Update #4: Random
The strangest food I’ve eaten in Bolivia:
armadillo. one day when i got home for lunch there was half an armadillo sitting on the fire stove. i was a little hestitant when we started opening up the animal and pulling the meat off its body. although i think it would take me some time to really like it, its juicy unique flavor was interesting to try.
Things I encounter on my 20 minute walk into town day:
wandering donkeys and cows because many people let their animals roam the village. people visiting their neighbors or running errands. a small monkey who lives in someone’s yard and at times likes to make mischief (when a visiting orchestra stayed near his house, he got into their room and threw the contents of their suitcases everywhere). students walking to school. chickens and dogs. loud music from one of the dance clubs/Ricolas or someone’s house. construction on various houses. people riding bikes, trucks, horses, or motocyles.
What my work schedule looks like during summer break (the middle of November to February):
8am- beginning violins, 9am- intermediate violins, 10am- individual theory and piano classes, 11am- classes for those who want to start playing an instrument
working with the wind instruments
12pm- lunch
The most awkward cat name in Bolivia:
when I first got my kitten, people told me, even a biologist told me, that it was a she. so i named her Eva. turns out he is a she. Since he already knows his name the easiest change to make it a guy name would be to call him Evo. but this is the name of the current Bolivian president and in the region of Santa Cruz where I live people don’t often hold this president in a favorable light. maybe i should look for another name.
The most otherworldly SALT orientation visit:
one week when i was back in Santa Cruz we had an orientation visit to a Mennonite colony. surprisingly, there are around 50,000 old order Mennonites living in Bolivia. apparently they first moved to Mexico and Canada, but when the government started to expect too much of them they moved to Bolivia where they could have their own schools and more secluded communities. one of MCC’s big projects in Bolivia is staffing a information center (Centro Menno) and providing other resources for the Colony Mennonites because some have had trouble adapting to life in Bolivia. one of the guys who works at Centro Menno came to translate the low German for us. we talked, ate lunch with them, and got a tour of the farm. at one point we alternated singing songs for each other and asked various questions about our different lifestyles. it felt like no place that i had ever visited before, especially not in Bolivia, and made me wonder if this is what my ancestors lives would have been like.
More people to know in Santiago:
Filomena- an older woman who lives in the convent next to the church and music classroom who used to be the director of a nearby school. she used to help do various things for the music school, but after multiple conflicts with the kids (she had a more authoritarian style of relating to them than they liked) she decided to retire from being involved with the music program. she often offers me food or drink when i’m around. she still works with a group of kids who do traditional dances with drum and bamboo flute music.
John Wood- one of many naturalists and bioligists who come to study plants and animals in Santiago. i think he teaches at Oxford. He brings a team of biologists who go tramping out into the forests to find the plants that ”can’t be found anywhere else in the world but Santiago.”
bolivian baroque 