My in-country experience felt just as much like a multi-country experience from start to finish. Beginning our journey at Sennott Square on Saturday at 6:30am, I don’t think any of us could have predicted just how long of a journey we were about to endure. Our first flight to Washington DC was slightly turbulent but nothing to report home about. The fun began once we reached Dulles Airport. After a quick 3-hour layover with some yummy lunch, it was announced that our flight would be delayed for 1 hour, leaving us with virtually no time once we got to Bogota to make our connection. Once we boarded the plane, we received the news that we would be delayed for another 3 hours, followed by a medical emergency meaning we wouldn’t arrive at Bogota until well after midnight and with no hotel accommodations prepared. I think this was a real testing point for our group, as we had not been through a challenging situation together, but we all seemed to be very optimistic about how nice it would be to get a bonus stop in Bogota on the way, as we would need to wait a full day for the next available flight to Bolivia.
After being able to spend a full day in Bogota when we were on the plane to Santa Cruz de la Sierra. Once we arrived there, late at night we had to go through immigration and then wait for our next flight to Cochabamba later that morning. The feeling of exhaustion that I had when I arrived in Cochabamba was some of the most severe, I have ever experienced in my 22 years here on this earth. It was all worth it though as almost immediately I began to enjoy and fall in love with the city of Cochabamba it’s lovely weather and wonderful food and not to forget the people. Monday is a bit of a blur but typically our days would begin with a trip to CEOLI, then typically we would have a cultural experience in the afternoon followed by a presentation from a local entrepreneur or professor. For me the highlight every day was almost always either our time at CEOLI or our time meeting with the locals who would give us the presentations. To highlight one that was particularly impactful, we had the opportunity to meet young entrepreneurs who worked on a financial technology app in Bolivia to help underserved communities receive cash back on their transactions. This was cool as I work for a technology startup here in the United States and I got to learn more about how the start-up culture is in Bolivia. I also enjoyed being able to hear from young people who are about the same age as I, but live on the other side of the world.
We had a number of speakers including the technology startup. On the first night we had a speaker who was a university professor in PhD specializing in sociology who discussed the political and economic shape of Bolivia today. This was interesting early in the trip as it helped to contextualize the business environment as well as the broader political environment within the country allowing us to act more aware during our time there. This presentation was incredibly interesting however after basically two nights of not sleeping it was incredibly challenging to stay awake through the entire presentation. Next, we got to speak to Augusto or Goose who is an entrepreneur who works with compostable packaged goods. He was educated in the US and spoke about his journey back in Bolivia. What was particularly interesting was to hear his perspective on how ineffective meritocracy can be in Bolivia. He said although he received a prestigious degree in the states, it would be extremely challenging for him to get a high-quality job in Bolivia without some sort of family connection. We also met a woman who worked on a sustainable fertilizer product. Beyond being better for the environment her company also had the social mission of protecting women from domestic violence through economic liberation. Finally, my favorite activity of the whole trip was getting the chance to visit our program manager, Ariel’s own introduction to English class and meet the students. He invited us to come visit and introduce ourselves and then allow the kids to be able to practice their English with us. I found this fun and engaging especially because it reminded me so much of a Spanish class in the US. We were each split off and then matched with 5-6 different students with varying abilities of English. Some were less shy and more willing to take risks vs some being totally averse to putting themselves out there. In the past, especially when I was younger, I think I would have been in the group that was more risk averse, but now especially after being on the other side of the table I would put myself out there.
Our work at CEOLI was split between working on the consulting project and doing community service. For the consulting project we had to work hard to get our deliverables reviewed and our questions answered in a timely manner to make sure we were not interrupting anybody’s work at CEOLI. This was an incredible time and I think it will guide the next five weeks of work effectively. For the service component of our project, we helped to repaint the kitchen which is going to be going through a makeover soon. It felt good to get our hands dirty and help CEOLI in an extremely tangible way. We also got to work hand in hand with the locals who were assisting CEOLI with the project. They were exceptionally positive and great leaders for our little mini project. Although I’m sure our project was relatively limited given that we were only there for a couple of hours completing it I’m sure that we were able to help save the team a lot of time and hopefully CEOLI some money. We also had the chance to sit in on one of the occupational therapist sessions with a student one-on-one, this was incredibly impactful being able to see the work they do in real time and how positive of an impact they can have on the students. I could talk about my experiences at CEOLI all day.
I think both my cultural and personal goals were somewhat met during the trip. On the personal side I wanted to experience the city of Cochabamba the wonderful cuisine and beautiful views. I’m very confident that I achieved this, and I would absolutely love to go back and visit Cochabamba again. One personal goal for me was to see something related to my family friends who are from Cochabamba. This was a smashing success as somehow numerous streets and hospitals are named after them. It was incredible to see their name on a street sign at an intersection we would regularly visit on the trip. One personal goal of mine that I didn’t achieve was running around the Plaza. For the most part our days were busy enough that I didn’t feel the need to get up early to go for a run. We were able to visit a couple of markets like La Cancha that was a valuable cultural experience. Truthfully, after experiencing a month-long trip to India I am substantially more comfortable in almost any chaotic situations. For example, La Cancha is a place that is small and chaotic compared to the US, but substantially more manageable than the most visitor friendly part of India.
One cultural difference that I thought was interesting and that didn’t directly cause any issues directly, but piqued my curiosity was the difference in strength of gender roles in Bolivia vs the United States. It was said to us that one of the most important things that CEOLI can market its service on is how most of their practitioners are women, and when explaining why that is important all the elaboration was just “son mujeres”. This was not a cultural difference that I had anticipated, although upon reflection I feel a little naïve for not expecting to see more differences in gender norms.
Looking back at the course readings and lectures, the article and following discussion that stuck out to me was our discussions of service-learning and community service. I think approaching service from a more comprehensive and culturally aware context allowed me to have both a larger impact on the community we supported but also positively impacted my learning. After rereading the “Comparing the Effects of Community Service and Service-Learning”, I feel like my personal outcomes mirror those of participants in the study. I doubt this time in Bolivia will have a substantial impact on my academic performance, however I do believe that it has helped build my values to be more global. Overall, having completed my final study abroad here at Pitt feels surreal. Picking colleges when I was 17 and being attracted to Pitt Business by its “to the world” mentality, it’s crazy to believe I had the opportunity to travel to Bolivia and India during my time in college. I feel incredibly grateful to all of the people who have made this journey possible.