Feliz Cumpleaños, Cochabamba!

Last weekend was a great time to be a newcomer to Bolivia.  It was the anniversary of Cochabamba, and there were tons of celebrations all over the city.  In general, Bolivians take a lot of pride in their culture and history, and they do a lot to preserve it.  Lots of people still dress like people have been dressing for hundreds of years, for example, and every student takes Quecha (the language spoken by the Incans and still spoken by many Bolivians today) as one of their school subjects.  This past weekend, though, was especially culture-filled, and I got the chance to see a lot of uniquely Bolivian things.

On Friday, the school that most of the girls at my orphanage attend had a huge cultural celebration.  All of the students dressed up in traditional clothes - big colorful skirts and lacy white shirts for the girls; dark pants, vests or ponchos, and bowler hats for the boys.  They blocked of a section of the road, and the students filled it by replicating a tradition among the Aramaya people (one of the biggest indigenous groups here), in which farmers would get together and trade crops, so that everyone in the community could have a little bit of everything to eat for the season.

Each class brought a different kind of traditional Bolivian food to share.  Some spread out blankets and filled them with different kinds of potatoes, fruits, and vegetables; some had tables where they were dishing out cooked dishes like sopa de maní (peanut soup) and salchipapa (fried potatoes topped with slices of hot dogs and ketchup and vegetables - that's what's in the picture on the right).  The kids all ran around, carrying and sharing and trading things like papayas, paper bags of lentils, cobs of corn with kernels as big as mini marshmallows, old Coca Cola bottles filled with a gray drink made out of boiled ground corn, and lots and lots of potatoes.  All of the teachers and adults got little clay bowls filled with a hard-boiled egg, a salty fresh cheese, and two tiny potatoes, along with some hot sauce to put on them.  

The whole time, we listened to a cd with about five songs that played on repeat.  A few of the kids did some traditional dances to them, mostly tapping their feet and waving handkerchiefs.  For the most part, though, the focus was on the food and running around playing with classmates.

On Saturday morning, another American girl and I went to see a parade downtown.  It was the grimmest parade I've ever seen.  No one - from the government officials who started it off to the high school baton twirlers - was smiling.  By and large, they looked like teenagers being nagged about chores.  It didn't seem too popular among the observers, either.  There were tons of bleachers set up where people were supposed to pay to sit and watch, but almost everyone stood in back or to the side, saying they were just going to see their grandson or sister or someone pass by, and then they were leaving.

More cheerful - and much more crowded - was a free concert in Cochabamba's soccer stadium that night.  It went on for hours, with something like seven different bands playing sets.  Some of them played traditional music, accompanied by people doing the dances for them.  Some of them were a mix of traditional rhythms and instruments like electric guitars.  There was one guy who played a little of what seemed like folk music, but spent most of his time joking about the differences between dating when he was growing up in the 70's and what it's like now.  The whole stadium was packed - apparently Cochabambinos aren't too particular about having aisles or exits being open, if it means an extra 100 people can fit in each section.  A little claustrophobic, but a great event overall.

La Comida

Bolivians really like food - they take a lot of pride in it, and they seem to eat all day long.  Even at the orphanage, where the food isn't exactly gourmet, we eat every few hours.  The girls have breakfast before I get there, but around 10:00 every morning, we stop to have a morning snack.  Usually, it's exactly what's shown on the left: tea and a roll that looks like a hamburger bun. 

Lunch is around 12:00 for the older girls and 1:00 for the younger girls.  It's the biggest meal of the day, and usually includes a few different parts - a salad and plate of rice, potatoes, and meat, for example, or a bowl of vegetable soup followed by a bowl of lentils.  The picture on the right is pretty standard - a cucumber and tomato salad with rice and a potato, meat, and vegetable stew.  I have never had a meal there that did not include potatoes, and often they make more than appearance (such as in the soup and then boiled with the main plate).  There is also always a dessert, usually a slice of pineapple, half a banana, or an orange, but sometimes a little cup of pudding or Jello.

Then, around 4:00, we have an afternoon snack - usually another roll with a hot drink (Bolivians also love carbs).  Sometimes the drinks are things I recognize, like hot chocolate or tea, and sometimes they are more unique.  We had arroz con leche one day - a little bit of rice boiled with cinnamon and cloves, with sugar and powdered milk mixed in.  (That's a picture of it to the left).  It was a little strange to be drinking rice, but it was creamy and sweet and good!  We've also had similar drinks, made with all of the same ingredients but with oatmeal or groud corn instead of the rice.

I've been making dinner on my own, but from what I can tell, most Bolivians don't eat much for that meal.  (Lunch is a bigger meal, plus they do snack a lot.)  I think at the orphanage, they usually have a little soup, and other people have told me they usually just have a roll with some cheese or something light like that.

¡Estoy aquí!

Hello, all!  I've been in Cochabamba for almost two weeks now, but have had a little trouble finding wifi.  Now that I know the city a little better, though, I should be able to post more often.


I thought I'd start by posting some pictures of the city of Cochabamba.  It's unlike any city I've seen before.  For one thing, it's completely surrounded on all sides by mountains, so anywhere you look, at the end of every road, you can see them.  I love that.

Also, there are flowers everywhere - in almost every tree, in private gardens, and in the many parks that there are here.  Even though the city is huge and developed, people make sure there are plenty of plants and green spaces, which is awesome, especially in the spring (which we're in now).  The weather is also perfect - almost always sunny and 70-80 degrees in the day, and 50ish degrees at night.  You need a llama blanket or two, but no heat or air-conditioning.