Inca Ruins

In Bolivia, if you are upset about anything really, the way to get your point across is through a road blockade.  What does it do?  Well, it just makes things a little more difficult and makes people curious (or annoyed) at whatever stance you are trying to make.

So on Wednesday, since we had road blockades (and therefore no school or work for the team), a group of us went out to see some ancient Inca ruins outside of Cochabamba.  It took about 1.5 hours to get there, mainly on a windy road going up through mountains.  It was a fun adventure and a great way to get outside of the city and enjoy the holiday protests!

Second Round of Impressions

I think that you have to live a month to start to understand a culture and a year to truly grasp it. We are only at those beginning stages of exploring Cochabamba and immersing ourselves, but we've seen and noticed quite alot. So here is a continuation of interesting observations:

1. Bolivia is pretty stinky. I remember meeting people in Bogotá who had mentioned this and it's true. Don't get me wrong, sometimes a woman walks by with the most beautifully scented perfume, but unfortunately this is not the norm. I think it's just part of the poverty culture and one of the reasons our "baby washing" ministry is so popular.

2. Water is not your friend. This is a weird one. You learn very quickly to close your mouth in the shower, thoroughly dry your hands and dishes and to use the disinfecting wash for your fruits and vegetables. Only agua pura is your friend.

3. Pizza is crazy popular here :) Every Saturday night we go out for pizza with the team and the list of options is quite long. It's good too!

4. Cochabamba is a religious meca. The most pristine property here is the Mormon temple. They have a huge missionary dorm and the greenest grass in the whole city. There is also a huge number of Jehovah's Witnesses and of course, Christian missionaries. The people themselves are mainly a mix of Catholicism and Indigenous beliefs. It makes for very interesting conversations and assumptions.

5. The people here are just as annoyed as the Americans about the lack of governmental relations. It turns out that there is a huge Cochabambino population in Arlington, VA and they have just as many travel restrictions as we do. So the consensus is that the governments should work things out instead of punish the people. Pretty sure this opinion is not so popular in other Bolivian cities, but it's nice to be on the same page here.

That's all for now! We'll be updating this week on all of the work we have been doing thus far :)

Scents of the Season

Thank you so for your prayers about our health. We have finally been feeling better and it is amazing how much better you feel, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally when your body is functioning at normal capacity.

Since we've been feeling better, we've finally been out of the house and enjoying ministry time as well as Cochabamba. As we were walking home late last night after a great time with a fellow team family, we passed a I-think-Mexican-but-I'm-not-sure restaurant. It smelled like our Halloween Party chili, the day after the party. The day when you clean up and seriously look forward to the leftovers. It was funny in that we both instantly recognized the smell and started talking about fall food and my quite stronger than normal love of anything pumpkin- especially pumpkin lattes at Starbucks. And then it hit me, that even though JM and I have sworn off seasons as being highly overrated, fall is one that we both love and will miss. Yes, we do get back in the middle of November and yes, Starbucks will still be serving pumpkin lattes, but we will miss when all of DC turns into a beautiful hue of gold, pumpkin scented everything and oh yea, Halloween. So enjoy fall for us as we enjoy "the dry season" and know that we're kinda jealous.

Our Love Hate Relationship

....is with food!

JM: "Why can't I just sit down and eat without being scared of my meal? I'm hungry."

So the Hulsey stomaches are not yet at 100% greatness. We just go in and out of being sick. Oh yea, fabulous stuff. In terms of adjustments, this has got to be the hardest one we have faced thus far. Also because it makes us much less productive people. So please keep our stomaches in your prayers. It may be the norm, but it's a hard norm to get used to.

Along for the ride

p290.mov Watch on Posterous

In ministry, you never know how you may be used :)

Initiation

Yep, after being fine the whole time in Colombia, the Hulseys are sick, sick, sick to our stomaches. We thought we may be some of the lucky few that made it a couple of weeks in, but alas we are not so blessed. Sadly, this all stems from one of the best restaurants in town. We were very excited to go to Kabob's last night as it's a team favorite, but we should have known better when we looked around and saw that no one was eating their lettuce and tomatoes. With a Bolivian diet being so rich in starches (bread, potatoes, corn, meat- yep, that's about it) we were overjoyed to dig into our veggies. Sadly, whatever nutritional value those vegetables should have had, I'm pretty sure they left our systems quite awhile ago. Lesson learned.

Sore & Tired but with Full Hearts

Today we had the great opportunity to go with Steve (the construction guy) and two other couples out to two of the orphanages being built about an hour and a half outside of Cochabamba, in a predominantly indigenous village.  It’s a very poor village and one of would love to capture with a lens.  We saw quite a lot of livestock, women washing clothes in the river, and beautiful scenery.  We got to work on the two orphanage homes all day and then took a hike up a steep hill before we left.  The hike was gorgeous and surprisingly we made it up without altitude sickness (it’s at about 11,000 feet).  It was a tough day of labor (the hike didn’t help our legs either), but we came home very blessed that we could serve in this way.  

The sweet lamb grazing on the orphanage property.  

The calf hanging out by the basketball courts...because thats what calves do of course!  

See the full gallery on Posterous

The hill we climbed.  If you look closely, you can see the crosses on the very top.  

The crosses up close (at the top of the hill).

Looking out onto the valley below.  

Pic at the top (really proof that we made it there).

 

The Calm After the Storm

So after such an amazing first day, we were honestly a little home sick today.  Instead of being crazy busy, we actually had the time to think about things and get settled into our new quarters.  We have decided to live at the mission guesthouse.  It’s a great house and it’s where the teams stay who come down on mission trips.  We have a great housemate who is doing her one-year internship, but most of the other interns left after the summer.  The largest downfall of the house (besides the creepy “Widow Maker” hot water system) is that there is no internet (hense, the delayed posts).  As much as we are fine without being glued to our email, we also realized it’s an important way we stay connected with friends and family.  So yea, if you’re reading this, we miss you!

And we’re off with a bang….

After taking almost 24 hours to get here, our first full day in Bolivia was crazy awesome!  We hit up two markets, the first one where there was fresh produce, meats and the basic necessities.  The next market, La Cancha, is a huge market with everything you could possibly need.  We saw everything from Nikon lenses to baby lama fetuses (the witchcraft section…I kid you not) to beautiful textiles.  We ended up buying light bulbs and a transformer for our electronics (we do have our priorities).  After having an amazing sandwich and cokes for lunch for 5Bs (about 75 cents) we headed up to one of the orphanages in Cochabamba.  We met the house parents who were super talkative once they figured out we knew some Spanish.  We got to play and hang out with their 9 orphan kids and the 2 of their own.  The kids were ages 4 to 12 and absolutely darling!  They showed off their dolls, their love of fútbol and the littles hung all over us, begging to be tickled.  After saying our goodbyes, we headed to the Plaza Principal for baby washing…yes, you read that correctly…we just sat in a plaza and washed babies.  Ok, so it was a little more organized, but really, there were 3 tubs, warm water buckets and JM and I were one of the teams of washers.  There was a really good amount of kids that went through, mostly whose moms are street beggers.  After a team dinner of pizza (a Saturday evening tradition) we headed to Cochabamba International Church for the evening service as tomorrow all of the streets are closed to cars (it’s a two times a year holiday of only pedestrian traffic).  The service was in English and Spanish and was a wonderful time of worship and the word.  

And just for you Chris…I feel like I did the first night at summer camp.  When you know you are going to have a great time ahead of you, but it’s not always going to be easy.  It’s just a hope in your heart that the Lord is doing great things and we are so excited to be a part of it.

First Impressions of Bolivia

So after our experience flying AreoSur (see above pic of our crazy tired selves...just keeping it real), we were very concerned that we were spoiled by Colombia and their fabulous airlines Avianca.  However, thankfully things feel familiar.  Typical of Latin culture, the people are very warm and inviting and just like Colombia….no dinking the tap water (yes Dan, we know the exception is Bogotá), cars will try to run you over, don’t pet the street dogs, kisses on the cheek for greetings and goodbyes.
However, I was amazed leaving the airport, how many fellow gringos we ran into, each greeting us in English.  It seems that there are quite a few ministries in Cochabamba, so fellow Americans are easy to run into.  Other interesting things…the native people here have almost almond shaped eyes so if I did not know better, I would assume they were part Asian.  Further, there are many indigenous people (about 60% of Bolivia’s population) and the indigenous women wear pleaded skirts, long braids and a hat.  Other differences….not every taxi is a yellow Chevy Aveo, the buses actually have mapped routes, gyms do not cost 100s of dollars per month and generally, everything is cheaper.  Oh, but the power is 220 watts, not 110 and needs a converter…maybe Colombia is up by a couple of points for that one J