La Primera Semana

Amigos y familia,

Greetings from the Southern hemisphere.
Nearly a week has gone by since I left Louisville, and the first days have basically been training for training. We spent three days in Washington, basically getting to know one another -- the activities were a bit tortuous, but it was great to meet my fellow trainees, who are amazing. They are all intelligent, motivated, well-traveled, experienced, and genuine. It was truly a relief to finally meet people who are going through the same crazy emotions and experiences.
We flew on Tuesday to Miami, then took a 6-hour flight to La Paz. (Ratatouille was playing on the plane, but I slept through it.) At 13,000 feet, the air in La Paz is almost nonexistent. My head immediately started pounding, I felt dizzy, I was seeing purple spots; meanwhile, since our plane had arrived late, the PC official who met us in La Paz was emphatically trying to herd us onto the next flight, a short trip to Cochabamba, our training site.
Still dazed, I exited the plane in Cochabamba, at a more manageable 8,000 feet. It was a beautiful day (like every day here): Warm, sunny, like the best spring days in Louisville. To our surprise, our group was met with a chorus of raucous cheers and handmade ¨Peace Corps¨ signs -- about 20 current PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) had come to the Cochabamba airport to welcome us to Bolivia. It was the best welcome I can remember, and the best start to these next two years I could have asked for. Spending time with current PCVs is really exciting and encouraging: They all seem confident, knowledgeable, and at home here in Bolivia. (For those who went to Guatemala with me, they remind me of Mateo.) I want to be just like them.
We have been staying at a very nice hotel in Cochabamba: Here, and all over Latin America, the Carnaval festival is beginning. It´s a pre-Lenten weeklong fiesta, much like Mardi Gras. Apparently, one of the traditions during Carnaval is to throw water balloons at passersby: As you might guess, gringos are prime targets. We must constantly be on guard when we go out for dinner -- especially because some of the balloons are rumored to be filled with piss and/or ink (miracle elixir, indeed).
We spend our days at the PC training center nearby. There, as in Washington, we have to sit through interminable orientation sessions -- and they refuse to desist from giving us pamphlets. Peace Corps is obsessed with pamphlets. I must have fifty of them. Pamphlets aside, the training center is excellent. I was expecting a sterile office building, but it´s actually an authentic compound: Adobe, plenty of grass, vegetable gardens, fish ponds -- and, of course, an intimidating line of glass shards protruding from the top of the outside walls to keep out intruders.
So far, I have received three shots (yellow fever, hep A and B), with several more to come; begun classes for Spanish and job training; and learned to use a latrine. Amazing things, these latrines! You should all try it. I´m going to build one in my parents´ back yard when I come home.
Tomorrow each Trainee moves in with his/her host family: The families will house and feed us during the 3 months of training, before we are assigned to our sites and new families. Since my Spanish is conversational but not fluent, I´m a bit nervous about this transition; but I´m really excited, too. For the next three months, we take Spanish classes 4 hours a day, 5 days a week; we will also be receiving training for our agriculture projects, and culture, health and safety training. The nature of my project is still ambiguous, and depends greatly on the location to which I am assigned. I´ll keep you posted.
It´s a lot to take in at one time. But my intuition tells me everything will be fine. Let´s hope my gastrointestinal system agrees.
I want to share one more thing with you before I wrap things up. As I mentioned, I slept during most of the flight to La Paz. When I woke up, about a half-hour before we landed, the sun had begun to rise amid the sea of clouds. In my delirious half-awake state, I fumbled around for my journal and wrote this, the first of what I hope will be many entries:

January 30, 2008
30,000 feet, just before 6 a.m.:

I shake myself from a restive, turbulent sleep, open my eyes. My contact lenses have dried, and so I have to blink continuously until the moisture returns.
Looking out the window, the plane´s wing is pointing toward the future: Out across the turbid yellow-gray horizon, the sun is rising over South America, my home for the next two years.
It is a good welcome. Quiet, hopeful.

Love you guys. More soon.

Paz,
Andrew