Altos y bajos en Cochabamba

Wow! What an amazing weekend! On Friday night, I had my first restaurant experience in Cochabamba. It was...interesting to say the least. Seven of us went to ¨La Casa del Gordo,¨as was recommended by one of the Creighton professors. We were told that one dish could serve 2+ people (AKA Bolivian portions), so we ordered one carne (a variety of red meats), one chicken and one fish dish. They all came on large plates with rice, french fries, potatoes, and vegetables underneath. I've been very open to trying new things here, but this meal didn't give me much confidence for future Bolivian restaurants. I mean, the fish came whole on the plate, head and everything - not that this was much of a surprise, but it was my first time experiencing this ¨delicacy.¨ Regardless, I'm doing my best to put it behind me and hope for the best next time.

Saturday was easily the best day I've had here so far! We all arrived at the institute at 8:30am to head out for a tour of the city...it was INCREDIBLE! First we went to a few different places ¨downtown¨- there were some really nice grassy areas with benches and flowers, as well as some cool Spain-esque architecture. We also went into a Catholic cathedral from the 18th century that had some beautiful interior decr. After exploring the center of the Cochabamba, we headed to the much-anticipated (probably a little too much from my end) Cristo de Concordia. I have been admiring it from afar since I got here, so it was definitely been the highlight of my trip to this point. Our tour buses drove us up the mountain, and then we climbed some stairs to reach the monument. For me, it was absolutely breathtaking. It overlooks the city, enclosed by incredible mountain ranges in every direction. The view is something I will remember forever...and not just because I took a ridiculous amount of pictures of it. It's hard for me to put into words just how wonderful it was to be in the presence of this powerful statue of Christ looking down over the city of Cochabamba. We even got to climb up the inside, which quickly led to an ongoing ¨we're in the body of Christ¨ joke. After several narrow spiral staircases, we reached the top (arm level) and looked out over the city once again through small holes. I was in awe the entire time - everything about this experience was amazingly indescribable. I thought the day couldn't get any better, but then we ended the tour at ¨getaway¨ on the outskirts of Cochabamba called ¨Tiquipaya.¨It's a place where a lot of wealthier Bolivians go to spend time with family on the weekends, as it has multiple cabins, a pool, a playground, and beautiful grassy areas with a lot of fruit trees. I tried guayaba and an orange straight from the tree, both of which were delicious! We enjoyed the sun and the best meal I've had yet, consisting of chicken, potatoes, vegetables, and my new favorite, fried yucca. It was soooo good!

After the tour, I returned home for dinner and to get ready for another night out on the town. It was an interesting night, but so much fun! First, we went to a karaoke bar in a popular pedestrian mall but quickly left as they told us they didn't have cups for beer...so weird! Anyway, we then brought the party to a bar called ¨Gossip.¨There weren't many Bolivians there and by the time we left, it was just us, but it was a really good time! It was like they pulled their playlist directly from the Summer Hits of the 90s station on Pandora, which was awesome! Bolivians love American music...it's great! Lastly, we headed to a discoteca (AKA dance club) called ¨Devil.¨It probably wasn't the classiest place in Cochabamba, but we made it our own and danced the night away. It was a blast, especially hanging out with so many new friends from the institute!

Another highlight of the trip...I finally got to sleep in on Sunday! Then Merijke and I went to mass at a beautiful church just around the corner. I understood almost everything, including the homily, but I knew very few of the response phrases. However, it was still a really neat experience, because mass is obviously universal, so it was kind of like having a little piece of home in Bolivia. After that, I went for my first run here around Parque Lincoln, a beautiful park that I pass on my way to school. It was great to see so many families and kids playing there, and it felt good to work out, but it was definitely more difficult at such a high altitude. Hopefully I'll gradually become more accustomed to it and come back in fighting shape (shout out to you, Elise). Finally, three of us came back to the institute to do an ab workout and ended up reflecting quite a bit on our time here.

It was really interesting to hear others' experiences and thoughts about the trip. My time in Cochabamba so far has been somewhat of a surprise to me. Although it is obvious that this is a Third World country, I expected to be experiencing it as such a little more often, whereas I feel like I'm living a pretty good life right now. However, after talking to one of my friends who is living with a much poorer family (her host mom is a cleaning lady at the institute), I realized that the poverty and inequality is all around me, it's just hidden a lot of the time. For example, we were told about ¨street people¨who are known as ¨cliferos,¨because they spend the day doing whatever manual labor they can find and then spend most of their money on glue to sniff at night. I saw two adults getting high on it for the first time during the tour, but kids of all ages take part in it as well, mainly because it is all they know. There is also a large population of orphans, and I was hoping to volunteer at an orphanage, but unfortunately the risk of contracting a disease is too high. Regardless, to know that it is fairly common for parents to simply leave their child behind because they can't afford to take care of him or her is pretty difficult to digest. Thus, despite the fact that I am living in a nice apartment and attending a nice school, Cochabamba is definitely opening my eyes to the extreme poverty here and the idea of relativity. This is directly reflected in the exchange rate - 6.8 bolivianos to the dollar. Put simply, everything here is ridiculously cheap to us ¨gringos¨and what they consider to be something of high quality would be completely different in our eyes. It's an extremely sad reality that continuously makes me grateful for everything I have in the states. Like I said before, hopefully I'll be able to get a little more involved in the community this week and have the opportunity to help in whatever way I can, but there will always be a huge amount of need in Bolivia.

That's it for my weekend of really fun times and some difficult realizations...thanks for reading!