Politics and Family

During training I have been staying with a young family in a pueblo called Illataco, outside the small town of Quillacollo which is about 30 minutes outside the large, regional city of Cochabamba. Bolivia is divided into regions, and they recently had elections during which the people of each region voted for whether or not they wanted their region to be autonomous. In the past, all regions have had to give the economic gains from their resources to the central government, which then decided how the money would be divided and put to use. The problem was that some regions have more resources than others and felt that they should have more control over how these funds should be spent. During the 24 hours before Election Day, the sale of alcohol is prohibited, and on Election Day everything shuts down: There is no public transportation, hardly any stores are open, and everyone spends the day in their own pueblo or city and casts their vote. Four regions voted for autonomy out of the eight or nine (or seven?) that comprise Bolivia. Each region also voted, I believe, for the candidates they wish to be represented by when the new Constitution is drafted. The Constitution will determine the parameters of autonomy, and the regions that voted to receive autonomy will be subject to these parameters, whatever they may be: Perhaps these regions will only be partially autonomous, and perhaps it will be complete autonomy. The rest will continue to pool their resources under the discretion of the central government. I watched the news after the elections, which showed live footage of the regions which had won their autonomy. People were dancing and cheering in the streets, excited by the mere idea of gaining more independence and control over their resources, despite not yet being able to define ¨autonomy¨ at all. Cochabamba voted against autonomy, but it was very close -- 54%, I think.

There are two little girls in my family. Cyntia is ten years old and is in fifth grade in a pueblo not far from Illataco. She rides the trufi alone every morning to school and returns to eat lunch with her family. Some days she attends more classes in the afternoon, but many days she only spends four house at school. Every day seems to be devoted to a different subject, with math one day, language the next, life sciences another, and something else that I can´t remember right now. They also have physical education classes during which they exercise, usually by learning many traditional dances.

Doña María Luisa, my host mom, complained to me during the first few days (after learning that I had studied Psychology) that Cyntia had been having problems at school. Her teachers had reported that she appeared very distracted during classes, and she had been receiving bad grades. Last week, Cyntia got glasses. She is on vacation now and for the next week, but I am excited to see how the glasses will improve her ¨attention problem¨. She is 2.5 in one eye and 3.5 in the other, and I have no idea what that means, but I feel like it can´t be good.

Cyntia was my best Bolivian friend during the first few weeks. She always held my hand when we went somewhere with the family. She always spoke simply, slowly, and clearly for me; and she is very skilled at using different manners of explanation when I don´t undertand a word or subject. She was also very useful when the other Trainees living in Illataco and I had to do our ¨Community Development Activities¨ with the children in the neighborhood. She helped us rally the kids, many of whom were her friends, to do activities with us in the plaza. During the first meeting, we performed a ¨community diagnostic¨, having them draw maps of Illataco and then circle the places and things they liked and cross out those they didn´t. We separated the boys and girls into two groups, in case there were differences of opinion between the sexes, but we found that the children of both sexes were mainly concerned with the problems of alcoholism and garbage in their town. There are numerous chicharías in this very small community, and litter literally covers many of the open spaces and streets.

During the second meeting we had the kids further explore the issues they had with their community and made a list of topics they would like us to help them address. We then had them vote on these topics. The other Trainees and I breathed deep sighs of relief when the children chose to help the environment rather than address the problem of alcoholism and the chicharías, which would be far to large to try to tackle in one two-hour session. A few weeks later, we brought them together again and talked about ¨good trash¨ and ¨bad trash¨, meaning those things that are decomposable and good for the soil and those things that must be put in garbage cans and later burned, the preferred trash disposal method in this country. We then had them race to fill garbage bags with the litter around the plaza and rewarded them with fruit, popcorn, and stickers. The sad realization we all faced afterwards was that, even after filling multiple bags, we had not made very much of a difference. We tried, however, to stress the importance of each person doing their part to keep their community clean. I think they learned something.

This is my other little sister, Camila. She is two years old and one of the cutest little kids I have ever met. She talks all the time, and I am learning to understand her. She has a little problem with the letter S, however, so I am ¨Chara¨ and Cyntia is ¨Chicha¨. When I get home from classes, Camila likes to follow me around for a good hour or so until I can convince her that I have to study. She tends to wait for me outside the bathroom door, too, yelling, ¨Chara! Chara! Chara!¨ until I come out. She also really loves the weird looks I give her at the dinner table. We all know how good I am at giving weird looks. Playing catch with her is also a good time. I´ve noticed a lot of progress in her motor skills since we started. I tried to teach Cyntia how to juggle, both with rocks and a soccer ball. She gave up on the rocks pretty quickly, but she´s getting better with the soccer ball. I think her record right now is four bounces on her knees and feet, and it´s so fun to see her get excited about her progress and listen to reports of how many bounces she achieves. Aren´t kids great?

About a month ago, my host dad, Don Celso, left for Spain to find work with his brother-in-law, the host dad of Susan. This is an enormous problem in Bolivia, and it seems as if the majority of families have at least one, if not both, parents working abroad, usually either in Spain or Argentina. Don Celso went to Argentina a few years ago, and with the money he sent, his family added the second floor to the house in which they now live. I read an article in the paper a few weeks ago about wives whose husbands send money from Spain for house construction and the extravagant mansions that are being built throughout Bolivia with this money. Some very fortunate families are receiving up to $2000 a month from their estranged husbands/fathers, and they are pouring all of it into these homes. Keep in mind that when I say ¨mansion¨, I mean a home of average suburban size in the United States in a ¨pop-up¨ neighborhood (as I like to call them), for example. My question is, what will happen when Argentina and Spain stop admitting these immigrants? Where is the sustainability, and what is the use of having an excessively large house when your money runs out and your kids want to go to college? It surprises me that this behavior is coming from Bolivians, the people that I have always heard are not materialistic. Could this be the influence of American media, ie shows like ¨Cribs¨? I don´t know.

There are other negative effects of this mass exodus to Spain. Susan´s little host brother, for example, is experiencing severe physical symptoms, especially digestive problems, and his mother has spent three days out of the last week with him in the hospital. The doctors say that many Bolivian children are coming in with the same symptoms as a result of the stress of losing the fathers for unspecified amounts of time. When Don Celso left, he planned to return in two years. Two weeks ago that number changed to three, and just yesterday Doña María Luisa informed me that it will now be five years. To a five-year-old boy, like my host cousin, that is a lifetime. My family plans to try to move to Spain in a year to be with him and continue raising the kids. I hope Spain is still admitting Bolivians when that time comes.

Well, this has been depressing, and I apologize for that. I will return to tell you all about Tech Week as soon as I can.

Remember that this blog contains the ideas and opinions of Sarah Anderson and in no way reflects the ideas and opinions of the United States Government or the Peace Corps.