Random Nothings

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Earth Hour

http://www.earthhour.org/home/

I'm gonna do it. Will you?

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.::. Tota .::. 11:55 PM
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Thursday, March 12, 2009

Soy una floja

So, I haven't blogged since I got back from Bolivia. I'm back, like officially, I've been here for forever. Most people that read this have seen me by now, if you haven't then you should probably work on that. I brought my puppy too, she's a whiny butt, but I love her. I'm working at Ryans again, but I think it's time for me to find a real job. If you know anyone that's hiring for more than minimum wage do tell! I speak Spanish pretty much and I'd love to work with hispanic kids (no offense to American ones, but I think they kinda suck). I also saw a honey bee the other day ago and now I wanna start keeping bees here, if I can find a colony and capture it. I don't want to actually buy bees with the whole Colony Collapse Disorder going on (if you don't know google it), but I'd love to have bees. Okay, it's a really odd hour for me to even be awake much less blogging. So, I'll talk to you guys lata.

Chou

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.::. Tota .::. 2:59 AM
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Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Santa Cruz and the Adventures of Miski, not in that order

Well, I had a bus ticket Sunday night, which would have put me here in Santa Cruz Monday. I just got here Tuesday, why? Well, my bus left at 4:30 from Sucre, so I was being good and packing. Miski, when we're at my hotel in Sucre, basically has free run of the hotel. There's a patio and she never shows any interest in leaving her family and friends to go out in the street. So, I was alone and packing with my door open so she could come and whine at me for not playing with her and then leave again as she wished. Well, the last time she whined at me was between three and three thirty. I thought nothing of it and finished packing at about fifteen ‘till four. As I was bringing my stuff down the stairs I realized that my puppy hadn't come out to see what the ruckus was about (she normally likes to attack my bags on wheels). So I hollered for her and snapped my fingers, normally enough to make her come running. No puppy. I then began to search every room of the hotel that was 1) unoccupied and 2) unlocked, all the while yelling for my dog. Still no dog so, I called Roxanna, the lady who runs the hotel and is like my Bolivian sister (we spend a lot of time together and she always takes care of Miski when I wanna go out and can't/don't want to drag her along). I was pretty sure Roxanna had left Miski with me when she went out, but just to be sure I called Roxanna who told me that she didn't have my dog and she would be right back to the hotel. I waited chewing on my nails and my trenza (you guys will see when I get home) and still randomly making rounds of the hotel opening doors and calling for my puppy. Roxanna got there and started to chew me out for not taking care of my dog but a flood of Spanglish (I only mix the languages when I'm upset) got her to start looking for my dog too. While she was rechecking the hotel I went out to start looking in the streets. I asked the store owners around the hotel that know me if they'd seen here and two of them said they had. I'm not sure if they did or not, I don't think they did. They lie to make you feel better a lot in Bolivia, so if they'd seen her or not, the fact that I was upset made them say they'd seen her. Then I went back to hotel and Roxanna said that Miski was probably in the open air market near the hotel, we always go there to buy her meat for her soups (that Roxanna loves to cook and spoil her) and the lady we buy meat from always throws a chunk of raw meat down to Miski. The market was closed though, so we stood near the door and hollered a bit. This brought two small boys and their guardian father type figure to the door. Roxanna explained our situation and at first the guy was like, no we're closed I can't let you in, but after a bit, being Bolivian (they're good at bending rules) he said he'd let in just one, Roxanna went in while I watched her six year old son Antonio. Roxanna came back puppiless and we went back to the hotel. Roxanna was talking about how we could go to the radio and the television stations and put out a reward for her to get her back. Well, about that time the door bell rang. I went to the door and there were two guys and a chick. They asked if the landlady was there and I hollered for Roxanna. When Roxanna showed up they asked if she was missing a dog. I was like, “Yes!” and started to describe her. Then Roxanna butted in and said it was her son's puppy. I gave her a look that said, “What?!” and she gave me one that said, “Shuddup.” So I did. They said that a friend of theirs had her, but he wanted to be paid before he returned her. Roxanna started to whine and say it was her son's puppy and she didn’t have much money. They said that he just wanted four hundred bolivianos and he would give there dog back. He wanted to sell her in another town, thought he could get two or three hundred dollars for her. Roxanna was like, no, she’s sick; he could never sell her for that. She then went on to craft a story about how the dog was given to her by a tourist who couldn’t travel with her because she was too sick. I was still a little confused as to why they were claiming my dog was theirs, but after a bit I figured it out. If they had known it was my dog they would have wanted a reward in dollars and not in bolivianos. Well, to wrap it up we finally got Miski back for 200 Bs. Once we had her we kept up the game that it was Antinio’s puppy until we were well out of site of the bad guys. Then I took Miski and chewed her out in Spanglish while Roxanna laughed at me. I’m not sure how that group got my dog. I’m pretty sure all four of them were just out to make a quick buck, or B. Like I said earlier, Miski doesn’t go outside by herself. It’s not something I trained her to not do; it’s just something she doesn’t do. I think they convinced her to leave with food or something like that and the fact they knew were she lived, but not who she belonged to, makes me wonder even more. If they knew where she lived, but that she wasn’t mine despite the fact that I’m always running around with her, yeah, just seems fishy.
So now I’m in Santa Cruz. I don’t like this city. It’s big, hot, and humid and I know absolutely no one. But, just gotta finish today and most of tomorrow and I’m good. So, I’ll be online Friday when I get home. Talk ta ya.

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.::. Tota .::. 4:30 PM
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Sunday, November 16, 2008

Living, though barely

I´m still alive and fine, mostly. I got a nasty cold. My head hurts, my body hurts, I have a cough and a fever. I also get to spend about ten hours in a bus to go to Santa Cruz tonight. I may or may not make it there seeing how there are mudslides along the road, though the lady I bought the tickets from (one for me and one for the puppy) said that the flotas that left last night got in this morning fine. I leave here Thursday so I´ll be stateside sometime Friday. I need to come home, don´t want to, but I need to. So, I´ll be seeing some of you.

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.::. Tota .::. 11:44 AM
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Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Oh, and!

I was asked recently by Megan what I looked like these days. So here's a picture from Lima, Peru of me being excited about Dunkin' Doughnuts. Peru volunteers have it easy 'cause they have restaurants like that and can get good sushi what with the ocean being right there and everything, so here's a picture. I almost always wear that hat and the green thing hanging down on the side of my head is a trenza or cimba or latino hairwrap depending on what language you wanna talk in and where you're from. So, here's a picture:

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.::. Tota .::. 2:36 PM
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Que tal?

Well, I'm still fine other than a nasty cold I got in Lima, Peru that won't go away and is giving me an ugly cough. I got my puppy back, she was really sick. She had a stomach/intestinal infection so that she didn't want to eat because it hurt and couldn't get nutrients out of what she did eat. She's been shot with antibiotics and is now eating fine and putting on weight. When I got back to Tomina she was almost a skeleton. I'm currently in Sucre getting stuff done and will be heading back to Tomina tomorrow or Friday at the latest. I really should leave tomorrow but I've got stuff to do and now that the other volunteers are coming in I'm happy and don't really want to leave. I have a meeting planned Saturday though, so I'm going back. Letsee, what else is new, I got robbed the other day of all my money and identification except my passport. Mom has really helped me out with that and didn't even say I should just come home. I'm still not sure when I'm coming home. I figure I'll stay until the beginning of November and then get my butt in line and start working on getting home. I don't really want to come home, not that I don't love you guys, but I'm happy here. I fell in love with the culture and made friends with an entire town, it's not something you leave easily.
Not that I'm not working for Peace Corps I can take donations without going through loads of paperwork, so here's the soliciting part of my blog:

I was invited to a party one night. It was cold and the party was being held in the street. So they were making hot alcoholic drinks they call carnelas over a fire. I hung out for a while, chatted with my friends and was shocked when a mother passed a ten year old a glass of carnela, she said it was to warm him up. Carnelas aren’t strong, they don’t have high alcohol content, but it’s still alcohol, for a ten year old. As he gets older he’ll be passed more drinks and learn to go the bars that even a small town like Tomina has plenty of. He can’t really avoid his family’s parties, but we can keep him out of the bars. With a ball he can play in the local, easily accessible basketball court or soccer court.

I bought some sports equipment and as soon as word got out that I had there wasn’t a single night that someone didn’t knock on my door and ask to borrow a basketball or futsal ball (futsal is like a game of soccer, but they play it in a basketball court with five people and slightly altered rules, the ball is also slightly smaller). Through this process I became friends with a group of jovenes, or young boys, they range in age from 14 to 22. They love to play. Every night they would look for me and ask to borrow my futsal ball, they would pay ten bolivianos an hour for the lights to be turned on and would play for an hour or two. One night I went away and wasn’t there for them to borrow my ball. I got a phone call asking where I was and when I told them I wasn’t home they wondered if the ball could be gotten out of my room. I told them it was locked and I was the only person with a key. They said, well, okay, we’ll see you when you get back and hung up. About two hours later I got a phone call from Amante, one of the boys who, is 15 years old, he was drunk and wanted to know if I wanted a beer. I joked with him and then with the other boys when they were passed the phone, but it bothered me that my athletic little friends were drinking in excess at such a young age. When they have access to the equipment to play then they don’t drink, but when they’re bored and can’t play they do.

Two girls, Anna and Angelica like to play sports, and like to dance. They know drinking is bad for them so they try not to. Unfortunately the only places and times to dance in Tomina is when there is a party. They try not to dance and say no countless times to invitations to a glass of whatever alcoholic beverage is being drunk. We all know about peer pressure though and it’s a lot of work for two fifteen year old girls to keep saying no to their friends. Really, they just want to dance, but after a while they get warn down and have a glass, that turns to two, or turns to three. Luckily they’re smart girls and leave before they’re drunk, unlike their dance partners, but as they learn to drink and they’re friends learn they can be pressured into drinking who knows what will happen. I asked them one day if they preferred to dance or to play and they explained to me that they would rather play because there wasn’t the pressure to drink, but like many young people in Tomina they don’t have much money to buy sports equipment.

I would like to buy sports equipment for these kids, air pumps to inflate their balls, and balls to play with. I am a volunteer in a Bolivian community call Tomina. Drinking is a way of life and the kids start young. They need other direction in life. I discourage them from drinking when I can, but the best way I have found to keep them out of the bars (which don’t have a law about minors) is to keep them on the sports courts and fields. The only way to do that is for them to have equipment to play with. I will not be living in Tomina forever so I can’t keep letting them borrow my balls. I would like to be able to give them balls to play with when I’m not there anymore. I’m asking for about 500 dollars in total, any donation will help with about forty dollars you can buy a kid a good quality ball that will last and encourage him or her to play rather than drink. Please help in my endeavor.
Thank you.

I'm not sure how payments will work at this point, you can get in touch with me or my Mom here with ideas.

Thanks and lovings,
Tota

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.::. Tota .::. 2:24 PM
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Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Will I ever make an impact or will my life be spent bouncing before I felt I've made a difference?

Well, I'm in La Paz, Bolivia. Just so all of you know it's a really, really long trip from Lima, Peru to La Paz, Bolivia. I was in a bus for around abouts 30 hours. Tonight at 6:30 a bus is leaving to Sucre that I'm going to be on. It's going to be another over nighter. But once I'm in Sucre I'll be homeish and I'll hang out there till Friday I think at which point I'll actually go to Tomina and stay a bit. I have no idea what I'm going to be doing there, just trying to wrap up loose threads I guess. Get some closure or something. Being a normal person and not a Peace Corps volunteer is weird. I keep feeling like I have to call and tell them where I am, then I realize they don't really care. Though, all the staff have made it very clear they'll be there if we need them. Anyway, I'm gonna close this up and I'll keep you guys updated more or less as I can.
Chou

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.::. Tota .::. 4:40 PM
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Saturday, September 20, 2008

Alive

I'm fine, still alive and still in Lima, Peru. I don't really like it here, the guys are worse, everything is dirty (it's a desert here...) and it's more dangerous. It looks like I'll be free to go Monday. I plan on getting on a flota (big bus) and just heading back. I should be able to get to Sucre in three or four days. I talked to the people back in Tomina yesterday. I left my puppy with a friend to take care of her and when I called her she said that my landlady had taken my dog. My landlady had apparently talked to Peace Corps and was under the impression that I wasn't coming back, so that meant all my stuff was hers. I then talked to my counterpart (he's a guy, so he'll be more respected than my friend) and I told him that I was coming back, I should be there by the end of the week and that my stuff, including my dog, had better be there. I asked him to inform my lovely (that's sarcasm folks) landlady that I will be back and my stuff is mine. I've paid my rent till the 14th so she has no business mucking around in my stuff.
On to crap happening here. I've applied to qualify for reinlistment in Peace Corps. I told them I'll probably decide if I'm going to reup for 27 more months by Febuary and to let me know if Bolivia reopens in that time frame. I also told them I'll want a Latino country and they said that shouldn't be a problem. The turn around rate for reinlisting is alot quicker because I don't have to deal with recruitment and most of my medical stuff will still be on file so it'll be easier the second time around. If I wait until Febuary I can turn 22 in the states and still be done with Peace before I'm 25. So, it's feasible, plus I still have no idea what I want to do with my life. While I'm home I'll also be looking at other development work type jobs and see what else is possible.
Well, time for a meeting!
Weeeee

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.::. Tota .::. 9:18 AM
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Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Going home

Well. I'm not sure exactly how to explain everything that's happened in the past few days. I feel like my life has been flipped upside down and no, standing on my head didn't put things back in perspective. I got a call Thursday from another volunteer telling me that Friday morning there was a plane leaving to go to Cochabamba that I had to get on. I had an hour to pack, cancel the meeting I had Sunday, and tell people goodbye. Bolivia is in political turmol and it was dangerous for volunteers to be in their sites in other areas of the country. I was fine. So, Peace Corps told us to go to Cochabamba. I sent my three month old mastif puppy, Miski, home with a friend and gave her 100 Bs. to take care of her until I got back, I told my landlady where I was going and left the sports balls all the kids in the town play with with a highschool friend of mine. Then I packed my stuff and got on a flota. The flota was full so I had to stand in the aisle the five hours to Sucre. On getting into Sucre I spent some time with the volunteers there, but it was speculation and saddness so after a while I'd had enough and went to a club with some street gypsys (can't spell sorry). We went out and drank and danced until five in the morning when I made my drunken way back to the hotel and got two hours of sleep before I had to get up again to get on the plane. We got on the plane and got to Cochabamba where we were put in a hotel and weren't allowed to leave. We were in that hotel until Sunday morning when we were told there was plane leaving from the Cochabamba airport we had to be on. It was going to Lima, Peru, which is where I am now. I called some people to let them know what was happening and then we got on the plane. It was a C-130 military plane, we couldn't use regular transport and didn't arrive in the airport in Lima, we arrived on a military base here in Peru. We were told not to tell anyone because there was another group leaving the next day. Now everyone is in Peru, all volunteers, lots of PC staff (though not all) and me... I'm not thinking clearly anymore. Last night we were told that Peace Corps Bolivia is being put on standby as a country for volunteers. Peace Corps Washington says we can't work well given the political situation and that more often than not our work is being interupted by emergency situations. There are volunteers from less calm areas that haven't been to their sites in two weeks. What that means for me is that I can a) terminate my work with Peace Corps or b) transfer to a different country. I'm going to finish working with Peace Corps. Doing that I have the option of returning straight to the states or of having my plane ticket given to me in cash for me to buy my own ticket when I'm ready. I'm going to get cash and go straight back to Bolivia. I'm going to tye up loose strings, have a real farewell and explore if there are work options in Tomina that I could live off of. I'll be back in the states in about three months when my visa/money runs out. People from Washington are going to be here Thursday to start the close of service/ transfer process. Then I'll know more about what I'm doing and what my options are. If all else fails I can always reapply to Peace Corps when I'm back in the states and just go to another latino country. I'm not thinking very clearly right now, I just know I HAVE to go back to Tomina and get some closure, and my dog. I'd really love it if I could find a way to keep doing what I'm doing there but sin dinero (without money) it would never work. Bueno (good) I think that's about it and I'll keep in touch.
I need love and prayers.
Amy/Tota/Maria

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.::. Tota .::. 6:25 PM
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Friday, August 29, 2008

Small Scare

So, as I've explained before I hang out with kind of sketchy people like street jugglers. Well recently I've become a regular with a group of artisans that make and sell braclets and necklaces. They work and sell their stuff just a few blocks down from the hotel where I stay. Mom and Daniel met one, named Daniel, from Peru while they were here. Well, these guys have a tendancy to be illegal so immigration likes to pester them. I was hanging out with this group and being taught to tie braclets. Immigration shows up and wants to see my passport. I showed them and they told me I had to go down to the immigration office. I explained to them that I wasn't working or selling (my visa doesn't allow me to work and sell, it's a volunteer visa) that I was just playing around with my friends. They insisted I had to go and Peace Corps drilled it into our heads in training that we're not supposed to go anywhere with anyone because they may want bribes or may not be offical. So I called the Sucre office and said "Help!" the guy that works in the office was there in under ten minutes. When he showed up the immigration guys changed their story and decided to believe that I was in fact just playing around and not working or selling anything. So, I was cleared and spirited away in the pretty Peace Corps car. Scared me though because that's not something that happens to volunteers. I should probably stop hanging out with street guys that sell marijuana (they don't try to sell it to me anymore they know I don't smoke), but they're a fun group and it's a way to kill time. Anyway, I gotta go, my flota leaves at 6:00 for me to go to Tomina (where there are no scare immigration people) and I have a long walk back from the office to the hotel, plus my puppy is with the manager of the hotel so I could get a break.
I'm fine, just wanted to share a small bolivian scare.
Chao

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.::. Tota .::. 4:40 PM
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