It continues to amaze me how much Bolivian culture is centered around community. Family units rely completely on each other because they can't do it all on their own. Also, neighbors help each other out on a regular basis. For instance when the trash or gas trucks are near one can always hear at least one lady yelling to her neighbor informing her of that impending arrival.
I kinda like trash day and gas truck day. On trash day everybody has to take their trash to the truck. None of this leaving it out on the side of the road like in the States. If you think this is strange read my earlier post that discusses dogs. Therefore when I hear the clang clang of the trash truck I hurry out to the street corner with all the neighbors and give my trash to those heroic sanitation workers.
Gas truck day is a completely different story. Mostly in that the "clang clang" is a different pitch. The same lady yells to her neighbor (she has one of those voices that you can't tune out). And everybody takes their empty gas cans out to the street corner to get new ones. We were fortunate this morning that the gas truck came. We were pretty much out. There are few sights more wonderful than full gas cans (one can lasts 8-10 days for cooking and hot water, depending on all the variables that go along with that).
Community is so important here. We sometimes take for granted a lot of things. Here, nothing is taken for granted. We're reminded virtually every week how we are dependent on others. Since we don't have a car we rely on the taxi company to come pick us up (especially since the bus drivers are currently on strike). We were reminded of our reliance on them a couple weeks ago when we had to wait for 40 minutes for our taxi to take us to church.
We need to always remember how we rely on our neighbors and our community.
dave
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