Actually, I think I'm in love with Cochabamba. It feels so different from Peru here and I can't exactly describe why. This city is so amazing, first of all. It sort of reminds me of a spanish New Orleans. The trees here are sort of weepy-willowish and have a similar look to the oak covered moss trees from New Orleans. There are flowers everywhere (flowers that you don't see in the states), and the city is in the bottom of a valley, so there are these beautiful mountains with colorful shantytowns surrounding it. The food is so far amazing, even the street food (people keep telling me that I'm going to gain weight living here ;(, but hopefully my inability to digest south american food will keep my weight in check (malabsorptive malnutrition, oooh yeah).
Tonight, my friend from work asked me if I wanted to grab something to eat. I agreed, thinking we were going to go get pizza or something down the street. Instead, we hopped on her moped and she took me to this place called Las Islas (The Islands) -- basically a bunch of street food vendors all piled up next to each other with improvised bands playing andean music, and plastic tables that are haphazardly spread out on the lawn behind the vendors. She said her favorite thing to eat was this bolivian "hamburger" which I can't remember the name of right now. It was two pieces of hamburger bun, stuffed with rice, potatoes, a patty of "mixed meat", a fried egg, chopped onions and tomatoes, and cheese. Holy fatness. It was amazing. Then she took me on a moped ride around the city (sorry dad, I promise I won't get on a moped again). I had so much fun. I don't know if I'm actually going to get work done here, but that's ok.
As far as my spanish goes, I'm working on it. I suck at understanding people, and I went out with my new friend, Paola, her sister, and their friends and I really wanted to know what they were all laughing at when they told jokes, but I had no idea. Paola kept translating for me, but I felt really bad.... I still had fun, and they tried to talk to me in English, but I really just want to be able to understand spanish. I set up tutoring sessions starting on Monday. Apparently, I have to learn the indigenous language here as well (called Quechua) because the community where I am going to have my project (Punata) likes speaking Quechua better than spanish. Apparently, they are really timid but are more likely to let you in if you can at least carry on a basic conversation in Quechua. Sooo, I've got a lot to learn. I'm going to go to the community (not to work, just to observe) on Saturday, so we'll see how it goes)
Regarding my project and Chagas, I think it became a little bit more real for me today. My spanish teacher that I had been talking with for a while needed help interpreting some blood work that she had as part of the community study that I am starting to work on. I hadn't realized it yet, but she had been part of the community that we were studying and used to live in really poor housing that was infested with reduviid bugs. She says she remembers getting bitten as a kid, and was pretty worried that she might have Chagas (she's 30 - around the age when you can get heart symptoms if you are bitten as a kid). Her results were negative, thank goodness. She got really lucky, as about 1/3 of the kids in her community when she was growing up were infected with Chagas disease. She's sooo young; it was weird to think that she could very easily have had a non-reversible chronic illness that could kill her in the next few years. Bolivia has the highest prevalence of Chagas in the world, so I know I will encounter a lot of young people in their thirties that are not so lucky. So weird. So I guess today it became more than just digging for bugs or percentages on a page, I realized that many people that I will meet and really like are going to be unfortunate enough to be infected -- kind of a harsh reality =(.....
Anyway, I don't really have pictures of Cochabamba yet, but I didn't want to come in and immediately start taking pictures like a damn tourist. I'll put some up soon, I promise.
Meredith
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