Feliz Navidad!

Merry Christmas!!!

My Christmas here has so far consisted of a dinner invitation from our landlord which we accepted, the subsequent dinner for which we had to pay for, a big group of roudy but good kids recieving christmas presents from Santa, and a bbq at my shelter in scorching hot heat!!

The invitation with an invoice and the heat were unusual, to say the least, and its been an untraditional christmas, but its been good!! Brandon safely arrived after flying from Vancouver - Las Vegas - Miami - Venezuela - Peru - La Paz (Bolivia). All his crazy connections went smoothly, and he arrived in one piece, with his suitcase and everything. (Well, he was scared he would lose his suitcase, so he just came with 2 carry-ons, and they all arrived safely)

We spent a few days in La Paz, which is the de facto capital of Bolivia. Sitting at the altutide of 4000m, flying into La Paz usually makes anyone suffer from altitude sickness in one way or another. Brandon felt the typical headache, but seemed to be enjoying the odd experience of not being able to get enough oxygen into your lungs. (It really is an interesting experience, actually...except when you are REALLY out of breath and you almost DIE, like i did in Incallatja)

We went to Tihuanacu, a pre-Inca ruin near La Paz, and also expored the city a bit. La Paz is a lot busier and slightly more touristic than Cochabamba, and upon arrival to Cochabamba, Brandon commented that CBBA has more of a "homey" feel, more relaxed, which i definately agree with.

Some interesting things that have happened so far is the dinner with my landlord. She invited us to come down (she lives on the 1st floor, we live on the 2nd) about a week in advance for a Christmas eve dinner. We thought the offer was so kind, and we were all wondering how Bolivians celebrate Christmas, so we accepted. The day of the dinner, some of us went down to help (i didn`t go), which was when she mentioned that we should pay for the food she bought for the dinner!! Not only that, but she also asked us to come down to set the table before we eat, which would be around midnight.....?? Sandra, who was there, suggested an earlier time, and they settled for a 10:30pm dinner. We "accidently" forgot to come down a little earlier to set the table, but ended up setting it anyways, since it seemed like they were waiting for us to come down to start any real preparations for the dinner.

While the "guests" are setting the table, their son (around 25 years old) is no where to be seen, but conviniently shows up just when everything is ready to eat...

The dinner was boring, no exciting conversations sparked, and it was pretty quiet except for Brandon and I laughing so hard when Sandra`s boyfriend (who is visiting from Austria) said some pretty funny stuff with his limited English.

So that was the dinner we paid for .... the money we paid wasn`t much, but it was just the principle ya know?? Who invites guests for dinner and asks them to pay for the food?! I would fully understand and even offer to help out with the expenses if this was a below-average income family. But they totally aren`t, they are without a doubt, quite well-off. I`m curious as to whether this is a normal Bolivian custom, although from what i`ve seen so far, Bolivians are very generous and this seems just plain WEIRD...but maybe i should`ve known, our landlord is really wierd....her physical features resemble a witch and she has a cat that lives on the roof....go figure.

well that was Christmas Eve. Christmas Day, today, we went to the shelter where i work becuase there was a christmas party for the children. Each child got called up by santa and recieved christmas gifts, and it was really nice to see the children so happy and content.

Brandon has already found some kids that he finds adorable and although some of the older kids can be little rascles, just chasing him around, pointing at him and calling him "CHINO!!", he`s a good sport, and is great with the kids.

Then there was a bbq for the volunteers after the chidren ate and went to take their daily nap, and there was sooo muuuuch fooood. Brandon and I tried not to eat too much because we are going out to dinner with my circle of friends (kinda like my family here) for a nice dinner tonight!

Hopefully we`ll be able to eat after our big meal!