The Little Things

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It´s all in the little things. For example...

Toby, the dog that has made the clinic his home, greets me every morning as if I´ve known him for a lifetime.

Even though, in general, the service can be lacking and unbearably slow, the people here respond by being that much more patient and understanding.

On nearly every major street corner you can find a child juggling for spare change.

Whenever a bus stops at a light en route to a distant city (ex: La Paz), people on the street will sell you bread through the windows of the bus. And by sell, I mean they throw the bread through the window and wait for their money to come back in a similar manner.

The bathrooms at ´rest stops´ outside of any major city are... special. You pay for your toilet paper before going into the stalls and pooring a bucket of water down the toilet is considered flushing.

People travel from towns hours away every morning just to set up their little stands of candy, fruit, soda, etc on the streets of Cochabamba.

You pay to use the bathrooms at the bus stations.

Wearing my white doctor´s coat on the bus each day is an open invitation for strangers to ask me any question under the sun about what they should do with their (insert medical issue here).

Seatbelts are a foreign concept.

Both greeting and saying good-bye to someone is always accompanied with a kiss on the cheek.

The kitchen door always remains closed while food is being prepared. It is considered taboo to smell food in other areas of the home.

There are different towels to use depending on what type of utensil you´re drying. ex: plates and glasses have their own towels. (you don´t want the oil from the food found on plates to contaminate the glasses)

There are often protests in the streets of Cochabamba where hundreds of workers will march for hours and block the roads.

The second day I got here, there was a nurses´ strike, where every nurse in Cochabamba took the day off in protest. (of what exactly I´m not sure)

Children will randomly get on a bus at one stop, sing a song and dance (usually with an instrument), ask for money, and get off at the next stop.

The buses here are decorated like tacky Christmas Trees. There will be anything from ornaments to stickers to hideous posters to random ribbons or all of the above (if you´re really lucky) scattered throughout the inside of the bus. As for the outside... the word psychedelic comes to mind.

Honking (as in your car) in Bolivia can have several different meanings depending on the situation... it´s either ´hey, do you need a taxi?´ or ´hey, get out of the road!´ or ´hey, you´re female!´ and then there´s always the ever-popular ´hey, I´m bored and have nothing better to do!´ Bolivians like to honk.

And then there´s the time concept. Or lack thereof. When someone says something starts at 4:00, they really mean 4:30... or later. Like right now, I´ve been waiting for my Spanish teacher, Jorge, to arrive for my lesson that should have started 25 minutes ago. We like to refer to this miscommunication (if you could even call it that) as the ¨Bolivian Gap.¨



And guess who JUST got here... 😉

Katie

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Comments

[JENNA]

hi
hi katie : ) tell toby I say Hi as well...