One more timee.

Well, I have finished my month of vacations, and am now a few days away from the half way point.
A pretty neat feeling to be starting up the second half of everything, but one I haven't quite had time to process yet since this past month has been such a whirlwind.
But, now with things (kind of) settling back down, it's about high time that I sit down and debreif a little on my blog.
This past month, and a suppose bit now, was just fantastic.
Starting with experiencing Christmas here..
Everyone celebrates Christmas on Christmas Eve. We had two dinners, one at about 8:00 with one family, and then went over to my uncles house and had second dinner at about 11:15, since the big celebration comes at 12:00. It was actually one of the coolest cultural experiences I have had.. every family in Santa Cruz shoots off fireworks for about 30 minutes (or as long as they last) at midnight. In the streets.. parks.. right by your house.. back yard.. anywhere. We did it in the street, and shot off just cheap fireworks (but TONS of them). While I kept thinking of how potentially dangerous this was, I was easily distracted by how beautiful and crazy it was to see thousands upon thousands of fireworks literally light up the entire sky. It's definitely something I'll remember in my future Christmas' to come.
We didn't get home until the wee hours of the morning though, and since our parents were gone to visit my mom's parents in a small town (it didn't work out for Carla and I to go) Carla and I promptly slept in til noon.. something 'crazy' with the locals here.. Carla couldnt get over it, and I didn't quite want to tell her how it is with teens over holidays in North America. lol.
But anyways, we slept in and watched the 'look who's talking' movies in Spanish for the day (does it GET much better than that??), before going to an evening service at the church. A pretty good Christmas day, I'd say.
Although phoning my mom on boxing day was a little harder. I think all of us found Christmas a little hard just in terms of missing home. We all didn't realize how much you can miss the little normal holiday traditions. Just the family gatherings, all of the great food (on the Vitt's side, grandma's halopchis.. mmm), all of the great family jokes that happen, present opening, a Christmas tree. I found myself missing all of that alot, and all of my family alot. PS, thankyou so much from those family members who sent me cards etc - they were more wonderful to read than you may realize, and all of them brought chuckles (and maybe a few tears) to my eyes.
Anyways, enough about Christmas missing - since I don't really want to dwell on that :P, and once my mom came on the 30th, all of it promptly transformed into joy:).
We had such a great time together. Mom and I have never had a chance to kind of go off together alone and do some travelling, and let me tell you, we shared some laughs and some good times. For 97% of the time we travel great together lol, and really, it was just such a wonderful thing to get to have my mom come for the half way point.
It was a little surreal at the same time though when she first got here though, since, my life here is just completely seperate from home. I associate Bolivia largely (and maybe subconciously) with me away from my family and friends. That anything from home is NOT here. So it was just a bit surreal and kind of like 'wait, why are you here again?' a few times as I looked at my Mom.
Sharing the new year here with her under a shower of VERY close fireworks in the main plaza with her was wonderful, and as she left I really felt re-juvinated, and like I was starting my new year and second half with some good family mom love and a nice travelling break from life here. (oh, and also with a crap load of candy and gum. YES.).
Anyways, after my mom left my friend Heidi and I headed off to La Paz and surrounding areas for about 6 days to end my vacation. It was really great - all up in the Andies mountains. La Paz is one of the highest cities in the world, but, since I had just come from Sucre (a still very high city, but not quite as high), it didn't affect me too badly.
La Paz was a crazy city. Tons of people packed into kind of a bowl or two in the mountains. It was a workout for the legs as well, let me tell you. Especially at that altitude (about 4000 m), you take about 3 steps up hill with your backpack on and your heart is pounding and you look at how much of the hill you still have to climb and your heart just sinks.
We stayed at a few different hostels though, and they were all great. One was especially fun - it was owned by some Irish people, and was chock full of people from all over Europe.. Australia.. etc. Awesome place to meet some backpackers, who all were great fun.
After La Paz we heading up to lake titicaca, the highest lake in the world, and it was breathtaking. We stayed at the top of an island there.. higher up than La Paz, so that climb sucked. But, it was all just very gorgeous though - tons of culture, tons of great people, and an extraordinary amount of amazing landscape/sea scape to see.
Yah, so that basically spelled out my month of break. This week back to 'reality' hasn't quite been that. Us SALTers first went to meet the new PROJUSE workers..
its basically the Bolivian equivalent of our SALT program, one year of service for youth, but starts and ends in January. So we met all of them, I met the two guy's I'll be working with (they seem sweet). Although for the first time I was the kind of 'older student' (they were all fresh out of highschool).. and so that was an interesting experience. It made me feel 21 years old (in two weeks) that I'm getting old. Ha.
Anyways, apart from that, It's now our MCC Bolivia/Paraguay focus weekened (happens about twice or three times a year.. but is during the week so noone understands the title), so everyone was in once again for these past two days from all the towns and stuff. And thats always a blast. All of us SALTers and our friend Kelsey from paraguay spent the night here yesterday watching movies and Friends.. and just laughing lots and hanging out. Such a nice break, and some good 'North American' bonding time. (Not like I'm really in a need for that right now though, with all of my travels etc).
And today we all spent time around here painting etc together. These buildings havent been painted in a while, and our one facing the street was kind of this 80's hospital greeny blue.. anyways. Very much needed to be changed. So we all spent a day painting, eating and hanging out together. Very fun. And it looks so fantastic now.. kind of a tuscan reddy brown on the bottom and a beigy white on the top. Very MCC ten thousand villages colours, but they look great.
But, in typical me form, I have paint everywhere. Just everywhere. So I'll go scrub that off soon. Oh, and then we played volleyball which was fun. But I was playing barefoot on super hot concrete, and now I have some wonderful blisters on the bottoms of my feet. fantastic.
Once again though, funny how my body (/everyone's bodies) have adjusted to the heat. It was 34 today in the shade, probably around 38, and no one said a thing, and in fact I thought it was a quite pleasent day, if not a little on the warm side.
Judging from the struggles with the cold I had in Sucre (where Mom and I went), and La Paz.. I'm just not looking forward to the cold of Manitoba next year. Although, how much I miss hoodies and warm clothing will hopefully make up part of the gap. We're all also missing snow and lovely winter things, although definitely not the bitter cold. Maybe Calgary really is the place to be? I heard about the plus15 weather there. Can anyone say global warming.
Oh, speaking of Politics etc., I was lucky enough to somehow get Tuesday morning off before our retreat with the new PROJUSEs, and was able to sit down and watch Obama's inognoration (sp?).
It was great to kind of share in that from over here (even though Carla couldn't understand why I was SHHing her when she was yelling things at me from the other room during Obama's speech.. or why I was so pumped about this political change).
We can feel it over here in Bolivia though. Even though everyone is more focused on the referendum vote over the new constituion on Sunday (that's really another blog post in itself.. but a new consitution is trying to be passed, and this country is just worked up over it.. from the supporters.. to those who think this is the worst thing ever.. everyone has a strong opinion, and it's insane how much people get into their politics here. I'll have to write another blog after Sunday shakes down.) Im going to start talking out of parenthesis lol. No, on Sunday everything in the entire city is closed down for the vote. Should be interesting times, especially here in Santa Cruz who is very anti the new constitution, when it most likely passes. Lots of uprisings against it. You should check this all out in the news though. Basically the new constituion promotes more human rights, indigenous rights, and opens the door for abortion and homosexuality (as well as a bunch of other stuff). But Santa Cruz is very against those new proposed changes, and.. anyways yes. Like I said. Interesting times ahead :).
Ohk where was I.. Right! Evo, our President, has made talks about making a new leaf with the states now that Obama is in power.. which is big since we tossed out the US ambassador here a few months ago. Obama has a chance to make a lot of new beginnings, and hopefully this will be one with Bolivia.
Anyways, phew. This post was a doozer. .. By that I mean basically just huge. But thankyou for sticking in there! I will be better and more consistant again with blogs this new year, and that will hopefully lead to shorter, less mentally strenous posts.
Half way though. It feels good. A huge uplifting feeling. My time left here really feels kind of short now. When it was like '9 months left..' sometimes it could feel a little long.
And now that I have a great community here from work, to SALT/MCC, to my family etc etc set up here, I'm really expecting a great second half. It's looking to shape up well.
So, what is it, Friday now? Yes, the kids come back on Monday (I miss them, and am actaully quite excited to see them) - and it will all settle back into some sort of ruitine.
Hopefully I'll write again in a little while when work has started back up.
But, anyways. It's time to head home, it's been a long past little while.
My heart feelsl ight and happy now, as I know that I get to enjoy the rest of my time here, but that home is ever drawing nearer and nearer with each passing month.
I hope that everyone at home is doing well, and that the beginning of 2009 has been a good one. I just have a feeling that this is goign to be a good year.
Missing you all always, once again thanks to all of you who were able to send out a little message with my mom at Christmas time.
Tons of love,
Kathleen