The old adage goes that it is more blessed to receive. The altruist in me wants to agree, but that would contradict another truism I have learned - that whenever one serves on one of these projects, one always manages to receive way more than he could ever hope to give. If it is more blessed to give, then why would God have us receive so much in spite of our best efforts to tilt the balance otherwise?
Well since the beginning of our trip, the town of Santa Rosa has not ceased to make us feel welcome. The mayor has a love for both ceremony and barbecue. His people just like to party.
On Wednesday, after a day of treating parasitic diseases in the village of Loma Alta (I think it means high mountain, but it is actually a flat pasture), we were invited by the people of the village to go swimming. Since that village doesn't have a pool, we would need to go further offroad to the next village where there apparently is a pool of some sort. Some of the team were not initially keen on the idea, but once the suggestion had been made, the idea of a party started to grow. The vice mayors of these villages got involved, and before you know it there is a formal meal and Gladys, the head nurse at the hospital, is packing her suit. If I have learned one thing on these trips it is that you never turn down an invitation because by the time the invitation is made, the meal has already been cooked. We took Francis' Land Cruiser (a 1992 named Methuseleh with a broken control rod), Reuben's truck (a 1986 with no speedometer), and a taxi out past Loma Alta and on to the village of Rincon. The pool, apparently nestled deep within an unlabeled dairy farm, was unfortunately closed as the owner had fallen ill. We then drove on into the "Zona Urbana" of Rincon (a cow was eating grass next to the sign) to a thatch-roofed restaurant where our tables awaited. We were treated to a pig-roast (again confirming that they started cooking the meal even before we had been invited to the party) and other traditional Bolivian fare. No wonder there are so many gallbladders to remove.
Thursday was our last operative day and the clinic team was back working at the main hospital. Dr. Franz gave a noontime lecture on diabetes and hypertension while we ate cheese empanadas and drank orange Fanta. He had run into an old friend from medical school who is apparently living on a nearby dairy farm with her parents and looking for a full time job. She worked with us in the clinic that day. Her name is Cher (her father was apparently a fan). She invited us to go swimming that afternoon in the pool at HER dairy farm (apparently, this is becoming a trend) and, of course, she had already baked a cake for the occasion. Since we had been unable to swim the night before with the village people, we decided to take Cher up on the offer.
Cher picks us up at the hotel Ochotu and we again drive out on a bumpy road into the seemingly eternal Bolivian pastureland. We soon turn at an unmarked barbed wire gate and drive past her fields of cows and calves.
She is apparently in charge of rearing the 80 or so calves while other siblings and in-laws attend to other farm duties. We park next to the farmhouse and are soon picking blackberries (or something similar) from a tree and start fawning over the calves (ironic, I know) as they chew grass and moo at us. Soon, the roosters get in on the action and make their presence known. I agree with Jean, their crowing sounds much more like "Por Favooooor!" than cockadoodle doo.
The milking machine is down and Cher's sister and brother in law are busy fixing it, but not too busy to show us the milking barn. They eventually get it up and running, which is a good thing since some of the cows looked a bit full (that, or they were bulls with duplicate parts and sizeable hernias). Another brother hooks the cows up to the machine after hosing off their udders. He has a tee shirt on that says "I love my job."
We eventually settle down by the pool, which is actually quite a nice blue tile-lined pool, though it is only filled about two feet deep at this point. Perfect for lounging around with toddlers, though. Francis has brought his super-cute 2 year old (she keeps grabbing for my toes) and Cher's daughter Beyonce is swimming with her father, Norman. Norman is a motorcycle adventurer from Germany who was six years into circumnavigating the globe on motorcycle when he fell in love with Cher and settled down in Santa Rosa. A fascinating free-spirit who speaks six languages and has personally modified his own motorcycle to handle everything from the Serengeti to Patagonia.
Yoko, our nutritionist is also along, so I can now honestly say I have sipped coffee, in a pool, at sunset, with the trio of Cher, Beyonce, and Yoko, as well as a motorcycle riding German dairy farmer named Norman - not what I expected on a Thursday afternoon in Bolivia. I even got a goodnight kiss from Beyonce as we left.
Evenings like this are one of the unexpected blessings I encounter on these trips. Every person was a new treasure to enjoy, with stories to hear and uncanny points of commonality to discover. Nothing was rushed.
The sunset was phenomenal. The cake was made with home-grown blackberries and fresh cream from the farm. We are sad to cut things short now, but we have a date with the mayor for yet another municipal celebration (and of course another barbecue).
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Location:somewhere south of Santa Rosa
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