The Craziest Week of My Life

Buenas tardes!

Hope that everyone has had a wonderful past couple of weeks! I had one of the craziest/awesome/hardest experiences EVER. We lived in the rural village of Koari, which is about two hours outside of Cochabamba. My host family had a hose of running water and electricity (aka, a lightbulb per room) which is a recent development due to the presence of an NGO in the region. Nonetheless, the normal ammenities of shower, bathroom, and (oh right) people who speak spanish were not so much available...thus it was really challenging! Never fear, complete with sections!

My Host Family:

I lived with a family of 13. Two grandparents, two parents, two brothers, and seven kids! It was crazy all the time to say the least. I slept in a room with 9 other people...six in the bed next to me, and four in the bed across from me. I definitely felt bad having a bed to myself...and by the end of the week actually really WANTED someone to sleep with me because it was so freezing cold at night!

Physical Environment:

The scenery was really beautiful!! The pueblo itself is kind of in the middle of two "cerros" or "hills." There was a huge field of wildflowers growing in front of the house, which was awesome to wake up to in the morning. The house itself was made of stone and mud and had a thatched roof, and of course dirt floors. It obviously wasn´t too well insulated so it got VERY cold at night. I slept with a sleeping bag, three blankets, and all of my clothes (including scarf, gloves, and wool socks). Their fields around the house were of potatoes, lima beans, lettuce, and onions. They also had a ton of animals: ducks, dogs, chickens, cows, sheep, and pigs.

A typical day for me:

6:30-Wake up

7- Eat lunch....yeah, that´s right, LUNCH!

8-Kids leave for school, we peel papas.

9-Yeah, we´re still peeling papas

10- Herd some sheep

10:30-Cook lunch

12- Eat lunch

12:30- help the kids with their homework/play

1:30- Help with the potatoes in the fields

4:30-peel papas

5:30-peel papas

6:15- Cook dinner

7:30- Eat dinner

8:15- Go to bed

Language Barrier:

The grandparents only spoke Quechua, and the parents spoke very broken spanish...so the majority of my time was spent trying to figure out what it was they were laughing at me about about that particular time! (usually it was my inability to peel potatoes, but I´ll get to that later!) The kids spoke spanish, but most of the time I was with the mom. Thus, sometimes it was a little difficult to understand what they were saying to me. For example:

Sometimes they would mix up verbs and use ones that they didn´t really mean to use. Thus, the first full day I was there they asked if I would like to go for a walk. It was seven thirty in the morning, the sun was still behind the clouds, so I of course said "sure!" Unfortunately, what they meant was "viajar"...we walked a little ways to the main road where we met a bunch of other people and a couple of taxis. Now I´m thinking, "huh, this is weird..." and they are all speaking Quechua now, so I have no chance of knowing what´s going on. But we all pile (yes, all nine of us in a taxi meant for four) into the taxi and THREE HOURS later arrive at a "feria" of different kinds of food. It was a festival in another pueblo with different types of food and music. Needless to say, due to the altitude and lack of shade, I came back with a major sunburn (At 9pm that night). Was it fun? Sure. Was it worth it? I´m not sure! haha. But I did learn to make sure I know where I´m going before I go the next time!

Papas ("Potatoes"):

If I never see or eat another potatoe in my life, I will definitely be happy about it! I have never eaten or peeled or harvested or done as much of anything with potatoes as I did this week. That´s basically their life. That´s all they have to eat, and so that´s all we ate. I brought fruit as a gift when I came, but I had no idea how much of an ammenity that was. The closest place to buy fruit I found out was an hour+ away...and they really don´t have the money to anyway. Occasionally they mixed rice or pasta with the papas....but most of the time, it was literally just papas. I worked in the field harvesting potatoes a couple of days....and that is some hard work! I felt really spoiled never having to do something like that in my entire life until now.

Community:

Everything is about the community there. There is really no such thing as an individual (obviously that´s a little dramatic, but you get the point). They work in groups and help each other harvest their crops, build local buildings, whatever they might need. In fact, there was a death in the community while I was there and literally the WHOLE pueblo came over to their house to cook for them, help them with funeral preparations, etc....and the WHOLE pueblo went to the gravesite with the family. As sad as it was, it was actually really cool to see everyone come together the way they did.

Awkwardness:

"Awkward" was just the word of the week. Awkward to go to the bathroom behind a tree, awkward to sleep in a room with 9 other people, awkward to not understand Quechua, awkward to eat their food when they don´t have much anyway...just awkward all around! I actually felt really sad and guilty when my host mom asked me one night at dinner "its sad the way we live here in the campo, right?" I didn´t think it was sad at all...just a completely different form of life than something I´ve ever experienced.

How I fared:

I was SO good all week until the last night. I ate rebollo (which is cabbage I think) with potatoes for lunch the last day...and that did not turn out to be a good thing. It was cooked, but cabbage retains a lot of water. Needless to say, when I was throwing up in the middle of the field, in the middle of the freezing cold, all night long...it wasn´t fun. By far the worst night I have had in my life, haha. I was really lucky that it was the last night though and I got to go home the next morning! Other than that, I just came out with flea bites and a really bad sunburn. (If you need a good remedy for a sunburn, try tomatoes! My host mom put them all over my face when I got back and it was a TON better the next day!)

All in all, it was one of the coolest things I will ever do. To put into perspective the remoteness of where we were living, the family of one girl in our group had never even heard of the United States!

Would I ever do it again? Probably not. I have never been so happy to see a shower in my life!

Would I tell somebody else to do it if they had the chance? Absolutely!

Anyway, that´s all for now I think.

un besito,

Kristen