So crazy thing happened the other day

So crazy thing happened the other day. I was heading back to Santa Cruz…. wasn’t really sure if I should go since I was scheduled to come in for a concert but the concert was canceled… but I still needed to buy a string for the double bass since I didn’t have any extras and the one on it snapped. I ended up deciding to come back anywho even though I had just been here a week ago and I would have to endure a wonderfully jerky 12 hour train ride, but I endured the ride and that is why I am now writing this from a hospital bed (with air conditioning and Wifi) and not sprawled out in my bedroom in Santiago or God knows where.
I hopped on the train in Roboré, not all that excited and wondering how my kids back in Santiago were going to fair since I had canceled classes that Friday (the 6th) and the following Monday, but there is no concert coming up any time soon so I wasn’t to stressed about it and the kids were just starting up with school again anywho, I could give them a little break.
On the train it jerked and groaned as usual and I didn’t really eat anything, (as usual I just like to drink water and let it be at that ’till the morning when I get some coffee and a empanada) but midnight rolls around and I can’t really sleep (guy next to me is hogging to much room) and there is this annoying stomach ache that wont go away…. “dang, shouldn’t have had that chicha and empanada in Roboré after all.”
I didn’t really sleep much at all that night on the train got into Santa Cruz, really out of it as always; really don’t care much for coming back to this big crazy, smelly city. But there was stuff I had to do and I went on my way. Over the weekend I called people I had too, tried to set up appointments for Monday so that I could still make it out that night and head back to my little village.  But the one thing that really wasn’t like all the other random trips I’ve had to Santa Cruz was the annoying stomach ache (that had turned more into hunger pangs almost) didn’t go away. I had tried a couple different things to alleviate it, such as diet, some stomach meds, pain meds… but nothing. I asked some friends about it, “so my kidneys aren’t here right? Right, back there,” “what about my appendix, oh yah duh, it’s on the other side.” Well what on earth is bothering me. Sunday night at a friends house they finally convinced me that the following day I had to go to a doctor, even though it would mess up my whole schedule. Now I’m a person that doesn’t really look up all that much to doctors, I mean they are cool and all don’t get me wrong, but I can’t stand putting any sort of funky chemical in my body no matter how much you say it will heel me up, I’ll just stick to a good cup of tea or some natural remedy (like a couple weeks ago, when I had a sinus infection and one of my students told me that if I burned some of these tree seeds, pesoé, and breath in the wonderful aroma all night I’ll be healed right up, and I was).
But I said “fine, I’ll go to the doc, but I won’t let him pump me full of nasty stuff.” Was I wrong or what.
So Monday rolled around still hurt, and I went to hunt someone down to go with me.
In the clinic the usual conversations progressed, “does it hurt if I do this, or this?”
So I got blood drawn, urine sample, x-ray, the whole gambit. But from the get go the first doc was convinced after about 3 minuts. I just saw it in his eyes, “I want your appendix.”
Now, I’m not all that drawn to my appendix, don’t really know much about it, but I personally always felt that things that are in your body should stay there and the stuff that is not (except tasty food) should not, oh which reminds me we’re going on about noon time and I haven’t had anything to eat since the night before, and doctor’s orders are you can’t eat until we get that thing out.
So I proceed to sit around in the ER until another two docs show up and tell me the same things, except the last one is actually the resident surgeon, the dude that would end up doing the cutting and all that jazz on me, who was quite a nice fellow. I happened to realize that his last name was the same as the clinic itself. So we got to chatting and turns out his father is a friend of Milton Whittaker, go figure the man knows everyone.
So 7:30pm rolls around and they say sorry son no more waiting around (it’s already been 60 hours since onset of the symptoms) so in I go.
The surgery thing really sucks especially when it’s over and you wake up hyperventilating and your stomach feels like its gonna explode and you sorta see people around you but not really (no glasses and I’m kinda blind) and they say “I’m going to prick your arm to make sure your not allergec to this pain killer”, “I don’t care if I’m allergic, I can’t breath cuz it hurts so much, and couldn’t you have done that before hand!!!” so they just ended up giving me oxygen as I floated away again but it seemed like the pain med wasn’t doing anything. I woke up about 12:30 in the morning at last and was carted up to my room around 1:30am.
But all in all it wasn’t so bad of an experience, I got to sit around in my underwear all day, got my tummy shaved, and got to sit here with my computer and free Wifi. I also got to meet that really nice doctor dude and finally got to eat something after 32 hours.
So life is fun and exciting and God has things figured out, I probably would still have been sitting in my bead room drinking tea hopping for my stomach ache to pass if I hadn’t come to Santa Cruz. The doctor ended up telling us that the appendix was actually fairly bad off and it would have maybe lasted to the morning without rupturing….
Well at any rate I’ll be happy when I get back to my kids in Santiago here in a couple of days.

Peter
God bless

The old Mare

Here is a little story of something I experienced a couple of weeks ago:

A few days back Milton asked if I would give him a hand. There was a sick mare out in the pasture and she’d been down for a day or two. We strolled out through the gate talking of other things, pressing things, I thought, of my work at the school, and the state of politics. When we got to her she was laying on her side in the hot sand. Her wet, sweaty body and the churned up sand around her were evidence that she had been struggling to stand.

“Poor old thing,” Milton said.

How old was she? I was curious, she seemed like she’d seen more then just a few hot summers like this.

“I don’t even know, really old” was all he said.

We needed to get her cooled of, and comfortable, Milton said. It was sad to see her dye like that, struggling. We gave her water but she wouldn’t drink much.

The struggle then commenced, we needed to get her to stand so she could walk over to the shed, or just on her feet would be more comfortable and better for her then lying on her side. We pushed, pulled, and heaved and she thrashed, fought, and sweated for what seemed way to long. Time after time we yanked her up, almost all the way to her knees; some times she would struggle and try to help; knowing, somehow, that it was for her own good. Other times she did nothing, as if to say, “sorry boys, that’s all I’ve got.”
It was humbling. But, during the whole ordeal I was struck most by Milton, “poor old thing” he kept repeating, “If we could just get her in the shade.” To see this old man, struggling with this animal that was about to die, just made you wonder: did he see a reflection of himself in this struggle? Did I? Was he seeing himself struggling in the future hoping that when he died he would at least be comfortable, setting peacefully someplace in the shade watching the days go by, and not laying out parched at the suns mercy. We left the pasture, leaving a bucket lid full of water for her; we didn’t talk on the way out the gate.
Later that afternoon Kathryn told me that she and Milton had gone back out after lunch. “We tried to pull her up one more time and almost got her up with her help, she didn’t last five minutes after that last effort. She died just laying there.”

Birthday week and other stuff

Last week (still October) was respectably crazy, and most of all frustrating. We (SICOR) have this wonderfull contract witht eh train company (F.O.S.A.) that gives me (and other directors and students) free train tickets to and from Santa Cruz and wherever. Pretty sweet deal really. Thin is I have to let Rita (wonderful secretary at the SICOR office) know in advance so she can let the F.O.S.A. office in Santa Cruz know in advance so they can get my ticket before I get to the station, and it all seems to take them for ever. Two weekends ago (concert weekend) I was informed by Laura that there was a going to be a meeting between Ruben Darío (director of SICOR and one of my bosses) and Cesar and Lyzzette (directors of CCM Bolivia and two of my other bosses) and that I should hightail it over to Santa Cruz to take part. It was set for Wednesday. I got back from my crazy adventure early Tuesday morning then that afternoon headed over to Roboré to get on the train. As I was milling around Roboré waiting for the ticket office to open to get my ticket that hopefully had made it there even though they had only two days to do there process that usually takes four I got a phone call from Rita saying that Ruben had to head off to La Paz Wednesday morning, the meeting was canceled and set up for the following Wednesday. So back to Santiago I went, but before I left I made sure they started working on getting me another ticket for Friday. On Friday I showed back up at the station, and the waiting around happened again as usual, and when I got to the office found out there was no ticket available for any train that day (card from the office in Santa Cruz or not). So back down the dusty road to Santiago but with a confirmed ticket for Saturday in my pocket.

I started a week in Santa Cruz on Sunday morning Day of the Dead. Monday was a holiday, feriado, there is a fun new law in Bolivia that if a holiday (like Dia de los Muertos) falls on a weekend that the following Monday gets to be a day off. It was also Delicia’s Birthday so we celebrated by watching a new Richard Geer movie (not my choice).

The rest of the week consisted of a lot of business stuff (meeting with people, found out I’ll be traveling to La Paz to give a concert with the Santa Cruz youth orchestra, and purchasing stuff for instruments) except joyous Tuesday we had an election party at Lynn’s house. Then there was also my birthday, slightly busy, but exciting. In the morning Delicia took me out for breakfast. Then I did some buisness for GTB (gas company). Had lunch (a wonderful Argentinian asado, steak) with the MCC directors. Then ran off to the Plan to give some cello classes, unfortantely it was raining taxis bairly any of the kids showed up. When I tried to make it back home for my birthday dinner at Doña Chachi’s there were zero buses showing up cuz of the rain. I finally got a taxi and with much luck a neighbor of Doña Chachi also jumped in. We started heading out and the water started heading in. It was getting pretty bad and pretty high, the taxi driver was not excited and started to tell us that to forget it he wasn’t going to go that far out into the muck. The other Mr. was pretty convincing and was able to spur the driver on. “Just keep it in first and don’t stop excelerating” the taxi started to shake like crazy and the taxi plunged deeper into the higher water (or the road dropped out from underneath not sure which). I started to notice moister in my socks and looked down and saw the floor filling up with water. The road came up out of the water about 20 yards ahead. The Taxi was shacking more and and more and my shooes were getting more and more wet. But we maid it through and i got back in time for my birthday dinner the we ate as the lights went out and came back on again. But boy was the chicken good.

I am now back in Santiago and will be hear till I head to La Paz the first week of December.

Keep the prayers up and enjoy the Obamarama since I only get remnants of it here

Concert Weekend

This past weekend was one of the Baroque Music Festivals that happen about 4 times a year. It started on Friday the 23^rd of October and went to Sunday the 25^th. On Friday the chorus and orchestra from Santa Ana came and played here in Santiago. They played some pieces that we have performed before and it was good to meet another music director in the area, Rocio, from Argentina. Saturday we had a rehearsal in the morning and the group started to sound excited, worked together, and were finally focused. Saturday afternoon we waited for the micro from Roboré. When it showed up we were very disappointed. It was just a small little thing like the ones that zip around Santa Cruz, it had all of 16 seats for the 26 of us (and no parents except for one who is in the choir) and it would never start on its own so we ended up pushing it out of Santiago. We made it to San José, cramped, with nothing out of the ordinary happening and got to see the gorgeous scenery, but that was the last part of the trip that I could call normal. Heading North out of San José to San Miguel it is nothing but a dirt road, fairly common in these parts. We went through San Rafael four hours north of San José and at least and hour and a half still from San Miguel. The bus drive slowed down as he passed the gas station looked at it longingly but kept on trucking, probably thinking of the high price. He had filled up in San José before we left. We were trucking along everyone sleeping I was counting all the tarantulas that were crossing the road and grimacing as the driver would shift from gear to gear as the transmission would groan and complain especially every time he tried to get out of second. Then it seemed the gears were getting even harder and the little bus that could, stalled. He rolled backwards and started it up again, got it into first, it could and could, got it into second and then it could not. We had run out of diesel.

It was 9:30 at night were at least 40 kilometers from everything and the reliable driver had no extra fuel, can, or hose. After about 20 minutes a light started to poke up from the direction of San Rafael and about 20 minutes after that a little El Camino came poling along going a solid 12 kilometers and hour loaded down to the gills. The micro driver explained out predicament flopped in the bag on top of some bags of corn and they went poking on down the road towards San Miguel. We hung around, tried to sleep, looked at the stars, and talked about our families. Several other cars passed by but all refused to stop, except when a big diesel tanker drove buy and slowly came to a stop a little ways in front of us. He hoped out, I told him our situation. He could give us some diesel out of his own tank since he had about 20 liters extra he explained to me as I struggled to understand him with his joint ball of coca in his cheek. Great I thought, but not sure what we would do with diesel since the micro driver had already been gone for an hour. “You gotta hose?” he asked, so much for that idea I thought. He said he was sorry and headed on down the road, and I climbed back on top of the roof of the micro to see if I could get any sleep. At 2:00 in the morning the micro driver showed up on a moto taxi with 10 liters of fuel, that he quickly pored in and we went on our way. We got in to San Miguel around 3:00 and found the hotel. After talking to the lady at the hotel I found out to my dismay that APAC (organization pro art and culture, that was organizing the whole event) had only reserved two rooms in the hotel. We tried to fit some of the kids into the rooms so they could rest (we had a concert coming up at 9:00 in the morning) and the hotel owner started calling around to find out what was going on and why this group of kids and a gringo had showed up at his front door.

Around 4:00 in the morning the ladies from APAC showed up with another micro (ours had taken off) that had been driving all around looking for us.

Turns out we were scheduled to go on into San Ignacio and have dinner and stay in a hotel their. I later found out that we had been scheduled to stay in this hotel in San Miguel the month before but the whole festival was postponed for the political unrest and all that and they had reorganized everything for this current weekend. They had given me the itinerary for this concert about 2 and a half weeks before when I was in there office in Santa Cruz (and Paula the lady in charge of the whole shebang had gone over it with me), we had also gotten one faxed two us the week before the concert. But much two our dismay and resulted sleepiness the APAC ladies in San Ignacio had decided to re-arrange our hotels, and eating places with out ever letting us know about it. As we went in to San Ignacio they gave us some food and I showed the Luly (the lady from APAC) the itinerary she said this is old. “But it has the current dates on it and it was the one that your boss handed to me a couple of weeks ago” I responded. She looked even more frustrated.

We got into the hotel in San Ignacio at 5:00 and were tolled we could rest until we had to be ready for breakfast at 7:30 and then head of to the concert in Santa Ana that was scheduled for 9:00. At 7:00 we got a phone call saying that the concert at 9:00 was cancelled, I went back to sleep. I later found out that supposedly the micro drivers could not be found and there were no other ones anywhere to be found that could take us. Us boys, we had been split up, hung around, rested and visited the beautiful plaza and church in town. In the afternoon we went back to San Miguel to practice for the concert. Before the concert started (just as we were finishing up running through everything) some of the kids, all of the tenors, said they were getting sick to there stomachs and a couple of the through up. They took some meds and relaxed for a bit and things started to look up again. The concert was well attended although it seemed like not all that many people had showed up since the church is huge, and only half of it was full. We played four Chiquitano pieces for chorus and string accompaniment (originally from this area), an arrangement of the first movement of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto Grosso No. 3, the Sonata 18 from the Chiquitano Music Archives. The concert it self went fabulously. I have probably never been as excited and focused before in any other concert. I realized that directing music in a concert is very different then playing it. Even though I have done it before, but it was not the same before. The acoustics in these churches are amazing and you have a special feeling when you realize that this same music has been made in those buildings for the last 300 plus years.

We headed back to the hotel in San Ignacio in the dreaded micro, which was late in showing up. Only to find out that the back window had been busted out. As we drove on down the road towards soft beds we did think much of all bellowing dust around us until we stopped for a minute when someone asked if they could get some fresh air outside. The micro driver turned on the lights and everyone, especially in the back, was totally covered in red dust.

Before we got off at the convent (we had switched locations all to the same plays), Luly told us and the micro driver that they were going to get another bus for us to go back in, that “this thing is just not going to work.” She said we should be ready but 9:00 in the morning for another bus to pick you up at the convent.

In the morning we had breakfast and started sitting around out in front. At noon they told us it would not get there until 5:00 in the afternoon, at 4:00 the Luly and her helper had to travel back to Santa Cruz, but that the other bus was on its way so we didn’t have to go back uncomfortable. I was a little unsettled since this meant that they were going to be on the road for the next 9 hours and we were going to be sitting around at the mercies of another micro driver. The bus was supposedly coming from Concepción since there were none in San Ignacio that wanted to drive all the way to Santiago. It was now estimated to be in around 9:00. It finally made it to where we were camped out in front of the office on the sidewalk at 11:00 Monday night. We all got in and headed back to Santiago and made it there at the wonderful hour of 8:00 in the morning.

All that being said with all the adventures and such the kids gave a great concert, there was little complaining or whining.

before we left

lleno

On the way to San Josè

Stopped in San Josè for diesel

Sunday morning in San Ignacio

In San Ignacio

some of us in the church

and the bell tower

front of Jesuit church

down by the river in San Ignacio

one of my students in the church

working it out

practice

Practice before show

Concert in San Miguel

Micro ride back

map of areas near santiago

practicing

Friday getaway

On Friday, Cristian (my host brother), the pastor and I went on a wonderful hike. In fact, the main reason I´m putting up this post is for the pictures. There are some interesting stories and whatnot about the area but that´ll have to wait until another time. We went up on top of the cerro and there found a natural bridge and beyond that a cave with originales (originals or native peoples) paintings. And beyond there a cave that we did a little of crawling around in.

This week I had classes everyday except this afternoon (it rained and nobody shows up when it rains). Today travel back to Santa Cruz for a week. During the second part of the week there is a country wide MCC get together. Other things I´m going to do is go shopping (get more mate, and some peanut butter), along with teach some cello classes with the city youth orchestra and make some more progress with contacts and folks orchestra/music folks in the city.

from the house

cristian and el pastor

Fun times

This past week has been a pretty fantastic blast. Blast of dry heat, blast of little kids with fickle instruments, blast of new faces. Last Wednesday, the 24^th (Dìa de Santa Cruz) a big holiday for the department, I spent most of the day working on getting instruments into playing condition and inventoried. Turns out many of the instruments, especially the new ones, need work. On Thursday, the 25^th, I started the classes with the children’s orchestra and the youth orchestra (I had planned on working some with the choir but they didn’t show up). On Friday it was much of the same, but I we started a new piece with the youth orchestra, a Chiquitano Sonata, which should be fun. Over the entire week I have spent a lot of time practicing on my own, working on the first Bach cello suite and also the viola and violin.

This past weekend was a blur i have to say, but a pretty exciting one. On Saturday I woke up early since I had offered my services to Milton. Milton has property on the other side of the ridge, and has cows that are running low on water, he pumps water from a well in the front of his property back to the cows. He has heard rumors that there is a spring on the side of the ridge that he could get water from by using a gravity flow system. Me being an expert woodsman and environmental scientist (haveing studied plenty of hydrology in college/had one biology class in high school) I was pumped to go. We drove to the other side of the ridge in time for lunch, we ate some stew and some tatù (armadillo) and then Bochincho, one of Miltons helpers, and I headed into the woods. We hiked for about two hours until we made it to the spring. We did several flow test at three different points (with my Nalgene and a piece of 1 inch tubbing). Even though it was super dry (it hadn’t rained in about two months) there were pools full of water. Along the whole way up I marked waypoints with a borrowed GPS, so that we could find the place later and so we could check it out on Google Earth. On the way back we found a peta, or a turtle, Bochincho took it back with him to give it to a friendly neighbor (whose property we had crossed to get to where we were) on the way back down. We ended up setting around and chatted politics with Don Julio (the friendly nieghbor and he said he´d make a soup later out of the turtle. We ended up sitting by the road for about 2 hours until Milton came by and picked us up.

On Sunday I went to the evangelical church in town and was introduced by the paster as the volunteer music teacher for the orchestra that last night had also offered his services to lead music for the church for the rest of my time in Santiago. I was surprised, the paster and I had a conversation the night before and I told him I would come to church and maybe play the piano if it was in tune, but I smiled and told him that if he could find a bass that it would be even better.

This week I´m back in the swing of things working with the kids, working on a project proposal for my next year, and getting to know the place. I hope all is peachy in your respective communities, I hear the economy is having a crazy old time. I must apologize, I have no news on the Bolivian political front, since the internet is so slow and we don´t get the newspaper except a day or two after the fact I´m pretty out of the loop.