El Principio

As some of you may know, I will be in La Paz, Bolivia for 7 weeks (May 19th-July 6th) completing a summer marketing internship at a software company called Colosa Inc. After my first experience in Latin America, an 8-week summer civic engagement program in Guatemala through Duke University called DukeEngage, I came to deeply appreciate everything about Spanish culture - the language, food, music, friendly people, etc.

I knew I wanted to return after graduating from Duke, since this is my last opportunity to travel before starting a full-time marketing job in July. So, when I received an email about this internship from the Duke study abroad email listserv, I jumped on the opportunity, and here I am! Getting here certainly wasn’t easy – I didn’t know that US citizens must buy a visa upon arrival to Bolivia, and must bring a passport-sized photo with them for it (along with $135), so I wasn’t allowed to board the plane in Miami and had to stay overnight until the next flight out the next day. Woops! Then after getting here, I was told that one of my suitcases was sent to Santa Cruz, Bolivia instead of La Paz. Get it together, people! So let’s hope my suitcase turns up, I improve my rusty Spanish, and my internship gets off to a good start!

I’ll try my best to keep these posts short and to post every now and then (even though there’s no wifi in the apartment), so bear with me. And in case you’re wondering, the title of this blog is “Emilia in Bolivia – Finding Peace in La Paz”.

Buenas noches,

Emilia