The Final Week 🇧🇴🛫🇺🇸
“The feeling is less like an ending than just another starting point.”
~Chuck Palahniuk~
This past week our Earth Regeneration project came to a wonderful close. We got our posters finished and out flyers printed! After doing the research, finding pictures and editing multiple times, seeing our posters being compiled and print to finality felt so good. (However, with this comes the worry that work on the museum will slow as Erin and I leave.) I am more excited now about Museo de los Pumas than at the beginning of this trip and I am sad to leave without the museum officially opening. But, this is now a project for future Global Fellows!
Our last day at Agroflori was also bittersweet. I have really grown there and learned a lot from Soledad, Marcelo, and the many volunteers. They all dedicate time and money to this non-governmentally funded animal sanctuary. They come every day to care for mistreated and abandoned wild animals. Wild animals shouldn’t be kept as pets or in cages, but there’s no other choice for the animals at Agroflori, many are too used to humans or are too sick to be returned to the wild. Because of this, Erin and I witnessed many aviary deaths. In addition, I’ve been bit, scratched, and soaked by bird poop water. Everyday there was a story to tell the other Global Fellows and they eventually would just ask us the moment we joined for lunch how our day at Agroflori went.
Our final group trip was to Salar de Uyuni, possibly the most known and famous attraction in Bolivia. Temperatures got down to 5 degrees Celsius and we were in a car for over 12 hours in total, but the sights were breathtaking and are still embedded in my memory. Just sitting in the car with these six other people was entertaining in itself and made the drive seem a little bit shorter.
My trip is coming to a close and writing today feels like the actual end of my time in Bolivia. I am excited to go home and go to South Korea for study abroad, but I am now more sad than before to leave, to leave this welcoming environment. I wonder how things will change when I get back to SCU. Will I be different around my current friends? Will S. Korea also change me? Will I even meet up with these people again? and if I do, will we fall back in to place? Or will we be awkward; will ever be the same as here in Bolivia?
On what felt like the last night of our trip, Anna and Carlos hosted a farewell party for us all. We invited the people we met here and though not everyone could come, we are thankful to all. We danced, sang, ate a lot of food, and closed with some touching remarks. Anna told us to return to Santa Clara still a Global Fellow — to take the bonds we made here and continue them on campus; to make sure we continue to push ourselves and be confident in our own abilities.
Tips for travel and a great experience!
- Bring a speaker for music! Music can reveal a lot about a person’s personality and is also a great ice breaker. 🎧🎼🎹
- Try as much as you can to walk places instead of use a taxi. Here in Bolivia, a taxi on average costs about 15BS; this is roughly $2. Every penny saved by walking and exploring the city a bit slower can go to your next cuñape at Wistupiku or Hoy Hay!
- Being in a group is great, but when traveling try to explore by yourself as well. You will see so much more and gain a different perspective on locations you may have already seen before. 🧐
- If you’re missing a piece of home, cooking can really help! I made kimbap, a typical South Korean snack that I have made before at home and it grounded me a bit.
- Keep a daily journal! It doesn’t have to be a record, hour-by-hour, of what you did, but knowing the things you enjoyed each day of your trip will help engrain the experience in your mind and will be even more memorable when you get home. 📒📝
