This, That and the Other Thing

Scaly friend makes for abrupt change in lesson plans

Snapshot makes these little rebel rousers look seemingly tranquil

Rice and Beans and Sore Backs


Soccer below the sunny Bolivian sky

Polka Dots and Santa Claus

A New Filler for my Down Time

Thanksgiving in Bolivian style

It will be the first thanksgiving ever that I will not be with my family. For some, missing the family Thanksgiving dinner might not be so heartbreaking.

But, I come from a family that is serious about its turkey. I learned to see the turkey as a beautiful animal and conceder a turkey bollo to be a handsome holiday accessory. Thanksgiving is my family’s day to resurrect the mistreated image of turkeys and behold their moist flavor, nutritious value and oh yes, the heavenly post-turkey tryptophan trance.

So, I feel that I have learned a thing or two about turkey along the way. But it turns out that Bolivia had another thing to teach me about turkeys.

I’m riding to work and my co-worker Dina asks me how American’s prepare turkey for Thanksgiving Day.

Well my answer wouldn’t make my mother proud and I’m a far cry away from hosting my family’s Thanksgiving dinner. In fact, if and when that moment arrives, my family has already decided that Adrienne will be the well-established one who hosts.

So I tell Dina that you dress the turkey, smear it with juices and throw it in the oven.

“No, no, no” She says. “Before you dress the turkey, how do you kill the turkey?”

I really can’t tell you how many times this has happened to me in Bolivia that its assumed that if you EAT the food, you’ve raised, grown, killed/harvested and prepared the food. This seems a reasonable assumption because it is the reality of food production for most Bolivians. It is a luxury to be so far removed from the food production itself. Especially for those of us who like to eat meat, but the idea of touching the uncooked slabs makes us queasy. It’s a luxury and I would say that it is also a detriment to not understand what we eat at its most raw and most natural stage.

So, the story goes on. I tell Dina that most families buy the turkey at a supermarket and she nods, but then says, “Well, if you ever do have the chance to kill a turkey, let me tell you a delicious Bolivian recipe.”

So, to add a little Bolivian flare to your American Thanksgiving dinner, might I include this following suggestion for this Thursday.

Here it is:

Locate gobbling turkey. Gather family and friends. Buy several bottles of wine. Gather your gathered family members into a circle to corral the turkey. Grab hold of the turkey and begin force-feeding wine to the turkey. Give the turkey enough wine to intoxicate the turkey so it stumbles around. Give thanks to the turkey. Kill the poor turkey and cook the turkey that now has a ridiculous blood/alcohol level, so that its skin with retain a moist wine flavor.

¡Buen Provecho!

Tuesday, Tuesday

Today was Maria’s 45th birthday. I assume it’s due to her beautiful Brazilian genes, but you’d never guess that the woman is a day over 30. The three cooks at my comedor scraped together money for a grand feast of meat slabs, the kids from the comedor made decorations and other brought balloons, wine, flowers. The first fresh flowers I’ve seen. Even at the graduation celebration I attended on Sunday only fake flowers were gifted rather than real, fragrant, fresh flowers.

The party was wonderful. It’s so fulfilling to be with these women and dance like there’s not a care in the world. Especially, because I know for some the effort of arranging, paying and putting on the party is a costly labor of love. To share in this is fulfilling. I’ve learned from these strong women to work hard, but when it comes time to celebrate, you throw down. Sometimes I forget that I’m dancing with women from 20-60 years of age, from Switzerland, Bolivia, Brazil, and the US.

It helps that many of us have been taking salsa and merengue lessons together for the past month, so there’s no more reluctance of hip shakin’.

We left at early at nine and walked down the soft sandy streets of the Pampa neighborhood through sounds of crickets, barking dogs and smells reminiscent of burnt molasses and warm trash to catch a bumpy mini van ride over the railroad tracks, past the market- still bustling with people under the yellow street lights- to the plaza center. It has been a good day.

Another beautiful day in 'The Paradise'

I returned to Bolivia mid-week after an all-too-good stay in Ecuador and The Galapagos with my Ma. Already it feels like I never left…appropriately so, because a week in the Galapagos was kinda like all the other fantasies I concoct and think happen, but that my doctor tells me are lies.

Well, there was no Antonio Bandaras to go skipping down white sandy beaches with…

But, there were penguins, sea lions, sharks, sea turtles and fishes to snorkel beside.

I didn’t so much frolic underwater with the sharks and the penguins, which look more like tuxedoed torpedoes because they zip past you in a flash, but the sea lions did love to play with you in the water.

In fact, the first time I figured this out I was snorkeling with the group in one of the first areas that it is common to spot them. I was one of the last to spot one, so I was still, floating and looking all over the place when one came up from behind me and swam along my belly. Well, this is what the others say that saw the whole thing happen. I didn’t see or feel anything so by the time the little buddy showed up 4 inches from my face I was so surprised that I screamed. This became a running joke with another guy on the boat and he thought it was hilarious that of all the animals that would cause me to scream would be a docile sea lion. He even went so far as to alert the scuba dive master before our first dive that, as a doctor, he should inform everyone that I had an involuntary screaming problem aggravated by encounters with marine life…not far off, actually.

Also, it was neat to be with a group of strangers and quickly form relationships over new-found appreciation for the islands’ natural beauty or the day’s events of a bull seal chasing a passenger down the black sand beach, an involuntary screaming problem, etc. Most of the cohesion was thanks to our charismatic naturalist Ivan or I-BAN. Sure to shout, “oh my gosh”, “look at that”, “you are the best” and to wake up the passengers in the morning with imitation seal calls and a soft voice in high register saying, Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to another BEAUtiful day in The Paradise.

Some afterthoughts:

It can’t be easy for any Galapagos National Park naturalists to remain charming for an entire week while looking after twenty bumbling American tourists, but Ivan’s charisma and optimism equipped him with the know-who to handle all the moments when ethnocentrism or cultural insensitivities surfaced.

I think his optimism stands out to me because before this mini-vacation all incidents at my work of abusive behavior, medical problems and management mess felt like they were piling higher and higher into a toppling tower of un-fixables. Needless to say, this had me down in the pessimist dumps. No matter what, I felt really hard to motivate because I was in a close-minded about whether I was really accomplishing anything or was just spinning in circles and offering empty hope to a community that needed more than someone to put on a happy face and carry a positive, well-intentioned personality to work each day.

The best thing about Ivan’s optimism is that it wasn’t founded on ignorance or complacency. As a twenty-eight year old and soon to be father, his optimism has been his defense throughout real-really tough life experiences that as young child without sandals or running water these circumstances didn’t, for him, mean than he didn’t have a bright future. Or that as teenager when he tried make it within the system on minimal musical talent even though it would’ve been easier to rebel against a system that didn’t promote any future besides drugs and stealing for the poor kids. It roused me from my pessimist slumber just thinking how powerful it is that for someone in Ivan’s situation (which is reminiscent for me of children within the Bolivian community that I’m working) who is given little-to-no reason to embody optimism would make it his mission to do so.

Then, by the same standards, who I am with privileged life experiences to harbor pessimism when I approach a seemingly-similar problematic at my job?

Note: Unfortunately, my trip to the Galapagos has inspired no grand theories of species and such...yet. I await my divine moment of inspiration with bated breath.