Fin de Semana (Weekend)

Last week was short for me at school. On Tuesday my teacher, Jorge, had to leave after only an hour of my class and then on Thursday he canceled because he had a private lesson with a 12 year old girl, teaching her spanish. He is a little different teaching aproach...which includes homework! It is really hard. I sit with my dictionary wondering what the heck it all means. On Friday when I returned to school, about an hour into our class we heard BOOM...Pop, pop, pop. This is pretty normal for LaPaz. We hear this sound a lot. It indicated Marches. Some large, some small. But up until that day I had only heard the marches, hadn't seen one. So the noise was getting unignorably close and then we could hear voices yelling and cheering. I was like 'comon! let's go out there'. It's ok mom, we assessed the situation before getting close. :) We walked out of the school and they were walking right on the street in front. Teachers, marching for whatever. The police were ahead of the march blocking off the traffic. It was maybe 200 people. Very calmly walking down the center of the street. When we got out to the street the leader of the march let off another Boom, pop, pop, pop. There was a woman walking towards us with 3 year old girl at her side and the girl got so frightened! Just like sally would. It was so sad. But like I said, this happenes almost every day in various places around the city. We went back and continued our lesson.
Saturday morning was fun! We decided that we were going to go to the 'black market' and search for some sweaters for Doug and hopefully come across some alpaca stuff! We boreded one of the independent buses that takes us up to the Plaza San Fransisco. It costs 1Bs per person which ($1 to 7.5Bs) There are numerous buses that pass in front of our house every minute. And by 'bus' I guess I mean van. Toyota, honda, unknown...mini vans. They place cards in the window of where they are headed and you just jump in. There are also big buses that I think too are privately owned companies. There is person who sits and calls out the locations to the people on the street. We got off the bus at a place just past San Fransisco and walked up the hill. We didn't know exactly where we were going but Nora told us that there was alpaca near the Plaza. We took a couple of turns through some food markets and some frier kiosks (with hotdogs and hamburgers) and came upon some clothes... then we just were surrounded by clothes on both sides of the streets. Blocking the allies. In the street. We found it. I tried on fancy coats and warm coats but all of the arms were too short. I'm a tall American! I don't fit these clothes. :( I settled on a double padded poncho. I don't know if I like it, but it looks cool for south america and it'll keep me warm. We walked up hill some more and found some sweaters for Doug to try on. He too, was just a big long American. Nothing fit right. On our way down another gray brick road on the way to buy the food from our grocery list there was a man with a salten(y)a cart. Saltenas are pockets of baked dough with potatoes, eggs, meat and vegetables in them! yum. We bought 2 and Sally ate all of mine! She loves them. We put a cucumber onion and tomato salsa on top. Mmm. After that we entered into a doorway that brought us into indoor shops. ALL ALPACA! Yay! The stuff is beautiful and SO soft. There's a store at the Mall of America with alpaca and it's really expensive. Not here. So inexpensive, cuz it's made right here. Loved the hats, purses, bags, sweaters etc. I got a beautiful sweater, Doug got a scarf and sally got some little things. The women love sally here. They just want her to stay with them in their shops. It was a fun day. Once we got home and had naps, we went back to the market again. This time to the more touristy shops in buildings. It was still cool. There is just so much to buy.
Today, Sunday, we went to the street party again instead of church. There are 2 blocks of street that are closed down on Sunday mornings for artists and local buisnesses. It's so fun! Sally went through a toddler obstical coarse and won a rattle (which I think contains tiny little gum peices inside but sally hasn't figured that out yet). She screamed when we took her away from it so other children could have a chance! The 'teachers' for the child developement tent kept taking pictures of sally. I bought her some hand crocheyed shoes! Love em! $6. And we got some other fun stuff for family and friends. We sat and listened to a fun band and watched the adorable old indigenous people dance the coolest dace. Next time I can't forget the ipod to videotape it. Tomorrow is a new holiday for the Aymaran people. It is their new year. So I don't have school and Doug doesn't have work. We're having Nora come watch Sally so we can go to a midday movie.