Why I don’t blog (any)more.

I have taken the hint from my friend Andrew, who has entitled his NCAA tournament bracket “Taylor is Alive!”.  Yes, in fact, I am alive and even as I am typing these words, I am thinking to myself, “I really enjoy this, I should blog more often.”  However, the truth is, I usually feel like I just don’t have that much stuff to write about.  I mean, if anything, my life might actually be more boring now than it was in Atlanta.

In Atlanta, I succeeded in having a life, and a very-overly-programmed one at that, outside of school.  Here, I live and work in the same neighborhood, spend an overwhelming majority of my time outside of my school either with my coworkers or trying to get my puppy to stop sniffing in the trash can.  Since most of my coworkers are American, I am afraid that my blog might take on a normal, maybe even dare I say spinsterish, tone.  For example, “You wouldn’t believe those kids today.  Not ONE did their homework.”  I don’t even like hearing about that at the lunch table (which is partly the reason why I sit with the Bolivians at lunch – they could be talking about that, and I can just shut my brain off and innocently not listen).    As sad as it may seem, that, friends, has started to become my life.  What have I become?  Even as I sit here, my bag is nudging my laptop, full of essays waiting to be graded.  That’s my St. Pedro’s Day night.

Alas, it is not such a bad thing at times, though.  I don’t have to be worried about double booking meeting up for lattes or party hopping to appease competing rings of friends.  My plans are my plans, even if I don’t have any.  It is completely reasonable to call someone up at 9:00 on a Friday and go out for beverages.  They are probably not doing anything.

I’d be lying if I said I loved having so much downtime that I reload cnnsi.com every 20 minutes and have watched season 5 of the office twice (as well as every other TV series I have on DVD – note to self, go to the pirated DVD store this weekend), but when you look back and reflect on it, at least I have time to really spend time with friends.  My dog almost always gets walked.  My girlfriend doesn’t feel like she needs to compete for time with me.  These sort of things probably wouldn’t happen nearly as much in Atlanta.   For that, I find value in this skim milk version of life.

Bolivia: The Land of Snails

For being in a landlocked country with no bodies of water other than Lago Titicaca, Santa Cruz has an incredible amount of snails. I’m not talking about a small snail here and there, but legions of mollusks whose hajj is a slow, nightly slide to your house.

Now, it seems to me that your snail situation here falls into 2 categories: small and many, or few and monstrous. When I lived with Rob, his house’s snail pheremones brought out a nightly group of about 200 small snails. In my new house, however, I only get a few a day, but they are big enough to make you jump back.

Thankfully, I have a puppy who does not see the snails as I do, but as a delicious snack delivered to the door every day.
I’ll take a picture the next time the slimy grey/white moving bohemoths find their way to my porch, but for now, just imagine the aliens from The Simpsons with shells on their backs.

After Half A Year in Bolivia: Thoughts and Reflections on Here and There

I am writing this on an airplane from Dallas to Atlanta. I’m returning to the city that I called home for more than 6 years for the first time since leaving to teach in a third world country. By nature, this list will either seem overly simplistic or overly dramatic, depending on your path in this life. Ok, I had to get my self-conscious disclaimer out of the way. Here goes nothing.

When you spend a week in a foreign land, you want to return and make sure everyone knows you’ve been somewhere else. You’re changed and different. You have Jamaican braids in your hair or everything relates to you drinking beer out of a stein while listening to polka music in Bavaria.

When you spend 6 months in a foreign land and everything about you is different every waking moment of the day, all you want to do is come home and be exactly like everyone else (besides wanting to show off a little Spanish that you’ve learned).

It’s a strange and foreign feeling when the idea of the government taking over everything isn’t just something you hear on a conservative talk radio program – it’s on the tongues of everyone if you listen closely enough.

Understanding a new language is a bit like a frog catching flies. He doesn’t catch every fly, but he at least understands what everyone are talking about.

It is my understanding that Latin America only has 6 songs that radio stations and DJs play on repeat.

People don’t look to the United States with the awe that you might think. This has nothing to do with politics. We are just one society in a world full of societies. The fact that we have considerably more money than most makes us more interesting to others.

We do a great job of broadcasting the worst of our society to the world – and the world believes that what they see on MTV is who we are. This is a problem.

I think Extreme Home Makeover might be the worst of all our exported programs. To me, it says, “When you do a good deed, do it so you feel good about yourself and make sure everyone sees it.”

There are people like you and me handdrilling wells out in the campo in Bolivia that do it not because it makes them feel good, but because it’s what they are called to do.

I think that bad imitations of our society in teen subcultures everywhere only spells trouble for our future. It’s not totally unbelievable to think that in 15 years people will think that the only way to fall in love is on a TV show.

Food is cheap. Think about that the next time you eat an $11.99 hamburger.

There is a direct correlation between the sophistication of a society and the quality of the coffee and beer.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but driving is really boring in the US. – too many rules and rule followers.

Read. It’s the only way you’ll hear a story that doesn’t follow the Hollywood formula.

Air travel is way too affordable and easy for you not to have traveled to a foreign country.

But you will never get to where you are going on time (ie spending the night of Christmas Eve at the Dallas airport this year)

IF you do go to another country, don’t tell everyone you are from the US, they already know.

I don’t know how people live without God. I really don’t.

The best friends you will ever have are the ones that have genuine excitement in their voices when you call from another continent. Not surprise, but excitement. Very few things make you feel better and that someone out there misses you.

When you learn another language, other people don’t seem so scary anymore. They are usually talking about the same stuff you talk about – not plotting how they are going to steal your wallet.

Don’t keep score in a relationship and don’t prevent the other person from doing what they love. Nothing good will come of it.

Some of the your best friends might just be living in another country right now waiting to be your neighbor.

The greatest things we can teach in school are compassion and logic.

Living without TV for 3 months has given clarity to my thoughts, but it sure was nice watching football.

Buy a hammock and take regular naps in it. Once you do, you’ll know.

Pursue friendships with people of integrity.

You’ll know who your friends are when you feel like you don’t have any.

Ok, that will do for now. All of these, in one way or another, relate to my time and lessons I have learned so far in Bolivia. I hope my risk and experience can encourage you to do or be something different. However, if nothing else, all that should matter to you in this world are your family and friends.

A letter from my students

I wanted to share this with you all:

Dear Mr. Barton,

We’ve noticed the grief that you’re going through with the loss of Morena.  Many of us have gone somehow, through the same thing you’re going through, and want to tell you that we feel sorry for what happened.  Aching to give you something with which to recover from this loss; thinking of things that would help cover up the hole left now open we searched for an opportunity with which to satisfy this sadness.  Missing your natural sense of humor, which has been lost after such event; waiting the warm, delightful smile to come back and adorn your face but the hope of this to be fixed alone won’t happen and instead we even though knowing it’s hard to forget and accept the loss of someone so loved and faithful as Morena We’ve thought in this.  Once concluded that you should have another dog…Muddy came in, the sweet, cheerful, and friendly dog we hope will bring the old you back.  Even though life is Beautiful it aint perfect and it’ll go on and we got’a let things go.  Wishing you the best with your new best friend…..Please accept this thoughtful present that comes from anywhere else but our hearts…

GIO, MARCE, STEPH K, MEGU, REBECCA, LEO, CLAUDIA, MICKY, MAYA, MAJO, NICKI, SAM, CHORCH, ANDREW, MAFER, ADRI…

P.S. We wish you’ll enjoy the time with little Muddy; God bless and protect you and the little one…your students that care and value your friendship

Things got better!

My 8th graders surprised me with a 7 week old chocolate lab puppy today!

Her name is Muddy and I am just overwhelmed with joy.

Thank you, Lord.

Things do get better

I have been back from el bosque for quite a while now, and I feel like I am finally ready to write again.  This past month has been the hardest 30 days of my life.  To be honest, for a while, I just didn’t want to talk about it.

However, I think if this is going to be a true blog about my time down here, I need to give an accurate account of what my time here has brought me – the good and the bad.

As you know, my puppy was stolen.  The most innocent, friendly, loving, licking, jumping, chasing, never-barking best thing to come home to when you had a bad day puppy was taken from me.  To recount, I woke up at 6 on a Saturday morning because I was going to a service project with my National Honor Society kids at 7:30.  I let Morena out just like I always did.  I walked outside for a second, threw here zebra striped squeaky bone to the other end of my yard to get her on acceptable pee/poop territory, saw her run to get it, and went back in side to catch 5 more minutes of sleep and a shower.  When I came back down 20 minutes later, there was no response when I called her name.

There is no worse feeling than calling the name of one that you love (even a dog), and a dead silence answers you back.  I called louder and louder, for surely she was adventuring in some corner of the yard.  I searched the 3 or 4 spots in my small yard, unable to comprehend how she cannot be there.  I literally went into shock.  I called Vanessa to tell her, and she thought I was joking. Surely no one would be so evil as to wrench this friendly little brown girl from her home.

I walked up and down the barren street, still in shock.  I tried to make the barks of foreign dogs fit into the funny yelp that only a 2 month old puppy can make.  The guard on my street leaves at 6:00, and it was 6:45 – the emptiness of the street made it that much more surreal.

I had to go to the trip with the National Honor Society; I felt powerless and handcuffed.  However, I called Heath, and he and Olivia searched for Morena in my absence.  Unfortunately with no luck.  There has never been a longer day.

The bowl of puppy chow that I poured for her that morning still waits for her.  I have searched all of the markets, passed out flyers around the neighborhood, and prayed every day an night for her.  She is always in my thoughts.  I am still waiting for the happy ending to this terrible, terrible event, but I am afraid it will be a wound that will slowly heal, but definitely leave a scar.

I hope this does not seem overdramatic.  Morena was a companion in every sense of the word.  In my loneliest times down here, when all I wanted to do is stay in bed and not get out, she was my comfort.  She is constantly in my thoughts, and I just pray that whoever has her now is taking care of her.

But things do get better.

Thanks for listening.

Back From El Bosque Pt. 2

Listening to the usual drunken singing/screaming accompanied by an accordian that keeps me from sleeping on Sunday nights…Such is life – no wonder taxis are always late on Monday mornings…

Ok, a week late, but we’re back on track.  The next day, we had a much easier hike out to a BEAUTIFUL waterfall in Amboro.  We were under tree cover for most of the hike, but the difference between here and other places I’ve hiked is that even under the canopy of the rainforest, the floor is extremely diverse and interesting to look at.  I

took photos of flowers and plants that resulted in disappointment (even after I doctored the photos in iPhoto), because there is just no way to capture any of the beauty that we saw.  In fact, I find that my black and white photos are my favorite because I can let my mind recreate the colors.

Anyway, I walked up to the top of the waterfall with Rob and we wandered around a bit – careful not to slip and recreate the scene from Apocolypto.  After meandering our way up the stream flowing over rocks, we came across what I am pretty sure Heaven will be like (besides the feeling I just got of my puppy putting her head on my foot to go to sleep – THAT’S why I keep her around despite the digging and endless energy…).  This spot was perfect – a small, 10 foot waterfall dropped into a stone pool – almost like someone came and carved out an almost perfect square below

the falls.  The water was surprisingly not too cold and it dropped to about 8 feet with a soft, sand bottom.  Not a creature in there besides me and Rob.  I could have stayed there for the rest of the day.  Heaven.  Come to Bolivia – I’ll take you there.   Knowing that there are places like that makes me thankful for the God that created this world and especially places like that.  Somehow I don’t think strip malls were in the original plan.  Thanks, God (and sorry about the strip malls, I don’t like them either).

Well, we trekked back and called it a trip, packing up our things and having one last meal in the jungle – palmito salad, rice, and something else that I do not recall.  It was that immemorable.  We cruised back, pocked with big bites, dirt under our fingernails, and satisfied with a successful trip to the jungle.  Everyone did fantastically and I can’t wait to go again.

Perhaps the motivating factor for some of us was the reservations we had at the Hotel Buena Vista for Saturday night…We drank Pacenas and ate Picca Macchu (not Macchu Picchu) poolside and recounted jungle stories all night and for the greater part of the day Sunday.  Heath, Rob, and I also went to the coffee plantation down the road and had espressos. A refined way to wrap up a great adventure

Back from El Bosque!

Listening to Atlanta’s own Tim Brantley while the brown girl sleeps below.

Well, if you have seen my legs on my facebook profile picture, you would think that I am in misery.   However, reader, I am not thanks to the power of Calomine lotion.  Man, what an awesome trip it was, though.

Our group of 7 met at Alexander’s for coffee at 8 on Thursday morning and loaded up on eggs, coffee, milkshakes, and cheesecake.  Yes, breakfast cuisine is not limited to your Puritanical regimen of wheat product and milk.   And away we went.

After an hour and a half drive out to the small village of Buena Vista, we met up with our tour agency and arranged to leave at 1:00, which left us time to get lunch on the square.  I shared a pizza (hard to get good pizza) and drank strawberry milk while listening to the debate continue about whether strawberries in Spanish are fresas or frutillas – an extension of the long running Mexican Spanish versus Santa Cruz Spanish argument.

After lunch, we headed back to the tour company, jumped in an old Nissan 4 x 4 with stadium seating in the back, and headed out to the jungle.  If you have never crossed a river in a vehicle before, it’s quite the experience.  In order to get into Amboro, you have to cross quite a wide river and then many of its tributaries.  The truck swung and swayed and dipped and bottomed-out its way across – meanwhile a local who crossed the river sans pants (and sans any cloth below the waste) looked on.

We passed by many local huts and farms in order to get to our sites.  While it seemed like these people were making a sustainable life for themselves here, I was shocked to see the amount of damage from slash and burn settling that was going on.  Where rainforest once stood, famished cows feed off of spots of grass.   More to say, but that would be getting off track, I suppose.

We finally arrived at our site and unpacked our things as well as the obligatory rations of Fanta and Coke (as well as various canned vegetables with Japanese labels).  We were expecting to have everything on our backs for three days, but it turns out that we were camping at the same campsite and making day treks from there.  It’s a good thing that none of us got a porter – we would have paid him $35 to carry our things 1/4 mile.

After setting up camp, we did a loop trail where we saw a bunch of different flora and fauna – including a plant that cures diarrhea (a remedy that thankfully no one had to use).  We also swung from vines and went swimming in a natural swimming pool.  We wrapped up the day playing Uno and waiting for our soup to be made.  And we kept on waiting.  And waited some more until our Ramen soup with Japanese vegetable was ready.  Buen Provecho.  Sleep came easier for some (me) than others (everyone else) due to jungle noises and tents that were appropriate for amputees.  Glad I brought mine.

The second day, we set off for a waterfall after a surprisingly good, but small omelette made by our guide, Danny.  No one really knew what to expect, so we packed sandals and towels and all sorts of other things for a nice day at the waterfall.  However, we had a 6 hour hike up a canyon waiting for us.  It was a really tough scramble up the rocks through an absolutely gorgeous canyon, but it was really difficult and a bit technical.  We braved slippery rocks, chest-deep water, and even a bat.  However, I credit the entire group because no one gave up and no one complained. We were aptly rewarded at the top of the canyon with an incredible waterfall, which was the top of the stream/river that we had been climbing up.  It is easily one of the most beautiful places that I have ever been.

We had lunch up there (a butter-product and strawberry jam sandwich with pineapples).  Before we feasted, I jumped in the water because, darn it, how many times am I going to get to swim in a waterfall in the rainforest?*  Vanessa and Rob also jumped in, which made for a nice, bone-chillingly cold waterfall fiesta.  The hike down was even more difficult, given the slippery terrain and eagerness to get home before dark.  Echos of our guide yelling “Vamos!”  careened through the canyon.

*The answer is two.

We got home, feasted on whiskey, Amarulla, and spaghetti with canned tuna (not a meal I recommend to friends).  The stars really came out that night, so we sat around a fire talking and admiring the universe.  Ok, that’s enough for one posting, I’ll blog tomorrow about the next day.

When camping, you must have sparkling white socks.

Hey Everybody –

I am sitting here at my dining room table typing this as Morena lies at my feet, her paws shaking in hot pursuit of a chicken somewhere in dreamland, and I here the cadence of a horse-drawn carriage passing by my front gate selling fresh fruit.  It’s an interesting dichotomy of the normal and not-so-normal.

It’s been a busy week – teaching and planning for our trip to Amboro National Park on Thursday.

On the teaching side, I have relearned a valuable lesson – always preview books before you teach them!  I have been teaching Flowers for Algernon (the novel, not the shortened version) for the last few weeks and I have slowly noticed a disturbing trend.  The language of the book is getting quite, how shall I say it, crude.  Now, if you’re like me, you would have seen the piles of FFA novels in the back cabinet and thought, “Hey, Flowers for Algernon! I remember reading that story – that’s a great book to read with my 8th graders!”  If that is what you thought, you would be wrong.  The version you read was the cleaned up, straight out of a Literature Anthology.  The book that I have so carelessly jumped into with my 12 and 13 year olds is very much R-rated.  Not a good position to be in 16 chapters deep.

So, my escape plan, with a motive that will probably not be lost on my students, is to jump to the shortened version in our anthology as a “review” because, darn it, we just can’t spend much more time on the novel.  We’ve got things to do!  We’ll see if that works.

Last night was the school’s Mother’s Club welcome dinner for staff at the Las Palmas Country Club.  The club is amazing – rivaling any club in the US.  They’ve even got a swim-up bar.  Does your club have a swim-up bar?  I didn’t think so.  It was a nice dinner and dancing followed, which is par for the course with any non-gringo fiesta that I have been to.  I have almost perfected the side step that Vanessa is so adamant on me performing. Literally, it’s a step to one side, step to the other.  Despite my protests, it figures to be the path of least resistance for her being able to dance without being embarrassed by my gringo gyrations.

So, I owe the title of this post to my buddy Heath, who may be the only friend of mine that can truly relate to the intricacies of a cross cultural relationship.  7 of us are headed to Amboro National Park for 3 days – 4 of whom are girls that have never been camping before.  We had to sign waivers about things such as snake bites and animal attacks.  Neither of things will happen (I think), but, there are waivers for a reason.  Anyway, in discussing the trip, Vanessa’s primary concern (besides snakes) was that I needed to purchase new socks because other people will be there and it would be embarrassing if they saw my old, off-white socks.  One thing I have learned is that you can try to argue with a Camba woman (or any Latina, for that matter), but ultimately your gringo sheepishness will shine through and you’ll agree to buy brand new socks for your trip to the jungle. Hey, the girl agreed to go on the trip (which is going to be a pretty startling introduction to camping), so it’s the least I can do.

I am headed to the Feria Expo Cruz tonight, which is apparently an Expo for everything and anything that is for sale in Bolivia.  The big political debate for the last 2 weeks was if they were going to invite the dreaded President of Bolivia.  He has not been invited the last 3 years.  Word is, he got the invite, so who knows, maybe I’ll see some fireworks tonight.

On one last note, Morena is quite popular.  She’s met a few new dog friends at the park, and yesterday morning, I found her nose to nose through my front gate with the biggest German Shepherd that I have ever seen.  I wish I had had a camera, it was pretty hilarious.

And…

I just got my first card (with great pictures of Sarah Kate, Benjamin, and Susanna) – thanks Mrs. Cartwright – you made my day!