Late Aprilish

Here is a little randomness for the end of April before I head out on a trip to Lake Titikaka this Friday.

Line started playing zampoña as well, so we have gotten together a couple times to share our knowledge. We spent one afternoon in the plaza with the plan to play, but we were surrounded by questioning children and adults the majority of the time. It was quite enjoyable however, and Line was very pleased to get some of the insider information I have been learning from René.
There was a great concert last Saturday, and I went with Line and her friend Gemma from Canada. There haven't been any concerts in town for the last 3 or 4 months, so I was thrilled to finally go out, and the concert was absolutely incredible. Los Kjarkas was the group that everyone in Bolivia adores, but Line and I agreed that Kala Marca was the best of the three groups that played that night. As almost everyone knows, I hate dancing; however, I was dancing like crazy at the end of Kala Marca's set. There is something about traditional Bolivian music that just gets to me. I hear a zampoña and a bass drum and I am hooked. So the concert was great, and the company was as well.

In my last post I commented about Jorgito's occasional immaturity, and I imagine I sounded kind of harsh. I would like to make up for that in this post. I adore him. We were driving home Sunday night and he was exhausted. He just looked at me and then plopped his head on my lap and made himself comfortable for the rest of the ride. I love how childlike that is(not childish). He isn't afraid to show affection. It made me very happy inside.

Jorge's cousin, Claudia Brita Calvo, and aunt, Gladys, from Chile are in town this week. I had been in contact with Claudia via Skype for the past 5 months, so it was nice to finally meet her in person. She is quite outgoing. She is opening a boutique in Chile, so she brought back a boatload of clothes to sell to all the women of Sucre. I see nothing wrong with clothing in Bolivia, but Bolivian women go absolutely nuts when they can spend way too much American dollars on fashion. Bolivian women. As I have said before, I fit in much better with the men. I just don't get it sometimes.

Abu, my grandmother, had an accident last night. She is an older woman and doing well, but she should not be wearing heels still. She picked up Jorgito from tennis and fell. Somehow, she dislocated her shoulder. Instead of going to the hospital, she went to her home. Finally Vivi took her to the hospital, and Abu was put under for a 10-minute surgery.
Abu seems fine, probably because she is on twenty-dollar pills. I was worried about Jorgito. I would be terrified if I were that young and my grandmother fell like that. He shrugged it off when I asked him if he was okay, so I will never know I guess. I really hope Abu will quit wearing heels...but I doubt that will come true.
On a more amusing note, I had to do a double take when I saw Abu at lunch today. She had pink eyebrows! Well, not really, since she doesn't have eyebrows at all. She has tattooed eyebrows that are thin and dark blue-gray. Normally she will put on brownish liner, but I think the twenty-dollar drugs altered her sight as the liner was pink today. I am not being mean or vicious, but I find it quite endearing and hysterical. I think she mistook her liner for lip-liner. Am I mean, or is this slightly amusing? Abu, Abu. I love that woman.

I had an incredible morning at the Psicopedagógico today! Heyde is one of my favorite children. She is in a wheelchair, but she never wants to sit in it. Every recess, I know she is just dying to sit next to me on the bench. So for the past month, I ask random workers if I can take her out and seat her next to me if I watch her carefully. A couple times, the workers just brush me off with an iffy 'no,' but most times they just completely ignore me. This makes me really mad when they do that, because I really feel like they don't care about the children. The kid wants to walk, so why aren't you trying to teach her?! Seriously! Finally, this morning I asked the director, and she was very sweet and open about it. She just grabbed Heyde out of her seat and set her next to me. I was so happy to be respected, and I know Heyde was too. She was beaming! Absolutely thrilled to not be the handicapped girl in a wheelchair. That wasn't enough for her though. She wanted to walk! I know no words worthy of explaining how happy I was for Heyde. Line helped Heyde walk around while I got some great snapshots. I plan on doing this every morning with Heyde. I am almost mad at the people that work there, because Heyde has been expressing a desire to do this for a long time now. Instead of helping this determined and intelligent girl learn to walk and eat alone, they sit and talk amongst themselves. They pretend to be blind to her desires. Instead of being mad, I am just going to keep doing this with Heyde while hoping she improves before I leave. I will get a special folder of Psicopedagógico pictures up on picasaweb.google.com/hmnelson12 soon. I have gotten some really great photos of these children. They are really inspiring.

This month has been incredible, and I will be ending it with a bang. This Friday Forest Jarvis will be flying in from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, to go on a trip to Lake Titikaka with me. I am súper excited. Forest is a fellow Rotary Youth Exchange student that I got to meet when he came to Sucre earlier this year. So he flies in Friday morning, we take an overnight bus to La Paz. Saturday morning we take a 2-hour bus trip from La Paz to Copacabana, and then from Copacabana we take a boat to La Isla del Sol(Sun Island). We will stay overnight on the island both Saturday and Sunday. Sunday morning we go back to La Paz. From there Forest flies back to Santa Cruz and I take an overnight bus back to Sucre. I can't wait to step foot in a lake whose name I once laughed at in 8th-grade Social Studies. Seriously?! I love Rotary!

Chau until my next blog, which I am sure will be all about Lago Titikaka.