Water Balloons & Shaving Cream

Hola! I hope things are well in the northern hemisphere--things are moving along here. My Spanish, or rather my Castellano, is improving (or so I like to tell myself), and I am continuing to soak up the culture here in Bolivia. I just got back from a raging fiesta in Oruro, where Carnaval was taking place. For some twenty odd hours there is a parade that marches all around the city. You can buy a ticket for 80 bolivianos, which is about $11.50, and that allows you to sit in the bleachers to watch the parade go by. You can choose to sit there until dawn the next day, which I’m pretty sure some people actually do--with the occasional bathroom break of course, or, like the tourists we are, you can walk around the city intermittently. This one plaza led us up a landing where you could see the entire town up until the mountains that surrounded it.

Best investments of the day:

1) Poncho - For the entire day I was covered in water-balloon remnants and shaving cream. At one point during we were grabbing a late lunch where they weren’t serving any vegetarian food, so I ran out quickly to buy some cheap pastries from a stand not twenty meters away from the restaurant. I considered putting my poncho back on but thought I’d be ok for just a few minutes. I stepped outside the door and “splat!” water-ballon to the back, and “smack!” shaving cream to the face. Oh well, así es la vida (that’s life). While paying for my pastries a small boy came up to me, arm raised and balloon in hand. I looked him dead in the eye with my hand out, and said, “por favor.” He lowered his arm, smiled, and gently placed one of his water-balloons in my hand like a good little boy as I said, “Gracias.” Needless to say I had some vengeance on my way back to my friends.

2) Sneakers - By nighttime the streets were soaked and covered with trash: pieces of balloon rubber, dismantled ponchos, beer cans, chicken bones, and sorry to say- vomit. Bleh!

3) Sunscreen - Apparently when you’re closer to the sun you burn more easily... go figure. I used some of what the Canadian brought, but the places I missed--yikes!

The official (national) holiday of Carnaval was these past two days, which means no work, but a lot more water and shaving cream. There has been an infantry of kids stationed just outside the entrance of my building, making my exit strategy rather difficult. From my balcony I’ve seen trucks full of people go by with huge buckets full of water balloons and what looked like turbo nurf guns. The best has been seeing full out battles take place between the truck people and the neighborhood kids. I can’t even tell you how tempted I was to fill up a bucket of my own and just dump it on them, but fears of causing permanent damage from seven stories up inhibited my great deluge.

We are starting up a Saturday program for arts and sports in the community of Ushpa-Ushpa. I will be helping to oversee the theatre and art classes, but I also have the task of marketing the program to developing countries in order to raise sustainable funds. If any of you have suggestions of who I can contact or advice on how to begin this venture please let me know. I haven’t done large-scale fundraising before, but I guess I have to start somewhere!

Please continue to pray for me, and let me know how I can do the same for you. I love the emails! And oh yes--add me on skype! I am “callieham”, a bit abstract, I know.

Ciao,

Callie

ps- In case you were wondering, the ice has melted. I now receive many a warm hola’s from Sebastian each day.