The last few days of February and first few days of March, I traveled to Oruro (one of the 9 departments of Bolivia) for Carnaval. Carnaval isn't celebrated much in the United States except in a few parts, for example, Mardi Gras in Louisiana. Carnaval is celebrated in all of Bolivia but in each part it's a little different. The first 4 days of March were Carnaval this year but it changes each year depending on the lent season in the Church year. It's always the 3 or 4 days before lent starts. Precarnaval activities began almost with the New Year and they included parties, bands marching through the streets, foam and water balloon/squirt gun wars between kids (and even some younger adults) and some other random activites throughout the city. When Carnaval actually begins, all the precarnaval activities continue, but even more intensly. Santa Cruz also has paint wars along with foam and water, some cities have parades, Sucre had bands marching down our street throughout entire days, and Oruro has a huge "Entrada" (similar to the one that happened in September but MUCH bigger). Oruro is known as the 3rd best Carnaval in all of South America and it certainly was a blast! For Oruro's Carnaval, there's a special dance called the "Diablada" (The Dance of the Devils) and it has a very long religious and cultural history. Some of the masks that the dancers wore were humongous and some had light up eyes. It was a neat dance to see.
I traveled with the Teresa (the president of our Roteract club), her cousin and Adrianna (the other Rotary exchange student in Sucre). Oruro is super cold in the morning and evening, but during the day it gets pretty hot and you just want to be in shorts and a tank top! We took an 8 hour bus ride overnight to get there and when we arrived early morning, we hiked all the way up some 900+ stairs to the huge virgin statue in Oruro. After that we headed to one of the markets for some shopping, went to a fair that was set up for Carnaval where we bought cactus fruit (it's DELICIOUS and right now is when it's in season so it's even better!), rested for the afternoon and then met up with two more guys from Roteract for a concert/dance in the Plaza. On Saturday, we went to another fair set up for Carnaval, entered the huge church (also the ending point of the "Entrada" where the dancers would enter the church and dance for a little bit as a way of praying) with 2 museums (one of them in an old mine inside the church), met up with the others from Roteract again and watched the "Entrada" for several hours and then headed to find dinner. While we were at dinner, the big accident that you may have already heard of happened. One of the bridges set up for Carnaval stretching over the "Entrada" had too many people who had stopped to watch the dancing from the bridge and it fell over a band and a stand full of people killing 5 in all, I believe, and over 70 injuries. Before this accident, Oruro had never had any recorded deaths during Carnaval even though other cities in Bolivia had. The dancing was suspended for about 3 hours and the whole atmosphere was just sad. We had been planning to go to a party or to go back and watch more dancing later but instead we just walked around the streets a bit. After the "Entrada" started up again, we went to the site of the accident and were very saddened to see the bridge laying through the street, the smashed stands, the completely empty stands stretching for yards in either direction which would normally be packed with people and the dancers stopping to walk past where the bridge fell instead of dancing in normal festivity. To buy a seat in one of the stands and watch the dancing was a little expensive so we had originally been planning to find free seats on Sunday when half of the people from Saturday weren't there watching but due to the accident, Sunday was like the "big day" that's normally Saturday. So we walked around to different places to watch the dancing, went to one of the fairs again and finally got on our 8 hour bus ride home late Sunday night. The last day of Carnaval (March 4), I was in Sucre with my family and we had a barbecue on our "terraza". Apparently it's a very common custom with many families in Bolivia. There were also bands marching down our street the entire day. Fireworks went off each night I think and then Carnaval and all it's activities finally came to an end and things went back to normal.
The next week, classes began at the college and I finally was able to start my classes!! I'm in one Spanish class and two Quechua classes (with different teachers). Quechua is the most used native language in Bolivia (out of 36 native languages excluding Spanish) and is also spoken in parts of Peru and Ecuador. Nahema, an exchange student from Belgium with a different organization, is in all of my classes and we've become very close in the past few weeks because of that. She also was at Pestalozzi (my high school) with me last year but we didn't ever talk much there. I'm really enjoying my classes, classmates and teachers at the college and I like the balance and schedule of my classes. It's just enough to keep my busy but to also give me time to relax. Because I'm going to my service work (the children's hospital where I help feed and play with the disabled kids) three afternoons of the week, I only have my college classes during the mornings. Then in the evenings, I keep busy with tai bo, Rotary or friends.
Our dog, Chachi, ran away in February when the door to the street was left open and my little host brother was heartbroken about it so Abuelita, my family and I bought a new dog the second week of March! He's a mixture of a Pomeranian and a Sharpay, he's only three months old right now and won't grow very much, and my brother named him Hatchi after the movie "Hatchi". (If you haven't seen that movie, I suggest you watch it. It's a great movie!) We all enjoyed having the new puppy around but sadly it got really sick and just today I found out it died. ): Mamá and I cried together for a bit but we haven't told Nico yet. We are trying to find the best way to tell him.
Just recently, I went to Yotala (a little town about a 45 minute drive away from Sucre) with my family and we enjoyed the day at a mini water park. The weather here around Sucre has still been pretty warm. Warm in a way that I can wear shorts and a tank top or I can wear jeans and either way I'll be perfectly fine! However, as the weather is starting to get warmer for spring in the US, the weather will slowly start to get cooler for fall here in Bolivia!
Nico, me, a tennis friend of Nico's and my host mom enjoying a café
The big Virgin statue in Oruro
Two Roteract guys, Teresa (president of Roteract), Adrianna and I in Oruro for Carnaval (all the white stuff is foam)
Adrianna, Claudia (from Roteract), me and Teresa after having a foam attack!
Me after being attacked by little kids with foam
Hatchi, the puppy we had for only a short week and a half before it died ):
The small water park my host family and I went to in Yotala
