Back at BYU in Wyoming

After many years of effort as a BYU student and even more years of being an alum, I have finally accomplished my two insignificant BYU goals.

First, I led an expedition through the wiles of Laramie, WY, guiding four weary Provo girls through the Cowboys fans where we saw BYU slam UW with a whopping score of 52-0. And even more exciting, I finally got a picture with Cosmo. Yes, I know you're all jealous.







Second, President Cecil O. Samuelson, current BYU president, and my president from back in the day, came to speak to our stake here in Cheyenne for church. I got to talk to him twice, and yes, just like President Bateman, his hair is exactly as it appears on the big screen. I had no idea that he did these kinds of speaking gigs as the University's President (which he was not representing when he spoke to us), so it was quite the surprise. I even got to sing in one of the meetings. Eat your heart out BYU Singers.

Thanksgiving fun on the Farm

For a few years now, we have made the trip to Penokee, Kansas to visit my dad's cousin Mary and others for Thanksgiving. It's always a fun trip, and great fun to enjoy the simple life for a bit. Highlights of this year's Thanksgiving for me were playing games with my cousins, making bracelets with Deborah from Venice, visiting the kitchen store in Norton and walking with the giant dog Bear.

Below are some of the pics from our Kansas adventure.

What I am thankful for...

Recently, I've had a couple of experiences that have reminded me of what I am thankful for.

I had a fun experience with my good friends Veronica and Aaron Birch in Littleton, CO recently. Veronica and I were roommates at BYU several "New Moon"(s) ago, and to my delight, she and her family moved to the Denver area a few years ago. I've had a blast spending time with them and getting to know their two children Carmen and Harry. I feel very grateful to have one of my favorite roommates so close and to see her with her young family.

During this last visit, I took some Christmas photos for the Birches. With the hopes not to spoil their Christmas card, I've included what were my favorite pics:

Veronica and Me

Veronica's oldest child, Carmen

Veronica and her youngest child Harry

The happy family: Veronica, Aaron, Harry and Carmen (who knows what she's looking at)

Also, I've had a lot of fun spending time with Mom, Dad and Nick. I'm really grateful for them and having a great time living so close to them!

Below is a really fun youtube video by the LDS Church about being grateful this holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving!

In the Spirit of Thanksgiving

Halloween and cholita wrestling

For this Halloween, I chose to represent the fearless, the underestimated and undervalued cholita, of the Bolivian type I mean. For the most part, my costume was somewhat authentic, except for the straw hat from Goodwill and the cabbage pat doll wearing my North Face hat. But other than that, I feel as though I've represented my South American female counterparts well. I had to carry around some pictures I took of the cholitas to help people understand what I was supposed to be. But, to my joy, one of our local missionaries from Ecuador recognized me right away. I even got a few "Most Creative" votes at a friend's party.

On Monday, we are having Sports Day for our school spirit week. I am dressing as a cholita. Why, you ask? Because some of these fearless women are also known to participate in professional WWF style wrestling:

So I figure, I'm perfectly justified in sporting this garb on Monday too!

Hope you all had some great Halloween fun!

(The pumpkin I carved this year)

20 years...

Dustin, aka Mr. Nugums, aka Mr. Crusty, aka Dusty Crusty, aka mi gatito, aka the Cat, turned 20 on October 8th. That, I feel, is a momentous occasion for a small feline, so I told my students that we would have a 5 minute party for him in my classes.

This reminds me of a lady I met in my last area in Florida. She was a divorced 40 year old who lived in an a-frame house and had about 5 cats. She constantly talked to her cats whenever we were there, and she spoke to them as if they were small children. She also had a mini wooden cabinet in which she kept 5 handmade sweaters that she had personally knit for each of them(because, as she explained, in Florida the AC is about as frigid as today's weather in Cheytown). I was so aghast at this situation, with the lady and her little village of cats, that I made an oath that I would never live by myself or have mutiple cats or learn how to knit, with the hopes that I might avoid becoming like the Cat Lady.

So I live by myself now, and I'm celebrating my cat's birthday...But I still do not know how to knit, so there is still hope for me I guess.

One down, many to go.

Well, the gretest day of my year so far is today, because I finally got the internet hooked up in my apt. (thanks to my wonderful bro who camped out until the cable guy showed up. I wish I could tell my students that I will show up anywhere from 8am-12pm.)

School is a blast! I am having a great time with my students, and they are beginning to buy in to my insistence that "v" and "b" are pronounced the same, that they really do need to study vocabulary everyday, and that I am a hard, but caring, teacher.

Some of my favorite teaching moments so far:

• I confiscated my first cell phone. The girl was texting in her pocket. The incident made her cry, but oddly enough, she seems to respect me more now than before.
• I gave my first zero for talking during a test. Laying down the law...
• A bee flew into the class one day and it was mad chaos, and I mean chaos, for about 2 minutes until the bee decided to go back outside. Then things resumed as normal.
• I caught one of my macho male students trying to salsa dance before class. He needs some coaching:)
• My seventh graders always have a billion questions about everything. Everytime class starts, all of their hands raise up (at least they are raising their hands), and when I ask "does anyone have any questions about Spanish" all of their hands go down.

There are many more, which I am forgetting rapidly, but I love my job. It's literally the hardest thing I've done yet in my life, but I'm really starting to enjoy myself, and I'm getting more used to getting up at 5:45am.

Monsoon Season

Well friends, the day has come. I prepared for it for about a month, and well, I did as much as I could. I set up my room (see pics below) and planned as much as possible, and went to lots of meetings, and then, it came: the first day of school.

Before the first day, I thought the hardest part about teaching was coming up with a syllabus that contained policies on everything from chewing gum to safely escaping in case of a fire. And now, now that I've been teaching for three whole days, I've decided that the hardest part about teaching is acting like you know what's going on when really, you feel like you have no idea.

So far though, so good. My students seem to have bought into the idea that I might be ok to live with for the year, and I've been told that students who had to change their schedules (which was about 40 due to a severe registration error for all Spanish classes) they were actually disappointed that they didn't have me anymore. So that boosted my self esteem a bit:)

The best way I can describe being a new teacher is like having a tsunami come flooding through your life and all of a sudden, you realize that you have made an extreme lifestlye change. Never before in my life have I gotten up at 5:45am and worked until 6pm in the same day.

Still, I've had a great time with the students, and I feel like if I can just get my head wrapped around everything and get organized, this will be a fun year.

Thanks to all of you who have been sending words of encouragement. It has really helped!

Classroom Before and After:

Home Sweet Home

Here are some pics of my new casa (for those of you getting this post via e-mail, you must visit the actual blog to see pics). Someone asked me what I would do with all of the extra space, and I have been told that it will fill up quickly. But, for now, I have a lot of room to jump around in my living room!

Cheyenne Residency

I guess I should announce that I am an official Cheyenne resident. I moved in to a nice two bedroom apartment between Central High and the Golf Course about a week ago. Getting used to living by myself, but so far so good! Will post pictures later.

Day 5 and 6: Tiwanaku Ruins and Feria 16 de julio

Well, it's been, what, like four months now since my Bolivian excursion, but I think that I am finally to the end of the pictures. There is no journal entry for these days, because towards the end of Tiwanaku, either a flu bug or altitude sickness or heat stroke, or a combination of the three hit me hard and I had to sleep between every activity just to have the strength to keep going. As I was looking through my pictures, however, I am suprised how good I look for how bad I was feeling. I'm glad I kept clicking the camera, because it makes for some good memories. I've already forgotten the extent of my illness that put me in bed for several days after the trip...

Day 5: March 18th

This day we went to the Tiwanakan Ruins, near La Paz. These guys were contemporaries to the Incans. Later that night, we had dinner at Franz's house, and his mom is a real life cholita (it was like meeting a celebrity). We had a great time in their humble home. Highlights included Franz's teenage brothers telling us all kinds of wild stories they had heard about Americans, and being suprised at how normal Brian and I were (by the end, Brian was their hero). We also had a great Bolivian-American dance off. We taught them Vanilla Ice, Hammer, Country Swing and a typical akward high school dance, and they taught us some cool Bolivian dances.



Day 6: March 19th

For our last day, we visited the Feria 16 de julio, which is claimed to be the largest outdoor market in South America. It was pretty huge, and I was consistently amazed at what kinds of stuff was being sold. The rudest choiltas were at the voodoo stand. I think they were afraid we were going to steal the soul of their snakes. I also loved the mannequins. We also had lunch at Gabriela's house, which was really a cool experience. Not very often do we North Americans get invited into homes on these kinds of trips. A very intimate and special experience; one of my favorite parts of the trip. That night we ate at the fanciest hotel in La Paz, and I witnessed the consumption of more meat than even at Rodizio Grill. I even considered becoming a vegetarian after that experience.



The plane ride home was a painful one. I'm sure all of the passengers thought I was transporting a fatal disease by the way I was coughing. Turns out I contracted my very first case of bronchitis, which I believe was the product of a Bolivian flu bug. When I arrived at my parents house, I had barely enough energy to make it upstairs and collapse on the bed. I stayed there for a couple of days and sweated out my illness (literally. Now that my lungs have recovered, I am glad to have happy pictures of the last two days.

A week later, Mariel and Jhovanna came to Cheyenne and presented with Brian and me at the UW Shepards Symposium on Social Justice on Project Citizen and Lynching in Bolivia. We had a good week with them bowling, playing pool, watching Twilight and visiting Cheyenne.

BYU Graduate Testimonial: I'm immortal now

I decided to google myself today (which I do on occassion, just out of curiosity. And fear of stalkers). Turns out I have some testimonials posted on the BYU Humanities Home page. Now you can read about how much I loved my Humanities degree...

Visit http://hccl.byu.edu/hum.php and click on "About" in the menu bar and then "Graduate Testimonials." I'm listed twice.

Day 4: More schools in La Paz

Dated March 17, 2009:

"Brought TP with me today. Much better. Two of my favorite friends here in Bolivia are TP and hand sanitizer.

I love this place, this adventure, these people. I can't get enough of this. I will be very sad to leave, but so grateful for every single moment.

Today we first visited another university where Ariel teaches. This was a catholic school and was a lot bigger and more modern. It still had a very small library. Afterwards we went back to the Normal School where we had some tea and met with the four directors of the school. Ariel thought it went well, so that's good. Brian and I also had to talk in English to an English class, which was fun becuase we got to practice our ESL techniques.

We then went with Ariel and had lunch at an obscure restaurant where we ate chicharron and fricase. Very heavy pork with all it's fat attached and white corn. Ariel talked to me and Brian about the LDS church a bit, and we talked a lot about future exchanges for UW and Normal School students. I think Ariel has become quite fond of us.

Then we met up with Gabriela, a lady named Jenny, and our friend Javier (who we met when he was visiting UW a few months ago). They showed us two public schools in La Paz. We watched a couple of Project Citizen projects, which were good as usual. One class gave us prosperity necklaces made up of fake money from differen't countries. I love the secondary students here. They remind me so much of U.S. students. Adolecense is adolecense, no matter where you live.

Then we met up with Ingrid and took a walk down El Prado and met up with the other students. We walked through a protest (noted by 3 firecrackers and nothing more at that point), and we did some shopping at the Witches Market and other stores. All of the students bargained the vendors down to the best price. It was hard for me and Brian to bargain much, because the prices were so cheap to begin with, but it seemed a source of pride for our Bolivian friends to be thrifty, so we let them. I almost got my foot ran over by a crazy driver, but was pulled back just in time by my Bolivian friends. They've really taken good care of us. We ate at a place called Pollo Cochabamba (like KFC, but worse). I really enjoyed myself.

Oh, I almost forgot. We also visited the American Embassy today while Mariel and Jhovana applied for their visas to go to Laramie. It was a crazy experience, because it was just like being back in the States as soon as we stepped through the doors. It seemed like there was a little bit of tension in the place (see article on recent expulsion of U.S. Ambassaor from Bolivia), and it was like being in another world for a brief moment. Embassies are kind of wierd places. I felt much more comfortable outside the Embassy in the craziness of La Paz than I did inside the pseudo U.S. world."

Penguin Poop: A useful thing

Ok, since I'm still sitting in front of my computer...

I've been folowing current events on NASA and space to enhance my astronomy experience, and I came across the following article that discusses tracking penguin poop from space to locate isolated penguin colonies in Antarctica. I just thought this was wild, but makes sense.

And I must make another shout out to March of the Penguins. Love it.
Tracking Penguin Poop from Space article

Summer Air...Who wants to blog?

Dear friends,

Yes, I have taken a long absense from writing anything on this blog of mine. For two reasons primarily. First, it is summer, and any good Wyoming citizen knows that during the short summer months that we experience it is a crime to spend any more time inside than you have to. And second, I am studying Astromony 6-8 hours a day for a total of six weeks. But to appease the one person that reads my blog (you know who you are V), here's an update:

I kind of graduated from the University of Wyoming with a second BA in Spanish and a couple of teaching licenses for Spanish and ESL. I say "kind of," because I still have a class and short internship this summer, but I walked, got the empty diploma holder, and ate the cake, so here's the pics:

Day 3: Escuela Normal Superior Simon Bolivar

Dated March 16, 2009:

What an incredible day. We spent all day at the Normal School visiting various classrooms for elementary, English and language classes. I practically cried in one class when all of the little kids gave me hugs and kisses and many "gracias!". We also ate like five meals in the cafeteria talking with professors, students and the principals.



We saw some Project Citizen projects and had to ask all kinds of academic questions in Spanish. If only my Spanish teachers could see me now...



At the end of the day, we watch a program by the students in the English and Social Science colleges. We heard some great music (even a song by the Eagles), and Brian and I had to give a one hour presentation in Spanish. I tried to teach the students how to dance to the "Cotton Eyed Joe" song and they somewhat got the hang of it. Then we had to answer a ton of questions. Then we had to dance for like 30 minutes, which was crazy but fun.



Later that night we went with our student hosts, Gabriela, Jhovana, Mariel, Ingrid and Franz to El Prado (main street in La Paz), and we visited the only public university in La Paz. Then we had another small meal with Ariel and his family (we also went to a super market, which had tons of U.S. brands).

Overall, an absolutely wonderful and life-changing day. I am so grateful I've had the blessing to come here. I have to admit that I was kind of nervous to come to Bolivia, but now I love this culture and these people.

One last note, I forgot toilet paper today. The school was really dirty, especially the bathrooms, and TP doesn't exist. I had to steal a lot of napkins from the cafeteria and made it work. Tomorrow I will be bringing toliet paper with me.

I have a teaching job!

Last Wednesday, I accepted a full-time teaching position at Carey Jr. High in Cheyenne, Wyoming teaching beginning Spanish to 9th graders. I am really excited about the position and thrilled to officially have a job! I am also excited about the position in that when South High School opens in Cheyenne in a year (Cheyenne's fourth high school), my position will transfer there. This is a great opportunity for me, and I'm thrilled. I'm also excited to be moving back to Cheytown:)

Thanks to all of you for your encouraging words during this process!

Day 2: Lake Titicaca

Dated March 15, 2009:

Today we went with Ariel to Lake Titicaca. We first ate Saltenas in La Paz, and then drove through El Alto on our way to El Lago.



Traffic was insane, and a man, who was running across the street, hit our car, bounced off it, and hit a minibus going in the other direction!!!! Ariel had to argue with the Policia for 30-40 minutes before he would let us go. I was convinced that we were going to be dragged off to jail, but we just had to take the guy to the hospital. It was a crazy experience.



Then we drove through many humble cities, Batalla, Huarina, Achacachi, Tiquina and Huatajata and saw a whole different world, full of brick, green, sheep, cholitas and a very simple life. We saw a traditional dance in Huarina and we drove by the coast of the Lago de Huynaymarka, which is adjacent to Lake Titicaca. We saw incredible views of the Lakes.



Later, we ate trout and a soup called chairo and haba, which is like giant edamame (for all you sushi eaters out there). We ate at a restaurant called "La Pachamama." The restaurant had a spectacular view of the Lake.



Afterwards, we returned to El Alto and we met Mariel and Jhovana, who are both pre-service English teachers that will be visiting us soon in Wyoming. We drove around more of La Paz with Ariel, he is quite the tour guide. We saw the house of President Evo Morales and the San Pedro Prison, which sounds like a horrible place (Ariel went inside once. Children are born and raised in the prison, they are only allowed to leave for school. Check out the videos below).







Later we had dinner with Ariel, Columba and Emiliano.
Then Brian and I prepared for our visits to the schools tomorrow. Overall, an excellent day.

Day 1: La Paz

Well,

After recuperating from bronchitis for a few days, I'm finally feeling up to writing a little about my amazing trip to La Paz! I've never been treated so kindly in all my life, and I'm so grateful for the personal and non-turistic view of La Paz I was fortunate enough to see. What an unforgettable experience!

I will be writing about each day separately over the next couple of weeks, to pace both myself and you my beloved readers:)

First, let me list my 10 favorite things about my trip(not in any particular order)
1. Ariel Maella (our host family dad and personal guide, professor of sociology and education)
2. The traffic (insane, I will explain more later)
3. Saltena (empanada like brunch food)
4. The view of La Paz
5. Lake Titicaca and its surrounding villages
6. La feria de 16 de julio (claimed to be South America's largest outdoor market)
7. Meeting with the pre-service teachers of the Normal School Simon Bolivar
8. Hanging out with our new college friends Gabriela, Franz, Ingrid, Carlos, Mariel and Jhovana.
9. Dancing
10. Eating at the home of Franz's family

That being said, here's what we did our first day:

March 14, 2009

"Got to La Paz ok, customs went fine except for the trouble they gave us for our imperfect American bills. Note to self: bills cannot have any tears in them, otherwise Bolivian customs will not accept them.

We were greated by Ariel Maella, Ingrid and Franz. We drove to Ariel's house, which is very nice for Bolivia, and then we went with Ariel to two different universities and watched him teach. One class, composed of 19-20 year olds, talked about how the Andino culture affects their modern, Bolivian perspective. We also talked about how they are all hooked on Facebook. Crazy. Ariel is an awesome teacher.

We then drove around La Paz for a while. Crazy, crazy driving and incredible city layout in the mountains. These people were very bold for builidng a city here.

Later, Ariel's wife, Columba, made a Mexican feast for their extended family (Ariel's dad passed away about a week ago). Fun to see a Bolivian family up close and personal. Ariel showed us his family pictures and talked about his dad, which was a sweet experience. Met a cholita named Euralia and took a picture of her (these cholita women are very fascinating to me, because they live a modern life but choose traditional dress)

Later we drove more around the city and I was amazed we didn't hit any dogs, pedestrians or minibuses (these are everywhere). Traffic patterns here are insane.

I then watched Ariel's son Emiliano play his Wii. I then had a fun talk with Columba. Got to talk to Mom, Barn and Aunt Sean via Skype. It was really rainy and foggy today. Love the chiuauas in the house. I drank manzanilla (camomille) tea like crazy today to keep warm. We also went to a really cool market to get tortillas for the party.

Loving La Paz. Although everyone is worried for our sake as Americans, I feel very comfortable here and am not worried in the least."

One more day til La Paz

A handful of Bolivianos, butterflies in my stomach, about 40 lbs worth of University of Wyoming gifts for the Bolivians, the Yellow Fever pumping through my vains, $135 in cash to pay visa officals to let us in the country and a list about a mile long of questions I am supposed to ask while I'm there. I'm all set! I leave from Denver Friday morning and after an 8 hour delay at Miami International (mission homecoming, sweet), we are off to La Paz. Here's our tenative itinerary. We will be staying with a Bolivian family the entire trip:

Saturday:

• Arrive in La Paz at 5:45AM (3:45AM MST)


• Visit Museums and walk the Zona Sur


• Dinner in the Camino Real Hotel

Sunday:

• Trip to Lake Titicaca

Monday:

• Academic activities at the Normal School "Simon Bolivar" (We will be attending different English Classes and the Experimental College-no clue what this means exactly)

Tuesday:

• More activities at the Normal School


• Visit with Educators for Democracy, visit schools

Wednesday:

• Visit the Tiahuanaku Ruins with a Precolumbian expert


• Dinner in a Bolivian home

Thursday:

• Visit the 16 of July Outdoor Market in El Alto


• Departure dinner with the Educators for Democracy

Friday:

• Leave La Paz at 6:50AM (4:50AM MST)


• Arrive in Denver at 8:00PM

Hasta el 20 de marzo!

One more month til La Paz

One more month until I'm off to La Paz. I'm starting to get a little bit nervous/excited and I'm remembering all of the details involved in traveling abroad. I realized the other day that my family had no idea why I was going to the poorest country in South America, so I thought I might give you all little explanation.

I was approached by a professor of mine to travel with a classmate to Bolivia, where we will be observing public school classrooms and pre-service teacher schools. We received a grant of approximately $3,000 for the following project (sorry about the wordiness):

PRIMARY INVESTIGATORS
Dr. Carol Bryant, Rebecca Brazzale and Brian Brisko

ABSTRACT
The present research endeavors to investigate the role of Project Citizen in helping students effectuate change in their schools and communities. In order to investigate the research question: What is the potential for Project Citizen to provide an authentic venue for student voice in cross-cultural settings vis à vis community justice and human rights?, the issues of bullying and community justice as perceived by Project Citizen student participants will be explored. In Bolivia, community justice is a tradition that reflects the lack of trust in the government, an established system of justice specific to indigenous communities, and an absence of resources.

The co-primary investigators, Rebecca Brazzale and Brian Brisko, will visit and interview Bolivian secondary students who have completed Project Citizen portfolios related to these issues. The interviews seek to discern how students define these issues and gauge their severity. Moreover, the interviews will elicit students’ perceptions of the impact of community justice and bullying in their own lives and whether or not they perceive it as a problem to be addressed through public policy. Data collections will include interviews, observations, focus groups, and reflections from all the participants.

After returning to Laramie, Brian and I will be presenting with two Bolivian pre-service teaschers at the Shepard's Symposium on Social Justice on our travels and observations. Hopefully our Bolivian friends will also be able to spend some time in our classrooms talking with our own students. Then, later this summer, we will be writing our experiences along with those of our two professors, who traveled to Bolivia last summer, for some sort of academic publication.

Overall, I'm really excited for my first trip to South America, and I'm also looking forward to meeting kids and talking with them, as well as staying with host families. While I'm also a bit nervous, I'm glad my friend Brian has spent considerable time in Guatemala and is used to the standard of living. I'm all pumped full of Yellow and Typhoid Fevers for the trip, and I'm reading up on the culture in my Lonely Planet Book. When I get the itinerary for our stay, I'll let you know what more we'll be doing down there.

Green Christmas

After much delay, here are some pictures from our Brazzale Family Christmas. If any of you out there have more pictures from this grand event, I would love to see them.



Highlights of the evening included eating delicious Italian food (I helped with the ravioli!), beating my uncles in Cribbage (Aunt Cathy, you and I make a great team. Let's keep that up.), playing a crazy Euro version of Jenga (can anybody tell me the name of that game?) and listening to Dad and Uncle Tony sing.

But....the proudest moment for me was when all of the extended family was downstairs watching football, me, Dad, Mom and Nick were upstairs by ourselves watching the Planet Earth series. While people were yelling and cheering for tackles, we were mesmorized by a wierd bug that lives in the rainforest. If you haven't seen any of the Planet Earth series, it's amazing. Disney is putting together a lot of the same footage for a movie called Earth this spring. You should check out the trailer on Youtube.

Come to think of it, I am a big fan of Mother Nature. I remember watching the March of the Penguins for the first time in Provo, and while everyone else had fallen asleep I was wide awake and crying because I was so moved by the plight of the mother penguin. And, now that I think of it, my only publication so far was about environmental stewardship for a BYU environmental journal. I guess I really am a tree hugger.

I am still surviving student teaching. One month down, three more to go!

Student Teaching and Bolivia

Well, I'm in deep and there's no getting out. I've been student teaching for a week now at Laramie High School in the Spanish department, and it's been a trip. My mentor teacher is the head wrestling coach, so I've learned a lot about wrestling. I personally, have always thought of wrestling as a disgusting sport, you know, helmet ears, worms, fungi, sweat, yuck. So I sit there as wrestlers come into the class and discuss injuries, whether they want to quit or not, etc, and I try to keep my grossed out face to myself. And there's no one else in the classroom to laugh with, so it wouldn't be any fun to joke anyways.


Another good story is that this student brought in a gold fish and asked me to watch it for him, because it was his friend's and it wasn't getting any oxygen in the locker. The fish was dead. So I babysat a dead fish all day. When the owner came in, she started shrieking only as a 15 year old girl could, and she called her mom and melodramtically conveyed her broken heart over the floating orange blob.


I also had a student critize my handwriting, because he didn't like the way I made my 'r'. Great times. I'm loving it. Teaching is hilarious, and rewarding.



Other good news. UW is sending me and a classmate to Bolivia for spring break to do some research for the education department here. It's a free trip! This is definitely not something that happens to me ever, so I'm thrilled. Evo Morales, alpaca for dinner, and the smell of burning coca leaves. Can't wait.