Gringita, soy yo!

Hotel Regina, Cochabamba
Last night we had a great mexican meal including burritos with guacamole, pico de gallo, chicken, beans and cheese. Each burrito cost 10 bolivianos (Bs), which is about 1.25 american dollars. I tried to change our 100 bill into smaller change because our host villages may not be able to. We found a little grocery store and I bought come gum and some cookies. When I got up to the cashier, I greeted her and she told me it would cost cinco bolivianos. I put down the 100 Bs and she asked me a question that I didn´t recognize and then I realized she was ready to type something into her computer. I realized she said something about numbero, so I figured I was supposed to give her a phone number. Of course, I don´t have one, but I wasn´t sure whether I´d be able to buy the stuff if I didn´t give her a number so I just started saying numbers in spanish. I wasn´t sure how many digits there are in a Bolivian phone number, so I just kept saying numbers until she didn´t ask for more. Then she asked me for my name and I said Erica. She typed it in as Ericka, so I tried to ask her to take out the k, but I sais ¨cu¨ which is how you say Q. She thought I was saying that my last name was Cook, so she typed that in. I gave up on correcting her at that point. She gave me the change as a 50, two 20s and a 5 boliviano coin. I wasn´t sure how to ask for a smaller bill (I´ll be asking my language teacher about that today) than the 50, but I got her to change a 10 into moneda, which is coins. They have coins in 10, 20, and 50 centavos and 1, 2, and 5 Bs, which are the most useful. After I returned to the group I told this story to one of the current volunteers and she told me that the number I´d been asked to give was my Income Tax number. The cashier must have thought I was insane. Overall, it was a good learning experience, and I´ve got the receipt to remind my of my undercover name, Ericka Cook.

First Meal in Cochabamba

25-1-07

5:00pm- Training Center, waiting to return to hotel

Here's Mark and I last night at the restaurant that current volunteers took us to. It turns out there's a girl here who rowed on the Crew team at Davis with me. She lives in the city and works in Integrated Education. The dish we ate was called Pique Macho, which consisted of french fries, chunks of steak and sausage, tomatoes, onions, peppers, and optional mustard and mayo. We opted out of the raw vegetables, mustard and mayo and it was quite good. We were told to avoid the sauce you see in the blue bowl, called Yaqua, due to its spiciness and tendency to interrupt normal GI function. Better safe than sorry, although we figure it's inevitable that we'll get sick at some point.

Finally Here

25-01-07
12:15pm- Training Center
We made it! All went well with our flights and all of our luggage made it. Almost everyone in our group experienced symptoms of altitude sickness during our first stop in El Alto, Bolivia. Thankfully, we were greeted by Peace Corps staff to help us through customs and dealing with luggage. I'm trying to figure out where I put the cable for my camera (it's somewhere in my luggage) so that I can upload pictures soon.