Two weeks into the project and lots of changes.

When I went to work last Thursday work had not yet started but workmen were filling the driveway with pickup trucks. I did not get home until very late that evening. My husband had put up an orange snowfence so that I would not fall into the huge hole between the sidewalk and our back door. In the morning I could see the huge pile of dirt in the backyard and see that the forms for the footings were done. It was interesting discover what was left of the old cistern that was made of red bricks and cement.

Well, we’ve done it. We’ve signed a contract with a building remodeler and we have our building permit.

We will be redoing the kitchen, and getting rid of the flat roof above the kitchen by puting a bedroom above. We will also be adding a wraparound porch/entry/sunroom/gardenjunk room with arbors at each end. These will all be 8 ft. wide on the south end of the house with lots of windows but with an overhang to keep out the summer sun.

The price of groceries tripled today and many types of foods are completely unavailable, but that didn´t stop us from going to a salteñeria and then a Tarijan restaurant to eat some good traditional food with the extended family today. I had some cow tongue, ranga, pig skin, giant corn, aged potatoes, and keperi. We are all enjoying ourselves before the thousands of Massista marchers arrive. Very shortly, the city will be undergoing a kind of silent siege.

Well, things have calmed down somewhat. It´s really hard for an entire country to be this tense for this long. We are all waiting to see what will happen in Cochabamba today. Yesterday morning, four of the five prefects (the prefect of Pando is in La Paz right now being tried on charges of ¨genocide¨) agreed to commence with negotiations even though the prefect of Tarija was unable to reach an agreement in his peace-talks earlier this week. Both sides feel deep mistrust and anger about how things have panned out, but the average Bolivian is sick of uneasiness and fear.