I rode a cow

January 25, 2016

                This past weekend most of us volunteers were invited to the house of Jesús, David, Manfred, and Jahel, four brothers who happen to be great students at Familia Feliz. I was not sure if I wanted to go or not because the trip sounded very sketchy, but Darian, Candace, and Kevin seemed very excited about going so I figured if they can do it then I can too. Ashley very nicely volunteered to stay at the orphanage with the couple kids we have right now and the rest of us set out on our journey Friday morning.

                First it was a 4 hour taxi ride. Now in Bolivia there are not very many paved roads. So just imagine the bumpiest car ride you have ever been on and multiply that by 37,000 and that was our entire taxi ride. Not to mention that air conditioning does not exist here and it’s 1,000° hot so the windows were rolled down the whole time causing huge amounts of dust and dirt to enter the taxi with us. We were all orange when arriving at our destination. The journey to their house was definitely not over yet. We all sat on the side of the road at a house belonging to people that I think Miguel knows trying to stay in the shade. It has been EXTREMELY HOT lately and Friday happened to be one of the hottest days we’ve had yet. The temperature was 102° and the real feel was 122°. Yay.

We waited for about an hour because Manfred was supposed to be bringing us horses for the rest of the journey to their house. Apparently it is either a 6 hour walk or about a 4 hour horse ride from the house we were at to their house. None of us were about to walk for 6 hours in that heat (the first 5 hours of the trip is just open field, there is no shade.) Miguel finally said that we needed to start walking because we needed to get to their house before dark. Jonatan instead suggested that we ask this man if we could borrow his horses. None of us SMs were opposed to that idea so Jonatan did indeed walk over and ask a random man if we could borrow his horses. It worked out really well because apparently the man lives in the direction we needed to go and said we could ride his horses until we got to his ranch. He had 5 horses with him so Candace, Darian, Armando (one of our students that came with us) and I were all given our own horse which meant that Miguel, Kevin, and Jonatan would have to walk until we ran into Manfred with more horses for them.

The horse ride was very interesting. I honestly do not think that I can write about the horse ride well enough to do it justice, but I suppose I will try. Throughout the ride there were huge herds of cows close by and whenever we would pass by them they would all stare at us and sometimes even start following us. At one point a ton of cows started running (I have no idea why) and mine and Candace’s horses decided they would start running as well. It was a bit startling at first because I do not have too much experience with horses and it kind of felt like I would fall off because my huge backpack was making it difficult for me to sit in the saddle correctly. Not to mention, it kind of hurts a lot when a horse is trotting or cantering and you don’t know how to ride properly. But probably one of the funniest things in the world was turning around and seeing Candace screaming at her horse to stop running and looking so freaked out.

A little more than an hour into the ride we see Manfred and his cousin riding towards us bringing along 4 extra horses (not including the ones they were each riding.) We all pulled off to the side under the shade of some trees and they gave Jonatan a horse and Candace a new one. The random guy said his house was “más allá” and that we could continue to ride his horses until we got there. Manfred continued in the opposite direction to meet Kevin and Miguel (who had fallen way behind) with 2 horses for them. After eating some trail mix with many melted M&M’s that Darian brought back from the states and so kindly shared with us, we continued on in hopes that Miguel, Kevin, and Manfred would catch up with us later.

Our next stop was when we reached the random man’s ranch. I was really dreading this because this meant that somehow the 9 of us were supposed to share 6 horses. We dismounted the man’s horses and patiently waited for Miguel, Kevin, and Manfred (and also applied more sunscreen.) Once they got there we tried to figure out the best way to get us all on a horse and ended up working it out to where Candace, Miguel, and I had our own horses with a lot of the luggage and the others shared. Oh and fun fact. Apparently I was the most experienced rider of us girls (which is still hardly any experience) and the horse they gave me happened to be the one that the most experienced one of us was supposed to ride. And later I found out why. My horse was full of energy and just wanted to run and run. Right off the bat my horse ran to the front of the pack where Kevin and Manfred were leading. I made my horse slow down and just walk like the other horses and we all continued on in the heat.

Okay so new fun fact. We all ran out of water. Rather than lugging enough water for 7 people for the whole weekend (at the boy’s house they just drink out of a pond or something) we brought along Miguel’s Berkley water filter. But of course we weren’t going to fill it up until we were actually there. Anyways so for the trip so far we had all been drinking out of our water bottles that we had filled up before we left Familia Feliz that morning but now it was like 3:30 in the afternoon and still a lovely 122° so we were all out of water. Manfred said there was a place that we could stop at on the way to get water. He said the water was “feo pero sirve” which basically means the water is ugly but it works. Normally I definitely would not have drank that water but I was very very thirsty and knew we still had at least an hour of the trip left. Kevin and I stayed on our horses and Manfred went into this little house thing and filled up our bottles so I honestly didn’t even see where the water came from. But I drank it. The others soon caught up to us and most of them got water as well. We started back on our journey again.

Manfred told us we were maybe an hour away which was very comforting because I was sick of that journey. It was hot, I was still thirsty, I was hungry, I was tired of my horse walking me through trees, my legs and feet were disgusting from the mud/water splashing on me when my horse would walk through the puddles (which was frequently), and I was very sore from sitting on the horse for that long. Candace and Jonatan stayed up with Kevin and I this time and Manfred and his cousin randomly decided that they would walk the rest of the way. Maybe sharing the horses was uncomfortable and obviously Manfred thought we were a lot closer to his house than we really were. I was still leading the pack and decided to purposely trot with my horse. I tried this technique that Kevin explained to me about trotting and it hurt a lot less and was actually kind of fun! I saw Kevin start trotting behind me and was very happy because I didn’t necessarily want to go ahead all by myself. Well. The next time I turned around no one was in sight. Whoops. I guess Kevin didn’t want to keep up with me after all. But I decided that I really enjoyed traveling that quickly with my horse; it was exhilarating. So I figured what’s the worst that could happen and kicked my horse to pick up the pace.

So I think there is a huge difference between trotting and cantering. When my horse began cantering he got faster and faster and my feet came out of the stirrups and I began bouncing up and down and I think I almost flew off my horse. It was pretty scary. After just going back to normal walking for a bit I tried again and began to enjoy it and suddenly I realized that my backpack was a lot lighter. My horse and I stopped and I got off and walked back to pick up the things that had fallen out. Not too many of my things had fallen out (thank goodness) but 4 of my things did happen to land in one of those lovely mud puddles that I talked about earlier. The sheet I brought, my towel, one of my shirts, and my hairbrush. Great. As I was gathering my belongings Kevin, Candace, and Jonatan caught back up with me and basically just continued on. I squeezed the water out of my things and put them back in my backpack with my rain jacket in between them and the rest of my clothes. Miguel, Manfred, and Manfred’s cousin also caught up with me and I explained what happened. I then did something rather selfish. Since I thought we were a lot closer to the house than we really were I asked Manfred if he could carry my backpack so I could keep running with my horse because I liked running with my horse. He took my backpack from me and I was off.

I quickly caught back up to Kevin and the others and asked Kevin for another tip on how to canter. He explained it to me and I was off again. Like way way off. I got super ahead and before I know it everything goes from being open field to super swamp/jungle. I was literally traveling alone for like 2 hours (I don’t know what Manfred was talking about when he said at the water place that we were like an hour away). During these 2 hours alone my horse and I began to get eaten by mosquitos and flies which is super fun and I also got really super thirsty again and I also remembered that Miguel said that last time he went to their house he saw 2 alligators on the way so that was a little unsettling. I also began to worry that my horse didn’t know the way. The horse has to know its way to its own house right? I don’t know. Well, it’s debatable.

There was a little sign with some names on it pointing down a random path to the side of the trail and my horse decided to turn onto that path. I began to become filled with joy as I thought oh yes finally I’m there as my horse and I approached a house. I thought surely this was the boy’s house. We finally make it across the humongous yard and there are 2 ladies and a little boy standing there. I say something to the effect of “Hola! La casa de Jesús, David, Manfred, Jahel, y Diana?” And the lady said something to the effect of “Ah sí, su casa es más allá!” (which means yes, their house is farther over there) and points in the direction of the trail we had been on all day. She then asks me if I’m traveling alone and I told her no, that my horse likes to run and that my companions are behind me. She looked a bit concerned that I was alone but it was fine.

I began trusting my horse again as he started walking in the direction that she pointed in (after drinking a ton of pond water and eating some grass) but I honestly did start thinking about what would happen if my horse and I never made it to the boy’s house. It would have been bad, let’s just say that. As my horse and I begin our journey in the right direction again I hear a voice through the trees. It sounded like Jonatan, but I wasn’t sure. Then I heard another voice that sounded a lot like Candace. Then I popped out of this random part of the trail and sure enough, in front of me was Jonatan, Candace, and Kevin on their horses! I got so happy. When they saw me they were all super confused because last they saw me I was running into the distance with my horse and now I am somehow behind them. I explained my story to them and they said that I better stick with them from now on and I had no disagreements.

The rest of the trip was probably about an hour long (leaving the total horse ride at around 6 hours) and it was basically just Jonatan singing which oh my word how did I forget to mention that Jonatan literally sang for the entire 6 hours. Oh and we did pass an alligator in this little swamp thing. And a couple more random cows in the middle of the jungle. And then once we finally got on their property Candace’s horse got really excited and began cantering and she passed by both Kevin and I proudly exclaiming “Look guys! I’m doing it! I’m doing it!” only until moments later she fell off the side of her horse and we all died laughing once we knew she was fine. Apparently her backpack was falling off and in her words she decided to “abandon ship.”

Anyways as soon as we got there we made sure we filled up the water filter as we were all about to die of thirst and we all kind of just sat around for a little bit. Within about 20 minutes the others arrived and we all had a lovely little reunion. Wow sorry that was a lot of writing and literally that was just the trip there. Very soon after getting there I did what was probably one of the least pleasant things of my life. Shower with Darian and Candace around a little pump with a bucket and no soap in the dark. Now the reason this was probably one of the least pleasant experiences of my life is because of the mosquitos mostly. THERE WERE SO MANY. And we didn’t have clothes on because we were showering. So it was basically like we were saying, “Hey mosquitos, here’s a free body for you to come bite anywhere you want so please come bite me.” Literally every 5 seconds you would hear 1 of us yell OW and then hear a SMACK. Oh and then the soap. Candace had brought these little soaps from hotels that Union College sent her and we were all going to share them for the weekend, but apparently she forgot to bring them out to the pole with us. So yeah we all just ended up wetting our bodies and that was our whole shower for the day.

February 19, 2016

So yeah, it’s not January 25 anymore. I got really lazy and didn’t want to finish writing about the trip and then got super busy because all of the crazy kids came back and we’ve been having class and working a lot and I realized I still have not blogged since October. Sorry. Back to the trip at the boy’s house, a shorter version. When we were there we mostly all just sat around outside and talked and relaxed and swung in hammocks. Sleeping was terrible both nights because it was either sleep in a hammock and get eaten alive by mosquitos or sleep in a little 2 person tent straight up on the ground. Like we definitely didn’t have any sleeping pads or sleeping bags or blankets so it was basically just like sleeping on the hard ground with rocks. Also it was SUPER hot and in the tent probably a million times hotter so I didn’t get much sleep either night. Something really exciting though about this trip is that I rode a cow. Yes, I RODE A COW. My life’s dream: complete. It was on Saturday right after we had a worship all together. Miguel told the boys that Teacher Courtney really wants to ride a cow so they went out and got a cow that they thought would be best for me to ride, Flor. All of the other SMs were super excited for me because they all know how much I love cows and how I basically just came along on this trip because of the possibility of being able to ride one, so they all followed along to take many pictures.

So first when I tried to get up on the cow as soon as I jumped on it started running. But I wasn’t completely on it yet. So it was kind of hilarious but kind of scary because I was hanging off just holding onto its side as it was running and as everyone was dying of laughter. After that was over, David and Jesús helped me get on Flor again but this time she didn’t run. I sat on her and everyone took pictures and then David smacked her butt and made a noise and she started running again. This time it was okay though because I was actually sitting on her. It was so fun and I was smiling so big the whole time as was on her and I’m really happy I had that experience. After a while, Candace, Darian, and Kevin all also decided to have experiences with the cow which was fun for everyone.

That’s basically all the excitement of the trip and how everything went down. On Sunday, Miguel, Kevin, David, the boy’s little sister, and I left at 5:30 in the morning to try and beat some of the heat and honestly the trip wasn’t too terrible this time. Instead of taking 6 hours, our horses did it in 4 hours and also without the sun beating down on us the whole time everything was just a lot better. The taxi ride still sucked a lot, but it was okay because we were all excited to get home to our showers and beds at Familia Feliz. It’s crazy how I actually look forward to cold showers now. It’s crazy how much I love my bed inside my little bug tent now. It’s crazy how I really look at this place now as my home.