El fin de semana

Weekends here have taken on new meaning for Lisa and me.  Back at home, weekends weren’t necessarily free time.  Lisa’s job as a nurse has had her working at least one weekend a month since we’ve been married and my grad school schedule often required long weekend hours of reading and writing.  Admittedly, our work weeks were flexible…Lisa worked 12 hour shifts, three nights a week, and my classes only met two or three days a week, so we often had days off together in the middle of the week.

 But here I’m working Monday-Friday, so the weekends are our fun time: two whole days of not working at the archives, spending time as a family, relaxing, and exploring.  Weekends are also the best times to head to the market for the freshest fruits and vegetables, so we’ve been making that a regular Saturday morning activity.          

Our apartment is located equidistant from two large markets; Los Pozos and Mutualista.  Both are huge, rather overwhelming, and carry most anything a person could want.  Think grocery store + butcher shop + mall + hardware store + garden shop + pet shop + Walmart and voila!  However, you must also add noisy, dirty, smelly, hot and crowded to the equation.  In the meat section, rows and rows of whole skinned chickens and pigs hang, waiting to be purchased.  Butchers have whole sides of beef and cuts of different meats (as well as all the innards!) are lined up on counters.  Need a pirated DVD?  There are literally thousands to choose from.  Need your shoe fixed?  Shoemakers are lined up and ready to serve you.  

There are dozens of fruits and vegetable stands, both outside along the “sidewalk” and inside a big warehouse.  Vegetables are very cheap.  We bought one kilo of onions, one kilo of red potatoes, and three green peppers for 15 Bs., or just over $2.  Butternut squash and sweet potatoes are also easy to find.  Fruit is a little more expensive, especially apples, pears and grapes which are imported from Chile, Argentina, or other parts of Bolivia.  We’ve been buying lots of bananas for Eli (and us), as well as pineapples, watermelons, lemons, limes, etc…  Right now we have mangoes available on a tree in our backyard so we haven’t needed to buy any.  We haven’t been brave enough yet to buy any meat from the market.

Our other Saturday activity has been grocery shopping.  There is a decent grocery store 3 or 4 blocks from our apartment but we recently discovered another one with better selection a little farther away.  We usually walk or take a micro to the store and then get a taxi back with all our groceries in tow.  Some groceries here are quite expensive; milk, cheese, chicken, canned goods, and cereal.  However, eggs, juice, yogurt and ground beef are more reasonably priced, and items like bread, dried beans, rice and oatmeal are very cheap. Things that we take for granted, like peanut butter, olive oil, syrup (for pancakes!!) and a gallon of milk are either super expensive – like $4.50 for syrup – or nonexistent.  All milk in Santa Cruz is of the hyper-pasteurized variety and comes in either a 1 liter carton or plastic bag, which means it can sit on a pantry shelf for three months before being opened. 

This Sunday we went to a local Mennonite church, Iglesia Menonita Sinai, with MCC friends Ramont and Liz.  I visited Sinai when I was here during the summer of 2010, so the service today felt somewhat familiar.  It’s a smaller church of about 50 people with lots of children and youth.  A normal service at Sinai lasts about two hours with lots of singing, scripture reading and a good 30 min sermon.  Unfortunately, Eli was overdue for a nap so we had to leave right after church but it was wonderful to be able to worship again with a Mennonite congregation here in Bolivia.