Well guys I just came back from my “village stay” where I was living with a family in the ruralness of Bolivia. I was with a family for four nights. My parents had ten kids and eight grandchildren. At first glance at the dirt floors, walls made of mud bricks and roof made of grasses, you would think they were poor. In these aspects, yes maybe, but after I got to know them, ask questions I discovered a very organized and financially stable family. Unfortunately one reason they are financially stable is because they have at least five close relatives in Spain and Italy working. Other than this factor they have a lot of investments in which they support themselves. They have tons of animals, tons of land (which they produce mainly lima beans and lots of varieties of potatoes), they also have a small store where they have the necessities their neighbors might need on a moments notice, my mom makes bread on Thursdays and sells it in the store, they have a taxi that the oldest son drives, and finally they have another house with more land where they grow corn, grapes and fruit trees. They also had many buildings on their property, including one large two story building in which my bedroom was on the second floor.
Lets see…in the “campo” (country) they speak mainly Quechua which is nothing like Spanish, but my family spoke Spanish too, so it wasn’t too bad. I just never could understand what they were talking about to each other because it was in Quechua.
I had a few exciting days, the first full day I was there the nearest town was celebrating it’s anniversary, so we went to that and marched in the parade. It was a long day though of waiting and eating a lot of potatoes. That day I think I literally ate ten potatoes and five eggs…amongst other thing…oh and I had 3 full meals before 11o’clock, it was painfully, well not really fun at all.
Then the next day we went to the “feria” which is like a huge market that each town has once a week. It was just my mom and I who went, she sold two sheep and then we did some shopping and then we went to a chicheria. Chicha is a fermented corn drink, so you can basically call it corn beer. Well we were there for quite some time (about three or more hours) everyone was just drinking round after round of chicha (they drank more glasses of chicha than the number of potatoes they eat daily) and speaking in Quechua. As you can imagine I got quite bored…and I did not join them in the drinking madness. They also “pachamama” which is pouring out a little (or a lot) of your drink onto the floor at the beginning of each glass to give thanks to Mother Nature. By the end of all the “pachamamaing” I was glad I had waterproof shoes on.
Ok one more slightly interesting thing that happened. My oldest brother, Rene, lives in his own mud house with his own family a stones throw away from where I lived. The third day I was there he asked me to come to his house to help him set up a computer he just bought for his daughter. Ok I hope you can use your imagination on how surreal this experience was. It was a one bedroom house, two double beds in a small room made out of mud bricks and we are setting up a Dell computer. And then I had to teach everyone how to use it (we are talking how to use a mouse, how to use the speakers, how to put in a CD, how to turn it on and off etc.) in Spanish. Somehow I managed, but it was soooo surreal to teach someone who has never used a computer how to use it. It actually really really reminded me of when my real dad bought our first computer back in the early 90s, he was super proud to put the old typewriter away, but darn frustrated to learn a whole new machine. Then we (me and about eight kids) ended up watching King Kong on the computer until about 10pm. Now let me tell you, we usually ate around 7 and went to bed around 8 or 9. Well me and my brothers hadn’t eaten anything and for the first time I was actually a little hungry, so we dragged ourselves back under the incredibly bright starts to our own home and all the adult women who usually serve the food were asleep so here I am with five little boys who are kinda freaking out because they don’t know how to go about eating on their own. So it ended up being a precious moment because I helped them wash dishes to eat on and gave them a little guidance. I crawled in bed at about 10:30 and passed out.
Lets see…in the “campo” (country) they speak mainly Quechua which is nothing like Spanish, but my family spoke Spanish too, so it wasn’t too bad. I just never could understand what they were talking about to each other because it was in Quechua.
I had a few exciting days, the first full day I was there the nearest town was celebrating it’s anniversary, so we went to that and marched in the parade. It was a long day though of waiting and eating a lot of potatoes. That day I think I literally ate ten potatoes and five eggs…amongst other thing…oh and I had 3 full meals before 11o’clock, it was painfully, well not really fun at all.
Then the next day we went to the “feria” which is like a huge market that each town has once a week. It was just my mom and I who went, she sold two sheep and then we did some shopping and then we went to a chicheria. Chicha is a fermented corn drink, so you can basically call it corn beer. Well we were there for quite some time (about three or more hours) everyone was just drinking round after round of chicha (they drank more glasses of chicha than the number of potatoes they eat daily) and speaking in Quechua. As you can imagine I got quite bored…and I did not join them in the drinking madness. They also “pachamama” which is pouring out a little (or a lot) of your drink onto the floor at the beginning of each glass to give thanks to Mother Nature. By the end of all the “pachamamaing” I was glad I had waterproof shoes on.
Ok one more slightly interesting thing that happened. My oldest brother, Rene, lives in his own mud house with his own family a stones throw away from where I lived. The third day I was there he asked me to come to his house to help him set up a computer he just bought for his daughter. Ok I hope you can use your imagination on how surreal this experience was. It was a one bedroom house, two double beds in a small room made out of mud bricks and we are setting up a Dell computer. And then I had to teach everyone how to use it (we are talking how to use a mouse, how to use the speakers, how to put in a CD, how to turn it on and off etc.) in Spanish. Somehow I managed, but it was soooo surreal to teach someone who has never used a computer how to use it. It actually really really reminded me of when my real dad bought our first computer back in the early 90s, he was super proud to put the old typewriter away, but darn frustrated to learn a whole new machine. Then we (me and about eight kids) ended up watching King Kong on the computer until about 10pm. Now let me tell you, we usually ate around 7 and went to bed around 8 or 9. Well me and my brothers hadn’t eaten anything and for the first time I was actually a little hungry, so we dragged ourselves back under the incredibly bright starts to our own home and all the adult women who usually serve the food were asleep so here I am with five little boys who are kinda freaking out because they don’t know how to go about eating on their own. So it ended up being a precious moment because I helped them wash dishes to eat on and gave them a little guidance. I crawled in bed at about 10:30 and passed out.
