A day off! And a day´s work...

me!
one of the old railroad routes Not even half way up out of La Paz
Illimani-the largest ice mountain

It has come to my attention that the more pedantic amongst you are fussing about dates. Unfortunately, the dates automatically show up as the day when I post the blog, not the date I am writing about, and there is nothing I can do about that. So there!

Yesterday I found a friend called Andrew. He´s an american quaker, also here to teach in the schools. He has already been here two months and seems to me to have near perfect spanish, so he´s a good person to know!

We both had the day off yesterday, so we decided to go and walk up to one of the many look out points of the city. In the end, we climbed right up and out of the valley La Paz is in, which was an absolutely deadly climb! When we got to the top it was like we were on a par with the Andes, and we probably weren´t that far off. The view was absolutely incredible, one of those where there is no way you capture it on a camera, so there was no point trying really. We also found the old steam railroad lines and where the mountain had been cut out for them. I am amazed they have not been taken up for scrap metal! Near the top we found rows of huts where the witchdoctors, or ´master consultants´ as they advertised themselves, were literally brewing weird smelling concoctions over fires on the mountainside. It was pretty stange, even for Bolivia!

Anyway, it was really good to have someone to talk to and not feel guilty about my appalling spanish. I think I was the first person he had talked to in english for months too! We are both busy throughout the week in different places but it´s good to know someone to be able to talk to, even if it´s not that often!

Today I had an art class and an english class. I have somehow got myself into doing art classes, although I am not quite sure how to go about them as I feel I just somehow picked up art myself; I never did GCSE where you actually learn the basics. Oh well. I got them to draw the meeting house as I thought buildings are a nice easy square-ish shape!

My english lesson today was a pain. This teaching lark isn´t all a doss!

They are all ages and it´s a disastrous mix. They speak less english than I do spanish. I just about managed to get the lesson done but it´s a struggle! It´s not the english that is difficult, it is getting them all to sit down/still, be quiet etc. Kids!

It is the biggest class I have though, and the others aren´t mixed ages, so I think Wednesdays are going to be the hardest days. Once we are all used to each other it´ll be ok.

Hurray! Tomorrow is an easy day....

Quaker meeting and first teaching lesson

I am feeling so much better today! My stomach has finally settled down!

Yesterday I went to Quaker Meeting in the town of Batallas, which is in the Altiplano region. It took an hour and a half on the buses to get there, but it was quite an interesting journey. The Altiplano is completely flat, although surrounded by the mountains, and there are no trees so you can see for miles around. You can also see ranges of ice mountains- mountains covered in snow and ice, which are really beautiful. The houses on the altiplano are made from mud bricks, as brick bricks are too expensive, and the people farm the land. You can see them working the crops as you drive past and there are pigs, sheep, cows and llamas everywhere.

Batallas is one of the few towns on the altiplano; mostly it is just houses dotted about. There are a lot of Quakers there and Manantial school is there which is where i was today.

The Quaker meeting was weird. I know people think our Quaker meetings are weird, with just silence, but the Quaker meeting at Batallas was basically a church mass. It had hymms, prayers, kneeling, ministers (only men though!), a kind of pulpit, even a yamaha keyboard set on organ which a man played in the background(-very cheesey!) Also the men sat on the right, and the women and children on the left.

I didn´t like the Meeting much. If it hadn´t have been challed Quakerism i wouldn´t have minded, but it really didn´t fit my view of Quakerism at all.

After Meeting I went to Emma Condori´s family house in Batallas. Her family are traditional Aymaran and her mum gave me a meal, which i had to eat, despite being terrified for my stomach. They keep giving me a ´delicacy´here, which is basially dried and mouldy potatoes. How they manage to get it both at the same time is beyond me, but it is truly disgusting!

Today was my first day teaching at the school in Batallas. The children are aged between 7 and 12. They are really friendly and all want to hold my hand and touch my hair and compare my skin with theirs. They ask what their names are in English and what words are in english and how much everything costs. They are pretty mischievous and run around all the time and were even climbing on the roof!

Another teacher actually arrived today, which was good, really. We did half her lesson and half mine. It is clear that i need to know the spanish for phrases such as ´sit down!´, ´shut up!´´, ´be quiet!´and ´listen!´ for the next lesson on Wednesday!

In the pictures, the big white building is the Quaker meeting house and the yellowy building is the school. You can see the ice mountains in the distance in one of the pictures too.

Yesterday was 'Dia del Mar' - Day of the Sea. There was a huge procession in which the entire government, some of the military, some of the police and most of the schools in La Paz marched. At the very front was the president, Evo Morales. There were brass bands, and flag-girls and baton twirling and even a pan-pipe band! It was quite fun to watch, although it went on for at least two hours there were that many people marching.

Unfortunately, last night I started getting ill and I have been pretty ill all today too. I think it is the change in food and such, and I can honestly say I have never had such bad stomach pain in my life!

I am also missing everybody quite a lot now. I was going to go out to find some friends and some english people to talk to, but i daren´t leave the hotel and the toilet! So that will have to wait for another night. Hopefully I will be a lot better tomorrow!

hello!

It is now my third day here. Yesterday I feel like I did loads. In the morning i went to one of the Quaker schools near the city, called the 'Emma Canaday' school. I am going to be helping there on either Tuesdays or Thursdays, I can´t remember which! Emma Condori, the Bolivian english teacher teaches english there and i went into her lessons. I had to read out lists of words so the children could copy my accent! Oh dear, they´re all going to have warringtonian accents!

I went into two classes, in one class they were about 10 and in the other about 15. They were all very friendly and could speak more english than i could spanish! The school was all wood and cement and i had to stoop to bang my head on the roof in some parts. I am taller than almost all of the Bolivians! The school was really good although it didnt have any equipment other than a blackboard and a few benches in each classroom. The little children are just like any other kids, running round and hitting each other and laughing, and the older kids were funny too. The boys lounged at the back of the classroom trying to look cool and the girls all sat together at the front!

I am going to start teaching next week.

P.S. The bolivian lady in the pic is Emma Condori, the english teacher here and who is showing me around.
On the way back into the city i bumped into a huge crowd. I know i have been told to stay away from large groups of people but this was ok! Today is 'Dia del Mar' - the day of the sea, and commemorates when they lost the sea to Chile. They still want it back. The president Evo Morales was around somewhere, and everyone was really excited to see him. The people here in Bolivia love him; he has made really good changes for the people since he has been in power and i think everyone has a sense that things are changing for the better. There were the Aymarans and the middle classes and old people and young kids and teenagers who had turned tout to see him. Everyone here gets involved in politics and it is really great to see people caring.

Anyway i am going to see the whole proper procession now!

I made it here!

well, after a horrendous journey, i made it here!

I arrived at La Paz airport at 5.35am here and it´s now half 4. I have a room in the Hotel Copacabana which costs me the equivalent of 4 pounds a night, which you can´t argue with really now, can you?

I have met some Emma Condori, a quaker who is really nice and has good english. She picked me up from the airport. I went for a little walk around the streets this morning but after being out for about an hour the altitude started getting to me and i had to go back to the hotel and rest.

Emma came back at this afternoon and we have just had lunch. It seems the food here consists of lots of vegetables and fruits, many of which i have never seem before, and meats, potatoes and cereal grains, so i eat quite a nice lunch.

The city is spectacular. Although it is 3,500m high, it is set in a huge canyon. You can see houses and buildings stretching up the sides of the canyon to the sky in every direction you look. Some of the houses are really brightly painted but others are little more than shanty towns.

The roads themselves are crazy; there are no traffic lights or crossings and the drivers generally drive on any side of the road and there is incessent horn beeping!

The streets are like nothing I´ve ever seen before too. The Aymaran women are sat lining all the pavements selling goods in front of them. You can buy anything from gorgeous materials to strange fruit, designer clothes to mate´ tea and even whole toilets. There are cereals and grains and fruits in huge sacks taller than people and they have to stand on boxes to scoop it out!

Lots of people seem pretty western but lots are also wearing traditional Aymaran clothes. The women all have long plaits and dresses with huge skirts. Most of them have these big colourful blankets which they carry their children in on their backs.

Anyway, it´s all very exciting. Unfortunately most of the streets are pretty much vertical, so i have to keep coming back to the hotel to rest as the altitude is doing crazy things to my head. I will be very healthy when i get back!