Tear gas, strikes, and other such craziness

Made it to Cochabamba. I don't know what the Lonely Planet was on about, the road was fine. It took a very long time though, which was less than pleasant on a bus full of campesinos (peasants) who, with all due respect to their culture and traditions, smelt like they hadn't had a bath in a week.

With the sun blazing through the bus windows and heating up the stale air, I was feeling very hot and stuffy in jeans and a t-shirt. Yet next to me sat an indigenous, sun-browned woman with impossibly long black pigtails joined together at the ends with blue ribbon wearing enough layers to overheat an Eskimo. At least I hope they were layers, otherwise she must have been morbidly obese. She had on at least three pleated skirts and as many woolly cardigans, with thick woolly tights underneath, and little pointy shoes on her surprisingly large feet. I suppose all these layers did serve some purpose; I saw her retrieve a money box, a mobile phone and her lunch of meat and rice from the folds of her skirts. Oh, the contradictions of tradition and modernity. She was also carrying a huge bundle of God knows what (her entire life and family, it looked like) wrapped up in a huge bright pink, green, blue and yellow patterned blanket.

I got my first taste of the chaos of Cochabamba as soon as I arrived, when I had to wait nearly an hour in the bus terminal to be picked up because political demonstrations in the city centre were holding up the traffic.

I got my second on Sunday at the weekend football match between Wilstermann (named after some German aviator, I forget the connection exactly) of Cochabamba, and San José. The football wasn't too bad actually, and ended 1-1. But most exciting to watch was the crowd. The stadium is smaller than those I've been in so far, and had only concrete steps for seats, but the fans were even crazier than those in Ecuador and Argentina. The hardcore fans, again, were in clearly demarcated sections, all wearing team colours, bouncing up and down, chanting constantly, waving their arms (and their t-shirts) and letting off flares (!) of the colour of their team . There were balloons and confetti everywhere, as well as the debris that they were hurling all over the place. It was quite spectacular, but it all passed without too much trouble. Until, that is, when towards the end of the match the people seated in the away team section all suddenly rose from their seats and clambered frantically away from a spreading cloud of white smoke in the middle of the stand. I've never seen a crowd split so fast. At first looked like the smoke came from another flare. It seemed very odd, and I couldn't figure it out, until one of the volunteers I was with mentioned the words 'tear gas'. "Ooh, never seen that before," I thought, with curiosity. A few minutes later, we too were clutching jumpers to our faces with stinging eyes and noses and fleeing the stadium with everybody else. Outside, it was chaos. There were hundreds of people running in every direction, and there were armed police everywhere too. Some were in riot vans driving slowly down the streets with their guns at the ready, sirens blaring, and - scariest of all - firing tear gas into the crowds. Meanwhile, two of our group had been pickpocketed during the frenzy. It was exciting, but in such an unfamiliar and schocking situation I also found myself quite scared.

Cochabamba is a nifty city though. Despite being the third largest in Bolivia there are only about 60,000 inhabitants, so it feels more like a town to me. It seems more modern than La Paz, with plenty of high-rise offices and hotels as well as restaurants, cafés, shops, gyms (one of which I have to get round to joining)... Though there are of course the classic cobbled streets, pretty buildings and impressive plazas of the colonial era, as well as blind street beggars, hundreds of empanada stalls, bustling markets, and plenty of gringo-oriented souvenir stalls selling alpaca items, bright Bolivian textiles, and those crazy-coloured stripey cotton trousers that are everywhere in South America. They look like appallingly tasteless pyjama bottoms; none of the locals wear them and no self-respecting European would be seen dead in them at home, yet every gringo I've encountered seems to own a pair and wear them every other day. I finally succumbed this weekend and bought a more modestly coloured pair (black and brown) for all of about two English pounds, though I haven't brought myself to wear them in public yet.

The location is impressive too. I forget what cocha means, but bamba means valley in Quechua, and accordingly the city is located in a beautiful fertile valley. The views from the higher stands of the football stadium are pretty incredible; not only do you have a great view of the pitch, but all around are green mountains. Atop of one of the hills closer to the city is perched a giant white statue of Jesus - the biggest Jesus in the world apparently, bigger even than the Jesus overlooking Rio. It glows different colours at night, and apparently you can climb up into Him and walk into His arms. There has even been the occasional suicide from His armpit.

I've settled in to my new home, a lovely detached bungalow in the northern suburbs of the city with a garden - perfect for sunbathing. The family seems great, if a little crazy. Cristina is very mothering (smothering, almost) but really friendly, and her husband Germán is full of interesting information about the history and politics of Bolivia. The two daughters, Pamela and Vanessa, are really nice but don't seem to do very much except watch TV, spend hours on the computer, and sleep. There are also two cute little dogs and a beautiful white and ginger cat. Two other volunteers, Marie-Anne and Amelia, were living in the house but left last night. It was useful to have them around to show me a bit of the town and introduce me to the other volunteers, who as I feared are mostly pre-university gappers. They're lovely people and great fun but, although it makes me sound old and pompous, they do annoy me a little with their insecurities and niaivities, associating only with the other volunteers, speaking only English, worried only about going out every night and spending half of these nights dancing with different boys/girls and then whinging about what they're going to do about their girlfriend/boyfriend back home.

Similarly, being a volunteer for Teaching and Projects Abroad (or TAPA) feels a lot like going back to high-school. I've been accompanied to and from the office, had a city tour, been given sheets of rules and regulations and what to do in various situations, and explained the dos and don'ts of being here. If you believe what they tell you, Cochabamba is riddled with gringo-traps. On only my first day I put myself in grave danger by walking into town via the bridge between the northern suburbs and the centre, because under the bridge live gangs of scary evil glue-sniffers that prey on unsuspecting tourists. "You went into town on your own??" asked Marie-Anne and Amelia incredulous of my bravery. "How did you know where to go??" I'm not allowed to eat anything from the streets in my first week to protect my delicate stomach (despite having done so without problems for several months now), I'm not allowed to cycle along the cycle tracks or walk outside of the safe zones in the centre of the city, and if I ever want to take a taxi I have to call one of a few selected companies. Heaven forbid I use one from the street. Taking time off from work is strictly forbidden, and any weekend travel has to be carefully planned to the finest detail and cleared with TAPA. I have to inform my host family of my every move, and tell them when I will return home.

On the other hand, it is nice to have a good bunch of gringos to mix with, and the staff at TAPA, if a little over-protective and patronising, are lovely people. When I protested that I can't leave Bolivia without seeing the salt flats, for which I'd need at least 4 full days and therefore time off work, my supervisor Ximena suggested that, in return for writing a related article and keeping it hush-hush from the others, time off can be arranged. Definitely the best thing about arriving in Cochabamba is being able to unpack properly. No more living out of a top-loader backpack with way too much stuff to fit inside it: I've got two months of permanent residence ahead of me. Unless I get kicked out for talking to a stranger or something. My family have already commented critically that I've been out every night since I got here. (I've been out twice, and got back at 10.30 on one of those occasions.)