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Published: January 16th 2007
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My spanish teacher
This was taking at the Instituo Exclusivo (my spanish school) Christmas party. Free food and alcohol... what a great school! Besides it not really feeling like Christmas outside considering that the temperatures are about 15ºC everyday and there is sun most days, Christmas is just around the corner and this week was the week of Christmas parties. Too bad that this week is when I got a horrible cold, but I still enjoyed it anyway.
The first part of the week was pretty quiet but on Wednesday afternoon everything started up. I later found out this is a tradition among companies in Bolivia, but I was given quite a large amount of food by my employer for Christmas. Actually, it was an unbelievable amount which I think weighed about 60 to 70 lbs. Needless to say, I had to take a taxi home. Here is a list of what I received for Christmas from my employer:
* A whole chicken
* 12 pre-made hamburgers
* Panetone (Christmas cake/loaf)
* 750ml bottle of Singani (same as Peruvian Pisco)
* A bag of marshmallows
* A box of wafer cookies
* A package of crackers
* A bag of pretzels
* A box of chocolate pudding
* A bag of
Christmas Hamper from Work
25 lbs of rice and 25 lbs of sugar...what the heck am I going to do with 25 lbs of sugar in three months. lollipops
* 4 packages of soup mix
* A bottle of ketchup
* A bottle of mustard
* A bottle of mayo
* A bottle of cooking oil
* A bottle of jam
* A can of tuna
* A can of peaches
* Chocolate cake
* A bag of chocolates
* A box of Trix ceeral
* 25 lbs of rice
* 25 lbs of sugar (what the heck I will do with all of that, I don´t know)
I really can't figure out what I am going to do with 25 lbs of sugar in the next three months here. I don't know what I would do with that in a year let alone three months. From all the sugar and products containing sugar, the whole office should be wired for the next while. Year end must be coming up in a few months.
On Thursday, was the Instituto Exclusivo (my spanish school) Christmas Party. I only planned on making an appearance, giving a Christmas gift to my teacher (and no, I was sucking up, I don't even get graded on my
Christmas Hamper from Work
Ketchup, Mustard and Mayo. Thought I would live without these in Bolivia, but I guess not now. progress), but I ended up staying for the free alcohol (beer and wine) and the free food. I ended up talking to a few new people to the school, a Republican who after me saying "I like Evo Morales" (ie. the left-winged president of Boliva), she said "You are lucky no one understands English here!", followed by me saying "Me gusta Evo" (I like Evo in Spanish). I couldn't believe how ignorant that was, considering I knew that the Spanish people at the party understood some English. That party went well and I probably left about 10:30PM, about two and a half hours later than expected.
Waking up Friday morning, I realized that staying later than I wanted at the Christmas party the night before was a mistake because I am pretty sure that it made my cold worse. I decided for the sake of the people that I work with, that I would stay home for the day as to not get them sick for their Christmas vacations. I absolutely hate calling in sick, but this time I thought it was worth it. I slept the whole morning until 1:00PM and I woke up feeling much better. Then
Christmas Hamper From Work
Panetone, a bag of lollipops, chocolate budin (cake) and marshmallows. I guess the people at my office thought I don't have enough sugar in my diet. my phone rang, it was Leo from the office. He of course knew that I was not feeling well and stayed home in the morning, but invited me out to the FONCRESOL Christmas lunch. I thought about it and decided that I might as well not miss it as it may be my only chance to experience a company Christmas party in another country. I had fifteen minutes to make it to the office (well that is when they said they were leaving) and since I didn't have that much energy, I took a taxi to the office. I can't believe how nice it was outside. It was t-shirt weather and I was going to a Christmas celebration. It kind of messes up the head a bit. Anyway, walking in the office my boss called me into his office where another of my coworkers Janett was as well. They asked how I was feeling and they said that the best thing for a cold is tea with singani, or just singani. I like the way these people think but I am a little skeptical about alcohol curing my cold. Of course, when Leo told me that the office was leaving
Christmas Hamper from Work
Bottle of Singani (Bolivian alcohol), a bottle of cooking oil (as they like to deep fry everything here), a can of tuna, a can of peaches and a box of Trix. in 15 minutes, if you translate this into Bolivian time, that's about 45 minutes, so I waited around the office for half and hour just talking to people. Finally we were off in taxis to go to a restaurant that seemed really far from the office, and for La Paz standards, it was far. When we entered the restaurant, we were greeted with jugo de maracuya (passion fruit juice) and singani. Absolutely amazing and they go down so smoothly! I decided to take the advice of my boss and see if the singani would cure my cold. Finally when the whole office arrived, more maracuya y singani was served along with lots of beer. My boss was giving me everything to drink saying it would cure my cold. I guess his mom was not a nurse 😊 As this was a Christmas lunch, we all order food and the amount of food came was absolutely astounishing. I don't know who a human can eat that much, but I did see it happen in a few cases. I ordered a dish called Picante Mixto which contained charque (dried llama...this is where the word jerky is derived from), a piece of chicken,
Christmas Hamper from Work
A bottle of jam, a package of crackers, a box of wafer cookies and a bag of pretzels lengua (beef tongue) and tripe (beef stomach). Everyone laughed at me as they thought I couldn't eat it, but I proved them wrong and at all the meat on my plate, just not all the potatoes that were on the plate as well. During the entire time, I watched my coworkers get more and more inibriated and more and more beer kept appearing on the table. It was fun having conversations with coworkers in a non-work scenario. Lots of laugh all around all day! Finally people started leaving, one by one, which meant a hug to all the guys and a kiss on the cheek (or in one case for me, more on the lips by one woman in the office... Kevin, my Canadian coworker makes fun of to this day about that) to the women and wishing everybody a Merry Christmas. Near the end of the night, there were seven or eight of us guys left and they asked us what we wanted to drink next. They suggested Singani, we agreed, we didn't realize we were getting a whole bottle of it though. Singani and Canada Dry Ginger Ale, what a great mix. Isn't ginger ale good for sore
Christmas Hamper from Work
Packages of soup, chocolate pudding and a bag of chocolates. throats? After a while longer, Kevin and I left the party and took a taxi home since we were in the middle of nowhere. As Lisa was having a Christmas party before her and her beau were off to Peru for their vacation, Kevin and I ended up there for a while longer. Most people went out to the bar after a while, but I decided to call it a night because I knew my cold would only get worse if I went out. The next morning I found out that my decision the night before not to go out was useless, because the singani definitely didn't help my cold at all. Why do I have to have this damn cold right before Christmas?
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