Another Bolivian Experience

I returned from Brazil to find us in the midst of a gas shortages. This is a little more of a incovenience than in the States, because so many things here depend on gas. We have a gas dryer, a gas stove, a gas water heater, and a little gas stove that helps heat the house. Because of where we live now, we don't have a gas hook up to the city wide system, so we have to depend on the gas "garafas" or cans, that we get replaced every couple weeks. Josh ran all over town trying to find where we could replace our cans, and every place was out.

So we've been drying our clothes on the line, and showering the electric "ducha" (shower) to save hot water. Like Josh said, the most important thing is to have gas for the stove.

We finally talked to our Bolvian family, who told us of an "outlet" place that gets gas in every morning. But people start lining up at 5:00am to get their gas. So one morning, Josh got up, took the cans and went to stand in line. His cans were numbered 415 and 416. He waited for 2 hours, at which point, the people got made that they were waiting so long to get their gas and stormed the oulet place to make a blockade - at which point Josh left - he didn't feel like making a blockade and figured there was no order anyway so he probably wouldn't get his gas.

We drove by there a couple hours later - and they had resumed their places in line - but had made the line go across both major roads, so they could blockade and keep their place in line at the same time!

We finally decided it wasn't worth the headache to wait, so we paid the young man who works in our garden once a week to take our cans and wait for us. We got our gas today - hooray for hot water and machine dryed clothes!