Samaipata Bolivia :) over 2 weeks late...

So after a month and a half of lots of hard work at school, we finally got our first long weekend. I was quick to jump aboard a trip leaving the city. I have found that even though I grew up in a city, but I have notice through out my travels that Denver isn't really a very big... It also probably doesn't help that I have lived in a small mountain town for the last three years :)

The view from our hostel in Samaipata. These smaller hearts
were made by children from the town.

Me drinking papaya juice on our first meal
in Samiapata.

I was even more excited to find out that I was going to a small mountain town about 2 1/2 hours away from Santa Cruz. I had said yes to the trip before I even knew where exactly where I was going... just trusting my friends to figure it out, well at least the destination. There wasn't much planning after that. We didn't find a hotel beforehand, so we were told that if we went up there we might be able to find a place to stay. With that glimmer of hope we got a taxi (well the taxi was supposed to be filled with 8 people, but we bought the whole thing out for just us 3) It was still only around 40 dollars person to drive over 2 hours, not too bad.

Outside of our hostel :)

As we drove into town we asked the taxi driver to suggest somewhere to sleep and crossed our figures hoping for an opening. A cute little hostel was presented in front of us and the best part was that it was right off of the main plaza. Which was all decorated with hearts. I guess we were up there for lovers weekend lol. It made it feel very fancy for some reason, surrounded by trees and walkways filled with hand made hearts might have helped. The only problem with being so close to the plaza was that everyone was looking to party the long weekend. 

Us with the guide after our hike in the cloud forest :)

Hiking in the forest. It was a warm day,
but we needed the plants because most
of the plants had thorns.

One other thing that we had no idea about... that there would be no ATMs in the town we were going to. We didn't think that it would be a problem since pretty much every where you look in Santa Cruz there is an ATM   Between the 3 of us we were able to have enough money to make it threw the weekend if we used my US credit card for the large day trips. 

With Samaipata being a small hippy mountain town there was plenty to do when it came to outdoor activities. The group decided to do a short hike through the "cloud" or "fern" forest. The name would change depending on who you talked to. It was a nice short hike through a pretty lush forest. The best part was the ferns. They just look so ancient, like something frozen in time. Their trunks aren't make out of wood, they are the old fern palms fused together to make the trunk. Our guide could stab his machete almost through the whole trunk. He would also point out all these different plants that were helpful for many different ailments. It was so nice to be hiking and out of the city. I am sure that I was all smiles through out the day.

I don't know if you can see the line done the center,
but this is the older part of the ruins. 

Side of the ruins

The second day we went to El Fuerte. "A fort" that first was settled by a pre-Inca culture. Then built upon by the Incas and the Spaniards. It was inspiring to be around something that old. I have been to old castles in Germany and Scotland, but nothing compares to pre-Inca.. Although our guide kept talking about how these 2 lines in the middle the fort might have been made for space crafts. I am pretty sure that there are lots of people that come by with that belief. He was almost set on that it might the real answer. I have tried to do more research on El Fuerte since going there, but there really isn't much out there. It really isn't that big of a site and the longer I am done here the more I am noticing that there is a ton of Inca ruins all over the Andes. I was still in awe of it.

It was a much needed and loved
weekend get away :)

I will hopefully be better about my up dates. We have our SACS accreditation coming this week, so we were extra busy getting all of the paper work and classroom together. Hopefully after this week I can get back to a normal routine.

Rain Days and Zoos

It has been hard find time to do much sightseeing with all of the school activities and after school sports for teachers ;) There has been a lot of eating out though. At least 3 times a week I am finding myself eating out. There are so many different small restaurants in the town and always someone who is willing to take you to their favorite. The food has been pretty good. I have had everything from pizza to sushi to traditional. Everything has been under 20 US with wine at every meal. With those prices I really can't say no to eating out. Well I have trouble with saying no to social times any way.

This cute little monkey would
run around and then wash his hands.

The emus were kinda mean.
They were looking for food, but
they would peck at you as you
walked by.

But I was able to make it to the the zoo last Sunday. I was told not to expect too much, so my mind went straight to the zoo my family went to in Costa Rica. While my family and I were there a monkey got loose and started walking around the zoo it was pretty memorable.

The zoo actually turned out to be a interesting and cheap outing. For a buck fifty we were able to see a lot of the species that are native to Bolivia. Who knew that one country could have so many different types of animals that it could fill a zoo.

I didn't zoom at all for this picture :) You could see him breathing

The best part was that most of the animals were so close that it was almost like seeing them in a new light. Seeing a jaguar only a few feet away from you was such a beautiful sight. There were a lot of strange birds. They would range from the tropical parrots to road runners. but when the country goes from the Andes to the Amazon basin I guess you could see a lot of differeny types of animals.

Me and a hungry Capybara.
Everyone feeds the animals there.
Don't worry we didn't :)

One area that was really hard to swallow was that the people that were at the zoo weren't respectful to the animals. They would shout and yell at them. There was this larger animal (forgot the name). Asleep near the fence and a few guys would pull on the animals ears and spit on him. When we were near the jaguars one of the dad kept throwing stuff at the sleeping jaguar, so luckily our librarian got mad and started to yell at the guy. It is such a bad example for the children that are watching. It was really hard to not yell at all of them. Our teacher sides kept coming out.

Around town there have been some great sights to see. Although it has been strange getting used to it being spring in September down here. There have been some amazing trees. They are all starting to bloom. So as you drive around the city all of sudden there is a great pop of color, yellows, orange, pink, white, and purple (oh yes a purple flowering tree).  This one is on my walk to school every morning.


Speaking of getting to school, today was the most interesting commute to school I have ever had. I was woken up with rain pounding on my roof. At first I was thinking how nice, it hasn't rain since I have been down here. After getting ready for day I started to get a little concerned. My roommates and I normally walk to school every morning, but with the down poor we started looking into the taxi option. Well the none of the taxi's were answering their phones, crap!!! So we called all of the teachers that we knew who got taxi's to school every morning, no of them had gotten their taxi's yet. I started to believe that I would have to make the soaking walk to school. Luckily our neighbor called us saying he waited outside and finally got a taxi. When he pulls up it looks like he had taken a shower with all his clothes on.

The taxi driver starts to head down the street to school, but he can't really see because the windshield is so fog up. All of a sudden we are in a huge puddle. It looks like it is taller than the tires. All that I can think at this moment is don't stop, please don't stop driving, I don't want to be suck. We turned down a side street and wound up getting to school.

Once at school my roommates and I are one of the few teachers that made it to school. We start to planning on having more than our students in our classrooms, but then school got cancelled. So we went on a walk around to see all the flooded streets.

Santa Cruz Cooperative School

So the reason that I have been too busy to post is the topic I get asked most about... school. As most teachers know the beginning of the year is the busiest time, getting your classroom ready, learning new curriculum, a new grading system, learning your students learning styles, and oh wait teaching. All of that means a lot of after school time. Luckily I have a great staff here that reminds me that it can't all be about school.

Santa Cruz Cooperative School
This is the high school side, but it is where the teachers get to
eat their lunch.

I will start with the not so fun stuff first (school requirements). There is a lot more grading and homework here, which is difficult to to assign sometimes, but it is just a different culture. This is something that I will have to get used to. They have the students starting to study for test at home by 3rd grade. That just seems a little early to me. So I am having to learn how to teach good study habits. On top of all the extra homework the school would like at least 2 grades per subject turned in every Friday. Luckily I have a TA to help grade on breaks. As a classroom teacher I also mange a classroom website, where I give parents at least a week notice for any test given in class. On top of all of this we are being asked to rewrite (well write because 3rd grade is missing so many) all of the unit plans and make sure that all the new standards are covered. Adding all of that together makes a lot of work.

Elementary
My classroom on the second floor.
It is close to the top of the basketball hoop in the picture. 

We have been finding time for ourselves though. There is a group of teachers that get together to play sports after school a few days a week. Tuesdays and Fridays there is Wallyball. For the first couple of weeks it looked like someone was beating me, black and blue really doesn't suit me. Then on Wednesdays we get the field lights turned on and play ultimate frisbee. It is a wonderful way to work off the stress of the week while hanging out with co-works. It had really helped me keep my sanity, which you all know can be hard at times hehe.

My Class

On to my favorite part of being a teacher, the students. I have 22 students and a full time TA. My class is VERY talkative, and has many movers. We are still working on how to walk in a line around the school. Hopefully by month two that might happen lol. Although they are a bit hyper, they are working hard to try and get their work done. I get lots of hugs everyday and have a little boy who will give kisses on the checks to all of his teachers though out the day. The culture down here is touchy feely and I do like how loving my students are already. They just keep me on my toes.

"Its Bolivia"

The tittle of my blog is courtesy of a student of mine. We were waiting on all of the forth graders to go by so that our line of students could move. So I was laughing with my kids, talking about how we were suck in traffic during rush hour. Then my little girl says, "Don't worry about it, there's always traffic, its Bolivia" in the sweetest voice. It has been a great joke with all the other new teachers. We have to remind ourselves that things work a little different down here that even eight year olds know to joke about it.

More about school and students next week. I haven't brought my camera to school to get pictures yet.

So now that I am all settled in my house, we have tried exploring the city a little. On the first week we were able to go a coworker's house for dinner and drinks. We all decided to go and watch an indigenous festal/ slowest parade ever! We were there for about an hour and we only saw a few dancing groups go by, nothing like the parades in the states. It was a show of bright colors, sparkles and dancing. The costumes with beautiful with color. We were told that most of them cost about 2,000 US dollars, which is a lot of money down here. There would be men trying to organize the dancing with a large handle in their hands. We were guessing that they weren't making much sense. It was a fun way to see should of the culture in Santa Cruz.

This was one of my favorite costumes. It had so many sparkles :)

The men's costumes were just as colorful!

Amanda, Stephanie, and I have tried a few of the markets around the city. The first one was a smaller one in near the middle of town. It was a craft fair, so I was able to get a few larger earrings. I was having withdraws since I didn't bring that many down here. There were a ton of beautiful wooden crafts and cloth bags. It is the prefect place to get more tourist like things.

On Saturday all of us got on our walking shoes and went to the closet fruit and vegetable market. It was able the size of 3 football fields. I would have loved to take pictures of the market, but our maid told us not to wear any jewelry, so I thought that a camera would be out of the question. There was tons of vegetable (so many different types of potatoes) I guess it is just not fruit season yet. Bolivia has around 30 different types of potatoes I have been told. I can't wait to try them.

One of the strangest things about Saturday is that we avoided the cops like crazy. Down here they can ask you for your visa at anything to make sure that you are allowed in the country. We didn't bring our copies of our passport to the market, so we didn't want to run into trouble. It was strange for me to avoid the police. I have never had to do that before.

I can't believe that I have only been here two and a half weeks. It feels like I have done so much in that time.

New House

It has been a world wind of the last 2 weeks. The school has for sure kept us busy with looking for a house and setting up the classroom. So where to start, I guess from the beginning...

I got off the plane at 7:00 am after 24 hours of traveling. The elementary principal picked me up and I went to meet up with all the other new teachers, well the few that had arrived. After a quick breakfast (although my body had no idea what time is was) I jumped in a van to be whisked around the city to look at houses. We saw about 14 houses and apartments through out the day. There were very few that were furnished. That was one stress that I didn't want to deal with. So I ended up rooming with 2 other teachers from the states in a very large house.

My house. The landlord took the picture when I was goofing off, oh well :)

Amanda, Stephanie and I have all lived alone for the last few years, so we are all adjusting well to the roommate life again. The house has 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, study, 2 living rooms, a large kitchen, baloney, back yard. So there is plenty of space for visitors :)  One of my favorite things is that I have 2 very large doors from my bedroom on to my balcony. It makes me feel very southern for some reason.

Still need to buy a chair for the balcony outside my room to drink tea at night :)

The city of Santa Cruz is very large! It is quiet a shock going from Glenwood Springs to a town this large. I am still getting my bearings on were everything is. It could take a little while because every taxi you take goes a different route to take you to the same place. It is also not the safest place. I can't go walking to school even by myself. They want us girls in a group of three and no walking at night, ever. So I am trying to get used to being driving around in a taxi. But at least I am able to give directions to my house in Spanish pretty easily now. I do have to say that it is really strange living in a place where you can't walk around and feel safe. I may have taken that for granted in Colorado.

I have been able to keep myself really busy. The other teachers are so nice in inviting us new teachers to join them out. If I were to tell all those stories I would be here all night. So I will save some of those for another time.

Trip Preparations

Finding time to say goodbye, while figuring out what I will need for the next year has turned out to be a little hard than I thought. It has become a bit of a juggling act, but I have found time to get everything done. Some of it has been very last minute hehe. That is what I am good at I guess. Running around the last day so sleep on the plan will come easily.

I just got back from a quick visit to Durgano, to hang with my brother. Jonas is  hard to get back up to Denver, so seeing him meant a trip down there. Although with his recent break of his foot, he will be back up in Denver the day after I leave. It was a fun trip full of doctors and bottling his first batch of home brew beer. It was an interesting process, but between the two of us we got it bottled, although there was quiet a bit of beer on our legs and floor from the first bottles of beer. 

I have been lucky enough to have some contacts in Bolivia or who are from Bolivia that have been kind in answering my questions. The one thing that I have learned is that everyone dresses very well in Bolivia. Which is a very different story from the small mountain town. I am going to have to get used to being the most undress. It sounds like there is going to be a wide verity of people from different backgrounds, so I am sure that I will be fine. 

I have just packed for over 2 hours and not quiet down yet, but the end of it is close. I am starting to get excited for my adventure in the next year. I just have the 24 hour travel time to look forward too :p Saying goodbye to family and friends has been hard, but I know that this trip will be worth it.