Hello fellow bloggers,
I’m so sorry I haven’t been
writing this week, but unfortunately I have been doomed with some sort of
illness that has not given me much motivation to do so. I wanted to save you from an unnecessary blog
post telling you all about my exciting week of 9 cups of tea a day followed by
a few good naps and of course watching the entire first season of “The Mindy
Project” in 3 days. Sick days in Bolivia
are not so different from my sick days in Halifax it seems.
While I have been sick all week, it certainly has
given me some time to reflect on me feelings and thoughts compared to those of
last week. I am settling in just fine, Lydia and I spent about 100$ each and a
good two hours at the supermarket Monday night and our apartment is finally
starting to feel just a little like a home.
I still find it hard to believe I am actually living
in Bolivia. Rewind to a year ago, if anyone would have told me “Hey so you’ll
be living in a foreign, undeveloped country in a year’s time!” I would have A)
given them a look of utter confusion and probably thrown in a “Yeah right” and
B) Ask them why they are going around predicting random girls futures. Point
being, I never would have saw myself here. To be honest, I’m still having a
hard time accepting that I am actually here....for another....Wow, this time I
don’t know the exact number of days. This is good, right? Time will pass quickly;
hard to believe that as of today I have been in Bolivia for 2 weeks already. There
are a lot of things that I miss about Halifax...I miss my friends, family &
boyfriend, I miss my cat....I miss Netflix, I miss Alexander Keith’s....and in
a way I really miss the everyday routine of rolling out of bed at 9:45 and
rushing to my 10:00 A.M class and seeing all my peers, socializing and being a
regular SMUdent. My routine here is much
different and I guess that’s a bit difficult to get used to. Another thing I
never really thought about or appreciated in Halifax, was how safe I felt. Not
that I don’t feel safe in my home here in Cochabamba, the people who’ve helped
get us set up have done an amazing job, truly angels in disguise and I don’t
know what we have done without their generosity and graciousness. However, in
Halifax it’s so much different there. Of course there are problems, just last
week my friends suffered a horrible beating near Gottingen St, there are
problems everywhere you go. In general though, I can walk down Spring Garden
Rd. And catch just about any taxi and know that they will take me home. Whereas
here, it’s not a good idea to just hop into any car that labels themselves as “Taxi”
because many times this is how people are robbed. You always here to horror
stories, and in a way that has been what is plaguing me and causing so much
anxiety. To add another comment to the horror story aspect, before I arrived I
had no idea what the people here would be like, how could I? Google only really
helps so much in that regard. I had come up with so many scenarios in my head,
but none of them were correct. The people here are warm, kind and gentle souls.
There are bad people in every country you go to, no matter what. Bolivians may
not be used to tourists, and initially be a little uneasy about speaking to us,
but I can totally understand that, I would be too. All I can be thankful for is
that Lydia and I are here to help, here to develop a more in depth understanding
and we are fortunate enough to get to know some of these people on a personal
level and hear their stories, and it is our job to tell them. We have been given this great platform to do
so, and I don’t take that lightly. I don’t feel safe at all times, but that is
because I’m out of my comfort zone. Things don’t run the same way they do in
Halifax, and realizing how sheltered I’ve been in that sense is very grounding
and interesting to me.
Taking the day to rest and get some work done from
home, we have our first presentation to our co-workers due on October 8th,
in which we will be discussing Canada’s indigenous peoples and the large amount
of natural resources we have access to in our beautiful homeland. It will be
interesting for us to discuss these things, as we were told that this will be
the first introduction our co-workers have to these topics and how things work
in our country. Therefore we get a chance to teach other people all of these
wonderful things about Canada, while still discussing some of the problems we
have, as no country is without issues. Until next time friends! If you’ve found
this blog via Facebook, Twitter, any of those ever so popular social media
websites, please feel free to share! It’s awesome to see that people are
reading this, and hopefully enjoying it! Chow J
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