Santa Cruz

For the last week I have been in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. I finished my 3 weeks of language school on September 10, and our group took a night bus from Cochabamba to Santa Cruz. I was not feeling very well and did not sleep much on the bus. We got to Santa Cruz on September 11 and moved in with our host families on the 12th. Then this past week we have been having a week of orientation to Bolivia with our SALT group, and we have also been visiting everyone's worksites. On Monday (tomorrow!) I will be starting my job at the Guardería Moises.

There are many differences between Santa Cruz and Cochabamba and I wanted to list some of them that I have observed in the past week.

• The weather--Cochabamba is much cooler, and at night and in the mornings I would need my blue fleece jacket and sometimes a vest because it would get cold. I also slept with 5 blankets on my bed. Here in Santa Cruz it is hot! I do not wear my jacket anymore and at night I wait to feel a breeze so that I can sleep.
• The two cities are very different in the way they are set up. Cochabamba was set up like a grid with different street names and blocks and also a point 0 that all the other street numbers would build off from so that you could never get lost...Santa Cruz is set up as rings around the city and then there are streets that connect those rings. I am having a harder time orienting myself here in Santa Cruz then I did in Cochabamba.
• The highlands/lowlands. There is a split in Bolivia between the highlands and the lowlands in the geography, people, and culture. Santa Cruz is in the lowlands and has a very different feel from Cochabamba. Cochabamba is considered to be more in the highlands because of the mountains and many indigenous people that live there. Santa Cruz is also a more wealthy city and is growing very fast.
  
• There were more scary dogs in Cochabamba then there are in Santa Cruz. It is nice to walk down the sidewalk here and not have to worry about passing by 30 dogs. (That was a little bit of an exaggeration).
• Traffic--I didn't think that the traffic would get any crazier then it was in Cochabamba, but it definitely is crazier here in Santa Cruz! There are several times when I thought I was about to witness a traffic accident but at the last minute the micro or taxi would somehow squeeze into the ongoing traffic.

I was really glad for the opportunity to see Cochabamba before starting my time here in Santa Cruz. There are things that I really like about both of the cities. My orientation this past week was great and I am really ready to get started at my job and to get into a routine again.

Also, I know that this blog is getting long, but I wanted to write a couple of highlights of this past week. I rode a micro (that is what they call the buses here) by myself! That felt like a huge accomplishment because you have to walk out to the main street, flag down the bus, and then know when to get off. There was one time this week when I was riding the micro by myself and I wasn't sure what to do because we were so packed into the bus that I couldn't see out any of the windows to tell the driver when I wanted to get off. So after panicking for a little bit, I decided just to get off and walk because then I could see the landmarks. And when I got off I found that I had gone a block past my house. I'm glad that I got off when I did otherwise I would have had to walk for a longer amount of time! My other story is that on Friday it was sooo hot. And several people told me that it had gotten up to 40 degrees Celcius. However, I only know Farenheit. So I would alternate between saying "Do you know what that is in Farenheit?" and "Wow!" Then that evening, my host dad got out his cell phone which can convert Celcius to Farenheit and I found out that 40 degrees Celcius is 104 degrees Farenheit. And I said, "So that is why I have been so hot today!" The nice thing is that after feeling how hot 40 degrees Celcius is, everything less then that feels a lot cooler. Yesterday it was 32 degrees Celcius and I thought that it felt so much cooler. One last thing, yesterday when I went into the bathroom I found the cutest, little, light pink lizard in my shower. He was about as long as my pinky.

Cochabamba

I am in the city of Cochabamba and studying Spanish at the language school of Runawasi. I am here for 3 weeks of classes, but I am now halfway through with my time in Cochabamba. I have 4 hours of Spanish classes in the morning and then I have the afternoons free. Usually I walk around the city with the others in my group in the afternoon. Our classes are all one-on-one with a different teacher each day. We study different verb tenses and Spanish grammar, but my teachers also like to talk about different issues of Bolivia or the history of Bolivia. I really enjoy these classes although sometimes after 4 hours of studying/listening to/reading/speaking Spanish my head hurts! Cochabamba is a really neat city with mountains all around it. There are also lots of random dogs walking around my neighborhood and some of you know how much I like to see strange dogs looking at me as I walk by them (for those of you who don't know, I do not like this at all). I am living with a host family for these three weeks and my host mom is an older woman whose children are all grown up. She is so sweet and loves to take care of me. She cooks amazing Bolivian dishes and also gives me fresh squeezed orange juice every morning. She greets me by calling me 'mi amor' or 'mi hijita' (my love, or my little daughter). I have enjoyed my time spent with her and her family. She likes to tell me stories, and we also watch 'Little House on the Prarie' in Spanish everyday. So far I am enjoying my time in Bolivia as I learn more about this country and the people who live here.