Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Food policy, school observations, and the long weekend

Getting behind on this blog is fatal because I feel like so much is happening all the time that I never get a chance to catch up. I realized I wanted to write at least one more thing about my experience in the rural village: my experience in trying to explain the problems with US food policy. It was really surreal, in a way. One night while I was there, my family and I were all sitting around after dinner before we went to sleep and someone asked me what it was like in the US. I feel like it's hard enough to describe and explain (and defend) my life at home to city dwellers here, let alone to people for whom half of my daily activities have absolutely no relevance. As foreign as it was for me to live in a house with a stove made out of mud, washing clothes on the rocks outside, I'm an anthropology student and these things at least exist in my mind, if only in readings that I've done. But when my host dad asked me what products we grow where I'm from and I just answered "corn," we got to this surreal point in time where I knew I couldn't possibly explain the way the food industry works. It's just so absurd. The conversation went something like this:

Dad: "What products do they grow in your country?"
Me: "Well...corn."
Dad: "That's it?"
Me: "Some other things, but mostly corn. You see, we make lots of things out of corn."
Dad: "Like what?"
Me: "Like sugar. And food for other animals, like cows."
Dad: "Your cows eat corn?"
Me: "Well, yeah, to make them fat. Even though it makes them sick, and then they have to give them medicine."
Dad: "They should just let them eat grass."
If only Cupertino Guzman could talk some sense into policy makers.

Anyway, once we got back to Cochabamba, we had a crazy week of work ahead of us. We had our group projects due last Friday, so Nicole and I spent most of the week observing in classrooms around the city for our comparison of urban and rural education here. I was sort of bummed because I had missed my family (the Cochabamba one) all week and my older sister was here from La Paz with her beautiful baby daughter, but the school observations made it so that we barely had time to make it from one school to another, let alone to come home for lunch. We spent the mornings in a K-8 school in the center of town and we got to see a fair where they displayed all of the "manualidades" which are like crafts I guess, but practical ones like tablecloths and ponchos and home decorations and things like that. I was really impressed by the level of work that even the fourth graders were doing, but Heidi told us afterwards that a lot of times, the mothers do a lot of the work for them. I'd like to think that at least some of them did their own work, though, so I'm still impressed.

Then in the afternoons we went to a school in the Zona Sur, which is further south than the city center and requires a 30-minute trufi ride to get there. It's the school where Heidi's husband works in the morning, so he got us the personal connection, which we found was so important. The director of the school in the morning was the aunt of Nicole's host mom, so we had a personal connection there as well. Without the help of those people, we wouldn't have been able to do any observations, despite the fact that we have official authorization from SEDUCA, the public school board of Bolivia, to observe in the classrooms. Anyway, the school we went to in the afternoons was a convenio, which is a public school sponsored by the Catholic church (the government gives them money to sponsor the schools). I don't understand how that works, but apparently there is not exactly a separation of church and state here, because every public school we visited had an obvious Christian or Catholic influence. The school is great though, and we got to observe in a fourth-grade class, which was simultaneously so helpful for our project and so emotionally enriching. The kids were so endearing and the teacher had great classroom management skills and they all seemed genuinely happy to be there. What a great experience. At recess, the girls would all fight over who got to hold our hands (mine and Nicole's) and drag us out to the playground and then just fawn over us. They would ask us how to say their names in English, and how to say our names in English, and play with our hair. They even told Nicole she had pretty arm hair. Such a crazy but lovely experience. We are going back for the last week of classes (they're about to start summer vacation) when we get back from Santa Cruz next week, and despite the sometimes overwhelming attention, I'm looking forward to seeing them all again.

This weekend was a long weekend because of Todos Santos, the holiday when you remember your deceased relatives and friends. My family didn't go to the cemetery to celebrate, but traditionally the celebration is huge, especially if someone has passed away in the last year. They stay in the cemetery all night with a sort of altar dedicated to the person and celebrate the person's life. It sounds so beautiful and I really wish I had seen it for myself but like many city families, my family doesn't get so into the traditional ways of celebrating Bolivian holidays. We did have company yesterday, though, which was nice. They came over around lunchtime and I assumed they were just guests for lunch, but more and more people showed up and they ended up staying until around 10:00 at night. It was a lot of fun and by the time the evening came around, we had brought out the guitar and we were all singing along and it was really my favorite type of party. I even played a few songs at the request (insistence, really) of my dad, although it took me a while to get up my nerve, and although I couldn't play anything they knew the words to. But I genuinely enjoyed myself and was kind of sad when everyone finally went home. I think the hardest part about being here is being alone at night, because college is such a social place and I'm used to having people around at all times whether I like it or not. Here, I find I'm always alone by 10 or 11, unless I go out to a bar or club. It gives me a lot of time to think, which is sometimes good but other times I wish I could be doing something else. I've taken to playing the guitar a lot, though, which helps, and hopefully by the time I get back I'll have improved.

I have to leave for the airport in about six hours so I should really get some rest. We're leaving for Santa Cruz, a big city to the northeast of us (so it's a lot warmer and more humid than here). I'm really excited! We'll be there for the weekend, which is the first time we're getting to spend the weekend in another city, so we'll actually get to experience the social life at its best there. It's our last excursion as a group, which is strange because we've been together a lot for the past two months and the end of the trip marks the beginning of the independent study time. I'll miss everyone but I'm also looking forward to getting started on my book. It's really wild to think we're here already, but I think I'm ready to take what we've learned and go with it.

3 comments:

  1. What an icredible experience for you. Enjoy your weekend in Santa Cruz.

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  2. Hi Rosie having trouble posting again. Love ya, mb

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  3. Hi Rosie - I felt sad reading that you're lonely at night. Soon you will be home and back with your dear friends at Brandeis. Good luck with your project. Love ya, Mb

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