Yesterday was a very interesting day in our short time here in Bolivia. There was a national referendum on how the country thought the president was doing and on each department governor. Here when there is a national election like that, there is a 12am curfew and no alcohol is sold for the day up to, the day of, and the day after the election. And what most changed Sunday from a normal day was that no vehicles were allowed on the road and no meetings were allowed, so no church. We had a lazy morning, did our first load of laundary by hand, then walked down the hill to the main road. It was a different scene: there were children riding bikes and playing in the road and everyone was walking around. It was very strange to see what the city would be like if all the cars disppeared. I kind of liked it.
As far as the referendum results, Evo, the president, won by a landslide, but then so did the 4 governors that most strongly oppose him, so both sides are declaring victory. Most people here say that the vote will probably just make the divide between the two sides worse. I´m interested to see what happens here though. Our governor lost the referendum by a lot, but he has the whole time declared the vote illegal and has no intention on stepping down. I think he has been saying that the whole time because he knew the whole time that he was going to lose.
Anyways, life here living at the right hand of Christ is going well (literally the giant Cristo statue points his right hand straight at us ). We are making lots of friends, young and old, and even have some neighbors coming over for dinner this weekend to teach us how to make bolivian food. Still no fridge or stove, so just eating fruit and bread and canned tuna for now.
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