Hello again...this time from Oruro!

Well, I´ve been in my site for a few days now. Work has begun and I finally got a bed. But that´s all to come later. For now, to catch you up on everything post-family-appreciation-lunch. After that, we said goodbye to our host families. I was really touched (albeit sad) at how attached my host family got to me. My host mom cried twice about me leaving! That was really shocking for me.

Well, I suppose the next big thing we did was for each trainee to go on a week-long site visit to make sure that everything was suitable, etc. My work partner already changed twice since the application was made by the town to have a volunteer, but I think my new work partner is going to be a good match. Site visit was really interesting, particularly given that this was my first time in the Altiplano. My site is gorgeous! I´ve already told you all I can think to say about it so I´ll just share a picture:


After that we spent a glorious week in a hotel in Cochabamba. It was really good to have time with my training group before heading off to my site for good. I also went back to my host family to pick up the kitten. I guess things haven´t been going very well for my host sister. I feel awful for her whole situation and my thoughts are definitely with the family.

We spent Halloween together and two of my friends and I went as different kinds of potatoes in Bolivia. There are at least hundreds of kinds of potatoes here and they are a main staple, served with every meal, so we thought it was appropriate to dress as them. LtoR: I was papalisa, Lindsay was chuno, and Joy was yuca. The girl in front, Laurie, was a Bolivian school girl and yes they do dress like that for the most part.


After Halloween was swear-in. It really meant a lot to me, although I´m finding it difficult to express why or how. I guess it just gave a much more official sense of purpose to what we´re doing. The ambassador even spoke, which was cool. I knew all along how important this is to me, but this was different. I couldn´t help but think about all the reactions that people have had to me applying to Peace Corps and about how I´m finally here and I´m finally doing it. It was hard to keep it together at times and I´m sure I didn´t hear half of the speeches.
Hoping this picture doesn´t get the ambassador in more trouble...;)
B46, sworn in and no ET´s!


I totally had more pictures of my site and the kitten to share with you guys, but unfortunately I didn´t put them on my pen drive. Until next time, pues. In other news, like I said, I started helping with a computer class, which is cool. The guy who runs it just graduated from high school, but he´s knowledgeable and has a better idea than I do of how education generally works in Bolivia. The rest of settling in has been a little rough, but nothing too bad and nothing unexpected. Next time I post I´ll show you pictures from my bday hike, thanks to my awesome site mate!