random updates

Headed out of town for the weekend. This will be my first trip outside of Santa Cruz. I have been here for 5 weeks and with school and getting "settled" haven't been able to plan a trip. So, this weekend a group of the newbee's have booked taxis to drive us a few hours west into the foothills of the Andes to a little town called Samaipata. Supposed to be a sleepy town outside of a famous archaeological site, El Fuerte. Look it up on google earth. You will see the "rock" of El Fuerte. Supposed to be the largest man carved rock in South America. As I search what to do in Bolivia it becomes more and more intersting. There are a lot of really awesome things to see here.

Still dealing with the effects of the swine flu epidemic. School has been canceled all week, but to get around the "law" we have had afternoon classes twice this week. The kids came in yesterday and you would have thought we'd been out for two months. It was like it was their first day of school again. What? What do I have to do? Huh?
Ummm, I've known you for a month now... let's get it together.

Oh on another note, I'm now hooked on the HBO show, OZ. A colleague here talked about it and when we were buying pirated DVD's this weekend I found the first season. All three discs for 50bs, or $7. This show fills my obsession with being incarcerated. Not sure why I am fascinated with being "locked" up, but I am and this show is awesome. I wouldn't surive 10 minutes in a prison. I would mouth off and be murdered the first day.

Ok, back to pretending to work. This week has been great to get caught up but I'm done and ready for school to resume as normal. The rumor is that we'll be back to "normal" on Monday. Just in time for the Saliva Lab.

Aaa--cchhooo

Sitting in my totally quiet classroom because all the students have been sent home by direct order of the government. Apparently in a city of 2 million there have been 600 confirmed cases (are you kidding me that is 0.03% of the freaking population) so the government felt like they should close the schools. Hummm, let's see. So now the kids aren't in school, so where shall they go. OH I know, the mall. Oh and what about the thousands of other people at the malls all coughing and touching each other. Really school is probably the best place for them to be.

The reason I'm so uptight about it and not jumping for joy over free days, is that number 1: I still have to come to work and number 2: if we miss to much we have to eat into our xmas break to make up the time. You may think, oh well number 1 isn't that bad because you would have to be at work anyway, but do you see what I'm doing now? I'm supposed to be preparing lessons to put online and I'm blogging. Normally I would be teaching and talking to the kids and doing labs. The whole reason I love my job.

Last year my coworkers and I would joke about entering the country and "checking your common sense at the door"

Finally - a chance to see my new home. We've been so busy getting settled into the house and then with school starting, that we haven't had time to explore the city itself. Yesterday my roommate, Laura, and I decided to head downtown with another teacher, Ale. Probably should have gone into work to get some stuff done, but I knew in the big scheme of things that this was more important for my well being.

Headed down the Calles 7, which is supposedly 7 streets that all come together. I guess kind of like 5 points, but I could only locate 6 joining streets. Ahhh, there is was... all the junk crap market stalls that I've been looking for.


The 3rd world countries I've visted all have places where random merchandise from all over is sold out of little stalls. Where do they get these goods? Not a clue. Sometimes I think one of those big containers that you see at the port in Wilmington must have gotten loose and floated to a coastline somewhere. Well, since Bolivia doesn't have any coastline that doesn't make sense for here. Who knows. All I do know is that if you need a Sponge Bob purse, or bedsheets I know where to get them here in Santa Cruz. These are the markets you can bargain in and well since my bargain skills were perfected in Burma, I gave it a try. No luck. People here don't want to bargain with a gringa. They would rather see you walk away over 2bs (2 Bolivianos= 25 cents) than bargain with you. So needless to say I didn't buy anything at the little markets. I did see some super hot shoes, hundreds of them actually. And some bitchin' outfits. Not sure I could pull this one off though...
Seriously? WTF? Where did they get these clothes. Which container ship lost this one? And when did that container ship get lost?

After making our way around the market area, we found the Central Plaza. I love this place. A peaceful, clean park in the middle of the city, bordered by little shops, a huge Cathedral and a Government Building. All with cool architecture. We got some ice cream at the local shop (one of our school's parents own the shop) and hung out in the park for a bit.

We are thinking of heading back there today (Sunday). If we make it, I'll take some more pics. Ciao for now.

Week 2 - check

School started on a Friday and that was officially week 1, so as of now I have completed two weeks of school here. This past full week is a blur. Hours of planning and prepping flew by and now I have a chance for a deep breath. The school itself has a lot of potential. There is ambition to make the learning environment productive, fun and successful. So far, however, it's like teaching an old dog new tricks. The students have become accustomed to being, I don't know, lazy (I hate that word). It's actually not 100% their fault. Apparently for the last few years there wasn't much emphasis on how to be a student. Kids get to middle school and teachers start shoving content down their throat and by high school they've forgotten about teamwork and collaboration that they learned in elementary school. My high schoolers are bitter about school. Of course not all of them, but I have a bunch that look at me like I'm crazy when I say, open your book to page 16. Blank stares. Um, do you need help, I ask? Oh, no, I can do it. Great, let's see that page 16. Yahoo, great job with the page turning. And, well, you know me... just being serious all the time, no sarcasm. Nope.

There is a lot to tell you, but my motivation to blog is very low right now. The plan today is to get out and do some exploring and take some pictures. Last night our high school principal hosted a Festival of Carne and basically we passed around various animal parts (heart, udder, intestine, etc...) and drank the local brew, Pacena. I didn't have my camera, but my roommates did, so I'm sure pics will be posted on facebook soon.

We'll talk soon...

Couldn't have said it better myself

Life is quite different here and of course I'm busy comparing it to Burma instead of the US. So one of the frustrations is getting around the city. Apparently this isn't the safest place to live and several teachers have been mugged at gun point and one actually pistol whipped. Well, getting a taxi is a challenge since we have been warned that some taxi drivers pick you up and then take you to a random place, rob you and then dump you off! Nice. Well, one of the other teachers here has updated his blog with a run down on what getting a taxi is like here. Check out his blog and look for the taxi post...

http://taylorinbolivia.wordpress.com/

p.s. you can tell he teaches high school English

What's in a name...

Well let's see... first of all, do you remember me telling you about what "Lisa" means in Burmese? Let me recap for you. Burmese is circle-y letters with attached sounds and the sound "Li" means cock. Not the science word penis, but cock (I clarified). The second half of my name "sa" if you drag it out a bit like "saaa" means eat. So, yes, eat cock. Nice. (the shorter "sa" sound is hungry) The kicker is that I lived there for months before anyone ever told me. Oh, Hi, nice to meet you, my name is Lisa.

Well I've moved on and now am living in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Thanks to a teacher with some foresight, I found out before school started that in Santa Cruz, the slang word for being "wasted" or drunk is yema. Yes, it also means egg yolk and as I found out from a student today, sometimes the "egg of the penis" (i.e. balls). OOOOKKKKK. And to top it off layemma is my gmail screen name, so la yemma is the wasted one. Perfect.

The first day of school was today and in the third set of students there was some mumbling. Someone peeps their head up and says, "miss, do you know spanish?" I said just a little, why? Well, your name... Ohhhh, what? Yup, they confirmed. Oui, oui, oui.

So as a fellow teacher nicely put it when I told them what Lisa means... "hey, your whole name means the drunk cock eater". Perfect.

Mi Casa es tu casa

I need to get a pic of the outside of my house . We are in a gated community called the Condomino Britianna on the outskirts of "downtown". The neighborhood looks like it came straight from Florida. We have a 4 bedroom, 3.5 bath house with maids quarters and a pool in the backyard. The rent is $700... In addition to our maid we also have a gardener. I am in an upstairs bedroom with the bath room down the hall. I didn't want the bedroom with the bathroom because it felt too dorm like. I like my little set up so far. The "furnished" part was kind of frustrating since there was a lot to buy and my buyers remorse is getting lots of attention. Sometimes I hate that I'm so cheap about things. The details of the house are intersting. For example we don't have any hot water running to the kitchen tap, so when you want to wash dishes you have to boil water. Weird. Luckily my shower works well.




Although we arrived with the idea of living alone, we've decided to be a threesome and share the big house and expenses as well as feeling safer in a place that is apparently sketchy. We've been filled with stories of piston whipping and teachers being held up by gun point. One thing that sticks out is how difficult it is to get around with my 7 Spanish words. There are very few people that speak English here so getting a taxi and finding your way around is difficult. Luckily one of my roommates has lived in Costa Rica and Spain and her Spanish is awesome, so she has been a savior. I am working hard at not getting stressed out and taking things easy. That and not knowing my way around are frustrating, but I'm going with the flow.

The new group of teacher are great. We've all clicked and have spent a lot of time together. The support is amazing. There is no competetion here like in Burma. The teachers are supportive instead of trying to out-do each other. I love that environment.

In the bus with all our crap.
Back: Alejandra, Madja, Laura, Alissa
Front: Taylor, Me

School is going to be stressful. I'm going to take it one day at a time for now. That and learning spanish and finding my way around. Oui.