It´s about to get craZy up in here!!!

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

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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.