4. LaPaz 1932; Building Our Own Home
	Building our home Tiahuanacu suburbs-Alacitas School Games   Happy Memories Our Bolivia Home 1928-1936	In 1932 the Bells came back from their furlough and Dad's efforts were devoted to supervising the completion of the new primary school building along with teaching physics and chemistry in secondary school. [The Becks left for a years furlough. On returning, Nelson was full of the wonders of the Chicago World's Fair.] By now the John and Zella Hallets had arrived. John directed the commercial school (four years after primary) and Zella taught English. They had two children: Wilbur (two years younger than I) and Marian about three years old. Nelson Beck, Wesley and I were the "gang of three" and eventually Wilbur made it the gang of four. We also had several other American boys our age to visit. The Blocker boys, the Tamplin boys, Jonathan and David (Western Friends or Quakers) and Bernie Desports, the son of the USA diplomataic legation secretary in Bolivia. I guess Bolivia didn't rank high enough in those days for a full diplomat.
		In 1932 Dad began the building of our home on the eastern side of the campus. The site was about a 20 degree slope next to a walkway and at the bottom there was room for an extensive garden area and chicken and rabbit pens, next to the school laundry building. The construction was the "usual" adobe walls with periodic pillars of cast reinforced concrete. The house was to have a full basement and a single story living area of about 40x60 feet. Material excavated from the hillside was used to make adobes. This was screened clay soil to which was added a 4 to 5 inch long ichu grass (from the mountains) and the mixture was worked into a thick mud and pressed into wooden adobe forms which were carefully removed. The adobe forming area was always coated with a thin layer of taquia ash so that the half dry adobes could be lifted to one side to continue drying. The process required about one week of drying before the 10x20x4 inch adobes could be used in building. After the basement excavation was complete, concrete foundations were poured. All concrete was prepared on the spot. Sand and gravel was delivered by small donkey caravans of 10 to 16 animals carrying four sacks each. Cement was manufactured near La Paz and delivered by truck. Mixing the concrete required a sizeable sheet metal boat and a lot of cross mixing and taking the concrete to the foundation forms. After the concrete cured for a week or so, a clay mud plaster was used to bond the adobe layers. Work on the house seemed to proceed at a snail's pace. The construction boss used to pace around the building saying: "trabaja, trabaja, trabaja (work). El que no trabaja no come." (He who doesn't work doesn't eat). We used to imitate him, out of hearing range. The house had a french tile roof. Dad took us over to the tile factory. These flat tiles with ridges for overlapping were wired to the wooden roof supports and trusses. I think we moved into the house by early 1933 and did a lot of the interior finishing ourselves. The entrance was to the large living room. The master bedroom door was in the living room. The middle bedroom was Marian and Margaret's. The bathroom was between the middle and end bedroom where Wes and I lived. The kitchen was also fairly large and included a breakfast nook (8x8 feet) with a built-in table and bench seats on either side. The south outside end of the kitchen was offset with a doorway to the basement stairs and a doorway to Wesley's and my bedroom. Dad built most of the cabinets in the house, the bedroom closets and the living room bookcases and cabinets. There were lots of windows in every room, mostly six glass pane, hinged to open for some ventilation. The kitchen stove was a typical cast iron six plate unit with hot water coils in the fire box and a sizable oven. The kitchen stove provided the only heating in the house and we burned taquia as the main fuel, although we kept a supply of eucalyptus kindling and some larger wood for special hotter fire. The basement had a concrete floor and wooden support columns along the middle. We had a large taquia bin, possibly 8x12 feet by 3 feet high to store a 4 to 6 weeks supply of fuel. There was a laundry area with tubs and an electric washing machine with wringers that could be moved from washing to rinsing water tub. We also had a nice shop in the basement and a play area and garage for the car. The entrance side of the house had a six foot wide porch facing north with nice granite steps down to a walkway. We had gardens near the entrance and on the west (upper side) of the house and on the east side of the basement levels. Our main flower and vegetable garden was somewhat north and east of the house, surrounded by a protective wall. A circular driveway led from the house level down between the walled garden and the lower garden to the basement garage door. The exterior finish to the house walls was a red-brown lime-cement-sand plaster over a chicken wire grid fastened to the adobe walls. The plaster finish was "picked". After application a tool was used to form small indentations to create a semi-rough finish. All the window sills and lintels were cast concrete. The gutters and downspouts were galvanized steel. The flower gardens included nasturtiums, pansies, carnations, snapdragons, marigolds and geraniums. A double row of geraniums was established along the wide walkway, going up the hill from the house to the Clinicia Americana. In the walled garden we could grow sweetpeas to six feet tall and had terraces for growing artichokes. We also grew beans, peas, swiss chard, asparagus and potatoes. Mother was the head and experienced gardener and I was the apprentice.
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	Tiahuanacu Bill & Marian Tiahuanacu Marian & Bill Tiahuanacu Bill & Marian Tiahuanacu little boys	Going back to school days. I think it was while in fourth grade in the new primary school building, there was an all school trip to the Tiahuanacu pre-Inca ruins on a Saturday. We left La Paz by train on the route to Guaqui, the port on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca. Tiahuanacu dates back to 500 B.C. or before and the Aymara speaking people were believed to be descendants of that civilization. The ruins are a short distance from Guaqui. The main attraction was the Puerta del sol or door of the sun and many large monolith statues in several locations. Huge walls had gradually fallen over, possibly from earthquakes. About 50 or 60 students and many teachers were given a guided tour of the ruins: a lesson in Bolivian history. All the while a picnic dinner was being prepared of roasted lamb, potatoes, salads, cakes and cookies. The smell of roasting lamb with garlic and aji (Bolivian red pepper) is still with me. When I passed through the food line I noticed that the moso (male servant) serving the lamb was already a friend and he told me to come back later and he would save me a nice shank piece. I did and wrapped it in my linen napkin and put it inside my jacket. Back in La Paz, we were still living in the residence building and I had shank of lamb for two days or so. The years in primary school were also full of events, Saturday hikes, traditional festivals, national holiday parades and boys and girls games. Gladys Herschel liked to take us on half-day hikes or "excursions" within the La Paz basin. Amerinst was nearly on the southern edge of the city in l932. If we left from the top of Landeta street we were soon in the country side of small farms and roads that gradually went up hill to a few larger fincas and some open grazing land dotted with pampas grass and flocks of sheep and goats. About five or six kilometers in this direction there was a small lake called Tembladerani. In the rainy season (January) it filled up completely and we could see many cactus species in bloom along with newly hatched polywogs from the native toads. Nobody seemed to own this lake and there were grassy places where we could have a picnic lunch. We always carried our own drinking water in canteens. At one end of the lake we could dig a very clean fine clay for modeling or sculpturing. I usually took an old leather book or school pack sack and filled it with clay. The lake also had quite a lot of totora reeds growing near the banks. These were used locally for making mats to sleep on and reed baskets. Another easy half-day hike was to take the city street car (Tranvia) powered by an electric drive and and overhead runner on the power lines, and go down hill (east) to the end of the line in Obrajes. This suburb was probably l000 ft. lower than the city center and had a lot of resort homes. Eventually the Clinica Americana was moved to Obrajes and built much larger and more modern. From Obrajes we could hike to Calacoto, further down the road. This area had many dairy farms and eucalyptus tree-lined main roads and a nice park where we could buy refreshments. Again we always took our own water because the river that drained the whole La Paz basin was quite polluted. Beyond Calacoto you could hike in several directions toward Mt. Illimani (22,600 feet) or lower peaks like "El Diente del Diablo" or the Devils Tooth. If we went through the downtown part of La Paz and went north, you came to a suburb called "Miraflores" or look at flowers. This area had most of the ceramic or brick and tile industry but eventually was the site of the largest stadium and athletic complex in the city, including an Olumpic size covered swimming pool, Finally if we went up the city, westward, you passed through the largest Aymara neighborhood and the railway station and yards. These were large walled blocks for holding mule trains or llama herds bringing produce or taquia to the city. The most interesting native festival held in a large market area in the last neighborhood was Alacitas, or the fair of little things. This fair was held at the "big" harvest times, usually mid January, and was devoted to arts and crafts, musical instruments, household goods, ceramic products, textiles, hand made products of all kinds. The Aymaras are great miniaturists. It was said that the population of La Paz doubled between the week of Alacitas and that of Carnaval, the week before Lent. I usually bought pan pipes, flutes and toy llamas or balsas, the reed boats of lake Titicaca, We could also buy beautiful native copper, silver and ceramic things.
	"Traga Vientes" enroute to Chaco, Yungas Herricks & Weplers	Also at about this time, the school needed a good transport vehicle. Dad was able to buy a new Ford Model C, 4 cylinder chassis with everything but the cab and school bus structure. This truck was built for high altitude and was very powerful at the 2.5 ton carrying capacity. Dad designed and built the superstructure which had a convertible transport area with long bench seats that folded down when carrying passengers or were raised up if more room was needed for transport. The cab seated three comfortably or four if necessary. This "school bus" soon earned the name "Traga Vientes" or swallows the wind, because of the large open spaces in the cargo space. In primary school there was a variety of boys and girls games, very seasonal and competitive. There seems to be only a few comparable amusements in the USA grade schools. Boys had the most variety and the word "diestro" meant that you were very good at the game. Platillos was based on coin pitching to a line or wall, except the tossed objects were nicely flattened pop bottle caps (or beer bottle caps). The street car rails were ideal places to make platillos. My collection usually was about l00. During recess or before school started the contest was to pitch the platillos one at a time to a line about 2 meters away or to a wall. The owner of the platillo closest to the line or wall got to keep all of the "coins" tossed in each round. This game was really based on an ancient game called Sapo or a frog with an open mouth, on a table with several divisions and holes. Men pitched silver coins at some distance from the table and kept score. If you got in the frogs mouth you won the jackpot. Another competitive game was playing with Chocas, sometimes called Mexican Yoyos in the USA. The Bolivian chocas were very sophisticated and usually hand made. The vertical peg part was held in your hand and was attached to a short tubular and weighted part with a suitable cord. The idea was to swing the top part and get the peg to fit into the tube. Then you could swing the combinations to tumble the tube back on the peg. The contest was to see how many times you could do the tumble before missing the peg. Some boys were diestro enough to get l00 or more tumbles. Top spinning was also a fine art. Hand made conical tops as large as 3 inches in diameter with a 3 inch long stem were carefully wrapped with special cords and spun on a hard dirt surface. The top-marble game was based on drawing a rough 3 foot in diameter circle and all players placed glass or ceramic marbles in the center. You then took turns spinning your top, picking it up and trying to knock the marbles out of the circle (to keep). Some top experts could pick the spinning top up at least three times and had canvas bags of marbles to demonstrate their luck. Simple marble games were also popular. Again a circle was made and marbles for each player placed in the center. We then used our favorite "shooter" to knock other marbles out of the circle. You had to keep your shooter on the ground all the time. In marble golf, a course of nine or ten holes were punched in the ground. From the starting line you could throw the marble towards the first hole, after that you had to keep your shooter on the ground until you got into the first hole, Then you could throw it again towards the second hole. Score was kept like in golf. Kite flying was usually in the July dry season. Kites were usually quite small, with cloth tails. Good kite string was expensive. Amerinst had large play fields where we could get the kites up. Sending messages up to the kite on pieces of paper was one contest. I recall one time one of the boarding school boys got about 50 messages up. Another less pleasant game was to dog- fight with kites. Razor blades were attached to the kite frame and the trick was to cut your opponents string or shred his kite. Girls games were fewer but quite competitive. Jumping ropes of all types were available. I remember a record of 500 jumps for a primary school girl. Games like "jacks" were popular where a little ball was bounced and you picked up marbles, stones or little sticks between bounces. Girls also liked the swings and the skating rink. Our singing classes were held in the skating rink where there was a small building to house a piano to accompany learning the patriotic songs and favorite Bolivian or Spanish folk songs. Recess snacks were available morning and afternoon. A variety of sodas were available, mostly based on fruit flavors. A species of papaya that wasn't eaten made a good juice base for the soda called "papaya". On the warmer afternoons there were sherbet cones or frozen fruit punch on a stick. On colder mornings there were empanadas, saltinas and umintas prepared by a contract bakery. Also, lots of candy items and a local native sugar taffy. Most of the suckers were colored but had the same flavor. When asked what flavor we had, we usually replied: red or yellow or orange.
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