Tuesday, June 29th (give or take...)

Interesting weekend. We took a trip to los llanos. While in Venezuela, I'm living in Mérida - which is the capital of Mérida state (better site, but non-English) - in the Andes, so the altitude keeps the temperature bearable. Hot, but not unreasonably so. Los Llanos are a grassland area - sort of a cross between jungle & savannah, depending on where you are. The particular llanos we were in are in the state of Apure (another non-wiki but non-English option), South of the Andes & West of the Orinoco. To get there took a ten hour jeep ride. Once there, we got around largely by boats or on horses. This is about one mile closer to sea level, and it is the rainy season , so between the two, temperatures were quite a bit higher than they are in Mérida. Oh well, nobody melted, so it wasn't too bad.

Since it is the rainy season, there is much less dry land than the dry season, in fact, much of what would have been dry was covered in up to 3 feet of water! Because of this, it can be more difficult to find many of the animals this time of the year - although that really did not seem to be too much of a problem. Living at the camp were a macaw and an anteater - besides quite a few more traditional pets & animals that would be more familiar at home. There were cebu & burros in many places, horses & pigs too, but again, they are a little more familiar. As far as wild animals (the interesting part?), we were not disappointed there at all. We saw several caiman (even caught one!), many capybara - and this surprised me a little. I thought that capybara were somewhat rare and elusive, but we saw them fairly often, even herds of them. I guess some people think they are very tasty, but most the people we traveled with kind of thought the idea of eating a rodent was repulsive (I would have tried it...). We also caught an anaconda. The snake we caught was about 3.5 meters, so it was noticeably bigger than the garter snakes back home, at least most of them. While on the river, the trees were full of iguanas, really full of them. Some trees would have three or four of them. I don't know why this surprised me, I just didn't expect to see so many big lizards in the trees. Occasionally they seemed to fall out, but I guess they would jump. I don't know why, apparently it would be time for a dip. We saw a few different kinds of turtles & a couple fresh water dolphins, although I never did manage to get a picture of the dolphins. We also fished for piranhas. They look an awful lot like sunfish - tasted like them, too.

I'm sure there is more that I'm forgetting, but that's enough for now. I'm tired of writing & getting hungry. Feel free to comment or ask any questions.

Wednesday, June 23

Last Saturday I took a walk up to the top end of town (long walk). I had been hearing for a couple weeks that there was an artisan fair on some road just a little way past the bullfight arena & was curious so decided to take a look. I did take the trolley the first third or so, but the line has not been completed yet. Very convenient that what is done is running though, & the price is great (free).
At first it might look like a much bigger difference in the standards of living from one part of town to another, but if you really think about it that may not be the case. You can see houses here that would probably fall somewhere into an upper-middle class range in Mn, and you can see houses that seem to be a bit below any standards of living in our area. However, I have not seen any homeless here at all. I've asked & have heard that there are some here, but very few compared to large cities in the States.
The markets are also very interesting. The actual art fair that I was heading toward was rained out shortly before I got there. A few vendors were still there, you can see some of them selling paintings or puppies (?!). Since coming here, I have  seen quite a few open fruit vendors, but the pics above were taken where an entire street was closed for several blocks for herb, vegetable & fruit stands. Smelled great!
Y'know, the connection is poor today (I've restarted this three times now) & I'm kind of tired. I'll post again Monday - off to Los Llanos (after a nap, of course). 

Tuesday, June 22nd

Tuesday June 8th (I think - no longer sure of the day or date) was appreciation night. This was when students prepared meals at Venusa for their host families as a way of saying thanks. There was a very good turn out, dishes were pot-luck style, although there wasn't a lot of organization regarding who brought what. I think there were about 25 pasta salads, 20 deserts, & maybe ½ a dozen potato salads. All very good, at least those I tried were good, just a little funny. I can't say I did much to sway the variety. I wanted to bring something that was easy to prepare - our kitchen is very basic, a couple frying pans, a can opener & a few spoons (no mixing bowls) - so nothing requiring baking or any sauces was an option. It also had to be something that would not spill, splash or burn on the trolley on the way to school. The trollies are normally very, very crowded, room to stand only and carrying a bulky item would almost be certain end up in it tipping or dumping at some point. Finally, it had to be something that would not go bad after sitting out all day without being refrigerated (food poisoning can be such a drag). Remaining options? People chow. I know, most people call it puppy chow now, but the first time I ever had it was in a boy's home in the late 80's. It was people chow then, a play on words with puppy chow (the dog food). Sometime during the mid-90's people started calling it puppy-chow, I'm probably just being stubborn, but I'm sticking with the name people chow & do not have any inclination at all to start eating dog food, so there it is.

Anyway...

The markets here are a little different than markets in the states. This is a very simple recipe with only four ingredients, but not quite so available here. On a recommendation, I had brought peanut butter along to Venezuela, so that was not a problem. Rice chex, or something vaguely similar did not seem like it would be too difficult to find. Wrong on that one, corn flakes were as close as I could get (yeah, I know). Semi-sweet chocolate chips? No, not here. I went with some dark chocolate bars intended for making hot cocoa. I added a little sugar & some dry milk once melted, it came out really close. Powdered sugar, that they had, although it was nowhere near the other baking ingredients. After wandering around in the store for ½ an hour or so, I finally asked somebody. It was in the aisle with the nuts.

Even after all the weird accomodations that had to be made, it was pretty popular - there was none leftover at all (good - trolleys were done running & I didn't want to have to carry anything on a bus). Fun night, but I don't know what I'm going to make for session B - I'm almost out of peanut butter.

Wednesday, June 16th

This is a little older, maybe from two weeks ago (actually closer to three) - I'm not quite sure. I was hoping to find a Scout Troop while here to spend some time with. Mostly curiosity, to see what is different, what is the same & spend some time with people outside of a tourist or student setting. The first or second day here I noticed a lot of people - kids & adults wearing their Scout uniforms, but at that point I was still trying to figure out where I should be, when and how to get from one place to another, so I really didn't have the opportunity to talk to anybody. The following week I saw people with their uniforms on again, and by that point walking up to somebody I didn't know & blurting out a few simple questions was almost standard procedure for any situation. I found out that Tuesdays are when all Scouts wear their uniforms, and that they meet for three hours on Saturday afternoons. I made it to the first meeting, a few of the more noticeable differences between Scouting here and at home:

• Scouting in Venezuela (like most of the world) is coed. There are not separate Boy Scout and Girl Scout organizations.
• Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts are distinct groups within Scouting at home. Here the older kids & younger kids are together in the same Troop. I don't know enough about Girl Scouts to say whether this is the same or different. 
• Kids are kids, no matter where they are or what language they speak. If there is a new face, they'll do everything they can to make sure they get noticed.

I was invited to an awards ceremony the following week. Unfortunately that weekend was right at finals for one class & midterms for another, so I wasn't able to make it. I missed last weekend, too (Jesús' first communion - a couple posts back). Oh well, there are still ½ a dozen or so Saturdays left before I go home, I'm sure I'll be able to get back at least a couple more times.

Tuesday, June 15th

Last Friday we went back up to Mucubaji, a páramo about a mile up, roughly an hour & ½ by bus through a cloud forest & quite a few winding mountain roads. Beautiful area, couldn't have asked for better weather - well, for me anyway. A few others who went on the same trip thought it was a little on the cold & damp side. It was a nice change from the sun, though. I'd guess it was around 65ºF, give or take, with a very light rain, not much more than sprinkling most of the time. I suppose though, it's pretty easy to get acclimated to the constant 85ºF & sunny, so any change could seem like a big change.

A little quick background, the páramo is above the cloud forests, but below the tree line. It is cooler because of the altitude (a light frost at night is not uncommon), & somewhat damp. There are a lot of bogs in páramo areas. The deer in the pictures is a páramo white-tailed deer, or la chuleta, native to the area, but very rare, we were lucky to see it. Enjoy the pics!

Monday, June 14th

Wow, full weekend!

Well, Saturday anyway. Jesús had his first communion at Parroquia Santiago de la Punta (Jesús  is 12 years old, the youngest of my homestay family). Not too different from a first communion at a Lutheran church in Minnesota, but the family gathering afterward lasted all day & part of the night instead of just a few hours. Most of my homestay family does not speak any English - at least not enough to be comfortable trying. The only one who does, Raphael, was out most of the day. I was a little concerned about if I knew enough Spanish to get through a full day in a house full of people (roughly a dozen, give or take - I didn't get pics of everybody). For the most part I was keeping up with conversations. Sometimes I would understand most of it, other times I was just completely lost - but not that often, much less than I expected. The food was great, though way too many sweets for me. A lot of fun, great chance to put my comprehension to the test (I think I passed), but way more tiring than I expected.

Thursday, June something or other...

Just fiddling with settings. Seeing what works & what doesn't. It'll probably be Monday before I get another real post up. If it works, this is just a short clip looking out a bus window from one day last week. Nothing unusual, but it shows what the town looks like a little more than a still pic can.

I guess I did get a haircut today. It's a little warm here, so I got rid of most of it, I really wasn't using it for anything anyway. Got rid of part of my beard, too (just shaving - didn't pay a barber to do that). On the way back from the barber, I was caught in quite a downpour. It's only 5-6 blocks from here, so I decided to go through instead of waiting it out, sometimes the rain lasts for a couple hours. Got completely drenched, & the rain quit maybe 5-10 minutes after I got back. Oh well, I seem to be reasonably water resistant, so no harm done...

Wednesday, June 9th(Looks like it worked)

Nothing to say right now, just putting up a few pictures.

I don't even know if this will work...

Tuesday, June 8th

It's been a couple weeks. Not on purpose - really, I've been busy. Since my last post I've gone through ½ a semester of biology & a full semester of Spanish. I should be working on a presentation on the Páramo right now, but I think it can wait a couple minutes (45 minutes - its interesting, but that's a lot for something I just heard of for the first time 3 weeks ago...).

The picture above is from May 30th (there is a short video of my landing at the bottom of this page). We went para-gliding (parapente) at Tierra Negra. Of course every flight was a little different, but at least for mine, from jumping off until touching ground again was just under 45 minutes. I think we were 900 meters above the river below, roughly ¾ of a mile? - I'm not sure exactly.

 There are quite a few parks, squares & plazas in town that I'm hoping to get to in the next couple weeks - I will only have biology until the 20-something of June, so there should be a little free time to explore. I plan to post a little more often here, too. Hopefully twice a week, but realistically, maybe weekly...

Anyway, back to that presentation.