Anna Goes to Venezuela

Shopping list...

2010-06-19T13:17:00.001-05:00

Well, I know it has been an awful long time since I have written anything on here, so I’ll be surprised if anyone really sees this, but for those of you who do, let me try to quell your frustration at my inattention to this blog by a fun activity about shopping in Venezuela.

It’s really difficult to exchange money in Venezuela, sometimes… especially since Chavez blocked all of the websites that let you know what the parallel rate of the dollar is… so I got down pretty low in cash recently, to about 60 BsF (or roughly $8) earlier this week.

So when my friend wrote to me and said that as soon as I got home he would change money for me, I decided to go all out and spend about 7 of the 8 dollars, leaving me enough money to get to and from work on the bus… so what did I buy?

First I decided that I would buy avocados. I spent about 75 cents and got (1/2/4) avocados (circle the correct response). I kept walking, and decided that I would like to buy a gift for a friend as well, I found some lovely, bright red coconut shell earrings and made a grand purchase of one pair of earrings for approximately ($1/$1.50/$2). I continued on my way, and saw a sign for tomatoes, 10 BsF, so I bought a bag. I did not have any idea how many tomatoes there were until I got home and counted them. For about $1.50, I had purchased (16/21/29) tomatoes. I continued on and saw bags of onions, peppers, and all kinds of other things. I purchased two 5 BsF (about 75 cents) bags—of (3/5/8) onions and (3/5/8) peppers. Finally, as I continued walking I decided that the last thing I was to purchase was going to be mangoes. So I found a $1.50 bag of mangoes, and loaded it all on the bus. At home I realized the bag had (10/16/21) mangoes in it.

So check your answers. With my $7, I bought…
- 2 avocados
- 1 pair of earrings ($1.50)
- 29 tomatoes
- 8 onions
- 3 green peppers
- 21 mangoes

Now things are not always this cheap. In fact, though it doesn’t appear to be true from the story I just told here, food can be really expensive in Venezuela. For example.
- 1 apple -- $1.50-$2
- 1 pear -- $2
- 1 two-person pizza -- $10-12
- Can of soda -- $1.50
- Sugar – priceless, because you can never find it
- Oil – priceless, because you can never find it

And the list of priceless things can go on and on. That is the other thing about shopping in Venezuela… Many things just don’t exist. The first time that I bought sugar in Venezuela was about a month ago, simply because it was the first time that I had ever seen it for sale. Some weeks there is no milk, some weeks no flour of any kind, sometimes no candles, sometimes no meat…

The problem in Venezuela is perhaps more that wages are extraordinarily low and do not keep up with inflation, than the fact that food is extraordinarily expensive. There are two national subsidized food programs in Venezuela, Mercal and PDVAL. While most people would agree that these programs are good, they undoubtedly have their problems. For example, a few months ago when I was visiting Maracaibo, there was a line that wrapped all the way around the block. This is not unusual – bank lines, government office lines, and other lines often wrap around three sides of a block here. But this line was to purchase federally subsidized food from the Mercal program. I went and asked people how long they had been in line, “We spent all night here,” was their answer. And at the same time, the other week in Venezuela, 22,000 tons of federally subsidized food were found spoiled. That’s a perfect example of the problems with the Venezuelan “socialist” system-- People starving and waiting in line for 24 hours for food that is sitting in storage containers spoiling.

So what have I been doing for the last several months, I’m sure you are wondering…? I guess my best answer would be just living life. It is amazing how much of a life you can create for yourself in a new place in just a few months. I know so many people here, have seen so many places, have so many things to do… just like living a life anywhere. Of course it’s slightly more dangerous, more colorful, there’s more music, and it’s all in another language, but for the most part things have sort of normalized. I’ll be coming home on August 18th (the question that everyone asks…), though I leave Venezuela on July 17th. I will be traveling for a month with a friend through Ecuador and Peru before returning home… and what’s in store when I get home…? WHO KNOWS!?! Love you, and see you soon!

Caramelo?

2010-03-26T11:32:00.002-05:00

After 6 months and some of living in Venezuela, what happens when someone offers you a piece of candy is still weird to me.

The conversation usually goes as follows:

¿Quieres un caramelo?,

They say (do you want a piece of candy?)

Sure! Thanks!

you reply enthusiastically, thinking that you will receive a delicious sucker or maybe a jolly rancher or something...

And then they reach into their pocket and pull out a thing of Halls cough drops. They hand you a sticky menthol lozenge, and you take it begrudgingly, and have to eat it to not appear ungrateful...

Everyone eats cough drops like candy. They may eat and entire package of cherry cough drops within an hour just because they like them. Once again, the strange things that happen here in Venezuela.

I need help.

2010-03-25T11:01:00.002-05:00

An excerpt from one of my students´ exams:

I have a problem. I don´t know what to write in this paper, I shouldn´t have thought about my girlsfriend, I could have studied more english because I sure that I don´t know nothing about english. I need help.

At least he was honest. The funny part is that I´m not sure he bothered to ask the girl who was dictating an answer to him WHAT exactly his answer might mean. Hilarity continues in Valera.

Sorry I have been MIA for a while. My plan is to start writing again soon. It´s just a testament to how busy I have gotten here, I swear. My mom and step-dad come tomorrow, so I am sure there will be many tales to tell about that adventure. :) Later, dudes.

...and they emerged with an armful of anaconda...

2010-02-09T17:43:00.002-06:00

In November, I sort of had this vision that I would spend almost all of my December holiday in Valera. Because what else was I going to do for 4 weeks? This was sort of appealing— spending time with all of my favorite people here, going out all the time, meeting families, etc... But somehow my December and January just turned out differently. It was definitely more eventful than that, much more full of adventure and excitement than I think my original plan would have been, though I guess I will never know. When I got back from the beach, it was a big surprise to hear that although my boss had told me we went back to class January 4th, we didn’t actually go back until the 11th. So, having the patas calientes (hot feet—a nickname my friend gave me) that I do, I decided to hop on a trip to Los Llanos that my American counterparts had planned from Merida.

I met a friend at the terminal who was also headed for Merida and we hopped a carrito together. We spent the whole trip chatting, laughing at the way the bag of plantain chips I had bought puffed up like an overinflated balloon and how my water bottle exploded in my face as we climbed in altitude up the mountains. In Merida, we were greeted at the terminal by the wonderfully familiar faces of my American Fulbright friends…

In Merida the next day we went to a destination that I have been meaning to check out for a while, the zoo! It was really nice, but I think there were probably less than 10 animals in the whole zoo that I recognized. Some of them were vaguely familiar, others completely absurd looking. I felt the same way about the people walking through the zoo—there were two large events happening simultaneously in Merida—a paragliding competition and a motorcycle rally. Put together eccentric Venezuelans, parachutes, motorcycles and exotic zoo animals, and let me tell you, the people-watching is arguably better than the animal watching… even at the zoo.

After a lovely afternoon in the park, and drinking a very thick, elmer’s-glue-white, vaguely alcoholic and very sweet concoction called, “vitamina,” we returned back to Emma’s (Fulbrighter) apartment. We made an American feast for dinner (including chocolate chip cookies!). Several of Emma’s friends arrived to say hello. As soon as one of her friends walked in, I was really sure that I knew him, but couldn’t figure out from where. “This is Edwin…” Hm, he seemed vaguely familiar…

Edwin was quite the character. Very giggly, talkative, energetic, hilarious, exaggerated, and OBSESSED with Emma. I think in a single night he must have recounted at least 80% of the total time they had spent together … in detail. She had warned us that he might be a little much, but it very quickly became evident that maybe she felt that way because he was so obsessed with her. I remembered that I had met him several months earlier in a bar/café in Merida. We had a great night together in the apartment. As per usual there was no electricity, so we stayed in, listened to music from the battery powered laptop and had our own little private dance party instead of venturing out to the disco that surely would have had no electricity. As the night progressed, a suggestion was made that Edwin should come on our trip. Immediately after he said yes, that he wanted to, Emma made the throat slitting gesture. “No, Edwin you can’t come we planned this trip a long time ago and it’s too late to make a reservation…” Lies, but it was clear that she didn’t want him to come and that he picked up on the not-so-subtle hints she was giving. No flamboyant, excited, energetic, silly, overly affectionate Edwin on the trip. No debate.

The next morning we woke up early and went to the tour company. The first surprise was that our tour guide was not going to be the gentle, kind, young man who had been affectionately nicknamed the “Cherub” by those who had met him, but rather a young, large, somewhat stoic Scottish man. The second surprise was we were going to have others join us on our tour. And the last, but CERTAINLY not the least surprising, was when, with open arms, and a goofy grin on his face, in walked Edwin, dropping his duffle bag on the floor. “SURRRPPP--- RRRISEEE!!!!” he exclaimed, making a wide sweeping gesture with his arms. Believe it or not, he made his own arrangements to join our tour. Needless to say, all of our jaws dropped and we burst out in giggles. “This is NOT good but SO hilarious...” I thought… We would all spend the next 4 days randomly and uncontrollably bursting out in laughter just remembering the moment…

The nine hour drive to los llanos was full of music, photo shoots, snack breaks, and good company. We arrived at our camp in good spirits, said good night to the caimans and crocodiles in the river next to our camp, and hopped in our hammocks. The next day we went on a boat tour to see wildlife--- mainly a variety of incredible birds, turtles, amphibians, capybaras, caimans, and the famous PINK FRESHWATER DOLPHINS! That’s right, pink dolphins… I must admit, when I first heard of the pink dolphins I thought it was a joke. But they are real. They are not THAT pink, but they are definitely pink, really big, and very dolphin-y. Incredible, really. The highlight of the boat trip, though, had to be when our guide, who was poking a long stick along the bottom of the river suddenly appeared to have fallen into the pirhana-, caiman-, and crocodile-infested river. We watched dumbfounded, as he batted away piranhas and dove headfirst into the muddy water. I was sure that our guide was a gonner, when he emerged with the nastiest, weirdest, worst smelling turtle that I have ever seen. It was like a creature from another planet. We helped him, and his newfound turtle back in the boat and breathed/giggled a sigh/laugh of relief. And plugged our noses.

After an afternoon siesta, we went out anaconda- and capybara-searching. For those of you who don’t know what a capybara is, it is the largest rodent on earth. It looks kind of like a hugely overgrown gopher, and not only do they swim, they leap through the water in little packs. They’re really pretty undeniably cute, though I hear that they are pretty aggressive. After seeing a lot of capybaras, our fearless Scotsman really focused in on the goal: find an anaconda for the tourists. Anaconda searching was a lot like searching for the smelly turtle. It just involved walking through the caiman-infested swamp poking around with a stick until you found one. Needless to say, I stayed on the sidelines, appreciating the experience from a distance.

After a half an hour or so of stick poking, it became clear that there had been an anaconda sighting. Suddenly our favorite Scotsman and the other guide went chasing after something. The Venezuelan guide suddenly plunged into the water (the same guide who got the turtle, mind you) and emerged with an armful of anaconda. They both threw their bodies at the anaconda, yanking as hard as they could, when they shouted out for help. Swearing a lot in Spanish, they yelled at everyone to come help. We all debated, looked at one another, and stayed put. As they continued to yell for help, Antoni (a fellow Fulbrighter) and Edwin took off to go help hank. The four of them got the snake under control and carried it over. The snake was 6 METERS LONG (ie about 20 feet) and it was SO HEAVY. They draped it over our necks, we took pictures and they released it. It slithered off into the water like nothing had happened. Impressive. We ate a celebratory cantaloupe, hopped back on top of the jeep, and held on tight like we were told to do (aggarense duro!) and sped off into the sunset.

The next day we woke up and went horseback riding. The horseback ride was surprisingly dull. We saw a deadly snake and a lot of trees, but several of the horses appeared to be half asleep they were so slow. Our destination was a little pirhana fishing hole along the river. I’m embarrassed to admit that after an hour or so of fishing I didn’t actually successfully catch a single piranha. Here’s the thing—they fish for piranhas with a line and hook by just yanking on the line when they feel a bite. Simple, right? Wrong. I got several piranhas out of the water, but it was nearly impossible to actually hook them, so they just flopped back into the water. Failure. Back in the camp, after eating all the pirhanas that we (by which I mean everyone else) caught, we casually walked out towards the river, where our guides casually grabbed a caiman out of the river in the pitch black. We touched it and stared deep into its menacing eyes. With a swift toss, it was back in the water and we were on our way back to camp, where we sang and danced the night away to all the latest Baliwood hits that Edwin naturally had saved in his cellphone.

The trip back was long. 9-10 hours back to Merida, 6 hours back to Valera… the thing about traveling in Venezuela is that although a trip might only take 3 hours normally, on a bad day you may sit in a traffic jam that doesn’t move for 6 hours, or occasionally indefinitely. This could be for a variety of reasons. Perhaps there was an accident, perhaps there was construction, perhaps some sort of integral piece of infrastructure suddenly collapsed, perhaps there are people protesting in the streets, perhaps there is a party, or perhaps there is no reasonable explanation at all. My favorite explanation so far for a traffic jam that lasted about an hour or so was that we couldn’t get through because they sold really good chicken in this place. ?? It did smell pretty divine, but I was not humored by the explanation at the time…

Life in Valera has re-commenced and is back in full swing. I have lots of classes again—two classes of level 2 English students at the university and I am continuing giving classes at the rural elementary schools with the Bibliomulas program. I also moved about a week and a half ago and am much happier with my new living arrangement. I am very grateful towards the family that I was living with before for treating me so well, but I really felt like I wanted to live more independently in a safer part of town. I am much happier living in a house that does not have other people renting rooms—I live with one other woman who is very intelligent and very passionate. I am also living right in front of the nicest park in town—and am able to go jogging or join in on the dance therapy classes there every day. In this house I am now buying all my own food, cooking for myself, and I have my own private room and bathroom (not to mention flat screen TV and cleaning lady haha) that are gorgeous. I also feel much freer to go out on the town—transportation is closer, it is safer to arrive after dark here, friends are closer… It has definitely been an upgrade in the living situation and location. Between my new classes, my new independent living situation, and the fact that I finally feel like I have friends, I am basically always really busy now. It’s a good feeling. It makes me realize why there are so many people with hired help here...

I make a concerted effort on this blog to not talk politics, but I just want to take a moment to calm any potentially worried minds. If you follow Venezuelan news, you probably have heard a few things in the last weeks, 1) That there are severe shortages of electricity and water in the country (directly related since nearly all the countries electricity comes from hydroelectric dams in the eastern part of the country), and which led the government to implement a schedule for rolling blackouts and turning off the water throughout the country, 2) That the government shut down a major opposition news channel, resulting in major protests in most Venezuelan cities, in which multiple people have died, 3) The vice president and his wife (also in a position of power) both stepped down from their offices last week for “personal reasons” which happened to coincide nearly exactly with the appointment of a Cuban militant to be in charge of fixing the infrastructure problems related to the lack of power.

So, all this and I can imagine what you’re thinking… but let me reassure you that while the situation here is complicated and dangerous, I am staying in safe environments. Last week I was only able to teach two days, given that the entire state shut down all schools from Wednesday-Monday because most of the roads in town were blocked off for traffic. Everything has mostly calmed down in Valera, but it remains like the wild wild west in other parts of the country. I spent the last several days in Caracas visiting with almost all of the other FUlbrighters, and when I arrived on Thursday morning, an 8 hour bus ride turned into a 13 hour bus ride because there were flocks of people dressed head to toe in red headed to Caracas from all over the country. In the city, all the roads were blocked off and groups of Chavistas were walking all over the streets- even through traffic on the interstate. Everything is really heated up right now, and it is unclear what will happen in the following months before the September legislative election… We shall see.

On another note, I was just in Peru! The Fulbright program organized a conference for us in Mexico! So naturally, our flight from Caracas to Mexico City went through Lima…? That’s the furthest south I have ever been, I believe. It seemed pretty normal. J

Well, I will keep you all posted on the situation here. Love you all.

What do you mean you are going to fix the runway in 15 minutes?!?!

2010-01-16T00:22:00.003-06:00

…and I continue with part 3. Much later, but better late than never, right? No but seriously, sorry if you have been waiting with bated breath. The past 6 weeks ended up being pure rumba (translated: party time) for me, and I think I saw about 60% of Venezuela in about 3 weeks... So I will pick up where I left off, in Roraima.

From our minor car accident, we came zooming back into Santa Elena, where we had delicious celebratory pizza, took very much needed showers, and caught yet another night bus to Ciudad Bolivar. Ciudad Bolivar was a very strange place for me—colorful and bustling, with aggressive street vendors everywhere. It was pleasant during the day—you could stroll along the rio (river), visit the many statues of Simon Bolivar (the ubiquitous liberator of Northern South America—people are OBSESSED with him), and his historic residence. But the thing was, when we read in the Lonely Planet that everything closes early in Ciudad Bolivar, we did not realize that this meant that by about 5:30 or 6 EVERYTHING would close. We walked around, innocently looking for a place to have dinner, when street vendors started to grab at me… so we bought some skewers of beef and another mystery food, some apple sodas and hustled on back to our little posada, trying to avoid molestors. We bought the movie Milk, only to realize when we put it in that it was actually a pirated copy of X-Men. Gotta love pirated materials… So we snarfed our shishkabob things and hopped into bed.

The next morning we woke up bright and early to go to the airport to take our very own 5 passenger plane in the general direction of Angel Falls. As we gained speed on the runway, the windows were flapping open and the pilot was fidgeting with some maps and the 1400 controls in front of him. We flew low over the mountains, our pilot gesturing wildly at structures that were obscured behind clouds. The man in the front seat was taking pictures, and suddenly the pilot started shouting at him. In one swift movement, the pilot took the camera from his hand and sent the plane into a brief nose dive. The pilot took some pictures with his recently acquired camera, returned it, and restored the plane to its correct angle (I freaked a little). We passed through thick layers of clouds, bumping around a lot more than one would like, and landed gracefully on the runway in Canaima. Upon looking out the window, the first two things that I saw were a plane that had lost its landing gear, and the gravel runway next to us. I gave a little prayer of gratitude to an unidentified being, and I gave it with gusto.

In Canaima, we were taken on a boat and hiking tour of the nearby waterfalls. We were taken under and through several waterfalls, trying like the ridiculous tourists that we were to take pictures without slipping on the slimy rocks beneath the falls. I watched a few people with their cameras scrambling to not fall down, and in the end, all of us but one left with cameras intact.

The next day, we woke up bright and early for our boat tour to Angel Falls. We were told that if the water was low, “we might have to get out and push…” But little did we know that this meant that our 4-5 hour boat ride would be turned into a 7 hour one, predominantly because we spent the difference attempting to push our way over arguably innavigable waters. In the end, though, the fact that some people had to get out of the boat every 5 to 10 minutes didn’t really affect me that much. You see, being a woman in Venezuela, it was not my responsibility to push. When we encountered rapids, only the caballeros (gentleman) were told to get out and push. It was a rare occasion when we were all invited out of the boat, and only happened a handful of times… One of my favorite moments of the trip, however, was when one of the guides shouted with exasperation to another, “Jesus, it’s the time of female liberation, we’ve gotta give them a chance!!”

One of my favorite things about taking organized tours when abroad is the entertainment of putting a group of foreigners together and expecting them to make friends immediately. The dynamics of our tour group to Angel Falls were certainly more interesting than the group to Roraima. There were much more severe language and cultural barriers, though maybe I just imagined them… It was pretty funny how we all really fulfilled the stereotypes of our countries… The wild Brits with dry humor, the loud Americans, the high maintenance Venezuelan, the solitary Polish group, and the overly adventurous Germans so eager to explore that they went missing in the forest (this is true). At one point I watched our Venezuelan guide attempt to pass the German explorers, which actually sent them all into a fast trot and then run. The guide wanted to pass them, and yet the Germans did not want to be passed… We (meaning all the foreigners) spent the night sleeping in hammocks which they put puzzlingly close to one another, so close in fact, that all night long the German guy sleeping next to me kept crashing into my hammock. More than once I looked over to see his little German head, adorned with oversized, very thick, perfectly round glasses peak over the edge of his hammock in my direction to investigate. Talk about awkward…

Angel Falls was just as spectacular as I’m sure you all might imagine. But while Angel Falls itself is beautiful, the landscape of the entire region is truly spectacular. The tepuis are stunningly solitary—enormous plateaus jutting out from seemingly nowhere, speckled with frigid rivers tinted red from all the tannins flowing through them, thick forests, bare rocks. At the base of Angel Falls we got to swim in the frigid waters of a pool formed by the plummeting water. It was reeeaaaallll cold. Or should I say refreshing?

The trip back relatively uneventful, the highlight being when the pilot of our CESSNA gave me permission to sit in the passenger’s seat in the plane for the trip home, and then ultimately in the pilot’s seat for a photo shoot that Zach told me was lame. Whatever. I enjoyed it… and my Brit friend was happy to take pictures, though my favorite travel partner was slightly desanimado about it…  (TQM, Zach).

After our little adventure in Angel Falls, we hopped a flight back to Caracas. This was relatively smooth, until we actually got into the plane (my favorite place for plans to falter). We were told that there was a possibility that we couldn’t take off, because they had to “fix the runway,” but they would tell us in 15 minutes if we could leave or not… Oh, okay… but WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY ARE GOING TO FIX THE RUNWAY IN 15 MINUTES??!! Tell me, please, what you can do to fix a runway in 15 minutes?! Well, to this day I have no idea what they did, but whatever it was in those 15 minutes, it fixed the runway and we left.

From Caracas I went straight for Valera, which consisted of waiting for about a gazillion hours in the terminal with Zach (thanks!) and another gazillion in the bus. In the end, I arrived sleepily to my very own bed, relieved to be back home safely without incident.

I arrived back in Valera something around the 21st of December, which gave me a few days to chill, wash my rotting clothes, and enjoy the holiday season. It was a very odd Christmas for me here, not bad, just very off. It never quite felt like Christmas simply because it was so hot, I didn’t hear any Christmas carols, I didn’t eat a single Christmas cookie, houses didn’t smell like spruce boughs and cinnamon, I could go on and on… basically, celebrations were really different from what I am used to. I was told that at 12 o’clock on Dec 24th, you usually have a big meal with your family, and then afterwards you rumbiar (ie party). Being the gringa that I am, I kind of assumed that they meant that you would have a big meal with your family at 12 in the afternoon… but to my great surprise, at noon, nobody was home. At midnight, several people arrived, ate really quickly, and by 12:30 we were on our way to a wild party. I decided I would just stay up all night, and talk to my American family in the morning before going to sleep…

As planned, we danced and danced in a friend’s apartment until the sun came up. The fireworks lasted all night, until they were just sounds of explosions against the colorful sunrise. I got home at about 7:30 AM, dozed a little, and talked with the fam back home.

The day after Christmas, I went (yet again) on vacation!!! At about 9 PM Yervio, Antonio, Susana and I hopped a bus to the beach where we were to meet several of my American companions! After many hours of intestinal anxiety and freezing buses, we arrived to our little apartment for 7 in Chichiriviche (that’s a mouthful). Chichiriviche is known for its Cayos (island beaches) that form part of Morrocoy National Park. I was SUPER excited to go there, because Morrocoy is supposed ot have the best coral reefs in Venezuela… So I packed my snorkel and mask in my little backpack before leaving and couldn’t wait to take them out.

The beaches were spectacular. Beautiful, though frighteningly overcrowded, which (along with the fascinating beachwear fashion sense) made for excellent people watching all week. Clowns performed on the shore, hippie kids sold homemade jewels, bronzed women sunbathed, couples played ping pong at the water’s edge, and our group of Americans/Venezuelans attempted to play something like volleyball and monkey in the middle, to the entertainment of many. I really enjoyed the company of my American and Venezuelan friends, and between our blonde hair, embassy paraphernalia, and very American looks, we attracted quite a bit of attention, and created an equal amount of mischief…

In the US, Christmas is very family oriented, and New Year’s is the wild party—but in Venezuela it is the opposite. Christmas is cray cray, New Year’s is all about the family. So imagine 3 American girls wandering the streets of Chichiriviche, Venezuela on New Year’s Eve, stumbling upon party after party of drunken Venezuelan families. I don’t feel like I really MET anyone that night, but I know that I had my picture taken with a lot of strangers, was dressed up in a lot of hats and other accessories, was danced around in circles by a lot of unknown men, and had multiple new facebook friends the next day…

While I had a wonderful time at the beach, I was plagued by a series of very severe and inexplicable maladies. Typical intestinal woes, combated only by immodium and ciproflaxin, but more interestingly, I think I may have gotten mange… weird, right? I have never itched so badly so consistently for so long in my life. I don’t know what it was, but for some reason my stomach and back were unbearably itchy for almost a week… Too itchy to sleep, to itchy to sit still, too itchy to do anything but scratch. If you have ever heard of such a problem and know the cause, I am very curious and very far from any doctors that I would trust to give a correct diagnosis. Thank the lord above that after about a week it went away…

From the beach, I spent 2 days at home once again, washing my once again rotting clothes, before heading out YET AGAIN on vacation to Merida! More about this to come!

La Gran Aventura, Part 2

2009-12-24T12:17:00.003-06:00

... Continued... Start with the previous post if you don't know what I am talking about.

We woke up the next morning, with shivering blue lips, in the Gran Sabana (Great Savannah). This part of the country is somewhat legendary around the country. It seems like everyone in Valera has something to say about it, though hardly anyone has actually visited it. People told me stories about insects the size of birds, overgrown toads that eat rats and cabybaras, and mosquitoes the length of your arm that swarm the entire area. They also believe it is the most beautiful and oldest place in the world. While I feel like I can say fairly safely that few Venezuelans have an accurate impression of the Gran Sabana, I definitely think that all the hype it attracts is deserved. It is really a very stunning place. There are enormous, ancient Tepuis (tabletop mountains) that tower above the clouds in every direction. These tepuis are remnants of the Guyana Shield, some of the oldest rock formations in the world (they were formed during the time when the supercontinent Gondwana existed). To give some perspective, these rocks are so old that although they once formed the seabed (you can still see the ripples in the rocks), there are no fossils in them because they were formed BEFORE any organisms that would leave fossils had evolved. Now that’s old.

In the Gran Sabana, we arrived to a little touristy city called Santa Elena de Uraien. We got our tour for the next day figured out— a 7 day backpacking trek up and down Roraima (see photo), one of the most spectacular tepuis. While we thought this might take all day, we ended up having everything figured out by about 9 AM. The tour guide mentioned that he was going across the border into Brazil for the day, and did we want to come with?? So we said, “duh!” and hopped in the taxi with him. It was strange how different everything was so suddenly. One minute you understand the language, recognize the food, are familiar with fashion and customs, and the next moment everything is new and foreign. Very strange. We ate a lot of meat, walked around a bit, and bought a few souvenirs, including some really ridiculous cowboy hats for our trek up the big hill. We excitedly spent the night in Santa Elena cooking a spaghetti dinner, playing cards and drinking beer on the second floor patio in the fresh night breeze.

The next morning we woke up early and went to meet the other hikers: a Dutch girl we had shared a room with the night before, a very friendly Polish girl, and two very personable Australian scientists. After a long, dizzying car ride and a quick lunch we were off on our big trip.

The hike was nothing short of spectacular. It was by far the longest, most ambitious backpacking trip that I have been on to date, and while it was hard and I came off the mountain shivering with blisters, soaking wet clothes, and smelly boots, I enjoyed almost every minute of the trek. The biologist in me was way overstimulated by the unbelievable ecosystem that exists on top of the mountain—the numerous endemic plants and animals, the carnivorous plants everywhere, brilliantly colored flowers growing in an unbelievably harsh environment, the strange animals that have evolved really bizarre characteristics (my personal favorite—the frogs that cannot jump. They walk/waddle instead of jumping. Super hilarious)… it was all like a dream.

We walked for two days to the base of the mountain, one day up, one day across, one day around and back (like 30 km + with packs!!), and for two days to come back. The top of the tepui was like a moonscape, with strange rock formations in every direction. I use the words walking or hiking, but really what we were doing was a lot of jumping from rock to rock, climbing up and down cool rock formations, and fording rivers in socks. We followed faint paths on the rocks, stones worn to a lighter color from all the people passing back and forth down the trails. It made it clear that so much of this enormous structure was left untouched, because if you left the trail you would surely get lost. We started to recognize the other hikers on the mountain, even at a distance, the French crew, the Brazilian women, the Germans…

During the day we explored some of the magnificent sites on top of the mountain—Crystal Valley, an unbelievable strip of perfect quartz crystals, El Foso, a huge cavern eroded by converging water sources, where you can swim and stand under a freezing waterfall, we went to the triple point, where Venezuela, Guyana and Brazilian territories converge in a single point, to Lake Gladys and to the site of a helicopter crash where you see only the remains of the aircraft. At night, we stayed in caves and ate dinner and played cards in good company, talking about the differences in politics, health care and economics between our countries.

Most of the time on top of Roraima it was really misty and wet. The clouds would pass by, above and below and on every side of you, drenching you although it never really rained. Leaving things out to dry often left them wetter than they started. When the sun came out it shined brilliantly, creating full rainbows that you could follow all the way to the ground on both sides. From the cliff at the edge of Roraima, when the sun shone momentarily through the clouds you could see forever, giving you butterflies and making you feel faint only for a moment, until it all disappeared behind the clouds again.

At the end of our trek, they greeted us with lunch, watermelon, coke, and beer. We hopped back in the car for our trip back to the city, exhausted and feeling much more comfortable with each other than the previous time that we were all in a car together. For me, the drive was terrifying. The driver drove like an absolute maniac down these sketchy dirt roads, with cars approaching in an equally crazy manner in the other direction. It was clear how nervous we all were, when suddenly as we drove head on past another vehicle the glass on the side window of our car shattered violently. The driver stopped the car immediately, started swearing and sweeping glass out of the car. We all waited silently, unsure of what to say. Turns out the cars were passing each other so closely that their side view mirrors collided and swung around to smash the window in an impressive explosion. As many of you know, moving vehicles of any sort are my biggest fear in life right now… this did not help. The driver continued on, driving just as crazily until, on behalf of all of the hikers in the car, I said in my politest Spanish, “Excuse me sir, we are all very, very uncomfortable back here, do you think you could slow down just a little bit???” It worked. The power of manners.

Part 3 will be on its way soon enough. I must go eat lunch! If you have facebook I posted a bunh of picture from the trip. If not, I will put a link up here soon so that you can all see them.

OH YEAH!! And Merry Christmas! I almost forgot given the lack of anything I associate with Christmas here… Except I did see a man dressed like Santa driving like a psycho down the street today in a car with only one door and no glass in the windows. A little reminder.  Love you all and I really wish I could be there to celebrate with you!

La Gran Aventura, Part 1

2009-12-22T23:27:00.002-06:00

I find the task of trying to share the details of the last several weeks with everyone somewhat overwhelming, and perhaps that’s why I haven’t done it yet. So let me just start by saying that trip I just came back from was absolutely amazing and I think that it merits more than a single blog post, but I’ll try to keep it a reasonable reading length.

So on my last day of work about 3 weeks ago, I told my classes that we were going to have parties with snacks, games, movies, etc. to celebrate. The previous day, I had told everyone that an amigo of mine was coming and we were about to embark on a grand adventure, to which they all just responded, “ooooooh profe es su novio!!!!! (your boyfriend).” I said no, that in the US it is somewhat normal to have friends of the opposite gender, and to hang out with them platonically. So when Zach arrived about a half hour before the classes started, I decided that the best thing to do would be to just bring him, and entertain the classes by letting everyone ask him whatever they wanted, given that they were already somewhat fascinated by him.

Well it turns out that Venezuelans are unbelievably gullible. When the students arrived, they had apparently forgotten about the “boyfriend” and started asking me who he was, so naturally, the answer was, “my BROTHER, of course!” Now I was shocked that they believed me for several reasons, 1) I had TOLD them the day before who he was, 2) they have seen multiple pictures of my brother and he clearly was not the same person, 3) Zach told them that he LIVES in Merida, and 4) did they really think I wouldn’t say anything beforehand if my brother was coming? Anyways, through this lie I think we both created and averted a great deal of confused chaos regarding the identity of this strange American boy, but it’s kind of sweet that they all now think that they know my brother (sorry Luke, I really wish you were here).

So 4 hours of moderately controlled chaos later, I was released from my duties at the University for 6 weeks! Zach and I got down to business organizing things for our pending departure. Several simple tasks: transfer some money, buy some bus tickets, pack, and make sure we informed the right people about where we would be when. Easy, right? Mas o menos.

Purchasing tickets for traveling here is really ridiculous for two reasons. First, people wait until the absolute last second to buy tickets, and then everyone makes a frantic, mad dash to get tickets ALL AT THE SAME TIME. This results in massive, totally unnecessary lines. Second, when you say I want a ticket to such place from such place, the person selling the tickets might say, “Ok, here’s a ticket for 10 o’clock,” and not until later do you realize that there were actually 4 or 5 different choices of tickets for different times which they most certainly never mentioned.

So we went to the bus terminal the day before our trip to buy bus tickets to Caracas, waited in line an hour or so (in the dark because the electricity went out), only to discover that we could not buy tickets until the next morning. So in the morning, Zach and I split up, I braved the line in the bank (where some crazy man sang happy birthday to the bank tellers for at least 1 hour while I was waiting) while Zach braved the one in the bus terminal. When he returned, he told me that actually we were not able to buy tickets until the bus actually arrived later that afternoon. So we went to my house to pack, to the university to put up grades, etc. etc., and returned a few hours before the bus was to leave only to discover that we were actually not allowed to buy tickets at all because there was no bus. So, royally fed up, we found some other tickets on another bus line (which were of course never mentioned by the lady we had talked to 3 times previously). Tickets in hand, we went home to get everything together and embark on our journey. To our grand surprise, when we arrived back at the terminal with our bags packed, right alongside our bus was the bus that we had planned to take. The nonexistent bus. Feeling puzzled and indifferent towards the sight, we got on the new bus and continued on our way.

The buses here are really pretty awesome. They are called “Buscamas,” Bus meaning bus and cama meaning bed. So, though these buses tend to be anywhere from about 10-14 C (aka FREEZING), they are super comfortable, with footrests and seats that recline almost horizontally. Very posh. I was somewhat puzzled when I saw people entering the bus with thick blankets and wool sweaters, beanies, scarves, maybe some mittens… but when the temperature gauge read -12 C on the last bus we were on, I felt much more envious than confused towards the people bundled up in their winter gear (this temperature reading is not a lie, though I am fairly certain that the thermometer was poorly calibrated). On the buscamas, they also tend to play either very vulgar or violent movies for your enjoyment until maybe 1 AM and then again starting at about 5 or 6 AM, but in general, the trips are quite pleasant. So we rode the night away, the first bus of many to come, and arrived in Caracas at around 6 AM.

Caracas is one of those places that is just so notoriously dangerous that I have made a point to just avoid it altogether when at all possible (note: creepy recent NYT article about grave robbers in Caracas). On our short taxi drive from the bus terminal we saw a body under a tarp, someone apparently killed in a recent car accident. The danger and political turmoil noted, I also think that it is a very dynamic, interesting city with a LOT of culture and complicated politics. In Caracas, we were fortunate to receive wonderful hospitality from a couple that works for the embassy. We rode the Teleferico, a really awesome cable car that takes you to the top of the tallest nearby mountain. At the top of the mountain you find many strange things, like people dressed as fairies, strange candies, LOTS of fruit and whipped cream, chocolate, and most importantly some stunning views of the city.
Caracas is a hugely populated city crammed into a single mountain valley, the city “planning” is absolutely horrendous, and from way up high you can just see the chaos manifested in the architecture. Buildings apparently stacked one on top of the other on top of taller buildings next to skyscrapers behind abandoned warehouses in front of mud shacks stacked 6 tall surrounded by ghettos of tin roofs. Complete disorder and poorly constructed buildings. The city is really quite a sight, the poverty is inescapably apparent, as is the fear people feel towards authorities there. On our way home, as Zach and I sat in a little restaurant on the side of the street eating bland bowls of chicken soup, every so often, someone would shout something about the police and everyone would go running behind cars, looking for shelter, or at least back up against some sort of building. A moment later, 5 or 6 motorcycles with cops on them would come zooming through the neighborhood, and once they passed everything would return to normal. Very different from the world that I am used to.

Anyways, we had a lovely night of good company, Lebanese food, and belly dancing in Caracas, and our friends very graciously took us to the airport the next morning to send us off on our next leg of the trip. We flew to Puerto Ordaz, the city where the two biggest rivers in Venezuela come together, the Orinoco River and the Caroni River. There were some spectacular waterfalls, unbelievable parks, and we had our first sighting of an animal that we had never seen before. We are still not entirely sure what it is, but definitely some sort of huge rodent capybara like thing. See for yourself…

After spending the day lounging in parks, we established with our taxi driver as a meeting place the largest centro commercial (read: mall) that I have seen to date in Venezuela. The first reason why this was a mistake: there were SO MANY PEOPLE! How does one go about finding a solitary taxi driver? The second reason: Malls are mostly just overwhelming for me, and Latin American malls even worse…. Anyways, we entertained ourselves by watching the signs that rolled independently down the hallways and people watching. After hours of entertaining ourselves, tracking down missing taxi drivers, and running around the city, we arrived at our next Buscama, where we kicked back, relaxed, and enjoyed the ride.

… Part 2, plus pictures, to come… I post this now only to satisfy my most demanding readers. Watch for the rest. I’ll try to put it up asap.

We made it!

2009-12-15T13:34:00.002-06:00

Many days, bus rides, bug bites, beautiful views, and sore muscles later, I am thrilled to say that we made it through Caracas, through Puerto Ordaz, Santa Elena, and to the top and back to the bottom of Roraima. The group we were with was fantastic- two Australians, a Dutch girl and a Polish girl, along with several guides and porters. It was absolutely spectacular, and you will soon be getting many stories and pìctures.

We are now in Ciudad Bolivar, where we will be catching a five person plane to Angel Falls tomorrow. In the meantime, there are 10 meter tall statues of Simon Bolivar, the Orinoco River, and botanical gardens that must be explored in this city before our pending departure.

I just have a moment on the internet right now, but I just thought I would let you all know that we are safe, having a fabulous time, and I wish I could just stick you all in my giant backpack and hike you to the top of the falls.

Hasta luego, espero que sepan que los extraño mucho. Cuidense y escribire mas tarde.

Yes yes yes!

2009-12-04T14:19:00.004-06:00

Well, I am thrilled to say that I am finally writing to you all on my very own brand spankin’ new computer sent all the way from the US of A. That’s right, about a month after the tragic theft of my computer and camera, I have both again and I am so excited to share all of my tales with you!!!

First of all, let me update you on the thief drama in Valera. After thinking through the whole facebook friendship with man who stole my electronics from my bedroom, I decided it would be prudent to delete him from my facebook friends. So I did just that about 3 days ago, hoping that I could just put the whole event behind me. With my new computer, new camera and new attitude, I felt that it was a bad idea to have e-friends that I knew were capable of robbing me. So with a click of a button, I thought I was erasing all contact that I might have with the maldito, forgetting about him by intentionally eliminating him from my life. Well, to my EXTREME surprise, within 24 hours, the TIPO noticed that I had unfriended him and he RE-FRIENDED me… UNBELIEVABLE! So not only did he rob me AND friend me on facebook, he re-friended me when I insisted that we were, in fact, NOT FRIENDS, but rather something like enemies. I am considering writing him a long message full of all of the Spanish and English curse words that I can think of. Good idea or bad idea, what do you all think???? I am torn. It just sounds so, so , so… satisfying. And yet, I usually try to avoid offending dangerous drug addicts with knife scars and tattoos all over their bodies… especially ones that have previously robbed me of all my valuables. He did bring me pizzas and fish when he was still courting me though, so I guess it was more like a trade. A camera and a computer for a couple of cheap dinners… I definitely lost. One point for the dangerous drug addict. Zero for me.

The other most recent thief news is fresh chisme (gossip). Another laptop was stolen from the University last night, except this time it was a somewhat impressive, though offensive act of thievery. The thief scaled the side of the university building, managed to remove the second story window, enter the university building and steal a laptop that a faculty member had left there overnight. Pretty ballsy, huh? So just to clarify what this means-- we are dealing with creative, agile, and fearless thieves here…

But enough about robbery, let’s talk about something else… I leave tonight for a FABULOUS two week long trip! Zach (from Merida) arrived yesterday afternoon in Valera, and tonight marks the first leg of our adventure to the other side of the country. We will be visiting such spectacular places as, Angel Falls, Roraima, Caracas, Puerto Ordaz, Ciudad Bolivar, and WHO KNOWS where else!! Actually, we have everything planned out, so we do know exactly where we are going… generally a good idea not to wander aimlessly in dangerous countries. Here´s our plan, follow us on a map!:

December 4th: Leave Valera. Night bus to Caracas
December 5th: Arrive in Caracas. Stay with a very gracious Embassy employee. Prepare for Sunday morning flight.
December 6th: Fly from Caracas to Puerto Ordaz at 10 am. Visit crazy waterfalls in Puerto Ordaz. Take night bus to Santa Elena de Uairen.
December 7th: Rest in Santa Elena de Uairen
December 8th-14th: 7 day long Roraima TREK with Kamadac Tours (It sounds pretty hard core)
December 14th: Night bus to Ciudad Bolivar OR Fly to Canaima (Details pending)
December 15th or 16th - December 18th or 19th: Boat tour of Angel Falls, sleep in bush camp right in front of the world´s tallest waterfall
December 19th: Fly from Ciudad Bolivar to Caracas.

Back to Valera??? I´ll probably take a bus by myself back from Caracas, since Zach is headed back to the USA to visit his family for Christmas!

So that´s the latest. I won´t be around for about two weeks, but if there is an internet café I will try to sneak in a blog post. Love you all and happy trails!

"...What kind of animal is it from...?"

2009-11-27T08:13:00.001-06:00

I can`t believe how long it has been since I have written on here. There is so much to catch up on that I don`t even know where to start!

First things first… Probably the most dramatic thing that has happened to me in the last two weeks was a recent occurrence related to food— it happened only two days ago. I was Skyping on Monday evening with my Dad and Donna, happily chatting away when I was told that the dinner someone had made me was getting cold. In Venezuela, the biggest meal of the day is lunch. People eat a big bowl of soup and a heaping plate of food for lunch, and for dinner they often just eat a piece of bread with cheese, nothing, a piece of fruit, or more typically, an arepa (basically a thick corn tortilla) with meat, eggs, cheese or something else. I often prepare my own dinner, and sometimes dinner for the whole family, but lately Tarary who has proven to be among the sweetest men in the world, has been making us delicious dinners of fried empanadas, arepas with avocado and cheese, elaborate sandwiches, and many other fried delicacies that I don`t know how to explain. So I was not surprised by the news that someone had made me dinner.

In the kitchen, everyone was standing around, some eating, others already finished, some choosing not to eat dinner, when they gave me a plate. On the plate was an arepa with little chunks of some sort of meat in some sort of red sauce. I eat a lot of things that I don`t recognize here, sometimes eventually figuring out what they are…. OH! It`s sardines! Or OH! It`s spam! Or OH! This chicken noodle soup has oatmeal in it! Or OH! It`s that weird hairy vegetable that I saw in the market the other day… or OH! That potato is purple and I guess I just have NO IDEA WHY! So I asked what it was, and they said it was chicken. Ok, likely story given that it looks NOTHING LIKE CHICKEN.

So I started eating it, everyone watching a little too closely. It was sort of the texture of squid… a little spongy, with a little bit of gristle on it. Too spongy for chicken, too tough for poultry. I kind of stopped eating the meat and just ate the arepa… “This does not taste like chicken,” I said, “What is it??” I already had an idea of what it might be. I suspected that it was something that I had seen in the supermarket, something that I hoped I would never, ever be served, but I didn`t want to accuse anyone of lying to me so I kept with the questions.

“What part of the animal is it from??” … We don`t know what it is called in English. “What kind of animal is it from?” … A vaca, okay, a cow. “What is it called?” “Mondongo.” AHHHHH! My suspicions were confirmed. I was, in fact, eating a big plate of COW INTESTINES. Awesome. Four years of vegetarianism, and now I am sitting here with a plate of COW INTESTINES that I am expected to eat. I decided to draw the line. I said I couldn`t eat anymore, that this would be REALLY weird and considered really disgusting in my country, and I just couldn`t get past it. They were like, “But WHY? It isn`t like it`s a weird thing to eat or anything…”

“In my country, it would be just as weird to eat cow intestines as it would be to eat crickets, or to eat a snake…” I told them. “EW! I would NEVER EAT THOSE, THAT IS SO WEIRD!!!!” they responded. And so they took my cow intestines, and told me that they would eat them for breakfast because they were too full from the huge plates of intestines they had already eaten to eat them now. And we laughed… and I felt a little gross…

In other news, I feel REALLY busy lately. My typical week has been to wake up around 6:30, leave at around 7:30 for work (either teaching English classes to elementary aged kids in rural schools with Bibliomulas or tutoring at the American Corner). I am there from about 8 until 12, when we face the horrible colas (translated: traffic jams) to go home for lunch. Susana, my host mom, makes us lunch, which is typically very good, though there are always some slightly different things. Want some ketchup on your rice? Mayonnaise on your pasta? Lime on your green beans?

I then come back to the university for my level two English class, from 2-4, and my children`s class from 4-6. I absolutely love my level 2 class. It is so fun, we always laugh, and it is really great to see how much they have learned in 11 weeks (most of my level 2 students are from my level 1 class)! My little kids class is challenging, and I will be relieved when it is over. Afterwards, I sometimes stay in the University until around 8 correcting exams and homework and planning classes, or else I do it in my house. I make dinner, hang out with the family, sometimes skype a little, and go to bed pretty late. Add in hand-washing all my clothes and trying to keep up with foreign correspondence and HAVING FRIENDS. It`s a lot.

The good news is that without a computer, I have certainly had lots of time to hang out with friends, travel, and experience many, many different (cough) cultural activites. I went to Maracaibo last weekend, where I found myself at a professional baseball game, drinking watery beer with a whole bunch of ex-professional baseball players (as in they played in the US) in our own VIP box. Below us, we could see people throwing beers through the stadiums, mascots dancing salsa and merengue out on the field, people shouting unfamiliar chants in Spanish. The vendors brought us fried plantains, churros, whiskey and other foods that I wouldn`t expect at a baseball game, but that were fabulously delicious. After the game, I went out to a gay club with friends. I would leave out the detail that it was a gay club, except that it meant that I was in the unique situation of feeling comfortable in front of nearly all the men I saw. We danced the night away, until the sun rose and the lights were turned on. We ate a breakfast of pastelitos (essentially mozzarella sticks in circular form) before we went to bed, finally collapsing in our beds at about 8 in the morning.

I have also had the opportunity to attend some musical and dance performances. I`m sure it will come as a surprise to many of you that Venezuela has one of the most progressive music education programs in the world. In Venezuela, there is a program called El Sistema, which essentially funds music education for poor children nationwide. There are youth orchestras in every city, including Valera, and they are incredibly talented. Many conductors for some of the most famous orchestras in the US are Venezuelan-born and participated in El Sistema. SO, needless to say, there are many very talented musicians here. About a week ago, I went to an event which was essentially American Idol for the university where I teach. University students and professors competed for the title of best voice in the university. Every single person who participated was very talented, though some were truly incredible. The most impressive group was a vocal quintet at the end which sang some of the most interesting and tight harmonies I have ever heard in a small ensemble. There was also a mediocre, somewhat strange dance performance at the end. It involved a lot of girls, some Shakira songs, and some sparkly scarves. A strange way to finish off the night, but nonetheless entertaining.

I also attended a showcase of Flamenco dancing about two weeks ago. The dancing was really entertaining. I could barely sit still in my seat on the stairs while watching the women dance. It made me want to wear a flowing skirt and stomp my feet… the awkward part of the night, though, was that the friend of mine who invited me to the event was a participant in the dance. You know how in every dance performance, there`s always that one person who is spinning the wrong direction, and gives an extra three stomps after everyone is stopped… well that was my friend. Painful to watch, but definitely a really fun event!!! It made me want to take Flamenco classes.

So that about brings us up to date. My classes end next Thursday and I have planned a fantastic trip to Angel Falls, the tallest waterfall in the world (and one of the natural wonders!!), and to several other places in the Amazon/Orinoco River delta on the other side of the country. I am also planning to spend a week on the beach after Christmas! So I am peachy as can be, awaiting the delivery of a new computer that my Dad and Donna so graciously and generously sent to me this week, correcting homework and learning new Spanish slang every day. I hope you had wonderful Thanksgivings! Hasta luego!

What´s a girl to do???

2009-11-13T09:51:00.001-06:00

I would like to think that if I ever saw someone stealing a car, I would interfere in some way, shape, or form… But I now know from experience that when witness to car theft, I don´t do anything. I just stare in disbelief as I watch someone wheel away a car that is not theirs.

You see, last Saturday, I watched someone get their car stolen. How strange, huh? At about 5 in the morning, when we were standing outside our house, we watched a group of about 4 or 5 boys pushing a car that was clearly not theirs down the street... But in retrospect, I really have no idea what we could have done. I sure wasn´t about to intervene physically in their sketchy nighttime activities, I have no idea how I would call the police even if I wanted to, chances are the license plates would be useless, … what else is a girl to do when witness to grand theft auto? Keep her mouth shut and stay away from the dangerous people, right? Maybe that´s a cop out, but it is what I chose to do…

I was talking with a friend here about theft, a common theme in this country. I told him that I felt confused because I felt like the time I spent in Africa made me aware of how to hold my possessions so they won´t get stolen, how to behave so that I won´t get robbed, and how to exist in a city where thefts are common. And yet, everything that I have is being stolen repeatedly. In the airport, from my bedroom, when I go out… He said something that really left an impression, ¨The difference is that in Africa, people steal for necessity, while here, people steal for pleasure…¨ It´s a game. It´s an addiction. Ain´t that the truth.

In other bizarre theft news, the guy who stole my computer and camera and skipped town recently friended me on facebook. There is no rational explanation for this behavior, in my mind. I have concluded that he is totally out of his mind… He won´t respond to my emails or texts, but he wants to be friends on facebook?? MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE CONSIDERED THAT BEFORE YOU STOLE MY STUFF YOU CRAZY PSYCHO! Whew, glad I let that out publicly. But seriously, wtf, right?

In other news, there has been a recent breakout of tropical diseases among my acquaintances here. Some of the diseases have been identified, others of have not. A student of mine has dengue, the boy who was helping me with my class of devil children has hepatitis A, the director of the language center has something really fierce, Yervio has a sinus infection, … I am just waiting to see which one of my at least 12-15 vaccinations fails me. Haha, it wouldn´t be traveling if you didn´t get sick at least once, or so I tell myself. We´ll see.

Alright, so this time it was my fault...

2009-11-08T12:46:00.002-06:00

I have been robbed not once, not twice, but now three times. The first two I feel were out of my control. Last night, though, was just foolishness. I brought my little bag, that contained nothing more than about $10, my cheapo cellphone, keys and cough drops to the bathroom when we were out dancing. I left it in the bathroom without realizing it. About 5 minutes later, when I realized and went back, it was gone.

So I have officially lost all contact to the outside world both foreignly and domestically.

The most liberating part, though, was that I really didn´t even care anymore. I no longer have any material attachments, I think. So I just kept bailando until 5 in the morning, like they do here... salsa, merengue, reggaeton, gaita, cumbia, without a care in the world...

Oh no, you killed an alligator!

2009-11-05T06:38:00.003-06:00

I noticed a kind of funny smell when I walked through my doorway the other day. There are lots of funny smells in this country, though, so I thought very little of it.

Yesterday, as Yervio walked past my room he said, "Oh no! You killed an alligator!"

"What?" I thought... this is making no sense.

"Or, how do you call that?" he asked.

I walked over to the doorway, and sure enough, squished flat between the door and the doorframe were the remnants of a tiny lizard.

Ooooh... an alligator. I get it. That`s really sad.

"La gente esta mirando yo!!!"

2009-11-02T18:55:00.001-06:00

There are so many things I want to say to you all, and yet so little time to say them, given that I work between 10-12 hours a day and I don`t have a computer. So the quality and quantity of these blog posts may decline significantly in the next few weeks/months while I deal with my little computer issue, but I will try my best to keep you all up to date.

About the pictures I just put up— Needless to say, my hiking trip this weekend was absolutely incredible. Late last Thursday night I decided to skip out on an optional Friday morning meeting, opting instead to wake up at 6AM to leave for Merida. The weekend before last Zach went hiking at La Sierra de la Culata National Park to scout out potential hiking trips. He decided this park would make for a lovely hiking trip, and it also happens to be one of the only national parks outside of Merida where you are not required to have a guide to go backcountry camping.

So I rolled out of bed on Friday morning, excited and sleepy, and went solo down to the terminal. I waited a short while, took my somewhat uncomfortable spot in a crowded car that smelled strongly of gasoline and artificial air fresheners, and we were off. Even though I have now experienced the ride between Valera and Merida four times, I still think it is spectacular. It was different this time, though, given that I wasn’t concerned about capturing images to send home. I noticed that the views change each time you travel the route, mostly because different peaks are obscured by clouds each time. A simple hill may be visible on one trip, but on another trip, in the same place you might see enormous craggy mountains dusted with snow directly behind that hill that you thought stood alone.

The trip went quickly, somewhat uneventful. As usual, I was shocked by things I saw, like a sheep dangling from its hind legs along the side of the road, or the man carrying an enormous, bloody cow carcass on his back. I was amused by things, like seeing the acronym F.A.R.T. spray painted in five-foot-tall letters on the side of buildings. As usual, I hung on for dear life throughout the majority of the trip, as we took turns so hard that the dashboard upholstery slid off the dashboard. I stared out the window in awe of the mountains, noticing that in this country houses, like flowers, can be any shade of any color of the rainbow. We stopped for a short break, where a nun appeared out of nowhere and offered me some toilet paper. I was strangely touched by the gesture. Back in the car, I noticed people in the taxi take interest in me. I put on my ipod, thinking that, “today, I just don`t want to be interesting to anyone….”

In Valera, Zach and I immediately got down to business. We had to find me a sleeping bag. The word around town was that a man named Manuel had a business downtown where he rented camping gear. “Cheap rentals, steep deposits,” they had said. While waiting for Manuel, we stumbled upon an enormous graveyard. We walked through it, admiring the large, elevated tombs adorned with nylon flowers. We speculated about the ages of the tombs, how they had been placed together in such a tightly woven maze. The graveyards here are eerily beautiful, seas of catholic symbols and weathered stone crosses. Most graves are elevated at least a few feet above the ground, with headstones no shorter than chest height. There appears to be no order to how graves are placed, nor any clear indication of how old the graves might be.

We finally tracked down Manuel, I rented a sleeping bag for slightly less than $2 a day, and we went to go stock up on supplies. We spoiled ourselves, buying fresh strawberries, avocados, star fruit, dried apricots, almonds, candied peanuts, fresh breads, Chilean wine, fresh cheese and fine Venezuelan chocolate. The next day we woke up early, and took a bus to the entrance of the park. The hike was almost completely straight up, some parts like stairs, others more gradual, but it was absolutely stunning. The first hour or two were nice, but the hike started to become really incredible when we arrived at our first peak, to overlook the deep valleys below.
The majority of the mountainous land in this area is fairly arid, almost desert-like, but here there were verdant valleys interspersed throughout the arid land. The dirt in these river valleys was some of the darkest I think I have ever seen, and the ground blossomed with various flowers, mostly yellow, pink, and purple. The first of these valleys we saw was so impressive that we stopped to take a photo. Suddenly we heard, “La gente esta mirando yo!!!” (The people are looking at me!!!) only to see a naked man frolicking through the stream, attempting to make himself decent. We laughed and continued on.

We continued upwards. Up, up, and more up. We were exhausted, and it started raining, a gentle, cool rain. Zach loaned me his rain pants, a gesture that will definitely not be forgotten. We arrived at another pass, to look down upon yet another verdant valley, this one filled with cows and clouds, and a refugio (shelter). We walked on, crossed the river, reaching for each others` hands so we didn`t trip on the slippery rocks into the frigid water. As the weather cleared up, we were shocked by the view that was revealed. Behind the beautiful rolling mountains that we could see immediately in front of us were enormous peaks, towering far, far above the hills we had been admiring. The peaks of the mountains were craggy, impossibly vertical.

We went to bed early, after eating spaghetti with our fingers (we forgot forks). The full moon was a mixed blessing, beautiful, but it prevented us from taking full advantage of the star chart that I had brought. Another trip, I thought. Because there will surely be more.

When we woke up the next morning, my body was like an enormous shivering ice cube. I was joking that I wondered if there was frost outside, only to realize about a half an hour later that there really was frost on everything. We were up and gone by about 6:30. Frost… In Venezuela… still weird. We warmed up quickly once we got moving, and were soon down to a single layer. We walked out in about half the time it took us to walk there. The trip back to Valera was quiet again, uneventful, and yet unbelievably stunning at the same time.

On another note, it is odd to imagine all that is happening in the US while I am here. I have been here for almost 2 months now, but it really doesn`t seem like it. I know that it is now starting to be winter in Minnesota, that many things have changed at home in the last few months, and that I am missing important events that pass without me even knowing.

I was particularly peeved about missing Halloween, given that it is one of my favorite holidays. Knowing that I would miss it, I decided to throw Halloween parties in the American Corner for my classes at the university (I have two classes now, a class of level 2 English students, and a class of children that are mostly kids of people who work at the university). I dressed up like a black cat, to the enjoyment of basically the entire university, and everyone brought treats in to share. Some students dressed up, but very few. Most students brought candy, but a lot of them brought tequeños, which are something like mozzarella sticks. Very delicious.

My students read about the history of Halloween (I learned a lot). We listened to scary stories, attempted to watch the Michael Jackson Thriller video…. And then they asked me to rap for them in English. I don`t know why I obliged in this moment, but for some reason the rap from the King Burger YouTube video came to me in full force, and I embraced the moment… rapping for them… eating candy and cheese sticks, dressed like a cat in a room with walls painted like American flags, a life-sized cutout of Obama watching me as I shared the best of American culture with these unsuspecting Venezuelan university students. “Now this is what the Fulbright is really about,” I thought….

Look at these pictures!

2009-11-01T21:38:00.005-06:00

Backpacking in the mountains!

2009-10-30T06:54:00.002-05:00

...That`s what I`m planning to do outside of Merida this weekend. I`m off to the bus station right now. More to come. Love you.

The day a feather fell from the sky into the house...

2009-10-27T18:25:00.003-05:00

Today, many things happened to me that would never happen in the US. A few examples, today was the first time in my life that I have ever ridden a mule, the first time a US embassador recognized me and asked me where we had met, (I think) the first time I have ever drank canteloupe juice, the first time I saw a lime the size of a football, and definitely the first time I have seen that a feather had fallen from a bird in the sky directly into my house. All this and it`s only 5:33. When I return from the university director`s house in a few hours, where I will be socializing with the American ambassador and company, I`m sure that I will have more experiences to report on.

So, let me be clear-- the US ambassador arrived in Valera today. While it seemed like nobody really knew that he was coming, the preparations that went in to two very short events were somewhat unbelievable. Security people, embassy people, university people, community members, etc… everyone rounding up to show the ambassador and his wife and daughter a good time, to take some pictures, donate some cheesey toys adorned with American flags, and photograph the ambassador with some donkey-mule-horse animals. His arrival was part of a larger trip, in which he traveled to three or four major cities in Valera to do various things. In Valera, he was meeting with Bibliomulas because they are donating $7000 to buy another mule, books, materials, etc, and he was going to inaugurate the American Corner, which was going to involve ribbon cutting and little kids speaking English.

Sounds nice, right? Well, there were only a few problems: 1) The fact that nobody had really done any of the preparations until this morning/afternoon, and 2) The violent protestors blocking off the streets.

When I came home, I said something that I hear my family say all the time when something gets messed up, “Se jodio la verga.” But when I said it, they all burst out laughing. Apparently, that means roughly, “Shit got all fucked up.” This is when I realized just how much my host mom swears, and how much I am like a little kid, repeating whatever I hear. Haha. I kind of love it. They wanted me to say it to the ambassador. I told them that I didn`t want to get sent home…

In other lack-of-news, there is no word on my computer. The police have been overly nice to me, in that they have not only helped me look for the ugly beast of a man that stole my stuff, but they have also asked me on dates and said things like, “I thought about you as I went to bed last night.” Real nice, huh? Well, hopefully my blonde hair will attract enough help that my stuff will be recovered. Word about the robbery traveled fast, for example, I met someone from the embassy in Caracas today. I said, “Hi, I`m Anna.” To which he responded, “I`m really sorry about the bad thing that happened.” Awesome. In class, one of my students said, “Why were you at the Petejota (police station) this weekend? My dad works there and he said a gringa came.” But seriously, a lot of people are really mad, and a lot of them happen to know people who work in the police station. The more eyes, the merrier. In the meantime, I am considering buying a netbook. Any thoughts? Opinions? Objections?

I will leave you with my biggest epiphany of late--- that I`m pretty sure our dogs are actually more fashionable than I am. For example, they went to get haircuts last week (something I rarely do) and came back with little bows in their hair (or should I say on their ears?). The old blind one has pink bows, while the young spastic one has yellow bows. They have been wearing them for about a week, and every time I see them I think that maybe I should go buy a headband, or at least a sparkly scrunchie or something…

....nahhhhh.

Tootsie roll...

2009-10-24T09:48:00.003-05:00

Last night I found a tootsie roll wrapper in my pocket, so worn out it must have been washed several times. Funny, I thought... I haven`t seen one of these in a while...

Maybe the wind blew it away...

2009-10-23T16:50:00.001-05:00

Do let me explain. I realize that I you with very little information about this robbery…

Many people live in our house, as I have previously described. I assumed that these are all people that Susana and family know or at least trust on the most basic level. Some of them have been living there for years, coming and going, others not. The thing is, I don´t know who is who.

Alberto has been friendly with me, sending me nice text messages daily, bringing me dinner at night, proposing marriage. It almost seemed like an obsession for the past week, he was contacting me so much. The other night, he came into my room when I was on my computer. I had my camera on my desk, and he saw it. He warned me that I shouldn´t bring my camera to the university because there are thieves all over the place.

Yesterday he told me he was on his way to the cyber cafe, so I told him that I wasn´t using my computer and he could use it this once. I had to go to class, but every other person who lives in the house was there. I couldn´t imagine that someone who lived in the house, who knew that we know where he works, where he´s from, could steal something that valuable right under the noses of everyone.

Talarin, Susana´s uncle, bought two chickens yesterday. He brought them home in a big,opaque black plastic bag. He left the bag in kitchen. He said that when he came back from the bathroom, the bag was gone. Maybe the wind blew it away, he thought, reasonable since the house is essentially outside.

When I came back from class my computer wasn´t in my room. I sent Alberto a text message asking him where he had left it. He didn´t answer. I went to the park with Susana, and on the way for the first time I thought that maybe the computer had been stolen. I decided I would look for my camera as well when I returned.

I went straight to my room, and the camera and charger were gone. My webcam, computer charger, hard drive and my cellphone from the US were still there. Shit hit the fan when I told the family.

The thing is, the bruto (translated: dumbass) left all of his most important papers in the house. He left the equivalent of his driver´s license, passport, birth certificate and resume.

This morning we went to the police station, where they looked at the documents. The officer told us that he had been recently arrested for something related to drugs. He hasn´t come back to the house. I sent him several text messages, offering four hundred dollars for the stuff, saying dont sell that computer to someone else because it is worth much more to me than to anyone else in this country.

In reality, I had almost everything backed up, I think. All I don´t have are the pictures from Nathaniel and my trip and the pictures I have taken here. What I was really upset about was losing the ability to talk to you guys when I want to, to connect to the outside world ¨magically¨ as my dad says, which it really is. I have the money to buy a new computer and camera, and I guess I will.

Having my bike stolen was like sick, good practice, this honestly feels like round two of that robbery. My frustrations with the two things are opposite: With the camera, I am frustrated because it was so old that it wasn´t worth anything, with the camera I am frustrated because it was brand new, a waste. I kind of expected to have one of those things stolen, but not at the beginning of the trip like this, and definitely not from my bedroom. I feel like there is no chance I will get anything back. The guy is obviously a drug addict, out of his mind. I´m sure he stole it to get his next high and now he´s wandering the streets, can´t go to work, can´t come home.

In the house, everyone told me that they thought it was very trusting that I often left my windows and doors open while I was home, where he could see your computer. BUT THAT´S WHAT I WAS TOLD TO DO!!! I was specifically told to leave my windows and door open. Geez. Sometimes, I just don´t know. People here assume that I know things that I could never intuit… Like to do the opposite of what they tell me.

We are going back to the police station tomorrow. Several friends of friends are helping us, but I honestly can´t imagine what they can do. Perhaps arrest him, but recovering my stuff is like a needle in a haystack. Not to mention they have things like regular homicides to deal with, slightly more important than a rich gringa getting robbed of an old computer.

I guess it´s another excuse to go shopping. Or for you all to come visit me soon.

Maldito.

2009-10-22T19:49:00.000-05:00

Someone who has been renting a room in the house where I live stole my computer and my camera. I am in a state of shock. He also managed to steal the camera charger, but fool forgot the computer charger. Idiot.

Snow? In Venezuela?

2009-10-20T13:02:00.000-05:00

In general, Venezuela is really, really hot. So you can imagine my surprise when I saw snow this weekend… On Thursday, I made a last minute decision to go visit Merida, a city higher up in the mountains, known for being a land of adventure. In Merida, you can go hiking, mountain biking, paragliding, canyoning (which I think means belaying down waterfalls?), whitewater rafting, or participate in basically any other extreme mountain sport you can think of. Unfortunately, I did none of these things this weekend, but I did get to visit two wonderful Fulbrighters who are living there. And we made tentative plans to do almost all of the above in the future.

The road between Valera and Merida is absolutely stunning. I thought that the mountains in Valera were beautiful, but I had no idea just how picturesque the Andes could be before this weekend. The trip was about 4 hours long, and I spent nearly the entire trip (both directions) with my arm hanging out the window, snapping picture of the unbelievable vistas. There was so much to see, so much to capture in pictures. Brightly colored houses, fields of artichokes and papayas, strawberries and cabbage, a world-class observatory, palms and cacti growing in the shade of pine forests, broken down cars, houses in impossibly high places, fields of all different shapes, wrinkly old men in cowboy hats, gorgeous middle aged women in parkas and winter caps, crosses adorned in flowers along the side of the road commemorating loved ones, cars with many dents, broken down cars, epiphytic vines draped over the forests, children playing, children working, sheep, horses, stray animals, rushing rivers and small waterfalls. Wildflowers dotted the sides of mountains as we climbed, but at the top of the peaks, there was only one single plant covering every square foot of land—a simple yellow flower grew for as far as you could see, and further. The rainshadow on the eastern side of the mountains was readily visible—the Western side was cloudy and wet, while the Eastern side was dry, almost desert-like, after the moisture was squeezed out of the clouds. When we turned a sharp corner to see the snow-covered Pico de Aguila (Eagle Peak), I let out an audible gasp. Everyone agreed with me that it was, “demasiado bonito,” “It is too beautiful…” when covered in snow. I felt lucky when they told me that only occasionally is it dusted with snow like it was that day.

But the trip was more than just sights— my throat felt cold as I breathed in the clouds that surrounded us and filled our car, and I fought coughs as my lungs were filled with trails of black smoke left by trucks struggling to climb the mountains. The smell of chicken grilling on the side of the road was like summertime at home, but the smell of sour garbage reminded me of how far away I am. The drivers changed CDs every hour or so, and we listened to ballads in Spanish, mostly love, and Gaita, the traditional Christmas music in Venezuela. I felt dizzy and slightly nauseous as we wound around the endless curves, the whole way up to Pico de Aguila, and the whole way back down. I felt the person sitting next to me lean on me, perhaps resting against me for a while, I enjoyed how normal it is to touch another person in this culture, enjoyed the fact that everyone in the car refers to me as “hija,” their “daughter.”

Merida was really fun— I stayed with Zach (the Fulbrighter who visited Valera last weekend), who has a refreshing amount of independence given his lack of host family. We slept in, ate French toast with pineapple, mangoes and passionfruit when we felt like it, walked all over the city, met our friend Emma when she wasn’t working, drank wine when we wanted to, and lounged around just because we could. I love my host family, but it is sometimes exhausting to tiptoe through a culture that is not your own, trying your hardest to not offend anyone, sometimes unsuccessfully. The American companionship was greatly appreciated, and even more needed on my part.

We were planning to go to the zoo with Emma over the weekend, but we ended up like gringos so often do, walking in circles until we realized that it was too late to do what we wanted. Instead we went to a vegetarian restaurant for dinner and just relaxed the night away. It was wonderful.

My trip to Merida was refreshing—it was fun to experience an adventure on my own, to have some level of independence restored in my life. I was also lovin’ the sightseeing along the way, especially once I realized that basically the only sightseeing I have done thus far is visit statues of religious figures and/or virgins that tower above the rest of the city, like the ones featured in pictures to come...

Uncomfortable with touching?

2009-10-14T20:01:00.003-05:00

An excerpt from my level one English textbook: “Dancing: Up Close or at a Distance?"

"Richard loves to dance, and he goes dancing often. Margaret is the opposite. She says she can’t dance. Maybe that’s true. She says people always laugh at her when she dances. But is it possible that there’s another reason? Maybe she’s afraid to dance. When you dance, you usually have to touch another person, your partner. Maybe Margaret is uncomfortable with touching…. Richard likes ‘free’ dances with no specific steps, like rock. Many people prefer free dances because they allow them to express their individuality.”

These are the materials I have to work with to teach about English language and culture… I really believe that everyone should try explaining the phrase "uncomfortable with touching" to a group of about 25 16-18 year olds in a foreign language. It's bound to be a hilarious experience... No wonder everyone wants me to dance for them, they just want to make fun of my individualistic “free dances” that they have studied in class. Ridiculous.

Bathrooms and nightclubs...

2009-10-12T17:20:00.002-05:00

I must warn you, there will be explicit bathroom talk in this blogpost. Here’s the thing, when you are in a new place, it’s always nice to know where the bathroom is, and understand how to use it. So in case anyone reading this blog is planning to come to Venezuela, pay particular attention. Bathrooms here are not like in the US, and some things require explanation.

Here’s the first thing I don’t understand. Nobody keeps toilet paper anywhere near the toilet. For example, at the university, there are like 8 stalls in the bathroom, but only two toilet paper dispensers outside of the stalls. So you must predict how much toilet paper you plan to use and bring it in with you. This is true in public and private places. For example, in our house, the toilet paper is stored in the medicine cabinet behind the mirror above the sink. It took me a while to figure out where it was, wondering if this was a repeat of East Africa, where nobody used toilet paper. I don’t understand why people do this. There are empty toilet paper dispensers in every bathroom stall, and next to every toilet, but the toilet paper is always kept elsewhere. It’s almost as if people did not understand what those little attachments on the wall are for, but they put them in each bathroom anyways. I asked my host mom one day why she keeps it behind the mirror, and she said that people steal the toilet paper when she leaves it next to the toilet. This makes no sense to me, given that people could just as easily steal it from the medicine cabinet, because we all know that that is where it resides.

There are other important differences in bathrooms here. For example, once you find the toilet paper, it is very important to remember that you cannot put it in the toilet. The plumbing here cannot handle toilet paper, so you must throw it in the trashcan next to the toilet. I have been pretty good about remembering to do this— but 22 years of throwing toilet paper into the toilet creates a pretty engrained habit, so I occasionally forget. Another major difference, you often must flip several switches, rotate a lever in the other room, open a faucet and wait 10 minutes before you will be able to use a bathroom. For example, in our shower at home, there is a switch on the wall, and one on the showerhead that apparently regulate water temperature. As far as I can tell, though, the water is always the same tepid temperature, regardless of the switches. I have showered in other places where you must first release the water from a large tank on the roof by climbing on the roof, and must align a series of levers before water will flow into the system so you can enjoy your tepid shower. Other differences, you must often pay to use public bathrooms in populated places, like bus terminals or malls, and you must sometimes flush toilets with buckets of water. If you are very tall, you must also be aware that bathrooms are made for people who are roughly 5’ 2” here. For example, when I stand up in a bathroom stall, the walls are usually only up to about my shoulders. You may have to scrunch under showers, or lean down towards sinks, if you are not comfortable looking someone in the face while you button your pants up.

I am used to drinking a lot of water during the day—several Nalgene bottles at least. This means that every couple hours I have to pee. This seems healthy to me—keep your system cleansed, stay hydrated, even if it means that you will have to find a bathroom… but people here don’t EVER go to the bathroom! My host mom told me that she absolutely does not use public bathrooms. I don’t understand how she does this. When we go out for the entire day, she doesn’t pee that day, she waits until we come home. This just seems like it must be a very unhealthy habit, and one that I’m not sure I could ever pick up.

My favorite bathroom that I have seen so far in this country, though, was one that I saw this weekend. We went out to a night club/bar, where there was a lot of dancing. The bathrooms were adjacent to the dance floor, so that one had to walk through the dancing people to arrive at the bathroom. The women’s bathroom was fine, dirty, but as expected. But the men’s bathroom was hilarious. The door to the bathroom had no hinges, which meant that on occasion, while someone was inside using the bathroom, the door would fall, crashing onto the dance floor with a loud bang, causing an uproar of laughter in the crowd and revealing the person inside. At several points during the night, the door was just removed, men still using the bathroom while people danced three feet away. Inevitably someone would replace the door again, and when you heard the loud bang, you knew that it was just the bathroom door slamming onto the dance floor.

We had several visitors in our house this weekend—Zach, another Fulbrighter from the next city over came to visit, and Antonio—the son that we visited in Maracaibo last weekend was here as well. We went out Friday and Saturday nights (my first experiences going out here), and the main thing that I took away from the experience is that I now understand just HOW important it is here that one wear sparkly shoes. (Note: I took these shoe pictures in a shoe store here, I still haven't gotten any of my own)

On Friday night, we went out to a bar on the main drag. When we got to the bar, we had two choices of drinks, Blue and Green. These colors refer to the colors of the bottles of the only beer that you can buy here, the blue being the light version of an already bad and watered-down beer. I have seen 3 types of beer in this country, and they all taste about the same, with slightly different amounts of carbonation. We had a couple beers at that bar, listening to Guns and Roses and “What if God was one of us” playing in the background. Afterwards, we went upstairs to another rooftop bar, where there was a computer screen projected onto a large screen showing music videos. We sat for a few minutes, enjoying the breeze, with our “Blues” in hand, when the electricity went out. Nobody really reacted when it went out, we all just sat there, finished our beers, and left. We took a cab to the other side of town, where we went to a place where people were dancing! Everyone here looks like a professional dancer to me—their hips move in perfect synchrony, in patterns I can’t even follow with my eyes, their faces devoid of any expression, not entirely clear if they are having fun, their bodies never missing a beat of music. A sketchy looking young man waved his hand to come over and dance. I pretended I didn’t see… and I kept talking with Zach and Yervio.

As I watched the dancers, someone made a surprised face at me. I ignored him too, not wanting any strangers to approach me. But when I looked up again, he was still staring, still making faces. OH! I realized, it’s one of the students I have been tutoring. So he invited me to meet his friends, and to dance. He taught me to Merengue, slowly, only basic steps, for one, two, three songs. Everyone here knows how to dance, and he knew exactly how to lead me so I could follow him. It was really fun. We went home at about 1:00, knowing that tomorrow we were going to go out again.

The next day was relaxed, we hung out at home, Zach and I walked around the city a bit, we watched a movie, and decided we should take the fam out for pizza and then go to the disco. So we walked to the pizza place, sat around and ate the biggest pizza I have ever seen (bacon and sweet corn, very intriguing). We were picked up by a man named Sami, who took us to a strange unmarked building. After speaking with the bodyguard, the doors to the building opened to reveal a very well lit, swanky casino. Someone immediately brought us enormous glasses of really bad watered down whisky, and we sat watching a live band (who were really good and have some pre-determined choreography). We mostly just sat, trying to pour as much of our drinks into ashtrays as we could. Zach hid his drink between slot machines, I eventually spit my gum into mine, hoping no one would notice when I ditched it. From across the room we spotted one of the men who lives in our house—the one who I have never really met. I asked Yervio his name, to which he just shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t like him.” This struck me as odd, to not know the name of someone who has been living in your house for several years. But I blew it off. None of us actually played any slot machines; we just took lots of pictures and enjoyed the music.

After we left the casino, we went straight to another bar/dance club. This place was even higher class, we found out, when the bouncer refused to let Zach and I in because we were wearing sandals. He talked to the manager, we told him that this is the way we dress in our country, that we didn’t have any sparkly shoes. Once we got in, we sat some more, Antonio twirled me around and around a bit, and before we knew it, it was 3 o’clock. Then came the big drama of the evening. By 3 o’clock, Zach and I really just wanted to go home. We had been out since 6 doing essentially nothing. So Zach asked for the bill, to my delight, and to the surprise of my host brothers. “It’s early,” they said, “we are going to stay 2 more hours and then the party starts.” HOLD UP. 2 hours until the party STARTS?! No no no no…. we have got to get out of here. So we insisted, begged, pleaded, and finally our wish was granted. A taxi was on its way. About 3-4 beers later, one showed up. And we were on our way home. We were told to think twice if we go out in a big city, because we might not be brought home until 9 or 10 in the morning. Dear lord, I don’t think I can handle this place. Haha. I’m fine with being the square gringa for my time here… that might even be the best plan. J

Well, I must go plan lessons for this week. My host uncle says hello to everyone!

At one point, he wrapped an anaconda around me...

2009-10-05T22:03:00.003-05:00

This weekend, I learned several new things about traveling in this country.

First, I learned that if you pay for a three to four hour taxi ride, under no circumstances will the driver stop the car for you until you reach your destination, even if you kindly tell him that it is likely that you will pee all over his car.

Second, I learned that despite the fact that the driver will not stop when you are about to pee all over his car, he will stop in order to eat lunch in a restaurant while you wait outside, wondering where he went.

Third, I learned that it is ridiculously easy to travel here. This weekend, we went to the bus terminal, found the person shouting the city we wanted to go to, and got in the car. When the car was full (5 people + driver), we left. As previously mentioned, we did not stop, and we arrived promptly.

I learned these lessons on a trip I took to Maracaibo this weekend-- what a fun city! To locate everyone, Maracaibo is in the northwestern part of the country, at the tip of a huge, brackish lake. It is the central of the country’s oil production, has several very good universities, and is the center of the opposition movement (anti-Chavez). I went with my host mom, and we stayed with her other son, Antonio. Antonio studies computer engineering and works as an engineer for one of the largest banks in the country. He greeted us with roses and kisses at the bus terminal, and took us all over the city. My favorite part was when we rented bikes and rode along the lake.

I was surprised by all of the entertainment that was available— swimming pools, tennis courts, big parks with go carts and paintball, bowling, live music… Valera is pretty dull in comparison, but MUCH safer. I was not expecting to have such a good time there, because apparently it is the hottest part of Venezuela (hot days are about 45 C which is roughly 115 F), so I was anticipating a near-death experience in which we all melted into puddles. But luckily, it rained the day we came and stayed fairly cool the whole next day.

We went to see the Basilica, a large church where “La Chinita” resides. Despite the fact that “Chinita” may also be used as a derogatory term for a young Chinese woman, la Chinita in Maracaibo has nothing to do with China, Chinita is just her nickname because her real name is essentially impossible to pronounce, Virgen de la Chiquinquirá. The story has it that waves on lake Maracaibo magically carved the image of this young virgin into a piece of wood in 1749. A woman who was washing her clothes picked up the piece of wood, planning on using it, and shouted, “Milagro! Milagro! (Miracle)” when she saw the image. You must wait in line to visit la Chinita at the Basilica, and many people come to bring her flowers. It is obvious that people worship her as an idol, but I think that the real reason most people love La Chinita is because every November 18 there is a wild party in her honor, where apparently everyone gets really drunk, really crazy, and celebrates the appearance of the virgin’s image two and a half centuries ago.

On a different note, today was my first official day working with bibliomulas! Just so you all know, the mulas are world famous! Here’s an article about them from the BBC. Click here. Christina, who is in charge of the program, brought me to one of the schools that is fairly close to the University today (~30 min). I met the 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th graders that I will be teaching, as well as the school’s faculty. The children were absolutely adorable. Whenever anyone enters the classroom, all of the students stand up at their desks and shout, “Buenos dias.” The person who entered then greets them, tells them to sit, and they shout, “Gra-ciasss” at the top of their lungs, and sit back down.

After meeting all the students, I went to one of the classrooms where there was a biologist giving a presentation about reptiles in Venezuela. He had boxes and boxes full of snakes to show everyone, as well as a t-shirt with a snake painted on it that said, “Take care of me.” To many of the students’ delight, he draped snakes around everyone’s necks, let them loose on the floor, and brought them around the classroom on a long pole. At one point, he wrapped an anaconda around me, and someone snapped a picture. If I can ever track down that picture, I will be sure to send it.

Speaking of pictures, I am working on the picture situation. Our internet is not fast enough to upload pictures, so I have to figure out how to make it work. But you will all have pictures soon, I promise.

Last, I thought I should tell you about the latest robbery that I have seen here. Someone stole the mirrors off of the side-view mirrors of a car parked in front of the university. There are several watchmen at the university (who apparently are somewhat worthless), and the mirror-thief must have robbed the car of its mirrors right in front of them. I didn’t even realize that side view mirrors were valuable, or that you could resell them…

Well, I better go prepare class for tomorrow. Now that I have something to do in the morning, I am starting to feel much, much busier! And I am very happy about it. J

Angel's Placenta

2009-10-02T12:32:00.001-05:00

I must admit that I have a slight case of hypochondria, especially when I am traveling. A minor cramp inspires in me visions of malarial delirium, a gurgling stomach surely indicates that I have contracted amoebic dysentery, a headache inevitably means a brain tumor that must be operated on in hospitals that have no lights, medications, or even doctors. This hypochondria is not totally unreasonable, for I have had some strange encounters with medical conditions and facilities while living abroad. For example, when I returned from Africa, I had a stomach infection, a sinus infection, and fluid in my lungs. In a state of delirium in the doctor’s office in Zanzibar (that had no electricity), I was taken to a white room, given a good slap on the butt, and a shot of some mystery medicine (I had a witness). In El Salvador, several of the people I was traveling with returned with dengue fever and giardia. But here it’s different, I feel like I am the person with the fewest medical ailments in the family that I am staying with. I feel good—some minor issues, but generally good. Everyone here seems to have daily medical problems, and they definitely want to talk about them. I am so pleased, because this means that under no circumstances will I ever appear to be a hypochondriac here, even if I am.

I am also glad that for nearly every ailment, my host family has a natural remedy. For example, the other night, my host mother was handing out spoonfuls of a powerful, brown elixir called, “Uña de dios” or, “God’s fingernail.” I abstained, but it’s good to know that when I feel a little off I can ask for some God’s fingernail and possibly feel better. When I open the bathroom cabinet, I see bottles that say things like, “Angel’s placenta.” I don’t know what these remedies are for, or whether or not they work, but it’s good to know that I will at least have some sort of placebo medicine to calm me while I am sure I am terribly ill, but really I just need some water/sleep. My host mother also believes in the healing power of limes. I love limes, so this will work out very well.

On a totally different note, there has been a second robbery in my life here. Not my stuff, but the language department’s stuff. And this time it was serious. This afternoon someone stole a laptop and a projector (one that you connect to the computer to project what is on the computer screen) from one of the English classrooms. Discussion of the missing equipment prompted discussion of other things that have been stolen from teachers and employees in various situations. It made me glad that I didn’t bring many things here that I would be horribly sad to lose… Because it is always a possibility that things here will be gone in an instant.

Despite the robbery issue, I really love the university here. The teachers are all so warm and kind to me, giving me tight hugs and kisses on the cheek every time we say hello or goodbye. They ask for help with pronunciation, and teach me slang. There are 7 faculty in the English department— three full time and four part time. They are all women except Yervio, and I am happy to surround myself with strong, intelligent women in this land of men that I have been told to not trust. I usually just see the four part time teachers in passing, but now that I have got them straight I am excited to talk with them more.

My involvement with the university is also starting to expand beyond my one English class. Today I met the director of Bibliomulas, a university program that brings books to rural schoolchildren on mules. I am going to start working with them next week, and BOY am I excited to montar una mula and ride to the top of the world, which is apparently where they go. I am also beginning to work with the Rincon Americana (American Corner), an office that is an extension of the language center at the University. I spent this morning tutoring English students there, and I have big dreams of having holiday celebrations, movie nights, possibly book groups, or other activities there. Hopefully I will also be talking with the director of Community Service at the university and getting involved. The past two weeks have been good, I have had plenty of time to adjust, find my bearings, get to know my host family, and surf the internet. The problem is that everything is a little slower here than I like, and I am itching to explore! Almost three weeks have gone by already, which means it’s definitely time to get out and see the country, meet new people, and appreciate the world around me that I know won’t be there forever.

Answers to some questions....

2009-09-30T06:31:00.000-05:00

Let me use this blog post to answer some of the more common questions people have been asking me…

Question: How many hours different is the time in Venezuela?

HA! Trick question. Not how many hours, but how many minutes?! Perhaps it’s Hugo Chavez’s way of poking fun at our obsession with time, or perhaps not, but Venezuelan time is one half hour between Eastern and Central time. For example, if it is 10 AM in New York, it is 9:30 AM here, and 9:00 AM in MN.

Question: What do you eat in Venezuela?

If you asked me the question, “Anna, how many ants do you supposed you eat on a daily basis in Venezuela?,” it would be a lie if I said any fewer than 10-20. In reality, it’s probably more like 30, but some days it may be as few as 10. It’s just that they’re everywhere. Eating them is somewhat unavoidable.

Besides the ants, though, we have been eating a lot of soups, rice, beans, cheese, meats, vegetables, some familiar and some not, potatoes, plantains, some fruits, salads. Yesterday I bought the biggest avocado I have ever seen, I swear it was the size of a football. It had to have its own plastic bag. Two of us ate huge cantaloupe-sized slices of it today, and we ate less than a quarter of it. People put mayonnaise on many things, and my host mom is obsessed with soy sauce and honey mustard. Today we made an oil, soy sauce, lime, honey mustard and salt vinaigrette to put on steamed vegetables and tuna. I was skeptical, but it was actually pretty good. The food here is tasty, salty but not at all spicy like I imagined.

What’s the university like?

I would first like to say that the university is a land of extreme temperatures. Walking to and from the university makes me feel like I am melting, but the second I walk into the English office, my lips immediately turn blue. The air conditioners in classrooms usually read about 15-16 C, which is roughly 58-62 degrees. The office is much colder. The director told me that she often leaves an extra sweater in the office, in addition to wearing one. I bit my tongue and kept myself from exclaiming, “Why don’t you just turn off the freaking AC instead?!!? It’s like a meat fridge in here!?!??!”

It’s okay, though, because when it is freezing in the office, I go sit in the little fenced in, outdoor snack store area at the entrance of the building. You can sit at tables there, drink apple sodas, or eat empanadas. I like to sit out there while grading papers and appreciating the breeze and the sunshine.

It’s not a campus like you would think of in the US. It’s about 5-6 buildings scattered around the neighborhood, and some additional property that is pretty far away. Different departments are in different buildings, and there really isn’t much interaction between them. There are three time slots for English classes Mon-Thurs 7-9, 2-4, 6-8, and Saturday classes as well. Students are younger than I would imagine for university students in the US. Basically all the students live at home, and some travel great distances to get there.

Question: What do you wish you had brought with you?

I would definitely say that I packed well— I only brought one bag. After backpacking all around East Africa, I learned very quickly that you don’t need very many things to be happy. But backpacking in East Africa was very different than living here, it turns out, and there are a few things on my wish list:

#1) Several pairs of prom-style sequined high heels, some shiny clothes, and a brightly colored handbag, because without them I stick out like a sore thumb. This is not an exaggeration. People here wear the fanciest, shiniest shoes that you could imagine, and they seem to plan their entire outfits around their fancy shoes. My chacos aren’t exactly high fashion here.

#2) A can opener and vegetable peeler. I don’t peel a lot of vegetables—I actually haven’t even had a vegetable peeler for the last year-- but here, I feel that it is necessary to peel a lot of things. The can opener I really want— it is quite difficult to open cans with a knife, which is how we have been doing it.

#3) Some nasty old shorts, because despite the fact that people get really dressed up to go to places like the grocery store, the bank, the pharmacy, in their houses they wear grungy old shorts. Short shorts.

#4) Several short dresses, the shinier the better. It is obvious that when I make friends, if they ever want to go out with me, I will be inappropriately dressed for just about any occasion. Short, colorful, strapless dresses appear to be all the rage.

#5) Hair binders. When all my jewels were stolen in the airport, so were my hair-binders. I have one, and I fear the day that it fails me.

#6) Several handkerchiefs. To wipe my sweaty face every three seconds.

How do you get to work?

We usually take the bus. This is only marginally faster than walking, though apparently we avoid strenuous activity during the hottest part of the day. The buses are either conversion vans or small mini-buses. They cost about 20 cents, and will take you basically anywhere.

Yesterday, however, the buses went on strike. Apparently last Friday, three men tried to get on a bus to rob a little old lady who had just taken out 20 million bolivares (roughly $4,000) from the bank. The driver saw that they were really sketch, and drove away before the third thief could get on the bus, so the thieves killed the driver and ran off. The strike was to raise awareness about insecurity issues on buses here. It was a horrible thing, but at least people are talking about the problem, and trying to do something to solve it.

If you have more questions, I would happily address them publicly or privately. Just send ‘em my way!

Apparently they just call them "dogs" here...

2009-09-28T07:22:00.000-05:00

It struck me recently that I still have not once been outside by myself in Venezuela. In Caracas this made sense, I was not exactly anxious to venture out all by my lonesome. But now I have been living in Valera for a week and a half, an awfully long time to never go anywhere on your own. So as my host mom left for a doctor’s appointment yesterday, I mentioned to her that I thought maybe I’d go for a walk by myself. “No!! Quedase aqui, no vaya.” No, stay here. Don’t go anywhere… If anyone comes to the door, don’t open it, and keep everything locked. Even when I mentioned the other day at the University that I was going to walk around the block to go to the American Corner (a cultural center affiliated with the US embassy), a nice young man was sent to accompany me, and he insisted on walking me back. I guess I did go into a bank by myself once, but my host mom was nearby, chatting with some friends. So my goals this week: establish some level of independence, possibly go somewhere by myself. The question is, where?

Despite not having gone anywhere by myself, I have been going lots of places. The other night we visited an enormous grocery store in Carvahal, a suburb (?) at the top of one of the nearby mountains. We bought many things I have never seen before, as well as some familiar things, hot dogs, corn flakes, nestea, yogurt. Among the stranger things were, baby food-- my host mom likes to eat it (?), some sort of red fruity candy-jelly, and these pastries called something “tongues” that I literally thought might break my jaw when I first bit into them. I also went to mass in the beautiful chapel downtown the other day with Susana. During mass, Susana whispered something to me about a “dog.” In response, I made a motion indicating a dog on the ground, which made her burst out into raucous laughter during the blessing of Jesus’ body and blood for communion. It turned out that she had whispered that she was hungry, and wanted to eat a hot dog, which apparently they just refer to as “dogs.” My B.

But today was the greatest adventure yet. We took a bus to La Puerta, a city about 45 minutes up the mountains from here. The bus ride there was full of things to see, flashes of colorful houses, beautiful gardens, fields of lettuce, mountains so green they look black, dry sand, stray dogs, broken down cars, rose bushes, long strings of moss hanging from trees, houses made of bricks and clay shingles, brilliantly colored flowers, houses made of cement, power lines everywhere, houses made of stones, pink fences, green fences, orange fences, beer ads, dirty pedestrians, fashionable women, houses made of metal, men in oversized suits, tall fences, barbed wire, food stands, fruit trees, evergreen trees, cows, donkeys, sprinklers, and stunning, wide, green mountains in every direction. It was so hot on the bus, that one woman actually fainted. And what did the driver do? Pulled over so that several people could help her off the bus. And then we LEFT HER THERE! On the side of the road… I couldn’t believe it. I hope to god I never faint on a bus…

La Puerta was very quaint and sweet. It was much cooler than Valera, and in all the little shops there, vendors sold hats and scarves. In the mall, men and women in winter coats sat playing bingo, and in the plaza, everyone was enjoying ice cream or strawberries and cream in little plastic cups. We walked around the mall once, ate corn on the cob (which is not very sweet and they slather with margarine and roll in parmesan cheese), took some pictures, walked around the plaza, ate strawberries and cream in the plaza, walked back to and around the mall once again, and then came back down. It was a nice little venture into the world, though somewhat uneventful.

It was nice to come home tonight to the familiar sounds of the upstairs neighbor belting Nelly Furtado songs at the top of her lungs, gorgeous gardens, colorful figurines, spastic dogs attempting to lick your skin off, delicious dinner, a freshly made bed, and, of course, my connection to the outside world, the internet.

A Moral Dilemma

2009-09-25T20:14:00.001-05:00

The first full day that I was in Valera, I looked out the bus window on our way to work (6:45 AM) and saw a line that wrapped all the way around the block. “What’s that line for?” I asked. “Oh, that’s for the bank. You have to go early. We have lots of lines here…”

Almost the entirety of the last three days has been spent working on a single, simple, seemingly attainable, goal. Opening a Venezuelan bank account.

Before I came here, I was told that I should expect opening an account to take around 2-3 hours. I believed this, but also thought that it sounded ridiculous. What could you do in the bank that would take 2-3 hours? So Yervio and I set aside an afternoon to accomplish this goal. However, on Wednesday afternoon, we went to not one, not two, but five banks… and after all that, no bank account. Three days of serious effort later, I still don’t have a bank account, nor am I sure that I am anywhere close to opening one.

When you enter a Venezuelan bank, you must first take a number. In larger banks, there are no fewer than 100, but probably closer to 200 or 300 people waiting. In smaller banks, more like 50. Thank god we weren’t waiting in the general line, we went straight to the security guard and asked where the desk is to open an account. The wait to speak with them was anywhere between 10-30 minutes.

The first bank hardly even spoke to us. “Nope, she has to have utility bills in her name. She’s a foreigner and cannot open an account.” The second bank, “Nope, you have to bring 10,206 documents back to the bank before we will open an account…” and so on, and so on…. At our fifth bank, we waited to speak with the manager. Waiting at all these banks was somewhat torturous for me. It was really hot, my stomach was on the verge of explosion, and it felt totally futile. Looking around the bank, it appeared that the vast majority of people in the bank felt the same. For a few, however, it was social hour. “Oh my god, I haven’t seen you in three years!” “Oh, and how is your mother…how are your kids?” People hugging and kissing, people slouching and frowning. A good mix.

When we finally spoke with the manager of Banco Provincial, he told us that to open an account, we would have to come back with: 1) A letter from the embassy, 2) My original passport and copies, 3) My driver’s license and copies, 4) 2 personal references, 5) 2 business references, 6) A utility bill, 7) A letter of residency, and 8) A reference letter from the bank (which he would provide). I thought, “Dear lord, how in the world am I going to find all of these things... I don’t even know anyone here?!” So Yervio and Susana got to work helping me.

Yesterday morning, Susana and I ran around and around town, looking for people to sign reference letters and trying to get a letter of residency. These tasks may sound simple, though I assure you that they are not. And because women do basically everything here, we had to make it home in time to make a lunch of beans, rice, guacamole, chicken, meatballs, and juice so that everyone could eat when the men came home from work. "So the women don't work, then?" you might ask... but this is not true either. Susana leaves for work at 5:30 AM, and is home in time to cook lunch for everyone.

We walked well over a mile each way to get to the Prefectura, the office that issues important documents. When we arrived, it turned out that we actually had to purchase a 5 BsF stamp on the 4^th floor of a building on the other side of town and had to make two extra copies of the document before they could issue the letter. So we walked and walked and walked to the other side of town, and made copies in a house along the way (on someone’s personal copy machine—I have no idea how Susana knew it was there).

When we arrived at the elusive building, we climbed several flights of stairs, only to find out that we needed to leave the building, and go around to another entrance. At the second entrance there was a gate with a keypad. We pushed all the numbers we could think of that might make sense. Nothing. So we went back in the building, to the governor’s office, and got directions. “Empuja 0404.” I remember numbers very easily, but Susana must have forgotten. She went to town with the keypad, 0044, 0004, 4004, 0440, all combinations of 0’s and 4’s. I reached past her, pushed the numbers, and we waited. A woman answered, and told us she would be right down. We waited, and waited some more. Someone came down, but not the right person. Finally a woman arrived with a little toddler in one hand and a little stamp in the other. The whole transaction was done through a locked gate, and in an instant we were back on our way to the Prefectura. Letter of residency obtained: step one complete.

That letter was among the easiest and straightforward of the documents to obtain. Susana and I ran around all day again today, to several stores, to the internet café, to the copy shop, to here and to there, with only some luck. “She doesn’t want to sign this letter, it doesn’t have an address.” “He doesn’t want to sign this letter, it’s not specific enough….” So we couldn’t get all the documents before the bank closed at 3:00. With the documents that we had, we ran to the bank at 3:45. Upon arrival, we saw that the doors had been locked, with at least 100 people inside and 10 people outside trying to get in. “Ya esta cerrada. Tiene que esperar hasta el lunes.” Wait until Monday. Ok. Awesome. So there will be yet another day of banking chaos, if not more… This is the first step in obtaining the Fulbright grant money, which is currently sitting in an American bank account, undisturbed. Before I can get that money, I must open an additional account in Texas, and have money wired from MN to Texas to Caracas to Valera. I cannot imagine that this is actually possible, though I must make it happen.

My host family has been nothing but wonderful to me. As you can see, they help me with everything. Yervio has shown me around the university and accompanied me wherever I need to go. Susana has taken to calling me “hija” (daughter), welcomed me into her home, shown me around town, and she even brought me a bucket to pee in just in case I don’t want to leave my room in the middle of the night (?). I want to please them, do as they do, ask their advice, and heed their warnings. This is usually easy -- I follow their advice, ask questions when necessary, and try to be polite. Occasionally, however, I cannot compromise with food.

Today I was eating lunch, a delicious soup with beans and vegetables and a hunk of meat. I took a closer look at the meat. MY GOD, it was a hunk of HAIRY HAM! That was the first thing that I did not eat, despite being told otherwise. I was presented with another moral dilemma tonight when Yervio bought me a hot dog, bought off the street, with ketchup, mayonnaise, avocado, tomato, onion, parmesan cheese (?), several other unidentifiable crunchy things, and a glass of juice from a cooler. “Que rico, no?” “How delicious?” they asked me. And I must say, they did look very delicious. “My stomach is finally back to normal,” I thought. “Why would I jeopardize that?” “But no, that is very rude, and how much damage could it do to my body, anyway…?“ So I decided to compromise with myself. Eat the hot dog. Eat the toppings. Leave the toxic-water-and-sugar-juice. So I did just that. I ate slowly, and just smiled when they told me to drink the juice… until one of them drank it. About two and a half hours later, I feel my stomach churning a little. We will see how this goes…

"Look at that man... he is the jefe"

2009-09-24T08:23:00.001-05:00

Right now I’m in bed, awake while the rest of the world around me sleeps, trying my hardest to keep all of my insides where they belong— that is, inside of me. I don’t know what I ate, drank, or exposed myself to, but wow was it painful. I’ve got a steady dose of stomach antibiotics going right now, though, and it’s starting to get better. Thank you, travel doctor. I also just drank some sort of lime-anise tea concoction that my host mother brewed for me, and it really helped.

I started teaching at the university this week. My class has 21 students, all around 16-25 years old. Some are in high school, others have already graduated from the university, or will very soon. In the other level one class, there is one boy who is only 12 years old! Each individual has a different level of English from high school, but they are all very much beginners. So we start at square one: the alphabet, telling time, days of the week, the verb “to be,” contractions.

The classroom is chaotic— punctuality and quiet attention are two things that every American student must master at a very young age— but here they are irrelevant. The students are really interested in class, so much so that at least half the class shouts out answers when I ask a question to a specific student. It’s actually pretty fun. The students come from everywhere. Many have hour-long or more bus rides to and from the university. Someone told me yesterday that she comes all the way from Maracaibo (at least 3 hours) every day just for my English class. That puts a little pressure on you, huh? Every day after class, several students want to stay after and chat, to hear about my home and tell me about theirs.

There is only one problem so far with teaching. Apparently, someone decided that there will be power outages between 2-6 PM every day for the next several weeks. My class just happens to be from 2-4, in a room with no windows. This means when the power goes out, we have about 5-10 minutes of teaching in the dark before it becomes so unbearably hot that we have to do one of two things 1) have class in the hallway, or 2) end class early. So far, it’s about 50-50 whether the electricity will go out during class, so we’ll see how this goes.

In Africa, I got at least 10 marriage proposals daily. This became somewhat normalized, almost to the point of expecting every man to propose to you. Here, I am happy to say that no one has proposed. I did get an “I love you” yesterday, quite a few inquiries about the status of my love life, whether or not I have children/want them, etc. So you can imagine what I thought when the janitor at the university slipped a note into my hand when we shook hands to say goodbye the other day. “Oh no, not again… I’ve only been here a week.” So I stuck the carefully folded note in my bag and continued on my way home with Yervio.

The note was not what I expected… Not a love letter, but a page-long note about living life to its fullest, reaching your full potential as a person, having new experiences and how to grow as a person, and about god. As I read it, I became both pleasantly surprised (“Thank god the janitor did not just profess his love for me—that would be really awkward for the next 10 months”) and puzzled (“Is this actually still a strangely manifested love-and-god-combo note?”). I haven’t seen him since, but I will keep you posted.

Usually Yervio and I take the bus to and from the University. It’s only about a 15-minute walk, but I get the feeling that people here don’t walk much. We take the bus to school at 6:45 in the morning, back to the house at noon, back to school at 1:45, and home at 6:00. I’m a walker, though, so I decided to ask if we could walk sometime. We only successfully walked between school and home twice this week. On our walks, it became apparent why people prefer the buses… “You see those men?” he whispered. “Those are thieves. Did you see how that one pointed at us and then said something to his friend? We have to go a different way.” So we wound around the neighborhood, trying to make sure no one could follow our path. “Look that man,” Yervio muttered under his breath, “He is the jefe (boss) of all the thieves in this neighborhood.” We walked quickly past. And then it started to thunder, drizzle, and then pour rain. I guess it would be better to just follow the lead of those who live here and know best from now on…..

All the pepto bismol in the world...

2009-09-21T18:16:00.000-05:00

...could not cure my aching belly. :(

...short for "Crispeta"

2009-09-20T13:56:00.000-05:00

I love going abroad because I always learn new skills: People skills, language skills, navigational skills, skills to keep your intestines functional, and other practical things. The first skill I always try to learn when I go abroad, though, is how to cook like the people who live there. This is usually somewhat embarrassing, given that you stumble through motions that every native person mastered by the age of 5 or 6. It is also really important, because you see how people use the seemingly unusual things you find in the grocery store or on the streets. Most importantly, though, I like cooking with people because it is great way to get to know the women of a household.

I have been cooking a lot with the mother of the family I am staying with. In just three days she has taught me how prepare all kinds of things— arepas, the staple of the Venezuelan diet (a think, corn, tortilla-like food that they slice open and fill with different things), chicken, beef, beans, potato salad, juices, plantains, different sauces, and other foods. The food here is delicious, lots of rich, fried foods, fresh fruits, whole grains, and interesting meats.

In the US, we cook with knives, spoons, tongs, whisks, slotted spoons, spatulas, and all sorts of other tools. Here, people cook with their hands. You knead doughs, scrub meat, chop vegetables cradled in your hands, and you taste everything with your finger-- including sauces that you rubbed all over raw meat (I don’t participate in this part, just observe).

This morning we started cooking lunch at around 9 AM. But there are lots of chores that also need to be done in the morning, like watering the plants, sweeping, mopping, dusting, laundry, etc. So, Susana told me in fast Spanish that while she went to mop up the water that sprayed everywhere when watering the plants, I should prepare the chicken. At first I didn’t understand, so she tried to explain, which consisted of motions indicating peeling and stabbing the chicken. Most of you know that I have been a vegetarian for the last 4 years or so, so I’m a little out of practice with preparing meat. But I have been eating it for the last couple of months in anticipation of this trip. So I went to town, tearing off skin, gathering organs as they slipped out of the split chicken, peeling off layers of fat and tissue, and stabbing holes in the chicken, as I had interpreted from Susana’s motions. I rubbed several sauces into the chicken, and she looked on approvingly, saying that the chicken would have a good “sabor,” or flavor. Needless to say, if anyone finds him-or-herself presented with a situation where they have an entire animal to prepare, or at least a large hunk of one, I am now prepared to deal with lots of types of meat hunks. You can call me and I will give you a demonstration.

I am still not clear on how many people live in this house, and who they are. Quite a few people have come in and out, so they must have keys, but they usually only stay for a few minutes, and I’m never really sure whether they live here. Today a man came in, said good afternoon, put a bunch of clothes in a plastic bag, and left with them. I keep discovering new bedrooms as well, so it is all very unclear. Two of my favorite new roommates, though, are two tiny white dogs, named “Crispy” (short for Crispeta, I am told) and “Stacy.” Stacy is old, very calm, and they keep her fur short because apparently she is balding (? --That’s what I got from the explanation in Spanish). Crispy, however, is borderline psychotic, with thick white curls all over her body. She can jump at least 2-3 feet in the air, despite her tiny size, and will leap up at you or a piece of food in your hand at any moment, and is not afraid to bite or gnaw on you (but never hard). Today she came in my room, soaking wet, sliding all over the tile floors as she spastically attempted to run in and out. Both dogs are also avid lickers—they lick your legs until you lock them out of the room. It’s really nice, though, to have little friends with no language expectations… the friendship feels very natural, and yet, occasionally painful.

We also got the internet working on my computer, so anyone who wants to Skype, I would love to chat and show you the new digs. My Skype name is annarsanto.

I start teaching tomorrow. I’m not really sure what to expect, but I have decided that I want to be the teacher they remember as being really difficult. This will be the second week of class for them, but the first day with me teaching (another teacher taught class last week). Class is Monday through Thursday from 2-4 PM for 6 weeks. There is a book for the class, but I have free reign to teach however I want. The challenge: they want me to teach conversation without grammar… This sounds difficult to me, seeing as grammar is somewhat essential to conversation, but I will do my best. I guess “conversation without grammar” means I should teach them all the best slang. Instead, I will start with telling time…

Leche y queso de chivo...

2009-09-19T08:17:00.000-05:00

I am in Valera! It was definitely an interesting trip— I guess I am somewhat of a spectacle here, and Venezuelan people are so warm and friendly that people take care of you wherever you go. It’s funny, in the US it feels like it will take forever to make new friends. Here, it’s nearly impossible to avoid becoming friends with someone. In line to board the plane, the woman behind me said, “Minn-ee-so-tah. You are from Minn-ee-so-tah?!?” Surprised, I turned around and responded in Spanish, “How did you know that?!” “Yo lo vi en el equipaje…” She had read in tiny writing on my luggage tag that I was from Minnesota, and it just so happened that her daughter is living in Minnesota right now. Needless to say, I met lots of wonderful people in a few short hours, and left the airport with at least five new phone numbers that I was told I should call any time I ever needed anything.

There is an airport in Valera, but for some unidentifiable reason, there are no planes that fly in and out of it. It appears that this is a temporary situation, but it is unclear. This means that the nearest airport to Valera is about 4 hours away by car. The embassy organized a driver to pick me up at the airport, so I left the airport and waited no more than 3 minutes before seeing the, “Anna Santos” sign (always Santos, always). John (the driver) was really sweet, explaining to me that the white bottles sold along the side of the road were filled with leche y queso de chivo, goat’s milk and cheese, somewhat self-explanatory given the goat carcasses hanging right next to them. Another thing he told me is that Venezuela has the cheapest gas in the entire world. I also knew this, but it continues to amaze me. For example, our supervisor at the embassy told us that he has a big, gas-guzzling, American SUV, and that it costs him about 85 cents to fill his tank completely. My taxi driver told me that he spends about $10 a month on gas, ridiculous when you consider that his job is to DRIVE! I really enjoyed the ride between the two cities. In those four hours we traveled from a very hot, arid land covered in cacti, to a not-as-hot-but-still-scorching, fertile, mountainous area, where fields of sugar cane and fruit trees stretch endlessly through mountain valleys.

For days, people have been telling me that Valera is a small city, very tranquil with not much going on. I believed them, especially since the city doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page (haha). So you can imagine my surprise when we arrived in a bustling metropolis. It’s definitely no Chicago or Caracas (thank god), but definitely more of a Duluth. It’s really nice, with beautiful mountains (the Andes) in every direction. And everything is colorful here— the buildings, the cars and buses, the food, the people, the sunsets, and every woman carries a brightly colored pleather handbag with matching heels, belt, nails, and hairpieces.

Once we arrived in the city, we went straight to the University where I am working. I met one person after another, and honestly I didn’t really know who anyone was. Names came after copious expressions of love and welcoming, lots of kisses, and a good deal of very fast Spanish and English. I met Yervio, who teaches at the university, and who I will be living with for the next 10 months. He lives with his mother and uncle, whom I already love. He also speaks excellent English, so it is nice to have someone to mitigate my failed attempts at communication with his mother and uncle. Yervio’s family is Columbian, and I have a hard time understanding their accents.

Their house is lovely. The inside is like a greenhouse, there are so many enormous, tropical plants. Susana, Yervio’s mother grows them. I still haven’t decided whether I think they are inside or out, because there is no ceiling in center of the house where they grow. All of the bedrooms, the kitchen and the dining room (which isn’t really used) have ceilings, but the center of the house is open. It hasn’t rained yet, but I am excited to sit in my room and watch and smell the rain from my bedroom window. There is wireless internet in the house, but my computer cannot log in-- anyone have any ideas why? I have a mac and the network is set up through Network Magic. If you are computer savvy and have a guess, let me know! I want to Skype everyone! Help me!

On a worse note, I guess it should come as no surprise to anyone that I have already been robbed… Nothing expensive, nothing important, but it is still somewhat disheartening. At the airport, someone took a pouch of jewelry, some little hair things, and some clothes from my luggage. It was stupid to have the jewelry in there, but I didn’t really think about it… The sad part is that while nothing that disappeared was expensive, it was all gifts from friends and family, my Grandma’s jewelry, jewelry that I made, and mementos from traveling. Oh well, live and learn. But if you ever wonder why it is that I never wore those earrings or that necklace that you gave me, just know that someone in South America is probably wearing it… and that they probably look really good because of it.

"Brocheta," a rough translation of...

2009-09-16T17:12:00.002-05:00

After raucous demands for more blog posts, I will try to satisfy your insatiable appetites. :) Just kidding. But seriously, I love all of your comments.

I am proud to say that everyone made it through the US embassy orientation, which was certainly no small feat. I’ll start with the bad news from orientation (but please keep reading if you choose to read this part): The embassy brought in probably about 12 speakers to “debrief” us on the situation with Venezuela— most of who said things like, “this is one of the most dangerous countries in the world…” “Don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t go outside, don’t eat anything, don’t drink anything, don’t speak, for they will identify you as a foreigner, don’t walk anywhere, don’t drive anywhere, don’t take out money, all of your phone and internet may be monitored, etc., etc., etc…” The advice even got pretty specific at some points, when we were told things like, “stay out of all caves,” for there may be rabid bats lurking inside… I guess all of this was to be expected given that US Department of State employees were the ones briefing us on safety and security, but 3 days of people scaring us were not really what I was hoping for when I embarked on this adventure.

Now I know what you are all thinking, and honestly, I have to say that I have had similar thoughts… but DO NOT think that I would share all this information with you without the good news. The good news (for me) came when we were each briefed on the particular cities where we will be living. To the girl staying in Caracas—“Caracas is the murder capital of the world, with 19,000 murders a year…”, Maracaibo— “It’s a wild, wild west out there, watch for bulges in peoples’ shirts, they could be guns.” Merida—pretty safe, but watch out for FARC sympathizers (aka Columbian guerillas), Cumana—your student center was recently set on fire, and our program is really disorganized there… and then they got to me, “Valera. Who is going to Valera?” I raised my hand. “Good for you, Valera is safe. No problems there.” AWESOME. The other great thing, was that at some point during each speech, the speaker said something to the effect of, “Oh no, I’m scaring you. I don’t mean to do that. I’m sure you will have no problems at all. I love living in Venezuela, it’s the most beautiful country in the world. I have never had any problems, and I’m sure you will be totally fine…”

After each speaker left, we debriefed with our supervisors what we should take away from the talks. Be careful, be smart, don’t be flashy, don’t go out in the dark, go out with other people, etc. They were all basic travel guidelines, things you should do in both the US and abroad. So for those of you who expressed concern about my safety before I left, please know that I am now an expert on how to stay safe in Venezuela, and I plan to be very careful and conservative here. I love you all and plan to come home in 10 months speaking perfect Spanish and with some serious street smarts.

Enough safety talk. Let me tell you about some of the amazing things we have seen already! First of all, Caracas is surrounded by beautiful mountains, and some of the residential areas on the sides of the mountains appear to only be accessible by cable car. The neighborhoods that are located on the sides of these mountains are very diverse. At the top of one mountain, apparently there is a booming tourist town with ice-skating rinks and cold-climate berries for people to pick. On the majority of the mountainslopes, however, are “rachos,” or what we might call slums. I will never enter one of these neighborhoods, as we have been told by native Caraceños that they would never even drive through them. They are just too dangerous, even for the people who are forced to live there. It is no surprise that these neighborhoods stretch endlessly through this mountain valley—we heard yesterday that an average rent in a decent neighborhood in Caracas would be about $2,000 a month. In a safe neighborhood, with a nice apartment, it would be at least $5,000 a month. In addition, we were told that food here is among the most expensive in the world. With 6 million people crowded into one mountain valley, it is easy to see how food, real estate, and crime could spiral out of control.

We went downtown today, where we attended first day of beginners’ English class at a Binational Center (essentially a school affiliated with the US). Afterwards, we got a driving tour of the downtown area. We drove past the Presidential Palace (Miraflores), several landmarks that were important during the various coups in the last half-century, we saw majestic old churches, and beautiful roman sculptures and architecture. The most interesting part of the tour for me, though, was hearing about all of the different buildings that have been usurped by the Chavez administration in the past several years—the main theater, the Caracas Hilton, many of the golf courses, some residential areas, and many other places. Apparently these buildings have been taken over by the socialist revolution, and become sort of communal property for squatters in the city. We also traveled to the wealthiest neighborhoods in Caracas, where 8-foot tall walls, electric fences and beautifully landscaped gardens, golf courses, and yards obscure views of houses where the country’s wealthiest and most powerful citizens live.

When we are not traveling with the embassy, none of us have ventured more than about 6 blocks from our hotel. This feels somewhat strange—but I know that we will have time to explore this country in safer locations. Besides, we have seen some interesting things without ever going far. For example, our hotel is attached to a very hip mall, with a movie theater, a theater, art galleries, boutiques and fancy restaurants inside of it. Last night, we ate dinner at one of the restaurants in the mall. While we were sitting there, peacefully eating dinner, three women walked by, wearing nothing but string bikinis made out of beads, and two-to-three foot tall feathered headdresses. I still don’t really know who they were, but I got their card. I encourage you all to check their website. We have also been learning about the food here… I don’t really ever know what I am ordering, but last night, when I ordered “Brocheta,” I was pretty sure that it meant “Bruschetta…” I learned the hard way that “Brocheta” is a very rough translation of “Shishkabob.” I enjoyed my eggplant, banana, and vegetable shishkabob and will always remember what “Brocheta” means.

Well, tonight we are going to the home of one of our supervisors from the embassy. He is actually Greek, and said he brought us some feta cheese from Greece to make a celebratory Greek salad. I leave at 8 AM for my new (temporary) home! Love you.

Too serendipitous to waste time being worried.

2009-09-13T20:13:00.000-05:00

As you may or may not know, I spent today and yesterday in cars, planes, trains, and taxis on the way to Caracas, Venezuela. I will be spending the next 10 months on a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Valera, Venezuela, a city in the Andes about 10 hours outside of the capital.

Some of you were faithful readers of my blog while I was in Tanzania (http://annagoestotanzania.blogspot.com- you can still read it!), and it was so fun to be able to share tales of visits from elephants, wonderful host families, terrifying bus rides, swimming with dolphins, and mass releases of prisoners from nearby prisons. While this experience will be very different from my African adventures, teaching English classes at the university level in South America will surely be interesting, given that I have never really taught English, have never been to South America, and regularly confuse Spanish, Swahili and occasionally English vocabulary.

I have to be honest, the weeks leading up to this trip were pretty frustrating and stressful, to the point where it was hard to be excited about the good parts of the trip. Some examples:
1) About 30 hours before my flight was scheduled to leave, my passport (with my visa) was in a Fedex truck somewhere between DC and St. Paul
2) I nearly missed our entire orientation weekend in DC simply because I was never informed about it
3) I took it as a bad sign that my flight into Caracas was Continental flight 666, and that
4) there was a 6.4 magnitude earthquake in Caracas about 12 hours before my arrival
The advice that I got from others regarding my concerns: “Don’t even worry about it… Just go—you’ll figure it out,” “Seriously, you probably don’t even need a visa…It’ll be fine….” I may have a tendency to be a little high strung sometimes, but seriously?! Go without a passport to a country that has less-than-good diplomatic relations with the US?! This was surely NOT good advice. I must admit that this trip didn’t seem like the best adventure I had ever planned… but as you know, I am pretty stubborn and have unrestrained wanderlust, so these things would never actually stop me.

A couple days ago, though, suddenly everything started working out so serendipitously that I couldn’t be more pleased. I got my passport with about 24 hours to spare, and had time to visit and call friends to say goodbye. I had two lovely goodbye dinners with my two families. At the airport, my bag weighed exactly 50.0 pounds, the maximum before you have to pay extra, so I wasn’t charged at all for checking baggage. The woman at the ticketing booth offered my Mom, Ron, Luke and Megan passes to come into the gate with me. We said sure, and I commented that, “I didn’t know you did that?!” and she responded, “We don’t—I’m just feeling generous.”

Once past customs, we glimpsed Air Force One through a window. As we watched, we saw people (including Obama, who had given a speech about 30 minutes before at the Target Center in Minneapolis!) get on the plane, and take off. On the plane, I spent hours perusing SkyMall, trying to imagine the people who spent hundreds of dollars on things like voice-activated R2D2 robots, the “keep your distance” bug vacuum, stainless steel wallets, yard statues of sumo wrestlers, yetis, and zombies, or “million germ eliminating travel toothbrush sanitizers.” I also spent time wondering if I too, might consider purchasing the “indoor dog restroom,” doggie doorbells, inflatable dog pools, or drinking fountains for my dog if I were to ever get one… As soon as I knew it, we had arrived in Texas.

Another Fulbright student met me in Houston, and we had time to hang out until our plane left at midnight for Caracas—and it turned out that it was flight 1666, not 666. Haha. In Caracas, there was a driver waiting for us at the airport and a bellboy at our hotel hoping to exchange money with us—at a decent “unofficial” rate. For how nervous and anxious I had been feeling over the last several weeks, everything worked out perfectly. We begin our in-country orientation, meet the ambassador, and get a tour of the embassy tomorrow. I am so excited!!!!!