Bolivia side of Lake Titicaca

First hour in Bolivia: On a boat

Second hour in Bolivia: Arrived on Island of the Sun, realized to get to any hostel I had to walk 1 hr straight up hill with my huge backpack not being adjusted to the altitude.

Third hour in Bolivia: Ran for the shower (since I had spent the last 3 days freezing and peeing outdoors or worse, in an outhouse with no toilet seat). Found their sorry excuse for a bathroom--- no toilet seat, a 5 foot container of water to attempt to use to ¨flush¨ the toilet, also serving as a bike storage room. Got shocked washing my hair as I then realized there were exposed wires in the shower to heat the water... shocked two more times as I touched the water knob to turn the water off and get out of there fast despite the shampoo in my hair for the first time in way too long. PS Had no soap and after 3 days of outdoor bathrooms used my fancy $40 face soap to wash my ass (sorry mom...)

Fourth hour: Went to take a nap, Susannah sat on her bed and the board under the bed fell to the ground, was out of breath from pulling the blankets on top of me because of the altitude.

But hey, what do you expect for $3 a night, right? Survived the night....

Next morning, opted for the fancy hotel on the island... Come to find out... IT WAS EVEN CHEAPER!

Side note: This is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life. What do you say: Worth it?

Lake Titicaca

Peru! Wow... where to start? After an amazing 4 days in Cusco and a day in Machu Pichu, Susannah and I took a bus to Puno, the main port town of Lake Titicaca, seperating Peru from Bolivia. We arrived at 5 am and somehow I was able to talk in Spanish and get us on a guided tour by 8 am.... yes, exactly, a guided tour--- how boring! But nooooo this was not the usual guided tour......

We started off by taking a boat with 20 other people (mostly English speaking French and Germans) to Uros, a floating island... meaning that the people living on the island take reeds from the water and attach them to make the ground of the island and also build their houses and everything with the reeds (picture above). I went on a short boat ride made out of these reeds while these two little girls climbed all over me and braided my hair. It was amazing to see house after house and schools made out of reeds and these people that live there year round, making a living by selling home-made hats to tourists.

After this we went to Amantani, another island, and stayed with a family that had no electricity and a scary outhouse and they live like traditional indeginous people and the mom dressed us up in traditional garb and took us to a party in the school house with traditional Peruvian music and she cooked for us in this little kitchen that was seperate from the house made of like clay and a thatched roof and their first language is Quecua, the language of the Incas, and they just know enough spanish for the tourists who come, and no tourists had been to this island before 10 yrs ago... I was woken up at 7am with a knock on the door and the mother walking in with a bucket of warm water for me to wash my face, there are no roads or cars (which was wonderful since everywhere you go is either straight uphill or straight downhill!)... but it was all wonderful to experience and it really was the highest example I have ever seen of true simple living... the happiness coming from our family was amazing. We would be talking in English and start laughing and she would laugh too, as if she understood. It was like a dream, smilely children skipping around in traditional indeginous clothing and the lake on all sides. It felt like a dream. And it was amzaing to compare the different lifestyles... to me, living on an island like this would be difficult for a number of reasons, but to them living in busy America and working in an office, driving, etc., would be horrible. Experiencing this was humbling more than anything, and definetely made me appreciate everything we have back home...

PERU!

Hello from Peru! I´m partly shocked I actually made it here, after frantically packing up my room until 2am and leaving the house at 6am for the airport, where I flew with a friend to Arica, in the most northern part of Chile. We then took a pimped out 50´s taxi across the border into Peru, and from there got on a bus to Arequipa, a supposed 6 hours (on Chilean time this would actually be 7.5 hours, but in Peruvian time this meant 8.5 hours) northward into Peru... and here I am!

From the first moment getting on the bus in Peru I realized why Chile is not considered a third world country and Peru is. Just everything about it was so not Americanized at all. One of my Chilean coworkers told me ¨Until you open your mouth you are just a high class Chilean from Los Condes¨ (Los Condes is the fancy Hollywood suburb part of Santiago where my school is and the people are more light skinned and have lighter hair and stereotypically don´t look South American... sad how everywhere in the world there is a connection between skin color and money). So this whole idea of me blending in... well, in Peru, not quite so...! I´ve never felt like I stood out so much before in my life, and its a feeling that I am still getting used to.

On the bus there were these Peruvian women who went to Chile to buy goods imported from China because Chile doesn´t pay taxes on these goods, and then they illegally bring them into Peru to sell. They kept trying to get everyone on the bus to hold one jacket, as if they were ours, because there were random stop points where police custom guys would get on the bus and check for these such things. The women hid stuff under their own jackets and watching the police interogate them because I´m sure this happens daily was a big wake up call cause I´ve never seen anything like that happen in Chile.

Arequipa is a beautiful city, with a complete mix of modernized people and European architecture and indigenous people. National Geographic wasn´t lieing to me afterall! More than anything, I have been so struck with how happy and friendly and smilely everyone is here... as compared with Santiago where people are most closed off in their own world. When we first arrived we learned of a few different strikes which temporarily closed all buses leaving the city because of potential danger, a potential problem since I am meeting a friend from camp in Cusco, 12 hours North of here, tomorrow. For a moment I thought I would be stuck here for the next two weeks, but as always as is well. Today things have calmed down and the buses are running as the government is in the middle of ¨peace agreements¨ with the strikers. From a distance yesterday I watched some of the strikers, and all the stores closed their front entrances when the strikers marched past. One of the main strikes is over gas, because no one can afford the high gas prices.

And last up, in case anyone doubted the love. From a student...

it`s so sad because you`re the best teacher jkajkajk it`s not a joke, i hope your time in chile (fue bueno) and next semestre do you know who will be the english teacher? i hope the next teacher be an american just like you pretty and nice jkajkajkajk well marina good luke with your last month in chile, i`d like to keep in touch with you, i like to write at least one time a week in english, and marina if you change your e-mail please let me know. another thing if you see in my mails bad orthografi ( i don`t know how do you write) please tell me i write very bad , well that`s it.
bye marina

Last Week of Class

After 5 months of coming home from a day of teaching, sitting on the stools in the kitchen complaining about students who come to class 20 minutes late, have a need to kiss everyone in the class on the cheek to say hello (including me who is trying to teach), then preceding to stand in front of the class and ask me about their grade on the test, not realizing that class started 20 minutes ago and being surprised when I say wait till the of class---- I´m sad that its ending.

I met students in the library on Friday to take the final exam who needed extra time to study and wow, I realized how much I love this. Running around the library with kids yelling ¨miss marina miss marina¨ in Spanish accents... well, its just great. This week I have two days of final oral exams (nothing like asking the same basic questions to 100 students in 2 days!) and then I need to be moved out of the house in 1 week from today when I am flying to Arica in northern Chile and will then take a bus to Peru... wow!... this all happened fast and although I can see the mistakes I made as a teacher, I also can see that I affected people and was affected by people, and nothing could make me happier than seeing this. I was more than just a teacher, I was someone in my student´s lives, and more than the English I taught them I also got to be a positive representation of the US, and most importantly to be their friend.

Some recent experts from my journal:

--- Last Thursdays class with Intermediate--- OH MY GOD WAS THAT CLASS AMAZING! I had them write about a topic that was important to them for homework and then for the oral test I switched it up and had everyone in the room (normally oral tests are one-on-one) and we went around and they just talked about their topic and oh my.... seeing them express themselves about deep things, talking in English... Esteban talking from his heart about music, Pamela about friends, Paulina about traveling.

---- Last Tuesday´s last class with 672 Ecotourismo Basico!... It really was so, so special. At the end of the test they just like didn´t leave... after all their bitching and complaining to me about how late class is on Tuesday and they want me to change the time... they recognized it was our last class and they didn´t run out after they finished their tests. We took pictures and I told them about how this class was really fun for me and it was funny when they finally did leave... I stood right next to the door and it was like a line to give me a hug as each of them said goodbye and then walked out. My favorite was Julio. He gave me the regular cheek kiss, then a real real hug, and then another kiss. I loved that feeling, being able to feel his affection being expressed behind the cheek kiss, being his way to say thank you. We have been bonded since the day he was the only one in class and he kept interupting my teaching to tell me about his girlfriend and ask me if I liked Chile, etc.

--- Talked to mom today about how I´m sad to leave and say goodbye to my kids and she said that I need to see this all in the big picture-- either I can think of this as an experience thats gonna end and be over or else That its a part of what is next and who I am now and really its all connected. And this just felt so right- this will never end in some sense because it will always be a part of me.


Yesterday us Americans threw a 7th de Julio (4th of July) celebration in the park and invited all our students. Although only one of my students came, there was possibly a total of 100 people in the park, BBQing and playing soccer and baseball. It was really fun... and I don´t know if so many Chileans have ever celebrated the dia de independcia in the US before!

Buenos Aires

A few highlights from the weekend in Buenos Aires, Argentina:

- Being in a taxi and talking to the taxi driver about his experiences with the money crash of 2001. How he had a big laundry business with 50 employees under him and then he woke up one day to discover the country was bankrupt, and so was he. Going broke with the rest of Argentina, hes making the best and when I asked him if he were happy he contently smiled and said ¨I have my health.¨ Just everything about it was so humbling.

- Going to a Tango show at a cool old cafe.

- The recoletta. I never knew that a cemetary could be THIS cool. In the middle of the main part of the city is an enclosed cemetary with graves taller than me all right next to each other in a maze, with the big buildings of the city towering around. Again, really peaceful.

- Colonia, Uruguay. Taking the 1 hr boat ride to Colonia for the day, a town made up of a UNESCO site and also an authentic area for the locals, where we found a place for lunch run by a cute family. Walking around this desolate town in the drizzling rain, really beautiful along the water with old old historic houses. Very peaceful and beautiful.