I arrived at the bus station with all my stuff, and I
decided just to carry it all with me to Proyecto. Luckily, the trufi there was
relatively empty and my large backpack wasn’t a problem, but when I walked into
the room the two teachers looked at me like they had never seen a traveler
before. I set my stuff down and one of them took my neck pillow to play with it
a little – I guess those are uncommon enough here for that to be warranted, and
the day proceeded like normal. There was only about ½-2/3 of the normal number
of kids, which I think is due to the “winter vacation” that the school is
having right now.
All the kids went to sleep at lunch, and the one teacher who
has always been a little aggressive and willing to say whatever she wants told
me that my boyfriend in the United States probably has found a new girl. What?
Where did that even come from, and why would you tell someone that? Along
similar lines, relationships are built on mutual trust. Anyways.
She then started asking me about Chinese words. I’m always
happy to share, but I was a little disappointed that she sounded like she was
making fun of the language a little – emphasizing the slight nasal sound,
drawing things like a triangle with a line through it and asking me if that was
a Chinese word, etc. I can only control how I react to things and not what
things I have to deal with, but that just made me sad. I wish it was easier to
learn multiple languages at the same time, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be that bad
to try Chinese and Spanish at the same time since I’m mostly familiar with
Chinese and the two are very different, right? I might try that when I get back
to the States, and focus all my efforts on just Spanish when I can use it.
When I met my new Couchsurfing host, I was a little nervous,
but she’s really nice! Her name is Katherine, and she lives a little further
from Proyecto and the city center but her house is very nice. There is no wifi,
which is a major struggle, and I don’t have a key, but other than that it’s a
nice situation. She gave me some tea and bread with jam and told me all about
Carnival in Bolivia. She’s from La Paz, but apparently the whole country stops
for three months in January to March to party. It’s crazy, apparently – the
party moves from city to city during the three months and they all have a
distinct way of celebrating and honoring Mother Earth. If I ever come back,
it’ll have to be to see that. The Carnival in Oruro is the most famous because
it’s so large and the city is so bland otherwise (that I understood). Our
conversation was a good start to the new host relationship!
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