Strangely Normal

Five Strange* Things About Bolivia:

1. The stray dogs. There are so many. Planted on every street corner. There is one that sits in front of my house all day ever day and looks ferocious.
2. The consumption of soda. This might actually be the same in the States, I don't know. But it's so weird to me that everyone drinks soda here instead of water. (Obvs. it's because the water here is not drinkable, but I am surprised that people substitute it with soda instead of something else)
3. Buses. Damn these Truffis. So many buses, no maps, no official routes, hella people, a lot of broken car doors.
4. The level of potato consumption. So. Many. Potatoes. Potatoes for days and days and days.
5. The response I have gotten from Bolivians who ask me where I am from. When I say United States I have gotten these responses thus far (all translated from Spanish to English):

Oh, what do you think about Barack Obama killing Osama Bin Laden?

You have really nice tripods... but they take too long to get here so we ordered ours from Israel.

You speak Spanish!?!

You are confused by the metric system, yes?

Five Relatively Normal** Things About Bolivia:

1. There is running, hot water, which I wasn't expecting (this is not a result of me being ignorant (for the most part), but a result of being told in our preparation class that there probably would not be). When I told my host mom I was surprised that all of our host families had hot water she was pretty shocked that I expected otherwise.
2. There are tacos here. Thank god.
3. Everyone is on facebook all the time. Walking past an internet cafe is like walking past Palo Alto's ideal advertisement.
4. There is a ton of political turmoil, almost entirely divided along socio-economic lines.
5. When I introduce myself to people, they have no idea what pronouns to refer to me with so they generally avoid talking to or about me at all costs.

*Strange in the context of me being a silly American.

**Normal in the context of things that I am used to.