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I have a story. It’s one about thankfulness, about connections, about incredible hook-ups, and about thankfulness.

As you already know, when we moved here we were living in a shared accommodation. We were thankful for many things there…the puppies, the garden, the quiet…and then we moved to our own place. We have been thankful for…our own space. I haven’t allowed myself to say that this accommodation is difficult. I haven’t allowed myself to want for more or wish for something better. We could live here. We could be happy. We could make-do. I mean, no big deal that we have been toasting our bread on a pan or that we only have 2 pots. We have hot water. We have a bed. We have our own space. BUT, the truth is we are living in a tin can. A bell literally goes off just outside our window every 15 minutes, 24 hours a day. It marks quarter after, half past, quarter to, and then the hour with an addition bell to mark what hour it is. Midnight is a spectacular 16 bells. We only have internet in our kitchen window because apparently the owner has another property across the street so they put the modem somewhere in the middle. The people above seem to be clomping around in high heels until 2am everyday, and someone in our apartment owns a yappy dog.

Don’t get me wrong. We have been planning all along to live here for 6 months. We could do it and be fine…but sometimes beyond all reason, events conspire to provide you with your heart’s desire… a longing you wouldn’t even dare voice for fear of seeming ungrateful. And here the story begins.

Two days after we arrived we were exploring our new surroundings. We discovered an adorable little yard that appeared to be a kid’s play area or daycare of sorts. A friendly, foreign looking man stood outside so we decided to approach him to ask him about this place. He did in fact speak English and took us inside to translate for us, where we discovered that this WAS a daycare that could take Amelia so she could make friends and learn language. It turns out this was also the place that our dear friend and coworker, Ivonne, had in mind for Amelia before we even came.

About one week later we saw this man across the street and waved to him. No interaction. Just a wave. Another week later we were walking in a plaza near our apartment when this man approached us out of nowhere and said he had been thinking about us! He told us that his family shares a garden with another family who happens to be moving back to Spain for 6 months and they are looking for someone to sublet their flat. He knew we were in town for that amount of time and he and his wife thought we would be perfect! Duane, Amelia and I checked out the flat that very moment and fell in love. It is the most beautiful little home. Amelia immediately made herself comfortable, digging in the dirt, and riding on the little bikes (yes, there are little kids that live there). They even told us that hummingbirds come to visit. There is NO BELL, and it’s only 3 blocks from the clinic where Duane is working! 

SO…in 3 short weeks we will be moving to this amazing location that I can’t even believe just fell in our laps. I am thankful beyond words. Thankful that our desires are known before we even give words to them. Thankful that we don’t even have to give words to our desires. Thankful that men like Lluis exist, and thankful for places that feel like home.  

Valle de la Luna and El Alto

We had a weekend of adventure. We went to a place called the Valley of the Moon. They didn’t mince words when they named that place. It was a valley and it was moony. And we also ventured to the top of the world to a market (and city) called El Alto.

Now, you might consider any sort of outing in a foreign country to be an adventure, but add to that an inability to communicate (other then hand gestures), a toddler, and public transit, and you’ve got yourself a full-blown Bolivian escapade! There are mini vans here that are privately owned but have a specific route that they have worked out with the city to take, and so for mere dimes and nickels we are able to travel all over the city and surrounding area (come on Saskatoon…jump on board). They have little placards in the front window that tell you where they are going, which only prove to be useful if you know where that place is. They cram as many people in these little vans as humanly possible and the driver takes a mental note of where everyone gets on and gets off so as to get the right fare. We have fully embraced said transit. And so for the Valle de la Luna outing we climbed aboard a little mini bus for a 40-minute drive through some of the craziest topography I’ve ever seen.

Not having any clue where we are going, and not really knowing how to tell the driver where we want to get off makes for an interesting ride, but we succeeded and found ourselves in what felt like the desert with all sorts of jutty, spiky rock formations. Valle de la Luna was a beautiful and confounding place.

Now, El Alto deserves a bit of explanation. It used to be a part of La Paz. It was where much of the city’s poor lived (and still live), and consequently where most of the indigenous people reside. Over time it grew and is now bigger than La Paz, and is considered a city of its own. Here is where they house one of the world’s biggest open-air markets…it is said that it would take you seven full days of exploring to see the entire market. I believe it. If I weren’t with Bolivians I might never have come out of El Alto. People of La Paz go there because they can get absolutely anything they want for very little money. Things are crazy cheap. We went because, as Duane said in the previous post, we are currently setting up the clinic and are purchasing tools to make Centro de Miembros functional.

This trip proved to be profitable, as they bought almost all of the tools needed to get the clinic running again and we had one of the best views of the city we’ve ever had. Sitting at nearly 4000 meters, El Alto lent us a spectacular look at our temporary home. The only casualty was one cell phone nicked from the pocket of our Bolivian friend. Sneaky little pickpocket.

Starting From Scratch

Some people bite off more than they can chew. That describes how I feel; except I didn’t take that gargantuan bite… some less-than-lovely folks in La Paz threw a curve ball at Centro de Miembros Artificiales and it landed right in my mouth. I’m catching my breath from time-to-time, but still unable to chew this wad of work down into a manageable size.

To reiterate; approximately one month before our arrival in La Paz, the prosthetics clinic I am volunteering at was forced to move locations and due to other complications also lost all of its equipment. So, rather than showing up here and observing a fully functioning prosthetics clinic to critique where/when/how I might add to their practice, I find myself purchasing fabrication equipment in a foreign country (one in which nothing is advertised online), planning work flow in the lab, advising on lowest-cost-possible-McGyver-style fabrication setups, delegating tasks to part-time volunteers, and giving general operation guidance. I must say I am lucky to have become one corner of the triangle that is strong enough to get this much needed prosthetics clinic up and running again. The other two corners of the triangle are Matt (the American co-founder of the clinic, currently hogging all the American bandwidth to email and skype with us 24/7) and Ivonne (permanent volunteer clinic manager) the never-tiring, hardest working, loveliest, humanitarian Bolivian grandmother who does everything.

Our goal at Centro de Miembros Artificiales is to be operational as soon as possible (2 more weeks?) so that the two Bolivian prosthetic technicians can come back to work and we can all continue the service of providing the best possible functional prosthesis free of charge to the underprivileged amputees of Bolivia.

First Impressions

So, we’ve been in La Paz for 12 days now and I have to say, this city is really growing on me. We are constantly discovering new and breathtaking views, and are amazed at how quickly and drastically the weather can change. The clouds coming over the mountains often speak of rain and thundershowers, and the booming claps echo throughout the valley. Even though we see this everyday, it doesn’t mean that it will rain. I haven’t quite figured out how to predict the weather. Most days have been warm and sunny…a nice fall day.

There are playgrounds everywhere here!!! I was pleasantly surprised (as was Amelia), so we have been frequenting a few of them. It’s unclear to me yet if the same people go to the same playgrounds, making it a market for new friends…time will tell. There are also plenty of green spaces, which they have placed in the middle of their round-abouts…cars whipping around, making this mother a bit nervous.

People don’t really seem to care whether we are here or not. It doesn’t have the same vibe of many of the other countries I have visited where you are a bit of a novelty and points and stares are the norm. We are free to do as we please without much notice from others, which is nice. Amelia still seems to draw some attention though…her tiny frame (making her the same size as many of the other kids her age here) and her blonde hair are a cause for cheek squeezes and “bonitas” from people of all ages. Teenage girls seem to pay the most attention to her. And old ladies.

Only 12 days in and I have already realized some things I have taken for granted, and which I am thankful for at home;

Clean water – We are boiling water all the time so we can wash vegetables, make coffee, etc.

Hot water – Each tap only has one faucet…cold water. We are also boiling water so we can wash our dishes in hot water. At least the showers have hot water, so I’m incredibly grateful for that. My first shower here was very, very cold because I didn’t understand how to make the water hot with just one tap (basically you have to nearly shut the water off to make it hot…the more it is shut, the hotter the water will be).

Flat topography – Everything is on a hill. Everything. You are either always going up, or going down. And we’re not talking about slight grades here…we are literally hiking. Our butts are going to be awesome when we come home!

Unlaboured breathing – Since we are so high in elevation, our lungs have not yet adjusted. We pant up hills, we pant while putting on our clothes, and we pant while stirring a pot of water. Standing up from sitting is enough to make you pass out. Amelia has developed a bit of high altitude sleep apnea, which scared me at first but her breath has been regulating itself as she acclimatizes.

We moved today…when we arrived in La Paz, we were staying in a shared house. It’s a massive home with more rooms then I even know. We were sharing with many Bolivians and a couple from the UK. There was a beautiful garden and a nice courtyard where Amelia liked to play. I know, I know, this sounds ideal but with all of the change our wee one has experienced we felt that it would be the best for her to have our own space. Any time anyone came into the kitchen she would stop eating. There were all sorts of tiny, breakable knick-knacks that she loved to play with that were at her level. I felt like I was always telling her to put stuff down. At least now we can make a home. And we don’t have to work around others in a small kitchen.

The new place we moved into is a small apartment very close to a nice area of town. An English guy lived here before us and left this place in a state…the expectations to leave a place clean apparently aren’t the same as at home. The place is cute though, and will be comfortable for us. We will have to get used to the sounds and smells that come from our surrounding neighbours (ie the thumping from upstairs, and the bell that seems to ring every 30 minutes from somewhere outside), but that’s all a part of living somewhere else.

There’s a lot more to say, but I think I’ll leave that for another post. Duane can update about the clinic and all that is happening there. Although this post was about all that we are getting used to and such, we are very comfortable here and are very happy to be living in La Paz. We like it here. Of course we miss our friends and family, but the winter will pass quickly and we will be home just as the flowers are poking through the soil. Adios for now!  

La Paz, Day 1

Hola from Bolivia! We have arrived safe and mostly sound and are currently getting our bearings, although we are taking our time to adjust to the elevation and moving pretty slowly.

We left Miami last night around 10:30pm. We were already a visible, and linguistic minority on the plane…possibly the only people who weren’t capable of speaking Spanish. Amelia stayed awake until take-off and then had a pretty good sleep on the plane. She laid out on a seat between Duane and I, and as far as I knew, remained there until we landed…Duane informed me this morning that at one point he woke up to find her standing on the floor with her head resting on the seat, still mostly asleep. At least she didn’t fall off the seat, right? Right?

We landed in La Paz at 5:30am, and immediately Amelia started throwing up. Poor little thing was so pale and weak…even though we had been taking anti-altitude sickness medication, she was still affected. In fact, we all were (are). As we left the plane we walked so slowly, and felt light-headed, experiencing the minor effects of the elevation. For those of you who don’t know, La Paz is just under 12,000 ft making it the second highest urban center in the world…Lhasa, Tibet being the first.

Our first view of the city was breathtaking (and not because of the altitude). There was just enough of a break in the clouds to cast some light on this spectacular valley. Buildings and shanties scale some of the most seemingly uninhabitable inclines, and there are mountains surrounding the city on every side. As we entered La Paz, it because clear to us that while the streets made absolutely no sense to us, people were very adept at getting around. There were no visible street signs (other than one hand-written one that I saw).

Our house is a shared accommodation. There are some other volunteers living here, although I couldn’t tell you how many people since we’ve been dead to the world since we’ve arrived. There is a really nice courtyard, and a small piece of grass that will be a nice area for Amelia to play on. We’re not sure how long we’ll be at this place…we’re just going to play it by ear and see if we like it and if it works for our family.

After arriving at our place we all immediately fell asleep in our massive bed…after about half an hour Amelia threw up again and felt awesome!!! Then she threw up again…wuh wuhhhh. That was at about 8am and she hasn’t been sick since, just really sleepy. Duane has basically been symptom free, and I have been sporting a bit of a headache and some nausea. There’s also the crazy feeling of your heart beating out of your chest when you walk upstairs…you know, like if you sprint, but here you’re only slowly taking a flight of stairs.

So, that’s our first day and we’re only halfway through. We are so looking forward to this adventure! We have no idea how to get around or how to find out house again if we leave, but that’s all a part of the joy of international travel! 

Florida

So, we've made it to Florida and it's everything I expected and more!!! We are staying at this amazing bungalow rental in the middle of nowhere! Quite literally, our little place is an oasis in the midst of barren land. There are few trees and single level homes all around us and we are just offset from the highway, but when you enter the property where we are staying you'd never know that anything else in the world existed. Apparently they have about an acre of land and also doubles as a nursery, so we are among a cornucopia of foliage....bamboo, ylang ylang, and other stuff I can't pronounce or recall.

Our hosts are incredible as well! They have introduced us to their chickens (yes, there are also chickens on this property) and have given us some eggs. They also brought over gigantic avocados...the likes I have never seen before. I thought they were papaya they were so big. And they have also given us access to bananas. I might never leave!

Duane and Daren left this afternoon to head to the polo court for their first day of competition, and while they embarked on their journey, I embarked on one of my own...after Amelia's nap we walked (well, I walked while carrying her) about 10 blocks to a bus stop in 30 degree weather to head to the beach. We had no problems on the way there! Easy connections, very little waiting. And we had an amazing time at the beach! Amelia loved the ocean and the sand and the warm air and water! She didn't like the salty water in her mouth and eyes, but who can blame her? Before I could even get her into her bathing suit she was digging and crawling in the sand and running towards the water!

We played for about 2.5 hours before I decided that we needed to head back before it got dark. Good idea in theory. We ended up waiting at a bus stop for 45 minutes in the scorching heat with no shade while I tried to force feed Amelia grapes and water and block the sun from her tiny body. Finally I gave up. We walked (I walked) another 6 or so blocks to another more populated bus stop to wait an additional 15 minutes to get on a bus that wasn't really a bus, so I had to pay more money (even though I had an all day pass) which took me right past where I needed to go, but they wouldn't let me off because apparently it's against the law to drop someone off at a stop that's not yours. I ended up in tears. It didn't work. We eventually ended up in an ok place where we waited another 20 minutes or so for our bus to arrive and when we got to our stop it was dusk. I chose a more populated street to walk down, thinking that would be more safe, but it seems to me that men driving by perceived me to be a street walker (carrying a toddler!?!?) because I was honked at and waved at a number of times on the way home. Either that or I looked like someone that multiple men knew.

Amelia was entirely unscathed and would probably do the whole trip over again...which is more then I can say for myself. What a relief it was to walk into our little haven. I'm not sure I recommend exploring a new city with a toddler on your own....

Harvest

In amidst all the packing and cleaning we've had to remember our yard, and more importantly, our garden. Oh, to live in an apartment at times like these (although the bounty when we return will be amazing). I've canned about 6 pints of salsa, 8 jars of pizza sauce, 8 jars of pickled beans, and about 9 jars of pickled carrots. Our pantry will be full when we get home!!!

Throughout this process I have been overwhelmed with the help from our community! Harvest never would have happened if two friends hadn't come over and dug carrots, raked leaves, and entertained our daughter. And I never would have finished canning everything without the help of a friend taking Amelia so I could work on my own! It's amazing how much one can accomplish without two extra little curious hands getting into everything. Thanks to all of you who have lent us your time and your help so we can prepare for our departure.