Cultural Frustrations

The past week or so, I have hit a wall, so it seems. Before I go any further, I want to express that I do enjoy living here, and I am not complaining at all about Drew and I being here. It just seems like the reality of living in Bolivia with Bolivians has hit. As many of you know, we have begun a women's co-op since we have been here. We have had great success in getting women to come, but the problem has come in getting the women to actually work and become self-motivated to come on their own and work. There is one woman however who has taken the initiative and made several items for us. She has seemed nothing but enthusiastic about helping us, and making things. She is very talented and is one of the kinder Quechua women (they can have a nasty temper).

We were hoping to use our friend as an example of what the women can make, and even earn. However, through a few miscommunications, it seems that our one faithful friend is now doubting us. She somehow believes that we are earning money off of her, and that we are not paying her what she is due. So, instead of coming to us, she got mad and went talking to someone else also not telling the truth about what we have done. Now, the one woman I thought we could really trust and look to believes we are cheating her.

I felt so let down. After spending hours going over how to deal with the women in the most fair and just way that I possibly know how, they still think we are cheating them and using them. Sometimes it feels like you just can't do anything right. I realize that nothing happened to me personally, and I am not permanently scarred by any stretch of the immagination, but this experience really threw me off. I realized that almost no matter how hard I try, it has to be an act of God to really bridge the gap between our cultures for us to truly understand eachother. Even though I can speak in Spanish, it does not mean that I can communicate well with these people. Our ways of communicating, understanding, and thinking are completely different. That is the joy and pain of living in another culture.

Speaking of communication errors, last night I had another. We had some good friends over for dinner. As we were passing out the yuca, I jumped in with my Spanish, "Andres siempre dice que no puedo pelear la yuca como su mama peruana (rough translation: Drew always says that I can't fight yuca like his Peruvian host mom). The word I wanted to use was "pelar" NOT "pelear." Thats the difference between "peel" and "fight." Oops. But we all laughed, and it really was funny.