Parasite-free living is good living…

It has been a while since I have updated you all. Main reason for that is because I have been super busy. And the main reason that I have been super busy is because I am feeling a ton better and am able to do more stuff!! Yup. I have set a new record for myself here in Cocha having gone 10 days without being sick!!! Double digits! I know!! In all seriousness it has been amazing. This past weekend was the first in many where I was able to go out and have a great time partying it up without some parasite or infection sending me to bed early. I feel like a new man.

For most of last week I became very germaphobic, petrified of getting sick again. I was paranoid about eating in general or touching anything dirty, both of which are unavoidable here in Cocha. Well, the whole eating thing is kind of universally unavoidable. Avoiding dirty conditions in Cocha is extremely hard; it’s apparently the third most polluted city in South America. I also work with kids, who aren’t the most hygienic of people. And I run an environmental program i.e. I have to deal with composting, recycling, dirt and stuff. That’s a lot of germs. Despite all that, my health is still holding up.


So I am closely edging toward the quarter mark of my little trip which is insane. I don’t know if it is the altitude or what but time here in Cochabamba flies by ridiculously fast. These past two and half months have just shot by. At the same time though, a ton has happened. It has felt like all the events that have taken place should have taken months and months to unfold.

A gazillion things have happened since I lasted updated this blog. I know that in what will follow will not do justice to what has gone down but here is a quick sum up.

Thesis stuff…I finally dusted off my thesis binder and starting working on that this past weekend. My ill health had put my thesis work on hold but now that I am feeling better, I’ve got a lot of work to do. I have decided to conduct the majority of my research in El Alto, a city some 9 hours away from where I live. I have been told that I am a little crazy for doing my research so far away but I going to go for it. My thesis title - “The soundtrack of marginalized: hip-hop and migrant youth of El Alto”. More on that later.

Work…First off I should back up a bit because I don’t think I have mentioned very much about what my job is. So what do I do all day? I am the project manager of two programs at the mARTadero. The first is an after school drop-in program for kids from the surrounding barrios; I spend the overwhelming of my time with this program. The second is an environmental sustainability and education program, oddly enough a topic I know next to nothing about.

During my first month and a bit of work, things were very rough for a number of reasons. For one, I have never run a project solo before let alone run two projects solo. And by solo I mean very solo. The mARTadero is a great place with tons of things happening at once but it is also very understaffed and I have felt that from day one. It also has no money. When I was assigned the two projects, there was less than $30 available for the kids program and zero for the enviro project. One of my major tasks has been to find funding, which is yet another thing I know very little about. There have also been a couple other issues that I am not going to be too explicit about only to say that at times it felt like I was pushing a big old elephant; it was pretty tough. But slowly, very slowly, things have improved significantly and now the big old elephant is starting to move along.

In the little time that I have been working here, I have learned a ton, albeit most of my lessons have been learnt the hard way. It has been like learning to swim by jumping into the deep end. But I am proud to say that I am still afloat, barely, but still afloat.

So this past week was a big one for the kids program. We launched a big campaign to try to get more kids from the barrio to come to the program, which included a big fiesta free for all the kids from the barrio. So far things have gone extremely well.

Slowly help has arrived in the form of volunteers. I am extremely grateful for all the help I have received in these past weeks. While it has created a bit more work for me trying to coordinate them all, it has been a massive help and welcomed change from doing everything myself. Here’s the crew who helped run the fiesta last week.

Vacations…This Monday my sister will be flying down to visit me!! What! The original plan was for me to take the week off to travel to Bolivia’s famous salt fields. With a little over a week before my sister’s arrival, I found that I would not be entitled to any vacation time, zero, zip, nada during my ten months here, only civil holidays. I was originally told that I would have 3 or 4 weeks. Yet another of many little miscommunications. I talked with my boss at work who very understanding of the whole situation and we worked some things out so the current plan is to take a shorter trip to Lake Titicaca and the surrounding area with my sis in two weeks. Pretty pumped!

Lots more to write but I must go. Hope everyone is doing well!

Still Strugglin…

My apologies for not updating this blog with greater frequency. I am blaming the guys on the right who are currently chillin in my intestines.

So ya, I am sick again in what is feeling like a marathon of illness. I am now entering week 5 of being sick. During that time, there have been a couple days of feeling good, but very few. This time I have a bunch of parasites and, from what I understand, a salmonella infection in my intestines. These little guys have done quite a number on my body. Good news is that it is relatively easy to treat so hopefully in a couple days I’ll be good.

One thing that I am glad about is that the different causes of my ill health have been changing regularly; it has helped keep things interesting. If I had the same illness with the same symptoms this whole time, I would not be too happy. My doctor tells me that all the different ailments that I have been experiencing one after the other are completely unrelated. I have just had some serious bad luck.

It has been funny because the people that I have met here have only known me as being sick. One of my friends told me, completely seriously, that he used to be fragile like me. I like how he put it, fragile. The employees at the clinic I go to know and treat me like a regular. And I must be going to the pharmacy with some regularity because the pharmacist there has started getting pretty chummy and, when I went this morning to pick up some antibiotics, asked for my number because she wants to go clubbing with me. Oh boy. I really hope I get better.

In other more exciting news, I finally got a bank account! That means CUSO can pay me which means I will finally have some money!! And in even more exciting news, my big sister is visiting me at the end of July. I am taking a week off and the current plan is to hit up the Salar de Uyuni. Salt and my sister. Should be good.


This is completely unrelated to the above but the other day I was thinking how different placement has been from what I expected. Since first year, I had known that I would be spending some 8 to 12 months doing something, somewhere, for my placement year. I didn’t know any specifics but from hearing many stories from others who have had their placement experience and from my own personal travels, I felt like I had a pretty good idea of what my placement would be like. I was pretty wrong.

I always pictured landing in a hot tropical country, with palm trees swaying in the ocean breeze, being met by locals wearing flip-flops, shorts, and t-shirts. I thought I would be living in a simple house with a straw roof surrounded by weird looking, exotic bugs. Like I said before, I was a bit off.

When I landed here in Bolivia, it was literally freezing, just under zero degrees. Instead of flip-flops, shorts, and t-shirts, everyone was wearing boots, plants, sweaters, and a warm coat. Bolivia also happens to be landlocked so no ocean and, unfortunately, no ocean breeze. Right now I am living in an apartment building, so no straw roof. Looking out my bedroom window, I can see snow. Never thought that would be the case. And as for the exotic bugs, there are none. I don’t know if it’s because of the altitude or that I am in the city, but there aren’t even that many normal bugs (by that I mean spiders, flies etc). Before coming here, I even bought a big fancy mosquito net to keep all the mosquitoes away. In my time here in Cocha, I have only seen 3 mosquitoes, 2 of which were dead.

Although it’s not what I expected, Cochabamba is still a pretty sweet place to live. Yes there are mornings that I wish I could hit the beach, work on my tan, or at least not have to wear a sweater, jacket, and hat but things are pretty good here. And I mean with a name like Cochabamba, you know good times are had here. Cochabamba! Brilliant.

Anyways, hope you all are doing well. Take care!