Weltenbummlerin

Day 1 (Cochabamba-Montero) The 26th of December my host family's big vacation started. My hostuncle kept saying he would pick us up at exactly 4am and we would leave latest quarter past... he forgot to mention he meant Bolivian time, so although I had my stuff ready at 3:45am, we didn't leave until around 6am. Also it was decided we would get breakfast at our first stop which was after a 4 hour car ride at 10am, so I didn't have anything to eat for 6 hours. Then I was put in one car with a part of the family I didn't even know, so you can imagine how fantastic my mood was sitting in a car tired, hungry and with 4 complete strangers. As it turned out later, however, those people were some of the ... read more

On Monday it was time again to say goodbye to yet another volunteer. We met at a restaurant (as always) and had a last dinner together. One of my friends, however, kept talking about these awesome hamburgers they once had a after a night out. Since this was the last chance for Clara, the leaving volunteer, to have it again we decided to go and get it. Madeleine called her private taxi driver, who picked us up after ten minutes and we want to kind of a fast food place where a lot of little booths are on the street selling Bolivian food. On our way the driver missed one of the road bumps and we hit our heads pretty hard. Madeleine was in the middle of telling us once again about how amazing the hamburger ... read more

This week they turned on the lights of the Christmas decoration that has been hung during the past weeks. Let me tell you something: Bolivians take Christmas decoration very seriously. The Prado, the main boulevard around here, is one big light. There is even something like a Christmas market with baked apples. The only difference is that the lights hang on palm trees and people walk around in T-Shirts. My boss wanted a Christmas themed cover for our magazine and I suggested to take a picture of a Christmas tree completely out of lights they had put up on one bridge. She said that's a good idea and asked me to there with Tai, the new Japanese volunteer in Journalism, so he could take pictures. So there we stood at 7pm waiting for the tree to ... read more

This week I made a real German Kartoffelsalat for my Bolivian family and the other volunteers. In the morning I had to go to La Cancha to get all the ingredients and EVERYONE was staring at me! Why does a gringa want to buy vegetables?! Those white people usually only buy souvenirs and never show up in the vegetable department. Eventually I found everything I needed and was able to return home and start cooking. The recipe said it would take me 25 minutes to prepare it. What a lie! It took me forever. I was still faster than my hostmum though and her only comment was "La comida boliviana es una macana!" (Bolivian food is a real pain!). Alcira loved my food so much she forgot about her diet and later said: "Ayyy Joanna! Why ... read more

After a while I thought I've seen it all. But no! I returned from the Salar de Uyuni trip on Tuesday morning around 10 am, took a shower, ate lunch and was ready to go to work. I stood at the usual corner waiting for a trufi when a cholita (the women living in cities, but dresses traditionally) came by and asked me if micro A was going to some place. I told her I didn't know and she said thank you. Then she walked like 5 steps away from me, pulled down her undies and started pissing in the middle of the street. She was no more than 2m away from me on a VERY lively street corner just urinating. Once she was done she pulled her undies up again and got on the next ... read more