Mission: Accomplished

Well, I made it back to Chicago in one piece. My parents picked me up at O'Hare and yes, we stopped at Taco Bell on the way home. Oh the delicious taste of victory.....

I think that I can honestly say that I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Bolivia and that I developed somewhat of a proficiency in Spanish while I was there too. I guess that I would rate the constant stomach problems and occasional homesickness as my only negatives for the trip.

Bolivia really is an amazing country. It has a tremendously rich cultural tradition of music and dance which I greatly enjoyed while I was there. Also, Bolivia is very geographically diverse having everything from beautiful lakes and snow capped mountains to salt flats and jungle. During my time there, I merely saw a small sample of the country, and I hope to be able to go back someday to experience the rest.

One topic I grossly neglected posting about during my trip is the level of poverty in Bolivia. When I arrived there in June, I learned that Boliva is the second poorest country in the Western Hemishpere, beat out only by Haiti in this unfortunate category. It is nothing short of heartbreaking to see whole families with little children begging on the street. The part that is even worse is that is doesn't have to be that way.

Bolivia is one of the most biologically diverse country in the world and is tremendously rich in minerals, petroleum, and natural gas. However, the problem has been her patrimony of bad leaders and less that pure intentions from more developed countries and other organizations. I don't think that I spent enough time there to fully understand the reality that is Bolivia, but I do think I had an opportunity to hear about the way that life could be made better there. This is an especially interesting issue for me because a) I like economics, b) I like helping people, and c) Everybody should hate poverty.

No matter what happens, I think that I will continue to follow what's going on in Bolivia at least to be able to make people aware of the lives of people living not that far away. As far as this little blog is concerned, I don't think that I will be posting to it anymore. However, I may start another one when I return to the seminary in a few weeks. (Encouragement or discouragement in this area would be welcome......)

Until we meet again, thank you for reading and may God bless you.
or... Hasta nos reunamos, gracias por la apoya y que Dios se bendigan.

Welcome to the Jungle

So, please forgive me if I think that this is the photo of the year, but I am pretty sure that it is. As I wrote in my last post, a group of us went to visit the jungle this past weekend. The first place we stopped after the four hour ride was a park that specializes in rescuing abused monkeys and jungle birds. For the low low price of less than $1 we were able to enter this park an get a face to face view of these critters....literally.

As we walked in on the trail, you could stand there and watch all the different species of monkeys jumping around in the trees. As we continued, though, there was a little area where you could sit down and watch the monkeys and some anteaters too. Well, there were two of us, myself and my friend Eric. I took the camera first and he went down to pick up a monkey. I snapped some good shots and everybody was happy. However, when we changed roles, everything changed. One of the volunteers, a British girl, saw me trying to pick this little critter up and she said, ¨Don´t pick them up! That´s when they bite you!¨ Naturally, I returned the monkey to the ground and grabbed a seat for myself. At this point, I should also mention that I was sweating profusely (as usual) and I think the monkeys like that becuase that little guy jumped right up on to me and started licking all the sweat off of me. And as if that wasn´t enough, after he licked my nose (see photo), he started digging through my hair looking for a snack. Another lovely British girl warned me, ¨not to make any sudden movements, because that´s when they bite you.¨Anyhow, finally the monkey had enough and made a run for it, and I ended up with a prized photo. Special thanks go to Eric for that shot. You can check out his blog here.

The rest of the weekend was filled with eating strange foods, experiencing the wrath of Montezuma yet again, and thouroughly exploring the jungle on Sunday afternoon. I will have many more stories and prize winning photos to share.

Almost done!

Well, I´ve only got about one more week here in lovely Boliva. We´ll all be flying out of here a week from Sunday, but I plan on packing as much into this last week as possible. For starters, tomorrow a group of us is going to visit an area to the east of here called Chapare. The main feature of this place is this immense wild animal reserve where you get to play with the monkeys. (Yes, Megan, you can play with the monkeys. You can come down here next!) A couple people went a few weeks ago, and they told us that you are made to empty your pockets when you enter the park because the monkeys jump on you and try to steal stuff out of your pockets. Crazy monkeys....

Other than that, I am going to spend my last week of classes beating this language into submission and hanging out with my host family and all the new friends I made down here during my studies. We´re even going to have a little going away coffee house too. Maybe I´ll sing a few songs. Who knows! Hasta pronto!

Weekend Update

Well, folks, this week hasn´t been that interesting so don´t get your hopes up about this post. One possible point of interest, though, is our group mug shot...I mean picture, which you can see off to the left. Seven of that group (including myself) are from Mundelein Seminary, and the rest come from all over the US and for various reasons. What I can say, though, is that they are a great bunch of people, and I have had a lot of fun down here with them.

Tomorrow a few of us are going to see one more Bolivian landmark, Cristo de la Concordia, which is a gigantic statue of Jesus which overlooks the city. You can see a picture here. It make look familiar to you because of the similar statue in Brazil, but the Cochabambinos will assure you that their statue is just a little bit bigger.

Lastly, I saw Harry Potter #5 in ENGLISH on Wednesday night. I was obviously happy to see it, but I was little disappointed with this movie in comparison to the others. Oh well, I just hope Book #7 is at my house when I get back. I´m itchin to see the conclusion to this saga.

Other than those few points, everything is just fine down here. I feel more confident with Spanish every day, and even though this is a great city, I can´t wait to get back. And don´t think I won´t be continuing my tradition of stopping at Taco Bell on the way home from the airport becasue it´s gunna happen. Just to make you jealous, here´s another sunset....

Hiking and the First Annual Gringo Awards

So this past Saturday a few of us went hiking in the national park here. Except for the ridiculous effects of the altitude, it was a phenomenal experience. Just to give you an idea, Cochabamba (the city where I live) is at an elevation of about 8,500 feet. That makes it about 3,000 feet higher than Denver (i.e. really high). Now imagine we are climbing up the side of a fairly large mountain. Yah....crazy. Needless to say, I didn´t make it all the way to the top, but nevertheless the scenery was amazing. To the left you can see a picture that I took on the way back down of the sun setting behind the mountains.

I would also like to use this post to announce the winner of the first annual Gringo Award. This award is given to the American who does the stupidest thing in Bolivia while studying Spanish here for six weeks. And the winner is......my classmate Patrick! Patrick came on our climbing expedition, and like all the rest of us, he brought drinking water with him. However, when we were deciding what to leave at the entrance of the park so as to lighten our backpacks, he decided to leave all his water there, without making that fact explicitly clear to the rest of us. Here´s the kicker, though. While he left the giant thermos of water at the bottom of the hill, he continued to carry an entire bottle of Bailey´s Irish Creme all the way to the top of the mountain. To the left you can see Patrick in all his glory. Here´s to Patrick, the winner of the first (and probably only) Gringo Award.

Photos

Here is a picture of those kids pulling me on flattened antifreeze can. I´m not gunna lie....it was a pretty sweet ride. About 15 of them started pulling me downhill, but then when we got to the bottom of the hill, some of them thought it would be a good idea to try to pull me back up the hill again. Needless to say, that didn´t work out very well..... The rope broke, but one of the other guys on the trip tied it back together, and the craziness continued. It´s really amazing what games kids come up with.....

Mission Trip

Sorry for the long delay in posting, but it´s been a crazy week. Here´s a brief recap of the recent happenings.

• As promised, here are some stories about our trip this past weekend. There´s a lot to report! Above you can see a picture of the first mission church that we visted in San Javier (St. Xavier.) Construction was begun on this mission in the early 1700´s buy the Jesuits in collaboration with the native Chiqitania people who were living there. The Jesuit missionary technique was very interesting because upon arrival, the two-man team first made alliances with the native tribes and then built a school for their education. Only after that did they build the actual church.
  



• Another interesting part of the Jesuit method was the use of Baroque Music in the missions. According to our tour guide, the Jesuits used this music to draw the people into the faith, and soon they too learned to play these instruments and write music in this style. Recently, over 8,000 original pieces of music were recovered in these missions, most likely written by the indigenous people. To this day, the people in these towns play music in this style, and we heard a concert from the children of the town in the above pictured church.
  



• To the left you can see a picture of the side altar in the second church we visited, the mission of Concepción. All of the left-side altars in the missions were built in this style, representing Christ on the cross. This church was built later and is significantly larger and more ornate than the previous church. We went to Mass here on Sunday morning and even got a shout-out from the local bishop! Below you can find a picure of the outside of the church.

• Later that afternoon we were taken to a local village where about 50 families still live in a very simple way. We played soccer with the kids for a little while and then they pulled us around on flattened antifreeze cans attached to rope. It was ridiuculous!
  
  
• Lastly, all the gringos here had a Fourth of July Party here at our school. We grilled burgers and dogs and blew up some Chinese fireworks. No better way to celebrate American independence!
  
  
• That´s all for now, but expect more posts and pictures soon.
  
  

Jesuit Missions

Two weeks down and four to go! It´s really flying by so far. Tonight a group of us are going to visit several Jesuit Missions towns from the Spanish evangelization of South America in the 17th Century. These places have been restored over the past 50 years and are supposed to be really beautiful. We will be spending the weekend there and come back on Monday night. There´s sure to be more stories and pictures then.....

Things That Wouldn´t Meet Building Code in the USA: Part 1

Since merely talking about going to school is getting a little bit old, I thought I would spice things up a little bit and highlight some of the glaring differences that exist between the Bolivian way of doing things and the American way of doing things. With this post I would like to talk about Bolivian security systems. (see picture) First of all, most houses in the city where I am living right now are surrounded by tall brick walls with large steel doors for people and cars to go through. Many of those same walls have some sort of sharp spikes, barbed wire, or electrical fencing on top of them. However, the real way to protect your house is with large shards of glass stuck into wet mortar on top of your wall (as you can see in the above picture). Just a thought for the day. Look for more glaring differences and hilarious pictures soon.

Food and Circuses

Warm greetings from the southern hemisphere! Although you might be suffering in the Chicago summer, I am feeling just right in the Bolivan winter where its about 70 degrees every day. My classes are going well and speaking Spanish seems more natural every day. It´s amazing how you really can ¨pick up¨a language in an immersion trip such as this one.

Last night, a group of my classmates and myself went to downtown Cochabamba to check out a local band called ¨Negro y Blanco¨(thats ¨Black and White¨for you non hispanohablantes...). They were so good that I actually bought their CD´s. Anyone who knows me will really think that´s amazing because they all know what a cheapskate I am...... (see picture)

Also, a word on Bolivian cuisine. Today my host mother made me something called ¨silpancha¨, which is a plate covered in white rice, onions, carrots, and potatoes. Then, that little mountain is covered with two giant hamburger patties and then the whole thing is crowned with a fried egg! Oh man! Talk about trouble.... Let me tell you what....that mountain of food tasted even better than it looked too. (Gibbs, do you wanna come down to Boliva now?)

Well, that´s all for now. Time for studies and fun. We´ll be seeing the Fantastic Four tonight. Who knows if it´ll be in English or Español.... Vamos a ver!

First day of school

We started our first day at the Language Institute bright and early today. Each day I will have four hours of one-on-one classes, each hour with a different instructor. All the classes are taught completely in Spanish, of course..... I got my books today and I already have a few hours of homework tonight. When you are only here for six weeks you have to get going fast. Speaking of getting going, I have to do that myself. We´re off to explore some more of the beautiful city of Cochabamba.

Look for pictures soon!

I love Bolivia

Well, this is the beginning of my third day here in Bolivia. My host family and my house are both very nice, but getting here was a different story. First we flew from Chicago to Miami . Then came the five hour layover; lucky for us there was Chili´s in the airport for that very last burger. Then we flew overnight to La Paz and were taken to the Maryknoll Missionary house there for some food and sleeping. After that we headed back to the airport for yet another flight over the mountains to Cochabamba, the city where we are living. My host mother picked me up at the airport and drove me home for a promt feeding. Needless to say, I slept for about 16 hours the next day after that craziness.

If you didn´t already guess, Bolivia is a lot different from the US. First of all everything costs about 25% of what it does in the states. For example, last night we ate at a very nice restaurant and I ordered a filet mignon. We had 3 bottles of wine between the group of us, and the whole bill came out to about $9 each (including the tip). Unheard of!

My personal favorite thing here, though, are the wild dogs. In a given day you can easily see about 50 random, ownerless hounds running around this city, sometimes in packs. Watch your step!

That´s all for now, but school starts tomorrow morning so expect some more stories then.

Dios se bendigan.

Two summers, Two continents!

Well, off I go to my latest adventure. For those of you who don't know already, I'll be spending the next six weeks in Cochabamba, Bolivia in an intense Spanish language program. Although I have studied Spanish before, this will still be like getting dropped in the deep end of the pool. I hope I don't unintentionally say anything stupid to my Bolivian host mother when she picks me up at the airport. That's another thing: I'll be living with a random Bolivian family....should be interesting if nothing else....



Feel free to post to the blog or email me: thomasjamesbyrne@gmail.com. I am told that I will have fairly regular internet access, so I plan to check the blog and email frequently.

Look for pictures soon!