This is from my friend Jenny, another volunteer. Note that 1) snacks come before medical attention, and 2) no one is surprised.
Ahh, Bolivia:
..I got on my normal train at 2am from San Jose to Santa Cruz. I fell somewhat asleep until I was woken up by the intense bumping and terrible train sounds. Then I woke up to see all my stuff from the right side of the train fall and smash into all the people sitting on the left side of the train. Then we were stopped. No one seemed to be getting upset or freaked out at all which I was more in shock about than this train problem. Well the people in charge started yelling not to move or we would tip the train over. This is when I started to wake up enough to notice that out car was almost completely sideways. People slowly starting getting out of the train one by one with the help of the guys who were pulling us out of the train. Of course my pants got stuck and I was sort of hanging from the train there for a second but the some nice guy caught me. The car behind mine was even worse and was completely sideways and the people were climbing out the windows. Somehow during all of this no one was hurt, no one seemed to express anger or fright, or even annoyance. The Bolivians just seemed to take it as oh damn our train crashed time to hang out and wait. I was thinking holy shit I was just in a train wreck this is so cool and crazy.
When the sun came up after an hour of our crash at 5 it started getting hot. So the Bolivians started making fires which I thought was weird since it was so hot already and who packed for food for the BBQ but then I noticed we didn't have any food for that and someone informed me it was to keep away the killer mosquitoes who were eating us alive. Then the Bolivians started picking these huge leaves from the brush and wearing them on their heads like hats to keep cool. After about 6 or 7 hours I was getting annoyed and the novelty of the crash had worn off but I still didn't seem to see any Bolivians complaining. We finally were given some water and a piece of bread about 7 hours in and finally after 9 and a half hours of waiting a train from the other direction came and picked us up. They handed out fried chicken and rice to us and now after 9 and a half hours sent around doctors to check and see if we were all right. We endured the next 5 and a half hours on the train to the bridge near Santa Cruz where they then transferred us to buses to take us the rest of the way. Meanwhile feeling pretty nasty and tried a camera crew and news woman ran up to me and started interviewing me about the crash. I felt so gross and tired I pretended not to speak Spanish and they went away eventually. So at 7 p.m. we finally arrived in Santa Cruz only 11 hours later than expected.
FUN FACT/QUOTE OF THE DAY: "My host mom gave me a gun to shoot the donkey that keeps coming into my courtyard."
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