Initial Thoughts, Aymara Solstice, and Sucre
It’s already been a week! I can’t believe that time is flying by so quickly. Juliet and I are staying in a house with this lovely French intern (Charlene) and an awesome clothing designer (Schuyler). It’s been great living with them because the house is always lively! Schuyler makes beautiful clothes from recycled afghan rugs and we actually got a chance to model for him. Never would I have thought, a 5’9 decently good looking Chinese guy would pose for a photo shoot. Check him/me out at Lord Von Schmitt.
Bolivia is such a beautiful country. The landscape is truly breathtaking! I have never lived with “mountain people” and it has been intriguing to see how they have adapted to their environment. The people here are generally pretty friendly, and are very curious about El Chino. Despite my efforts on DuoLingo in the past couple of months, my language skills are quite lacking, however, I’m taking individual Spanish lessons and it is helping immensely! More importantly, the food here has been amazing! Bolivians eat a lot of meat and soups, which coincidentally are my two favorite food groups. The grilled meats are mouthwatering and soups are made with love. I’m most definitely going to put on weight here.
This past Tuesday (June 21) was the Aymaran New Year! The Aymara are one of the major indigenous groups in Bolivia. To celebrate, we all met at Plaza de Cala Cala at 4:00 AM to take a bus ride out to Quillacollo. At this location, people from all over the city were gathered together to bring in the new year. This place was filled with people singing and dancing while simultaneously starting bonfires to stay warm. As the sun rose, everyone on the hill put their hands up in the sky to welcome in the new year! Quite the magical experience to be part of. Schuyler managed to climb onto the main stage and got some of us up there, that’s when we noticed we were the only foreigners. Following the sunrise, began the rest of the celebration. I saw an inspector taking a shot of local alcohol and though that it was hilarious so I asked him for a photo. This began our road to super stardom! Given that, many of us were also wearing Schuyler’s stylish eye catching clothes, we stood out even more in this crowd of Bolivians. Everywhere we went, the locals asked to take photos with us. I heard a lady say, “Yo Quiero El Chino”. They really don’t have too many Asian people out here. This is quite a shock for me, given that I grew up in Hong Kong and then go to University in California. Furthermore, in high school, whenever we went into China, it was always my blonde friends who got asked for photos! The celebration was a blast and some of us even got to wave the united Indigenous flag! Will most definitely never forget this morning.
On Saturday morning, our house and Danny (another intern from Brandeis) decided to go to Sucre! Sucre is the constitutional capital of Bolivia which has allowed it to retain its beautiful old colonial style. The city itself was astonishing and was very different in comparison to Cochabamba. On our way into Sucre, this lady on the bus chundered everywhere, which was extremely comical yet repulsive at the same time. We couldn’t help feeling bad for her but laughing while it was all coming out. Once we were in Sucre, we got to see sights such as Plaza 25 de Mayo, Parque Simon Bolivar and Casa de Libertad! For sunset, we made it up to La Recoleta to witness an unreal panoramic view of the city. Sunday morning, we went to the Mercado Central, which was a large open fresh food market. There was raw meat (unrefrigerated of course because Bolivia), vegetables and fruits all spread out. Really reminded me of Asian markets from home. We stopped at this fruit stall to have some fruit salad and Chirimoya juice, I thoroughly enjoyed this entire experience at the market. We later went on to run around the city to buy clothes made from llamas/alpacas! Lovely weekend trip.
First week here was surreal and I’m even more excited for the coming weeks! The kids/students have not started winter break yet, so we have just been preparing for them in the office. Excited to finally get to work soon!
