Family Life and Food
I don´think that I could have asked for a better family to live with, from hearing what other volunteers have to say and also from my own experience so far. Part of it I suppose is you get out of it, what you put in – meaning that I enjoy hanging out with them; having long conversations at meal times, taking Angela to Globos for ice cream where she chooses the most sickly flavor, helping Mateo with his English and Geography homework and going on Sunday trips to the cemetery (where there is also ice cream.) In turn this has helped me improve my Spanish, speaking and understanding, but also allowed me to see what happens within the day to day life of a Cochabamban family.
They´ve been really inviting. At weekends I´ve been up to the Big Christo on the hill, Mateo hiding in all the dark places inside the Christo and scaring me all the way along with going to Sacaba where Mariela´s parents live. I´ve also hung out with Mariela´s Brazilian friends, one day having a delicious barbeque on the roof and the next day going to a Brazilian day time party full of samba and funk music and caipiriñas at 10am where my British inhibitions certainly got in the way, as when called up to dance some shaky samba moves I´ve never gone so red before. Mariela has also hosted other drinking fests with school friends where I´ve watched them get progressively more drunk before I have to call it a night when I´m too tired to try and understand and want to speak any more Spanish / drink any more coca leaf/ herb liquor – leaving them to carry on until about 5am. I just can´t hack it over here!
I´ve hung out at Papa´s 60th birthday party in Sacaba, a small village 30 minutes away from Cochabamba, complete with a mound of food, a massive cake and a lot aunts popping up from no where and elderly women wearing several coats while I´m there in just my t-shirt. It is winter here and although its only about 9 degrees in the morning on the way to work and at night pretty chilly as well – like being in the mountains- the sun is pretty strong during the day and can be about 23-26 degs. (Shame I´m inside the majority of the day so I try my best to catch some rays at the weekends.) Along with another party where I managed to dance with more old ladies and Mama, Sacaba has also hosted Corpus Christi, a religious festival where I ended up being in the centre of the religious parade, with Angela dressed up as an adorable Angel, meeting the Padre / priest, and handing out bread to the masses… (I stood out like a tall sore thumb but it is because Mama is involved in the church I ended up in the central bandstand in the middle of the town square…)
The final time I visited Sacaba was last weekend where we got Linda the fat family sausage dog vaccinated against rabies – it’s a national campaign where all the dogs are getting Jabbed and get a yellow ribbon to wear around their neck. The whole experience of getting the dog jabbed on the street corner was pretty bizarre. The animal theme continued when we went back to the more rustic country style house to hang out with Horacio the family parrot who likes eating beans and burping.
As for the other weekends, excursions to Cerro Tunari and Torotoro, two different national parks which I will elaborate on soon.
