pick up the few little things we couldn't find at the market (tin foil, canned corn, etc) Got back to the house around 10:30 and recruited my youngest brother and neighbor/aunt to help with the peeling. Well, I got the aunt involved when I opened the chicken bag (frozen turkeys were 485 bolivianos .. or $70 USD!!) so.. I opened the chicken bag and saw that the head and feet were still attached and ran next door yelling for my aunt to come help because 1, I'm vegetarian and 2, they don't (to my knowledge) sell chickens like that in the US so I wasn't expecting it.
As I've never stuffed a chicken or turkey, I invented a stuffing using my super keen culinary skills :) hah Apparently it was good... I stirred up some chorizo (sausage) with apples, raisins, onions, bread pieces, rosemary and salt and pepper
Then I put it in the chicken. Yes mom, I touched the chicken. Half way through I seasoned the outside with salt pepper and rosemary and through a bunch of onions in the juice cut some slices and poured the juice in there
We put it in an oven bag and this is what it looked like after
I made mashed potatos, mashed turnips, carrots, American sweet corn, rolls, and Bolivian sweet potatoes (which are white and pink) with walnuts and brown sugar. And we ate outside in the sunny 86 degree weather :)
Monday I got a haircut, by the way... (And as of Tuesday my total weight loss is 30 pounds... yay bacteria!)
Last night we had about 40 people get together for a potluck Thanksgiving. There were about 12 countries represented and joining in the celebration of our holiday.
Sweet potato pie creatively using Lucky Charms marshmallows because they couldn't find regular marshmallows. Clever! and not too bad, really
Jonathan carving the chickens..they bought 4 chickens instead of a turkey
I made a pumpkin soup with carrots, peas onions
Our giant "Last Supper" set up
It was very yummy, though tough to eat as much as I thought I wanted to, because I was sick earlier in the week... vomiting and diarrhea again. But I went to the lab and they said it wasn't bacteria or parasites, so probably just a intestinal infection or irritation. So Monday Tuesday and Wednesday I didn't really eat anything but 1 piece of bread and 1 pack of ramen noodles per day with lots of Powerade and saline water ek. So therefore my stomach wasn't as big as I wanted it to be in preparations for eating two Thanksgivings.
This is a photo from last week. The aunt went to Chapare (where I played with the monkeys that time) and brought home a bunch of avocados. What a beautiful sight to come home too!
Wednesday was Census day. They don't do it every year, so it was a big ol' chaotic thing. Beginning Tuesday afternoon around 4 people weren't allowed to go out in groups of more than 3 because things were closing down etc and it looks suspicious. Wednesday nobody was allowed to leave their houses until 8pm or they would be arrested. I think some 400 people were arrested. I guess thats the best way they could get people to stick around and answer the census questions. As my friend put it, I had to play "Anne Frank" and hide in my room when they came by the house because my visa says I live at Sustainable Bolivia not here with the family. But for some reason, SB told me to stay home and not come to the office for this day. Luckily they came around 9:30 am and so we could chill out the rest of the day. We had a nice BBQ outside and it was so quiet it felt like we were out in the campo (countryside). Just listening to the birds. I live on a busy street corner with a 5 way intersection, so it's usually really noisy. It was a nice change. But it was really weird to not be able to leave the house and know that absolutely everything will be closed for 24 hours, so we did our food shopping tuesday morning. What I wish I had done was shopped for Thanksgiving stuff on Tuesday and cooked all day Weds, but I didn't feel very good Tuesday. Of course not being allowed to leave, I was itching to get out and made myself super bored. We did watch Ted though. Super funny.
I bought this beautiful handmade bag at a presentation we had at SB about a town called Independencia. http://www.pazabolivia.org/
I'm really thinking about going out there (8 hours into the countryside) for a few weeks to work with the women that do these weavings. There was an ex peace corps volunteer (Website above) who started working with them to help preserve their traditions. Their kids are moving to the cities and wanting to learn Spanish (these ladies only speak Quechua) and don't want to learn weaving or stay in their villages. So I think it would be really interesting to go talk to the women about this process of changing cultures and losing traditions. Pepito also likes the bag.
Speaking of Pepito, we put him in Tatiana's doll's dress the other night. Heh. He wasn't a fan. But, this cat loves me. Like an incredible amount. Love Love Love
2 weeks ago a bunch of us went to play paintball in Tiquipaya. It was good to get out of the city and be active for an afternoon.
Today was my last day working for VIVO EN POSITIVO. I have been quite unhappy working for them since month 1, (it's now month 4). I came to Bolivia to work with the people and since day 1 I've been doing computer work. I'm not a translator. I'm not a graphic designer. I know I'm just a volunteer and should suck it up and do what they give me, right? But after months of trying to propose several projects and programs and seeing none of them come through, I've had enough. Good news though. The Archaeology museum called, and they want to put me in a research program. AND Ryan, the director of Sustainable Bolivia wants to come with me and meet them and try and see if they can partner (meaning I'd get to work for the museum through SB! And not have to find still a second job related to SB). I think I may have explained at some point that in order to still be living with my host family (whom I love and want to stay with ) I need to keep working in connection with Sustainable Bolivia and one of their partners. So if we can create one with the museum that would be wonderfulllllllll! I've also been really apathetic with my grad school homework, but I feel like that's because there hasnt been any progress or anything really happening at work. So I'm confident now that since I know I'll be happier and actually doing stuff I'll have plenty to contribute. Push on!
Today I also found out what the seemingly meaningless graffiti strokes in red or blue around the city means, as we have some new "work" on our wall: we've been marked. by robbers. they have a special code that they use to say how many people live in the house and what goodies the house has... so they've been watching us for a while. creepy! we're gonna paint over it this weekend. and hope they move on. luckily the reason for their coding is that they break in when no body's here. so if we invite more people over and change up our schedules a little bit and enter and leave through the neighbor's gate it might shake em up a bit.. here's to hoping! ....
