Living in any new place brings changes. Novel ways to shop, "wows" in your surroundings, and newly minted routines. One big area of change for our family has been to be more flexible. Bolivia has some predictable unpredictables. For example, planning an outing or travel between cities. Blockades and demonstrations are utilized in Bolivia as part of the political process to gain attention and progress for various causes. Therefore it's best to begin plans by saying, "Our hope today is to try and go to..."
As a mom, I've tried to plan for the unexpected. This means trying to always have drinking water, a snack, and toilet paper (there are very few public restrooms and it's the norm to bring your own t.p.). A need for flexibility happened when we tried to get to a library. Twice we've gone part way to an international school's library for some children's books. The library is about 15 kilometers from our apartment. Both times we've been stopped by blockades on the highway. Our second try had milk producers protesting with tear gas and a highway blockade. Another morning I was downtown, thankfully without the kids, trying to discover a few new routes and potential places to shop. What sounded like gunfire to me, was only non stop firecrackers and blockades. While I'd planned to have several glorious kid-free hours on my own, it got a little stressful with the loud explosions and new route to leave downtown.
The change to become a bit more flexible is a good one. Bit by bit I'm more easy going when I consider what I can accomplish in a given day.
One day walking to school to pick up the kids, I noticed loads of open trash piled up on the street. With Cochabamba's heat roasting the garbage and the dogs tearing into the bags, it was hard not to notice. The local sanitation workers were negotiating pay increases and therefore regular curbside pick up was suspended. When our our taxi driver friend Mauricio met us at the kids' school to drive us home, he was annoyed about litter strewn around town. But instead of staying irritated, he turned it into a game. A fierce competition ensued on the way home between Mauricio and the kids...who could first spot each large pile of rotting garbage? One point! There was happy shouting and playful arguing all the way home. Astoria kept citing piles that were quickly disqualified; plastic pop and water bottles* left in the park. Mauricio said,
"Astoria--those plastic bottles don't count. Those are only decoraciones!"
For days after, I'd chuckle at minor inconveniences. That's not a
real problem. That's only today's decoration. Mauricio's light-hearted approach to things that bug us, was good advice. Keep the mood light, keep plans flexible, and God's grace and humor for today's inconveniences will turn garbage into funny decorations.
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| Ready for gleaning |
*Often times plastic bottles are left on the ground at the park. First of all, there's rarely public garbage receptacles. Secondly, people collect these to redeem for money. I often spot a giant load on a passerby's back, collecting empty bottles. I now see the empty plastic bottles as a way for the poor to glean--they gather the bottles and then redeem them for money, similar Old Testament times of gleaning, where a farmer would leave some crops in the field for the poor to later collect for their families.
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