Airport and Alasitas

Recently I accompanied a Rotarian who is a professor of Statistics on a trip to the airport at 5:30 in the morn. We were going to send off a young boy who was going to New Jersey for a heart operation entirely sponsored (travel, operation, etc.) by New Jersey and Bolivian Rotary clubs. Although we missed the boy and his father(they got to New Jersey from what we understand), I ended up spending the day with Ruben and his family. He let me finish up some reading in his office, I went to the Alasitas Mercado with his wife and her sisters, and then they invited me to eat a traditional Bolivian meal with their family. It consists of a steak filet (although this is a recent addition to the tradition), maiz( we’re talking big kernels here), the equivalent to lima beans, a delightful soup of meat, mint, potatoes, barley-eqsue heartiness, and potatoes harvested in the altiplano.
Alasitas is a molded version of the indigenous market which now means ¨buy me.¨ If you buy little trinkets you might have good luck in finding those trinkets in real life. For example, a rooster is for a boyfriend, fake money is for making money, plane tickets are for a trip, a fake degree is to graduate, etc. etc.
See some pics....