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I'm back in the States! It was a crazy, crazy journey home. Bolivia did her best to try to keep me there as my flight was delayed by about six hours, meaning I needed to spend the night in Houston. I ended up doing the mad dash through the airport to catch my connecting flight to Texas in Miami, instantly regretting packing all of my books in my carry-on bag (seriously, who does that?). I did enjoy a beautiful vanilla latte in a Starbucks Christmas cup though so the airports weren't all bad news. And my family and the boy were there to meet me in Sea Tac for a real good welcome home.

And then I froze to death :)

The transition back to the States has been pretty easy but it definitely feels a little weird to be back. Bolivia wasn't just a trip, it was a life and that life is over now. I miss it. When people ask how Bolivia was, it's really hard to answer because I feel like I'm trying to summerize a lifetime and that is difficult. I always just say "wonderful." But if I could say a second word, I would also say hard. Bolivia was wonderful and hard. God was so good and carried me through all of it.

This is probably my last blog post. But I wanted to thank you guys for reading and making me feel like what I was experiencing was worth reading about. So Gracias :)

And Chao for now!

Stream of Conciousness.

...aka I can't focus so this post is all over the place.

Anyone know of a way to arrive without leaving? That's my dream right now, to arrive in Washington without leaving Bolivia. The places I love are too far apart! Either that or let's find a way to make airfare cheaper. Heck, let's dream big and just go for teleporting. Perfect.

Today, I got asked where the soda is at the grocery store. I could have kissed the woman because that's pretty much assuming I'm a local, right? "Towards the back, on the right" I said with a grin. Happy dance. It's a long way from "She's not from here, is she?"

I got to visit my family in Santa Cruz again this weekend. I just love Dr.Carmiña, Dr. Boni, and little Martina. Have you ever experienced a gift that you know you didn't deserve? That's what this family has been. "When are you getting married?" they ask. "We will come to Washington for that." And they are serious. "Come on vacation with us! Come back with your children someday. Eat more yuca. You know this is your house whenever you need it. Are you happy?" Yes, I am so happy.  The love just keeps on coming with these wonderful, lovely people. (I feel like I should clarify that wedding bells and babies are not in my immediate life plans, Bolivians are just...forward thinkers?) 

For some reason "Paradise" by Coldplay is my blog/Bolivia experience soundtrack. If one song can be considered a soundtrack.(Listen here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G4isv_Fylg&ob=av2e  ...I don't know what the elephant has to do with the song but the cinematography is gorgeous). This could para-para-paradise.

I burned my leg on the exhaust pipe of a moto yesterday. Such a gringa move. A nice blistering second degree burn, right next to my scar from being thrown into the rocks of Lake Padden last summer. At first I was bummed that my leg is going to have yet another scar but now I can just tell people, "Oh yeah, that's from when I was in Bolivia..." Some people get tattoos to commemorate life-changing experiences. I brand myself. 


Guaranteed the lady in the grocery store would not have asked me for directions had she seen that happen!

“It is a strange thing to come home. While yet on the journey, you cannot at all realize how strange it will be.”

While in Santa Cruz for the best/hardest day of my life, I was able to stay with Dr. Carmiña's family in their lovely home. I am expecting some reverse culture shock when I get back to the States but I wasn't expecting it to occur before I touched down in the good ol' USA. I'll be honest, it made me nervous.

My first clue that I may not be prepared to re-enter my old life (ten days from now!) was when Dr. Carmiña asked me to please fasten my seat belt when I got into her car. Whoops. I've only worn a seat belt twice in the last three months -and both times were in a airplane, not in a car. I wouldn't have even done it then if the flight attendant hadn't blasted it over the intercom. The vehicles that I ride in regularly don't even have seat belts.

Dr. Carmiña then apologized that the air-conditioning wasn't working very well. I almost laughed out loud because I was thinking about how I'd forgotten that cars even have air-conditioning and what a glorious invention it is. Seriously folks, there is cold air that blows and it keeps you refreshed even when it's freaking hot outside. How wonderful is that?

When I entered la doctora's home, I was only more impressed. "There's a flat screen TV and a computer with internet and leather couches and HOLY SMOKES, is that microwave? This house is amazing! This house is like...my parents' house...and...it's like MY house." It was such a weird moment. Seriously, I was genuinely excited to use a microwave. A microwave. Who knows what my reaction will be to other household appliances...like a TOASTER :)
                                                                     
I recently read article on how to give your fridge a makeover. I was thinking it would be about how to keep your fridge clean but nope, it was actually about how to keep your fridge pretty, literally pretty. Things like use labeled french canning jars to store leftovers in, buy products with pretty packaging, wrap cheese and meat in butcher paper and tie with twine, put a vase of flowers in the fridge...have I just been in South America too long or is this ridiculous? If people's priorities are to put petunias in their fridges, not sure that this is the culture with which I want to identify.

Plus, there are mangoes here.

Thanksgiving Certainly "Delivered"

Holy smokes, people. You will not believe what I got to do for Thanksgiving!!

I mentioned in my last post that I got the opportunity to tour a hospital in Santa Cruz with a nurse who I met a few weeks ago. What I didn't know was that my friend is not just a nurse but the head pediatric doctor in the maternity ward. That's right. The head honcho!

Before I go much further, I should explain that labor/delivery/prenatal care has always been an interest of mine. No, really ALWAYS. Way back in the day, my favorite episode of Sesame Street was when the Robinson family had a baby and my siblings would scream in horror when I watched A Baby Story on TLC. "Please not a c-section!" my five year old brother would wail (What five year old boy even knows what a c-section is? Sorry Joe!). So basically, I was out of my mind excited to get to go to this hospital and experience the action in real life!

That said, my expectation for the day was this: Watch a lot of things through glass windows. Maybe get to actually have some patient interactions. And that was about it.

My expectations were blown out of the water. Completely.

My first hint that I would be doing a whole lot more than observing was when Dr. Carmiña handed me a white nurse's uniform. "Cool, I'm playing dress-up!" I thought. But when we arrive at the hospital, she lets me follow her around as she examines all the newborns -eighty newborns. There were about seven moms to each room (Seven!) and no curtains giving anyone any privacy. While the hospital was obviously old (think wrought-iron beds and stark white walls) it was pretty clean, although it was obvious that this was where the poorest of the poor come to give birth.

Sarah Groves wrote a song and the lyrics are as follows:

I saw what I saw and I can't forget it.
I heard what I heard and I can't go back
Something on the road, cuts me to the soul.
Your pain has changed me.
Your dream inspires 
Your face a memory 
Your hope a fire
Your courage asks me what I am afraid of
And what I know of God.

And that's exactly how I felt while at the hospital. I saw beautiful moments of motherly love and tender care of the world's newest members. Precious twin baby girls with the thickest, softest baby hair. Mommas nursing for the first time or comforting their little ones after getting their blood drawn. A lot of anxious, fish out of water, new dads. The proudest grandparents.

But a lot was also completely heart wrenching. The fourteen year old little mamas (yes, there was more than one) that are so unprepared that they don't even have diapers. The mom with Huntingtons disease that can barely control her body enough to breastfeed and another young mom weeping with postpartum depression. Mommas that can't give the daddy's name on the birth certificate because they were raped and babies no bigger than my hand covered in wires and tubes...I saw what I saw and I can't forget it.

Life can be so beautiful and so awful.
                                                                        ---

I'm having a once in a lifetime experience helping Dr. Carmiña when the most freaking embarrassing moment of my entire life happens. All of a sudden I start to feel horrible. My stomach is flippity flopping and my limbs feel like million pounds. And then I start to BLACK OUT. I can feel my knees buckling so I clutch the nearest table thinking "Well, I guess a hospital is probably one of the safest places to pass out." Dr. Carmiña realizes what is happening and guides me to a chair. After I'm seated and drinking some juice, I immediately feel much better -except for being completely humiliated in a room full of woman who have just been through the worst pain in their lives. Are they collapsing? Oh no, it's the wimpy gringa who is passing out -for no reason!

I still don't know why that happened. I'm not queasy around blood or hospitals and I'd eaten breakfast that morning too. I hadn't even seen the worst of it at this point. Maybe I was just too excited? Not sure. Thanks a lot, body :(

After I recover (physically, mentally I am forever shamed), I get to help one of the nurses give all eighty infants their TB vaccinations. This was one of my favorite things even though we made all of them scream their poor little hearts out, it just meant I got to cuddle them afterward.

That afternoon, Dr. Carmiña told me that she was assisting during a cesarean and asked if I wanted to attend! HECK YES was my answer. Once again, I'm thinking looking through a glass window is all that I'm going to be able to do but when we get there, I get handed a pair of scrubs, a face mask, and those little plastic booties that go over your shoes. I am freaking out from excitement but also worried, remembering that my body apparently HATES me and is completely unreliable. "If I pass out during this delivery, I will never forgive myself," I'm thinking as I step into the operating room.

But I don't pass out, in fact I don't even flinch as I see EVERYTHING. I will save you the gory details but I saw it all. My cheeks were hurting from smiling as they pull out a baby girl and I witness her first breath. I get to be the second person in the whole world to hold her, less that five minutes old. I whisper "bienvenidos chiquitinga" (welcome little one) when she opens her eyes and looks at me. And I can't decide whether to laugh or cry so I sorta do both.

And I could have been eating turkey! Best, most unforgettable Thanksgiving day ever!!!!!

Many thanks to Dr. Carmiña for letting me tag along with her. You truly gave me the world this week.

Dia de Gracias

Well, I don't think I will be having the traditional Thanksgiving dinner here in Bolivia. I first realized this when Helen (my American housemate) and I went to the market to buy pumpkins for our pumpkin pie and came back with acorn squash. But don't pity me too much, my Mom is a gem and Thanksgiving part dos will take place when I get back to the States.


Traditionally, my family always goes around the table before we eat our Thanksgiving feast to say what we're thankful for. If I was going to be there tomorrow, I'd probably mention some of these things for which I have a thankful heart!

1) I'm not scared of bugs. I pick the ants out of the sugar jar without flinching every morning and actually have to remind myself that the spiders here might be dangerous so I should be a little afraid of them. Even the lizard in my bedroom barely raised my blood pressure.

2) I got to go on an amazing trip to Peru, see my dream of dreams, and experience a little more of South America. And I didn't get raped or robbed! Success.

3) My boyfriend emails me. Every. Single. Night. Sometimes, he writes a lot, sometimes a little but there's always an email. You rock, Joey Kelly!

4) I've gotten to hold so many BABIES. Almost every time I go out to el campo there's a little one to love.

5) Skype. I love Skype. And it's free. It's a free, good thing. I'm writing a thank you letter to whoever invented Skype when I get back to the States. (Anybody have his/her address?) :)

6) I am here during the peak of the mango season. I know I've mentioned my undying devotion to them before but my housemates told me that -no joke- I'm starting to smell like them. They are leaking out of my pores. I haven't turned orange yet but I'll keep you updated.

7) Montero is a pretty safe town to explore. I walk around by myself all the time without problems and this gives me a freedom that I'd go crazy without.

8) The fan in my bedroom. My room would be a hotter oven without it.

9) I've only gotten sick a handful of times and never for more than a day. I might owe my body a thank you letter when I get back too.  

10) Mirna, our secretary is such a great friend. And her 2 year old son finally likes me! There may have been some bribery with cookies involved in that one, he's a timid little guy!

11) Disney movies in Spanish. So great!

12) The weather here is beautiful. I'm worried that I will freeze to death when I head back to Washington.

13) The street food here is so amazing! If you can get over the sketchy-ness of it, it's some of the tastiest food ever! Last night, some friends and I sat at a woman's cart, where she had raw chicken in gallon buckets that she was frying up with yucca (that weird potato thing) and veggies.  A plate was less than the American dollar!

14) Jesus isn't just in America.  Amen? Amen.

15) Tomorrow, I get to tour the prenatal care/birthing center at the hospital in Santa Cruz! I am so excited that this opportunity fell into my lap as I've always been passionate about maternal/child health. It's not how I'd usually spend Thanksgiving but one I'm sure that I won't forget :)

Back on the Band Wagon

After a rough couple days, some venting, and a brief (ok, maybe not so brief) pity party, I woke up yesterday resolved to get back on the band wagon, cram those rose-colored glasses back on my face, and make Bolivia wish she'd never messed with me. As we headed out to el campo for the day, I decided to imagine that I had one of you guys along with me, as an attempt to see things with fresh eyes.

A lot of bloggers say, "If I had you over for coffee right now, we'd..." Well, if you were with me in Bolivia yesterday you would have...

...Wondered why we had to go to two gas pumps to get gas. I would have explained to you that the first pump is "air gas" ...and that I don't have a clue what that means. But we have two tanks and sometimes we use air gas and during times we need more power, we use the regular liquid kind. You also would have thought that the gas attendants' uniforms are a little strange. Their high heels, tight skirts, and lipstick reminds one of another um, profession.

...Enjoyed the ride out to el campo. It's a bumpy, two-hour, dust churning ride but the views are amazing and quite unique. I would have pointed out some parrots and owls to you and told you about the time I saw a capybara -the world's largest rodent.

...Been amazed at how great the children are! We would have tossed the frisbee around and answered questions about the States. You would have joined me in giving out as many hugs as possible and I might even have shared the 15 week old baby that I got to hold, if you asked me really nicely. 

...Been introduced to my dear health promoters -sixteen women that are about my age but have led completely different lives. Most have at least a couple children and haven't done things like ridden on a airplane or gone to college. You would have been so impressed by the amazing health fair they put on!

...Worried with me that one of the new mommas left her newborn at home all day. And they don't bottle feed in el campo.

...Loved the lunch, as long as you're ok that it was served in gallon buckets and delivered in a wheelbarrow. Chicken with rice served with a savory sauce, YUM! I would have encouraged you to eat everything on your plate because it's rude to waste food.

...Laughed when I attempted to sing a song when the kids begged for an "English song." My song choice was "Pumped Up Kicks." Pretty glad that they can't understand the lyrics to that song, although the tune is catchy.

...Been so impressed by my stick-shift driving skills! Marco taught me on the back roads and I didn't kill it once.

...Come to appreciate a ice-cold Coke. It's the only thing cold in el campo.

...Joined me in dancing with the elderly Quechua women at the fiesta commemorating anniversary of the water system in the town of Rio Viejo. We would have eaten grilled pieces of meat with our hands and I would have shown you how to discreetly feed the gristle to the dogs.

...Thought the lightening bugs on the drive home were the coolest. Plus, there was also lightening in the sky too. All of that, plus the fact that it's the first time we've sat down and cooled off all day makes for a lovely ride home.

...Laughed with me as we discover leftover confetti from the fiesta, smeared with the dust on our skin when we get home. To me, that perfectly encapsulates el campo. Dust with confetti, hardship with celebration, suciedad con esperanza...

Yup. Back on the band wagon, folks!  Hope you enjoyed your little trip to Bolivia :)

The Fetal Position

I feel like my last post must have hurt Bolivia’s feelings or something. Like she thought I was saying, “Alrighty, I’m out of here in a month, do your worst” because this week was rough. Emotionally, spiritually, relationally, and now physically difficult (horrible, horrible stomach pain all day today), Bolivia brought me to the fetal position in more ways than one. I was about write a formal retraction regarding the last post, claiming a severe case of rose-colored glasses because honestly, this week blows.

I think a lot of little things accumulated but some big, bad things were in there too. For example, one of my dear friends here, Rachel left Montero today, due to visa problems. She was the only other English-speaking christian here in Montero (that I know of) and I miss her. Even if we didn’t always get the chance to talk, the thought that she was a short walk across town was comforting to me. Wish you the very best, my dear Raquel!

Cultural things as well have really just been a drag lately. I can’t write about a lot of them (“thou shall not complain about friends or loved ones on the internet” is one of my blog rules) so instead I’ll share this story that my Mom told me today while I was venting we were chatting.

My Mom lived with a host family while she was here in Bolivia and one day the little niña in the family complained that she was hot. So naturally, my Mom offers her a glass of cool, refreshing water out of the refrigerator. So far, so normal. Just as the child is about to take a sip, however, the host mother gasps, grabs the glass away from her daughter, and starts screaming at my Mom. Soon other family members join in the screaming too, making my Mom one bewildered gringa. 

You’re probably thinking something along the lines of “What the heck?” right now. Or maybe, you’re hypothizing that the glass was full of pesticides or that the daughter is allergic to water and the host mother was just saving her life. (Side note: The confusion, hypothizing, and general “what the heckness” that you’re experiencing right now? Welcome to my world). The fact is, none of those things is the case in this story. The family believed that drinking cold water is bad for children because it would make them ill. 

So what was my Mom supposed to do at that point? Tell them how wrong they were? Sit there and take the screaming? Calmly explain that you. are. crazy? 

While I didn’t get screamed at over the past few days, I certainly struggled with those questions and cultural differences. But the truth is, we have super weird things that we believe in the States too. Don’t even get me started on how so many Americans believe that Vitamin C cures the common cold. And I know that there are countless other things that we do/believe that are ridiculous too.  

And I also know that this is just a week. One of twelve, and that perspective is helping. But Bolivia, please chill out. Let’s be friends again, yes? Por favor!