Part 1: It was a great week. I kicked that little bastard out of my system and I went to the campo on wednesday! Great Time! we visited three pueblos for Marco's Garden project. The first village was paisaje. To get to this village we drove on a highway for quite sometime outside of Minero until Katie suddenly pulled off the road onto a dirt road. I bounced around in the back of the camioneta with big grin on my face for what seemed like forever. This village was an oasis amongst endless fields of caña and whether it was the time of day, the people I met or simply the village itself, this place was beautiful. Beauty in simplicity. All the children rushed up to greet us eager to show the progress of their tomato, lettuce, carrots, and cebollo garden. Right away Marco started helping them with the insecticides and Katie and I went off to meet with her friends. So friendly. Again I cursed my lack of ability to speak spanish. Mierda. Everyone seemed so friendly and luckily I'm going back on Sunday for their annual party. More on this next time. The next stop was less of a community/village, and more of a huge school. Sadly there garden was almost gone because this last weekend they had harvested the majority of it and luckily made a rather sound profit to return to the Garden next year or rather next week (Marco told me that Bolivia is the only country that has two growing cycles of the same crop). The final Stop on this tour was my favorite because we actually were able to work. Alongside students and teachers I was able to help plow, form, seed and water a whole new section of their garden. So much fun. AGain I didn't really speak spanish, but luckily by working and my lack of caution for sunburn I felt somewhat less lingually isolated.
Part 2: Thursday was another day in the office with some added trips to the mercado para galletas and a llave. The cookies were needed for the next day's activities and the llave, one of those cross shaped tire irons, was needed because we blew a tire the previous day and didn't have the right tools in the back of the truck. So thursday was my first trip to the market, and pike place ain't got shit on this market. There are tons and tons of booths, selling everything from cellphones and clothes to furniture and coca. Amazing. I was at the market in the first place to look for shelves for this unorganized storage room that has become one of my pet projects. I got horribly lost somewhere around the military surplus store and decided that I would retreat and regroup formation for a second assault. On my way out I saw this tire iron and bought it. Now, the market it quite some distance from where I live. To get there I took a moto, but I didn't want to pay to take a moto back because I knew generally where I was (?). I got home, never had to turn around but only on shear luck and excellent navigation skills ingrained from months of stumbling around winding spanish streets. But th emost hilarious part of this whole adventure was the image of a gringo walking the streets of montero, a puzzled look upon his face, and a tire iron in his right hand.I wish I could have had a picture, because the looks I received from everyone I passed was freakin' priceless. In a city of 100,000 with maybe eight gringos at anyone time, the sight of me must have made them go back to the story books and rewrite the tale of llorona.
Friday, was by far the best day of the week. Because not only did I get to go out into the campo and see a new town, meet new people, etc, etc...I was able to go to the commedore, Las pampas, and play soccer with a group of boys. So much fun. The field we played on was a pasture mowed down by the animals kept inside the barbwire fence we had to cross, with two goals on each end. There was no sideline, no eighteen, no endline, no five, in fact the only way we knew, and by we I mean the boys, where the middle of the field was, was because of the imprint of years of kickoffs. So much fun. It was marco on one team and me on the other, and they really didn't look happy to have me on their team. Until I was bustin' out plays right and left. Watching the world cup really paid off, as I am a regular christiano rinaldo against a group of nine year olds. My best player was this little tyke of probably six. He was a freak show. Didn't have any fear. I lost count of the times that he threw himself at marco, a man twice his size, and actually won the ball. My team won, by a lot. And for the last two points we needed to hold onto to win, we played against a team that had two adults. There will be a rematch coming up...guaranteed, and I can't wait to hold onto our title. AFter the game, parched because I couldn't find bottled water, all the boys taught me the names of all the plants that they are growing in their garden. One kid tried to trick me into eating an ahji (?), which is an incredibly hot pepper. Luckily I knew that something that red should only be eaten with a bunch of water and tums. All in all it was a great, great day.
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