Pictures from last week

Here are some pictures of things we got to do last week.

On thursday we went with Brigan and Carmen to a village called the 26th of September (that's when it was founded or something), to check on some gardens that ASCEND had taught the villagers how to grow. This is us with one of the families and their nice looking garden! It's an extremely poor community and this house behind us was one of the nicest in the whole village. Most families don't have showers or bathrooms, so ASCEND is also helping them by building latrines. The kids in the second picture were funny and are not all from the same family. They followed us around for a while and were so excited to get their picture taken also. When we got it they all crowded around to see it. Ben told me later that you have to be careful what you take pictures of, becasue lots of these people think that the camera will take their souls.















This is a "perro" that didn't want to be touched. This is a bathroom/shower and it was a lot better than most of the other ones that we saw that day.

These flowers are equal to the wildflowers that grow in the states. Nobody plants them, they're beautiful and they're all over the place. They're sooo pretty and sooo colorful. We saw a lot of them while we were in this village.









One of the women who lives in the village was helping us find all the families we needed to check on. She was really sweet, 6 months pregnant, and these were her two kids. They went with us all 4 hours that we were walking around the village. I forgot their names but they were super friendly and cute.







The roads are all dirt, and this is what the village looked like all around. Big dirt roads, and little houses on the side made of anything that would stand up really. There were also animals roaming all over the place. We figured that they just remember who feeds them and eventually end up there each evening. No tags, and all things from chickens, to horses, to pigs, and lots and lots of dogs and cats.



















This poor man was on the side of the road making shoes. We saw him while we were driving around recruiting people with Jhon and Erwin for the business class. Ben and I think that he's the kind of man who needs help and could really benefit from some business classes. Apparently though, they only work off referals and how often is a sidewalk shoemaker going to be reffered...We're still trying to figure out how to get our good ideas heard and how the system works and where it could be improved.


Well, we'll have many more pictures and things to talk about this coming week! Hope everything's going well in the states!

Ben and Marian

One whole week!

It's been a whole 7 days since we arrived in Bolivia and it has been quite a week! A lot has happened since we last checked in and we are continuing to learn more and experience more every day. Wednesday turned out to be a very long and exciting day. Both Ben and I went to La Guardia on a trip that was only supposed to be an hour or two long. We went with Erwin and Jhon, who are the in country staff in charge of the Microenterprise section of the company. We went to teach a class that they thought was at 4pm but wasn't actually until 7:30 pm! This is the library in La Guardia where they have the business classes. Since the people there are so poor, they don't have to pay the fee for the classes as long as they bring their own supplies and refreshments.














This is me with Erwin and Jhon right outside the classroom at the library in La Guardia.

This first week has had its ups and downs, we are still getting us to the sorroundings and adjusting to the new time zone. We are having fun and really starting to get our feet wet and have fun. The classes don't start until next week and they will last about two months. We are still recruiting people for the class that will take place in the office and still need more people for the class in La Guardia.

Marian and I got to go and do something fun, we went and talked with the Mayor of a little village to see if we could start working with them and the people(mainly the poor people). What we did at this meeting was tell there what we do and why we do it and give them a brief overview of our organization. Is this we ask them if they will support us working there, and by supporting us they are obligated to, by the government, pay half of what the project will cost and supply, if needed, materials and man power or labor. The other 25% of the project come from the people themselves in the form of actual money(normally they do not pay money for projects), or they provide some materials and man power. This is a huge cost saver for the organization and will help cut down their cost and raise others.

Things are well and we are starting to get some work thrown our dirrection so we hope to be getting busy in the next couple weeks and learning the system and learning what to do and being able to manage ourselves.

Love,

Marian and Ben

Day 4 in Bolivia

Buenos Dias!

It is the beginning of day 4 in Bolivia and we have learned a lot about local customs, about each other, and how the office functions. On our first day of working with the people, we had an all day project to empty, paint, spakle, and sand the "classroom" that they use here for the business classes. It actually is a converted garage, so I was right about that. It did take all day and after we did that two of the staff members, Brigam and Erwin, took Ben and myself to the local "Hipermaxi" or supermarket so we could get some basic food and supplies to hold us over until we got more settled. That was an experience. The currency here is called the Boliviano, and it is pretty nice because 1 american dollar is about equal to 7.85 Bolivianos, so we bought 300 Bolivianos worth of food and stuff and that is only about 38 American dollars. Lucky for us, if we'd bought the same items in America it would have cost close to 60 dollars! Milk comes in a bag, and Brigam bought us one of his favorite drinks (also in a bag). It tastes like apple juice but is extremely sweet and almost like spiced cider mix disolved in water. It was good though.

Our second day of work, yesterday, we didn't do a whole lot. Our current instructions are for me to learn spanish as soon as possible, and for Ben to teach me spanish as soon as possible. We are doing this while looking over several powerpoint presentations to be used to teach their business classes. It's quite an overload for my brain, but I'm getting better each day. Yesterday it was raining hard and very windy from morning through the night. Today it is still very windy but the rain has stopped for now. It is actually a little cold here! Yesterday Ben and I went to go get some snacks to eat and only had to walk about 6 houses down the street to find a woman selling a lot of food and snacks out of her garage. There were bars between us and the food and her, with a little swqinging door thing to pass the goods through. We got 2 liters of pinapple banana juice, 2 chocolate bars, and a really big package of chocolate wafer cookies all for about 13 bolivianos. In American terms, that's about $1.75. It's pretty awesome.

Aside from the nice fact that things are really cheap for us here, we've discoverd some things about the house, and the little community. Rule 1 - don't let your feet touch the ground. This means we're back to wearing shower sandals and socks to bed, and everything. Rule 2 - Don't drink the water. We can shower in it and use it to wash our face but don't drink it. Rule 3 - Don't rely on what the staffmembers say is true. We learned this the hard way by believing that there were no ants in the cabinets, and we put all our food in there. We then went to make dinner last night and realized that we'd be getting a little extra protein with our Hamburger buns. So we had to clean everything out and put all of it in the fridge.

Today is more of the same. I have to learn spanish, and Ben is going to help me along. Ben is going to be going to Laguardia today (I think I spelled that wrong, so we'll correct it later) with the staff to help with recruiting and things. That will be an interesting trip he will have to write about.

Sadly, the batteries from our camera had died, and we have yet to buy new ones, so we have no new pictures...Also, we plan to update this about twice a week.

Adios!

We made it to Bolivia!

Well, we've made it to Bolivia, and since we got married last Friday this has been the only chance we've had to update. So here are some highlights and pictures.

Before we got married we had to get our shots in anticipation of going to Bolivia. We both went to go get yellow fever shots, but the Ben asked about geting another one for me. So, I got an unexpected shot for Hepatitus A. The nurse was nice to me and gave me a Spongebob Squarepants bandaid for being such a good sport.


















The wedding went beautifully and it was such a good beautiful day, couldn't have asked for better weather in D.C.

We took close to a million pictures in about 45 minutes, and after that was all over we went and had some delicious thai food for lunch. We are still waiting to get some of the pictures back, but the ones we have seen so far look amazing!

There were two or three other couples getting married that we knew from SVU on the same day and a few other couples getting married at the same time as us, so it was pretty crowded that day.









When we came out of the temple everyone was crowded outside the doors with camera's ready to shoot us. It was exciting and we both felt like celebrities with our own paparazzi! Lots of flashes and no idea where to look when.






















All of the Griffins! All of the Sayers and Reams and California family members.

Our reception was terrific and gorgeous and delicious. Ben and I had such a good time, the food was delicious. I heard lots of good stories about Ben from his good friends, and Ben was excited to see so many people from where he grew up. We gave out some disposable camera's for people to take pictures with all over and a couple ended up in the hands of Ben's nephews, so those will be excellent to look at when we get back.














After we took off from the reception we went to Washington D.C. for a couple days for a brief honeymoon. Ben told me not to expect much, we were only going to the local Econolodge (yeah right!). However, I was pleasantly suprised when we pulled into the Omni-Shoreham hotel right in D.C. It was beautiful and so much fun to get room service and fancy plush towels. Much better than any Econolodge.

On Saturday we went to the Zoo in D.C. and had a great time watching the animals, and trying to find them in most of their "habitats". We saw some interesting creatures I don't remember the names of, and bought our first little memory ornament which is a painted wooden carved panda. It's cute. We saw an ENORMOUS lobster that was practically as big as Ben's torso, we saw comodo dragons, all sorts of monkeys and bugs, and an elephant getting weighed. It was pretty exciting.



















The next day we walked around D.C. got ready to leave for Utah on Monday and had a good time relaxing. Ben showed me some of his favorite spots to go to and we enjoyed excellent weather. We flew to Utah that next day after packing all our stuff into the car and figuring out that there are often two streets with the same name and that they might also be in completley different parts of the state. That means we got lost. A couple times. Fortunately Ben was correct that our plane left an hour later than I thought it did and we got on the plane to Utah.

We had to make a stop in Chicago for an hour or so, we got dinner and hung around before we left for Utah. We got to Utah an hour late because of a pesky weather system we had to go around. We got to Utah around 9:30 pm Utah time which was 11:30 pm our time, and we were beat. We had expected that since our Internship company, ASCEND, was taking care of our housing while we were there, that they would be coming to pick us up at the airport. However, apparently they didn't think so, and we were stranded at the airport unable to reach anyone, and after Ben got to know the airport layout very well looking for anybody, and after hearing our pages over the PA system several times we figured, might as well get a hotel room and figure the rest out in the morning. So, we did. Next morning they called while we were at the free breakfast, and eventually someone came to pick us up much later. However, the excitement didn't end there. The guy who came to pick us up oops! locked his keys in the car, so we had to wait for his girlfriend to come give him the extra set so we could get to the Intern Training that we'd already missed a day of. The training that week wasn't that bad, and we sort of discovered that the definition of "Intern" should also include "doing the office busywork that nobody wants to do". We built desks, organized their junk piles in their attic, and drove to Deseret Industries to make substantial donations. To get back at them, I put a severe dent in their bowl of salt water taffy that was in the conference room and Ben drank all the juice in their fridge.

Our housing set up just got better. After the night in the hotel we ended up staying in the Vice Presidents condo right in the heart of Salt Lake City, only two blocks from temple square. It was really really nice. After that quick week of training, and learning that part of our luggage alotment had to be designated for 200 sunglasses to take to Bolivia, and some other events, we headed to Bolivia Saturday afternoon. We had a stop in Dallas and then in Miami, but ultimatly made it to Bolivia.



Two very nice people were there to meet us this time, huge relief, but they didn't speak much english, so Ben had to translate for me. Having traveled about 24 hours straight, we were exhausted and very frazzled and dirty. We got to our house where we got the tour, we live right above the office which is convenient, and right accross from a soccer field and next to a coconut tree. There are palm trees everywhere! The house we are in is in a pretty middle class type of community, and there have been kids playing soccer all day. Somewhere closeby is a full marching band we can hear.















Ben in front of our house and me in the kitchen that has no food in it.


This is the classroom Ben will be teaching the business classes in. Yes, it looks like it used to be a garage. Pretty resourcefull. On the way to our house we saw within the first few minutes, a sign warning ostrich crossing and other strange animals, as well as a dead and severely bloated "burro" in the middle of the road.







After we had a chance to settle in a little bit and the rest of the staff here got out of church they took us to lunch at this fantastic restraunt that is all done up in the style that Bolivia was 50 years ago, from the clay plates and bowls to the white outfits the servers wore. There was even a live band playing very traditional music. We tried several new things and were so exhausted it was difficult to remain on our chairs. There is a drink called Chicha that they love made from peanuts and a bunch of cinnamon. It's really rich but pretty good. We also got to try this potatoe like thing called Yuca that is really good, and just tastes like a harder fried potatoe. We were then served some very traditional dishes, and a plate filled with chicken. I swear we've both ate a whole chicken and maybe more in that one meal.

I haven't learned spanish yet so this is very hard to adjust to, and Ben says his spanish is rusty and so it's a little hard to communicate with them. Tomorrow we are going to an outdoor market to buy food and other things we need so hopefully we'll be able to do that. The currency here is called the Boliviano and I don't remember exactly what the rate is but it's pretty cheap having US dollars. Meaning that we are going to hire a lady for the equivalent of $1.25 a week to do our laundry and we can eat breakfast, lunch and dinner for the equivalent of $3 each day. Now we finally have some time to rest before our first in-country meeting at 9am tomorrow morning.

Hopefully it won't ever take this long to update again. Adios!

Ben and Marian









This is Ben on our balcony!