at a local lab and all results come up negative, except for the presence of white blood cells in the sample, but she seemed unconcerned. Her diagnosis: “Intestinal mucosa [has been] altered by the initial infection, by the altered motility due to the infection, and by the antibiotic therapy. Normalization of the mucosal lining takes weeks or longer. During this time, you may be lactose intolerant.”

In laymens terms, I can’t drink milk or eat milk products because my stomach is wrecked. By too many rounds of Cipro, too many rapid changes in diet, by new foreign foods, and by my former stomach ailments. What I need to do is let my digestive track heal and regenerate, but for the time being, since I have a defective digestive system, I am now temporarily lactose intolerant. Who ever heard of that???

Makes sense though, since after several months here I felt so malnourished I decided I needed milk. I then proceeded to put powdered milk in my tea, in my coffee, and in my cereal. Then I ate cheese like it was my job. I ate containers of yogurt thinking perhaps the bacterial would help my intestinal track. And there is this little delight known as chakary, which is coos mixed with sour milk and sugar. It tastes like yogurt with granola. A little stand sells it in my village and I was working towards being a regular. That just came to a screeching halt.

Doctor suggested I lay off milk products. Done. She suggested I boil water. Gas is too expensive for that. She suggested I stop eating oily and spicy foods. My food bowl is full of oil and so spicy I have to do that suck-in-the-air-thing-thru-your-teeth as I eat. She also suggested I have my family boil the veggies instead of fry them. She does not realize there are no veggies. It’s not her fault though, she had only been in country 2 days. How would she know??

So, I tried to listen. And I guess it was ok. But then I started getting that sneaking suspicion that maybe the doc didn’t know what she was talking about. So I tested her theory. I drank a glass of hot chocolate even though the packet read “CONTAINS MILK.” I also had a tiny bit of cheese in a tomato, ham, and cheese whole-wheat sliced bread airplane sandwich that was given to me by the Dutch folks who work at my garden. A sandwich with sliced bread!?!? I just couldn’t resist!

I should have tried harder. I really should have. Because I paid for that little bit of milk in the hot chocolate and that miniscule piece of cheese I ate. I paid for it and I paid for it. BIG time. All day and all night.

I now concede. Doc is right. I am lactose intolerant and I am calling the med unit to request some Lactaid. After all, I gotta stay healthy somehow, don’t I?

P.S. Thank you to all who inquired after my health. I did not realize my last post sounded so scary. I apologize. My stomach was just very full of gas and it was rather uncomfortable and I thought that bugs were eating me from the inside. But it was just gas.

Also, my fungus is doubled in size but not bothersome. I am treating it with athlete’s foot crème in conjunction with another fungal-fighting crème that I would rather not mention for fear of scaring readers yet again. Africa is not that bad. In fact, I love it.

Who AM I???

Remember back when I lived in Minneapolis? Remember when it was forty below zero and I had to leave my car in a heated garage or it wouldn’t start? Remember two feet of snow in the front yard?

I must not. Last night it’s seventy-five degrees and I’m sitting around a little charcoal stove in my host mom’s hut. We were trying to get warm.

It’s one of those moments where I wonder just who I’ve become. When I’m wearing a fleece and socks and it’s still in the 70’s, and I walk out in the afternoon heat of 115 degrees and think to myself, “Well, good thing today is nice and warm.” Granted, it’s a dry heat since it only rained for about five minutes in the last four months, and only small sprinkles really. But dry heat or not, I better get re-calibrated back to reality before I think of going home.

Who ARE you?

My phone rang this morning and it was a fellow volunteer from my training group. She had the urgent need to relay to me that her mother was following my blog and had called and said, “Marnie, I read Tammy’s blog and it's like yours...but funny!”

Apparently someone had set up a Parent Support Group through email for the moms and dads worried about their children in Africa and this is how this parent found my blog. With such sporadic communication, whether internet, cell phone, or good ol’ snail mail, I understand that it is nice for people in the U.S. to hear that their loved ones are doing well, even if it’s through Volunteer A’s mom, who talked to Volunteer A who talked to Volunteer B who says that Volunteer C no longer has amoebic dysentery.

This is fascinating to me. The interconnectedness of all of us. When evacuation happened, people really started coming out of the woodwork. I got emails from former Bolivia volunteers. Emails from parents of high-school classmates, high-school teachers, and old church members. I came back to the U.S. and had lunch with old acquaintances, and did a meet and greet with my mom’s co-workers who love following my blog. I never really knew so many people cared, so many people were interested, and so many people kept up with my life.

This blog helps meet goals two and three of Peace Corps, which is the cultural exchange between peoples of different countries. It takes a great deal of effort for me take my computer to some place that has electricity. Then to remember to take the correct adapters. Then to wait til the battery charges up and then take the computer back home to my two room mud hut and type out blog entries in the dark. I enjoy doing it though because I enjoy sharing my life and hearing from people.

I generally write about whatever random subject I am currently contemplating when I realize that I am again overdue for a blog post. In an effort to cater to my audience, I’d like some input from you. What you want to know, what you want to hear about. So stop right now, I mean RIGHT NOW, click the “comments” link, and answer these following questions.

Who are you and how did you find my blog?
What were you in the middle of doing just now? (If it was eating a McDonald’s cheeseburger and fries, OMG AM I JEALOUS!!!)
What burning question do you have for me that I have not yet answered?
How many times have you laughed, cried, and/or thrown up as you have read my blog?
What is the best/worst/funniest recent moment in your life for which I have been absent?
And last of all, what do you miss most about me???

Don’t even think about skipping my survey. Don’t. Cause in addition to fact that I do want to know my readers a little better (you just can’t get rid of the marketing side of me), it’s also a ploy to get to you to write to me. I worry about missing out on everyone’s life as I trek around the world on my prolonged Peace Corps journey. Now that you’ve read about my life, tell me about yours!

Give Me a Snickers Already.

2009-02-12T04:13:00.000-08:00

Some quick updates:

Swear-in came and went and I actually ended up not really swearing-in again cause I guess you only get to do that once in a lifetime.

I also got moved into site which is the one I originally thought I would go to, Sanyang, about a 15 min bike ride from the beach. Life is back to normal. Perpetually awkward situations, children yelling NEE-HOW, and me leading groups of 15 women on gardening projects in Mandinka, when no, I still don't speak it.

I got lucky with a really wonderful host family. A mother who owns a fabric shop, three sisters ages 25, 22, and 12, three bros ages 26, 14, and 6, a little niece age 2, and a father who lives in Atlanta. Or Madison, Wisconsin. I'm not sure which cause I never get the same answer twice.

My family is highly educated and driven, relatively speaking, and they give me enough space while making me feel a welcome part of the family which is a delicate balancing act. The women in my family all could be on "America's Next Top Model" and they are quite the fashionistas, even by U.S. standards. Being that I wear Chaco sandals and dirty capri pants, their idea of integration is to make me beautiful. I don't know if this is a sustainable endeavor, but we gave it a go.

Thus far I have gotten hair extenstions in the form of Rasta Braids (an easy way to have long hair again if you can stand the intense itching, which I couldn't, and resulted in a Macy Gray fro, 100% natural. To all those who thought Asian hair couldn't fro, I beg to differ). I also get beautiful custom tailored outfits. Slightly difficult to walk in, but beautiful nonetheless.

On the health front, I have amoebas or parasites or something that has made my belly so swollen and full of gas that my pants no longer fit. And I have a small patch of skin fungus on my side, which pales in comparison to the larvae that hatched out of my boyfriend's arm. They call it a bot fly. These things lay eggs in your clothes as they hang to dry and then burrow into the skin. After a few days of incubation and hot water compresses and squeezing, out popped a little white squirming worm slightly larger than the size of a grain of rice. I almost lost my lunch.

For those of you who miss my witty analyses of life, they will resume in the next blog. I am finding that malnourishment really leaves little energy for life. Once I ate six bananas in one sitting I was so hungry. I'm in the city now where food is more abundant and I am going to go take advantage.

So until next time, leave your comments, questions, inspirational quotes and messages on the blog and drop some food in a care package and send it my way!

Feast or Famine

2009-01-05T06:40:00.000-08:00

Life in the Gambia goes a little like this: Kill a goat, eat him in three days. Buy veggies, eat immediately. Then the rest of the month (or the rest of the year), you wait for that one glorious day to come again. No refrigeration, or even power for that matter, makes storing food impossible. I live in a state of perpetual hunger yet I have a swollen belly either due to the insane amounts of rice I eat or the fact that parasites have invaded my body. I can’t tell which one is winning.

So anyways, feast or famine. That’s life here and it is reflected now in my blog. Months with no entries and now you have a book to read. Sit back, relax, and take a gander at the last few months of my life, aka Training Take II. (And please, comments comments comments! Leave ‘em!)

August 23, 2008

110+ Degrees, 85% Humidity.

What’s that feel like? Scorching, blazing hot. Hot enough to almost faint walking three blocks. Hot that gives you headaches from constant dehydration. Hot enough to melt, I kid you not, MELT my glasses. I know because I took them to the optical center and they told me I did not scratch my glasses, the material just melted. It was not made for this climate it’s THAT hot.

November 15, 2008

Class Under the Mango Tree

And I bucket bathe underneath the orange tree. It’s the first day in training village and I’m settling into my two room mud hut. The bathroom consists of a hole (my toilet) and a red bucket and green cup (my shower). Bathing happens about 3 times a day due to over-stimulated sweat glands, and I have learned to bathe using less than two liters of water. Key, when you have to go two blocks to the pump, fill up a bucket with about 20 lbs of water, and then carry it back to the house on your head- far easier than carrying by your side- while trying not to splash it all out.

One of my host sisters invites me to go somewhere that night and not knowing the language to ask what I am doing, I just follow. I find myself sitting around a campfire at a Koranic studies session with masses of little children chanting Arabic. As I’m staring into the fire lighting up the darkness, surrounded by people speaking a language I don’t understand, practicing a religion I know almost nothing about, I stare at the fire lighting up the night and I’m pleasantly surprised by my reaction. Whereas I probably would have felt horribly nervous and out of place just a year ago before I started this insanity that I now call life, all I can think now is how great it feels to be back in the Peace Corps. And again that night as I fall asleep to a symphony of random donkeys braying, goats knocking at my door, rats chasing one another above my head, and kids screeching outside my window, I gaze up at the corrugated tin roof through the haze of my mosquito net and think to myself, “It’s so good to be back in Peace Corps.”

November 17, 2008

KADDY DEMBA!

KADDY DEMBA, KADDY DEMBA!!! Oh, the naming ceremony. One thing you learn pretty quickly in the Gambia is that names are extremely important. Last names establish your lineage and I thought it strange that while a person was greeting me, they would ask me my mother and father’s first and last name in the U.S. I couldn’t fathom what they would need the information for and at first thought that I was misunderstanding the question. However, I wasn’t.

We had a naming ceremony today. It’s a traditional ceremony held for babies generally one week after they are born. It’s a celebration involving dance, food, drums, and offerings of kola nuts. The baby’s head is shaved, family and friends travel to witness, an animal is sacrificed, and the baby is named after someone of importance to the family. Gambians for some reason expect foreigners still to have Gambian names. So, in the spirit of integration, I borrow traditional dress from my host family, help fry up a million dough balls, pour juice into bags, and go through the ritual. I receive the name Kaddy Demba. I am named after an 8-month-old in my compound. She is the most adorable little naked African baby, with a runny nose, drool, and numerous little charms that adorn her body. She hardly cries and always smiles when she sees me. Later in training when I am totally in love with this child, I decide that when I have children of my own I will name one Kaddy Demba. And I will always use both names, Kaddy and Demba, because here no one ever says hi to me using only my first name, it comes out as more of a loud shout, something like “KADDY DEMBA!” Followed with a “NAA!” meaning “COME!” And if you grow up in the U.S. and someone yells your name with last name followed by a COME HERE, what option do you have but to come???

[Later in my stay when I have learned enough Mandinka to have basic conversations with the family, my three mothers establish the fact that I am too old to be without children. They suggest that I have fourteen. I say one. They say thirteen. I say two. We finally negotiate down to four. Also the jujus I am wearing (description on that to follow) will bring me a husband, they say. Oh, and since it is Muslim, men are allowed up to four wives, which is why I have three moms.]

November 23, 2008

Saalaamaaleekum.

That means “Peace be upon you.” The response is “Maaleekumsaalaam.” Peace be upon you too. I like being able to speak different languages. It was a talent and hobby I found more recently in life. I came to the Gambia partly because wanted to learn another language. My short term memory, however, forgot that language learning is hard and frustrating and sometimes downright sucks. I wonder sometimes why I didn’t just go to Peru or Ecuador where I could just change my accent and get on with life. However, temporary insanity brought on by sudden upheaval mixed with an unhealthy fixation on following through with commitments leaves me lighting candle after candle to support my late night study habits. Peace Corps expects all trainees to be at an Intermediate-Mid level of language by the end of the 10 week training, and with all that is going on with me I’m just crossing my fingers to get there. I also found it amusing that they wanted me to learn Mandinka plus a “second language.” I started counting, then did a recount, and indeed, it is not my second, it’s my fifth. This is out of control.

The other thing I’ve noticed is that I am not really learning new words, I am just learning to associate the same sounds with a new definition. For instance, the Mandinka word for fly is the same word for soy sauce in Vietnamese. I still wince a little when I use what used to be a swear word in Spanish with my host father who is at least 80 years old. And one time a fellow trainee was studying flash cards and said something out loud while I was only half listening, and I thought she had just dropped an F-bomb on me. Till I realized she doesn’t speak Vietnamese. Wow is my brain one linguistic nightmare.

[Editing note several weeks later: Contrary to what my consumer psychology teacher tried to tell me in college, cramming is an extremely useful and effective skill to learn. By the end of six weeks I hit the Intermediate-Mid level on our second of three language tests. However my quest for excellence ended there and I sadly have not picked up a book to study since.]

November 30, 2008

AgFo in Training

Training training training. My new job description: AgFo Volunteer. That’s short for agro-forestry. What am I doing? What am I learning? Plants. Flowers. Bees and trees. Fertilizers and compost.

I have never actually worked with plants or successfully grown anything in my life. I killed my lucky bamboo (which is extremely hard to kill for one, and extremely unlucky to let die, for two.) I planted beautiful flowers from the market in Bolivia that promptly stopped blossoming as soon as I put them into the ground. The most I know about compost is some ratio of green to brown things you have to put in, and while some volunteers are busy composting donkeys and ducks, piece by piece, the most experience I’ve had with it is taking all the vegetable peels out to the hole full of flies in my mom’s backyard.

Life is about learning though, and here I am again, learning. I’ve learned that if you collect your urine in a huge oil jug, mix one part pee and three parts water, you can use this to fertilize your plants. Just make sure that it is diluted or else it will kill your plants, and make sure you do not put it on too early or it will kill your plants, and make sure not to put it on plants of which you only eat the root (ie. carrots) or else it will make the leaves flower and the roots small. You also have to let the pee sit at least two days so diseases are not transmitted. And make sure to keep the container airtight lest it smell like a urinal in your backyard.

So many rules.

I learned about manure as well and how to use it in the plant bed before you sow seeds. We put huge hunks of cow manure in our garden and covered it with a layer of dirt. And of course, as soon as I start digging my hands in to transplant a tomato seedling, I run directly into a nice cow patty. No biggie. I just had to make sure to clean under the fingernails before eating with my hands from the food bowl.

Watering the garden is also a lot of fun. In my training village I happen to be the only AgFo volunteer. The other three are health volunteers, which basically means that everything we are instructed to do by using waste products, they are instructed not to do for disease prevention. At any rate, I am the expert ag-fo of the group.

We went to go start our demonstration garden. We dug, we put down neem leaves as fertilizer/insect repellent, we watered, we threw on a layer of dirt, and we came back the next day to sow seeds. The Gambia is currently in the middle of the dry season. It rained the day before I arrived in country on Oct 23, and it has not rained since. This makes for a lot of dust and hard dirt. So in order for us to breathe a bit cleaner and turn the soil a bit easier, we had to wet the ground.

There is a pump in the garden area. It is broken. But not to worry, there is also an open well. We could just draw water from that. One of the trainees went over to get some water, threw the bucket in, and as it fell down into the dark abyss that Tikky-tikky-tembo-no-serembo-berry-berry-buchi-pip-berry-pemble would have never, ever gotten out of it was so deep, he belatedly notices that the rope was not attached to anything and it is now floating in the bottom of the well. So now, five days later, we are still walking three blocks twice a day to fill up the watering cans at the nearest working pump and then teetering back to the garden with them delicately balanced on our heads.

It’s working out really well. Which means the seeds are in the ground. Whether they actually will grow, only time will tell. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

But enough about plants, let’s talk about bees. If you keep up with my blog you probably saw the beekeeping pictures from Bolivia. Now that’s something I have experience with. I went to split hives once.

Don’t let me start getting on my high horse yet though. I mean, I thought I was not afraid of bees. I worked with them and I got stung and I was fine. In fact, my sitemate had one in his mask the entire time we were working, and he told me, “Tammy, you have to show the bee some love and it will not sting you. He’s scaring me but I’m loving him and he will not sting me.” And sure enough, my friend was not stung.

So I feel like I know how to love bees and how to split hives and the role of a queen, worker, and drone, and I know how to trick bees into raising queens and I know all about smoking the hive and of course, how to look good in a bee suit. Everything I learned about bees I learned in Bolivia (and pretty much in one day. So really, no, I don’t know all that much about bees). Regardless, take all that amazing knowledge and transfer it to the Gambia. And this is what I find:

Bees in the Gambia are in fact the African Killer Bee species. They do not love, they sting. And when one stings he releases a pheromone that lets other bees know he’s in a fight and looking for some back-up and his bee friends come running to join the attack. That pretty much means that if you get stung once, you are about to be stung a dozen times so if you happen to be collecting water at the pump and not actually wanting to work with bees, you better turn and run, and when I say run I mean run fast.

And then the bee keeping techniques I learned in Bolivia are now irrelevant, as the bee expert informed me that what I learned and the hives we used were too “high-tech.” I must now learn new “appropriate technology.” Boy have I got a long way to go.

December 10, 2008

WARNING: Not For the Faint of Heart

Or for the weak of stomach. I’m warning you. If you continue reading on your lunch break, do not blame me for ruining your appetite. But don’t you dare throw that sandwich away. There are starving children in Africa. I know. They live in my compound.

Ok, so if you are still reading, let me share a little secret with you. I had testicles for dinner. Twice. Two nights and counting.

Want to know why? Tobaski.

First, let me tell you about the food. Food here is actually delicious for the most part. No sushi, no Taco Bell, no Chipotle, but they do have rice. And sauce. From fish. It’s not quite fish sauce like the Vietnamese eat and I adore, but everything has this fishy flavor to it. For me, it’s amazing.

There’s also a lot of peanuts. Peanut sauce and rice for dinner. Raw peanuts to snack on. Roasted peanuts to burn your fingers on. Peanut butter. Peanut soup. Peanut porridge. Please don’t ask me why I chose to bring peanut M&M’s instead of plain. And why do I have a million peanut butter flavored granola bars from both Quaker AND Nature’s Valley? Why did I not pick fruity things???

Occasionally I will get coos, also known as millet. Millet is used as bird feed in the U.S. Here it is a substitute for rice. It has no nutritional value but does fill up the stomach. Thankfully the Mandinka peoples I live with do not like coos, but once in awhile it shows up. To me it tastes like sour sand.

Food is served in enormous communal food bowls. It is eaten with your hands. No chopsticks, no forks, spoons, or knives. Squish and squeeze and form a little ball and stuff that into your mouth. There are about five people per bowl, but the family I am living with in training gives me my own mini-bowl and I eat from it by myself until I see that they have eaten all their sauce and are working on plain rice and I convince the old lady sitting next to me to take some of my share.

So, what about the testicles you say? Well, if we take inventory, we see sauce. And rice. And peanut sauce and rice. And coos. Notice the lack of meat? Well bring on Tobaski! Tobaski is a Muslim holiday celebrated in the fashion of Christmas back in the U.S.. New clothes, big feasts, dancing, and of course, the sacrificial ram. Or sheep, or goat, depending on the level of affluence of the family. Muslims do not eat pork, which makes risk of brainworm a moot point. I did kill pigs in Bolivia to eat, but I don’t remember ever killing a male. Just the girls.

Well, rams are male sheep. (I did not know a lot about farm animals before Peace Corps, so the clarification is for those of my friends who I know have no idea either.) Male sheep have testicles. Since I had only killed/roasted/eaten female pigs, the only animal I saw roasted whole, I have never had to deal with eating certain body parts. And let me remind you, in America people have the luxury of eating only whole, skinless, boneless chicken breast. Here, we eat it all. The whole chicken. The whole goat. The whole ram. Testicles included. Before dinner I saw them hacking it apart. Then at dinner I was confronted with mystery meat. And I just stared at my bowl…

And let me tell you! I am game! I am game for eating with my hands. I am game for tasting cow heart. I am game for moving to a Muslim-African country I knew nothing about as I was ripped away from the Peace Corps life I built for myself. I will eat bird feed. I will try other strange foods that are handed to me, at least the first time. But I am sorry to say, I am not game for testicles! I just couldn’t do it. Not the first night and not the second night either. (I must confess, I did stick a piece in my mouth but promptly spit it back out when no one was looking.)

The family was watching me and when I had finished without eating the meat the second day in a row, they picked up the pieces, stuck them in my face and said, “EAT!” Not knowing what to do, and not wanting to offend, I responded, “YOU EAT!” And so they did. They popped those big pieces of testicles in their mouth, chewed, swallowed and smiled at me. And I responded, “A diiyata?” And they responded, yes, delicious.

PS. After Tobaski I am taking a bucket bath and something catches my eye on the roof of the room next to me. It was right before Christmas but I could tell it wasn’t Santa Claus and his reindeer. I take a closer look and I find that it is the poor animal we had just eaten laying up there, all hollowed out. That night as his hide roasts on the roof I shut my windows and doors to keep out the scent of rotting flesh, and I spray Bath & Body Works room freshener to cover the smell and make me think of Christmas in my mosquito net.

Dec. 26, 2008

All I Want For Christmas Is You: Christmas Stories and More.

I was supposed to be home for the holidays this year, but it’s going to happen next year instead. Knock on wood. I will be receiving a one month home leave if I do actually stay for two full years as I plan. The timing should be that I will be around for the holidays of 2009! However, for now, another Christmas away from home.

To celebrate, Peace Corps organized a little get-together for the trainees. It consisted of a sixteen mile hike on Christmas eve that they named the “Marathon March,” previously known as the “Death March”. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for me) I was a little sick. And by that I mean that half an hour after I ate, each time and every time for the past week, I needed to be next to a toilet. No questions asked.

So I skipped the march and the next day we did a boat ride along the Gambia River. It was very pretty and we spotted the usual monkeys, crocodiles, and various bird species. This was followed by a white elephant gift exchange. It was the first time I ever did it and there are too many rules for me to explain, but I scored a half-used roll of toilet paper, a pen that might work, a pencil with no eraser, a newspaper page with a crossword puzzle and comics, some Werther’s Originals ripoffs, post-its, and some sweet stationery. All very useful items.

That was the tame part of my Christmas. I did also listen to Mariah’s Merry Christmas album, drink hot chocolate, and wear fleece Rudolph pajama bottoms and alpaca wool mittens in 100 degree weather. It was all in the spirit of the holidays. For many of the trainees it was a rather homesickness-inducing event. I’ve found that for me, homesickness is not so much missing the US as much as it is missing Bolivia. Missing the volunteers, my group, my sitemates, and my old community. It’s just a strange feeling of not having proper closure and therefore feeling that something has been stolen from me. Thankfully, though, Santa Claus brought me the strength that I need to maintain my sanity and mental stability through a time that leaves most people vulnerable when away from home. All I wanted for Christmas was one more day with Bolivia. One more day making banana pancakes with chocolate chips, one more day waking up and seeing the Andes mountains in my backyard, one more day to spend with the most amazing people I have ever met in my life.

Usually when I am inadvertently reminded of something Bolivia, I begin a downward spiral that usually leaves me in an ugly funk for a time. I am trying hard though to embrace my experience in the Gambia rather than dwelling on what I lost, so instead of laying around and listening to depressing music to match my depressing mood, I had begun to channel my energy into creating a memento that merges my Bolivia experience with my new Gambian home. It’s called a juju, and it was my Christmas present to myself.

Let me explain.

The Gambia is approximately 90% Muslim. The other major religions are Christianity and Animism. Though most are Muslim, there are traces of animism found and practiced regularly by Gambians in general. This is manifested through various superstitions and in almost every community there is a person called a marabout. The local marabout is actually the father in one of the training host families and when I went to see him he told me that he had been praying for the trainees in the village since we arrived.

When I started having dreams and couldn’t get over the fear of a potential evacuation from the Gambia, when I realized that I wouldn’t take pictures of anything in this country for fear that it would actually be a personal visual historical record of my time here, I decided I needed a way to make peace my abrupt exit from Bolivia and the sudden loss of friends who meant the world to me. The isolation resulting from no Internet and sporadic cell service and the lack of a support network with anyone who even remotely understood what it might feel like to have life ripped away with barely a moment’s notice left me in a state of what I finally diagnosed as post-traumatic stress.

Most nights I would lay awake with my mind unable to rest. Usually I would fall into a fitful sleep and awake early, with nothing to do but stare at that mosquito net, such a symbolic part of Peace Corps life. One such night I awoke suddenly with the notion that I needed to see a marabout and get a juju that would give me the strength and courage to start anew and make it though service in a country that I did not consider my home, and of course, to help keep me from getting evacuated.

Jujus, according to local beliefs, are used for various purposes. They can improve your status in life, by bringing love, money, or new opportunities. They can protect from bad things, from people who have put a curse on you, from illness and death. They can also be used to bring harm upon others, although because marabouts communicate with the other world, you must find one that communicates with evil. Good marabouts won’t cast bad spells on others. Jujus can even go as far as making you invisible, though to get an invisibility juju you must first find the paws of a black cat and because black cats are so valuable, you will probably not find one. Black cats also have a chameleon-like quality where they change their color when they sense that you are looking for them, so to become invisible you can’t be actively searching for a black cat’s paws, you just have to be lucky. I guess it’s like love. You won’t find it if you’re looking for it.

Anyhow, though I think being invisible might be kind of cool, I don’t need all that. I just want to serve my two years here as uneventful as Peace Corps can possibly be. Which, as see from my blog, is never really uneventful.
I consulted with the marabout and he made me a juju that would soon be slipped into a leather cover and worn around my waist. To make it he consulted the Koran to see what it had to say about my future in reference to me and my situation. The results were written on a piece of paper in Arabic, folded up into a tiny little square (with words actually left unknown to me), and that is taken to a local leather-worker who wraps the paper in leather and sews it up. It is then worn on the body.

He also made me a potion in which he wrote Arabic words from the Koran on a wooden tablet, then washed that off into a basin using some water, added spritzes of what looked like perfume, and mixed it up and poured it into my used Frappuchino bottle. I took the murky black water with me and washed my face and hands with it and it now wards me from evil people for the next two years, in that anyone who casts an evil look my way will suddenly be overcome by my power and energy and their evilness will bounce off me and my goodness will overtake them and they will instead welcome me with open arms and be more than willing to listen and work with me. All paraphrased by my interpreter, so it may not be entirely accurate.

However crazy this may sound, I guarantee you it was nothing compared to what I had been going through trying to deal with the aftershocks of evacuation. I couldn’t sleep and couldn’t get out from under the black cloud hanging over me, so I was not above consulting a spiritual advisor for any help he could give me.

I washed with the potion and I had the juju charm to wear around my waist, and in addition to that I made a juju charm bracelet. During that same night that I suddenly decided had to see a marabout, I also composed what later became known as “Tribute in a Juju.” Gambian on the outside, Bolivian on the inside. Just like me, and a happy little convergence of my two worlds. It is a way to keep my memories of my old life with me, a piece of paper folded up in my juju with my life and love of Bolivia Peace Corps wrapped up neatly inside.

The final step in the juju process was to go to the market to have them bound in leather. Because my marabout is a well-respected, well-known man, and since he was making the juju for a foreigner, it would be perceived to be better and more powerful than anything the locals would get. I was warned by my language teacher to keep a close eye on it as the leather-worker encased it lest he pull a slight-of-hand trick and keep my juju and return to me a fake.

The timing was perfect that I got the juju on Christmas day. A little gift to myself, and little something to make sure that Bolivia stays with me even in Africa.

So after making the jujus, I get home and greet my family. They are always so excited to see me and I did the rounds and all the formal greetings. I then decided I really wanted to bathe before handing out Christmas gifts or the required travel gifts, known as silafando. In order to bathe I had to first go fetch water.

I enter my hut and open the back door to grab my bucket. As I am doing it, Mr. Lizard who has been happily co-habitating in my hut in peace for the last month or so decides to jump on me and scare the living daylights out of me. Usually he just runs around and disappears when I come in, but jumping on me was a shock. I scream and go screeching through my hut back out the front door, and the only person standing there happens to be one my best friends. Secu, a 3-year-old adorable kid who only knows how to say my name and a few other things I never understand in his baby babble Mandinka. I grab him by the shoulders, shaking him, and scream, “SECU! There is a lizard in my hut. GO DO SOMETHING!” And he looks at me with his beautiful little eyes and bats his perfectly curled eyelashes and giggles. My 18-year-old sis comes out to see what the commotion is all about, and I proceed to tell her, “FATOU! Lizard-o be bungo kono!” (Translation: Fatou, lizard-o is in the house.) I forgot the word for lizard in my panic.

She is cracking up cause she doesn’t understand me, and at that point another trainee walks by with his 18-yr-old sis. The three of us troop in there and I’m telling the trainee (in English) to just get the lizard out of the house, cause every time I approach it it tries to jump on me and scares me all over again. The girls have no idea what I’m saying but I hear them say “fitarango,” which means broom. One goes to grab a broom as Fellow Trainee is looking for the lizard, and then broom arrives and Other Girl finds the lizard, starts to smack the life out of it, I’m now standing outside over my latrine hysterically laughing, and then Fellow Trainee announces lizard is dead. Right next to my bed. I tell him to get it out of the house cause I do not want to see a smashed lizard in my room. They throw it in my back yard. I am now covering my face with the bucket’s lid, and tell him the thing is still in my yard which means I still have to see it, so just please throw it over the fence. I am covering my face and waiting for him to walk by and do it, and after a few moments I ask why he hasn’t done it. And he says he has. He threw it over the fence. So of course I have to inquire which fence he could have possibly thrown it over, and of course he had thrown it over the fence that separates my back yard from the family next door. I start hysterically laughing again and go about my business of water fetching.

I leave my compound and cross the next compound on the way to the pump, I am asked to put down my bucket and help pound rice out of its shell. Pretty normal. Then I walk by a lady who compliments me on my tshirt. Again, nothing out of the ordinary. I compliment her back on her outfit, a complete set of head wrap, shirt, and skirt made of one fabric print, the customary dress here in the Gambia. The woman keeps talking and I understand that she really really likes my shirt and she likes the fact that I like her outfit, and she starts teasing me about giving her my shirt. So I start teasing her about trading outfits, my tshirt for her skirt, top, and head wrap. She smiles and laughs and I am about to walk off when she strips off her shirt right then and there. I’m staring at her nakedness, quite a common occurrence since in this country, where women wearing no top is acceptable. Woman showing her knees is not. Knees are like cleavage, only shown for sex appeal. So of course I can do nothing else but laugh and stutter something about doing the exchange “tomorrow” and I continue towards the pump.

So there you have it. Merry Christmas to me. New country, new customs, new people, new surprises. Despite the troubles and hardships, the emotional roller coaster that never stops, here I am still. Still living the dream. I love Africa but as always, que viva Bolivia!

Gobama.

2008-11-05T04:48:00.000-08:00

I stayed up til 6 in the morn to see the results due to the time zone thing, and then I realized that Obama and I have parallel futures. He starts his training today, I start my training tomorrow. He does a crash course on being a president and swears in Jan 20; I crash course on being a Gambian supastar and swear in just a few days before.

As of post time, Indiana is still processing votes and has not become either red or blue. I'm still waiting... Hope the Hoosiers make me proud.

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

2008-11-03T09:29:00.000-08:00

Intense learnings, followed by intense reflections. As of late, that seems to be my rhythm of life. So many new experiences and situations that I never would have imagined myself in, not in a million years.

I am one of two former Bolivia volunteers who chose to continue service in Africa. We had a range of choices- among them various countries in Latin America, plus Bulgaria, China, and a sprinkling of options in Africa. I have been asked numerous times why I would choose to go to the Gambia. Why of all places, if I was offered Caribbean islands or Costa Rica, did I pick a place that I myself had never even heard of?

This is especially mind-boggling for the Gambia’s volunteers who dream of being in Latin America and whose jaw-dropping reactions to my casual mention of living in the Amazon and Andes is quite comparable to my giddiness when directions to a friend’s house includes the phrase, “Just walk towards the ocean.”

My decision to leave Latin America and come to Africa, however naïve, was fueled by the desire to experience something different. I felt I had spent enough time in Central and South America that I had a good enough grasp of the language and culture that I wanted to travel and live in a part of the world that was completely foreign to me.

I also knew that one year ago when I received my invitation to be a volunteer in Bolivia, had the invitation been to Africa I would have had serious doubts on whether I would really make it. Bolivia provided the training wheels I needed to feel comfortable with an offer for the other side of the world. So of course, though I am about to be the veteran in a group of trainees that have not yet experienced Peace Corps life, I do have a very high level of respect for those who come in totally green and take the plunge without testing the waters. I don’t know that I could have done it.

My first week in country I went to visit a volunteer in an extremely rural site. I thought it would be so different. What I’m finding though, is despite the difference in modern conveniences and luxuries (ie. a toilet), the Peace Corps experience continues to be very similar. The details change but the ideas remain the same. Instead of being called a “chinita,” I now get “TOUBAB!!” Kids still love to talk to you and men still love to hit on you. Major infrastructure does not exist, roads are just sand instead of dirt, patience is of the utmost importance, and sitting around relaxing and talking is still a major past time.

There has been one notable difference that I can’t get over here in the Gambia, and that is the attitude towards Peace Corps volunteers. They love them. I remember one time at a taxi stand in Bolivia when some random Bolivian struck up a conversation with me and asked what I was doing in the country. I told him I was a Peace Corps volunteer and he responded by dropping his voice to a whisper and saying, “That’s not something you want to be telling strangers. I work for the Embassy…I know.”

In the Gambia, though, being associated with the Peace Corps is a sign of status, a badge of honor, a free pass through police checkpoints and an intimidation factor that brings shame and embarrassment to out-of-line officials looking for bribes. It gets discounts and warm welcomes into restaurants and clubs where DJ’s grandly announce the entrance of a group of volunteers.

Moving from an area where volunteer status warranted accusations of spying and sterilizing women to one where I am regarded as a superstar and a hero is quite a change of pace. Forget the changes in religion, politics, language, and culture. Just give me a second to get used to that one.

Around The World, Around The World

2008-11-02T04:54:00.000-08:00

Dates: Oct 23 - Present
Location: The Gambia, West Africa

I have lived in four countries in four weeks and traversed four different continents if you count a layover in Brussels. Yesterday I celebrated my one year in-service. That’s one year since I officially swore in as a Peace Corps Volunteer. And I live in The Gambia. Who’d have thunk it?

So much to post, such a long hot walk to the internet. I know many of you are very anxious and excited to hear about my new life as an African-American!

Just kidding…I’m actually an American-African.

Alright, so for lack of knowing where to start, let’s try to start at the beginning. I left the continental U.S. in the afternoon of October 22, 2008 after a second round of goodbyes to friends and family and a feeling of déjà vu from having just done the exact same thing one year ago. After approximately 30 hours of travel I step down from the plane onto the soil of West Africa. Incredible.

The rapid transition without sufficient warning, planning, and mental preparation from country to country and continent to continent results in moments of confusion and/or panic from time to time. Sometimes I am a little disoriented and it takes a second to realize where I am. Exiting the plane was one of them.

I was on the same flight as the Foreign Minister of Taiwan, or some Equally Important Individual. There was a huge crowd of Gambians gathered for this occasion and as I walk down the stairs and exit the plane, I see this group of people and I am seized with panic. Large crowd of host country nationals = strike, protest, blockade. My immediate response: Turn around and walk away slowly. As my eyes look for an escape route, I begin to realize that this that this crowd of people is not angry. In fact, they are singing and dancing! They’re not protesting, they’re celebrating! As I miss the shuttle to the terminal due to this incredible sequence of events that really all took place within my slightly unstable mind, I remind myself, “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

I continue with my entrance into the country of The Gambia and wait in line to pass through customs. The agent, the first Gambian I’ve met in the country, proceeds to take my passport, verify the information, and write down his cell number for me, telling me I “won’t regret it” if I give him a call. Some things never change.

I am greeted in the airport by four volunteers carrying a Peace Corps sign. Felt like home already. The driver takes me to the transit house. Unlike in Bolivia, where volunteers stay in hostels in their regional cities, the small country in which I am to live does not have even the same level of infrastructure as Bolivia. There are no hostels, and certainly no hotels within the budget level of a volunteer. So instead Peace Corps rents out a large house where volunteers stay. No more wireless internet of the Magdalena, the choice hostel in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Goodbye to a pool outside your room, to social gatherings on the rooftop and cable television with CNN Worldwide. Gone to two people a room and welcome to dorm life. Up to six people per room, common areas downstairs with a lone television, a fully-furnished kitchen minus the microwave, and a nice little dining area outside complete with deafening power generator. Welcome to the Gambia.

I have been spending my days adjusting to the heat, traveling “upcountry,” living in the bush, or rural areas, and not understanding anything said to me- neither Pular, Mandinka, nor Wolof, not even the English. I am to do full training with the new group that arrives Nov. 6. Until then I have time to enjoy the country and the nightlife, get to know current volunteers, celebrate Halloween, celebrate the elections (or at least I hope it will be cause for celebration), and then lose my status as PCV- Peace Corps Volunteer- and return to the dreaded PCT status- Peace Corps Trainee. Put best by an RPCV- Returned Peace Corps Volunteer- still living in The Gambia, “It’s like going to the prom when you’ve already graduated.”

But, it was my decision to go through training and I am looking forward to the opportunity to learn a new language and meet another group of people who, in my heart, will never never replace my former Bolivian volunteers, but perhaps a group who will find a different corner of my heart to occupy, a space all their own. The new group will be a mix of health and agriculture/forestry volunteers. We will spend approximately 10 weeks learning one of three languages, plus Gambian English which, trust me, is nothing like the English I taught in Bolivia. There will again be culture training and technical project training, same as before. Many things the same, but I am different. Older, wiser, seasoned, at times jaded. More patient, more open-minded, more adventurous. The biggest change though is evident by looking at my luggage. Two fifty pound bags, one carry on luggage and one backpack. And almost all filled with food, including several pounds of Velveeta. Might as well bring my wish list with me.

Send me questions and I will send answers, and don’t you worry, more interesting stories with gory details still to come when I have the time. I believe I will lose internet access soon after the 6th for a period of time. Rumor has it that there is cell phone service in the training villages so perhaps I won’t be cut off from civilization after all. Contrary to the information that I received while still back in the U.S., I actually do not have a determined site. I may not be living on the beach like I thought, and though it is a bit of a bummer, great projects and great people beat out location any day. So I’m still optimistic about my options and I’m just waiting to see what this crazy life of mine decides to throw me next.

Signing off and sending love to all of you- my family, friends, and former PCVR’s, wherever you now may be.

Tammy Truong
PCV The Gambia

We're Pretty Much Famous

2008-10-29T02:13:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in a hut in Africa and pick up a random Newsweek the other day, and as I flip through I come across an article on Bolivia with a mention of the Peace Corps withdrawal. You just can't get away from it!

Ongoing media coverage includes a story appearing on the front page of the Washington Post last week on a fellow volunteer and his decision to return to the country. Link as follows.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/22/AR2008102203710.html

Also a photo journal:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2008/10/22/GA2008102203342.html

Stay tuned for coverage on life in Africa. Coming soon.

I Love 'Merica.

2008-10-21T15:16:00.000-07:00

In case you were only following my blog and did not see me, I actually did make it out of Peru and back to the US on my way to the Gambia, West Africa. Unfortunately during my whirlwind tour of the States, I did not take the time to blog and I hope it does not take you by surprise to hear that I am leaving for Africa in under twenty four hours.

Yes, you heard right. I am leaving this beautiful country with its McDonalds and Papa John's and sushi and hotdogs, with its indoor heat and hot showers and clean bathrooms and carpet, to go work as an agri-business volunteer in the Gambia.

To prepare, I did everything American. I ate disgusting quantities of fast food followed with my mom's amazing cooking and several visits to sushi and Vietnamese restaurants on the side. I went to a political rally. I celebrated my sister's 21st birthday and my own twenty-something birthday. I shopped, I clubbed, I partied, I sang, I learned all the new hip-hop and battled young bucks. I went to a party to welcome my brother back from his three month long motorcycle ride. I crashed friend's houses and invited people over, I learned to play guitar and drums after first learning what exactly Rockband was. I saw all my best friends (minus Viet), and even got to hang out with a fellow B46 volunteer. Add into that several tall iced caramel machiattos from Starbucks and my never-ending reveling in the fresh scent of public bathrooms and the soft feel of toilet paper and my US visit is complete.

Wish me the best as I embark on travels to a post with no electricity, no running water, no internet and no cell phone. If you would like to send me letters, I can receive them at the following address:

Tammy Truong PCV
US Peace Corps

PO Box 582

Banjul, The Gambia

West Africa

And yes, the rumors are true. I cut off all my hair in preparation for bucket baths in the Gambia. Locks of Love now has the hair I had and I now wake up with major bed head. But it doesn't matter when you don't have a mirror!

Press Release

2008-09-16T10:24:00.000-07:00

If you are interested...

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/09/16/bolivia.peace.corps/

Oh, and I sweet talked my way into a free new phone number. Let me know if you need it.

Refugee Status

2008-09-16T10:20:00.000-07:00

Mi Amor,

Do you know what you are doing to me? You break up with me. We get back together. You break up again. I take you back. You promise to be good. You promise it will be better. I believe it. I put my heart and soul into it and convince myself that it will work out. Things go great for a few weeks. Life has never been better!

Then you break up with me again. And again. And again. And now it’s for good.

How do I know? I’m sitting in a hotel in Lima, Peru, with a broken heart and broken spirit, picking at food, tossing about instead of sleeping, unable to believe how my life got to this point. I feel like I need to cry but I can’t make sense of any of the feelings I have.

You’re killing me, Bolivia. What do I do now???

With the saddest of goodbyes, and the fondest of memories, I wish you the best of luck.

Tammy

Word came in on Wednesday that Ambassador Goldberg was out. Thursday I get a call in the evening about emergency consolidation and the next morning I am out of Samaipata. I say bye to the few people I can as they are picking up their guns to go protest. Twelve frantic hours in a 4x4 with nine people driving the back roads in order to avoid the tanks, military, and unnecessary confrontations with protestors in the streets, I arrive in Cochabambaba, tired, confused, and sad.

Our sites told us to get out before the Indians kill us. Counterparts called Peace Corps and told them their volunteers were not safe. We watch as friends in our communities respond to the calls to take up arms and we don’t know what we should do. Is it that serious? It must be this time. I usually tell people Peace Corps is consolidating, and they respond with a wave of the hand and a “No pasa nada…” Nothing will happen. This time they respond with tears. Tears for their people, tears for their country, as they process feelings of total bewilderment and despair. After all, where will they go? They have no consolidation point, no evacuation plans.

After my arrival Friday night in Cochabamba, I sleep and wait. The longest hours of life. Waiting, without any idea with what might happen, without explanations. Saturday we move hotels. Sunday we get the message that we are indeed evacuating to a neighboring country. We are not told where. Then we move again. It’s for our safety, they say. Anti-American sentiment is high and no one can know where we are going or that we have even consolidated. We’ve only told our communities that we have to meet up for a minute and that we should be back. Yeah right.

Monday we are scheduled to get out of the country. It is an interminable wait. Half of the volunteers have already been evacuated to Peru. My group is still in Bolivia. No one is allowed to say anything to friends or family for fear that the military cargo plane that had to jump hoops to get clearance for a bunch of Americans to get into Peru will run into problems and that we will have no way out. American airlines has cancelled flights in and out of Bolivia til the end of the month. Private chartered planes have waiting lists of 20+ organizations and hundreds of Americans are waiting for a chance to get out.

During the eight hour wait in the airport for our military jet to get there, we receive more news. We are not going to just wait it out in Peru for things to get better. The decision has already been made that the Bolivia program is suspended. No returning there. Do you now want to close service early and go back to the U.S., or would you like to take another run at it in a different country?

It’s just too much to take in. Our minds are numb. There is a cloud hanging over us that makes for a subdued, depressed atmosphere. Not only did we leave our communities, now we will be leaving each other. That’s just something we can’t process yet, something that I will not allow myself to think about.

We jump on our military aircraft, strap ourselves in, and several bumpy, airsick hours later we arrive in Peru. The back hatch of the plane opens up and five or six men in suits walk towards us to greet us. It’s just like the movies. We walk out, a group of scraggly, tired, sleep-deprived volunteers and shake hands with the Embassy reps, the Peruvian Peace Corps director, and members of the U.S. Air Force who were responsible for our safe evacuation.

Minutes after my group lands on Peruvian soil, the press release goes out letting the world know that Peace Corps has suspended the program. Up til then, no one in Bolivia, minus the people involved in flying clearances, knew that we were on our way out.

I now feel like a refugee in wait. Waiting to see if Bolivia continues to blow up. Waiting to speak to people I care about. Waiting for that inevitable moment when things catch up to me and I fall apart. And waiting, and wondering, of what the future holds. This sucks. It all sucks.

Latest News

2008-09-14T07:05:00.000-07:00

To avoid personal bias on the issues, here are some links for you to keep abreast of the news in country.

From the U.S. Department of State- Travel Warnings for Bolivia (with a great summary of the current situation):

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_bolivia.html

Recent Articles regarding Bolivia:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/09/14/news/Bolivia-Protests.php

http://www.forbes.com/reuters/feeds/reuters/2008/09/14/2008-09-14T125035Z_01_N14392717_RTRIDST_0_BOLIVIA-PIX-TV-GRAPHIC.html

This is Not a Test. I Repeat, This is NOT a Test.

2008-09-12T07:01:00.000-07:00

How I would love to be my happy-go-lucky self right now. How I would love to feel the way I did a 5 in the afternoon yesterday, right after I taught 10 ladies who MAKE tofu, but don´t know how to COOK tofu, how to turn their slab of compressed soy into deliciousness. You will appreciate the irony if you know that for two years after college I ate out every meal because I didn´t know how to cook. And here I am teaching it.

Right now though, the high feeling is gone. Instead my stomach feels like I may throw up any minute. I have a knot in my throat and I wasn´t able to sleep more than 2 hours last night. The situation in this country is deteriorating. Bolivians are killing other Bolivians. The people have revolted against the government, especially in the area where I live. Grandpas who sit in the plaza are now taking up arms and helping to ransack government offices and government controlled businesses. The U.S. ambassador was kicked out of Bolivia this week, and in return the Bolivian ambassador was kicked out of the U.S. as well.

News headlines read ¨The Nightmare has Begun¨ and ¨Bolivia- A Country in Mourning.¨ People are losing body parts to dynamite. Gas pipelines are being blown. Blockades are up in every other community. Even Samaipata a community known for never taking part has joined. Who knows how much worse this will get and where it will end. Chavez, leader of Venezuela and mentor to President Evo, said that he plans to make Bolivia into Vietnam #2 and that he and his people are ready to die for it.

It's gotten horribly ugly and at 5:30 yesterday I got the call from Peace Corps that they are again consolidating volunteers. Evacuation is the next step if necessary. However, like my dad says, there really is no reason to worry about me. The US government has to have a plan. What I ask, however, is that you keep the Bolivian people- my friends, my co-workers, my adopted family- in your thoughts and prayers. They are the ones who need it.

I will post periodically with updates. Let's hope for the best.

Paros y Bloqueos. Strikes and Blockades.

2008-09-04T14:21:00.000-07:00

What you’ve missed, and what I’ve lived:

(Dates on timeline are approximate. Time is often irrelevant here and I therefore lose track quite easily.)

Aug 3, 2008- Highly controversial Bolivian president Evo Morales goes up for re-election in a few days. Peace Corps is worried about potential for civil unrest, strikes, blockades, and violence, and decides to round up all volunteers and put them in a super secret, super remote five-star resort (really a five-star trailer park if you look closely) and prohibits volunteers from publicly disclosing whereabouts. This is known as consolidation, one step away from evacuation.

Aug 8, 2008- I am at a resort with TV in my cabin. Talk about luxury. Olympics start, I catch a few minutes of the opening ceremony then wait up several nights in a row til four in the morning hoping to catch some sort of coverage but to no avail.

Aug 8, 2008- Elections are to begin in two days. Forty-eight hours before elections and twenty-four hours after, the sale and consumption of alcohol is prohibited in the entire country. This ensures that Bolivians are in a clear state of mind as they cast their votes and that Peace Corps has the most unbelievably tame gathering of 135 volunteers imaginable.

Aug 11, 2008- It is announced that Evo is to continue as president, winning 60% of the vote. People get angry.

Aug 12, 2008- Peace Corps releases volunteers from confinement and I am on my way to Trinidad, Bolivia, to meet my brother who has ridden a motorcycle from the U.S. to visit me.

Aug 13, 2008- People are still angry.

Aug 14, 2008- I cruise down the Amazon rivers with four volunteers on a sweet little boat that takes us away from civilization. I swim with river dolphins, look for monkeys and crocodiles, fish for piranhas, and eat turtle eggs as I wait for my brother to show up. Just as I give up hope, when the sky is dark and the search for a cell phone signal comes up empty, the sound of a motor puttering though the darkness emerges. I get so excited I howl at the full moon, run full speed towards the river without seeing the two horizontal wires attached to posts as a makeshift fence, and successfully knock all the air out of my lungs as I fall backwards. My brother makes it in one piece (the same cannot be said about his motorcycle) and he is greeted by a well choreographed Macarena dance, Peace Corps style.

Aug 17, 2008- I finish my cruise and and re-enter the city only to find that people are not done being angry.

Aug 18, 2008- Strikes. Blockades. No transportation. I get stuck in Trinidad indefinitely. The whole town shuts down. Only thing to eat are the snow cones a girl is selling on the street. I eat two.

Aug 19, 2008- People. Angry. I am stuck. Dirty hostels. Tammy. A little angry.

Aug 20, 2008- Reruns of female gymnastics beam final. I watch it four times. Tammy, now not so angry.

Aug 21, 2008- I eat friend alligator at a delicious Mexican restaurant where my friends and I have eaten every night we have been in the city. We finally get to take an overnight bus back to Santa Cruz.

Aug 22, 2008- I belatedly remember my one year anniversary in country. Those who are in the city go out with me and celebrate in style.

Aug 23, 2008- I finally get back to site. My brother gets to spend three hours with me in Samaipata, enough time to go to the bathroom, eat lunch, go to the bathroom, and get back in the taxi.

Aug 24-28, 2008- I spend five days in site setting up meetings for my various projects. Find out the mayor has changed, and so has my counterpart in the mayor’s office. I am now on my third one in a year.

Aug 25, 2008- I go work with bees in a neighboring community. Raising bees and selling their wax, honey, pollen, and propoleum can make for a very successful micro-business and a nice bump in income.

Timmy, my beloved landlord’s dog, follows me to the highway and is hit by a truck and dies.

Aug 28, 2008- I head out for rodeo, one of the biggest and most traditional events in Bolivia volunteer life. However, the angry Bolivians do not rest. I get as far as Santa Cruz, two and a half hours away. Blockades close the roads and prevents travel, putting to waste the weeks of careful planning that has taken place to get the highly coveted Argentine steak into the mouths of beef-deprived volunteers.

Sept 2, 2008- I get an adorable new Boxer-Staffordshire bull terrier mix puppy whose name Liula (pronounced Lula) was inspired by my best friend Jing Liu.

Sept 3, 2008- I learn that to be a successful Peace Corps volunteer in my site, I really should have studied interior design rather than business. I am put in charge of decorating a newly built hostel in Bella Vista and the redecorating of the shop from my women’s group. Not to worry though. What I lack in artistic creativity, I make up in resourcefulness. So I go about doing what I do best: I network, and I outsource. Done and done.

Today- Nothing new. Blockades and strikes still continuing as we speak.

And there you have it. Living life one day at a time and hoping that protests don’t get in the way of plans, although they always do. Just livin’ the dream.

Sneaky, sneaky.

2008-08-24T09:10:00.000-07:00

August 22 almost slipped by me without notice. Tricky little one. Thank goodness I remembered just in the nick of time that it was my ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY in country!!!! Oh, how time flies.

I'm So Good at this Game

2008-08-21T11:25:00.000-07:00

I just got out of the Amazonian jungle where I spent several days camping, floating down a river, seeing crocodiles, eating alligators, and making friends with dolphins.

Unfortunately my cell phone decided not to come back with me. I again have a new number. Email me if you want it!!!

José Can You See?

2008-07-12T13:45:00.000-07:00

Nothing beats being a displaced American on the anniversary of your country’s independence. And certainly nothing can beat forty displaced Americans together in the Chaco of Bolivia, forty American Peace Corps Volunteers who took an oinking pig and made it their dinner, who woke up in the early morn to squirt milk from the teat of a cow and mix it with moonshine, who dressed in red, white, and blue, barbequed, played wiffle ball, built a bonfire, put on a fireworks show, and sang the national anthem loudly and obnoxiously in the middle of Machareti, Bolivia, population 400 (or something like that.)

How do you describe that sense of pride coursing through your veins as you sing the Star Spangled Banner for the third time that day, with an American flag (albeit with only 48 stars) hanging behind the beautiful pig who sacrificed his life so a bunch of Volunteers could celebrate their love and pride for their country? Never have I enjoyed the 4^th of July as much as I enjoyed my first one in Bolivia.

All my life I have been acutely aware of the fact that though I am American, I am Asian- American. Vietnamese- American, to be exact. I’ve always realized that my cultural background has certainly had a strong influence. After all, how American American could I be? I attended the #1 party school and never drank one beer. Never played beer pong or flip cup or bonged a beer. Not that it makes you American or not, but I also didn’t like hotdogs, hated mustard, and I don’t play cards. I don’t like watching football or baseball or basketball. Guess I don’t fall into the stereotype. Up until now, I had never even noticed. After all, I am Asian-American. That’s my excuse.

For the first time in my life though, I realized that here in Bolivia I have stopped identifying myself that way. Here, I am American. Period. Only with a little prodding do I give up the fact that I am “decendencia Vietnamita.” Growing up in the U.S. has shaped the person who I am today, and though I may not fit the stereotypes, I’m American. And proud of it.

Hope you all in Gringolandia had a fabulous fourth as well.

Sr. Chancho enjoying his last moments here on this earth

No one wants pork with hair on it

Paying homage to the homeland. And of course, Gracias Chancho, for giving yourself to us on a very special day.

A recap from the wonderful host (and my not-so-secret crush):

¨I'd like to thank you all for coming and contributing to the best 4^th of July celebration in Machareti's history (and my life). We drank over 300 beers and 25 bottles of wine, over 10 kilos of cow and one whole pig, 50 sausages and 50 bagels, and we broke the record for most Gringos drinking rubbing alcohol and milk in a Chaqeño corral. My family was beyond impressed with the belly dance (gracias kasia!) and fire-on-the-end-of-the-bally-string-thing fire show (gracias britta!). And I've been informed by multiple community members that we were successful in waking up at least half the town with Ben's Amazing Fireworks Show, some saying it was the best show they've ever seen. So, needless to say, this is something that I'll never forget and that the Machareteños will be talking about for years to come.¨

I heart Gringolandia.

Toughest Job You'll Ever Love. Are You Ready???

2008-07-03T04:11:00.000-07:00

My sister calls to talk to me quite regularly. That’s how I know she loves me. She also updates me on life in the U.S.- Obama won over Clinton; my brother was delayed in starting his motorcycle trip down to visit me; she is spending the summer working in a doctor’s office. Like all the other Truongs, she’s a bit of a go-getta and is currently job shadowing in a medical practice to ready herself for a career in medicine. I think it’s always a great idea to really get your hands dirty to decide if you would really like the work, and not just the work, but the other aspects of the job. Can you really make it? Will you really like it? Better to find out with a quick shadowing experience than to wait and make the dive only to find out you hate it.

I just recently had my very own job shadowers here in Samaipata. Never did I think that at such an early stage in life- I would call it a career, but I can’t really say I have a career anymore- did I think I would have job shadowers. But lo and behold, people are interested in the Peace Corps, and a few weeks ago my first job shadowers arrived. Thuc Truong and Le Nguyen, better known to me as Mom & Dad. (They tried to disguise it as a vacation but I know better).

True, I have never heard my dad sound more disappointed in me that when I told him I was quitting P&G. P&G, who gave me a car and a cell phone. P&G, where I was on the fast track to a great career. P&G, who paid me more in a month than I now make in a year.

But I understand. My dad is an engineer. It is his job to worry about failures, about all the things that could potentially go wrong. I believe worrying gives me a big headache. So I take life as it comes and think about all the great things that could be. At any rate, my dad is a worrier but not close-minded. He spun a 180 and went from hating the fact that I was joining Peace Corps to declaring to my mom, “I’m going to join Peace Corps when I retire.” And her response? “Ok then, let’s do it!”

So here’s the countdown: Two years til my Pops retires, 1.5 yrs til I get back, 1 year for the application process… I’d say we’ll have a good 6 month overlap.

I went to Peace Corps to get a better understanding of what life must have been like for my parents going to a country where they did not know the language or understand the culture. My parents want to go to Peace Corps to help out, but also to see what my life must be like jumping out of the world I grew up in to get lost in one where all was foreign. Talk about role reversal. But what more can you ask for in a family? Parents who inspire their children, children who (somehow) inspire their parents. A great quote from my dad after I left for Peace Corps and after my brother started his motorcycle trip though the Americas to come visit me: “I could not stop them from going, so now I just have to cheer them on.”

For a little change of pace, I will let you read about their vacation and job-shadowing in their own words. Just keep in mind, even with everything they saw, my parents are convinced they still want to do Peace Corps. [Borat Voice] Great Success. [/Borat Voice].

Livin' on the Wild Side
By: Thuc Truong, Guest Columnist

We arrived at Viru Viru airport in Santa Cruz, Bolivia in the morning of Friday May 23. We were anxious to see Tammy, but had to go thru the in-process. We had to wait to obtain visas to visit Bolivia and it took a while, then picked up the luggage and went thru customs.
We were the last passengers leaving the air port and saw Tammy waiting outside. We were so happy to see her, but because of the long wait she thought maybe she had come to pick us up on the wrong day. We were tired and sleepy, but very happy to see Tammy so we tried to stay awake to talk and see the country and the people.

It took 3 and a half hours to travel from the airport to Samaipata. We felt like we were traveling in Vietnam, especially when the car traveled on the mountain pass. The pass reminds me a lot of the Bao Loc, Prenn, Ngoan Muc, and Dran passes that lead to Dalat city in Vietnam. And Samaipata is very much like my home town Don Duong.

Samaipata weather and scenery are very similar to my hometown, so we had no problem adjusting to it. The town people are friendly, and the town atmosphere is very laid-back.
We are happy that Tammy’s home is clean and roomy for one person to live in.

Tammy’s dog, Mia, was not in good shape. So we made soup to feed her hoping that she could become healthy again. She improved, but she could not make it. She died and we buried her in Bella Vista on a rainy, foggy morning just before we had to hike out on the hilly, muddy, slippery road to the highway.

While we were in Samaipata, we hiked to El Fuerte to see the Incan ruins. It is a great place to see, and the steep-winding dirt road up and down the mountain is fun to walk.

We also hiked in a trail in Bella Vista. It’s steep both down and up the mountains, but it was beautiful, and fun to explore. It took 6 hours to complete this hike, and we planned to hike another four hours the next day, but it rained hard that night. So the hike on the next day was cancelled, and the SUV scheduled to come to pick us up could not come in because of the slippery, muddy dirt road. We did not want to miss our flight, so we decided to hike 20 km to the highway to return to Samaipata.

That was a 6 long hours of walking on up and down the mountains on very slippery muddy road, and we had to cross streams resulting from the rain. This is the same road Tammy had to travel about four months earlier after a week of rain, landslides, mud-filled river beds that she and her friend had to walk out after getting stuck for one week in Bella Vista.

We had a great time seeing Tammy, and seeing the places where she lives and works. We are happy that she is safe and healthy, but were sad when it was time for us to go home.
We took the taxi to go back to Santa Cruz to get ready to return home and got back safely just in time to see our oldest son, My, getting ready for his motorcycle trip on the Pan-American high ways to Bolivia to see Tammy.

We wish Tammy and her Peace Corps volunteer friends a safe and rewarding time while serving in Bolivia, and great future when they are back in the U.S. resuming their professional careers.

Bolivia: Cold Showers and No Blowdryers
By: Le Nguyen, Guest Columnist

My husband Thuc and I decided to visit Bolivia, a country in South America to see our daughter Minh-Tam who works there as a Peace Corp volunteer. We also wanted to have some knowledge of this country. The trip was quite an adventure. It was a memorable “vacation” to spend time with one of our children as well as other Peace Corps volunteers.

These young Americans possess a variety of backgrounds in education, culture, and skills are there willing to help other people in need. My husband and I really admire these folks for what they are doing, living in the areas where material things are no big deal to them. Staying in the rural sites of Bolivia, I appreciate more what we have while living in America where resources are abundant.

We arrived in Bolivia after a total of 12 hours of flights from Miami, Florida. Tam greeted us at the gate after a long wait due to flight delays. It was a warm and humid day. The weather, airport facility, the scenery with tropical flowers, banana trees, old model used cars, dusty roads, all kept reminding me a lot of Vietnam. If not for the Spanish language, I could believe that I was in Vietnam.

After a long 3 hours by taxi cab, a used car fueled with natural gas- standard Bolivia operational vehicle- the three of us got to Samaipata. Traveling on dusty, winding highways, a warm sunny day without air conditioning in a car, Tammy explains that the cab we are in is carefully selected. She had tried to have one that was nicer so we would not be overwhelmed. Since most taxi cabs there are operated to serve the needs for transportation and not for leisure, so either having a radio, air conditioner, or a clock is a luxury. Overall what Tam wanted was a newer cab that wouldn’t give us carsickness or back pain.

The car brought us safely to her place. The cab driver who drove the two lane divided mountain pass at speeds of 45 miles per hour or less was passing other taxi cabs, buses, motorcycles , animals and even pedestrians. Not all the mountain roads are paved. Some of them are rough, full of rocks because of land slides a couple of months ago. They are tough to travel but to Bolivians it is nothing. It seems there are no safety standards there, traveling here and there is at your own risk. It reminds me of traveling in Vietnam in the 1970’s. I guess it could be the standard of traveling in third world countries.

From the airport, we went through Santa Cruz city in mid-afternoon, passing by open markets crowded with people, honking vehicles, cattle on the street, and our taxi cab was trying to go through this maze. My heart kept going up & down at sudden stops or when people crossed in front of moving vehicles. Such things do not bother them. I just prayed that there was no accident so we could get to Tam’s home as early as possible. I enjoyed looking out the car windows and seeing beautiful rows of mountains, cliffs of waterfalls, and bright nectarine and orange trees. Along the hills were gorgeous colorful wild flowers as the villagers’ strolled down the dirt roads avoiding huge spots of horse manure. In contrast to Vietnam, Bolivia lands are huge and uncultivated with less population. The country is peaceful and in no rush.

We got to Tam’s home late in the afternoon. Tam’s little cottage is homey. Greeting us was her neighbor’s dog, Timmy. This fellow is Tam’s guard. He follows Tam anywhere she goes. We also tended to Tam’s puppy, Mia. She was very sick. Tam took really good care of the puppy with many nights getting up to feed and take Mia outside to the bathroom. Unfortunately, Mia is no longer with us on this earth.

After a long rest the next day, we visited the town and the people. It is a small community. Surrounding business areas are mom and pop stores, a market, a museum and a central park. The park is the main center where festival events are held and townspeople hang out. People are friendly, greeting each other as they pass by. Life is simple and laid back. Business hours are different. It varies from 8 am to 12 am and from 3 pm to 6 pm. Business activities are suspended from 12 pm to 3 pm because of nap time. Bolivians do not work on holidays or Sunday. We were in Samaipata while its anniversary date was celebrated. We could not get anything done since stores and markets were closed. Tam commented that time is irrelevant there. Business people do not keep appointments to clients as arranged. An appointment change without advance notice is not new. Tam warns us not to get uptight when the taxi cab driver is not there on time.

Tam had invited three of Peace Corps friends who were working near Samaipata to her home for dinner. These folks were hungry for any dishes except the Bolivian ones. Per Tam’s request, I made some authentic Vietnamese dishes. They enjoyed PHO, which is chicken noodle soup garnished with cilantro, fresh basil and lime juice. They also liked the shredded cabbage salad, mixed with shredded boiled chicken and crushed toasted peanuts. But most of all these folks enjoyed spring rolls served with mixed hoisin sauce and peanuts. They had fun wrapping a piece of pork, shrimp, and shredded lettuce with thin rice wrapper. [Editors note: My mother must be hallucinating. There is no shrimp to be found here.]

While having dinner with these fellows, they shared with us their assignments in these country areas. Britta‘s project is helping the villagers to set up ponds to raise fish. Kilo’s is teaching English. And Yolanda is helping the town people become aware of environmental issues such as trash on the roads and animal waste on the streets. Tam is guiding the local small businesses in marketing ideas, such as how to set up products to appeal to buyers, and to make a recent profit after fixed cost is incurred. To us the projects that the volunteers are working on are not new but the town people actually have no knowledge of these areas.

Just want to share with you about the living quarter of Britta, one of the volunteers. We had a chance to visit her place. The hills where she lives are surrounded by mountains and winding dirt roads. These paths are muddy because of landslides or rains. There are no street lights, no hot water, no kitchen or washing facility in the house. It seems like she is living the life of Americans in the pioneer days of “Little House on the Prairie”. I asked Britta how she takes a shower or washes her clothes. She just said she just has a cold shower and washes clothes by hand. She mentioned that she just has a warm shower when visiting Tam’s place. What a good adjustment she has made!!

While in town, we took a hike to El Fuerte. From Samaipata, we walked up and down steep-winding mountain paths to El Fuerte to see the Incan ruins. It took us about 6 hours of hiking to visit such a historical place. Mountain after mountain, surrounding views are gorgeous. Passing steep hills and little creeks we came to examine the towns and tombs ruled by the Incans hundred years ago. As we were heading back to Samaipata, we were coincidently accompanied by a local tour guide. His family members, the founders, had set up the tourist site at El Fuerte. He shared with us the history of sites and traveling seasons. The man stopped us in the middle of the hike pointing to the mountain up high. There were human faces carved on them. Without this gentleman, I am sure that we missed such unbelievable carvings.

Mountain Side- Take a good look

"Incan Face"- In case you couldn't see it

We had another day of adventure in Bella Vista. This is the site where Tam works as a co-op tourist planner. The roads to this area are rocky, narrow and curving to mountains, but the SUVs made it through. Guiding our adventures was the local tour guide. We hiked in Bella Vista trails of the Amazon. Winding through mountain tracks, passing several eco systems, we were up to the mountain tops of over 1000 meters high, and down to the flowing rivers exploring the greatness of nature as well as the devastation of landslides. It was sunny and cool. The winter of the southern atmosphere was approaching. We could feel the chill of it. At mid-day, we rested at one of the waterfalls for lunch while listening to the sounds of running water, wild life and looking at different kinds of wild flowers and giant old trees around. We completed this hike in about 6 hours and looked forward to another one of the following day. At sunset, we stopped at Tam’s host family to chat and eat evening snacks. It was dark as we headed to the hostel. There was no light, nobody around except three of us and the tour guide couple. We felt the silence of the night and desert mountains. Rain and rain, it poured all night long and continued the next day. We canceled the hike and decided to go get out of the hostel. From Tam’s experience, because of bad weather and landslides, the roads would be blocked for several days. There is no means of transportation to get in or out of Bella Vista except walking. Stepping in and out of slippery muddy mountain roads, sliding down the hills, crossing the mud filled river beds, the three of us were exhausted as we arrived at the highway. It was a memorable six hours of wandering along the mountain paths. Though our shoes and clothes were soaked with mud and water, we still had moments of enjoying the marvelous views of rows of mountains. We indeed made another hike of 20 km to the highway to return to Samaipata.

Finally, we left Samaipata to Santa Cruz, getting ready for flights back to U.S. Here we met Tam’s other Peace Corps friends for dinner. These volunteers shared with us their ups and downs trying to get their projects to a satisfactory stage. Their living conditions are tough as well as traveling. It is very exhausting to get from one place to another and is either by bus or by taxi. Though coping with unpleasant conditions, these young ones still dedicate a part of their life to help the people of Bolivia. They are willing to live and work in an effort to make a difference in the life of the people in need. It is an admirable sacrifice.

Word of the Day

2008-06-25T23:14:00.000-07:00

In an effort to help others keep up with the Spanish language, let me share with you the word we looked up today.

Esposa
Def: Spouse. Wife. Handcuffs.

Esposar (the verb from which "esposa" is derived):
Def: To shackle

Coincidence? You decide.

Business 101

2008-06-24T11:17:00.001-07:00

Lesson #1: Your time IS worth money. And that money is more than just 50 cents an hour.

Lesson #2: Cheaper is not better. Cheaper will not necessarily make you more money. If you make one cent per sale, you will have to make 100 sales to make a dollar (or a Bolivano, in this case). You will then be able to buy one whole egg.

Lesson #3: If you learn a skill, if you work in skilled trades, your time is worth more than what a maid makes. Punto. End of story.

Lesson #4: Just because one frugal tourist said your soap is too expensive does not mean you have to lower the price. Remember the other 100 who bought that soap at list price and didn’t say a word?

Lesson #5: Value yourself. Value your time. Value your product. You have a right to try to make a living. You’re not here to do everyone a favor and give away your goods. Your work is worth money, so charge for it.

I’ve moved on to working with a women’s group. ASOPEC, they call themselves. It’s a group of women who got together to produce ecologically friendly goods. They sell organic food products such as yogurt, peanut butter, and tofu, all made by hand and from all-natural sources. They also sell other handmade products including shampoo, soap, candles, and articles of clothing. They have all the training to make the products, but are missing the skills to actually sell them for a profit. Hence, Tammy Truong, micro-business expert, was invited to help out with classes.

I now teach computer classes to women, some of whom just recently received electricity in their homes and are now taking huge strides into the modern world and touching a mouse for the very first time. When I tire of reminding them how to use the backspace and enter buttons, we move on to the business consulting part of the day.

I love it. Well honestly, at first I hated it, mostly because I suck at teaching and after 3 weeks of classes and ladies still didn’t understand how to use the space bar, my patience ran thin. However, they’re getting more used to me and I more used to them. I must admit that one of the biggest appeals to working with this women’s group is right there in that phrase. Women. Women don’t hit on me. I can’t even begin to explain how big that is.

Women are also teachable. Women want to learn new skills. Women shape the household and are the biggest factor in a successful future for the next generation. They’ve done many studies on this. If you want to have an impact on a community, you have to work with the women. Men make more money and men then spend it on more alcohol. Women make money and invest it in the family. I know I am generalizing a bit and there are certainly examples to the contrary, but like I say, there are studies to back me up on this one.

One thing you notice in a male-dominated macho society is that women severely lack self-confidence. This results in many of them being super shy as I saw with the entire group. I found out though that they are actually really sweet and a lot of fun once you can get them to come out of their shells. Being that most of the women in the group are of indigenous descent, I accomplished this one day by word vomiting in Quechua. If you don’t know what a word vomit is, it’s saying every word you know in a language. For example, a typical English word vomit looks like this. “Hello-how-are-you-I-love-you-see-you-later-yes-no-one-two-three.” I get these from time to time. I also get Japanese word vomits and then Chinese ones as well, to which I respond with a blank stare until the person sheepishly looks away or asks me if I am indeed from Japan.

Anyhow, I have successfully word vomited Quechua twice, and twice I have effectively utilized it as a tool to make friends (and gain a certain superstar standing, because how many times have you seen an Asian Gringa speaking Spanish and then doing a beautiful transition into an ancient Incan language?)

But back to the lesson at hand. I was trying to convince the ladies that their work was worth money. I tried to put a price on what an hour of work was worth, and we went around in circles on this one. First we tried to estimate with minimum wage. (No one really knew what it was). Then we used the salary of a maid as a guideline (5 Bs/hr). Then I tried saying that the average wage in the community was 1900 Bs. a month (or just under 12 Bs/hr. That’s what I make. Exchange rate is about 7.2 Bs per dollar). Then we figured out what a skilled trade made (10 Bs/hr).

The ladies decided among themselves that they were worth a maid’s salary, or 5 Bs/hr. I kinda had a problem with this. These women have been trained, they have spent endless hours learning how to make new products and producing things that the average Joe, or in this case, the average maid, could not produce, and here they were saying that they shouldn’t be paid any more. So I asked them, “Why do government workers make more? Why do people with a degree make more? Are they actually working more hours, or are they getting paid more per hour? Why would people go to school to come out and make the same salary as before? Why did I spend 4 years going to college? Why do people invest time in learning new and useful skills?” And finally, “IF YOU GUYS SPENT SO MUCH TIME LEARNING NEW SKILLS, WHY THE HECK DON’T YOU CHARGE FOR IT???”

And somewhere in there, a light came on. One woman looks at me and says, “I get it! You went to school because with an education you are worth more! When you learn new skills your work is worth more!” And she was so giddy with excitement and says, “Oh my goodness, I never understood that before. Now it is so clear. I need to charge for my work and I think I am worth 10 Bs. an hour.”

Thank you. Thank you God that I am able to teach someone something. I have now validated my existence here in Samaipata. For awhile I was worried. The weight has now been lifted off my shoulders. Whew.

Q: How Many Peace Corps Volunteers Does it Take to Unclog a Toilet?

2008-06-23T17:14:00.001-07:00

A: Three. One guilty party (male) to flush twice and then close the lid, declaring the toilet clogged. One volunteer (male) to open the lid and verify. And one volunteer (female) who finally gets fed up and convinces the boys to pour some dish soap into the toilet to break up the clog.

One flush, one overflow, and several spritzes of Axe Body Spray later, the problem has been solved. Who needs a toilet plunger when you´ve got a girl in the house?

Breaking down gender stereotypes, one clogged toilet at a time.

If You Would Like to Make a Call, Please Hang Up and Try Again

2008-06-22T13:36:00.000-07:00

Due to high volume of unwanted calls from unknown numbers and unidentified individuals, I have now changed my cell phone number. Please send an email to truong.tammy@gmail.com if you want it!

I love Bolivia and Bolivia loves me! Cool Runnings!!!!!!!

2008-06-22T13:31:00.000-07:00

There are good days and there are bad days, but overall I think Bolivia and I have finally come to terms with each other. What a relief.

When I first got to Bolivia I used to have this recurring dream. It was in the US before I had received my invitation to serve in Peace Corps. I would be dreaming about shopping at Target or eating out with friends and contemplating the perfect Peace Corps country when suddenly I would wake up and find myself inside my mosquito net. I’d have that moment where you feel lost and have no idea where you are, and then I’d realize that I had actually already started service and I was in Bolivia. I’d get panicky and feel really claustrophobic. When I remembered these dreams during waking hours the same thing would happen and I wanted to be home again so badly, even if for just five minutes.

The dreams happened a lot during training and then more sporadically once I got in site. Then I dreamed the same thing after May 4th passed and we didn’t go home, despite all the dire predictions of how the country would fall apart and that we’d be evacuated. The idea that I would get to be back in the States had been planted in my subconscious and then it didn’t happen. I don’t know exactly if I was disappointed or relieved, but the following week was one of the worst in-country. I missed my family, I missed my friends, and all the little things about Bolivia that used to only annoy me I began to loathe.

I would sit in my room and go from laughing out loud to myself to bursting into tears. By myself. I talked to myself. I sang to myself. I tried to think of happy times, and then that would only depress me more. I began to plan a vacation back to the States even though I had never thought I would return during the two years. Needless to say, I was a little worried about my mental health and sanity.

Fortunately I had friends to distract me during the days. The nights were a little long, and they still can be. But last week I had a major breakthrough. I had the dream again. I was in the U.S. and this time I was riding in the car with a friend. We were driving on the highway. In the last 10 months I think I have hit 40 mph in a vehicle one time, and that was terrifyingly fast. In my dream we were flying at 70 mph and I was certain we were going to crash. Before it could happen though, I woke up with a start. Heart pounding, trying to figure out what was going on, I woke up and opened my eyes and saw that awful green mosquito net.

But this time all I could think was, “THANK GOD I AM IN BOLIVIA!!!”

Who Loves Me???

2008-06-14T10:34:00.000-07:00

My brother does! And because he misses me so much he decided to jump on his motorcycle to come visit. From Lafayette, Indiana to Samaipata, Bolivia in 3 months, más o menos.

Watch his progress and follow the madness here:

http://www.whcaware.com/blog/

Too Pretty to Camp

2008-06-11T15:34:00.000-07:00

Lovin’ life. That’s what it’s about. Just lovin’ life.

School, check. College, check. Money for food, check. Money to travel, check. Kids and husband, no check. Perfect…

Ok, so after May 4th passed very much like Y2K, with tons of build-up but then no blow-out, I have now allowed myself to believe that I will actually serve out my service right here in Bolivia. It was very much a tentative process before, starting projects I wasn’t sure I’d be around to work on, trying to grow roots but feeling like I could be ripped away at any moment. It’s been so much better now that I feel like I will be here awhile. Who knows if it’s true, but I need the feeling of stability at least.

So here I am, livin’ the dream, as we volunteers are fond of saying. Livin’ the dream.

Life has never been more confusing, contradicting, challenging, and bizarre yet breathtaking, surprising, and wonderful at the same time.

Take last weekend. I woke up with no plans on Friday morning. On Friday night I find myself with a group of volunteers enjoying a delicious steak dinner (very rare on my salary), and then later at a karaoke bar helping out a friend in a very off-key rendition of “Hero” by Mariah Carey. Luckily I am an expert at this song since my sister and I grew up practicing Mariah throughout our childhood.

Then I’m invited to go camping by a bunch of boys the next day, and after verifying several times that it was not just a boys-night-out, (and after recruiting my best girlfriend to come with), I track down a sleeping bag and a tent to borrow from some friends, we go get “provisions”, and we’re set to go.

Who knew that in the same day we would film scenes from Braveheart, find out I am strangely attracted to men galloping on horseback, and then go on a hike that turns into a photo shoot for a friend’s new beautiful white Siberian husky pup.

Ok, quick question. Let’s just see how Peace Corps minded you are. When I said I had to “track down a sleeping bag and a tent to borrow from some friends,” what was your reaction? Did you keep reading to see what nutty story I had to tell next, or did you completely stop, do a double take, and ask yourself, “Did Tammy just mess up speaking English again? Or did she just say she doesn’t have a sleeping bag and tent? Like the most fundamental Peace Corps gear, right next to Chaco sandals?”

Well folks, you heard it right. I don’t have a tent or a sleeping bag. In fact, before I came to the Peace Corps I hated camping. I did it once with my brother and in five days I didn’t get a wink of sleep because I was so cold despite the sleeping bag and six layers of clothing. Add to that the fact that there was only one port-a-pot with a perpetual line of at least 20 people outside, and the fact that I get stage fright, and we’ll suffice to say that by the time I got home after five days my brother was seriously concerned that my lack of bowel movements had surely poisoned my body and I would be in the hospital soon.

Accordingly, when I was invited to camp I certainly thought about turning down the offer. But the question these days is not “Why?” but “Why not?” So, why not go camping?

What I love about my Peace Corps friends is that we totally accept the fact that we are from different worlds in the US. The closest female volunteer to me actually is from the Twin Cities, and we joke that we never would have been friends if we had met back home. She is horrified by the fact that I had no idea how to spend a $150 REI gift certificate (REI is the outdoor lover’s paradise) and I am equally baffled by the fact that she hates clubbing (How can anyone hate blaring music and dancing??)

So yes, I was teased a little for not being a camper. But I can hang. I carved my own roasting stick. I cooked my own sausage over the campfire, and I only had to wipe it off a little from bumping it into all the ash a few too many times. I ate my own slightly burned marshmallows until I found a guy who was willing to roast perfect melt-in-your-mouth marshmallows for me, probably cause he thought I was cute. (I’ve learned, after all, that when living in a macho society, you just gotta work what your mama gave ya. It is especially useful when hitch-hiking).

After having dinner around the campfire (which amounted to only snausages and hot dogs since some animals took off with all the bread while we were hiking), chillin’ and listening to music, spitting pure alcohol and making the fire explode, and then a shockingly amazing group performance of “Regulators” a capella, I retired to the tent and settled down on the ground with my down jacket on top of four layers plus some thermal underwear.

I was totally making progress and gaining respect as a camper. I won a few points for knowing how to pitch a tent. And then for helping one of the guys pitch his tent, a brand new fella that we christened “The Beemer,” because as far as tents go, it was pretty fancy. I finally was able to ignore the cold in my body and fell asleep to a symphony of “Peace Corps Boys Hacking Wood with their Machete, Just Because They Can.” I was doing so well playing the part of a camper up until my tentmate entered, woke me up, and asked me how I was doing. From somewhere in my sleepy haze I jokingly mumbled, “I’m freezing, parts of my body are numb, and I’m laying on a rock. I think I’m too pretty to camp.”

And so after all the work and all the progress, in a moment of weakness when my mouth ran without being attached to my brain, that is what they take away from Tammy’s camping experience. She’s too pretty to camp.

Well, I’ll show them. There’s this major solstice camping event coming up in two weeks. And I’m doing it. Cause if there’s one thing I know, and if there’s one thing that Peace Corps has taught me, it’s that I am NOT too pretty to camp.

Autonomía Carajo Truong

2008-06-05T15:45:00.000-07:00

Autonomía ¨Mia¨ Carajo Truong, 7 weeks

Former Samaipata puppy died in the mountains of the Andes on Thursday, May 29, 2008. She was 7 weeks old.

Mia was adopted on May 9, 2008, by Peace Corps Volunteer Tammy Truong to save her from strangulation by an owner looking to be free of unwanted puppies.

During her time here on this earth, Mia delighted her new mother by balancing on puffy slippers, getting lost between people´s feet, learning to use books as stairs, and running just as fast as her little toothpick legs would allow her as she followed her beloved Volunteer up the block.

She is survived by her mother Tammy Truong of Samaipata, Bolivia, and her grandparents Thuc Truong and Le Nguyen of Kokomo, Indiana, USA, who will all dearly miss watching her eat their lovingly prepared chicken rice soup in between forced feedings of mashed papaya from a syringe to help clean out her little co the (body). Little Mia was preceded in death by her brother who also was unable to survive the harsh conditions away from his birth mother’s bosom at such an early age.

Services were held on a dreary morning in front of the Bella Vista Hostel as Mia´s body was laid to rest amid the Andes with a hand-carved headstone and flowers placed at her gravesite.

Ella es Mia.

2008-05-10T10:03:00.000-07:00

Quick update: Situation calm. All volunteers safe. No violence, no problems and Evo does not recognize the results of the election. It was something like an 85% yes vote in Santa Cruz.

Anyways, I´m doing fine. On to other news!

I GOT A DOG!!! Hahaha, yes, you heard right folks. She is a campo dog, meaning she is a mutt and who knows what she will turn out to look like. Timmy is such a pretty dog and people can´t understand why I wouldn´t buy a purebred. But she needs a little lovin´too. Her name is Mia, short for Autonomía. Lol. Also good for saying things like, ¨Ella es Mia¨ or ¨No es Mia¨ when she does something bad in public. (Mia also means mine, so ¨she is mine¨ or ¨she isn´t mine¨ or ¨she is Mia¨ or ¨it´s not Mia!¨... you get the drift. My friend wants to call her Mia Carajo. That was the big slogan before the elections... ¨Autonomía Carajo!¨ which basically is autonomia followed by a bad word and it was written alllll over Santa Cruz, hung from official buildings, etc.)

Anywho, I bought her from a little girl yesterday. She charged me one Boliviano, which is about 12 cents. Here are some pics for all interested...

Awareness is the First Step

2008-05-04T07:07:00.000-07:00

Hey All,

Please check out the following link to the movie Zeitgeist. It will give you a dizzying new perspective on life in the US and ask you to re-evaluate the foundations of your beliefs. It is worth two hours of your life to watch.

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

In other news, it´s about 10 in the morn; elections run from 8-4 I believe. I´m about to take a stroll around the plaza and see what´s up! I´ve also learned that if I don´t like the results, I will send the head of a sheep as a sign of protest. That´s what they did when many large corporations got nationalized the other day. They beheaded a sheep, wrapped it in newspaper, and sent it as a threat. I luckily did not lose my lunch when they showed vivid images of it on TV.

Just Another Day in the ´Corps

2008-05-02T11:01:00.000-07:00

1. TV shows 300 Venezuelan troops disembarking in Santa Cruz to help keep the peace.
2. Venezuelan gov reps come on denying the arrival of troops to Bolivia.
3. U.S. puts out a report saying Bolivia is a potential terrorist threat.
4. Truck full of soldiers in uniform outside my house as I leave for a meeting this morning.
5. Fighter jet passes overhead as I walk to lunch.
6. Water cuts out in the shower just as I am lathered up and hair full of shampoo.

Just another day livin´the dream.

It´s about to get craZy up in here!!!

2008-04-30T07:15:00.001-07:00

As of today, we are officially on EAP. Emergency Action Plan.

First stage, we stay in site and don’t go anywhere. When it gets worse, we progress to regional consolidations, departmental consolidations, then the whole country consolidates and we make way for Paraguay!

What exactly is happening that is putting us on EAP and giving us our very own chopper reservations? MAY 4th! May 4th, if you don’t follow Bolivian news, will be a turning point for this country. It is the date for the Autonomía referendum in which Bolivians will seek departmental autonomy (A department is loosely equivalent to a state in the U.S.).

A little background on the situation (I will try to be objective as possible. But remember, I do live in Kamba-land):

Bolivia is made up of nine departments. Each has its own municipal and departmental governments but these governments do not have control over their own money or their own resources. All money is sent to La Paz- the administrative capital of Bolivia, and from there it is distributed throughout the country. In other words, the money that the people of the department of Santa Cruz earns is not reinvested in their department but sent to help poorer areas, such as Oruro and Potosí. Santa Cruz is the richest department in all of Bolivia and is therefore the strongest advocator of Autonomía. They want control of their resources- (Santa Cruz is one of the largest suppliers of petroleum in South America)- they want control of the money they generate, and they want to be able to make decisions without checking in with La Paz every ten minutes.

Right now, supposedly seven of the nine departments of Bolivia support Autonomía. The two holding out are Potosí and Oruro. These are the areas where there was a lot of mining going on until the mines dried up. Now they are the poorest areas of Bolivia with the largest indigenous populations. The residents of these areas claim that without the money Bolivia had made through mining, Santa Cruz would not be what it is today. It could only have developed through the money earned by mining and invested into this city. What the people of Potosí and Oruro are saying is that they are afraid that now that they’ve run out of natural resources, Santa Cruz is going to leave them high and dry as well. It is only right that after all the money they sent to Santa Cruz, that Santa Cruz would now take care of them.

As far as governmental matters, President Evo Morales came into power in 2005. He was the first-ever indigenous president and won the election with overwhelming support of the people. He is the leader of the Cocaleros (an organization of coca producers- coca is the raw material to make cocaine.) He represents the indigenous majority of the country. Estimates are that 60-80 percent of Bolivia’s population is indigenous. Because of the US war on drugs, Evo and the US have never gotten along. He wants to legalize coca production while the US feels that coca production leads to increased cocaine production. The coca leaf has many medicinal properties and has been used traditionally here for ages. It is like Red Bull in a leaf. You would be hard pressed to enter into any farming community and not see huge wads of coca leaves stuffed into the workers cheeks.

Anyhow, the war on coca is a whole other story. Back to Evo. Evo’s political party is known as the Movimiento al Socialismo, or Movement towards Socialism (MAS). His supporters are known as Masistas. Evo and his Masistas are not supporters of Autonomía. They do not want the departments to be in control of anything. Evo’s major political allies are Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and the Castros of Cuba. To keep from getting too political I will not quote some of the things that he has said about the US gov, but they are not pretty.

Originally Evo had the support of the indigenous in the country. Then though his policies, his intentions of turning the nation socialist, and the claim that he has now started a war on the middle-class, among many other things, he has lost a lot of support in the country. He does not want Autonomía. He says that the vote to take place is unconstitutional. That Autonomía is illegal. That the military and police will not enforce the results since the vote is illegal to begin with. That many international organizations, such as the European Union, the United Nations, the Organizations of the American States, and so forth will reject the decision for Autonomía.

It’s hard to say what will happen. I live in Autonomía-ville. We have green and white hats, flags, t-shirts, stickers, graffiti, banners, rallies, and meetings, all saying vote “SÍ AUTONOMÍA.” There is a truck with speakers bigger than me circling the plaza blasting “Sí, sí, sí, yo soy autonomista. Sí, sí, sí, Autonomía sí.” They have remixed the jingle to reggaeton, to salsa, to meringue, to kumbia beats. The words invade my mind and I find myself whistling Autonomía songs as I walk down the street.

The autonomistas say that the vote is already in the bag. There is nothing the government can do. Evo says he will not step down as president. He must be removed from office dead. There will certainly be blockades in the roads, protests, and strikes. It will overall get craZy! Autonomistas claim that if the government won’t recognize their vote and their choice to be independent, they will split off and become their own nation. There is threat of civil war. The US Ambassador has already left the country- apparently he doesn’t like to stick around for the fireworks.

Peace Corps has got plans in place for us, and if need be we will evacuate to Paraguay. We are on the brink of a momentous occasion. We are about to write history. And I can’t believe I’m here to see it!!

The situation sounds pretty serious as told here, or anywhere else you may find news of Bolivia. But if you ask me, Tammy Truong- Peace Corps Volunteer in Santa Cruz Bolivia, with an ear to the ground and an eye on the news, I will promise you that I do not feel like I am in danger; I do not feel scared or worried. What I do think is that I will finish my two year service and I will be doing it in Bolivia, whether I like it or not.

If you have questions, comments, and/or concerns, please direct them to my Comments page. Or email.

Bedbugs Make Life Miserable

2008-04-29T10:09:00.000-07:00

On the other hand, lots of things are starting to come together for me.

I can finally post about my job! Peace Corps always advises not to write anything that can be misinterpreted as negative or condescending towards host country nationals. If I were to say ugly things and a Bolivian I was working with became offended, let’s just say I’d be swimming in a pile of cow doo-doo bigger that the one I stepped in the other day. So pretty much the rule of thumb is the same one I learned from Sesame Street when I was young- “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

Well, spending time in Bella Vista has been put on hold for awhile. That last time I was able to escape was pretty much the last time anyone was able to get in and out. The insane rain. The mudslides. The road hasn’t quite been cleaned up yet so tourists don’t make the trek but the word on the street is that it is cleaned up enough that you can enter on foot. We got a website together for the project, as well as a website for the NGO behind it. I can’t take too much credit on that front but it did keep me busy for a second. I’d also like to let you know, so you don’t faint the first time you see this mug of mine on TV, but I’m kind of a movie star now!! (Ok, maybe that is a little exaggerated… but I DO appear in the promotional video we made for the community!)

That would be the good news. The bad news… Well, the Bella Vista project is pretty much run by one family. When I say one family, I mean a family that has like 12 siblings and therefore actually count as 12 separate families. Everyone in the whole community is related. Anyhow, the project was basically guided and kept afloat by two brothers. In the last six months one of them decided to leave and start working somewhere else. So that left one. Now this one has 3 kids under a year old, a 5-year-old, and a wife who just found out that she has a tumor which needs an operation. It costs 3000 Bs, which is the equivalent of several months’ worth of salary. Several months’ worth of salary that they don’t have because with the absence of tourists comes the absence of money, being that their livelihood is based on the tourism project. This guy has been trying to wait it out but now he can’t take it anymore and says he needs to go to the city to make some money. Once he leaves then the only other people available are 60-year-old farmers and such who guide tours as a side project but do not have the leadership required to handle coordination between all involved. So what do we do now??? We don’t know!!

That’s why sustainability is such an issue with projects! I mean, get one hard rain from El Niño or La Niña or whoever it is these days, and poof!, it’s over. I’ve been diversifying as a result of projects failing from factors out of my control. I started projects in natural resources with the local schools. I’ve gone and helped with the de-paraciting of all the students my town and the surrounding communities. I work with the city government on marketing plans for Samaipata as a whole and throughout all, I’m learning to roll with other people’s ideas a bit more even though some are not that practical nor effective, but it earns me their trust and builds my credibility so that later when I present ideas that actually could work, they are more receptive.

I took a quick refresher course on web design and I am now teaching it to a lady in town. Right now she has to use my computer cause she doesn’t have one, which will surely be a problem later, but baby steps, BABY STEPS!! There is a huge demand here for websites and only one person who can do it. Let’s just suffice to say that just because you can type doesn’t mean that you can write a book, and that just because this dude knows Photoshop and Dreamweaver doesn’t mean that he can design a website. I’m out to stir up a little competition for him… A little competition and everybody wins!

So the work life is better while the social scene is not quite sorted out yet. I steered clear of the partying/drinking/clubbing/dancing/karaoke scene because I received too much unwanted attention from Bolivian men. Quitting dancing cold turkey was especially painful. Then when the whistling, catcalls, and men screeching “MI AMOR!!” from their doorstep didn’t stop, I started claiming random guys who visited as my boyfriend. That worked pretty well even with introducing 2 different guys as my boyfriend in the span of two weeks. For the most part, no one noticed that the short Asian dude and the tall white dude were different guys.

It kinda worked out- the men have laid off me for awhile. But it only kinda worked out because when the guys laid off me, they did it completely. So adult English class attendance went from 15 to 2. Crap.

But not to worry… when one thing doesn’t work out, you make up another. That’s what Peace Corps teaches you. Patience! Perseverance! And what did P&G teach me?? Be innovative!!

So, I miss dancing. And so, the guys are shady. And my class tanked. And I was feeling listless due to project failures and lack of exercise. Put all this ugliness into a pot, stir it around, bring in the magic wand, and VOILA!! I now teach an all-women’s aerobics class (aerobics infused with Tae-bo, Latin dance, and a slight dusting of hip-hop to really keep me going). It’s wonderful cause I get to spend time with ladies, I don’t have to continually come up with new lesson plans, and I’ve always thought that it would be fun to teach aerobics. That’s another beauty of Bolivia. If you wanna do it, then do it! Who needs to be certified or licensed in anything??

Overall, I’d have to say things are going pretty well now. Stay tuned as I will be updating shortly on the referendum to take place this weekend, a historical event that will change life in Bolivia as we know it.

We Interrupt this Program for a Special Announcement

2008-04-02T07:25:00.000-07:00

Forgot to add.......¨Happy April Fool´s Day!¨ to my last blog! I´ve gotta maintain the traditions, culture, and holidays of the US while abroad. I totally missed St. Patty´s so I had to make up for it!!!!!!!! ;-)

You may now return to regular programming.

Good News Bad News

2008-04-01T17:14:00.000-07:00

Which would you prefer first??

Good News: I got engaged to a Boliviano.

Bad News: Peace Corps is getting kicked out of Bolivia. Guess I will have to leave my fiance behind.

I robbed an Incan grave.

2008-03-15T16:47:00.000-07:00

I hike like it’s my job.

Oh wait, it is! As a tourism volunteer, I have to get to know the tourist attractions in the Samaipata area. Little by little I’m getting there. There are just so many- Cuevas and La Pajcha waterfalls, Amboró National Park, El Fuerte Incan Ruins, the trails through Bella Vista, the Volcano Refuge, the Condor Nests…the list goes on an on. For the last few weeks I have been averaging three to four hikes a week, and when I say hikes, I mean 4-6 hr ones.

I sometimes work as an interpreter for groups which allows me to go for free to the attractions and also meet people from all over the world. Last week I went with a group made up of a couple from Israel, a couple from Finland, and a couple from the US. It’s so interesting that our common language is English. It’s also interesting that in other countries, being bi or tri-lingual is not only common, it is expected. In the US on the other hand, it is a novelty for people to speak something more than English. Someone once told me that you can identify a person from the States by their limited linguistic abilities. Though it may be just another ugly stereotype, it is a shame that there is such little emphasis placed on language learning in the US.

Anywho, my beloved Bella Vista has two hiking trails open to the public. I had only hiked one of them and while I was there, a guy who used to live there was back home visiting his family. He took me out to see the other trail but we only walked a portion of it before we decided to take a detour. Gonzalo looks at me and points at one of the highest mountain peaks and asked me if I’d like to hike up there. Well, I’m pretty much game for anything, so we do it. The final 100 meters to get to the top of the mountain is literally 15 degrees from vertical. We’re climbing it and the only reason we didn’t go sliding down was that there were weeds knee high. We’d start to slip and grab hold of something and we were good to go.

My “guide” was telling me the history of the area. We were climbing up a mountain that used to be inhabited by the Incas. As we’re walking, we’d find areas where grooves were carved into the rock just exactly the length and width of a foot, and as it moved upwards, the sequence of grooves formed a rudimentary stairway. I’m climbing and Gonzalo pauses and looks at me a second, and whispers, “Look, you’re walking exactly where the Incans used to walk. This was their path up the mountain.” How crazy is that? I can’t exactly grasp the fact that over 500 hundred years ago Incans walked the same ground that I am walking now.

We get to the top, behold some breathtaking views, and begin walking towards the other side of the mountain for even more beautiful views as the sun sets. We are making our way through weeds just over knee deep, and Gonzalo begins talking about all the Incan artifacts that can still be found right there. I must not have looked too impressed because he begins moving some grass aside and says, “No, really, if you get lucky you can just dig in the grass a bit and you’ll find something.” Sure enough, about 10 minutes later he stops, reaches down, and comes up with a broken piece of old Incan pottery about the size of my palm. It’s still got all the carvings visible on the side. My skepticism of finding real Incan artifacts is fading and I slip the piece into my pocket as a souvenir. Every few years the grass in the area is burned down to keep the cows from moving too far up the mountain, and he says that when the grass is gone it looks like a sea dried up and you can just walk around looking at all the old artifacts.
We walk a little further and again stop. Gonzalo tells me in a low voice that we are now in the area of the Incan cemetery. I am wondering how he knows it’s a cemetery. Obviously this is an unprotected area, no archeologists have ever done any kind of excavation, and so how would anybody really know what’s going on? “Well,” he explains to me, “I know it’s a cemetery cause my brother and I found a body here. An Incan. His remains.” I look at the guy and I’m not sure if he’s joking with me or not. “How do you know it wasn’t just some random guy who happened to die here on top of the mountain? It’s possible, you know, that somewhere within the hundreds of years since the Incans disappeared from around here, that some poor soul just wandered up here and died.”

He whispers to me, “We know because Incans buried their dead with their treasures. And we found all kinds of things buried along with him.” I still look at him disbelievingly, not knowing if I am supposed to take him seriously or not, and he says, “I can prove it to you.”

“How?” I ask.

“We stole his teeth,” he tells me.

Now if you grew up in my family and heard all the ghost stories my mom has to tell, you get creeped out hearing something like this.

“YOU TOOK HIS TEETH!?!?!?”

I start walking away from the area quickly, more than a little disturbed by the fact that there was a dead Incan laying at my feet. We watch the sun set, admire the beauty of God’s great creations, and start walking back down the hill. At some point I feel something hit against my arm and remember that I have a piece of Incan treasure in my pocket. And then I realize where it came from and I look at Gonzalo and say, “I just stole from an Incan grave. I hope this guy’s ghost doesn’t come after me looking for what I took from him.” He laughs and says, “Well I have his teeth, so I think you’re safe.”

The day after we return from this hike, Gonzalo goes and asks his mom whether she still has the teeth they took from the Incan’s grave. She walks into another room and pulls out a dusty box, and they show me molars and incisors from the skeleton. I am amazed. Also in the box were pieces of pottery- bowls, pitchers, cups- completely intact. There were also small statues surmised to be replicas of their gods among a great many other things.

I could not believe I was looking at something so old outside of a museum, much less understand the fact that no one could care less that up on this hill were so many amazing discoveries to be made. But I guess that’s the way it is around here. Robbing an Incan grave- one of the many marvels of Bolivia, but just another day in the life of a Peace Corps volunteer.

Position open. Apply inside.

2008-03-14T12:15:00.000-07:00

Single, 25 year-old fully domesticated Asian-American female living in Bolivia seeks single male with no kids, no wife, and no girlfriend. She cooks, cleans, sweeps and mops, gardens, fixes toilets, unclogs sinks, and washes clothes by hand. Enjoys long walks though Incan ruins, chocolates, flowers, and contemplating life within the security of her mosquito net.

Surely met with delight from my parents and shock from my friends, I must take the time to make a special announcement: I am ready to get married.

Now before any of you gets all worked up in a tizzy, let me clarify that I am not making a wedding announcement. I have not fallen in love with any Bolivian. I have not met the man of my dreams and begun to think of having little Tammies running around. All I’m saying is that I’ve been thinking, and I’m thinking that I would like to have a companion in life. Someone to accompany me on all my crazy little adventures, someone to talk to, someone to be my partner in crime. Unfortunately my little sis outgrew the role.

Anyways, I used to think that I wanted to be unattached so no one could hold me back from doing all the things I wanted to do. Including Procter & Gamble, including Peace Corps, including all the times that I just up and leave what I’m doing to go try something new. Now I’m thinking that not only would I not be held back, but the experiences I have would actually be enriched by having someone along with me.

The Peace Corps married couples have it great. They’ve got a built in support system coming along for the ride. They have someone to complain to when the foreign customs become too much, when the frustrations continue to rise, and when they just want to speak their native language for a minute.

On a related note, I am finding out just how much I love my family. It’s not that I didn’t know that before, but now I just realize they are super cool. If you haven’t had the privledge of meeting them, it’s a shame. I love spending time with them. I love talking to them. My dad used to joke that where ever he retired, he wanted the kids living close by. I always thought my job would drive my decisions regarding where to live as it has in the past, but now the question of job before family or family before job is easily answered. If my parents retire and go live in Texas, I will be living somewhere close by whenever it is that I actually decide to grow roots. I will also visit more often. As put by one of my siblings, “I didn’t know how much I liked our family until I was far away from them.” He is still in the US. He still has Target and Chipotle and Starbucks and Taco Bell. Me, I have a market with dusty sardine cans. That may seem like it has nothing to do with how much I miss the fam, but it does. It’s a strange building-up of one thing on top of another and the climax of it all looks a little something like, “I MISS MY MOMMYYYYYY!!!”

I certainly miss my friends too. You notice these things when you make new friends. Like the Brownie Girlscouts song… “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other’s gold.” Haha… funny the things you remember from childhood. Right now my best friends are spread over the continents… Asia, Africa, North America, South America…we may not talk as much as we’d like, but you better believe that when we get that reunion in a few years, it will be wiLd!!

At any rate, after all this strange contemplation, I’ve decided that I am not as repulsed by the idea of marriage as I once was. Now that I’ve come to terms with the idea, I just need to go find Mr. Man.

I guess that this might be a sign that I’ve chilled out and relaxed enough that I might actually let go of the reins and not want total freedom in my life. It’s great to be able to do what you want but after awhile you realize that you want to have someone to share the good and the bad. I guess it’s a sign that I realize that life is better with loved ones at my side.

Many times I’ve been told that I am too independent. Ambitious. Intense. Intimidating. Well, welcome to the softer side of Tammy. If you poke her, does she not bleed!?!? If a mosquito bites her, does she not itch?!?

Ok, Peace Corps has officially turned me crazy. Just let me say, to the people out there who I love, that you are in my heart, each and every day of these 810 days I am in Bolivia. But who’s counting??

We´re making waves!

2008-03-13T07:50:00.000-07:00

Just found a link for an article on Bella Vista. The man in the first photo is the father in the family I stayed with.

Article found at: http://www.fao.org/Noticias/2001/011206-s.htm

Auto-translator found at: babelfish.altavista.com

It´ll give you a rough translation.

I ate cactus for breakfast.

2008-03-10T11:41:00.000-07:00

The fun thing about Peace Corps is that you wake up in the morning and if you decide to step foot out the door, you just never know what you are going to get. I’ve been a bit MIA for the last few weeks. Now I’m back, and I will attempt to put in words just exactly what I’ve been up to. Sit back and relax… This is going to take awhile.

Bella Vista is a new community eco-tourism project. I choose these words carefully.

New = Two years into the project. Not yet turning profit. Not yet developed and functioning smoothly.

Community = Run by the community, for the community. In other words, they learn new skills and make more money by taking advantage of the resources available.

Eco-tourism project = Tourism with conservation of the environment in mind. To enjoy what the wilderness has to offer while not destroying it and keeping it as close to its natural state as possible.

The original plan was to have a volunteer living in Samaipata but working in both Samaipata and Bella Vista, located about 40 km away. I am to alternate weeks between the two towns. To live in Bella Vista is to live with nature. The community has a new hostel which is the only place with electricity and running water. It is powered by a solar panel and has two showers and two toilets. It’s got hammocks and beds and a beautiful view. This will be my home away from home. A nice getaway, but with the amenities that I am used to. As for the rest of the area, it is just stark wilderness with 20 families hidden somewhere inside.

So the plan…Well, as many things go here, the plan is not quite a plan, it’s just an idea that somehow should work out. One thing that was a bit overlooked was just exactly how I would get to Bella Vista. It’s 40 km away. To start, I hop some sort of transportation for the first 20 km along the highway. Then I reach the little road to Bella Vista, and from there it’s about another 20 km to get to the community. Because Peace Corps prohibits volunteers from riding motorcycles (the easiest and most logical choice), my options are to bike, walk, taxi, use four-legged transport, or get lucky and find a ride.

I’ve done the bike- it took 4.5 hrs and it was so mountainous that I was either careening out of control downhill and praying for God to spare me my life or pushing my bike up the never-ending uphill sections as I watched the snails crawl past me. I can’t see myself bouncing up and down trying to ride a horse or a donkey for several hours, especially alone. A taxi costs 80 Bs. That’s over $10 to go about 1 hr and 45 min. Too rich for my blood. No one I knew was entering Bella Vista last week, and so, the least ugly of all options, I decided to go on foot.

It took four hours to get there. I waded through a couple streams, saw some beautiful butterflies, got chased by a cow who scared me to death, and found 2 eight-inch tall mushrooms growing out of cow dung. How they got that tall and the mud pie was not even dry is still a mystery to me.

It was a nice walk. I listened to my Ipod, sang out loud to myself and the trees, and for a moment thought I got lucky when I taxi came by. Walking through the Andes, out in the middle of nowhere where not a living soul will cross your path for four hours, when you hear something man-made your senses go on alert. I heard an engine, looked back, and saw a taxi coming towards me. It stopped and the driver generously asked if I’d like a ride. Well of course I would! I had about 2.5 hrs left to walk and this would greatly speed things up. They opened the passenger side door and I saw 4 men crammed in the back. The man in the passenger seat in front slid over with a smile for me to get in. We were riding double shotgun, quite a common occurrence here in Bolivia. I once did it for 3.5 hours and I did not think my spinal column would ever be quite straight again.

At any rate, I get in, we drive a solid 5 seconds, straight into a mudbank. The car gets stuck. The driver guns the engine. We get stuck deeper in the mud. The four men in back get out to push. We go nowhere. The rest of the passengers exit. They switch drivers. Men are up to their knees in mud, pushing as hard as they can. Not one obscenity is uttered; no one is mad at the driver. They push and push as I stand there like a princess waiting for her chariot. Fifteen minutes later, the car has been successfully dislodged from the mud. We reenter, I notice the distinct aroma of six working men who are not in the habit of showering all too often, I smile, we chat, and 5 minutes later, they happily announce that we have arrived at our destination.

I exit the taxi, continue my walk, and arrive at the hostel in a total of 4 hours. Quicker than by bike I noted. I arrive, and true to Bolivian fashion, no one is there. I wait four hours and as the sun is starting to set, I stop a random man on a motorcycle. “Where is the caretaker of the hostel?” I ask him. He’s in Samaipata he tells me. “I’ve just walked 4 hours from Samaipata and you’re telling me the guy I’m looking for at his cousin’s house across the street from my place?? You’ve got to be kidding!”

Well Mr. Motorcycle Man goes to the house of the parents of the caretakers, finds out that the wife of the caretaker is staying there, and comes back to inform me that I will be staying the night with this family. Since I was actually staying three days, the one night turns into a few nights. Then it rains and the little streams become raging rivers and so the nights continue to grow, until I have stayed at the parents place for a week. And what a week it was.

I was out in the middle of nowhere, quite literally. Bella Vista is a picturesque little area where three eco-systems collide- the Chaco, the Andes, and the Amazon. It’s some of the most untouched wilderness I’ve ever seen. The families like the one I was staying with farm the land, live off the land, and give back to the land.

What I’m trying to say is, there was no running water. There was no electricity. I was laughed at when I asked for the bathroom. I learned to wipe with leaves. And let me tell you, that wasn’t the hardest part. The hardest part? Where to go. In the entire week that I was there, I saw not one adult go to the bathroom. The one-yr old gleefully peed on the chickens. But the rest? I have no idea. And if you live on a farm, how do you know the rain doesn’t carry your wastes to the same yummy plans and vegetables at you get to eat for lunch?

The food actually was delicious. I have never had corn in so many different forms as I did that week. Corn-on-the-cob, corn tamales from the oven, corn tamales from the pot, corn chower, ground corn, smashed corn, whole corn… I felt like Bubba Gump, but with corn. I watched the mother cook all week. At one point I asked her as I looked into a pot and could not see its contents, since we were in a kitchen filled with smoke, no light, and zero visibility, how she knew when the food was done. She looked at me a little funny and said slowly… “Well I taste it of course.” Duh. She cooks by taste, I cook by sight. No wonder my food sucks.

Living on a farm, I tasted at least 10 kinds of wild fruit. And my stomach must be getting stronger cause I did not get sick from a single one. I was also invited to go eat “tuna.” How wonderful, I thought. The only protein I eat around here is chicken, chicken, chicken. I couldn’t wait to go eat some tuna! So the guy takes me to go get tuna, and we walk up to a cactus, he starts hacking pieces off, skins it while talking about how much the spikes hurt if you don’t do it right, and then hands me a piece of cactus. I ask him what we were doing, and he says, “You wanted some tuna, right?” And I immediately remember that tuna in Spanish is átun, and I’ve learned now that “tuna” is actually cactus. Yum.

I also got to watch as the mom prepared 100% organically raised chicken. You take the legs and head, pull, and then slice the neck to let the blood drain out. Then you dunk the guy in boiling water, remove the feathers, and carefully cut him apart so as to not break the parts in the body that hold all the waste, lest your chicken have a very bitter flavor to it. Some mornings I did not see which chicken was killed and spent the rest of the day trying to figure out if it was the chicken with the Mohawk or the bald little guy who was sitting on my plate. The mom says one day she’ll let me do it.

The guy I was supposed to meet with arrived the second day. I continued to stay with his family and they were very welcoming. They also had a lot of infants around, all from this one guy’s family. He has 4 kids. A year ago he had one. Then he had a baby. Then his wife got pregnant again and he had another baby. And then seconds after that another one came out. The mother had no idea she was pregnant with twins (and neither did the doctor). Pre-natal care is not a requirement here. Thankfully mother and babies were ok, but can you imagine? What a shock!!

I was playing with one of the twins when I first arrived. They are about 6 months old now. I was pinching her cheeks and stroking her hair when the mother announces to me that the baby has been sick and feverish. And she says something I didn’t quite understand and it took me a second to realize that she just told me she had swabbed the baby’s face with urine to get rid of the fever. As I notice the smell emanating from my hands I remember that when living in the campo, there is no soap and water. Minutes later, I sat down to dinner.

For seven days I was eaten alive by fleas in my bed and strange blood-sucking mosquitoes that looked like tiny flies. I went six days without a shower. When I couldn’t take it anymore, we walked half an hour to the hostel only to find that the water had been cut off due to the rains. So being innovative, creative, and 100% flexible, we filled two buckets from a sink full of rainwater, carried these buckets to the shower, and I took a bucket bath.

Rain around here is not like rain in the US. When it rains in the US, we turn on our windshield wipers, walk a little faster from the car to the office, and maybe open an umbrella if we’re not too lazy. Here, rain determines everything. If it rains you can’t wash your clothes cause you’ve got to hang them to dry. Rain washes out the roads, causes landslides, made the bridge between Santa Cruz and Samaipata fall, and turns trickling streams into raging currents. And that’s with just one day of rain. When it rains for consecutive days…watch out.

That was the situation I found myself in while in Bella Vista. I spent days waiting out the rain so I could trek back to the highway. The family kept saying the waters would be high, and since I had to cross at least 10 rivers, I stayed. I didn’t realize how bad it would be but during my quick walk to the hostel for that blessed shower, what used to be a stream I could hop over almost carried me away as I waded through the thigh-high waters. Thankfully I had a friend who acted as my anchor.

So I waited and I waited and finally when I could wait no more, one of the guys in the family and I decide we can make it back. Need I say? It was crazy. CRAZY. The rivers that we so worried about were the least of the problems. They were easily crossed once you got used to it. The craziness was in the landslides. Huge portions of the mountains literally fell and were sitting on the road. A mix of fallen trees, rocks, and mud. MUD! In six and a half hours, we had to cross through about 20 landslides. Each one at least 20 meters long… It was a serious obstacle course. Climbing over, under, around, and through the trees, or balancing on a limb or a twig so as not to sink into the mud. Oh, that MUD! If you have never walked through mud, (as I never had), it is heavy. And when that mud is super wet, it pulls you in so quickly you do not know what happened. I would put my foot down and suddenly I was thigh deep in mud, both legs stuck, and I could feel the panic rise. How do you get out? It’s not like you can plant your arms and get your legs out! That’s where teamwork comes in. The guy I was with would tug and pull until I made it out of the mud, then I would take two steps and turn around and tug and pull him out of the mud. Then each time we made it out of the obstacle course, we had to go clean off in a stream because the mud is slippery and you can’t walk, plus you are carrying a few extra kilos of weight where the mud is stuck to your body. I gave up on my shoes after they had stayed deep within the mud too many times after I had been extricated, and I walked in socks the majority of the time. Your feet really do become numb to pain.

Six and a half hours. Six and a half hours of some of the most tiring and excruciating experiences ever. Somehow though, I had a lot of fun. In the US, life gives you lemons and you’ve gotta make lemonade. In Bolivia, life is constantly flinging lemons at you. It’s better to just use them to take a shot of tequila. Figuratively speaking, of course.

I have beautiful long legs and small feet with ten toes.

2008-02-15T09:41:00.000-08:00

…Phrase taken from a “Learning English” worksheet. Unbelievably useful.

Diagnostic over. Carnaval over. Post-Carnaval over. Work starts (kinda). Yay!

You can call me Profe. Or Miss Truong or Ms. Truong, but please don’t call me Teacher! “Hello Teacher! Teacher, can you help me please? Teacher, I don’t understand.”

I just had my first English class yesterday! After far too long of not enough work, I decided to start an English class at the request of many Bolivian tour operators in the community. Of an expected attendance of ten, three actually showed up!

At 7:00 when class was supposed to start, I was sitting outside on the steps by myself. Ten minutes later I find the lady who has the key to the classroom. Then my students arrive, the room has only one lightbulb, no tables and chairs, and a missing chalkboard. So after we buy and install some lightbulbs, run back home for a marker and paper to tape to the wall, move a couple tables and chairs into the room, BOOM! we were ready to start!

I’ve got two classes going on right now. Basic, and a little-more-than-basic. I didn’t know where to start with grammar, since I speak English but never taught it. Not to worry. I talked to a few of my students who have unsuccessfully tried to learn English on their own, and I now have a wonderful collection of old worksheets, grammar books, and a 14-disc set of “Multimedia English”.

My students are also full of advice. My more advanced class has adults in the community who have studied some English and know basic grammar. What I’m trying to do is get them to speak. We all know that we can read and write second languages and still absolutely come up blank when asked to speak. I have a myriad of activities planned, and I told the students our goal is to get the words to flow out of the mouth, even if at times they are not quite perfect. Says one of the students, “Forget all these activities. I heard that all you have to do is kiss a foreigner and you will speak their language. Why don’t you just give us all kisses?”

[Sidenote: Male Peace Corps volunteers working in more rural areas where education levels are extremely low have honestly been approached by community members and asked to impregnate their daughters so the child will speak English.]

My other class is the basic group from yesterday. I was a little nervous about this class. I had mentally noted from the registration meeting that the class was mostly men, mostly men who had hit on me. What a coincidence, I thought. How naïve. My friend looks at me, starts laughing when I tell him who is coming to class, and says, “Please, Tammy, they’re not there to learn English, they’re there cause of you!” This didn’t give me the most confidence, but class went smoothly, great participation, high enthusiasm, and I finally got them to drop the “amigo” from the end of all their sentences. “How are you, friend? I’m fine, friend. My name is Freddy, friend. What is your name, friend? My name is Roberto, friend. I am twenty-nine years old, friend. See you tomorrow, friend!”

English is extremely important in my community and I really hope that my students will stick with it. The biggest challenge faced here is the high attrition rate. Classes start with 50 students and 3 months later there are only 10. I’m trying to make my class more interactive and fun to maintain interest. Somewhere in the middle of class yesterday I started noticing noises coming from the windows. I saw some kids peeking into the windows and thought they were there to mess around. Half an hour later I see 3-4 heads still bobbing around the windows, lips silently repeating the phrases I was teaching. After class about half a block away from the classroom, I turn around and see two teenage girls running up to me who ask, “Can we come to class too?” Of course!

It’s a small start, but a start all the same. [Borat Accent] High Five. Great success…! [/Borat Accent]

Picture Time!

2008-02-08T08:37:00.000-08:00

…A visual compilation of my first five months in Bolivia…

My debut as a Bolivian dancer in…. The Llamorada! (Dance of the Llamas) We rented costumes, learned the steps, and danced 3 days straight while people oohed and aahed over the fact that a bunch of Gringoes were doing a traditional Bolivian dance. We were pretty much celebrities afterwards.

In the same festival I saw a dance called the Morenada…

After falling in love with the dance (and the costumes), I decided to be a Morenada dancer for Halloween.

My host family during training. It was tough to get them to smile for the camera.

My birthday. I’m going to be 27 by the time I’m done with service. Uh oh…

Christmas!

I decorated with a foot-tall Christmas tree. Peace Corps salary doesn’t go too far during the holidays…

Celebrated with a family here in town. Tradition dictates that on Christmas eve, families must roast a pig and have a huge dinner at midnight. Our pig took a little too long to cook because the coals on the ground would not stay hot. We ended up eating at about 3 in the morning. It was the most delicious pig in Bolivia. (And I only slightly worried about getting brainworm from the pork.)

New Years!

Other volunteers came to my place and we had a week long New Year’s celebration. On the actual new year’s eve, we cooked, ate, and headed out to the “club” at 11:30. We arrive and find the place completely empty. I guess we somehow missed the fact that Bolivians celebrate new year’s first with a dinner at midnight at home, then start heading out to party at 2 in the morning. Who knew that we would get our own private party in the club, VIP style, with hip-hop music and Tammy on the mike doing the countdown??

Timmy, the dog, who adopted Tammy, the volunteer. Not the other way around.

Dogs in Bolivia are not kept for much more than protection. Timmy kinda sucks as a guard dog, but he’s great at chasing cars, bikes, and motos; he loves trying to fight horses and cows, and of course scaring the chickens.

Who said the holidays were over???

2008-02-03T08:40:00.000-08:00

I´m nervous, super nervous right now. Walking outside my house I have to hold my breath and hope that I don´t get hit with waterballoons. It´s Carnaval. What is Carnaval? Men in the streets urinating, drunks who won´t let you walk by without wrestling out of their grasp. Waterguns. Shaving cream. Whistles used as instruments. Fog horns used as instruments. Fireworks and firecrackers exploding above your head. Waterballoons- frozen, filled with urine, filled with paint, launched at the prize targets- females and foreigners. And if you are female and foreign, well... I´m just nervous.

In some areas they have gorgeous parades with people doing traditional dances. I sat and watched them practice for hours in Cochabamba. Where I live, they don´t do traditional dances. But the do form their ¨comparces,¨ little fraternities as they describe it to me. They drink together, party together, eat together, and prance around the plaza with their ¨queen¨on the back of a truck, barely clothed, dancing and getting hit with balloons and shaving cream. How beautiful, they say.

I´m about to head out to Valle Grande where the Carnaval celebration is even more ¨beautiful.¨ I think beautiful means a larger degree of the aforementioned. I hope I make it through. I took a waterballon in the eye the other day from a distance of just four feet away. I didn´t have the necessary vocabulary in Spanish to say what I wanted to say to that kid.

Wish me luck. I hope I don´t become overly belligerent on this ¨beautiful¨holiday.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

2008-01-30T08:37:00.000-08:00

As you read my blog, you are contributing to the success of Peace Corps. Have I taken the time to explain this? I don’t know. Therefore, let’s quickly go over the Peace Corps’ Goals.

1. To help the people of interested countries in meeting their needs through technical assistance
2. To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served
3. To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans

Put simply, Peace Corps sends volunteers to work in countries and communities where help has been requested. We do not march into a country, puff up our chest, and say, “I am here to save the people!” Peace Corps served in Bolivia from 1962 through 1971. Then we were asked to leave. We were invited to return by the Bolivian government in 1990. We will see if we are asked to leave by President Evo anytime in the near future. So we’re only here if they want us to be. That’s goal one.

Goals two and three…basically we are talking about cultural interchange. We are here to integrate with the people so that they understand what Americans are about, and so we as Americans understand what other people are about. It’s so that when people think of the U.S., they do not only think of Bush. And when Americans think of Bolivia, they do not only think of Evo (if they’ve ever even heard of him at all.) It’s through cultural understanding that real peace can be achieved in the world. We are all humans, regardless of race, religion, etc etc. We’re all fighting to live a happy, comfortable life. At times the endless poverty, pain, and suffering in the world seems too much to take on, but someone’s gotta take a go at it. Someone’s gotta try. I guess that someone might as well be me.

Let me jump off my beauty queen soapbox for a minute and stop talking about world peace. Let’s talk a minute about these Peace Corps goals. People sometimes think that development work leads nowhere. What happens when a volunteer spends two years building latrines only to find that when he leaves, the people use the latrine as storage space and continue using their backyards, sidewalks, and rivers as a toilet? Was this project a failure? Was this a waste of two years worth of time?

Enter goals two and three: a better understanding of other cultures. This may sound like government-speak for “if our projects fail, at least we can say the volunteer did something with his time there.” This may or may not be true. It may be a way to save face. But if you are living these words, day-in and day-out, there is no doubt that these goals are just as important as any technical assistance a volunteer could offer. In a letter a friend wrote to me before I left for Bolivia, he reminded me of something I once said on my first trip to Honduras- “Experiences are defined by the people you’re with and the relationships you make.”

How true is that? Moving to a new country, leaving all your friends, all your family, all that was normal and familiar makes you realize that life really is about who you spend it with. What good is living in the most beautiful place on earth if you have no one to share it with? Why go on a six-hour hike to see the sunset when you look next to you and realize that no one is there?

Then again, how cool is it when you can make brownies with a neighbor and realize that you really can get along in a second language. Or when you leave the town for two weeks and come back to see the 80-year-old grandpa in the plaza come towards you with a great big bear hug and endless kisses on the cheek asking, “Where have you been? Why didn’t you get my permission to leave? I’ve been looking for you for weeks!”

I have never lived in such a small town. Peace Corps volunteers are always told that they live in a fishbowl. People are watching our every step. At times I feel like I am suffocating. I have been the victim of gossip; I have made friends who later turn out to be complete frauds. Other times I walk down the street and am happy with the fact that everybody knows me.

I’m not used to conversations in the street. I’m used to a goal-oriented life. If I’m going to the market, I have only enough time for a quick “Hola, buen dia!” to anyone I pass. And then I realize that once I get back from the market, I have absolutely nothing to do. Why not take the time to have a real conversation with a real person? Why not take the time to stop and smell the roses? Here life does not revolve around work. It revolves around people. It revolves around relationships.

“Anda con calma” is one of the Bolivians’ favorite sayings. Loosely translated, it means “Take it slow”. As I’m trying to make friends, trying to build relationships, trying to fulfill goals two and three of Peace Corps, I have to remember that it’s a constant jig. I’m making progress but progress here looks like two steps forward, one step back. Two steps forward, one step back. And as always, “Anda con calma.” I’m slowly learning.

Leave a message after the beep...

2008-01-30T08:33:00.000-08:00

BEEP.

I know, I know… I don’t blog enough. I get requests for more frequent blogging but to tell you the truth, I am not a writer. I am a talker. (Who knew?) I actually despise writing. I always have a ton of stories to share but then to put them down in written form becomes overwhelming and I put it off until it’s Feb and I still haven´t told you about my Christmas.

So, to get me inspired and motivated to blog more, LEAVE SOME COMMENTS! Even if just in passing, and even if it’s just a quick hola. It makes me feel more in touch with home. I woke up from a dream the other day and was homesick for, of all things, Target. With its aisles and aisles of beautifully lined-up products…it’s like heaven. You people in the U.S. have no idea how good you have it!

Welcome to Tamaipata!*

2008-01-10T13:52:00.000-08:00

I’m getting emails about visiting so I did a little digging and found the brochure on visiting Tamaipata. Let me summarize:

1. Visitors are ALWAYS welcome. Free lodging is available at Hostal Tamaipata. Accommodations have been provided for up to 8 people, though there is always the possibility of squeezing a good deal more. You have access to hot showers, running water, electricity, and a kitchen where you can prepare food bought in the local market. You only need to provide the host with a few meals and perhaps a couple things from the US that can’t be found in this idyllic little tourist community.

2. Entering Bolivia is done through Santa Cruz, into Viru Viru airport. From there you will take a 2-3 hour ride into Samaipata by taxi, mini-bus, or micro (a vehicle with a striking resemblance to an old school bus. Oh wait, it is.)

3. Samaipata is THE tourist destination of Santa Cruz. Lucky for you, if you visit you won’t have to trip anywhere else unless desired. You can swim in pristine waterfalls, visit Pre-Incan ruins, hike through Amboró national park, see condors and cactus, butterflies and orchids, mountainbike, camp, sing karaoke, dance, and of course, visit the Peace Corps Volunteer in her natural setting.

4. With so many activities available, recommended trip length is between 1-2 weeks. Please advise in advance so that transportation and activities can be coordinated. You will also need to apply for a visa in advance in order to enter the country. Cost is $100. Recommendations for vaccinations are always changing but can be found online. Malaria is not a threat in this area, therefore Chloroquine is unnecessary.

5. Any other questions, let me know!

*Tamaipata = 1 part Samaipata, 1 part Tammy, and a quick dusting of a volunteer with a ridiculous penchant for nicknames

Porfa Blao Blao

2008-01-10T13:48:00.000-08:00

I’m about to head out to Cochabamba again, a fun 12- hour ride in a bus cama. A bus cama, thank god, is an overnight bus that makes the lengthy trip through the mountains slightly more bearable with its reclining seats and tiny little bathroom in the back.

We’ve got IST, or in-service training. We get to reunite with our original training group and sit through 10 hour days of who-knows-what, but it will be great to hear how everyone’s projects are going, what the sites are like, what strange and unusual customs we’ve now adopted as our own, and how our outlooks (and our Spanish) has changed.

I’m signed up to take a rigorous crash course in Quechua, which is the language of the Incas. I’m pretty excited but not quite sure how much more my poor little brain can take. I think I’m bordering on the red zone when it comes to languages. Samaipata is such a mix of cultures- European, North American, Bolivian, Asian, etc. I hear Spanish tinted with Brazilian, Kamba, Kolla, Argentinian, German, Dutch and Japanese accents… the list goes on and on. Then there are the varying levels of English from each of these groups, added to the mix of Bolivians who love to practice their English with me. And of course, the strictly Spanish-speaking and strictly English-speaking crowds. My days are spent turning on and off portions of my brain at irregular intervals, switching from English to Spanish plus a little mix of Vietnamese when my parents decide to call.

Some people say, “Cool, you’re tri-lingual.” But in all honesty, I am non-lingual. Or in other words, I speak horrific English, confused Spanish, and some rather humorous Vietnamese. If I stay with one language for a bit, I’m great. But introduce another bi-lingual person into the fray, and it’s about to get ugly.

At times I don’t know what to do when I encounter Bolivians who speak English. If they use English will I offend them by speaking in Spanish, implying that my Spanish is better than their English? Or sometimes out of habit I begin to speak Spanish but then realize I could better express myself in my native language. As my brain begins playing hop-scotch, the words that actually flow out of my mouth make no sense at all.

Take for example, my conversation with a Peace Corps employee the other day. He’s Bolivian and speaks great English. We start out in Spanish… It digresses to English… and at the end reverts to a bit of Spanglish. We end the conversation and I’m about to say “bye” then thought I would say “chao,” and what actually came out of my mouth was a great big “BLAO!” Then I stared at the phone, horrified that he actually heard what I said, and quickly hung up.

Needless to say, my confusion and inability to express myself can make for some good laughs as well as some embarrassing moments. But whatever… on with Quechua!

The Vision

2008-01-07T05:41:00.000-08:00

(Written in 2001 by Sargent Shriver, founder of the Peace Corps under President Kennedy and first director from 1961-1966)

Oscar Wilde is said to have observed that America really was discovered by a dozen people before Columbus but that the discovery remained a secret. I am tempted to feel that way about the Peace Corps. A national effort of this type had been proposed many times in previous years, but only in 1961 did it become reality.

In quantitative terms, the Peace Corps has never been a big idea. It started in the first year with a few thousand Americans being dispatched to serve in the underdeveloped world, and though the number has gone up and down, the concept has remained essentially the same. Compared with the millions in uniform who have served America abroad, the ambition was modest-- perhaps too modest. Compared with the funds our government transmits in foreign aid to countries less affluent than ours, the budget was barely visible. Still, those of us who were present at the creation nurtured the notion that the Peace Corps had a huge potential for promoting the peace of the world and the well-being of humanity. After forty years, though poverty and war remain with us, I think I see some evidence that we were right. Qualitatively, the Peace Corps has succeeded.

My own interest in the Peace Corps idea had started quite a few years before, when I was part of and, later, leader for the Experiment in International Living groups in Europe in the 1930s. In the 1950s I visited several Asian countries- Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand- and, when I returned I proposed sending three-man political action teams to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. These teams were to consist of vigorous and imaginative young labor leaders, businessmen, and politicians. They would offer their services at a grass-roots level and work directly with the people, contributing to the growth of the economies, to the democratic organization of the societies and to the peaceful outcome of the social revolutions under way. When the idea of the Peace Corps emerged during the presidential campaign of 1960, it seemed to offer the possibility of realizing, in a new form, this old objective, which seemed to me more important than ever.

A month or so after President Kennedy took office, he asked me to report to him on how the Peace Corps could be organized, and then to organize it. John Kennedy believed Americans had decent ideals that were going untapped, and a physical and spiritual resilience that was being unused. He told me to make the Peace Corps a tough agency, to prove wrong those who were skeptical about the willingness of Americans, especially young Americans, to make the kinds of sacrifices that the Peace Corps would require. “Go ahead, “ he said, “you can do it,” and to do it we assembled the best people we could find from the professions, from our universities and foundations, from our corporations and unions, from private agencies and civil service. We knew the Peace Corps would have only one chance to work. We felt like parachute jumpers: The chute had to open the first time, or we were sure to come to an abrupt end.

Within the team I had assembled, we wrested with a hundred questions of policy, debating around the clock, in those early days of 1961. Not the last of the questions was the name we would give to the undertaking. For a while, “Peace Corps,” which Kennedy had used during the election campaign, was not the first choice. Some of the president’s advisors scoffed at it, arguing for a solid bureaucratic title like “Agency of Overseas Voluntary Service.” Conservatives, furthermore, said the word “peace” sounded soft, vague, and weak. They insisted communists had corrupted it by applying it to every political initiative and even to every war they were involved in. Not to be outdone, many liberals disliked the word “corps.” They said it sounded militaristic. But I thought we should try to recapture the term “peace,” to liberate it, so to speak. I thought we should be able to use it without it sounding like propaganda, metaphor, or corn. As for “corps,” I was not uncomfortable with conveying the militance of our purpose, at least a quiet militance. The fact was that I could not visualize the elimination of war except through the kind of effort in which the Peace Corps was to engage. Peace was our goal, and we were not embarrassed to envisage this effort as a genuine way station along the road.

Our Peace Corps task force worked literally day and night for weeks, readying recommendations for the president. John Kennedy had set the theme of the new administration with his inaugural statement, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Those were inspiring words, and at that point, many were asking, “All right, what can we do for our country?” We considered speed essential in order to maintain the momentum of the Kennedy theme.

By March 1, 1961, we were ready with a detailed report, which recommended to President Kennedy the Peace Corps’ immediate, full-scale establishment. We rejected proposals for pilot programs or small, experimental initiatives. We asked for an independent agency, not answerable to the Agency for International Development, and we turned down suggestions to limit the mission of the Peace Corps to supplementing efforts of the Junior Red Cross, the Chamber of Commerce, or other American groups working abroad. We rejected uniforms, badges, medals, and any other distinctive clothing, along with rankings and grades. We said we wanted no special housing, food, schools, or anything else, except health services: We decided to send our own doctors to care for the Volunteers. We even promised to discourage vacations in the “fleshpot” cities of the world, though many were accessible.

Since 1961, the Peace Corps has sent more than 165,000 Americans to serve overseas. They are patriots, committed to the special vision upon which the Peace Corps was founded, and they have helped to disseminate this vision far and wide. As Americans in service abroad, they have gone beyond careerism, beyond fun and adventure, to dedicate their best efforts to the idea of raising up humanity.

The Peace Corps is unique among American institutions. Though it is an agency of government, it is profoundly nonpolitical. That does not mean the Peace Corps is indifferent to the national interests of the United States. But it was conceived to reach beyond domestic political goals, and beyond international rivalries, to touch the deepest hopes of man. Without trumpets, banners, or weapons, the Peace Corps serves America abroad. It renders this service to our country by promoting an idea of an America that is caring and humane. I suspect the reason so few people appreciate our ideas and ideals is that we ourselves fail to understand our potential in this area. As a result, we consistently sell ourselves short. When we hear of a “secret” American power, our minds seem to turn automatically to killer devices. It is true that our weapons and our wealth are what are most clearly visible to the majority of the world. But our real “secret” power, I believe, is the vitality of our democratic life. I would like to quote David Crozier, who lost his life in an air accident while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia. In a sadly prophetic letter to his parents, he said, “Should it come to it, I would rather give my life trying to help someone that to give my life looking down a gun barrel at him.”

But let me assert the Peace Corps is no naive organization, aiming to do good while indifferent to the existence of evil in the world. We know the United States is involved in a contest of ideologies being waged in many arenas, not the least of them the underdeveloped nations. The Peace Corps plays a role in this struggle. But let us be clear that its role lies not in its solicitation of these nations’ support for America’s political positions, much less our alliances. The role lies in the contribution the Peace Corps makes to their success. If these countries succeed in their plans for economic, social, and political progress, it will not matter much whether they agree with us on a given issue, or even whether they like us. If they become healthy, democratic societies, they will not be a threat to world peace. This is what matters.

The arena in which the Peace Corps makes its stand for America is in the nations where a peaceful outcome to the world’s ideological struggle remains possible. Most of the African continent meets that test, as do Latin America and East Asia. But I exclude no region of the world. Though the Peace Corps Volunteers carry no rifles to battle, they serve their country on fronts that are vital to the peace of the world. They serve in the developing world, home for hundreds of millions of people whose only ideology is to create a decent life for themselves, a life that measures richness with dignity, that is free of fear and instability. The time to reach them is not when military action becomes necessary, when war or violent revolution is impending. Peace Corps Volunteers are not trained to deal with enemies bearing arms. Their enemies are hunger, ignorance, and disease. By forcing these enemies into retreat, the Peace Corps serves humanity’s interests, and America’s.

It seems a paradox to say that Peace Corps Volunteers make their contribution to American foreign policy by staying out of the foreign policy establishment, but it is true. Peace Corps Volunteers are not trained diplomats, not propagandists. For the most part, they are not even technical experts. They represent our society by what they are, what they do, and the spirit in which they do it. They scrupulously steer clear of intelligence activities and local politics. The Peace Corps’ strict adherence to these principles has been a crucial factor in the decision of politically uncommitted countries to invite American volunteers into their homes, and even into their classrooms to teach future generations of national leadership. In an era of sabotage and espionage, Peace Corps Volunteers have earned a priceless but simple renown: They are trustworthy.

When the Peace Corps goes abroad, it spreads the ideal of a free and democratic society. Its strategic premise is the sense of concern that every member has shown by the act of volunteering. The Peace Corps’ secret weapon is example. This example proclaims that in America, the color of a Volunteer’s skin, or a human’s religious or political beliefs, do not determine personal dignity and worth. We have sent black Americans to white men’s countries, white Americans to black men’s countries. We were told that we could not send Protestants to certain parts of Catholic countries in Latin America, and that we could not send Jews to Arab countries. But we sent them. Rarely have these decisions spawned discontent. Far more often, they have elicited admiration, and if I may say so, even envy. On a practical level, what a Volunteer has left behind may be a newly constructed well, or a proficiency among a few students in English, or a better way to raise corn. But he or she has also left behind the germ of the Peace Corps vision, and it is a germ that inevitably spreads. I believe there are few more important contributions to be made.

We never meant for Peace Corps Volunteers to go abroad as promoters of a particular political theory or economic system, much less a religious creed. But that did not mean they were without a mission. The Volunteer goes overseas as a willing and skilled worker. He or she also goes as a representative of the ideals that America, with all its imperfections, embodies better than any society in our time. It is the idea that free and committed men and women can cross, even transcend, boundaries of culture and language, of foreign tradition, and great disparities of wealth and culture, to work in harmony with one another. The Peace Corps has a commitment to overcome old hostilities and entrenched nationalisms, to bring knowledge where ignorance has dominated, to challenge traditions that may enslave, even as it respects the societies from which they emerge. The Peace Corps was designed for different cultures to meet on the common ground of service to human welfare and personal worth so that men and women might share what is valuable in the spirit of each.

Those of us who were around at the beginning conspired in sending Volunteers off on assignment as free men and women. I say “conspired” because what they secretly carried in their baggage, along with the books and clean socks, was the Peace Corps idea. As Americans, they were free to travel, to write, to read, and to speak as they chose. They were surrounded by no wall of censorship, nor constrained by any authoritarian code of discipline. They were trained to work with people, and not to employ them or give them orders. Volunteers from the start were instructed to do what the country in which they served wanted them to do, not what they, out of some sense of cultural superiority, thought was best for their hosts. That does not mean volunteers did not often have to rely on their own initiative to make best use of their time and talent. The Peace Corps encouraged their initiative. The staff provided the framework and then relied on the creative energies of dedicated individuals to fill in the spaces.

For forty years the Peace Corps has remained faithful to this vision. Very early, the Peace Corps perceived the trap of neocolonialism, and Volunteers understood that they must, if necessary, go out of their way to avoid it. They have lived not in some figurative house on the hill, not in isolated compounds or chic neighborhoods, but physically among the people they have served, in intimate contact with them. A visiting Ghanaian once said to me, “Peace Corps teachers in my country don’t live so badly. After all, they live as well as we do.” We did not inflict discomfort on the Volunteer for discomfort’s sake. Rather, by their way of life Volunteers have shown that material privilege has not become the central and indispensable ingredient in American life.

From the beginning, Peace Corps Volunteers have not only lived sparely but eaten the food and talked the language of rural villagers, of dwellers of the barrios, of communities of seaside fishermen. They shopped for bargains in the marketplace and rode in buses or on bicycles. They enjoyed no diplomatic immunity and observed the same local laws as everyone else. They received modest living allowances in the field, sums fixed to match local conditions, far from conventional American salaries. They sweated in hot climates without air conditioning and made their own fires in wood stoves when the weather was cold.

Living in the developing world, Peace Corps Volunteers have learned new facts of life. They have escaped from what is all too often a kind of cultural imprisonment, brought on by American affluence, and exposed themselves to the reality of life in much of the world. This is a world that, for all of its richness of culture, often still lives on the edge of survival. I could feel the suffering of the Peace Corps Volunteer who wrote to me from East Africa, “People die here for want of so little.” How many Americans have the painful privilege of learning that lesson?

The Volunteers who brought back from their experience abroad a revised sense of the human condition also acquired an appreciation of the fact that answers to its problems are generally more complex than they appear at first glace. Those who think there are panaceas for the ills of emerging nations, who believe all that is needed is more money or more schools or a few more dams, or even more democracy or more private enterprise, never served in the Peace Corps. The wisdom that Volunteers brought back with them has added to the reservoir of compassion and understanding in America. It has provided our nation with insight in to the thinking of the great majority with whom we share the globe. But Peace Corps Volunteers, because they were toilers and not just observers, also learned that they need not sit by impotently while others suffer. That too, is an important lesson for America.

So, in 2001, we look back across forty years of soul-filled history. We have known the summer heat of the Sahara, the biting cold of the Alte Plano of Peru, the endless rain of the Asian monsoons. We have often overcome the obstacles of the federal bureaucracy, only to stumble over our won mistakes. But we have survived, and precious gifts have been bestowed upon us. We have seen the smile on the face of a child whom a Volunteer has taught to read. We have been grateful that a Volunteer has had a hand in building a feeder road, establishing a credit union, forming a cooperative for buying a tractor or marketing fish. We have marveled at the energy of a people in a dusty village after a Volunteer has persuaded them to lift the dead hand of hopelessness.

In forty years, the Peace Corps has made a start. The idea is in the air, a seed being carried on the breeze of human contact to people and institutions throughout the world. I do not know how many converts the Peace Corps has made, but I would like to think it has dealt a solid blow to ignorance and hunger. I want to believe it has moved human dignity to a higher plane. I pray it has moved peace a trifle closer, while chasing the shadow of nuclear war to a more distant reach.

Regretfully, I acknowledge it will require more time and still greater effort for the vision of the Peace Corps to win the world. That a pugnacious nationalism seems once again to be sweeping over our country does not so much mean that the Peace Corps has failed as that it has not tried hard enough. I know that, even in its brief life, the Peace Corps has emitted a glow, faint though it may be, that has helped light the way to a better and more peaceful life over a great area of the Earth’s surface. I take its triumphs, however, not as a cause for congratulation, but as a challenge. After forty years, the task ahead is clear: to bring the Peace Corps and its ideals back to the top of America’s agenda.

Did You Know You Can Wash Cheese?

2007-12-23T15:17:00.000-08:00

Samaipata is finally beginning to feel like home. Or maybe I shouldn’t say “finally,” since I’ve only been in site not even two months yet. When I walk down the street people actually look at me and say hi, fewer taxi drivers whistle and yell at me from their cabs, and I run into people I know everywhere I go.

I am still in the “diagnostic” stage of my service. It is the first three months in site, where I am to lay back and work less, sit around and drink cokes more. My job is to get to know the community, create friendships, and build trust. It is harder than you think. It’s very strange to just go up to people you don’t know and pretty much thrust yourself into their lives.

Samaipata is a very touristy community. The locals are so used to seeing Europeans and a few North American tourists so they do not really care when a new face shows up in town. It was especially confusing for me. I am used to the usual “chinita” questions, but then I got to Samaipata and suddenly everyone thinks I’m Japanese. Turns out there is a Japanese family in town that has an organic foods business and from them, people learned to link an Asian face to Japanese origins. It’s actually pretty interesting. There’s a town not too far from here that is named Okinawa and is full of Japanese immigrants. I asked around and they said that after the Nagasaki and Hiroshima debacles, Bolivia offered assistance to the Japanese and gave them some money to come settle in Bolivia. But I digress…

I’m here and I’m Japanese and suddenly I’m something like, “HICA!!” as well. I was asked if I was “hica” all the time, and for the life of me I did not ever remember learning this word. The first few times I’d just nod and smile, and try to remember to go home and look up the word in the dictionary. Finally I ask someone what the heck they are talking about when they say “hica,” and I find that not only is it confusing enough that I am a Vietnamese-born American living in Bolivia and working for the U.S. government, but in the tiny town of Samaipata, population 4000, there is actually a Japanese equivalent of the Peace Corps who happens to have volunteers coming in the very near future. No wonder we’re all confused.

Continuing with the integration process, I have found that we have a mini-supermarket here in Samaipata. A French bakery just opened last week. German and Dutch owned restaurants, tourist services, hostals, and hotels can be found everywhere you look. A person can go without speaking Spanish at all around here. English is universal and everyone wants me to teach it to them. Apparently a new resort/hotel just opened up on the hill about a month ago, and the best description anyone can come up with for it is that it’s the “Disneyland of Samaipata.” I just trekked out there and they have horse-drawn carriages and a petting zoo with emus and llamas. It’s hilarious.

Though I can go weeks without uttering a word of Spanish, I really am trying to integrate. I think that I now have hard evidence that I am succeeding. To begin, I will give a little background explanation of the situation here in Bolivia. La Paz is the current capital of Bolivia. People from La Paz and the majority of the western region are known as “Collas.” I live in the department (or state) of Santa Cruz in the eastern part of the country where people are known as “Cambas.” These two groups, the Collas and Cambas, generally do not have good things to say about each other. The current government has been accused of worsening relationships between the two groups and you will hear incredibly racist things being thrown out from both groups. It is called racism because for the most part, Collas are of indigenous (poor) decent and Cambas are of Spanish (rich) decent, although now the lines are much more blurred and this is an overly simplified explanation. One of the Bolivians I talked to told me that hate generates hate, and many times people are raised to hate a certain group long after they have forgotten the reason for the hate. This is not just unique to Bolivia, huh?

At any rate, I have a friend here from La Paz who speaks English pretty much as well as I speak Spanish. He just moved here as well and since he loves to practice his English, after the first few weeks of me speaking Spanish and he speaking English, I got too confused and we go to the point where we’d just converse in English. The other day this guy realizes that I have not been speaking to him in Spanish at all and decides that we must revert back to Spanish so that I can practice more. I oblige and begin speaking in Spanish and look up to see a horrified look on his face. “What happened to you!” he asks me, “You have a CAMBA accent!” He is mortified and I am ecstatic that I have integrated to the point that I now speak with a Camba accent. Cambas basically speak a version of Spanish where they enunciate very poorly and never pronounce the “s” except at the beginning of the word. So something like, “La cosa es que él no quiere” becomes “la coa e que él no quiere, puej” because they leave out all “s” ’s and they add “puej” (pues) to the end of all phrases.

If you don’t have a clear of understanding of what this Spanish sounds like, take a sock, stuff it in your mouth, and speak. During training someone coined this accent “sock-in-the-mouth” Spanish and it’s rather accurate. The muddled sounds only gets worse the farther you go in the rural areas. But like I said, I’m integrating and it made my day when I realized I could understand every word of this sock-in-the-mouth Spanish. And not only that, I could speak it as well!!!

(My buddy was not so excited. He spent an entire night of trying to get me pronounce words “correctly.”)

All I Want for Christmas... is YOU!

2007-12-05T05:04:00.000-08:00

But since I am supossed to spend Christmas in site, here is my Christmas wish list. Please take a look and save yourself the time and hassle of shipping me anything!

http://editor.ne16.com/he/vo.asp?FileID=131178&MemberID=90541210&MailID=3611223

I have a dog. His name is Timmy.

2007-11-29T13:55:00.000-08:00

Life is hard to understand. As I venture out of the cozy hole I’ve been hiding in all my life, it becomes even more difficult to make sense of things that go on. Do you ever wonder why you believe the things you do? Why we follow certain traditions and rituals without ever questioning the reasoning behind them?

Ever wonder why we celebrate Thanksgiving?

Last week the Peace Corps volunteers from the Santa Cruz department got together to celebrate Thanksgiving. I was to be gone for a few days and told my counterparts that I would be out for the holiday. And they asked me to explain what exactly we were celebrating. Now in the context of being a Peace Corps volunteer in Bolivia, where the first indigenous president ever is currently in office, where all our projects center around empowering the indigenous community, in preserving their lands, honoring their traditions, learning their languages, and developing a feeling of solidarity- imagine the contradiction it was to tell them that Thanksgiving celebrates the first toast between the Pilgrims and Indians, the first gesture of friendship right before the white man proceeded to take away all their land and put them all on reservations. The celebration of the beginning of the end for the indigenous in North America. With that in mind, did I really even want to celebrate this notion of Thanksgiving? Is there even a politically correct way of explaining this to my indigenous friends here?

Add it to the list of contradictions that I now call life. I did in the end celebrate Thanksgiving, but it is interesting even with all the tumultuous feelings that result, that I have the awareness now to even think the thoughts that I do. It is refreshing to know that I have at least taken one step out of my idyllic existence to attempt to understand the realities of our world.

A peek at my Thanksgiving… It was a pool party in 100 degree weather with a buffet that did include turkey for dinner. It does not feel like the holidays, but if I can’t be with family and friends, I guess this will do.

On a completely different note, I just read an amazing book called “Whispering in the Giant’s Ear” by William Powers. On a scale of 1-5, it is a 6 as far as how highly I recommend it. Published in 2006, it is an easy read written in a style much like my blog. It explains the challenges and struggles facing the currently country- political problems, indigenous rights, fights against globalization, East vs. West, rich vs. poor, etc etc. It’s a great summary of everything going on. The author actually lived here in Samaipata for awhile and it does talk a little of my site, (though not too positively, so please don’t get scared), as well as the nature conservation projects very similar to what I am working on. If you’d at all like to understand my life here, please read this book!

In related news, the constitution of Bolivia is being rewritten. The former deadline has already passed and the new deadline is by the end of the year. One of the major issues to be decided upon is whether the capital will remain in La Paz or if it will move to Sucre. As such, there have been protests (relatively non-violent) in Sucre and Peace Corps was put on alert. Yesterday there was a country wide strike where everyone shut down. You will have to look for the nitty gritty details online but out in Sucre tear gas was invoked after tires were burned and dogs were beheaded. But let me reiterate (Dad)… I AM COMPLETELY SAFE!!!

New Number, New Address

2007-11-14T05:50:00.001-08:00

Hi All,

My phone number has changed. You may now dial 011-591-726-89477.

New Address:

Tammy Truong
Cuerpo de Paz
Casilla 3998
Santa Cruz, Bolivia
Sud America

Just a reminder... All packages MUST be under 4 lbs to pass customs without me paying more on my end, regardless of how much it costs to send. If you send it in a padded envelope customs will let it go, if it is in a box they will open no matter what size and it takes longer. On average, mail takes 2-3 wks to get here so you may start sending Christmas cards and packages now!!! ;)

Lessons From the Marketplace

2007-11-12T09:04:00.000-08:00

“Expect the Unexpected.” What? No, I don’t know how to do that. “Have no expectations.” I don’t know how to do that either. It’s so funny, how you take things for granted and don’t realize that you have a set level of expectations about things. I remember during my staging event in DC, before I came to Bolivia, and they asked us what the most important thing to integration within a new culture would be. The options were something like Communication, Acceptance by the new community, Understanding the new culture, and Understanding your own culture. I don’t know which you picked, but I did not pick the right answer- understanding your own culture. I am now starting to get a better grasp of what it is. I did grow up in a mix of cultures- Vietnamese and American- but I am finding that there are many things about me that are strictly American.

Let’s return to the expectations topic. It’s reasonable I think, to expect that when you buy a three-piece speaker set that all three pieces will work, right? Or that if you buy a brand new phone, after running around for a week because every single shop is closed for the holiday, and then for the weekend, and then because they don’t feel like opening yet, that you could expect the charger to work, right? Or that when you sit down at a restaurant and open the menu, the things listed would be available. Or at the very least, you could get your second choice. But no, I’m not talking third choice either; it falls to the fourth or fifth choice. Which is equal to saying that of what is on the menu, really only two items are available and they are just waiting until you decide you want one of the two.

Other expectations: I guess I never really thought about it, but I thought I knew food. For example, we all know what a zucchini is, right? I thought I did. I went to the market the other day after a week of not enough sleep, an overnight bus ride of 12 hrs, and then another 3 hr ride to my site. All I wanted was a little fruit, and maybe a little food to make a quick stir-fry. I decide to hit the market and at the first stand I see when I enter, the lady immediately pegs me as a tourist. She starts offering food, and pretty much anything she offered I bought. Onions? Yes. Garlic? Sure. It went on for awhile and she’s laughing at me because I had taken Dramamine and didn’t really know what was going on. I explain to her that I just moved in that day and I was tired and couldn’t think straight, so I really appreciated all her help. She continues to offer me things and I continue to buy, up until she offers me a zucchini. And I look at her like she’s crazy and I’m like, “You have no zucchini here.” And she says, “Yes I do, here you go.” I look at what she hands me and I’m like, “I’m sorry, you handed me a squash.” “No, it’s zucchini.” “No…this is a SQUASH!” “No, it’s ZUCCHINI!” At this point I take a moment to inspect this thing I’m holding. If you added a little green, instead of the pale beige, and shrunk it by about half its size, then yes, I could imagine a zucchini. So I say, “Thanks! I love zucchini!”

Then I move to the next stand and look for a watermelon. I ask if the lady has watermelon and she looks at me strangely and points to a huge stack right in front of me of what looks exactly like honeydew, and says to me, “It’s right there.”

Then today I decide that I want to make some fresh lemonade. But Vietnamese make their lemonade from limes. So you would believe it, I go and ask for some lemons, not knowing the word for limes. I find that the limes look like lemons, lemons look like oranges, and oranges are actually mandarins. So if I want to buy a lime, it’s a “lima.” Or so I thought. I was so excited to make my limade and I go and squeeze all my limes, add sugar and water, and what I tasted when I was finished was a very bland orange juice.

There are many other things I am learning about my culture. We love gadgets. How do you make toast without a toaster? How do you reheat food with no microwave? I was pretty much resigned to eating fried rice the day after making rice, cause when I tried to heat it up in a pan, it turned into fried rice. It’s not like I’m a spoiled American (I don’t think), it’s just that I’ve never lived without a microwave! I sat totally perplexed for the entire day, wondering how I would ever heat up left-overs or if I would just have to learn to cook perfect portions. Fortunately, my mom calls that night and I start asking her the most ridiculous questions. Whilst laughing at me, she explains to me how to heat up food, how to make toaster, how to get rid of ants without repellent, and a host of other issues. Of course she has the answers, she grew up in Vietnam! How wonderful for me to have such a resource! Now I do not have to eat fried rice every day of my life!!!

Another point to contemplate- Do Americans realize how much we differentiate between products? How many types of toilet paper, toothpaste, shampoo, etc can exist? I didn’t realize I had been so desensitized to this aspect of life until the market. The market teaches me many things. You probably don’t want to hear about them all, but for my own amusement I will tell you about buying milk. You can then substitute milk with hand soap, or even clothes hangers and you will see how I myself make my life too difficult. All cause of this product differentiation that I never thought twice about.

The other day, I was in the market and needed milk. In the U.S. I am a skim milk drinker. I ask for milk and was handed whole milk. I ask, (because I have to ask, at least the first time) if perhaps, maybe, by chance there might be anything other than whole milk. So I ask the lady if she has milk with less fat. I’m not asking for skim, 2% or 1% would do. She looks at me smiling and says, “Yes, I have another milk.” And proceeds to hand me another bag of whole milk, albeit a different brand. I look at it and think, “This is whole milk as well.” At this point I am resigned to buying whole milk, and I look at the lady and say thanks and pay for the bag. I then proceed to another convenience store where I buy chocolate whole milk, because if I can’t have skim, I might as well make sure it tastes good!

P.S. If you haven’t tried whole milk in awhile, I recommend it. It’s actually quite delicious, especially heated up and with a bit of sugar added. Tastes just like the condensed milk mixed with hot water I used to drink as a kid when I watched my dad drink condensed milk with his coffee. But being too young for coffee, I got water instead. Oh, the memories Bolivia can bring back. And the new set of experiences that you never though you’d like, you now love.
I now also eat avocado, onions, and for a moment actually considered going vegetarian. It’s not hard when the meat you can buy comes with heads and livers intact, and they hang in the hot sun at the market. Yum.