Carnaval, Part 2

Here are the second half of my pictures.  Bolivia is huge on their traditional dances, and it seemed like half the city was dressed up and dancing one of them in the parade.  These are some dancers from La Paz...

These are dancers from Cochabamba.  For some reason, despite the normally modest way people here tend to dress, all of the women in this type of dance wear tiny, tiny skirts.  It's tradition.

This is the Angel Michael, who's part of a dance showing the good angels battling Lucifer and the other bad ones....

This is a creepy bear.  They are the devil's messengers.

These women are part of a dance that recreates what used to be fights to the death between different groups in the northern area of Bolivia (and what, even today, are pretty brutal fights between angry men) up there.

These are the "fighting" men.  They are the oldest and best dancers of the group, so they get to act out the fight...and wear these amazing llama hats.  You can't see them too well in the picture, but they are big stuffed animal llamas on top of hats.  They may have been my favorite part of the parade.

Koa

Although most Bolivians are Christian, there are lots of beliefs and traditions from the indigenous religions that are still popular.  I generally don't see a lot of them in Cochabamba (I think other cities and rural areas practice those things more), but the day before Ash Wednesday, everyone does a good luck ritual/sacrafice to Puchamama (Mother Earth).  This includes my Catholic orphanage.

The first thing you need to do is get charcoal burning...

Then you add a packet of incense to get rid of bad things and bring your house good luck in the next year...

Then you walk around in a circle, pouring a mixture of alcohol and Coca Cola on the ground...

Then you throw confetti on everyone's heads (I'm not sure if this is part of the traditional ceremony or not, but I think it's common). 

Then you light strings of tiny fireworks and throw them on the ground, where they go popping off in all directions.  This is a little risky especially if, like my director's husband, you don't look that carefully at were you throw them and there are 50 girls standing around close by.  (The picture is of a safer round of fireworks, after the girls had moved farther away.)  People light these fireworks in all houses in Cochabamba that day, making the whole city sound a bit like a war zone.  But I guess it's important for bringing luck to your family.

Carnaval, Part 1

I know this is super late, but here, just in time for Easter, is how Cochabambinos celebrate Carnaval (aka Mardi Gras, for those of you in Pensacola).

Water

Really, the most important part of Carnaval celebrations in Cochabamba is getting people as wet as possible.  For weeks leading up to Ash Wednesday, kids sit on street corners and squirt water guns at people walking by.  Teenagers drive through the streets, armed with water balloons, throwing them at pedistrians.  It starts out slowly.  Towards the end of January, I was only getting hit once a week.  But in Carnaval weekend, you can't escape it.  Kids are armed and ready on every block.  Every corner store and street stall starts selling cans of foam, another important squirting-people tool.

Water fights are also big.  We had two at Madre de Dios.  The girls and I rounded up all the weapons we could find (balloons, plastic bottles, buckets), filled them in the rain water tank, and ran around the outdoor court getting each other as soaked as possible.  On Tuesday, we loaded up buckets with water balloons and roamed the streets, looking for other kids to do battle with, until we arrived at a boys home that's part of our organization.  Unfortunately, the boys had misbehaved earlier that day and weren't allowed to go out, but they still very impressively managed to throw a dozen water balloons over their gate and all the way down the block to get us.

And it's not just kids who get in on the action.  I went to the 27th birthday party of a friend's friend the Sunday of Carnaval, and the first thing he did when we arrived was push us into a pool.  A few days earlier, I'd gone to a barbeque full of college graduates where, even though the weather was about 65 degrees and cloudy, all of the guys insisted on filling up an inflatable kiddy pool and daring each other to get in.

Fun Scale: 4/10.  The water fights with the girls were awesome, but getting hit in the butt with water balloons while walking to work is not.  Especially because Februrary is awfully rainy and chilly to begin with.

Parades

Bolivians love their Carnaval parades.  The biggest one is in the city of Oruro, and they are super proud of it.  Every Bolivian you ask will tell you that Oruro has the second biggest Carnaval celebration in South America (after only Rio) and that even Jude Law came this year.  That parade lasts for almost two days, with only one short break (from about 3 AM to 7 AM).  Oruro is so popular, in fact, that Cochabamba moved its Carnaval parade to the following weekend so as not to compete.  (Technically, Lent has started and Carnaval should be over by then, but, since all of the dance troups from Cochabamba go to Oruro on the right day, they wouldn't be able to have any parade otherwise.)

 

What Cochabamba does have on Carnaval weekend is a kids' parade, which the girls and everyone who works at Madre de Dios (including me) got to march in this year.  The morning was a little chaotic, as all of the girls and adults scrambled to find costumes out of the mountain of outfit pieces someone had lent us, and then as we got 65 people downtown using just one van.  The last group of girls arrived well after the parade had started, just in time for us to organize ourselves and hop into our position as #134 in line.  

We sorted ourselves into three groups: witches, Chakarera dancers (the ones with the big swirly Spanish skirts), and little girls (who, because they didn't fit into the other costumes, were wearing whatever we could find for them).  Sure, other groups had floats or music or organized dances, but we made up for our rag-tag-ness with lots of spirit.  The dancers swirled their skirts and danced to the songs the group in front of us was playing.  The witches ran around trying to scare the kids in the audience who were (of course) squirting us with water guns and cans of foam. 

The next week, I went to the adult Carnaval parade in Cochabamba, and it was great.  The first part of the parade is made up of just soldiers.  All young men in Bolivia have to do a year of military service (on the weekends or after school), and each unit comes up with their own theme to march in the parade.  There were the invisible men, wearing shirts over their heads, with glasses and hats suspended by wires above them.  Another group made a huge fish float entirely out of recycled bags of juice.  Lots of them were popular characters from TV or movies: One group had a lone Batman followed by 100 Jokers...another group made a huge Gru float and danced on it dressed as Minions...a few groups went as the Avengers (making a suprising amount of Captain Americas for an army that doesn't like the US all that much)...there was also a group of just Olafs from Frozen.  

After the soliders came hundreds of dancing groups.  The post was too big to upload all at once, so I'll publish the rest of the pictures soon!

The Jungle Post

This weekend, my roommate Ina and I took a trip to Villa Tunari, a small town in the Chapare region of the Bolivian rainforest.  The bus trip was only 4 hours long, but it felt like we traveled to a different world.  Even though Cochabamba is close to the equator, it's so high up in the mountains that the air is dry and it's usually pretty cool.  Villa Tunari, though, is almost at sea level, which allows jungle plants, animals, heat, and mosquitos to flourish there.

Like this, but with a National Geographic camera, instead
of my iPod through a bus window

The drive there was beautiful - we passed gorgeous mountains that were completely covered with deep green forests, waterfalls cascading down between rocks and vines, and clusters of little houses on stilts.  In middle school, one of my art assignments was to paint a landscape from National Geographic.  I chose a picture of two lush, tree-covered mountains with clouds rolling down their tops.  I can't remember where that picture was taken, but on the path to Villa Tunari, we passed what I swear was an identical landscape.

Just a few yards away from our room...

Ina and I stayed in "The Bridge Jungle Hotel," which consisted of a few little buildings (some guest cabins, a reception area, a hammock room) and a tiny pool surrounded by acres of nature: jungle, a river with swimming holes, a zipline path, and more jungle.  It was about a mile away from the only big-ish road in the town, so it was peaceful and quiet.  Well, maybe peaceful and quiet isn't the right description - it was actually quite noisy with the sounds of the nature surrounding it.  It was like someone was playing a "rainforest relaxation" meditation CD at high volume - all day and night, we could hear birds, monkeys, giant grasshoppers, and weird animals we didn't recognize at all.  One made a noise almost exactly like a rock dropping into a puddle of water.  Another sounded a little like a chainsaw.

The highlight of our trip was Parque Machi - a wildlife refugee that helps animals like monkeys, bears, turtles, and pumas that have been hurt, mistreated, or kept as pets get healthy and (hopefully) become re-incorporated into the wild.  The tamer animals (ie the monkeys) are left free to roam around a large section of the park, and visitors can walk through a trail in the middle of it.  

At first, Ina and I were a little disappointed.  For most of the 45 minute (all uphill) hike between the trees and vines in the muggy jungle heat, we only saw a few monkeys - and they were all so far away we could barely make them out through the trees.  Then we reached the top of the path: a little gazebo outlooking the river and town below.  It was full of monkeys hamming it up for a small audience of park visitors.  Smaller teenage monkeys swung from vines and held people's hands.  A tiny baby monkey took turns gazing curiously at the people taking pictures of it and hiding behind its mom.  Super laid-back older monkeys lay sleepily on the benches, opening their eyes - but not seeming to mind - when people would pet them or take pictures with them.  

He also looked a lot like Gollum

It was so cool.  I'd never seen monkeys that close before - they're awesome!  Watching them swing from vine to vine up close was amazing.  We got to see how they gripped with their tails, and how they helped each other reach even greater heights by pulling each other up.  The monkeys were also a lot fluffier than I'd imagined.  It wasn't quite like petting a cat, but their fur was much softer than I would have guessed.  At the same time, they looked so much more like humans than I'd thought.  The baby one had a face just like a hairy little old man.  

After we'd seen our fill of monkeys (and gotten more than enough mosquito bites), we headed back to explore the area around our hotel.  We hiked one of the little trails down to the river.  There, in one of the little swimming holes, we went for a swim, surrounded by a colorful cliff on one side and the dense forest on the other.  Afterrwards, we tried to sunbathe and read on the sandy shore for awhile, but the excessive amounts of ants foiled that plan.  Instead, we spent the rest of the afternoon listening to the jungle noises and swinging on hammocks above the hotel's restaurant.

Now does anyone want to come visit me?

The experience was amazing.  Chapare is on the very edge of the rainforest, making it the perfect beginner's trip into the jungle - one where there is still electricity and the bugs aren't that bad.  I mean, they were terrible, but not worse than camping by a lake during a Minnesota summer, and no where close to as bad as a certain ACE graduation retreat in Wisconsin last year...Still, Chapare is legitimately the jungle, and it was awesome to see it - filled with all kinds of strange and beautiful birds, amazing animals I'll probably never see again outside of a zoo, beautifully colored flowers and trees, and a sense of adventure and discovery.

Weird Things About Bolivia

Now that the holidays are over, I figured it was time for a post on everyday life here in Bolivia - and what better topic than some of Bolivia's quirks?   Of course, every country in the world has things that seem strange to foreigners, and Bolivians coming to the US would find plenty of things they'd think were odd...However, something about working at a chaotic orphanage in an especially un-globalized city has made me think that this may be a somewhat more odd place than usual.

A few months ago, for example, feeling a little overwhelmed by the drama and weird things that kept happening that week, I walked into work thinking, "Please, Bolivia, can we just have one normal day?"  Five minutes later, Bolivia answered my question by sending this guest speaker to the orphanage:

It was a grungy man dressed as a giant, mangy animal.  He started off by telling the girls he was a white messenger bear, sent to tell humans about the importance of ecological conservation.  The girls look on politely; my roommate and I tried to decide if he looked more like a gorilla, a bear, or a giant chicken.  Then, the bear began to tell us about he days at an animal rescue center - including a time when he rescued a bunch of animals from poachers by carrying them above his head through a river, and a time when he snuck a 15-foot boa constrictor into a hotel for a few nights and let it sleep in his bed with him.  I wasn't sure at first if this was the bear or the man talking, but it soon became all too apparent that the illegal and terrifying things he had done had, in fact, been real - and that he was encouraging the girls to take similar actions.

Towards the end of his talk, the man told us he used to sleep surrounded by monkeys at the center: the big ones by his feet, the middle ones on his stomach, and the little ones by his head.  Once day, he  dreamt he was eating the most delicious jam...He wasn't sure what fruit it was, but it was so tasty...Then he woke up...and realized one of the monkeys had pooped in his mouth.  

Apparently deciding nothing could top that story, he summoned all the girls into a conga line and led them outside.  There, he taught them a totally safe and age-appropriate game: One of the girls would put on the huge bear head (so she could barely see) and run around, while another would run around, pretending to shoot her with a huge stick/imaginary machine gun.

The moral of the story is: There are no normal days in Bolivia.  Here are just a few of the smaller, day-to-day things that keep it interesting:

1. Toilet Paper

Toilet paper is not that expensive here, but it might be Bolivia's most closely guarded commodity.  Going to a bathroom and being able to use as much t.p. as you want is almost unheard of.  Nicer restaurants will sometimes stock it, but there's only about a 50/50 chance it will be there at any given time; normal restaurants almost certainly won't have any.  Public restrooms, where you pay about 25 cents to use the grossest baños in the history of the world, will give you a few nicely folded up pieces before you enter.  The poor girls I work with have to ask for toilet paper every time they go to the bathroom, both at home and at school.  The workers keep the rolls in the office instead of the bathroom because they are worried the girls will use too much (there are frequent t.p. shortages at the home) or will throw it on the floor instead of the trashcan (where all Bolivian toilet paper is supposed to go - the sewage systems aren't built to handle it).  

As a result, most women carry toilet paper in their purses with them, most men have a roll in their car, and I spend way more time than I ever thought possible handing out, thinking about, and trying to find toilet paper.

I have no pictures of the mermaids, but here
is one of the girls who believes in them wearing
her underwear over her pants and asking me
to take a pictures of her weirdness. 

2. Belief in Mermaids

Bolivians have a lot of superstitions, but I wouldn't say those are particularly weird.  I mean, I throw a pinch of salt over my shoulder when I spill it.  I certainly can't judge Bolivians for thinking that spinning around in a circle while holding an eggshell will cure you or that sitting at the corner of a table means you won't get married.

For some reason, though, it does seem strange to me that a good number of people believe that mermaids live in Lake Titicaca.  The girls I work with are shocked and appalled that I don't believe it.  I wouldn't say it's a universal belief, but it's not just the girls - there are plenty of adults here who believe in mermaids, as well.

3. Conceptions of the U.S.

It didn't really surprise me that not many people here know much about the U.S. - I mean, how many Americans know much about Bolivia?  What did surprise me, though, was that no one here even recognizes my accent as being American.  After four months of working at the orphanage, I realized that at least half the staff thought I was German.  Yesterday, a woman I'd just met asked, "So, are you Spanish or Dutch?"  Multiple people have been surprised to find out I'm from the U.S., have told me I don't look like it, and have guessed that my parents are South American.  (I think because I'm not blonde.)

It's kind of nice to not be stereotyped, and I'm sure Bolivians going to the U.S. would have similar experiences, but I get asked some pretty strange questions as a result.  Honestly, the most common one I've been asked about the U.S. is if I've been to Springfield to see where the Simpsons are from.  Everyone is impressed by how cold Minnesota is.  The girls have asked how close I live to Paris.  A college student tried interrogating me about the naval stations the U.S. is planting in the oceans surrounding Asia to cause tsunamis to wipe out China as an economic power (I said I didn't believe it, and he seemed to pity me for believing what my government wanted me to believe).

4. Giant Squeegies

Instead of using mops to clean their floors, Bolivians use giant squeegies.  Every floor I've seen has been tile, wood, or concrete.  Every time I've seen anyone clean them, it has been by dumping soapy water all over and then using a giant squeegie to push it outside or down a special floor drain.

5. My Name

I haven't met a single Bolivian who calls me "Anna."  Not because it's a hard or unusual name - there are plenty of Ana's here - but because of Bolivian syntax.  Everywhere that people speak Spanish, -ito and -ita are used at the end of words to make things smaller or cuter.  A gato is a cat; a gatito is a kitten.  Bolivians, though, may use the ending more than all other Hispanic people combined.  Instead of a glass of agua, they ask for an aguita.  All of their mamas are mamitas.  Instead of asking for favors, they ask for favorcitos.  They're never going to be 5 minutos late, just 5 minutitos.  

Bonus weird thing: an egg wishing you a merry Christmas

They don't do it with all names, and I'm not even sure if they do it with all Ana's, but no matter who I meet, they always call me "Anita."  I had to meet with Amanecer's lawyer in a very professional setting to do some translating and introduced myself as Anna.  He responded, "Nice to meet you, Anita."  My first day volunteering with three-year-olds, the director presented me as "Anna," and all the toddlers immediately responded "¡Hola, Anita!"  Later that day, when one of the older kids asked my name, I said "Anna" and the three-year-old next to me interrupted to say "Anita.  Her name is Anita."  I guess, until June, it is.

Here is a juice bag for snack

6. Drinks in Bags

Most drinks - from milk to water to juice - are sold in bags, especially for individual servings.  You can get bottles of water or pop, and I've seen a few cartons of juice, but by far the most common way to get liquids is in little plastic bags that you bite open on one side and squeeze into your mouth.  It saves money, I think.

7. Clowns

Clowns are really popular here.  They are everywhere - juggling in front of cars stopped at red lights for money, dancing outside of stores that are having big sales, visiting the orphanage for Christmas.  I even saw a sign advertising clowns for all occassions: birthday parties, baptisms, weddings.  I have no idea how popular wedding clowns are, but the fact that they exist shows how much Bolivians love those guys.  Most of them seem a little weird and slight scary to me, but I do have to give due credit to this guy who came to the orphanage in December and kept the girls laughing and playing games for almost two hours - all while being genuinely nice and funny, and not the least bit creepy.

If you're ever in Bolivia and in need of a wedding
clown, call this guy up.

¡Feliz Año Nuevo!

Ina and I in our foam "2015" flapper hats

Happy New Year from Cochabamba!


In many ways, the celebrations were very similar to the ones in the US - parties, midnight toasts, "2015" hats/glasses, things like that - but of course, everything had a Bolivian twist. Here's a little about what New Year's Eve was like...

The Food

With the rice replaced with the usual amounts of meat, I
think this would be Dad's dream food.

New Year's Eve dinner was definitely the best one of the year at the orphanage (not a high bar, but, still).  We had a dish called pique macho, which is usually French fries topped with heaps of different kinds of meat and a few tomatoes and hot pepper slices.  At Madre de Dios, we had the budget version - only one kind of meat, supplemented by a side of rice - but it was still good.  We even got pepper slices and ketchup, making it the most flavorful dish we've had there.  

Fricase

As I've mentioned before, Bolivians love to eat, and New Year's is no exception.  I went to a party with some of my friends and was surprised that - right after the clock struck midnight and everyone toasted and hugged each other - everyone sat down for a meal.  Apparently, there is no better way to start off the new year than by eating, especially eating pork.  We had fricase, a soup made up of a not-very-spicy chili broth, big pieces of pork, and huge corn kernals.  

Dancing

Posing safely from the girls' side of the room

There was a lot of dancing on New Year's.  The girls' home that I work in threw a party, where they invited the boys from another home within the Amanecer organization.  We cleared the cafeteria of tables, set up chairs along the walls, and turned on music and flashing lights.  It was a lot like middle school dances in the US: girls sitting on one side, boys on the other, lots of kids trying to get their friends to ask the friends of their crush to dance with them, very little actually dancing with people of the opposite gender.  The kids did dance with their friends a good amount, though, and some of them had pretty good moves!  The party that my friends and I went to later also had a lot of dancing to different kinds of music: cumbia, salsa, bachata, merengue, pop music.  I loved the variety of music here, and having the chance to dance to things like salsa and bachata!  

Good Luck Traditions

Apparently, as soon as all of the panettone vendors get rid of their stock of cake from Christmas, they switch to selling good luck charms.  All over Cochabamba, the streets were lined with people selling things to bring prosperity to the new year.  

Like this, but sold out of wheelbarrows.  Picture from http://listas.
eleconomista. es/system/items/000/046/910/
medium/ropa_interior_para_fin_de_ano.jpg?1419971549

It is widely known here that you need to wear new yellow underwear on New Year's if you want money and new red underwear if you want love, so there were carts and carts of ladies selling nothing but red and yellow panties.  There were also people selling stacks of fake money that apparently you can burn to summon real money in your life in the year to come, as well as little replicas of bigger things people might want: houses, visas, cars, llamas.  

When I took some of the girls to the market a few days before New Year's Eve, they insisted on buying little stones with different colors, meant to bring prosperity in different areas of your life: work, family, love, money, school, health, and prosperity (in general, I suppose, although I was a little confused about it).  Even though I said I didn't believe in it, they wouldn't let us leave until I bought a few, too, so now I have a tiny packet of pebbles I have to carry around in my purse until 2016, lest everything start to go terribly in those areas.  I'll let you know if it ends up being an exceptionally lucky year.

And, readers, I hope you all have wonderful and luck-filled years, even if you didn't wear the right underwear or buy your mini llamas in time!

¡Feliz Navidad!

¡Feliz Navidad a todos!  Merry Christmas, everyone!

As could be expected, Christmas in Bolivia was an adventure.  It had lots of great moments - a beautiful mass with the kids at the orphanage, a lovely dinner with the other volunteers in my program, sunny summer weather, the chance to participate in new Christmas traditions.  It was sad being away from my family and so many things I take for granted in the holiday season: snow, hearing Christmas songs 24-7, the TV marathon of "A Christmas Story," candy canes and candy-cane flavored everything, "A Charlie Brown Christmas" on VHS...  But I'm glad I got to experience a South American Christmas at least once, and who better to spend it with than the lovable girls I work with?

To give you a sense of it, here are a few of the moments and images that stuck out:

The Music

Our band for Christmas mass

Overall, I didn't hear that much Christmas music in Bolivia.  There are plenty of Spanish Christmas carols, but with the radio stations continuing to play the same music as the rest of the year and most shopping taking place in markets instead of malls, you definitely don't get as flooded with Christmas tunes here as you do in the U.S.

On Christmas Eve, though, the girls spent the day blasting a CD of "villancicos," and we got to hear their favorites over and over.  One of them, about the bells of Bethlehem ringing, was pretty catchy (at least the first ten times).  You can listen to it here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DyRFHeNMoXA

I don't have a picture of the Nativity fish, but here's a shot of
the girls dancing in the little pagent they had before dinner.

Their other favorite song was about the nativity fish.  Yep, the fish.  The lyrics of the chorus are "Look how the fish drink in the water.  Look how they drink at seeing God born.  They drink and they drink, and then they drink some more - the fish in the river at seeing God born."  When I picture all the animals that might have been there at Bethlehem - you know, in the desert - I never really imagined fish...but apprently someone did.  There's also a whole verse about Mary combing her hair.  The version of this song that the girls liked best was an intense rock one, which I couldn't find, but if you want to hear another rendition, here it is: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L6_nZapQyps

The suit must get awfully
warm down here

And, yes - they do listen to "Feliz Navidad" here.  It's quite popular - both the bilingual version we know and love in the US, as well as a version totally in Spanish. 

The Weather 

It's summer here and, although it rains a lot, the 24th and 25th were beautiful, sunny days, with highs in the 80s.  I didn't need a sweater to go outside (unthinkable for a Minnesotan), and we even took a trip to the park on Christmas afternoon!

The Food

Why, Bolivia?

The most popular Christmas food in Bolivia isn't even Bolivian - it's panettone, a big, round bread with candied fruit which was created in Italy and now is popular in many different countries.  I remember seeing it for sale in Pensacola, but with nowhere near the intensity that it's sold here.  About a month ago, panettones sprung up all over the city: whole booths in markets got rid of their usual products and replaced them with panettones, grocery stores started stocking panettones in every possible inch of shelf space, people set up tables of panettones along busy roads.  I'd estimate there were an average of 5.6 pannetones sold for every one person who lives in Cochabamba.  Finally, I got curious and bought a chocolate one.  It was terrible.  Dry bread that was a little bitter and not at all chocolatey.  I also tried a sample of a traditional one, to see if it was any better.  It wasn't.  Stale, tasteless bread with sickly sweet candied fruit.  I don't get it.

Can you see the foot?  So gross

As far as Christmas meals go, there isn't really one typical dish.  Some families have turkey, some have roasted pork, some have mixed meat stews.  On Christmas Eve at the orphanage, we had cream of chicken foot soup for lunch (yes - with whole chicken feet in it).  For dinner, we had chicken, rice, a potato, a sweet potato, and a little salad.  To me, it seemed pretty similar to what we normally eat (except for the sweet potato - that was a delicious new addition!), but the girls loved it.  For a snack/dessert, we toasted with Sprite mixed with fruit juice and got one lady finger cookie each.  

On Christmas night, my roommates and I hosted a dinner for the four volunteers in our program: one German, one British, one Irish, and one American.  We ended up making lasagna, German red cabbage, green beans, and chocolate cheesecake - kind of eclectic, but really good!

Sponsored Christmas Presents

A Canadian church group knitted these cute hats

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, lots of different organizations came to give the girls presents.  Two were religious organizations dropping off clothes the girls really needed and appreciated.  Never before have I heard kids cheer when they were told someone had given them new socks and underwear for Christmas, but these girls did.  

Most of the visitors, however, were businesses using it as a publicity opportunity.  I had mixed feelings about it.  On the one hand, I'm glad so many people were thinking about the girls, and it is nice that they got presents that they wouldn't have otherwise, and if the business took a few pictures, that doesn't seem to hurt anyone.  On the other hand, some companies seemed to be much more generous, and much less selfishly motivated, than others.  

Even Pepe the dog loved it!

Windsor tea company, for example, was awesome.  They brought hot chocolate for all the girls to drink, and a really nice (and not even a little creepy) clown came did a genuinely funny and enjoyable show for the girls.  They danced, sang, played games, and laughed for at least an hour and a half.  At the end, women dressed as elves passed out bags filled with candy and nice presents (Angry Birds Monopoly, giant pens, or dolls, depending on the girls' ages).  

One of the local colleges was also great - they put on a long show for the kids from four of the Amanecer orphanages.  A host and Mrs. Claus sang and led games, and Santa made an appearance at the end.  (Although, one of the 14-year-old girls, miffed, complained to one of the orphanage workers after, "That wasn't the real Santa!  That was the guy who was playing music at the beginning.  You told me the real Santa would be there!")  At the end, they handed out board games and Frozen Barbies.  

Also, the bank gave some of the girls these
creepy dolls with red light-up ears

A few other companies made brief appearances, passing out toys, giving long speeches about themselves, and taking lots of pictures to put up on their websites.  By far the worst was a local bank.  They showed up with almost a full camera crew - two people with cameras and one with a microphone, to record every moment of their good deed.  They hung up a huge banner advertising their high savings account interest rates, and proceeded to give several long speeches in front of it.  One man lectured about the importance of saving, as his son did with his allowance (not particularly applicable or sensitive advice to girls without families or money).  Then, they started passing out the cheapest, most miserly presents of any group yet: plastic dolls and kitchen sets already breaking in their wrappers.  What was worse was that they ran out of the presents they were planning to hand out and ending up scrambling and giving 17-year-old girls crappy plastic cars.  They told one of them she could give it to a brother, and she burst into tears - this being the first Christmas she wouldn't be able to see her brother.  Of all of the groups, they were by far the most showy and by far the least concerned about the girls (not even having bothered to count their presents beforehand).  

I don't mean to complain about the donations in general - of course, it's a nice thing for people and companies to do in general.  It's just that, by the end, I couldn't help wishing that someone would give the girls something out of genuine love.

Christmas Eve Mass

The girls' side 

After dinner, the Amanecer priest gave a beautiful Christmas vigil mass for the kids at Madre and a nearby boys' home.  The girls were all wearing their nicest clothes - poofy dresses for the little girls, nice blouses for the teenagers.  The boys were wearing what seemed to be presents they'd gotten that day - clean new black sneakers and brightly colored, never-been-washed Angry Bird shirts.

We sang Christmas carols, lit the Advent wreath and a new white candle, got sprinkled with holy water with a fake flower and a plastic pitcher, and blessed the baby Jesus statue before putting him in the manger scene under the tree.  The boys had brought their baby Jesus statue to get it blessed, too - apparently, lots of people here bring their baby Jesuses to Christmas mass to get them blessed before putting them in their home nativity scenes.

The boys' side 

Being able to celebrate the birth of Jesus with all those kids was so nice.  It was so cozy, intimate, and beautiful, from the streamers the girls had hung to the ceiling to the pan flute music to the many many hugs exchanged during the Sign of Peace.

¡Feliz Día de Dar Gracias!

Happy belated Thanksgiving, everyone!

This year, I was especially grateful for my time in Bolivia - and for the opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving, despite being far from home.  Many Bolivians have heard of the holiday because of American TV and movies, but there were plenty of people (from the girls at the orphanage to one of my friends in college) who had no idea what it was.  However, because it is one of my favorite holidays, I was determined to find a way to celebrate it here.  It was definitely a challenge, but very much worth it!

Hunting down the food was the hardest part.  Although most Thanksgiving dishes are made of pretty basic staples (like potatoes) that are easy enough to track down here, a few things were really hard to find.  Some (like pumpkin) aren't common; others (like cranberries) just aren't in season, since it's getting into the hottest part of summer now.  (Especially coming from Minnesota, it felt so strange to be roasting a turkey while wearing a tank top.)

The most precious can of pumpkin ever

I think I went food shopping seven times in four days, in everywhere from open air markets to the biggest and fanciest grocery store in the city.  Eventually, I found everything except cranberries (although it turns out plums are a pretty close substitute).  My favorite moment was when my roommate Ina spotted the last remaining can of pumpkin pie mix high on a shelf, right in front of a group of people milling around looking for something - hopefully not the same thing as us.  Ina lept into action, jumped in front of the group, and snatched the can off the shelf as fast as I've ever seen anyone shop for anything.  Thank you, Ina!

My friend's mom took it out of the baking
pan to serve it - that's how tough it was.

Another challenge was the altitude.  Cochabamba is located about 8,000 feet higher than anywhere I've ever been before, which affects cooking and baking in weird and sometimes unpredicatable ways.  The turkey, for example, didn't take any longer than usual.  The pumpkin pie filling, on the other hand, took almost two hours to set, which meant the crust was in the oven so long that it had the texture of a piece of sheet rock.

Because the mini fridge and oven in my apartment are too small to hold a turkey - let alone a turkey and sides - I had to find somewhere else to cook.  Luckily, I have a friend whose family hosts American study abroad students and is used to foreigners wanting to do weird things like that, and they let me invade their kitchen for the day.  This had the added bonus of letting me get Bolivians' impressions of Thanksgiving food, which were...

1. They LOVED the gravy.  The turkey definitely turned out dry, but everyone loved the gravy so much, they didn't notice.  They kept commenting on how smooth and tasty the meat was when, secretly, it wasn't - it was just the sauce.

2. They thought stuffing made out of bread was the strangest thing.  Apparently, many Bolivians will stuff turkeys with fruits and vegetables for Christmas, but it's nothing like American stuffing.  They also did not understand why I was cooking it outside of the bird.  They liked it, though.

3. They definitely didn't like the "cranberry" plum sauce, though.  Bolivians generally like things either super bland (see: millions of boiled potatoes) or super sweet (the cakes are too sweet for me to eat, and that's hard to do).  Tart and sour are not popular flavors.

So much better than a saltless, pepperless
boiled potato - thanks, Mom!

4. They did, however, like the potatoes I made, despite the fact that they had flavor.  Every potato I've had here has been either boiled or fried with little to nothing in the way of seasonings.  For Thanksgiving, though, I made my mom's baked mashed potato recipe, which includes garlic, green onions, and sour cream - which everyone else seemed impressed by.  I'm hoping to start a flavoring potatoes trend.

5. Everyone was really impressed that I made cornbread (baking's not common here), but they were worried that eating it warm was unhealthy.  I tried to convince them that it's best right out of the oven, but I don't think they believed me.

6. They did not understand that the point of Thanksgiving is eating as much as you possibly can.  Everyone took dainty (healthy) portions of everything and then maybe chose to get seconds of one thing they especially liked.  Then they stopped eating.  It was probably for the best - not being bloated was nice - but it was strange.  I cooked the same amount of food I've made for similar amounts of people the past two years, but there were at least three times as many leftovers this time.

The final spread of everything.  Yay Thanksgiving!