Thanksgiving is gone; Capitalist Christmas is here

Christmas decorations have been up all over the city for a month. I guess with no Thanksgiving to get in the way, it makes sense to start capitalizing on the holiday season right after Halloween (which is also becoming a major holiday here, and is pronounced "HA-low-een", which for some reason is so much more fun to say than hall-0-WEEN. Try it.) but it's still strange to have to squeeze by plastic Christmas trees covered in an abundance of gold garland every time I go to my favorite salteñería. It seems to me that there are not stores specifically meant for trinkets like there are in the US (i.e. the aptly named Christmas Tree Shop), but rather arbitrary restaurants and clothing shops have put out their Christmas stock as if it were to be expected that you would only have to make one stop for all of your empanada and ornament needs. I've stopped trying to make sense of things here and I'm just trying to soak it all in before I leave in three weeks.

Speaking of leaving...I don't even know what to say about it. I feel so torn between how badly I'm going to miss this place and how excited I am, for instance, to have the luxury of pants that fit because they have been dried in a dryer. I swear I'll never complain about having to walk down a flight of stairs to change my clothes from one machine to the other. When I feel really sad about leaving, I remind myself that first of all, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I'll be back someday soon, and second of all, there are countless amenities that I had no idea I would miss until I got here. For example, bathrooms. I've come up with a list of criteria (complete with a point system) for the ideal bathroom here (I've yet to find it), all things that go without saying in the US but are quite the luxury here. It is something like this:

BARE NECESSITIES
light (2 points)
working flush (2 points - or 1 if the "flush" is a bucket that you dump into the bowl to flush it)
sink with running water (3 points - I'm an avid hand-washer)
toilet paper (4 points - although this could go under "bonus points", it's so rare)
trash can (1 point - you can't flush toilet paper here)
paper towels or electric hand dryer (2 points)
lock (5 points - I've upped this point value after too many walk-ins to count)

BONUS POINTS
toilet seat (1 point - you learn to squat)
soap (2 points - you learn to carry hand sanitizer)
window or fan (3 points - as you can't flush your poopy paper, this is a welcome addition)

I think I may be missing some from the list; I haven't ever written it down, I just think about it every time I'm squatting in the dark and scrounging in my pockets for substitute toilet paper.

Thanksgiving was last Thursday (or for those of us on this program, Friday) and it was such a lovely and crazy experience. Heidi offered to host us all at her house if someone else planned the whole thing, so Laura took on that task, while Luis and I agreed to do the turkey. You may ask, why would you offer to cook a turkey for over 30 people when your oven is probably the model that came out immediately after the Easy Bake Oven and you are in the middle of a week full of interviews all over the city and, oh yeah, you've never cooked a turkey before? Well, I don't really have an answer for that question, but we did it! I went with Antonio (one of the people who works in the office of our program) to the supermarket on Tuesday and we picked out the biggest turkey they had and I lugged it back to my apartment and rearranged all the shelves in the fridge in order to begin the long defrosting process. Alas, when after two days it was still a solid block of ice, I turned to the "cold water bath" method. I think that the cold water bath implies more of a bucket or a large sink, but as everything in this country seems to be slightly smaller (or maybe I'm just sensitive because I'm an extra large gringa in a short person country), the only place where the turkey would fit was Luis's bathtub. We dumped the bird in the tub and began preparation for the feast. We managed to procure a meat thermometer from Heidi, as well as a bottle of rosemary and another bottle of some other unidentified spice, which we mixed together along with other unmarked bags of spices we found at the corner store near Luis's house. Presumably we used olive oil, pepper, garlic, rosemary, bay leaves, sage, and thyme, but we're actually pretty unsure of the exact contents of the rub. Still, I must say, when we slathered it on the (finally defrosted by 5 am Friday morning) turkey, it smelled reaaaally good. Luis's oven has no temperatures written on it, so we popped it in at "level 3" and waited. We had gotten up at dawn because we were worried it wouldn't be done in time for lunch, and of course that little plastic tab popped right out at 10:30 am. Awesome. Still, I think the sitting in its juices did it good, because that bird was de-licious. And now I can say I've cooked a turkey. In Bolivia. It was quite the experience.

As for my final project, which I suppose I should mention, it's been going really well! I haven't finished writing the book yet, but I've been writing it simultaneously while conducting my field work, and I think it's good I haven't finished yet because everyone I speak with gives me new ideas about what to write. It's so rewarding to present my idea and my partially written story to people and have them say, "Wow, that same thing happened to me!" I met this 18 year old girl who literally gasped at every plot point I described to her and then excitedly gave me her number so that I could run the story by her when I'm finished. I'm so encouraged by the excitement that others have about my project. I'm excited about it too, of course, but to hear it from others is so much more satisfying. I really hope that I can reciprocate all of this support and assistance that I've gotten from so many people.

That said, I do have my setbacks, of course. Today I hopped on a taxi-trufi out to Tiquipaya, which is about a half hour away, to interview a teacher and (I hoped) the director of an alternative "eco-active" school there. To get there, I have to take a trufi (public transit) to the main street in Tiquipaya, then hop in a taxi that knows where this school is (it's pretty much in the woods). I was planning on stopping by the school to talk to the director and then going to teacher's house, which is close to the school. I stopped by the school and the secretary told me the director had just left and would be back tomorrow, so I went on to the teacher's house. When I called him from outside his house, he answered and said, "Oh! I'm actually at the airport right now; I forgot we had a meeting!" Frustrating. I know I should have called him before I left my house but I'm still not used to the Bolivian way of checking in over and over again about something. So I walked back to the center of town, and by the time I got there, I was in a great mood once again because literally every person I walked past on the street greeted me with a smile and a "how are you?" I wish people were this kind in the US. I'm not looking forward to arriving in Boston in bundle-up-in-your-coat-and-don't-talk-to-anyone times.

I can't believe how much everyone is willing to help me with my work here, and not resignedly but enthusiastically. I genuinely think that I'll be a kinder, more open person when I get back to the states because of the generosity of almost everyone I've met. It's a totally different world here.