Top 10...

Top 10 things I have learned this week in Bolivia:

10.When life breaks your camera, you start noticing things and paying more attention to the scenery that passes you by…
9. I am not as immune to amoebas and parasites as I thought I was…
8. Some of the best ice cream I have ever had hails from Cochabamba…
7. Trying to open a wine bottle with a utility knife is NEVER a good idea…
6. My favorite meal is Milanesa- a filet of beef breaded and fried with egg batter- and Relleno de yuca with queso…
5. Hand-washing my laundry, while much more time-intensive, is also much more effective…
4. Running every morning on a grassy path alongside the mountains while women pick their gladiolas to sell at the market sure beats running on a treadmill…
3. It costs $2,000 for a family in the campo to have a landline telephone…
2. There is a good chance I will be working at a site where I would be promoting a tourist destination along a CHE (Guevara) tour…
1. “Capacitar” does not translate into English (like I thought it would) as “ to brief someone on a specific topic”, but instead “to prepare a female, usually a cow, for fertilization”…

As you can tell, things have been going well for me… there is still nowhere else I would rather be despite the mishaps and cultural faux pas that I have encountered. Today we went to the famous Virgen de Urkupiña, where there were apparitions of the Virgin Mary. Every year on the feast of the Assumption there is a large festival and pilgrimage to this church. Farther to the south of Quillacollo, there are ancient ruins of silos where grains, maize, and even personal belongings were stored. They were placed very symmetrically according to the wind direction, and are located high atop a plateau- a view which yields an awesome sighting of Cochabamba and the large Christo statue.
Sunday, I went to mass at the Cathedral in Cochabamba. Built in the late-16th century, most of what remains today is restored and not original, but beautiful nonetheless! The plaza adjacent to it, Plaza de 14 de Septiembre is quite the gathering place on Sundays-for the young and old, rich and poor; jewelry vendors, ice cream carts, and shoe shiners all cluster in the park underneath the beautiful jacaranda trees; at times its nice to just roam and feel like a tourist and not like a resident!