CARNAVALLLLLLLL!

Since January 1st, 2010, the streets of Cochabamba have turned dangerous. People are driving in the heat with their windows rolled up, people are walking a little more briskly whenever they have somewhere to go by foot, and people are constantly on the look out for passerby's who look remotely suspicious. It's just far too common these days to brush shoulders with people armed with HUGE weapons, and civilians are being targeted around the clock.

There have been reports of armed civilians on buses...

...and even child soldiers walking the streets.

Yep...there's a BIG water war in Cochabamba...and we call it "Carnaval!"

Carnaval might be the most ridiculous celebration I've ever experienced. It's similar to Mardi Gras in the US but bigger. Carnaval was technically this past Monday-Tuesday, withe big parades and parties over the weekend until Fat Tuesday, but the biggest part of Carnaval in Bolivia is the water wars. At the beginning of the new year, people bust out the water balloons, and they don't stop throwing them until...well, I actually have no idea. They're still throwing them! Literally anywhere you're walking throughout January and February, you have a really good chance of getting wet. (Especially if you don't exactly look Bolivian!) Water balloons are sold on every corner for basically nothing, already filled and ready to hit victims, as are cans of foam to spray. Yesterday was Cochabamba's biggest day of celebration with a huge parade, lots of bands, and of course, more than enough agua. The main prado was absolutely packed with people soaked with water and foam!

Innocent little Cholita woman? I think not. You can see her green tub - that baby was filled with balloons that she was chucking over the wall!

At language school, we MAY have had a little water war ourselves...outside, inside, stairwells...you name it, it was wet.

Arming ourselves

Oh the fun of having a 2 story school!

FOAM!

Dr. Spears may have been targeted. Maybe she just got in the line of fire. Who's to say?

Sidenote - Lauren moved to Santa Cruz this weekend! We miss you, girl!

Back to business...over the weekend we had a lot of fun playing with water at House 1, too. I was under the impression we were going to have a little water balloon toss. Well, that lasted about 3 minutes...before our group of tias busted out the BATHTUBS full of water to drench ourselves with! This guy may have gotten so excited about the water war that he forgot his clothes??

Haha

By the end of the day, we were a little chilly but I can't think of a day when I've laughed so much!

Yesterday I took out a little boy for ice cream, and we landed ourselves in the middle of the parades. He wanted to see where the music was coming from and loved watching the bands.

He also mayyy have gotten to play with a can of foam...but not to worry, he had enough fun spraying it on trees to even think about spraying other people.