I´M HERE!

I finally arrived on Tuesday morning into La Paz airport at 6:00am. Sr. Joan Mury, MM met me there (thank goodness!) to help me make the tight connection that I had. The airport was really unorganized and there were lots of things to do like get a visa, go through customs, find my bags, get my ticket for the next flight, pay the ¨airport tax¨and go through security again...it would have taken me hours to do this all without Joan´s help...instead, I got through in about 60 min.

Arriving into Cochabamba was beautiful. We flew over the Andes and the scenery almost reminded me of the movie Heidi. :) I got into Cochabamba at 8:30am where my host family and Dan Moriarty (the Maryknoll volunteer coordinator) were waiting for me. Lilian is my host mom and works at a school downtown and Teddy is my host dad and builds stuff out of iron in a little shop up the street from our house. Lilian and Teddy have 3 kids that are grown and married with kids, and they all come over often. There are 7 grandkids among them all, ranging from 4 mos. to 12 yrs. Their daughter, Andrea and her husband Javier have 2 cocker spaniels too! They are the same color as Sadie (my dog at home) but waaaay skinnier.

My first few impressions of Cochabamba are: 1) I never thought I would be living somewhere where as many or more stray dogs roam the streets as the REZ! They are everywhere too! They aren´t really violent or anything until nighttime when they run around in packs. One little white one seems to find me every time I leave the house and walk me up the street. I heard someone call him Panchueto or something...but I call him Patrick. 2) Everyone is really patient with my lack of the language and I think I will be acquiring it at a pretty rapid pace. When I am at the Institute there are other students from the States who speak English, but other than that it is pretty much all Spanish all the time. I get up at 8am take a shower, eat breakfast with Lilian, come into school, study, have class from 11:30 to 4:00pm and then have a meeting or two with the other students about culture, safety, religion, etc. I head home around 6 or so and then Teddy and I eat dinner around 7 or 8. I study until 11 and then go to bed! 3) The weather is much warmer than I had expected, although everyone says that will change. Right now it is in the 60s and it is the beginning of the wintertime. I am told that July is much colder, so we shall see. 4) There is such a different feeling toward indigenous people here in Bolivia than back in the US. There are no reservations or anything like that and the two separate indigenous groups (Quechua and Aymara) are widely accepted, appreciated and embraced both in the cities and in the campo (country). Both Quechua and Aymara speak their own languages separate from Spanish, so that throws a different spin on things too. I am looking forward to learning more about the Native culture here as time goes on.

I have 4 classes a day for 50 min. each with 4 different teachers. They are all really organized, patient and prepared...you can tell they have been doing this for a while. Yesterday I talked for about 4 hours (50 min. with each) about who i am, where I am from, why I am here...my life story. I am really good at saying all that in Spanish now! They sized me up and assigned me my books...they gave me an intermediate level book and work book which I feel is a bit beyond my lvel right now, but I´ll try!

A few additional items of intertest before I need to go:
1) There are 5 students from Creighton here (undergraduates who are premed)
2) There are 2 other people from Upstate NY...a girl from SYracuse and a guy from Utica who is a Franciscan friar...they are both really young...maybe 21 or so?
3) There are about 30 students total in the Institute for the summer....undergraduates, priests on sabbatical, Jesuits, graduate students and a few Maryknoll Lay Mission families who will be here for 3 years in total.
4) Galletas and gallinas do NOT mean the same thing...I wanted a cookie (galleta) and I asked for a rooster (gallina) Haha...oops!
5)There is lots of artwork up around the Institute by John Guiliani...the famous Native artist who also was very embraced on the Rez.
6) The book you suggested Beth...The Celestine Prophecy is spot on! I am seriously living the Insight that the book talks about...more on that some other time.

Ok, need to run to class...more later! I am safe, happy and can´t wait to share more! Much Love,Megan