After months of anticipation, a sea of notarized visa documents, and enough REI gear to last me a decade, the day has finally come -- I'm leaving for Cochabamba, Bolivia today!
13 hours and 3,832.1 miles later, I will be arriving in the airport in Cochabamba and meeting up with the rest of the American students on my program as well as our academic directors. I'm doing an SIT program called Multiculturalism, Globalization and Social Change (quite a mouthful!). The program is centered on Bolivian history, focusing on the power struggles between the large indigenous population and the international pressures of large multi-national corporations and foreign governments.
Although the program is based in the city of Cochabamba in central Bolivia, we take weekend excursions to the tropical lowlands, the Andean altiplano, and El Alto (the largest indigenous city in Latin America!). We stay with host families in Cochabamba, and also spend a week with an Aymara family on the shore of Lake Titicaca or with a Quecha family in the Cochabamba family.
Although I've had qualms about doing an American study abroad program rather than direct enrolling and completely immersing myself, my two host families will hopefully be a helpful lens with which I can learn, experience and observe Bolivian life.
And another exciting tidbit - I'll be doing a part-time internship with an NGO started by a Mac alum called A Tu Lado. They focus on paramedical education, with the goal of integrating their classes into the local universities and creating a self-sustaining paramedic program. Part of this has included training Bolivian pilots that deliver services in remote Amazonian regions to have paramedic capacities.
I'll be collecting and analyzing mapping data from the emergency flight service and producing operational maps for the pilots with GIS (geographic information systems, basically computer mapping)! This will allow them to target the small communities that are in most need of basic medical services and to assess how resources should be distributed. SO SO COOL.
Can't wait to finally be there! Check back for more exciting updates from Cocha as well as pictures.
13 hours and 3,832.1 miles later, I will be arriving in the airport in Cochabamba and meeting up with the rest of the American students on my program as well as our academic directors. I'm doing an SIT program called Multiculturalism, Globalization and Social Change (quite a mouthful!). The program is centered on Bolivian history, focusing on the power struggles between the large indigenous population and the international pressures of large multi-national corporations and foreign governments.
Although the program is based in the city of Cochabamba in central Bolivia, we take weekend excursions to the tropical lowlands, the Andean altiplano, and El Alto (the largest indigenous city in Latin America!). We stay with host families in Cochabamba, and also spend a week with an Aymara family on the shore of Lake Titicaca or with a Quecha family in the Cochabamba family.
Although I've had qualms about doing an American study abroad program rather than direct enrolling and completely immersing myself, my two host families will hopefully be a helpful lens with which I can learn, experience and observe Bolivian life.
And another exciting tidbit - I'll be doing a part-time internship with an NGO started by a Mac alum called A Tu Lado. They focus on paramedical education, with the goal of integrating their classes into the local universities and creating a self-sustaining paramedic program. Part of this has included training Bolivian pilots that deliver services in remote Amazonian regions to have paramedic capacities.
I'll be collecting and analyzing mapping data from the emergency flight service and producing operational maps for the pilots with GIS (geographic information systems, basically computer mapping)! This will allow them to target the small communities that are in most need of basic medical services and to assess how resources should be distributed. SO SO COOL.
Can't wait to finally be there! Check back for more exciting updates from Cocha as well as pictures.
