These were taken at a costume party we were invited to at the tennis club on Saturday night. It started at 10:30 P.M. We left at 3:30 AM

We have decided to rent the "maid's quarters" at our house to a friend of ours from the states who is teaching here. So, we had to go to market to try to buy a few things. This was Monday, so we thought it would be ok, we neglected to remember that I was not in school because of Carnaval and that everyone else would be at Market also. Here is what we found. Have no clue, and didn't want to know, what they were going to do with the crates of baby chicks. The rest you can see for yourself.

I am trying to post these pictures - it is still Carnaval here - it lasts for about a month but is supposed to be over tomorrow. Anyway, I just had to go outside to bring my car into our "walled house". The neighbors are having a huge party, of course. Big fire in the middle of the street, music, lots of drinking, etc. When I went out they grabbed me and insisted I have a drink with them. The traditional drink here is Singani, mixed with Sprite (Seven Up, whatever) So, they hand me - the Gringo a huge glass filled to the brim. I downed it in one drink. They loved it, we talked for a few minutes - me no Spanish, them no English. Lot of fun and gestures. Then I insisted I had to go inside, so they insisted I take one more drink, this time the glass was filled to the brim with straight Singani - so I downed it. They didn't know they were dealing with a Wieburg. White Lightning, Tequila, straight Jack, none of it phases us. Only thing that will get me tipsy is Wine, isn't that weird?
I went inside and got a bottle of Singain out of my cabinet and took it out to them. I then closed and locked the gate.
I figure the neighbors here can do us a lot of good - or harm, like anywhere, and it is best to be in good with them.

In case you missed it, Joeline and I have moved out of the ninth floor apartment and moved into a large seven bedroom, five bathroom house. All so Joeline and the Maltese can have a yard.
We are really enjoying it, great views, etc.
Joeline was supposed to post pictures, but she is too busy feeding her fish on facebook, so guess I will have to do it.

Some of my students during our Carnaval at our school

Joeline and I just before we danced in our school "Carnaval".
My Principal, a social studies teacher, and me at "Carnaval".
My sixth grade teacher at "Carnaval".

I keep getting asked about typical days, weekends here. So this is what we did this weekend.

Friday after school, 15 of the teachers, secretaries, and Joeline, met in the gym to start to learn a native dance that we will be doing for carnival. A lot of movement involved - tired me out. That went from 3:15 until 4:30.

Then Joeline and I had to go to five different grocery stores to try to find cornbread mix. We had invited four couples over to have chile and cornbread and to play Wii. Finally, Joeline had to settle for what she thought was corn meal - she bought two different bags that kind of felt like corn meal. We rushed home at 6 and she started making the cornbread from scratch. The couples started arriving at 7. She made two different batches, using each of the mixtures. One came out great, the other was uneatable - evidently not corn meal.

We ate, talked and played Wii until midnight. Very nice evening.

Saturday we slept in till eight, then drove to Market. She bought three dozen pink roses - I think they were 14 B's ($2) per dozen. We also bought a couple of 1/2 kilo blocks of cheese. The cheese here is fantastic, especially the block Parmasean. We left market and went to a new restaurant about which we had just heard. It was small, and absolutely beautiful. I think it was Japanese, anyway we had "Chinese" food, it was the best we have had in Bolivia. I think they even have fried noodles, which Joeline loves, but we had trouble conveying her request to the Japanese guy, who spoke Spanish, and we were ordering Chinese - in English (see the problem). So she ended up with Chop Suey with regular noodles, but she said it was great. I had some kind of 5 spice Pork. Wonderful, but also hot, hot, hot.

Went home at about 2 and I took a nap. Joeline took a bath and read. We watched a movie, "Invictus", Morgan Freeman, very good. Then we got ready to go out.
A trumpet player we know had flown in from Santa Cruz and was playing with a Jazz band at an Irish Pub. We got there at 10 - I drank Irish Coffees (but with Tequila), Joeline drank "Coka Zeros sin Hielo con Limon". The Trumpet player and the Sax player were very, very good. At midnight we excused ourselves and went to another club to dance.

A parent of one of my students has a club. He starts singing at midnight. We stayed throught two of his sets, and two sets of dancing (all salsa), Joeline finally got tired enought to let us go home. The woman moans about going out so late, but once you get her out, she never wants to leave. We finally left at 3:30. I drank Kubra Libras there and she drank her Coke Zeros.

We got home just before four, checked our emails and went to bed.

I slept in till 8:30, Joeline is still in bed.

I'll get her up in just a second so we can get ready for church. There is an International Church here that gives both Spanish and English. One verse of a hymn is in Spanish, the next in English. The sermon is mostly in English, but the non-English speaking people have earphones and someone trasnlates for them.

Of course before we go to church we will stop off at the soccer stadium where they have a pet market every Sunday. They sell cats, every breed of dog imaginagle (except Malteses), tropical birds, fish, whatever. Vets have little stations there to give shots, etc., and there are the inevitable food booths - Bolivians love their food. We get a coke and potato chips.

After church we will go to eat at one of the hundreds of restaurants. Joeline loves the trucha here (trout, she does not like U.S. trout)

Then it will be home for me to play poker online with the kids and Joeline to read. Tonight I have to work on the school budget. Then we will watch a movie (all of the movies we watch are DVD's) I can buy a DVD first run movie here, usually before it is released in the states, for $.75 to $1.50 depending on which "pirater" I get it from. I can buy them at the pet market I told you about for $.75, but sometimes they don't work and sometimes they are in Spanish only, although I am promised they are in English. But, I have a friend who sells me good ones, but he moves around and is sometimes difficult to find.

If your are saying - Oh, that is wrong to buy a Pirated movie, I might agree with you. However, I have no choice. There are no copyright laws here and there are NO orignial movies - I couldn't buy an original one if I tried, They are not in Bolivia. So, it's buy these or don't watch any movies.

By the way, there are no copyright laws in regard to textbooks either. A lot of our textbooks are "copied" on the copy machine by our book store guy. I am buying textbooks from the states, but the shipping is horrible. Probably only about 20% of my books are copies.

Anyway, that is a typical weekend. Now I have to get Joeline and Evita up to get ready for church (Evita is the Maltese and she will sleep as long as Joeline does, as long as I take her out to go "pottie" at about 6am.)

Hope this was not too boring, but you asked for it.
(I'm too tired to spell check this, so if you find errors, too bad!)

Carl

I hate to disappoint you, but there some very good restaurants down here. Yes, they serve cow tongue, intestines, and other things I won’t even bother to list, but you can get “normal” food also. We go to a different restaurant depending on our appetite on any particular night. One of Joeline’s favorite places is Casa de Campo. They have wonderful pork chops.
The chops come with mashed potatoes and two - count them two - green peas on top of the potatoes. We have eaten there probably ten times in the last year and Joeline , being the adverturess she is, always orders the chops - and they always come with two peas.
However, one of the disadvantages of being here is that the people have a distinctive European outlook on a lot of things, one of them being smoking. It seems like everyone here smokes and most restaurants let them light up everywhere. Now, Joeline handles this much better than Jody - Jody is downright indignant if anyone smokes within 100 yards of her, but Joeline definitely does not like it. They know that I hate it more than anyone alive, but I never make a scene.
Anyway, the other night we were out with a couple and people at the adjoining table were smoking. Joeline moved her chair a few times and murmured a few choice words. Finally, I went on a rampage about smokers in general. After I had calmed down, the guy with us said, “I understand not likeing smoking, but you really seem to have a downright annoyance for the smokers and not for the smoke. Why.”
I thought about that for a few minutes and then realized why that probably is the case - the smoke really doesn’t bother me. I don’t cough and hack and get sick like Jody, but……
When I was 14, Dad dropped me and another boy, who was 17 but not too “bright”, (kind of a Rope type for those of you who knew dad) off in Stockton, California, to watch a few horses at the Fair. He was going somewhere and the two of us were to take care of the horses for a week before the Fair actually started. I’m sure he left us enough money to get us by for the week, after all, how much do beans, Vienna sausages, cheese, and crackers cost. We slept on cots in one of the stalls and there was a bathroom at the end of the shedrow. Pretty good gig for a kid.
The first evening this other kid had the bright idea that since we had money we should go to the track kitchen and eat up. We did so, but it set us back more than I had expected, but I wasn’t worried – yet. The next day we walked outside of the gates of the track and found that there was a bowling alley only a block away – what could a few games cost?
Let me cut to the chase. Dad, and the owners of one of the horses were coming back Saturday at about 11 to get the horse ready for a race. By Thursday at noon the other kid and I had a total of about .50 cents left between us. We got our heads together and decided we would go to a grocery store and do the best we could. I figured we could get a box of crackers, some cheese, and a couple of cans of beans and stretch them out. In the store we wandered the aisles, just being near food was comforting. Finally, the other kid said I should give him the money and he would make the purchases. I was watching a couple of other kids play pin-ball and did as he said.
When we got outside I found that he had spent every cent of our money on cigarettes - which I must admit he offered to share with me. I went nuts. Which for me meant I said, “You cottinpickin idiot” twenty or thirty times. He had been telling me for at least a day that he was out of cigarettes, but what did I care, I was hungry and never in my wildest imagination would I have ever imagined that someone would chose to inhale smoke rather than eat! It made no sense to me then and still doesn’t today.
We ate absolutely nothing the rest of the day Thursday or all day Friday, but he had his stinking cigarettes and was a happy camper. Gee, I wonder if that warped me towards smokers?

This is an orchid plant I got in the Rain Forest when Jody and kids were here. They were convinced it would not survive. Actually, I got two and this one not only survived but is blooming. Took it 6 months, but it was worth waiting for.

Can't wait to see what the other one will look like!

Gayle, you have some pull! Told Carl today that you said he was a slacker, and he had this post up in less than an hour. This is for you Alta Girl!

What can I say except, “I’m sorry!”
I know I haven’t written on this for months and months, and I know everyone else is busy, but that is my only excuse. Now, we are back from Atlanta and Texas, we are moved into a fabulous house - so Joeline could have a yard, and now I have a little time.
I don’t even know where to start, but think I will tell you about my trip back to the States in November.
Joeline left in October for her annual visit with her “OLD” friends from Dinuba (California) - they actually met at one of the friends houses, Gayle's in Sonoma - and for her Art Workshop in San Angelo. She left the dog here for me to take care of while she jetted around the world. All went well until I tried to take it back to the states with me.
First of all, this mutt had to have more paperwork than I did, and certainly more shots. All kinds of arrangements had to be made with American Airlines and with AeroSur (the airline for around Bolivia). But, the real problems began as I was in the cab to the airport in Cochabamba.
My secretary called and said that the hotel they had me booked in, in Santa Cruz, Bolivia would not take pets. (There are no connections from here to Miami without staying all night in Santa Cruz or La Paz.) I told her to check other hotels. She said she had already called everyone on our list and none would allow the dog. I told her to forget it, that I would find one when I got there. (Much easier said than done!)
At the airport I got in a taxi and in my fluent Spanish I told the driver to take “yo to the hotelo with the doggieo”. He understood and we left immediately. For two hours - from 10pm till midnight – we drove around Santa Cruz. He took me to the worst dives you have ever seen. I mean my Dad, in the early years of our travels took us to some dives - when we weren’t just sleeping in the trucks or in the trailers with the horses - but they were in the U.S., they don’t compare with the dives here. And none of them would allow the dumb dog.
Finally I told the driver to take me back to the “airporto” and I would just sleep on a bench - my flight left at 10 the next morning. On the way back, way out of the city we passed the Coyote Hotel. It really looked bad, but by then I was past caring. I told the driver to stop. He did so, but when I told him to pull into the hotel, he refused. He kept saying, “No Aqui”. I kept saying, “Si, Aqui”. Finally I won. He pulled in front of the door to the office but wouldn’t get out.
I went in and confronted Freddie Kruger watching drag racing on a 3” TV. He ignored me until I put my hand between him and the screen. Finally, I had his attention, I know because he picked up a nightstick that had been leaning against his chair. After a few minutes of fast talking, in English of course, he got the idea that I wanted a room. He quoted me a price - I guess, but the only word I could decipher after the third try on his part was – “hora” which I know means hour. He rented these “rooms” by the hour. Getting the idea?
We settled on $50 U.S., which is like $300 in the U.S., but I was past caring.
Now it gets good!
He pushes a button and a couple of minutes later a guy that looked like Lurch came out from somewhere. He takes me outside and pulls back this huge steel sliding door. It reveals a narrow driveway with other steel doors on the left and a high wall on the right. He signals the taxi driver to follow him down the driveway, but that “ain’t happening”. I have to get my bags, and dog, out of the taxi and carry them down this driveway. Lurch immediately slides the steel door closed and locks it. We walk down this driveway to the third steel door on the left. He unlocks it and slides it back. It reveals a carport type structure with a door at the end. My imagination is really going wild as to what is behind that door.It’s too late to turn back now, so I walk into the carport. Lurch slides the steel door behind me, with him on the other side and I hear him lock it. I have a choice, lay my bags down and sleep on them in the carport, or go open that door. Evita is at the door barking at it. Oh well, I walked up to the door and then realized no one had given me a key. The door was unlocked. The pictures below are of the room.

I have never been so amazed. The room was huge, with a sunken Jacuzzi tub, tv, stocked refer., etc. Of course it did have mirrors all around the bed and on the ceiling above the bed, and there were condoms on every conceivable spot in the room. There was a deadbolt on the inside of the door, so I locked it, piled my suitcases in front of the door and laid down ON the bed. Didn’t bother to pull back the sheets.
After lying there for awhile waiting for Lurch or Freddie to barge in, I got up and looked around. Weirdest thing was a square “box” on one wall. It had a door about 2’ X 2’. I opened it and it was like looking into a box, except the top was open. I put my head in and looked out the top - it opened into an alley?
I finally realized that if anyone in this room wanted something - now you can let you mind wander as to what that something might be - they called on the phone and it was delivered from the alley. There was no way any deliveries were going to be made through all those steel doors. I balanced a glass ashtray on top of the little door and went to sleep. Oh, I did take a wine bottle out of the refer and set it by the bed - only weapon I could find.
At 6:30 the next morning I was dressed and ready to go when I heard the steel door being opened. They had a taxi waiting for me at the office.
I will let Joeline tell you about our return trip, with the dog.

There is a very good reason I have not posted anything in the last month - in fact, there are three of them - Jody, Jordan, Wyatt.
They arrived a month ago and I have not had a free moment ever since. But, man have we had fun! If we are not out doing something, which is not very often, one of them is on my computer, so blog time is severely limited. Jody has done a very good job of doing her own posting - from my computer on my time. So, if you want to see what we have been doing, go to watersadventure.blogspot.com.
To hit the highlights; we flew to LaPaz, where Jody and I and the kids immediately took a bus even higher - hard to believe as LaPaz is located at over 16,000 feet. Anyway we were taken even higher to the top of a mountain. From there Jody and I got on bicycles - first time I have been on a bike in probably 50 years. The kids rode in the support bus while we rode bikes down the "Most Dangerous Road in the World". Just type in those words on the internet and it will show you the road we rode down. You will get a better view than we did as it was snowing so hard we could hardly see the handlebars - I know I often us Onomatopoeia, but not this time. Worst snow storm at that time in years. Add that to biking down the MDRW!
We survived that, then stayed at the bottom of the mountains at an animal refuge - slept in a tree house, on the floor.
Last weekend we traveled to the Amazon basin and spent our time climbing up and then swinging down from platforms placed high in the trees. First from about 24 feet, then from 36 feet, then from 56 feet in the air (that is the height of a five story building) The jump was not the hard part - climbing up the rickety, wooden pegs nailed to the trees and then standing on a rotten 2x4 which was nailed between two trees with one nail in each end, while trying to climb onto an old rope was the scary part.
Of course between all of this we managed to fly to Cuzco, Peru and visited one of the Seven Wonders of the World, Machu Picchu. We also took tours of Cuzco and the Sacred Valley. Kids even got their first train ride - thru the Peruvian Andes. If you visit one place in your life, you have to travel to Machu - amazing does not adequately describe the place.
Yes, it has been an interesting month and I am worn out. I will download pictures as soon as I can get to my computer at the apt. I am at work right now and felt I had to write something, even without pictures.
Have patience

The Red Coat made it's first social event in Bolivia. One of my friends daughter-in-law is a very well known and respected clothing designer here in Cochabamba. She has made a couple of dresses and a evening gown for me. She invited Carl and I to a fashion show featuring 9 designers from Bolivia. It was all very up scale and exciting. About 1,500 people attended by invitation only. There were really wonderful collections presented,

beautiful models and the gift bags were full of great gifts. Doesn't get much better than that.

Bolivians, like all of South America love beautiful women and they like to dress in beautiful cloths.

This first dress was my favorite, could have something to do with the beautiful model. I think I will have ViVi do something similar to it next year for me for the Calvert graduation presentation. At Carl's school it is tradition to have a presentation ball and dinner for the graduates. Very formal, parents and everyone wear tuxs and gowns. Most designer gowns which you can afford here. In fact I think I will add a picture of some of the girls in their gowns from the graduation ball. Again beautiful girls and gowns.