The Toilet Paper Crisis

There seems to always be a shortage of toilet paper at our office (or more broadly in South America as a whole). One day, I decided I'd had enough and I bought a giant economy pack of toilet paper for the office. I walked all the way down the street carrying this huge package of toilet paper and presented it at the office with pride, saying "look you guys! Toilet paper for everyone!"

Then, feeling like Santa Claus, I made a point of putting one roll in each bathroom. Later, when I went to the bathroom, the roll was GONE. It could not have been used that quickly. I talked with my supervisor about it later, and to my surprise I learnt that some people steal the toilet paper rolls! Unbelievable! "That's why there is always just one roll," she said, "because otherwise people will steal it!" Then, I saw the locked room where there was plenty of toilet paper in stock, and I found it unnecessary that I had bought mine. The secretary said that they appreciated that I bought it, so I left it.

I feel like there is an unspoken expectation from us to provide certain things for the office, such as toilet paper, soap and maybe some things for the afternoon tea. Although this was never directly said to us, I heard it through the grapevine. Since then, I have tried to buy things here and there, but sometimes I feel like my efforts are unappreciated, or I wonder if what I heard through the grapevine is really true. I am getting mixed opinions. For example, I left coffee and powdered milk in the office kitchen to share (I thought that was the right thing to do), and then after our meeting, it was GONE. I have no problem with people drinking my coffee, but I have a really hard time believing that they drank all the powdered milk. When I asked one of my co-workers, she said "no, you should keep that stuff in your desk! For yourself! Otherwise everyone will drink it!" I thought that was the point? Anyway, like I said, I am getting mixed views on these things. It would be easier if they actually told us what they would like us to do! I feel like I have to pry feelings out of them sometimes. I try to go with the attitude that even if they don't say they appreciate it, they actually do.

Bad Customer Service

It is not common here to receive good customer service. It seems as if many Bolivians just don't know how to do it right (in my opinion). I have gone into numerous stores here where the sales person does not even greet me, but looks at me more as an inconvenient disturbance to whatever they were looking at on their cellphone. I leave many stores thinking to myself, these people do not know how to sell stuff at all. On top of that, if you ask for something extra, the usual answer is no. They do not go out of their way to accommodate you. It's either: take it as it is, or leave it.

In restaurants no one greets you either. Today, Alicia and I were looking for a place to eat lunch. One place looked really crowded, so we went in. No one greeted us, and I had to ask someone else how to order food. The person I had asked pointed towards the back of the restaurant, so I went over there and asked the man standing there, "do you work here?" and he replied "no." That's all. No help, and no clue how to order food. So we left and decided to give another place our business.

We went to a place around the corner that looked "ok." I went inside and asked the woman at the register what was for lunch. She named two dishes I had never heard of before. I asked what they were, and she tried to explain but did not do a very good job, and I didn't know if she was talking about two dishes or just one. I asked her if there were two options or just one, and she said "what do you want?!?" getting annoyed. I said "fine, I'll take it!" "Which ONE??" she asked. If only she had answered my first question...

Lunch cost us each just about $2. We had a basic soup to start off, and then a plate of whatever it was I couldn't understand before. We got one of each to try both. Both were served on a bed of minute rice. Vegetables were nowhere to be seen. Rice, potatoes, a few small pieces of meat, and I think I saw something that looked like egg. We were pretty full already, but then came dessert: jello! So we left there feeling full yet unsatisfied because the food was not very good. My conclusion is that if you want healthy and tasty food, you really have to pay for it. It’s no wonder so many people are not getting proper nutrition here. The majority of what people can afford are carbohydrates. But at the same time, vegetables are so cheap! I don't get it! Perhaps I will choose to investigate this further in my research.

Another time, we decided to go to a chicken restaurant (there are a lot of restaurants here that just sell chicken and french fries, rice or noodles). This one was owned by a Chinese woman. When Alicia and I entered, we tried to order food and she kind of screeched "yes?! What do you want?!?!" with a weird look on her face. Not very friendly at all. I said, "isn't this a restaurant? Can we eat here?" and I made eating motions with my hand, brining an invisible fork with invisible food from an invisible plate to my mouth; a universal gesture I think. I guess she got the point. "What do you want?!" she asked us again. Between me and her, neither of us could understand each other. Can you imagine a Chinese woman speaking Spanish with a Chinese accent? Eventually I had to ask some locals sitting at a table what she was talking about. Between me, the Bolivians at the table (who could understand me just fine) and the Chinese woman (who couldn't seem to understand me one bit) we were able to order. We sat down with our chicken and rice and soon thereafter some stray dogs joined our table, begging for food. The front of the restaurant was very broad, open, and faced a busy street, so stray dogs could just walk in as the pleased. Alicia felt sympathetic and decided to give some chicken bones to one of them. Sadly, the dog was too blind to see the favor Alicia had done for him. Another dog ate it. Although beer was on the menu, they did not have beer. A large screen at the back wall of the restaurant was playing Chinese action movies. Apparently (Alicia told me later) when I asked the Chinese woman something, she gave me that same mean look as she did when we arrived, but as soon as I turned around and started walking back to our table where Alicia was sitting, she put on a strangely large smile.

I don't think we will be returning to either of these restaurants...

Anyway, change of topic. Check out this post Christina Somerville wrote about me in her blog! We met on the flight to La Paz and hit it off well :) http://tmblr.co/ZICFVqvjYdc3 Thank you for your kind words, Christina! I wish you the best of luck and I hope we meet again someday! (check out her blog at http://asasojourn.tumblr.com/)!

Reggae Night

I was starting to feel like it will be hard to make friends here, and then I remembered Couchsurfing, which is such a great resource for travellers! (couchsurfing.org) I put up a post and immediately had some responses, so I have already met a few friendly locals through that and plan to meet some more. I went with one to the botanical garden on Monday, which was nice. Tonight, a received a message from a couchsurfer about a reggae concert downtown in the central plaza! So I decided to go check it out for a bit. I got dropped off downtown by taxi at the main square. There wasn't really much going on this night downtown, but in the main square there was a small concert going on with a reggae group and about 70 people I would say. It was really cool! The band was called "Livity Sound System" and did a bunch of Bob Marley covers (what reggae band doesn't..). The concert was in protest of the construction of the road through the Tipnis region of Bolivia, which is an ongoing issue. This protest concert happens every year. I took a video of a boy dancing with his dog, or maybe just a dog, who knows!

I met the couchsurfer there and his brother and sister, who were all very nice and nice to invite me to this event that I would have not otherwise known about! He had also brought along two other French friends of his, and it turns out they are also interning in Cochabamba- on water sustainability! Very cool.

Well, the concert didn't last long, so I called up my taxi to take me home. It said it would arrive in 5 minutes, but when 20 minutes had passed and almost everyone had left except for me, the newspaper stand guy, some late night bench sitters and a guy peeing in a tree, I was doubtful that it would show up at all. The plaza was well-lit, and there were no creepy characters around, just some harmless homeless people, among others, but I felt like I should get home. I had to make the decision to choose a random taxi because my taxi phone number was not being answered. Handy, hey?

I ended up choosing one that drove by, and the guy did not have a business card (which is recommended when choosing taxis) but he seemed okay so I went with it. He ended up being pretty chill, with a huge wad of coca in his boca (!), [fyi "boca" is "mouth" in Spanish] so we talked about coca leaves and he told me that he used to live in Virginia (I can't tell you how many Bolivians I have met who have lived in Virginia). At a stoplight a young boy came out dressed up as a cardboard-box-monster, which was pretty cool, but unfortunate to think that such a young boy has to resort to activities such as these, and in the middle of the night no less. We drove away too quickly for me to give him a coin :/

I got home safe and sound, and glad to have a place to call home.

Some Daily Frustrations

At work everyone has to leave at lunch, no exceptions. This is for security reasons. At first I found this very annoying, and couldn't understand why they could not give me a key, but apparently only a few people have a key. So, at lunch you HAVE to leave from 12:30 to 2:30, or whenever the person with the key comes back. I tend to spend my lunch breaks running errands at the supermarket and buying things I probably don't need.

Today I got very frustrated when I went to the supermarket. They would not let me in with my blue water bottle. I asked them if they thought I was going to fill it with milk or something, and they said "no, it's because they sell that water bottle inside the store and it looks like I stole it." I rolled my eyes, having a really hard time believing that they would have the same water bottle from Canada, sold in beat-up condition like mine was. I WAS allowed to bring my pen and agenda in with me, however. I double-checked with them first to make sure they didn't have my same agenda from Saint Mary's and the pen that I had bought from this store the last time I was there, which I was now bringing in with me. Doesn't it look like I stole it? And what about my clothes?

Scented products are really common here. I bought a box of tissues with melons on it because I liked the way it looked, not because I wanted my tissues to smell like melons. I also saw pocket tissue packs that looked like wallets. I wonder if they also smell like wallets.

Life is very frustrating here sometimes. I try to make people realize how ridiculous some of the things they do appear to me, but they don't seem to get it. Yesterday, I was trying to buy something with a very crumpled up 10 boliviano bill, and people refused to accept it. Not even a poor old lady on the street selling limes would accept my bill, saying it was "rotten." Finally I got someone in a convenience store to accept it, on the condition that I leave my ID number and sign a piece of paper. Keep in mind 10 bolivianos is less than $2 US. By the time I left the store he forgot about asking for my signature. I said, "do you REALLY think a gringa would try to give you a fake bill? REALLY?!"

Calling on the phone can also be frustrating. People tend to hang up on me a lot, without letting me finish what I want to say. Usually a conversation for me ends with the other person saying "Ya, ya" (meaning "got it") and then they hang up. Sometimes, people automatically think that they cannot understand me without even trying. I don't let them get away with that. I keep trying until they understand me, which they usually do. My experiences have taught me that when you really have to understand something, you do.

Usually when I buy something from a store or cafe, the servers look at me with an expression on their face that says "haha look at the gringa." Fortunately enough for me, I know how to speak Spanish and I know what I am talking about. Try making fun of me - I'll just do it better.

Despite my everyday annoyances, I try to stay positive and spread good energy along my path. The other day, Alicia and I took a taxi home from work. The driver was trying to charge us 8 bolivianos, but I bargained down to 7. He had a little white shoe hanging in the front window, and I asked him if it was for good luck, because I had learnt from another cab driver the meaning of the hanging shoes. He said it was, but he was still waiting for his luck to come. "Ohhh" I said, "I think your luck will come soon." After joking with him the whole way home, when we finally got out of the cab I gave him 10 bolivianos, saying his luck had arrived :)

The Supermarket

I would like to dedicate this post to my supermarket experience in Bolivia.

Going to the supermarket here is very different from going to the supermarket back home. When you go to the supermarket, you have to lock your belongings in a locker and cannot enter with any bags, for fear of theft. This includes grocery bags. You know, the ones we use to save plastic; to "go green." I found it very frustrating that the guard would not let me enter with my re-usable grocery bag. I tried to explain to him that it was to help the environment, but he wasn't having any of it. I locked it up, regrettably, re-entered without the bag, and sarcastically said to the guard: "More plastic! More trash! Yay!!!" to which he responded enthusiastically. I don't think he had a clue what I was talking about.

So anyway, we are compiling large amounts of plastic bags at home due to the anti-reusable bag rules, but those bags did end up coming in handy which I will explain in a later post (maybe).

Some good points about supermarket-related matters: 1) The papayas here are delicious and very round 2) There are a lot of interesting fruity and herbal teas 3) While I thought it silly that almost everyone drinks instant coffee in a country that must produce delicious coffee (I am yet to try it), after trying the instant coffee, I can say that it is pretty tasty! Much better than the instant coffee I am used to! So now I am drinking the instant stuff, too.

Bolivians are really into breads of all shapes, sizes, and textures. Big, small, with cheese, without cheese, with coconut, circular, quadrilateral, spiral, "book"-shaped, and more. I have been having fun trying all sorts of things. The only thing I really miss that I cannot find here is coconut water.

Alicia and I bought a lot of stuff that day at the supermarket, and of course after we had bought all that stuff we were craving exactly what we didn't buy: hamburgers! So I went and got us some while Alicia got a cab for us to take home with our groceries. I feel uncomfortable taking cabs here because you always have to be careful if you don't know the cab company; it could be illegitimate. Alicia chose one that looked like a gangster car with tinted windows. WHY, Alicia?! Why this one??! I thought to myself. I asked the taxi driver for his card and he gave me one. This is one way of checking to see if it is a legitimate taxi. I was still kind of skeptical, but we got in and hoped it would be okay. It ended up being fine. I felt bad for giving the guy a hard time, but better safe than sorry.

So we made it home and had our hamburgers with a beer while listening to Cesária Évore. o_O

Sunday

Hello blog readers. I am writing in the past and probably will continue writing in the past even after I return home to Canada. Keeping a blog is very time consuming, and there is a lot I would like to write about but it is hard to keep up! So much has happened since my last post, both good and bad.

On Sunday, I felt like doing something but I wasn't sure what. I went for a jog in Abraham Lincoln Park again and saw a rainbow. Yay.

Some Couchsurfers invited me to fly kites in the Laguna Alalay. When I asked how to get there, everyone kept telling me it was dangerous, so I obviously didn't feel that comfortable going there but decided to go anyway. I took the "trufi" there for the first time. A "trufi" is another form of public transportation, kind of like a public taxi. Usually it is a van that has a number on the top and directions posted on the windshield with stickers or cardboard signs. There are no formal bus stops (like the "micros") and you just catch it anywhere along the route. I tried to get a map of public transit routes here, but it does not exist. The only information you can get is by word of mouth. The fare for trufis is the same - about 30 cents. I waved down the one I was supposed to take, number 134 to Laguna Alalay. It was already pretty full of passengers, but the driver asked me if I wanted to try and squeeze in anyway. We both shrugged our shoulders, and I decided o give it a try. I was squeezed between the front door, three or four children (can't remember, but I remember it was a lot of little kids), and the driver. It did not feel very safe, but I am alive to tell the story. As soon as someone got off, I asked if I could switch seats. I opened the door and practically popped out onto the street; that's how full this car was! From there I made it "safely" to the Laguna.

The Couchsurfers told me to meet them in front of the police station, so that's where I waited. While I was waiting, I started talking with a strange woman there who was very serious but sociable at the same time. When I told her I was meeting people I had not met before, she got suspicious and started implanting all kinds of bad ideas in my head, like how they could assault me and rob me, etc. This was a possibility of course, but I already had seen the person's profile and references on Couchsurfing and she seemed fine. The woman went a bit overboard by telling this to the policeman there. He came up to me, and, trying to be all assertive he instructed me to go to him when my new "friends" came. I felt like I was in a really weird position. It seemed they were trying to protect me since I was not from there, but at the same time I have heard how corrupt and ridiculous the police force can be here. Well, the Couchsurfers arrived and they looked harmless (they were harmless), and the policeman went right up to them and started asking for their ID's in an aggressive way. They were quite put-off, as was I. It was a very awkward situation and not a very good start to any kind of friendship.

I walked away with them to go fly kites (I don't even like flying kites. By then I was wondering why I went in the first place) but I was feeling really uncomfortable and people kept telling me that this was a place I should not be in. The girl said the policeman assaulted her when he asked for their IDs and he had no right to ask for their IDs, and I felt like it was somehow my fault. I was put in a situation where I did not know who to trust, and no one was helping me feel comfortable, either.

After a short time I apologized and decided that I had to go home before it got dark. It does not help when everyone around you says that it is dangerous. It creates bad energy, and I don't like it. It reminded me of Fortaleza, because everywhere I went people had nothing good to say, except that it was dangerous. That's no fun. Well, nothing happened, thank goodness, and I did not feel threatened, but I don't think I will go back there. It was not even a lake. It used to be a lake, but then it got polluted and dried up - such a shame. Just a big dried-up space with lots of stray dogs, trash and remnants of what used to be a lake.

I bought some fruit at the market nearby on my way home and met a man who had studied in Virginia. I can't tell you how many people from Bolivia I have met who have been to Virginia, lived in Virginia, studied in Virginia or have family in Virginia.

The good thing about the trufis and micros is that they come pretty often and are a good and cheap way to get around (if you know where it will take you). I took the same "trufi" going home, and watched from the window as a forest fire blazed in the distance. No one seemed to be alarmed except for me. They said it was normal, but that it happened because people go camping and are careless about their fires or cigarette butts. The forest is very dry, and it can ignite very easily. As the evening went on, the fire got a lot bigger, to the point where I was wondering if we would have to evacuate! The air was quite smokey and did not feel healthy to breath in at all! Again, everyone told me not to worry.

I noticed that traffic laws here are very loosely followed. I witnessed cars either act like red lights are simply stop signs or just ignore the red lights completely. Meanwhile, the seat belts in almost every car have been defunct and are useless. No one uses seat belts. A lot of people do not use blinkers, either. I have to be very careful when crossing the street. Most people go without a helmet on motorcycles, and sometimes bring their spouse and/or children!

The next day, I got an email from our liaison saying that the fire was about 200 meters from his neighbourhood and the people there were quite scared indeed! Everything in our liaison's house got covered in black ashes. Even at our place, a layer of ash lay over everything.

So Sunday was not the greatest day, and I felt like I got off on the wrong foot with the Couchsurfers I met. It was a really strange day, and I don't even really enjoy talking about it. So I will end it here. Moving on... :)