September 26
September is flying by. It's been 2 weeks since I last wrote and of course so much has changed. The soccer game was so great. It was the biggest sports event I've ever been to. It was super packed and of course there were quite a few fights that broke out, and around the end, when the team that I was cheering for (Blooming) lost, someone set fire to paper in the stands about 10 feet away from me and people decided it was a good idea to fuel it! The next week was pretty normal I didn’t go to work on Monday, I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out my school work since I'm taking 3 courses while I'm here and in Quebec. Nothing really came out of the day but it was a nice break. We had theatre class, which I like but it seems most of the girls are not fans of it. Many think that the scenes that we are doing are re-enforcing the stereotypes we are trying to break. I can definitely see their points but I think it would be hard to have a play devoid of all stereotypes that is actually interesting for the age group we are presenting to (14-24). It also seems many of the girls are using this idea as an excuse to just not to anything but complain. Wednesday we all went to Samaipata which is about 4 hours away from Santa Cruz de le Sierra for our halfway camp. It was amazing! Samaipata is so gorgeous, it's up in the mountains with a ton of green beautiful grass and the sun isn't obstructed by smog or smoke. It was definitely a huge pick-me-up. We did a lot of team building stuff and a LOT of activities that were supposed to bring us closer to our counterparts. And it worked! Well it's a work in progress but since Alison and I really tried hard to communicate to each other how we felt those 3 days we have both been more conscience about each others needs. The last day there almost all of the girls decided to get up at 5 in the morning and climb one of the mountains to see the sun rise. In the end it was only me and 3 other girls. I was the only English one in the group, the rest were French but could speak English a bit or a lot depending on the girl. We ended up speaking French and Spanish though and only a little bit. I think we all silently agreed that the silence and sound of nature was better than anything we could have said. It was truly amazing. It wasn't totally silent especially when the sun started to come up. Roosters and dogs started howling and yelling like they knew the end of the world was coming, but it was still the most silence any of us had the privilege to be part of probably since this program started. People here are really really big on playing their music loudly outside starting from 7 in the morning until probably 3 or 4 in the morning some days. And on the bus, and in the street..and pretty much everywhere. I love music, its one of the biggest things in my life but I have come to learn that I also love and appreciate silence almost as much! After our hike we all went back to Santa Cruz but on the way back we stopped at this waterfall park and got in 2 or 3 hours of swimming and relaxing (for some girls it was a chance to take a million pictures of themselves in bikinis sitting on rocks).
Once I got back to Santa Cruz I was exhausted and went to bed as soon as I got home, which was a good idea because the next day the family and I went to Ally's school to go to a culture fair. It was pretty cool and I got to see a ton of traditional costumes, dances and ate some traditional food. After that we went to Ally's friends house for around an hour. Then we were off to one of our volunteer community projects. We were all supposed to be volunteering at another culture fair but when we got there the organization said they had too many volunteers and didn't have any work for us to do. It was pretty disappointing and Ally and I just went home to take a nap because around 9 we all went to a cousins quinsinera. It was really great, super fancy and the girl (who was turning 15) had about 2 or 3 huge princess-like dresses. At first it was a little boring but once the formalities were over and the dancing started it was great. I drank a little bit of wine and had enough confidence to say yes to dancing with one of the cousins friends. I was so embarrassed because I am a horrible dancer. All the dance classes I ever took I quit after 2 years max. He taught me how to salsa and do some other dance that was pretty simple so that was pretty great. We didn't end up going home until 3 in the morning, and Ally's parents went back after dropping us off at home!
The next day we went back to the house where the quinsinera was to have some cake (the tortas [cakes] here are amazing! So much better than our plain white or chocolate cakes at home!). After that I went home around 5 because I was really tired. Ally and her parents stayed at the house until 10.
Monday I had work again. Same old same old. Baked some bread, coloured with kids, watched them play basketball. Tuesday we had work and theatre. My books for University FINALLY came! It took almost 3 weeks to get them from customs. My supervisor had to go through a lot to get them for me, I'm so thankful! I have 7 Shakespeare plays (tragedies) to read and a ton of books for my Political Science course. I'm really behind and I don't think I'm going to be able to get on the schedule that I would like to be on. Wednesday we had work (my school put on another a culture fest which was really fun. I got some great pictures of the kids in traditional dress and got to eat even more traditional food.) and then instead of Spanish/French class we had theatre again because we had been missing a lot of that. This made it so that we hadn't had language class in almost 3 weeks now. I feel like our language classes are very insufficient, at least for the Spanish part. All the Bolivian girls in the French class got a huge book on French verbs and how to conjugate them the other day. Yet us Canadians haven't received anything like that here for French or Spanish.
After theatre class my family picked me up at 9 and we went to Expo-Cruz. It's this massive South American business fair. There's a ton of booths with things ranging from work boots to jewelry to huge propellers. There's also quite a few stages with singers/bands etc. Me and my family (minus Ally because she was on a trip with her work for 2 days) were at one stage just watching the presenter and then he asked if there was anyone from a foreign country there. 2 girls from Italy raised their hands and he made them get up on the stage and he asked them questions and made them dance. I felt so bad for them. They said they've only been here for a month, and they obviously only knew as much Spanish as I did after a month. The whole time I was thinking to myself “wow I'm so glad that's not me, poor girls”. And then when they got off the stage the announcer asked if there was anyone else from a foreign country, and my house-family started screaming “CANADA” and pointing at me! They made me get up on the stage and answer questions! Luckily I understood everything the man said! When he asked how old I was and I said 19 everyone in the audience made gasping noises and I thought I said something wrong! I asked my family about it later and they said it was just because mi so young for being so far away from home. In the end the announcer gave me a water bottle, a hat and I was told a free call home. But my family and I left without me getting my call. I was a bit upset about that but I wouldn't have been able to call anyone anyways since it would have been 12am on a Wednesday!
Thursday was another educational day which was really good but it was so hot that one girl got sick and another got sick from eating meat. Everyone was extremely uncomfortable and moody. I stayed a little after it since it was at one of the girls houses and we were going to watch a movie and laze around. We ended up just talking for a little bit and then I went home since there was a bit of confusion between me, my family and Ally as to what was going on the rest of the night. By the time I got home my house dad was gone for work again for another 2 weeks. Time goes by so fast when he is here because we are always doing something as a family and I feel like he makes a ton of effort to understand me and how I'm feeling (actually my whole family really does, he's just pretty obvious about it).
Friday we had a day off since it was Santa Cruz's 200th birthday. I woke up at 9 ate breakfast and then studied until 6:30. At 6:30 Ally and I took the bus to one of the other girls house's for a Santa Cruz birthday party/a birthday party for one of the girls in the program. It was great! 2 girls from one of the other Canada World Youth programs (Montero a city about an hour away from Santa Cruz de le Sierra) came to the party and one of the girls invited their friend. We were all so relieved to be able to socialize with someone else other than the other 17 girls in our group. It was a pool party too which was fantastic because its so hot here that you sweat just sitting down even if there is no sun!
The next day I studied a little bit more and then the family and I went to another birthday party. These parties that we go to are really difficult for me. I don't understand much because everyone is speaking Spanish and so fast! So I just sit and listen, which I'm content to do, but then Ally gets upset with me because I'm not talking with people or taking pictures of myself. For the first hour I just sat and listened but then Ally made me dance, which I absolutely hated because I'm a miserable dancer and one of the women there was a salsa dance teacher and I did not want to be dancing beside her! After a little while I managed to talk to some people I'm pretty sure they didn't really understand me but they pretended too, and then we had dinner which was so good! After that I sat down beside the woman who is a salsa teacher and found out that she is fluent in English! We had an amazing conversation and I found that she is an amazing, strong and truly respectable woman. I'm not going to post her life story on a blog on the internet but I will always remember how truly inspiring she is.
Today the family and I slept in a lot! I slept in until 1030 which I think is the most I've ever slept in here! We ate breakfast, I studied a bit and then we went to Ally's grandparents for lunch. I tried to have a conversation with two of the uncles about Canada but it didn't really work. One (pretended to I think) understood me and the other had no clue what I was saying. We had lunch, mostly BBQ meat with a tomato slice on the side for a vegetable. I can not wait until I can go back to being vegetarian, or at least being able to have a meal without meat. The food here is amazing but I feel like my body hates me and is saying no more. In fact it hates me so much it won't fit into the jeans I have here, or most of my shorts. I don't know what I'm going to do when I get to Canada and need to wear jeans in the winter. I refuse to buy bigger jeans because this condition is only for the length of this program and no more! Luckily I'm not the only one who is going through this. Although I did get pretty upset (internally) when I was trying to find an outfit for the birthday party.
Only 34 days until Canada! I have to buy some gifts/postcards for my family and friends. I haven't had time to shop here at all! I plan on getting quite a few things though and so I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to buy another bag!