Poco a poco...

Well, time is flying by and I am learning tons and tons everyday, about Punata, about Bolivia, about international cooperation, and about myself. Here's a few examples:

1. Punateños really like meetings. And there are many rules that accompany said meetings. Like you must add at least half an hour to the set meeting time in order to predict when the participants will arrive. Introductions are formal, and there is a lot of summarizing and repeating what other people have said. They also have this very useful practice of writing by hand the main conclusions of the meeting in a "Libro de Actas" which everyone then signs at the end if they're in agreement. Although ususally I can't read the handwriting, so I'm not totally sure what I'm agreeing to...

2. Formalities are really important here. You can't just invite someone to a workshop by phone or email. You have to deliver them a letter. The more official seals and signatures the better. If not, they may get angry.

3. I think that the language of community diplomacy is probably the most complex level of communication in a second language that one could reach... and I am NOT there yet. Body language, tone of voice, word choice... yeesh. Needless to say, I feel like a bumbling idiot a lot of the time. Luckily, most people here seem to expect nothing less of me...

4. It's really strange to play the role of "financiadora." It makes it hard to tell when people are being sincere sometimes, and when they're being strategic. And being the only one here identifiable with the Compton folks, I'm the point person for "Couldn't your project also buy this equipment? Or hire one more nurse?". This is when # 3 becomes really important.

5. One of the hardest questions to answer is when people ask me what my profession is. Technically, I guess I should say "Biológa." But that doesn't really clarify too much. And after 17 years of perfecting the art of being a student, its hard to feel like I know how to do anything else.

6. A nice thing about being a student is that most of the time you have control over who you spend your time with. If you don't like a prof, often you can switch courses. If you don't like a fellow student, the most you have to work with them is for a group project or presentation of a few weeks. In the workplace, however, if you don't like someone, or, say, they treat you like you're a 12 year old girl, you still have to work with them, possibly every day. I've realized that learning to deal with people that rub you the wrong way is just something that you don't learn in college. But I'm working on it!

7. I have a hard time concealing my emotions in any context. This makes number 6 a little more difficult.
The view from my room in Punata.

Things are going really well in Punata though. We've hired our three promotoras and two doctors who are all very committed and excited about the project. What's more, we've signed an agreement with the hospital that they will hire on the two doctors at the end of January, so that they can continue to share their skills and knowledge with the rest of the staff for the future sustainability of the Casa Materna.

This week we had two days of training and planning sessions for the entire Casa Materna team. It was a challenging and really exciting experience, despite some logistical kinks (see number 5 above). My favorite part was just reveling in the depth and diversity of knowledge in the room as we sat around a table planning out every aspect of the care we're going to offer in the Casa Materna; the gynocologists, the traditional midwife, the nurses, and promotoras all had something to offer.

Then, that night, one of our projects doctors attended her FIRST intercultural birth in the Casa!!! I had the awesome experience of interviewing the mother and father after the fact, who were SO positive about the care they'd recieved, so grateful for the chance to give birth like they had 10 times before in their home with the husband kneeling and supporting his wife from behind, rubbing her back to ease the pain. They wanted to thank the "Doctorita" for being so patient and for not immediately ordering a C-section as others sometimes do. Their main suggestion was for more medicinal plants that we could stock up on, for matés that ease the birthing process. Hopefully there will soon be many more happy families like theirs!

So I have yet to take pictures of the Casa Materna, but to keep this from being one long block of text, I will share a few shots from the incredible festival of the Virgin of Urkupiña two weeks ago. It's like Carnaval, but minus the water balloons...

Dancing with my friend Julia and the Tinkus

Julia and I with the Caporales of San Simon (who inspired me to join a fraternity to dance Caporales in Punata in September.... more on that soon!)

My friend Aida with el Supay (Diablo) of the Diablada.

On Saturday night there is a 16km pilgrimage from Cochabamba to Quillacollo (where the Virgin of Urkupiña appeared to a little girl back in the day). My friend Julia and I decided we couldn't miss out. So at about 2am we left the bar where'd been dancing and joined the thousands of Bolivians all walking down Av. Blanco Galindo to pay respects to the Virgin. Like a giant moving party basically, until we arrived at 8:30 in the morning at the Calvario. Which was a little anticlimatic, but probably because of the exhaustion and our lack of personal commitment to the Virgincita.
Arriving at the Calvario: so many people!

You can see more pictures of Urkupiña here: http://picasaweb.google.com/kirsten.hansenday/FiestaDelUrkupina#