Winter is Coming

Here in Cochabamba it's starting to get pretty cold. Days are pleasant at about 78° F, but as soon as the sun goes down it becomes quite chilly. I find it harder and harder to get out of bed in the morning as the temperatures have dropped to about 38° F most evenings. In fact, a few nights ago I woke up so cold that I had to get out of bed and put my coat on before I could fall asleep again (I have since added another blanket to my bed). These chilly evenings and mornings are signs that winter, is indeed coming to Cochabamba. On Friday, we will celebrate San Juan, which is supposedly the longest and coldest night of the year, celebrated with chorizo, bonfires, and drinking.

It's hard to believe that today I start my fourth week in Bolivia. I've gotten to spend a good amount of time exploring the city here, which I hope to continue to do in the coming weeks. I've gotten to know the city pretty well and spent some of this past Saturday walking around the city. However, last weekend, a few of us from Sustainable Bolivia went on a weekend trip to Torotoro National Park. Torotoro is about 4 hours away by van, so Friday evening our group went to catch the last van to Torotoro around 8pm. However, there is no set schedule for these vans, they just leave whenever they are full, so we missed the last van. Rather than giving up on our plans for the weekend, we attempted to take the first van in the morning, which left at about 6:00 am. However, since that bus did not have room for all of us, we took the second one, which left around 7:00. The road to Torotoro is a winding cobblestone road through the mountains which surround Cochabamba. This makes for quite a bumpy trip in an old van with little to no suspension or shock absorption left. When we arrived we dropped our things off at our hostel and set out to find a tour guide for the park. However, since we arrived right around 11:30 and the tourism office closes from 11:30 - 1:30, we didn't have much choice but to go eat some lunch. We made a deal to meet back and start on our way at 12:30 in order to hike in the daylight, but of course, we couldn't leave until the office opened back up at 1:30 because we needed a single sheet of paper from inside the locked office that no one could give us but the woman who works behind the desk there. So around 1:45 we were finally on our way to see the dinosaur footprints and the waterfall, about a 5-hour hike.

The fossilized dinosaur footprints were so cool!

My foot inside a dino foot

After seeing the dinosaur footprints we began the hike to the waterfall, which, little did we know, was at the bottom of this canyon.

After walking all the way down into the canyon, twisting my ankle only 3 times, we made our way to the waterfall by climbing over boulders in the riverbed. A few of us got separated from our guide, Pablo, and things were dicey for a while, but eventually we made it!

After an exhausting hike back up the nearly 800 steps placed on the side of the canyon, we made it back up in time to watch the sunset behind the mountains. I left early the next morning to make it back to Cochabamba in time to wash a few of my things (I had no clean laundry when I went on this trip and had to wash something to wear to work on Monday) and meet Malcolm, the director of the ETHOS program, Gabi and Maria for dinner. This meant waking up around 5:30 and waiting outside by the station until the van was full enough to leave for Cochabamba (around 6:15). The van ride back was not quite as smooth as our trip there. We stopped 4 times to fix something on the car. At first, the car simply stopped, our driver got out and tinkered with something under the hood briefly and we were on our way again. Then, we got a flat tire. Rather than replacing the flat with the spare and being on our way, we stopped in a small village (10 buildings max) and had some boys attempt to fix the tire. We were there for about 45 mins. Once we got back on the road, the same tire popped again after 30 mins. Our driver replaced the tire with the spare and we got back on the road. About an hour later, another tire blew. Our driver took the tire and hopped on the back of a truck to get that tire patched. In the time it took for our driver to get the tire fixed and come back (about an hour) half of the people on the van found alternate forms of transportation home. The remaining two hours of the trip home was a bit crazy. Mostly I just closed my eyes and tried not to think about the fact that we were speeding up and down winding mountain roads. However, I made it back in plenty of time to wash some clothes and get to dinner.

At work, I have been researching filtration options and getting ready to build a prototype to test a banana peels ash to remove iron from water. Hopefully, by the end of this week I will have a good idea of where I need to go to get the materials necessary to build my prototype. My goal is to have my prototype solidified by week 7 so that I have three weeks to work on implementation.

Recently we found out that there is a local craft brewery in Cochabamba, but their beers are not sold in most places. However, we found an "Irish Pub" that sold their beer. After ordering an IPA, the waiter looked very confused. I pointed to the small display on the table and he immediately said "Ahh, 'EE-pah'", so at least now I know how the locals refer to IPAs for the future. We also ordered guacamole at this restaurant (certainly not what I expected to find at an Irish Pub" and when it came out, it came with french fries rather than tortilla chips, which we found a little shocking, but I guess that's how the Irish-Bolivians do it.

Tomorrow is a national holiday, so we will be off work, but I'm sure this fourth week will prove to be interesting and full of new learnings, as always.

Paz de Cocha

I Don't Speak Spanish Well (And Other Updates from Bolivia)

Today marks almost two weeks in Bolivia! Cochabamba is truly a beautiful place. Sometimes I stop walking to just look around, especially up to the mountains which completely surround the city. My walk to work each morning is full of beautiful flowers, as well as a few really beautiful houses (I work in a nicer part of town). I'm starting to get more confident in making my way around the city on my own, but I still carry my map of Cochabamba with me just in case (shout out to my dad for teaching me how to read one).

I've been quite busy since I last posted!
       On Saturday, we celebrated the 23rd birthday of Liz, a fellow Sustainable Bolivia volunteer with SODIS. We went to a restaurant called La Muela del Diablo (the molar of the devil - an old rock form in La Paz) and hung out for a while. They had great food, and we also discovered the dryest Bolivian red wine we have been able to find. Most red wines here are vino tinto dulce and are quite sweet, but this one is pretty good.
       On Sunday, I went to La Cancha to do some shopping. La Cancha is the large outdoor market here in Cochabamba. I would guess it's about 16 blocks x 16 blocks. When people told me you could find anything at La Cancha I didn't believe them, but after walking around for three hours, I can tell you, you can find anything at La Cancha. I saw fresh fruits and veggies, meats and fish, clothing, ping pong balls, washing machines, cell phones, bikes, and llama fetuses (which is apparently a big thing here in Cochabamba but I just think they're creepy), just to give you an idea of the diversity.
       On Monday, Sustainable Bolivia hosted a cena compartida or shared dinner. This week's theme was comfort food, so everyone made a comfort food dish and brought it to share. Dinner was supposed to start at 6:30, but it actually started closer to 9, so it's a good thing I brought guacamole as my dish because it served as a great appetizer.

However, before I could make my guacamole, I had my first Spanish lesson here. My teacher, Patricia, is awesome, but I think she overestimates my knowledge. I meet with her twice a week, for two hours at a time. By the end of two hours, my brain is about fried.
       On Tuesday, we celebrated the 21st birthday of Taylor, another SB and SODIS volunteer. Jenna and Taylor and I went to a vegetarian restaurant about a 25-minute walk from work (~10 minutes from my house) for lunch.  We had some awesome fresh juice mixes and veggie burgers. It felt like we could be sitting in downtown Cincinnati enjoying our meal.

Taylor hosted a party at her volunteer home that evening, which was a ton of fun. The other volunteers in her house even got her a cake (not easy to find here)!
       On Wednesday, I got to speak with my boss here at SODIS, Jeremy, and get some direction for my work here. It looks like I will be working on iron removal from water in the more jungle-y area outside of Cochabamba.

The World Health Organization recommends that iron should be kept at a level of about 0.3 mg/L of water. In Chapare, the ground water has about 30 mg/L of iron. Right now I'm in the process of investigating the possibility of using ashes from dried and burnt banana peels as a way to help oxidize the iron in solution with the water in order to precipitate it out of the water and increase the possibility for its removal. I also hope to build an EMAS manual water pump (check out this video for more info), which is basically a tube well pump made almost entirely out of PVC pipe.      
         Later that evening a few of us from SB went to Las Islas which is a strip of fast food places right between where I work and where I live. I had a vegetarian taco and it was delicious! Avocados are so cheap here that the tables had condiment bottles of guacamole. I'd be willing to move here forever just so I won't ever have to pay extra for guac.

 After dinner, all eight of us piled into one taxi (Joey and I rode in the trunk) and went to see X-Men Apocolypse.  The movie theater near us serves most of Cochabamba, so it's huge. It was also 2 for 1 tickets, so the place was packed. People lined up nearly 45 minutes before the movie started so they could get good seats in the theater. Another big thing here in Bolivia is "sugared" popcorn. I assumed it was similar to kettle corn. It is not. It is more like someone melted bubblegum flavoring and drizzled it over popcorn. The movie was in Spanish (duh?) but I forgot it would be dubbed in Spanish. It's quite funny to watch actors "speak" in a voice you know does not sound like their real voice.

During this incredibly busy week, I've learned something super important about Cochabamba. The city is currently rationing water. In the north, where I live, there is almost never a problem with having enough water, because it's where the wealthier people live. However, there are places in the south of Cochabamba that haven't had any water for over three weeks (learn more by reading this article written by a fellow volunteer). Despite the fact that water is being rationed, many of the plazas in town, and a park I walk past four times a day, coming and going from work, have large fountains. To me, this is such a crazy and wasteful use of the water in this city, which only sees 14" of rain per year. However, no one says anything because they are all in areas where the wealthy live.

 

This is why I would like to build a manual pump for water. Becuase in communities where water is scarce, a pump is a way to have control over your situation.

Paz de Bolivia!