Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Kimi's new blog
Check out Kimi's new blog at http://www.travelingkimi.blogspot.com/. Photos are still at flickr.com/photos/kimigary.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
You know you're in Bolivia when...
While waiting for our train with Jen and Andrew, we composed a few lines of "You know you're in Bolivia when..."
- you order a litre of beer and a ten-year-old serves it to you, popping the top like he does it every day.
- at your local store, you are given a few pieces of candy in lieu of change.
- restaurants run out of food by 1 p.m.
- stores close from noon until 2, or later.
- when you run out of gas for your kitchen stove, you have to listen for a truck with guys banging on gas tanks, which could take several days while your meal gets cold.
- you stay in a hotel room in the winter at 16,000 feet altitude, and there is no heat.
- a bill worth $1.13 is too large to spend.
- your main goal when you go to the market is to hoard as much change as you can.
- you are pickpocketed and your biggest disappointement is that you lost all the change you had been hoarding.
- you can get a three-course meal for $1.50.
- the same CD is playing on any bus.
- to get some local news on any given day, you can go to the plaza to see who is protesting.
- people in the plaza pay money to receive flyers and pamphlets from activists who are tabling.
- people have read their constitution.
- when you take a collective taxi, you ride with 11 other people in a Toyota hatchback for four hours before reaching your destination.
- you have to look both ways before crossing the sidewald because you might be hit by a motorcycle.
- cars have the right of way over pedestrians, but are more curteous to dogs, and stop lights are optional.
- when a motorist almost hits a pedestrian, the motorist yells at the pedestrian.
- for two weeks a year, it's completely acceptable to throw water balloons at any woman on the street, and even to dump buckets of water on her.
- fresh vegetables are much cheaper to buy than processed food.
- you can buy more than 200 varieties of potatoes, and they're best at your local market!
- you make the shower hotter by decreasing the water flow.
- you are glad to see a squat toilet.
- you can buy fresh squeezed orange juice on the street for 25 cents.
- you order a litre of beer and a ten-year-old serves it to you, popping the top like he does it every day.
- at your local store, you are given a few pieces of candy in lieu of change.
- restaurants run out of food by 1 p.m.
- stores close from noon until 2, or later.
- when you run out of gas for your kitchen stove, you have to listen for a truck with guys banging on gas tanks, which could take several days while your meal gets cold.
- you stay in a hotel room in the winter at 16,000 feet altitude, and there is no heat.
- a bill worth $1.13 is too large to spend.
- your main goal when you go to the market is to hoard as much change as you can.
- you are pickpocketed and your biggest disappointement is that you lost all the change you had been hoarding.
- you can get a three-course meal for $1.50.
- the same CD is playing on any bus.
- to get some local news on any given day, you can go to the plaza to see who is protesting.
- people in the plaza pay money to receive flyers and pamphlets from activists who are tabling.
- people have read their constitution.
- when you take a collective taxi, you ride with 11 other people in a Toyota hatchback for four hours before reaching your destination.
- you have to look both ways before crossing the sidewald because you might be hit by a motorcycle.
- cars have the right of way over pedestrians, but are more curteous to dogs, and stop lights are optional.
- when a motorist almost hits a pedestrian, the motorist yells at the pedestrian.
- for two weeks a year, it's completely acceptable to throw water balloons at any woman on the street, and even to dump buckets of water on her.
- fresh vegetables are much cheaper to buy than processed food.
- you can buy more than 200 varieties of potatoes, and they're best at your local market!
- you make the shower hotter by decreasing the water flow.
- you are glad to see a squat toilet.
- you can buy fresh squeezed orange juice on the street for 25 cents.
Tupiza and the Salar
After a cold visit to Oruro, at 12,000 feet, warmed by a visit to some nearby hot springs, we took a 13-hour train ride to Tupiza. We saw many flamingos migrating. We descended to Tupiza, at about 9,000 feet. Tupiza is where outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are said to have spent their final days.
Butch and Sundance fled from the U.S. to Argentina with Sundance's girlfriend Ethel Place. They bought a ranch and also engaged in cattle rustling until someone figured out that they were wanted in the U.S. They fled to Bolivia where they robbed more trains and banks, and they were stealing the payroll on its way to the miners when they were finally killed in a shootout, according to legend. Some say that only Sundance was killed and that Butch made it back to the U.S. In any case, the final robbery and the shootout were near Tupiza, and you can see why U.S. wild west outlaws would like this place.
The land is like Utah, full of red rocks shaped like spires and hoodoos. We hiked in a canyon similar to Utah's slot canyons. We watched a man collect gravel by shoveling dirt through a screen held up by a stick, collecting only the larger stones. The same technology would have been used during the time of Butch and Sundance.
The next morning we left for a four-day 4WD tour of the country between Tupiza and Uyuni, ending in the salt flat. From Tupiza we climbed up onto the altiplano, or high plane, which is mostly between 12,000 and 16,000 feet, with peaks up to 19,000 feet. We shared the tour with another couple, Jen and Andrew, who are also from the U.S. and living in Cochabamba. And we were guided by Jose and his wife Berta, who cooked delicious meals for us.
On the first day we visited several tiny villages, some subsisting on mining and others on llamas. We saw beautiful red rocks and scenery that reminded us of Canyonlands in Utah. We saw a mule train going from one village to another, and at night we played soccer by moonlight with Quechua-speaking children, at about 14,000 feet in altitude.
The hotel is what is called basic, but we did have a bed in a room with Jen and Andrew, whose thermometer recorded that it got down to 41 degrees in our room at night. It was well below freezing outside. Even at this altitude, Bolivians don't have heat. There is little to burn on the altiplano.
So that the Landcruiser would start the next morning, our guide covered the engine with blankets and started it every two hours during the night. And he woke us up at 4:30 the next morning for a day of visiting beautiful startlingly-colored lakes surrounded by mountains that are also colored by the minerals in this region. We saw geysers, flamingos, and had one flat tire. We also got to soak at a beautiful hot spring overlooking a lake backed by mountains. At times, we were as high as 16,000 feet.
On the third day we saw more beautiful lakes, more flamingos, a fox, many guanaco (the wild ancestor of the llama), and had four flat tires! Jose and Berta can change a tire in about five minutes time usually, although on one occasion the jack tipped over and the wheel crashed down onto the sand, fortunately not on top of anybody. At night we stayed in a hotel made entirely of salt! Even our bed was made of salt. Check out our pictures at flickr.com/photos/kimigary.
On day four we got up at 4:30 a.m. in order to watch the sun rise over the salar, a beautiful experience. The salar is the hugest salt flat in the world. I was surprised at how hard the salt was. Our vehicle left no tracks on it. We hiked on the "island", an outcropping of coral and cactus that used to be an island when the salar was a lake. And we took many silly depth of field pictures, because on the salar everything is flat and white and you can't tell how far away things are.
We ended our tour in Uyuni, and took the train to Oruro. On account of a roadblock by students who wanted health care, no buses were running from Oruro to Cochabamba, but we found a mini-van that would take us to the road block. From there we walked for about 15 minutes, with many other people doing the same thing, through the roadblock. We got in another mini-van on the other side, and we enjoyed the sunny warm weather as we arrived in Cochabamba. (During winter, every day is the same in Cocha. 80 degrees during the day and 50 degrees at night. No precipitation).
Back in Cochabamba, we discovered the American clothing section of the market. Several city blocks contain stall after stall of used American clothing. This clothing comes from U.S. thrift stores. Some of the clothing even bears price tags from thrift stores that I recognize. You can get almost anything for a dollar or two, and it's even in American sizes, big enough for us!
Also back in Cochabamba, our housemate's brother is visiting from Scotland, and he brought two packs of REAL CHEDDAR CHEESE! I hadn't tasted anything like that in the nine months that we've been in South America! Yum!
Butch and Sundance fled from the U.S. to Argentina with Sundance's girlfriend Ethel Place. They bought a ranch and also engaged in cattle rustling until someone figured out that they were wanted in the U.S. They fled to Bolivia where they robbed more trains and banks, and they were stealing the payroll on its way to the miners when they were finally killed in a shootout, according to legend. Some say that only Sundance was killed and that Butch made it back to the U.S. In any case, the final robbery and the shootout were near Tupiza, and you can see why U.S. wild west outlaws would like this place.
The land is like Utah, full of red rocks shaped like spires and hoodoos. We hiked in a canyon similar to Utah's slot canyons. We watched a man collect gravel by shoveling dirt through a screen held up by a stick, collecting only the larger stones. The same technology would have been used during the time of Butch and Sundance.
The next morning we left for a four-day 4WD tour of the country between Tupiza and Uyuni, ending in the salt flat. From Tupiza we climbed up onto the altiplano, or high plane, which is mostly between 12,000 and 16,000 feet, with peaks up to 19,000 feet. We shared the tour with another couple, Jen and Andrew, who are also from the U.S. and living in Cochabamba. And we were guided by Jose and his wife Berta, who cooked delicious meals for us.
On the first day we visited several tiny villages, some subsisting on mining and others on llamas. We saw beautiful red rocks and scenery that reminded us of Canyonlands in Utah. We saw a mule train going from one village to another, and at night we played soccer by moonlight with Quechua-speaking children, at about 14,000 feet in altitude.
The hotel is what is called basic, but we did have a bed in a room with Jen and Andrew, whose thermometer recorded that it got down to 41 degrees in our room at night. It was well below freezing outside. Even at this altitude, Bolivians don't have heat. There is little to burn on the altiplano.
So that the Landcruiser would start the next morning, our guide covered the engine with blankets and started it every two hours during the night. And he woke us up at 4:30 the next morning for a day of visiting beautiful startlingly-colored lakes surrounded by mountains that are also colored by the minerals in this region. We saw geysers, flamingos, and had one flat tire. We also got to soak at a beautiful hot spring overlooking a lake backed by mountains. At times, we were as high as 16,000 feet.
On the third day we saw more beautiful lakes, more flamingos, a fox, many guanaco (the wild ancestor of the llama), and had four flat tires! Jose and Berta can change a tire in about five minutes time usually, although on one occasion the jack tipped over and the wheel crashed down onto the sand, fortunately not on top of anybody. At night we stayed in a hotel made entirely of salt! Even our bed was made of salt. Check out our pictures at flickr.com/photos/kimigary.
On day four we got up at 4:30 a.m. in order to watch the sun rise over the salar, a beautiful experience. The salar is the hugest salt flat in the world. I was surprised at how hard the salt was. Our vehicle left no tracks on it. We hiked on the "island", an outcropping of coral and cactus that used to be an island when the salar was a lake. And we took many silly depth of field pictures, because on the salar everything is flat and white and you can't tell how far away things are.
We ended our tour in Uyuni, and took the train to Oruro. On account of a roadblock by students who wanted health care, no buses were running from Oruro to Cochabamba, but we found a mini-van that would take us to the road block. From there we walked for about 15 minutes, with many other people doing the same thing, through the roadblock. We got in another mini-van on the other side, and we enjoyed the sunny warm weather as we arrived in Cochabamba. (During winter, every day is the same in Cocha. 80 degrees during the day and 50 degrees at night. No precipitation).
Back in Cochabamba, we discovered the American clothing section of the market. Several city blocks contain stall after stall of used American clothing. This clothing comes from U.S. thrift stores. Some of the clothing even bears price tags from thrift stores that I recognize. You can get almost anything for a dollar or two, and it's even in American sizes, big enough for us!
Also back in Cochabamba, our housemate's brother is visiting from Scotland, and he brought two packs of REAL CHEDDAR CHEESE! I hadn't tasted anything like that in the nine months that we've been in South America! Yum!
Monday, May 12, 2008
Road block, mining
Today we hitched a ride with our new friends Laura and Matt, a brother and sister pair from Denver who are driving from Chile through Argentina and north all the way back to Denver.
Matt and Laura drove us to Oruro, from where we will take a train to the Salar de Uyuni. It was a nice change of pace, and somehow a different way of life, to ride in a private car with friends. A few hours down the road we were very glad to be in a private car rather than a bus, as we ran into a bloqueo, or road block.
A group of campesinos (peasants) had blocked the highway, and trucks and buses were lined up in both directions. This is a common form of protest here, although in this case I have no idea what the protest was about. We approached the road block cautiously, and one of the campesinos told us that the road block does not target tourists, and that there is a special road for tourists.
We followed another private car on this "special road" which consisted of a dirt trail through gullies and fording a small stream. The other car was having some trouble with the terrain, and we pushed them a couple of times when they got stuck. They were tourists from Peru. We were lucky to have had the opportunity to push them because soon we encountered a small group of men blocking the dirt road with rocks and poles. Just as we were discussing whether we should try to talk our way through this or pretend we don´t speak Spanish, the Peruvian tourists negotiated our passage through for a cost of 20 Bolivianos, or U.S. $2.26. The money was ostensibly so that the protesters could buy some coca leaves to chew.
Only as we were driving through did the protesters realize that we were gringos. We wondered if we would have paid a lot more if that had been apparent from the beginning. We´ve been told that if you try to pass without permission, the protestors will break the windows of your car, or worse.
Twenty minutes later, and after pushing the Peruvians one more time, we were back on the highway to Oruro. If we had been on a bus, we would still be sitting at the road block.
In Oruro we said goodbye to Laura and Matt, and we visited a mining museum. The mine tunnel, strangely, starts in the back of a church. We walked through the church and down into the tunnel, where we saw lots of mining equipment and two statues of "El Tío," the god of the underground -- some people call him a devil -- and protector of miners. The Bolivian family who toured the mine shaft with us put a lit cigarette in El Tío´s mouth, adding to the many offerings of tobacco, coca and alcohol that surrounded El Tío. The section of the mine that we visted has been closed for 80 years, but other sections of the mine are still in operation.
Many travelers visit the working mines in Potosí, another Bolivian mining town. The women and men and children who work in Potosí´s cooperative mines work under the most primitive conditions and normally die of silicosis pneumonia within ten to fifteen years of entering the mines.
Since cooperative mine are owned by the impoverished miners, they must purchase all of their tools themselves, and all of the work is done by hand with explosives and primitive tools. At one time Potosí was the largest and richest city in the Americas, due to the silver extracted by millions of indigenous and African slaves.
The slaves worked, ate and slept in the mines, remaining underground without seeing daylight for four months at a time. Between 155 and 1825, eight million Africans and indigenous Bolivians died from the appalling conditions. Today, conditions have improved little, and I am not sure whether I want to visit the mines in Potosí.
Matt and Laura drove us to Oruro, from where we will take a train to the Salar de Uyuni. It was a nice change of pace, and somehow a different way of life, to ride in a private car with friends. A few hours down the road we were very glad to be in a private car rather than a bus, as we ran into a bloqueo, or road block.
A group of campesinos (peasants) had blocked the highway, and trucks and buses were lined up in both directions. This is a common form of protest here, although in this case I have no idea what the protest was about. We approached the road block cautiously, and one of the campesinos told us that the road block does not target tourists, and that there is a special road for tourists.
We followed another private car on this "special road" which consisted of a dirt trail through gullies and fording a small stream. The other car was having some trouble with the terrain, and we pushed them a couple of times when they got stuck. They were tourists from Peru. We were lucky to have had the opportunity to push them because soon we encountered a small group of men blocking the dirt road with rocks and poles. Just as we were discussing whether we should try to talk our way through this or pretend we don´t speak Spanish, the Peruvian tourists negotiated our passage through for a cost of 20 Bolivianos, or U.S. $2.26. The money was ostensibly so that the protesters could buy some coca leaves to chew.
Only as we were driving through did the protesters realize that we were gringos. We wondered if we would have paid a lot more if that had been apparent from the beginning. We´ve been told that if you try to pass without permission, the protestors will break the windows of your car, or worse.
Twenty minutes later, and after pushing the Peruvians one more time, we were back on the highway to Oruro. If we had been on a bus, we would still be sitting at the road block.
In Oruro we said goodbye to Laura and Matt, and we visited a mining museum. The mine tunnel, strangely, starts in the back of a church. We walked through the church and down into the tunnel, where we saw lots of mining equipment and two statues of "El Tío," the god of the underground -- some people call him a devil -- and protector of miners. The Bolivian family who toured the mine shaft with us put a lit cigarette in El Tío´s mouth, adding to the many offerings of tobacco, coca and alcohol that surrounded El Tío. The section of the mine that we visted has been closed for 80 years, but other sections of the mine are still in operation.
Many travelers visit the working mines in Potosí, another Bolivian mining town. The women and men and children who work in Potosí´s cooperative mines work under the most primitive conditions and normally die of silicosis pneumonia within ten to fifteen years of entering the mines.
Since cooperative mine are owned by the impoverished miners, they must purchase all of their tools themselves, and all of the work is done by hand with explosives and primitive tools. At one time Potosí was the largest and richest city in the Americas, due to the silver extracted by millions of indigenous and African slaves.
The slaves worked, ate and slept in the mines, remaining underground without seeing daylight for four months at a time. Between 155 and 1825, eight million Africans and indigenous Bolivians died from the appalling conditions. Today, conditions have improved little, and I am not sure whether I want to visit the mines in Potosí.
Salar de Uyuni
We are off on a short trip to the Salar de Uyuni, a beautiful salt flat with flamingos and hot springs, today. We won´t have email access there, but we´ll post some pictures when we return in a couple of weeks! Hasta luego.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Change
Anyone who travels or lives in Bolivia learns to hoard change. There just isn´t enough change to go around in this country, and many vendors and small business people don´t have enough money to allow them to keep a supply of change on hand. Consequently, I try to get rid of my 100 Boliviano notes (worth about U.S. $13) as soon as possible because they can be very hard to spend.
Even small change like the one Boliviano coin (U.S. 13 cents) is hard to come by, and store clerks will try to get customers to part with their small change even if the store has change. I have learned to retrieve my money carefully from my coin purse because a clerk who sees my change or hears it jingle will invariably try to get it rather than accepting a 10 Boliviano bill, worth U.S. $1.30. Several times I´ve made a purchase in a store and been given a few pieces of candy in lieu of change.
Gary and I were in Santa Cruz a few weeks ago, and we sat in the plaza and listened to the street musicians play for coins. Meanwhile, coffee vendors scurried around selling cups of coffee to the people in the plaza. We noticed that every few minutes a coffee vendor would take the change out of the musicians´ tip jar and exchange it for a larger bill. The musicians seemed to accept that it was part of their role to provide change for the coffee vendors.
Some months ago, Gary was pickpocketed in a local market. He lost his wallet containing money worth about U.S. $15. He came home upset not because he lost money but because he had lost all of the change that he had been carefully hoarding!
Not everyone in Bolivia knows how to make change. Many of the street vendors haven´t had an opportunity to go to school and to learn basic math. But penny capitalism thrives in Bolivia and when there is a need, someone will fill it. Last week in the plaza I saw a man with a table and a sign saying that he teaches mental math.
Not everyone in Bolivia has a place to poop, either. Yesterday my house mate saw an old man pooping next to church wall near our house. Something about Bolivia makes one acutely aware of life´s most basic needs.
Even small change like the one Boliviano coin (U.S. 13 cents) is hard to come by, and store clerks will try to get customers to part with their small change even if the store has change. I have learned to retrieve my money carefully from my coin purse because a clerk who sees my change or hears it jingle will invariably try to get it rather than accepting a 10 Boliviano bill, worth U.S. $1.30. Several times I´ve made a purchase in a store and been given a few pieces of candy in lieu of change.
Gary and I were in Santa Cruz a few weeks ago, and we sat in the plaza and listened to the street musicians play for coins. Meanwhile, coffee vendors scurried around selling cups of coffee to the people in the plaza. We noticed that every few minutes a coffee vendor would take the change out of the musicians´ tip jar and exchange it for a larger bill. The musicians seemed to accept that it was part of their role to provide change for the coffee vendors.
Some months ago, Gary was pickpocketed in a local market. He lost his wallet containing money worth about U.S. $15. He came home upset not because he lost money but because he had lost all of the change that he had been carefully hoarding!
Not everyone in Bolivia knows how to make change. Many of the street vendors haven´t had an opportunity to go to school and to learn basic math. But penny capitalism thrives in Bolivia and when there is a need, someone will fill it. Last week in the plaza I saw a man with a table and a sign saying that he teaches mental math.
Not everyone in Bolivia has a place to poop, either. Yesterday my house mate saw an old man pooping next to church wall near our house. Something about Bolivia makes one acutely aware of life´s most basic needs.
The Autonomy Vote
People told us to stay at home on Sunday, not to go in the street, and for the most part we did stay in our house.
Sunday was the day of the autonomy vote in Santa Cruz, a Bolivian department (equivalent of a state) just to our east. Santa Cruz is the richest department of Bolivia, and many of its residents do not like Bolivia´s socialist indigenous president who has nationalized certain industries and who is implementing land reform. So the people of Santa Cruz, on Sunday, voted to be autonomous.
That doesn´t mean that Santa Cruz is seceding from Bolivia, or that there is a civil war happening. Santa Cruz is saying that it wants more governmental control. For example, Santa Cruz wants to raise its own police force, which is now only federal. It wants to control its highways, and to control the sale of its oil. The autonomy vote was illegal, and Santa Cruz won´t be able to implement all of its plans. The vote mainly was a bargaining tool for Santa Cruz.
Meanwhile, on the day of the vote a huge protest took place in Cochabamba. Tens of thousands of people came from the country to form many marches in Cochabamba, all meeting near the center of the city. The protesters in Cochabamba support MAS, the party of Evo Morales, Bolivia´s president. They marched for unity in Bolivia, and against autonomy of Santa Cruz and the other departments that are demanding it.
The protesters were mainly indigenous people -- factory workers, farmers, etc. -- and marched in traditional clothing, some playing traditional instruments. The protests in Cochabamba were peaceful, and it would have been fine for us to be on the street. However, the two houses operated by the NGO where I work are both full of our traveling friends, so hanging out in the house together wasn´t a bad way to spend a Sunday.
If you want to read more about Bolivian news and politics, check out democracyctr.org.
Sunday was the day of the autonomy vote in Santa Cruz, a Bolivian department (equivalent of a state) just to our east. Santa Cruz is the richest department of Bolivia, and many of its residents do not like Bolivia´s socialist indigenous president who has nationalized certain industries and who is implementing land reform. So the people of Santa Cruz, on Sunday, voted to be autonomous.
That doesn´t mean that Santa Cruz is seceding from Bolivia, or that there is a civil war happening. Santa Cruz is saying that it wants more governmental control. For example, Santa Cruz wants to raise its own police force, which is now only federal. It wants to control its highways, and to control the sale of its oil. The autonomy vote was illegal, and Santa Cruz won´t be able to implement all of its plans. The vote mainly was a bargaining tool for Santa Cruz.
Meanwhile, on the day of the vote a huge protest took place in Cochabamba. Tens of thousands of people came from the country to form many marches in Cochabamba, all meeting near the center of the city. The protesters in Cochabamba support MAS, the party of Evo Morales, Bolivia´s president. They marched for unity in Bolivia, and against autonomy of Santa Cruz and the other departments that are demanding it.
The protesters were mainly indigenous people -- factory workers, farmers, etc. -- and marched in traditional clothing, some playing traditional instruments. The protests in Cochabamba were peaceful, and it would have been fine for us to be on the street. However, the two houses operated by the NGO where I work are both full of our traveling friends, so hanging out in the house together wasn´t a bad way to spend a Sunday.
If you want to read more about Bolivian news and politics, check out democracyctr.org.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Au pair
Our friend Carolina, a young woman from Cochabamba, will go to New Orleans to work as an au pair, or nanny, in a few weeks. She will work for an American family, taking care of their three children, for a year while she hopes to improve her English.
Carolina is nervous about the food in the U.S., and the timing of the meals. Here in Bolivia people eat a huge lunch and not much of a dinner, often just bread and tea.
She will be required to drive the children in her care to school, etc., and she is nervous about driving a car. She doesn´t know anybody who owns a car in Cochabamba, but she has taken driving lessons. I told her it will be easier in the U.S., where the streets are wider and more orderly.
I told Carolina about libraries in the U.S. I told her that she can get a library card and then borrow books and movies for free, as well as use the internet. She was amazed, and she was amazed when I told her that in the U.S. I have many boxes of books, stored with my good friends Angela and Joe. Books are expensive in Bolivia. Instead of buying books, most people buy photocopies of books. I can take my friend´s travel guide book to any photocopy shop and have it copied and bound with a spiral for about U.S. $4. University students are probably the biggest consumers of photocopied books.
I´m excited for Carolina, and if all goes well she will work a lot but also have time to work on her English. Having worked with immigrant guest workers who were horribly abused in the U.S., I can´t help but fear that Carolina´s employer may not pay her as promised, may make her work many more hours than stated in her contract, may treat her badly in in a worst case scenario may threaten her and forbid her from leaving the house. But I can´t tell Carolina any of this, and I can only hope that her host family is good to her and that she has a good experience in the U.S.
Carolina is nervous about the food in the U.S., and the timing of the meals. Here in Bolivia people eat a huge lunch and not much of a dinner, often just bread and tea.
She will be required to drive the children in her care to school, etc., and she is nervous about driving a car. She doesn´t know anybody who owns a car in Cochabamba, but she has taken driving lessons. I told her it will be easier in the U.S., where the streets are wider and more orderly.
I told Carolina about libraries in the U.S. I told her that she can get a library card and then borrow books and movies for free, as well as use the internet. She was amazed, and she was amazed when I told her that in the U.S. I have many boxes of books, stored with my good friends Angela and Joe. Books are expensive in Bolivia. Instead of buying books, most people buy photocopies of books. I can take my friend´s travel guide book to any photocopy shop and have it copied and bound with a spiral for about U.S. $4. University students are probably the biggest consumers of photocopied books.
I´m excited for Carolina, and if all goes well she will work a lot but also have time to work on her English. Having worked with immigrant guest workers who were horribly abused in the U.S., I can´t help but fear that Carolina´s employer may not pay her as promised, may make her work many more hours than stated in her contract, may treat her badly in in a worst case scenario may threaten her and forbid her from leaving the house. But I can´t tell Carolina any of this, and I can only hope that her host family is good to her and that she has a good experience in the U.S.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
May Day
We´re settling back into life in Cochabamba, and last night we went bowling with our house mates and friends in Cochabamba. Apparently, I have a distinctive form in bowling, and pretty soon everyone in all three of our lanes was trying to do the "Kimi Hop"! (It´s a fun, if not effective, style of bowling!) We went dancing later and had a late night, but fortunately nobody had to work the next morning because today is the International Day of the Worker.
May 1 celebrates the struggles of workers and the labor movement and stems from the workers´ struggle for an eight-hour day culminating in the arrest and sentence to hanging of eight anarchist labor organizers in connection with Chicago´s 1886 Haymarket Bombing. Seven years later, Illinois´ governor pardoned the labor organizers, noting that they were innocent and that they and their colleagues who had already been hanged were the victims of hysteria, packed juries and a biased judge.
May Day is observed in Bolivia (the Haymarket Workers´ Proclamation and a history of the Haymarket Martyrs was published in Cochabamba´s paper yesterday) as well as in most of the world, but not in the U.S. where it originated. In an attempt to obliterate the history and significance of May Day and the struggle of workers, the U.S. government declared May 1 to be "Law Day" and established Labor Day in September which falls on a day of no historical significance.
Those interested can read more about the history of May 1 here:
http://communicatinglabourrights.wordpress.com/2008/04/30/history-of-may-1st-international-workers-day/
On a lighter note, we are moving toward winter in Cochabamba which means that temperatures are in the 80s during the day and the 50s at night, perfect weather if you ask me. And since the rainy season is over, there is not a cloud in the sky! Today we hung a hammock in our back yard. Yay for winter!
May 1 celebrates the struggles of workers and the labor movement and stems from the workers´ struggle for an eight-hour day culminating in the arrest and sentence to hanging of eight anarchist labor organizers in connection with Chicago´s 1886 Haymarket Bombing. Seven years later, Illinois´ governor pardoned the labor organizers, noting that they were innocent and that they and their colleagues who had already been hanged were the victims of hysteria, packed juries and a biased judge.
May Day is observed in Bolivia (the Haymarket Workers´ Proclamation and a history of the Haymarket Martyrs was published in Cochabamba´s paper yesterday) as well as in most of the world, but not in the U.S. where it originated. In an attempt to obliterate the history and significance of May Day and the struggle of workers, the U.S. government declared May 1 to be "Law Day" and established Labor Day in September which falls on a day of no historical significance.
Those interested can read more about the history of May 1 here:
http://communicatinglabourrights.wordpress.com/2008/04/30/history-of-may-1st-international-workers-day/
On a lighter note, we are moving toward winter in Cochabamba which means that temperatures are in the 80s during the day and the 50s at night, perfect weather if you ask me. And since the rainy season is over, there is not a cloud in the sky! Today we hung a hammock in our back yard. Yay for winter!
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Copper anniversary, toucans, back to Cocha
Brazilian food is really good! Brazilians eat rice and beans, and lots of cold salads (beets, cabbage, carrots, okra, green beans, lettuce, etc.), manioc, and delicious cheese bread, pineapple and tropical fruits. Meals are not as heavy on meat as they are in Bolivia. Meals are huge, and there are lots of all you can eat restaurants. I prefer the pay by the kilo restaurants, buffet style, and we select whatever we want. At the end of the line they weigh our plates and we pay only for what we took.
We had a wonderful visit with UWC-friends Christian (Denmark) and Camila (Brazil) and their darling daughter Leonora. We spent several days with them at their home in Brasilia, where we ate delicious food and Christian showed us around this interesting city.
Brasilia is a carefully planned city, in the shape of an airplane, and most of its residents work for the government. Did I mention the good food? Christian and Camila were wonderful hosts, and we had lots of fun playing with little Leonora. We also took advantage of the fact that Brazilians tend to be larger than Bolivians, and we are not giants here. So we bought a few items of clothing.
Christian and Camila are celebrating their 12 1/2 year wedding anniversary, known as the copper anniversary, half of 25. The copper anniversary is an important affair in Denmark, which I think is a nice custom because 25 years is an awfully long time to wait in order to celebrate a relationship.
In honor of their copper anniversary, Christian and Camila invited their family and friends to a four-day celebration at a beautiful resort in Pirenopoulis, a beautiful colonial silver mining town near the capital. We had a room with a hammock overlooking the pool and the beautiful valley, and we enjoyed meeting Christian´s family from Denmark, Camila´s family from Rio de Janiero and their many friends.
One evening we had Lebanese food and entertainment by belly dancers with assistance from Leonora and her cousin. (There are lots of Lebanese immigrants in Brazil). We enjoyed afternoon caipirinhas, a delicious Brazilian drink made of limes, sugar and cashaça, a liquor made from sugar cane, lazing in the hammock and swimming in a large pool beneath a waterfall. We also enjoyed watching the wild guinea fowl, introduced to the Americas from Africa during the slave trade, and the coati that live at the resort. I think that the way that Christian and Camila celebrated their anniversary was beautiful, and we were very happy to be a part of it.
We took a flight back to Bolivia and spent a couple of days in Santa Cruz before heading back to Cochabamba. Santa Cruz is in Bolivia´s lowlands, more similar to Brazil in climate than to Bolivia´s altiplano. To round out our Brazilian safari experience, we visited the Santa Cruz zoo, where we learned that the two species of macaw we saw are among many other brilliantly colored species. Nearly all of these beautiful birds are threatened because of loss of habitat, and because they are captured for the trade in exotic pets.
Speaking of exotic pets, our hotel has a patio full of hammocks, plants and two toucans! They have huge orange, black and yellow beaks with a surreal fiery design that reminds me of a 1970s sports car painted with flames. The beak feels like a very light plastic and makes a plasticky sound when the toucan taps trees or the ground. And the toucans have really interesting eyes - a pupil like a green marble surrounded by a royal blue "white." The eye is surrounded by a bright orange material that looks like fun foam or something synthetic.
The toucan feathers are mostly black, with a white patch on the neck which looks soft like velvet and a red patch under the tail. These birds´ wings are clipped, sadly. The feet are blue, and the toucan has a long thin toung inside its beak, which occasionally flits out when she drinks water. (I don´t know her gender, but I´ll call her a she to make up for society´s general default of "he"). The tongue is thin and transparent, like a piece of plastic.
The inside edge of the beak is semi-serrated, not smooth as I would have expected, and the toucan loves to clean her beak in the water, scrubbing it with her feet. One of these two toucans is playful and likes to bite my fingers and toes! It doesn´t really hurt unless she gets me just right, and even then it doesn´t break the skin.
I wonder about the purpose of the toucan´s huge beak. It seems great for preening, but not so great for eating. It´s kind of clumsy. This toucan keeps dropping small pieces of melon that I feed to it. It can only manage to grab and then swallow the tiniest of pieces.
The toucan makes a clattering noise with its beak, almost like the sound of human teeth smacking together when we shiver, and sometimes it sneezes!
We took the bus home to Cochabamba, where our house mate Miranda poured us a glass of wine and made us dinner. It´s good to have friends!
We had a wonderful visit with UWC-friends Christian (Denmark) and Camila (Brazil) and their darling daughter Leonora. We spent several days with them at their home in Brasilia, where we ate delicious food and Christian showed us around this interesting city.
Brasilia is a carefully planned city, in the shape of an airplane, and most of its residents work for the government. Did I mention the good food? Christian and Camila were wonderful hosts, and we had lots of fun playing with little Leonora. We also took advantage of the fact that Brazilians tend to be larger than Bolivians, and we are not giants here. So we bought a few items of clothing.
Christian and Camila are celebrating their 12 1/2 year wedding anniversary, known as the copper anniversary, half of 25. The copper anniversary is an important affair in Denmark, which I think is a nice custom because 25 years is an awfully long time to wait in order to celebrate a relationship.
In honor of their copper anniversary, Christian and Camila invited their family and friends to a four-day celebration at a beautiful resort in Pirenopoulis, a beautiful colonial silver mining town near the capital. We had a room with a hammock overlooking the pool and the beautiful valley, and we enjoyed meeting Christian´s family from Denmark, Camila´s family from Rio de Janiero and their many friends.
One evening we had Lebanese food and entertainment by belly dancers with assistance from Leonora and her cousin. (There are lots of Lebanese immigrants in Brazil). We enjoyed afternoon caipirinhas, a delicious Brazilian drink made of limes, sugar and cashaça, a liquor made from sugar cane, lazing in the hammock and swimming in a large pool beneath a waterfall. We also enjoyed watching the wild guinea fowl, introduced to the Americas from Africa during the slave trade, and the coati that live at the resort. I think that the way that Christian and Camila celebrated their anniversary was beautiful, and we were very happy to be a part of it.
We took a flight back to Bolivia and spent a couple of days in Santa Cruz before heading back to Cochabamba. Santa Cruz is in Bolivia´s lowlands, more similar to Brazil in climate than to Bolivia´s altiplano. To round out our Brazilian safari experience, we visited the Santa Cruz zoo, where we learned that the two species of macaw we saw are among many other brilliantly colored species. Nearly all of these beautiful birds are threatened because of loss of habitat, and because they are captured for the trade in exotic pets.
Speaking of exotic pets, our hotel has a patio full of hammocks, plants and two toucans! They have huge orange, black and yellow beaks with a surreal fiery design that reminds me of a 1970s sports car painted with flames. The beak feels like a very light plastic and makes a plasticky sound when the toucan taps trees or the ground. And the toucans have really interesting eyes - a pupil like a green marble surrounded by a royal blue "white." The eye is surrounded by a bright orange material that looks like fun foam or something synthetic.
The toucan feathers are mostly black, with a white patch on the neck which looks soft like velvet and a red patch under the tail. These birds´ wings are clipped, sadly. The feet are blue, and the toucan has a long thin toung inside its beak, which occasionally flits out when she drinks water. (I don´t know her gender, but I´ll call her a she to make up for society´s general default of "he"). The tongue is thin and transparent, like a piece of plastic.
The inside edge of the beak is semi-serrated, not smooth as I would have expected, and the toucan loves to clean her beak in the water, scrubbing it with her feet. One of these two toucans is playful and likes to bite my fingers and toes! It doesn´t really hurt unless she gets me just right, and even then it doesn´t break the skin.
I wonder about the purpose of the toucan´s huge beak. It seems great for preening, but not so great for eating. It´s kind of clumsy. This toucan keeps dropping small pieces of melon that I feed to it. It can only manage to grab and then swallow the tiniest of pieces.
The toucan makes a clattering noise with its beak, almost like the sound of human teeth smacking together when we shiver, and sometimes it sneezes!
We took the bus home to Cochabamba, where our house mate Miranda poured us a glass of wine and made us dinner. It´s good to have friends!
Monday, April 7, 2008
Alto Paraiso
We are staying at a beautiful pousada, or inn, in Alto Paraiso, a town near Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. Our pousada is a beautiful place with rooms around a lush yard, full of tropical flowers and tropical fruit trees, such as limes, tangerines, avocado, banana and some things similar to cherries but in a different shape, more like a tiny starfruit, and other delicious fruit which I tried but can´t name. There are limes that are green on the outside but orange on the inside, and are delicious in drinks.
In the morning, Vasu, the pousada owner, serves a delicious breakfast of several kinds of whole wheat bread (which can be hard to get while traveling!), papaya, mango, other tropical fruits, jam made from the tropical fruit on her land, a special kind of cheese, avocados which are eaten as a fruit in Brazil rather than served with salty foods, granola, yogurt, Brazilian coffee from local beans, fresh squeezed juice, and herb tea made from herbs that Vasu grows.
Vasu speaks a bit of English, but only a tiny bit, which she learned while visiting India. Mostly we communicate in Portuñol. I speak Spanish sprinkled with a few words of Portuguese that I´ve learned, and she speaks Portuguese. I ask her to repeat, and eventually I understand 50 to 70 percent of what she has to say. Portuñol works pretty well for basic transactions like renting a room, buying bus tickets or eating at a restaurant, but it is impossible to have conversations with any depth. And after several hours of straining to understand Portuguese, I have a headache and feel exhausted.
As I write this in my journal, we are in a restaurant and I just learned that our waiter speaks perfect Spanish, as well as a bit of English and Italian. It is such a relief to speak with him in Spanish, and to be able to understand 100% of what he says. He is from the coast of Brazil, but recently moved inland because he is concerned about global warming and its effect on the coast.
I´ve always thought that Portuguese is a beautiful language, and I would like to learn it. Maybe I can take a course with the goal of returning to Brazil next year.
Vasu, the owner of our pousada, has three beautifully colored macaws (arara) which visit her to be fed bananas and crackers every day. They are brilliantly colored in yellow and blue, and one ate a banana out of my hand! Vasu´s four cats intently watch the daily feeding of the macaws.
Alto Paraiso is a hippie town, reminiscent of Crestone, Colorado. You can easily find meditation (we went to it), crystals, tie dye, buildings shaped like domes, skirts from India, people in touch with their chakras, and Hare Krishnas here. The hippie movement in the 1960s was different in Brazil than in the U.S. because Brazil was under a dictatorship at that time, and many people who might have been hippies accordingly opted for a more militant or communist stance. Now there seem to be plenty of Brazilian hippies in this town, anyway.
Yesterday we hired a guide to take us into Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park. Tourists aren´t allowed to enter without a guide, and in any case there is no public transportation to the park. Isael, a serious young man, speaks only Portuguese, but we managed to negotiate an itinerary and price for our tour. However, Isael´s explanations of medicinal plants were lost on me.
We hiked five kilometers down into a canyon where we saw three waterfalls, We swam in the Rio Preto, which Isael noted was the color of Coca Cola, and I was nibbled upon by fish. (no piranhas here, luckily!) Ther climate here is drier, nothing like the Pantanal wetlands. We saw a snake on the trail, which Isael said was a poisonous cobra.
We hiked back up, and then visited some beautiful hot springs in the jungle. There were three natural pools built of stones in a clearing in the jungle. The water was tepid, not hot, and refreshing on a hot day.
On Wednesday we will return to Brasilia, the capital, where we will visit United World College friends Christian and Camila, and their daughter Leonora, with whom we´ve already spent a couple of really nice days.
In the morning, Vasu, the pousada owner, serves a delicious breakfast of several kinds of whole wheat bread (which can be hard to get while traveling!), papaya, mango, other tropical fruits, jam made from the tropical fruit on her land, a special kind of cheese, avocados which are eaten as a fruit in Brazil rather than served with salty foods, granola, yogurt, Brazilian coffee from local beans, fresh squeezed juice, and herb tea made from herbs that Vasu grows.
Vasu speaks a bit of English, but only a tiny bit, which she learned while visiting India. Mostly we communicate in Portuñol. I speak Spanish sprinkled with a few words of Portuguese that I´ve learned, and she speaks Portuguese. I ask her to repeat, and eventually I understand 50 to 70 percent of what she has to say. Portuñol works pretty well for basic transactions like renting a room, buying bus tickets or eating at a restaurant, but it is impossible to have conversations with any depth. And after several hours of straining to understand Portuguese, I have a headache and feel exhausted.
As I write this in my journal, we are in a restaurant and I just learned that our waiter speaks perfect Spanish, as well as a bit of English and Italian. It is such a relief to speak with him in Spanish, and to be able to understand 100% of what he says. He is from the coast of Brazil, but recently moved inland because he is concerned about global warming and its effect on the coast.
I´ve always thought that Portuguese is a beautiful language, and I would like to learn it. Maybe I can take a course with the goal of returning to Brazil next year.
Vasu, the owner of our pousada, has three beautifully colored macaws (arara) which visit her to be fed bananas and crackers every day. They are brilliantly colored in yellow and blue, and one ate a banana out of my hand! Vasu´s four cats intently watch the daily feeding of the macaws.
Alto Paraiso is a hippie town, reminiscent of Crestone, Colorado. You can easily find meditation (we went to it), crystals, tie dye, buildings shaped like domes, skirts from India, people in touch with their chakras, and Hare Krishnas here. The hippie movement in the 1960s was different in Brazil than in the U.S. because Brazil was under a dictatorship at that time, and many people who might have been hippies accordingly opted for a more militant or communist stance. Now there seem to be plenty of Brazilian hippies in this town, anyway.
Yesterday we hired a guide to take us into Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park. Tourists aren´t allowed to enter without a guide, and in any case there is no public transportation to the park. Isael, a serious young man, speaks only Portuguese, but we managed to negotiate an itinerary and price for our tour. However, Isael´s explanations of medicinal plants were lost on me.
We hiked five kilometers down into a canyon where we saw three waterfalls, We swam in the Rio Preto, which Isael noted was the color of Coca Cola, and I was nibbled upon by fish. (no piranhas here, luckily!) Ther climate here is drier, nothing like the Pantanal wetlands. We saw a snake on the trail, which Isael said was a poisonous cobra.
We hiked back up, and then visited some beautiful hot springs in the jungle. There were three natural pools built of stones in a clearing in the jungle. The water was tepid, not hot, and refreshing on a hot day.
On Wednesday we will return to Brasilia, the capital, where we will visit United World College friends Christian and Camila, and their daughter Leonora, with whom we´ve already spent a couple of really nice days.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Safari in the Brazilian Pantanal
We took a Brazilian bus into the Pantanal. After living in Bolivia for three months, where we became accustomed to holding it or pissing on the roadside, it´s hard for me to believe that this bus bathroom has toilet paper, towels, soap and warm water! (Granted, the water is war only because it´s over 100 degrees outside!)
The Pantanal is a vast wetland, the size of Belgium, Portugal, Switzerland and Holland combined, and one of the world´s greatest wildlife preserves. It´s mainly in Brazil but spills into Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina. Our visit was during the last few weeks of the wet season, and much of the Pantanal was still flooded.
Our Footprint guide to South America says:
"The Pantanal plain slopes some 1 cm in every kilometre north to south and west to east to the basin of the Rio Paraguai and is rimmed by low mountains. One hundred and seventy five rivers flow from ehese into the Pantanal and after the heavy summer rains they burst their banks, as does the Paraguai itself; to create vast shallow lakes broken by patches of high ground and stands of cerrado forest. Plankton then swarm to form a biological soup that contains as many as 500 million microalgae per litre. Millions of amphibians and fish spawn or migrate to consume them. And these in turn are preyed upon by waterbirds and reptiles. Herbivorous mammals graze on the stands of water hyacinth, sedge and savanna grass and at the top of the food chain lie South America´s great predators - the jaguar, ocelot, maned wolf and yellow anaonda. In June at the end of the wet when the sheets of water have reduced to small lakes or canals wildlife concentrates and then there is nowhere on earth where you will see such vast quantities of birds or such enormous numbers of crocodilians."
We stayed in a lodge in the southern Pantanal between Corumbá and Campo Grande, Brazil. Stayiing at the lodge reminded me of summer camp! We had a rustic cabaña with mosquito screens, a bathroom and a fan. We could hear small animals scurrying on the roof. Our cabaña was on stilts, literally above the river. And on the wooden walkway to our cabaña, a semi-domesticated capybara lounged! One of the guides found him as a baby. His mother had died, and so the guide brought him to the lodge to live. Now he is two, but not yet full grown.
The capybara is the world~s largest rodent, and can grow to weigh as much as Gary. This one, whose Portuguese name means cutie, is the size of a large dog. As far as I could see, Cutie spends his days lazing on the porch and being petted by tourists. He especiallylikes petting between his ears, and he sometimes makes a purring type sound. His fur is coarse like a pig´s. You wouldn´t know he´s a rodent at all unless you see him yawn, exposing his rat-like teeth. Sometimes the lodge staff have to crack down on him, because he goes into the cabañas and sleeps on the beds, scaring the tourists. When Cutie is not lazing on the porch, he lazes in the river water, eating a diet of plants.
Immediately upon arriving at the lodge we went on a boat ride on the river. Our guide, Marcello, spoke excellent English which I must admit was a relief after two days of struggling to understand Portuguese. We motored down the Miranda River, which is a tributary not of the Amazon but of the Paraguai. We saw tropical birds, including tucans with their bright beaks, and tiger herons. We saw howler monkeys high up in the trees, and we heard them howling! The males howl over some sort of territory issue. We saw lots of caiman. After boating for awhile, we went swimming in the river, in the same water with the caiman and piranha! The caiman are not aggressive like crocodiles and alligators, and the piranhas only go after you if you have a bleeding would or are menstruating. Swimming in a river is wonderful on a hot day. And it was hot! Over 100 degrees, with humidity around 70 percent! My hair was almost curly!
We had an hour to nap, read etc., and then we had dinner in the dining hall, just like at summer camp.
The next morning we went on our safari! We saw tons of animals: great horned owl, blue macaw, stork, parakeets, a type of ibis, hawk, kingfisher, tucan, caiman, capybara, 9-ring coati (related to the racoon, and different from the coatis we saw in Bolivia), fox (gray and more dog-like than foxes I´ve seen in the U.S.), deer (much smaller than U.S. deer), howler monkeys, wild pigs, armadillo, blue morphos butterfly, and aguchi (a small mammal). We did not see anaconda or jaguar.
The blue macaw were beautiful bright blue jungle birds, and Gary collected a handful of their feathers on the ground below the tree where they perched. The stork was tall, standing in the water almost as tall as a fence post! The parakeets were flying free, not in cages the way I´ve seen them before. They are a beautiful green.
Caiman were everywhere, lying on the banks of the water. At night, they spend 5 or 6 hours under water, and in the morning they need to lie in the sun to warm up. The capybara were wet and on the side of the road, probably having just eaten plants in the water. In several areas, 9-ring coati were everywhere, sleeping or playing in trees, running on the ground. They cuddled together and watched us.
The howler monkeys made their strange howling noise that reminds me of Jurassic Park, and our guide, Marcello, called to them with his monkey call. They had a dialog for awhile.
The wild pigs that we saw were actually on a farm, mixed with domestic pigs and some that were crosses between the two. The domestic pigs are fatter and have wider faces. I was surprised that there are wild pigs here, since pigs came from Europe and are not native to the Americas. I know people have brought many domestic pigs to the Americas, but why would people import wild pigs? Marcello told us that during the Chaco war between Paraguay and Bolivia, Paraguayans imported wild pigs from Europe and let them loose in the Chaco so that soldiers could hunt them for a food source. Now there are lots of them, and they have spread into several countries.
I was bitten by fire ants! But it only hurt for a couple of seconds.
I know that in southeast Colorado we have wild pigs which are escaped domestic pigs that have become completely wild after several generations. But I wonder if we also have wild pigs that were imported from Europe. Where did Arizona´s wild javelina population come from?
Now, at the end of the wet season, the Pantanal is mostly flooded with a few islands that are above water. On our safari, we hiked on those islands and drove on the road that is between them. During the dry season, much of the flooded area will be come savannah.
Much of the Pantanal is ot accessible by road this season, and people can only enter on horseback or by airplane. On the river, we saw a house that is only accessible by boat during the wet season. The Pantanal is a mixture of wilderness and cattle farms, or fazendas. Some of the cattle look like Texas longhorns. Some have huge humps on their backs, and all are skin and bones because their grazing area is under water.
The next morning we went piranha fishing. I was secretly glad that nobody caught any fish. Then we went tubing on the Miranda river! Tubing was a much different experience from tubing on the Poudre in Colorado. The Miranda river is wide and deep and slow, and there are no rapids or rocks to dodge. But the Poudre has no caiman or piranhas! I love tubing, on either river.
In the afternoon, we went on another boat ride, and saw a caiman basking on the bank. Our boat pulled up, and it dove into the water and we went swimming right next to where the caiman had been!
Every day, more and more land was visible in the Pantanal, as we approached the dry season. We watched a beautiful sunset over the savannah.
Two of our safari companions are a couple from New Zealand. They spent six months last year in a Colorado mountain town, and they plan to do the same this year. They enter on tourist visas, and are actually working illegally. They said it´s quite easy for them, but they have noticed that it is much harder for their Mexican counterparts who are not usually able to get tourist visas because they are from a poorer country.
Because the New Zealand couple is white and speaks English as a first language, noone suspects them of being undocumented workers. They have seen many cases of a group of construction workers getting stopped and the Mexican workers getting detained by immigration while nobody questions the undocumented workers from New Zealand.
The Pantanal is a vast wetland, the size of Belgium, Portugal, Switzerland and Holland combined, and one of the world´s greatest wildlife preserves. It´s mainly in Brazil but spills into Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina. Our visit was during the last few weeks of the wet season, and much of the Pantanal was still flooded.
Our Footprint guide to South America says:
"The Pantanal plain slopes some 1 cm in every kilometre north to south and west to east to the basin of the Rio Paraguai and is rimmed by low mountains. One hundred and seventy five rivers flow from ehese into the Pantanal and after the heavy summer rains they burst their banks, as does the Paraguai itself; to create vast shallow lakes broken by patches of high ground and stands of cerrado forest. Plankton then swarm to form a biological soup that contains as many as 500 million microalgae per litre. Millions of amphibians and fish spawn or migrate to consume them. And these in turn are preyed upon by waterbirds and reptiles. Herbivorous mammals graze on the stands of water hyacinth, sedge and savanna grass and at the top of the food chain lie South America´s great predators - the jaguar, ocelot, maned wolf and yellow anaonda. In June at the end of the wet when the sheets of water have reduced to small lakes or canals wildlife concentrates and then there is nowhere on earth where you will see such vast quantities of birds or such enormous numbers of crocodilians."
We stayed in a lodge in the southern Pantanal between Corumbá and Campo Grande, Brazil. Stayiing at the lodge reminded me of summer camp! We had a rustic cabaña with mosquito screens, a bathroom and a fan. We could hear small animals scurrying on the roof. Our cabaña was on stilts, literally above the river. And on the wooden walkway to our cabaña, a semi-domesticated capybara lounged! One of the guides found him as a baby. His mother had died, and so the guide brought him to the lodge to live. Now he is two, but not yet full grown.
The capybara is the world~s largest rodent, and can grow to weigh as much as Gary. This one, whose Portuguese name means cutie, is the size of a large dog. As far as I could see, Cutie spends his days lazing on the porch and being petted by tourists. He especiallylikes petting between his ears, and he sometimes makes a purring type sound. His fur is coarse like a pig´s. You wouldn´t know he´s a rodent at all unless you see him yawn, exposing his rat-like teeth. Sometimes the lodge staff have to crack down on him, because he goes into the cabañas and sleeps on the beds, scaring the tourists. When Cutie is not lazing on the porch, he lazes in the river water, eating a diet of plants.
Immediately upon arriving at the lodge we went on a boat ride on the river. Our guide, Marcello, spoke excellent English which I must admit was a relief after two days of struggling to understand Portuguese. We motored down the Miranda River, which is a tributary not of the Amazon but of the Paraguai. We saw tropical birds, including tucans with their bright beaks, and tiger herons. We saw howler monkeys high up in the trees, and we heard them howling! The males howl over some sort of territory issue. We saw lots of caiman. After boating for awhile, we went swimming in the river, in the same water with the caiman and piranha! The caiman are not aggressive like crocodiles and alligators, and the piranhas only go after you if you have a bleeding would or are menstruating. Swimming in a river is wonderful on a hot day. And it was hot! Over 100 degrees, with humidity around 70 percent! My hair was almost curly!
We had an hour to nap, read etc., and then we had dinner in the dining hall, just like at summer camp.
The next morning we went on our safari! We saw tons of animals: great horned owl, blue macaw, stork, parakeets, a type of ibis, hawk, kingfisher, tucan, caiman, capybara, 9-ring coati (related to the racoon, and different from the coatis we saw in Bolivia), fox (gray and more dog-like than foxes I´ve seen in the U.S.), deer (much smaller than U.S. deer), howler monkeys, wild pigs, armadillo, blue morphos butterfly, and aguchi (a small mammal). We did not see anaconda or jaguar.
The blue macaw were beautiful bright blue jungle birds, and Gary collected a handful of their feathers on the ground below the tree where they perched. The stork was tall, standing in the water almost as tall as a fence post! The parakeets were flying free, not in cages the way I´ve seen them before. They are a beautiful green.
Caiman were everywhere, lying on the banks of the water. At night, they spend 5 or 6 hours under water, and in the morning they need to lie in the sun to warm up. The capybara were wet and on the side of the road, probably having just eaten plants in the water. In several areas, 9-ring coati were everywhere, sleeping or playing in trees, running on the ground. They cuddled together and watched us.
The howler monkeys made their strange howling noise that reminds me of Jurassic Park, and our guide, Marcello, called to them with his monkey call. They had a dialog for awhile.
The wild pigs that we saw were actually on a farm, mixed with domestic pigs and some that were crosses between the two. The domestic pigs are fatter and have wider faces. I was surprised that there are wild pigs here, since pigs came from Europe and are not native to the Americas. I know people have brought many domestic pigs to the Americas, but why would people import wild pigs? Marcello told us that during the Chaco war between Paraguay and Bolivia, Paraguayans imported wild pigs from Europe and let them loose in the Chaco so that soldiers could hunt them for a food source. Now there are lots of them, and they have spread into several countries.
I was bitten by fire ants! But it only hurt for a couple of seconds.
I know that in southeast Colorado we have wild pigs which are escaped domestic pigs that have become completely wild after several generations. But I wonder if we also have wild pigs that were imported from Europe. Where did Arizona´s wild javelina population come from?
Now, at the end of the wet season, the Pantanal is mostly flooded with a few islands that are above water. On our safari, we hiked on those islands and drove on the road that is between them. During the dry season, much of the flooded area will be come savannah.
Much of the Pantanal is ot accessible by road this season, and people can only enter on horseback or by airplane. On the river, we saw a house that is only accessible by boat during the wet season. The Pantanal is a mixture of wilderness and cattle farms, or fazendas. Some of the cattle look like Texas longhorns. Some have huge humps on their backs, and all are skin and bones because their grazing area is under water.
The next morning we went piranha fishing. I was secretly glad that nobody caught any fish. Then we went tubing on the Miranda river! Tubing was a much different experience from tubing on the Poudre in Colorado. The Miranda river is wide and deep and slow, and there are no rapids or rocks to dodge. But the Poudre has no caiman or piranhas! I love tubing, on either river.
In the afternoon, we went on another boat ride, and saw a caiman basking on the bank. Our boat pulled up, and it dove into the water and we went swimming right next to where the caiman had been!
Every day, more and more land was visible in the Pantanal, as we approached the dry season. We watched a beautiful sunset over the savannah.
Two of our safari companions are a couple from New Zealand. They spent six months last year in a Colorado mountain town, and they plan to do the same this year. They enter on tourist visas, and are actually working illegally. They said it´s quite easy for them, but they have noticed that it is much harder for their Mexican counterparts who are not usually able to get tourist visas because they are from a poorer country.
Because the New Zealand couple is white and speaks English as a first language, noone suspects them of being undocumented workers. They have seen many cases of a group of construction workers getting stopped and the Mexican workers getting detained by immigration while nobody questions the undocumented workers from New Zealand.
An anteater and a tiny kitten
We arrived by train at Quejillar, on the Bolivian/Brazilian border. Before we even got off the train we were approached by agents trying to sell us tours to the Pantanal. They helped us with transportation to the border and then to Brazilian immigration in Corumbá, where we had our passports stamped.
The three tour companies were all competing for our attention and criticizing each other, but in the end we learned that they are all working together. Two of them are brothers, and the other owners were socializing, hanging out together in the evening.
We chose Indi, who paid for our hotel room in Corumbá where we were hosted by Cristina and her lovable pet anteater Filipe! Filipe is one year old and not yet full grown. He is really cuddly and playful! When we first met him, he was drinking milk out of a bowl with his long toungue. He used his tongue to lap up milk, kind of like a cat except that his foot-long tongue curled around the perimiter of the bowl!
Later, Filipe sat on my lap and cuddled with me. Mostly, he likes to suck on fingers, which apparently helps his digestion, and he plays by grabbing with his front paws. When I tried to put him down on the ground, he tried to grab my legs and wrestle with me! He is soft, and has a mohawk or ridge on his back.
In the evening, while walking we found a tiny animal on the side of the street. I came closer and heard it mewing, and saw that it was a tiny kitten, just a couple of weeks old, barely big enough to open its eyes. I lifted it out of the street and onto the curb, but it fell back into the street. I asked around, but it didn~t belong to anyone and nobody would take it. Finally, we took it to Cristina at our hotel who said, "I~m a mom to Filipe; I can be a mom to this kitten too." She gave us milk, which we fed to the kitten, and sent us to the farmacia to buy a tiny bottle.
I´m amazed that people here seem to understand my Spanish with no problem. They seem to understand everything I say. I understand about 40% of what they say to me.
The three tour companies were all competing for our attention and criticizing each other, but in the end we learned that they are all working together. Two of them are brothers, and the other owners were socializing, hanging out together in the evening.
We chose Indi, who paid for our hotel room in Corumbá where we were hosted by Cristina and her lovable pet anteater Filipe! Filipe is one year old and not yet full grown. He is really cuddly and playful! When we first met him, he was drinking milk out of a bowl with his long toungue. He used his tongue to lap up milk, kind of like a cat except that his foot-long tongue curled around the perimiter of the bowl!
Later, Filipe sat on my lap and cuddled with me. Mostly, he likes to suck on fingers, which apparently helps his digestion, and he plays by grabbing with his front paws. When I tried to put him down on the ground, he tried to grab my legs and wrestle with me! He is soft, and has a mohawk or ridge on his back.
In the evening, while walking we found a tiny animal on the side of the street. I came closer and heard it mewing, and saw that it was a tiny kitten, just a couple of weeks old, barely big enough to open its eyes. I lifted it out of the street and onto the curb, but it fell back into the street. I asked around, but it didn~t belong to anyone and nobody would take it. Finally, we took it to Cristina at our hotel who said, "I~m a mom to Filipe; I can be a mom to this kitten too." She gave us milk, which we fed to the kitten, and sent us to the farmacia to buy a tiny bottle.
I´m amazed that people here seem to understand my Spanish with no problem. They seem to understand everything I say. I understand about 40% of what they say to me.
Water
For a long time, I´ve been meaning to write an entry about water, one of Bolivia´s biggest problems. All of the water in Bolivia is contaminated. You can´t drink tap water anywhere in the country. Not only must you avoid drinking the water, you must avoid eating anything that has been contaminated by water. Vegetables must either be decontaminated by cooking or peeling, or soaked in water treated with iodine.
During my first week in Cochabamba, I had a severe case of turista which caused me to vomit for 12 hours straight, and was probably caused by drinking tap water in the form of a fruit drink at a restaurant.
I have a bank account, and therefore access to medical care if I need it, but hundreds of Bolivians die every year from diarrhea caused by contaminated food or water.
Also thanks to my bank account, I have a huge bottle of purified water delivered to my door several times a week, while many Bolivians must gather rain water and decontaminate it by boiling.
We are lucky to have contaminated tap water piped to our sinks, toilets and shower and ready for our use. Thanks to the World Bank and a U.S. corporation, the people of Cochabamba almost lost this basic right a few years ago, but fought back during the famous Cochabamba water war. Quoting from Lonely Planet´s Bolivia guide:
"With the rapid growth of Cochabamba in the late 20th century, water shortages became acute, and the city sought financing for a tunnel that would bring water through the mountains from another zone. But the World Bank, then more or less controlling Bolivia~s economy, refused to countenance the government spending money on the project and forced them to sell the province´s water utility to the US giant Bechtel, who rapidly put the rates up.
But the company hadn´t reckoned with the citizens, who rapidly established an organizatin to oppose the sale. With the pe9ople furious at the rate hike, strikes were called in February 2000. The citizenry took to the streets and, after violent clashes with police, forced the government to negotiate. Arrogantly, the government refused to deal with the people´s organization, and suggested a gradual price rise. This was angrily rejected, and a general strike called for early April. Nearly a hundred thousand people from all walks of life occupied the streets; when the police foolishly arrested the movement´s leader, the situation rapidly deteriorated, and one man was shot by an army sniper. Things then quieted, but a massive march two days later finally forced Bechtel out, submitting a huge compensation claim in the process. Anti-globalization campaigners around the world saw it as a highly symbolic popular victory over a multinational that had bullied the Bolivian government with World Bank complicity.
These days, the water rates are back at pre-privatization levels, but, although the community water company is gradually increasing service, the money for the much-needed pipeline is as far away as ever. Still, cochabambinos remain justly proud of their victory."
The water war is one of the first things I learned about Cochabamba, as it was featured in one of Michael Moore´s movies several years ago. I can´t remember which one.
Beyond water itself, hot water is another problem in Bolivia. Our accommodations are luxurious in that we have running water, and an electric water heater in our shower. But like even rich Bolivians, we have no hot water in the kitchen or bathrom sinks. Sometimes we heat dishwashing water on the stove, but other times we observe the Bolivian custom of washing the dishes in cold water, using lots of detergent.
During my first week in Cochabamba, I had a severe case of turista which caused me to vomit for 12 hours straight, and was probably caused by drinking tap water in the form of a fruit drink at a restaurant.
I have a bank account, and therefore access to medical care if I need it, but hundreds of Bolivians die every year from diarrhea caused by contaminated food or water.
Also thanks to my bank account, I have a huge bottle of purified water delivered to my door several times a week, while many Bolivians must gather rain water and decontaminate it by boiling.
We are lucky to have contaminated tap water piped to our sinks, toilets and shower and ready for our use. Thanks to the World Bank and a U.S. corporation, the people of Cochabamba almost lost this basic right a few years ago, but fought back during the famous Cochabamba water war. Quoting from Lonely Planet´s Bolivia guide:
"With the rapid growth of Cochabamba in the late 20th century, water shortages became acute, and the city sought financing for a tunnel that would bring water through the mountains from another zone. But the World Bank, then more or less controlling Bolivia~s economy, refused to countenance the government spending money on the project and forced them to sell the province´s water utility to the US giant Bechtel, who rapidly put the rates up.
But the company hadn´t reckoned with the citizens, who rapidly established an organizatin to oppose the sale. With the pe9ople furious at the rate hike, strikes were called in February 2000. The citizenry took to the streets and, after violent clashes with police, forced the government to negotiate. Arrogantly, the government refused to deal with the people´s organization, and suggested a gradual price rise. This was angrily rejected, and a general strike called for early April. Nearly a hundred thousand people from all walks of life occupied the streets; when the police foolishly arrested the movement´s leader, the situation rapidly deteriorated, and one man was shot by an army sniper. Things then quieted, but a massive march two days later finally forced Bechtel out, submitting a huge compensation claim in the process. Anti-globalization campaigners around the world saw it as a highly symbolic popular victory over a multinational that had bullied the Bolivian government with World Bank complicity.
These days, the water rates are back at pre-privatization levels, but, although the community water company is gradually increasing service, the money for the much-needed pipeline is as far away as ever. Still, cochabambinos remain justly proud of their victory."
The water war is one of the first things I learned about Cochabamba, as it was featured in one of Michael Moore´s movies several years ago. I can´t remember which one.
Beyond water itself, hot water is another problem in Bolivia. Our accommodations are luxurious in that we have running water, and an electric water heater in our shower. But like even rich Bolivians, we have no hot water in the kitchen or bathrom sinks. Sometimes we heat dishwashing water on the stove, but other times we observe the Bolivian custom of washing the dishes in cold water, using lots of detergent.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Santa Cruz, Bolivia
We arrived in Santa Cruz, known for being more racially diverse than the rest of Bolivia. Waiting in line to buy our train tickets to the Brazilian border, we saw three light skinned blonde men in overalls and bill caps. They looked like Minnesota farmers, only thinner. No doubt they are from the German-Canadian Mennonite community that is here.
Santa Cruz has a different feel from other Bolivian cities we have visited. It´s wealthier and cleaner, and perhaps due to its multiculturalism (it has communities of Mennonites, Japanese immigrants, Bolivians from the Altiplano, Cuban doctors, descendants of ex-Nazi runaways, Brazilian immigrants and Russians), it has great multicultural cuisine. And unlike Cochabamba, where red lights are merely a suggestion to stop and nobody cares that the homeless people bathe and wash their laundry in the public fountains and hang their laundry out to dry in the plazas, Santa Cruz seems to be a rules following kind of a place. Gary and I, killing a few hours in the plaza while waiting for our train, got in trouble with a cop when we propped our swollen bus-tired feet up while sitting on a park bench!
As the richest people of Bolivia, the residents of Santa Cruz feel the most threatened by Evo Morales´s socialist land reform and nationalization policies, and the department of Santa Cruz has voted to become autonomous. It remains to be seen what that will mean.
At 1,360 feet altitude, compared to Cochabamba´s 8,400, Santa Cruz is hot and muggy. Time to move on. Meanwhile, in other news:
The Bolivian photo I most want to take: A family of 4 or 5 riding together on one bicycle. I see this almost every day, but never have my camera ready at the right moment. Almost as good: A family of four riding on a motorcycle taxi. The fifth was the driver. We saw this in Villa Tunari.
My favorite new Spanish phrase: un viejo verde. A dirty old man. (no, this isn´t in reference to Gary!)
Santa Cruz has a different feel from other Bolivian cities we have visited. It´s wealthier and cleaner, and perhaps due to its multiculturalism (it has communities of Mennonites, Japanese immigrants, Bolivians from the Altiplano, Cuban doctors, descendants of ex-Nazi runaways, Brazilian immigrants and Russians), it has great multicultural cuisine. And unlike Cochabamba, where red lights are merely a suggestion to stop and nobody cares that the homeless people bathe and wash their laundry in the public fountains and hang their laundry out to dry in the plazas, Santa Cruz seems to be a rules following kind of a place. Gary and I, killing a few hours in the plaza while waiting for our train, got in trouble with a cop when we propped our swollen bus-tired feet up while sitting on a park bench!
As the richest people of Bolivia, the residents of Santa Cruz feel the most threatened by Evo Morales´s socialist land reform and nationalization policies, and the department of Santa Cruz has voted to become autonomous. It remains to be seen what that will mean.
At 1,360 feet altitude, compared to Cochabamba´s 8,400, Santa Cruz is hot and muggy. Time to move on. Meanwhile, in other news:
The Bolivian photo I most want to take: A family of 4 or 5 riding together on one bicycle. I see this almost every day, but never have my camera ready at the right moment. Almost as good: A family of four riding on a motorcycle taxi. The fifth was the driver. We saw this in Villa Tunari.
My favorite new Spanish phrase: un viejo verde. A dirty old man. (no, this isn´t in reference to Gary!)
East to Brazil
We took an overnight bus from Cochabamba to Santa Cruz. We went down, down, down, and then the land became flat. We drove past wide and shallow rivers streaked with sand bars, and palm trees, banana trees, cattle pastures and crops I can~t identify. We rode in our "bus cama" (bus with reclining seats) past poorer Bolivians riding in the open backs of freight trucks. During the ride, I had time to reflect a bit on Bolivia.
Some of the things that we take for granted in the U.S. can be a major ordeal in Bolivia. Gas fuel, for instance. Our house, like many, is not hooked to the gas line in Cochabamba, so we have a small yellow gas tank that we connect to our kitchen stove and use for cooking fuel. (The kitchen stove is the only appliance that uses gas here, as we have no heating stove or furnace, and no hot water other than in our electric sho9wer, which is heated using an on demand electric water heater). When the tank runs empty, the flame in the kitchen stove dies and we must immediately trade our tank for a full one. This was no problem when gas was available at our corner grocery store, but lately for some reason the stores don~t carry gas and we can only get it from the gas truck that drives around every few days. We have to listen for the sound of the gas truck, which sounds like a guy hitting a gas tank with a metal object, and go running out to the street with our empty tank. Meanwhile, we could be out of gas for several days which means no cooking and no purifing our water by boiling. Fortunately, our landlord has now purchased a second gas tank so that we always have a spare on hand, but most Bolivians can´t afford to do this.
Speaking of things that most Bolivians cannot afford, I recently learned that it costs US $900 to buy a telephone line in Cochabamba. This just gets you the phone number, nothing more. When most Cochabambinos earn less than US $100 per month, this is prohibitively expensive. Cell phones, bad for the environment as they are, are a cheaper option.
Many transactions in Bolivia, especially those for larger amounts, are done in U.S. dollars. Rent is paid in dollars. Houses and cars are purchased and college tuition is paid, all in dollars. Many people, especially those with a higher salary, are paid in dollars. At the supermarket, where richer people shop, the cash register provides the total in both dollars and Bolivianos. When I use my ATM card to make a withdrawal from my checking account, I can choose to withdraw dollars or Bolivianos. People with better jobs are often paid in dollars. I dont know the reason for this, except that it´s much more practical to pay large sums in dollars, as the largest Boliviano bill is 200 Bs, or about US $27. You would need a huge wad of Bolivianos to buy a used car, for example.
Gary does most of our shopping at the local markets, rather than at the supermarkets. Nearly all the food here is fresh: freshe fruit, fresh vegetables and fresh grains. There is little prepared food here. Bolivians don´t seem to buy canned soups or other prepared foods, and the result is that we eat a lot of delicious, fresh foods. Unlike in the U.S., fresh food costs much less than the few processed or prepared items that are available here. This is the way it should be!
Some of the things that we take for granted in the U.S. can be a major ordeal in Bolivia. Gas fuel, for instance. Our house, like many, is not hooked to the gas line in Cochabamba, so we have a small yellow gas tank that we connect to our kitchen stove and use for cooking fuel. (The kitchen stove is the only appliance that uses gas here, as we have no heating stove or furnace, and no hot water other than in our electric sho9wer, which is heated using an on demand electric water heater). When the tank runs empty, the flame in the kitchen stove dies and we must immediately trade our tank for a full one. This was no problem when gas was available at our corner grocery store, but lately for some reason the stores don~t carry gas and we can only get it from the gas truck that drives around every few days. We have to listen for the sound of the gas truck, which sounds like a guy hitting a gas tank with a metal object, and go running out to the street with our empty tank. Meanwhile, we could be out of gas for several days which means no cooking and no purifing our water by boiling. Fortunately, our landlord has now purchased a second gas tank so that we always have a spare on hand, but most Bolivians can´t afford to do this.
Speaking of things that most Bolivians cannot afford, I recently learned that it costs US $900 to buy a telephone line in Cochabamba. This just gets you the phone number, nothing more. When most Cochabambinos earn less than US $100 per month, this is prohibitively expensive. Cell phones, bad for the environment as they are, are a cheaper option.
Many transactions in Bolivia, especially those for larger amounts, are done in U.S. dollars. Rent is paid in dollars. Houses and cars are purchased and college tuition is paid, all in dollars. Many people, especially those with a higher salary, are paid in dollars. At the supermarket, where richer people shop, the cash register provides the total in both dollars and Bolivianos. When I use my ATM card to make a withdrawal from my checking account, I can choose to withdraw dollars or Bolivianos. People with better jobs are often paid in dollars. I dont know the reason for this, except that it´s much more practical to pay large sums in dollars, as the largest Boliviano bill is 200 Bs, or about US $27. You would need a huge wad of Bolivianos to buy a used car, for example.
Gary does most of our shopping at the local markets, rather than at the supermarkets. Nearly all the food here is fresh: freshe fruit, fresh vegetables and fresh grains. There is little prepared food here. Bolivians don´t seem to buy canned soups or other prepared foods, and the result is that we eat a lot of delicious, fresh foods. Unlike in the U.S., fresh food costs much less than the few processed or prepared items that are available here. This is the way it should be!
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Off to Brazil!
Tonight we´ll take a night bus to Santa Cruz, a city to the east of here, and from there we´ll take a 24-hour train ride through the jungle to Brazil! We are headed for Brasilia, the capital, where we will attend a four-day copper anniversary party hosted by my UWC friends Christian (from Denmark) and Camila (from Brazil). On the way we will visit the Pantanal, a region known for its wildlife. I´m hoping to see a capybara, the world´s largest rodent. And I´m curious to see how it will be to travel in a country where I speak nothing of the language. I can understand some Portuguese, but I can´t speak it at all, except for a few attempts to put "ao" on the end of Spanish words.
We almost didn´t get to go to Brazil, as we were denied visas. Unlike most of our European counterparts, Americans must have visas to go to Brazil. This is a reciprocal visa, that Brazil requires of us because we require it of them. The visa requirements for Americans are especially stringent. We must pay $130 each, submit photos (which are used for nothing), and answer several questions about whether we have ever been communists, nazis, or whether we plan to engage in polygamy or genocide. These requirements are all reciprocal, and I recognize the questions word for word from U.S. immigration applications. We were denied visas because we could not produce return plane tickets to the U.S. (Gary and I bought one way tickets to South America, not knowing how long we would stay). We visited the Brazilian consulate and asked and asked, but the denial was final.
Luckily, my friend Camila, whose anniversary party we will attend, works for the Brazilian Foreign Service, and she was able to put in a good word for us. Our case was reconsidered and after a wait we were granted visas yesterday.
The harsher requirements for U.S. citizens is not unique to Brazil. Since the U.S. is extremely harsh on most would-be visitors from the world, and the U.S. refuses to give visitor visas to most citizens of Bolivia, Chile, Brazil or most any other country in Latin America, many of these countries impose reciprocal requirements on U.S. citizens, requirements that they do not impose on Canadians and most Europeans. Chile imposes a $100 entry fee on U.S. citizens who enter by air. Bolivia requires visas for us, at $100 each. Paraguay and Brazil require visas of U.S. citizens but not of most others. The U.S. is not the only developed country that imposes harsh visa requirements on people from undeveloped countries, but the U.S. is a bully on a world scale, and that is why these requirements are imposed upon us while our British house mates travel freeley through the same countries with no need for visas.
In any case, with a little help from a friend we are off to Brazil tomorrow! Afterwards, we will return to Bolivia.
In other news:
I have learned that I can exchange English conversation practice for almost anything ... such as therapeutic massage, and meals at an Iranian restaurant. Gary and I went to the Iranian restaurant last week and watched a belly dancing performance, special for Bolivian fathers´ day. The owner is from Iran but has lived in Bolivia for 23 years.
We´ve been enjoying fresh figs! They are so much better than dried figs. I even found a fig tree where I can pick them sometimes!
Last week was Semana Santa, or holy week. The tradition here is that people visit twelve churches, and also give up meat for a few days (no doubt a big sacrifice for folks used to the diet here!) There are processions, and people hike up the huge hill near our house to the statue of Jesus on the top. (El Cristo). I hiked up to the Cristo early Friday morning, and enjoyed the view of Cochabamba and the surrounding mountains, and hiking with hundreds of other people.
Not part of Holy Week, Gary went to an all night sweat lodge, the Mexican-style temascal, on Thursday. It was a special lodge for the equinox. Gary goes to a temascal every other week in Cochabamba. The lodge is run by a man from Mexico, but Gary recognizes many of the traditions from Lakota-style lodges that he used to attend in the U.S. The temascal group even sings a song that Gary knows, in Lakota.
Over Easter weekend, Gary and I had an opportunity to stay in a beautiful house in the country, between the villages of Tiquipaya and Apote, about thirty minutes from here. The house was rented by someone in our program, who left early, and so we took the opportunity to spend a couple of beautiful days there. It´s hard to describe how beautiful the house and garden (complete with a family who takes care of the garden) are, so I´ll include a few pictures. More are on our flickr site, http://www.flickr.com/photos/kimigary. Our friends from Cochabamba came out Saturday evening for a barbecue, and we had an Easter egg hunt for chocolate eggs!
The country house is owned by a well-known doctor in Cochabamba, whose family is Palestinian. On a visit to Palestine many years ago, the doctor met Yassar Arafat, who gave him a tiny cactus which grew into the one pictured here.
We almost didn´t get to go to Brazil, as we were denied visas. Unlike most of our European counterparts, Americans must have visas to go to Brazil. This is a reciprocal visa, that Brazil requires of us because we require it of them. The visa requirements for Americans are especially stringent. We must pay $130 each, submit photos (which are used for nothing), and answer several questions about whether we have ever been communists, nazis, or whether we plan to engage in polygamy or genocide. These requirements are all reciprocal, and I recognize the questions word for word from U.S. immigration applications. We were denied visas because we could not produce return plane tickets to the U.S. (Gary and I bought one way tickets to South America, not knowing how long we would stay). We visited the Brazilian consulate and asked and asked, but the denial was final.
Luckily, my friend Camila, whose anniversary party we will attend, works for the Brazilian Foreign Service, and she was able to put in a good word for us. Our case was reconsidered and after a wait we were granted visas yesterday.
The harsher requirements for U.S. citizens is not unique to Brazil. Since the U.S. is extremely harsh on most would-be visitors from the world, and the U.S. refuses to give visitor visas to most citizens of Bolivia, Chile, Brazil or most any other country in Latin America, many of these countries impose reciprocal requirements on U.S. citizens, requirements that they do not impose on Canadians and most Europeans. Chile imposes a $100 entry fee on U.S. citizens who enter by air. Bolivia requires visas for us, at $100 each. Paraguay and Brazil require visas of U.S. citizens but not of most others. The U.S. is not the only developed country that imposes harsh visa requirements on people from undeveloped countries, but the U.S. is a bully on a world scale, and that is why these requirements are imposed upon us while our British house mates travel freeley through the same countries with no need for visas.
In any case, with a little help from a friend we are off to Brazil tomorrow! Afterwards, we will return to Bolivia.
In other news:
I have learned that I can exchange English conversation practice for almost anything ... such as therapeutic massage, and meals at an Iranian restaurant. Gary and I went to the Iranian restaurant last week and watched a belly dancing performance, special for Bolivian fathers´ day. The owner is from Iran but has lived in Bolivia for 23 years.
We´ve been enjoying fresh figs! They are so much better than dried figs. I even found a fig tree where I can pick them sometimes!
Last week was Semana Santa, or holy week. The tradition here is that people visit twelve churches, and also give up meat for a few days (no doubt a big sacrifice for folks used to the diet here!) There are processions, and people hike up the huge hill near our house to the statue of Jesus on the top. (El Cristo). I hiked up to the Cristo early Friday morning, and enjoyed the view of Cochabamba and the surrounding mountains, and hiking with hundreds of other people.
Not part of Holy Week, Gary went to an all night sweat lodge, the Mexican-style temascal, on Thursday. It was a special lodge for the equinox. Gary goes to a temascal every other week in Cochabamba. The lodge is run by a man from Mexico, but Gary recognizes many of the traditions from Lakota-style lodges that he used to attend in the U.S. The temascal group even sings a song that Gary knows, in Lakota.
Over Easter weekend, Gary and I had an opportunity to stay in a beautiful house in the country, between the villages of Tiquipaya and Apote, about thirty minutes from here. The house was rented by someone in our program, who left early, and so we took the opportunity to spend a couple of beautiful days there. It´s hard to describe how beautiful the house and garden (complete with a family who takes care of the garden) are, so I´ll include a few pictures. More are on our flickr site, http://www.flickr.com/photos/kimigary. Our friends from Cochabamba came out Saturday evening for a barbecue, and we had an Easter egg hunt for chocolate eggs!
The country house is owned by a well-known doctor in Cochabamba, whose family is Palestinian. On a visit to Palestine many years ago, the doctor met Yassar Arafat, who gave him a tiny cactus which grew into the one pictured here.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Lidia, Bolivian police and DV, a bit of culture
The best thing that happened in the last two weeks is that we raised more than $4,000 for Lidia, a young Bolivian woman who works as a domestic worker earning less than $100 per month, to attend nursing school. Thank you to everyone who donated, and especially to my mom for receiving all of the checks and depositing them for me! (As well as for handling all of Gary´s and my financial affairs while we are traveling. A trip like this would not be possible without her help!)
Lidia starts nursing school today, something that would be impossible without this help. I saw her this morning, and she is so excited!
The worst thing that happened was that we had to intervene when a woman was being beaten by her husband. Our three house mates and Gary and I share a yard with a woman and her husband and one-year-old son, who live in the house behind ours. Last weekend, the woman´s husband went out of town and the woman attended our back yard barbecue. She laughed and ate and had a glass of wine with us for about an hour, while her son slept.
The husband somehow found out, apparently from a neighbor who is spying on the woman. The husband called her telling her that it was scandalous and that he would beat her when he got home.
We encouraged the woman to get a restraining order, but the police refused to help her get one. They said that if there was any trouble, the neighbors would help.
So we all went to bed very nervous on the night that the husband was expected home. Fortunately, our housemates Mac and Miranda stay up late, and they were awake when the husband showed up at 2 a.m. Miranda woke Gary and me up and we went into the back yard to listen. I heard the sound of smacks, and the woman crying. We called 911 and asked for the police to come right away.
Meanwhile, the noise continued. The four of us walked back toward the house, until the husband saw us and shouted, "What do you want." I said that we wanted to check that everything was ok. He sneered "everything is fine." I shouted for the woman, and she came out of the house carrying her son. She said that the husband´s parents were on their way. The husband followed her into the driveway, shouting, and we followed. He shouted at her, "Are you going to make a complaint?" and she shouted "yes, because you have hit our son." She asked me to call her sister, which I did, and I also called the police again. They did not seem to be in a hurry.
The husband´s parents showed up, and there was more yelling, and then the woman´s sister arrived with her two children. The husband started to leave and just then the police finally showed up. Upon seeing that the husband was leaving, the police promptly left without getting any information.
The woman told us that he had hit her while she was holding the baby, and in doing so he hit the baby too. He also prevented her from leaving the house until we came.
The good news is that the husband has moved out, and the woman is filing for divorce. Divorce is legal in Bolivia, but you have to show cause. She will have to prove that there was physical violence. Fortunately, the husband has been going around bragging about how he had to hit her because she misbehaved while he was away. Meanwhile, the woman has bought her very own barbecue grill.
I read in the newspaper that 70% of Bolivian women are victims of abuse, either physical or psychological.
The most fun thing that happened this week is that we celebrated Miranda´s birthday. Kristina baked a cake, and then we went out for Indian food and then dancing. My house mates decided to dress me up in some different clothes. For the past five months, my wardrobe has consisted of three sleeveless shirts, one Peruvian sweater, one fleece pullover and two pairs of pants, all very boring and practical. So it was a lot of fun to go out dressed in something else.
And we´ve had a bit of culture. We went to the Cine Center cinema complex to see Love in the Time of Cholera. Like most movies here, it was in English with Spanish subtitles. At home, we watched a Bolivian movie. And we saw the Russian Ballet on Ice, El Cascanueces (the Nutcracker) which made me want to ice skate, and we went to a concert of traditional Bolivian music, performed in a huge beautiful old theatre.
There is an elderly Bolivian woman who lives in our neighborhood, and who surprises us by speaking perfect English, with no accent. It turns out that she studied in Canada. A young Canadian couple lived in our house before Gary and I moved in, and the elderly woman was so pleased to meet people from Canada that they talked and talked. The next time they saw the woman, she said, "And where are you girls from?" They realized that she has Alzheimer´s disease or something similar, and that they can surprise and please her again and again by being Canadian.
That´s all for now. We´re planning to take a small trip over Easter weekend, and a longer trip to Brazil in April!
Lidia starts nursing school today, something that would be impossible without this help. I saw her this morning, and she is so excited!
The worst thing that happened was that we had to intervene when a woman was being beaten by her husband. Our three house mates and Gary and I share a yard with a woman and her husband and one-year-old son, who live in the house behind ours. Last weekend, the woman´s husband went out of town and the woman attended our back yard barbecue. She laughed and ate and had a glass of wine with us for about an hour, while her son slept.
The husband somehow found out, apparently from a neighbor who is spying on the woman. The husband called her telling her that it was scandalous and that he would beat her when he got home.
We encouraged the woman to get a restraining order, but the police refused to help her get one. They said that if there was any trouble, the neighbors would help.
So we all went to bed very nervous on the night that the husband was expected home. Fortunately, our housemates Mac and Miranda stay up late, and they were awake when the husband showed up at 2 a.m. Miranda woke Gary and me up and we went into the back yard to listen. I heard the sound of smacks, and the woman crying. We called 911 and asked for the police to come right away.
Meanwhile, the noise continued. The four of us walked back toward the house, until the husband saw us and shouted, "What do you want." I said that we wanted to check that everything was ok. He sneered "everything is fine." I shouted for the woman, and she came out of the house carrying her son. She said that the husband´s parents were on their way. The husband followed her into the driveway, shouting, and we followed. He shouted at her, "Are you going to make a complaint?" and she shouted "yes, because you have hit our son." She asked me to call her sister, which I did, and I also called the police again. They did not seem to be in a hurry.
The husband´s parents showed up, and there was more yelling, and then the woman´s sister arrived with her two children. The husband started to leave and just then the police finally showed up. Upon seeing that the husband was leaving, the police promptly left without getting any information.
The woman told us that he had hit her while she was holding the baby, and in doing so he hit the baby too. He also prevented her from leaving the house until we came.
The good news is that the husband has moved out, and the woman is filing for divorce. Divorce is legal in Bolivia, but you have to show cause. She will have to prove that there was physical violence. Fortunately, the husband has been going around bragging about how he had to hit her because she misbehaved while he was away. Meanwhile, the woman has bought her very own barbecue grill.
I read in the newspaper that 70% of Bolivian women are victims of abuse, either physical or psychological.
The most fun thing that happened this week is that we celebrated Miranda´s birthday. Kristina baked a cake, and then we went out for Indian food and then dancing. My house mates decided to dress me up in some different clothes. For the past five months, my wardrobe has consisted of three sleeveless shirts, one Peruvian sweater, one fleece pullover and two pairs of pants, all very boring and practical. So it was a lot of fun to go out dressed in something else.
And we´ve had a bit of culture. We went to the Cine Center cinema complex to see Love in the Time of Cholera. Like most movies here, it was in English with Spanish subtitles. At home, we watched a Bolivian movie. And we saw the Russian Ballet on Ice, El Cascanueces (the Nutcracker) which made me want to ice skate, and we went to a concert of traditional Bolivian music, performed in a huge beautiful old theatre.
There is an elderly Bolivian woman who lives in our neighborhood, and who surprises us by speaking perfect English, with no accent. It turns out that she studied in Canada. A young Canadian couple lived in our house before Gary and I moved in, and the elderly woman was so pleased to meet people from Canada that they talked and talked. The next time they saw the woman, she said, "And where are you girls from?" They realized that she has Alzheimer´s disease or something similar, and that they can surprise and please her again and again by being Canadian.
That´s all for now. We´re planning to take a small trip over Easter weekend, and a longer trip to Brazil in April!
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Monkeys
Last weekend we went to Villa Tunari with eight other people affiliated with my office. We visited Parque Machía, a wildlife refuge in the upper Amazon basin, at 900 feet elevetion, down from 8,000 feet where we live in Cochabamba. Parque Machía volunteers care for wild animals who have been abused as pets or in zoos and circuses. Most of the park was closed for maintenance after flooding, but we were able to visit the mokney section.
First, we took everything out of our pockets and put it into a locker because some of the mokneys have been trained as pickpockets.
We walked along a trail through the rain forest and suddenly a black spider monkey jumped onto the path and wrapped its tail around my leg, tightly! The bottom eight inches of the monkey´s tail is a skin pad, just like the skin of the palms of its hands and feet, so it can use its tail to grab things and swing from branches.
Another spider monkey leaped towards me and tried to grab my arms. Having been taught not to touch wildlife, I pulled back and the monkey jumped on Gary instead. I asked the Parque Machía volunteer, a young woman from British Columbia, if we should encourage this, and she said it´s fine to touch the monkeys when they approach us.
There were monkeys everywhere, swinging from trees just like in the cartoons, running, playing, and cuddling with humans. One reportedly climbed up high on a rope and then let go freefalling 20 feet into some tree branches.
I sat on a bench and several spider monkeys climbed all over me and sat in my lap. They like to have their backs scratched. A couple of Capuchín monkeys cuddled with me and then slyly stuck their little hands into my pants pockets, opening the velcro pockets but finding nothing.
A mama spider mnkey lay in my lap and let me hold her hand while her baby climbed on me and used its tail to swing from my arm and reach some plants which it ate. Another mama had a smaller baby that held tightly to the mama´s belly. I held its tiny hands and feet. Their palm skin is a little bit thicker, but smoother than human palms. They have tiny fingernails, and tiny ears just like human ears. They like to cuddle with each other as well as with humans.
One monkey grabbed my glasses and pulled them off of my face, but I held onto them and got them back.
A family of coati (tejón in Spanish), including two babies, passed through the clearing.
As we left the park, we looked high up in a tree and saw a bear sitting on a branch. A volunteer, a young woman from Cochabamba, told us that the bear is not native to the rain forest. He is an Andean mountain bear, from the highlands closer to La Paz. When he was a baby, a poacher killed his mother and sold him as a pet to someone in La Paz, who abused him. Now, he is 18 months old, not yet full grown, but he doesn´t know how to live in the wild. One of the Parque Machía volunteers acts as his "dad" and, by acting as an example, is teaching him to climb trees, swim in the river and catch fish.
There are also wild cats in the park, but we didn´t see them because that section was closed. There isa puma that was rescued from a zoo in Oruro where it lived in a cement pit beneath the cage of a lion that constantly peed and pooped on it.
Anyone can come and volunteer at this park. (http://www.intiwarayassi.org/) The park asks for a 15-day commitment.
We walked back into town and went to a restaurant where the menu included three choices: Surubi fish, deer or something else that we couldn´t understand. We asked the owner about the third choice that we didn´t understand, and she said, "It´s similar to that animal over there." Over there as her son´s pet, a rodent as big as a medium-sized house cat. It was on a harness and leash. None of us ordered that.
After our meal, we checked out the rodent. It´s called a jochi, and it´s brown with white spots, like a young deer. I pet it on the head and was surprised that it responded by closing its eyes and nuzzling into the petting like a cat. I almost expected it to purr.
Nonetheless, it´s still a rodent with long yellow rodent teeth, and when I stopped petting the jochi it returned to its rapid sniffing and wiggling of its nose, like a hamster.
We watched some men reapiring the highway in Villa Tunari. The highway is asphalt, but they repair hotels using cobblestones. One man carefully fitted river rocks into the hole in the highway, carefully placing them as close together as possible like a puzzle and sometimes modifying their shape with a hammer. Another man dumped some water on the side of the road, creating mud. He shoveled the mud over and between the rocks, packing it down and making a pretty decent highway surface.
The next day while our house mates went rafting we went to Hotel El Puente, 4 km outside of Villa Tunari. We swam in two of the 14 beautiful pozos, or swimming holes. The pozos are deep and slow sections of an Amazon tributary. They have a sandy bottom, and there were beautiful butterflies everywhere. Orange ones, yellow ones, and the beautiful and huge blue morpho butterflies. We also saw a bright yellow tropical bird.
We saw a tree that walks (grows many above-ground roots, some of which break off when the tree needs to move on account of a changing earth surface due to landslides) and a huge bunch of plants growing in a ball in the air hanging from a vine (like a hanging planter) and many spider-type plants growing high in the air on tree branches.
First, we took everything out of our pockets and put it into a locker because some of the mokneys have been trained as pickpockets.
We walked along a trail through the rain forest and suddenly a black spider monkey jumped onto the path and wrapped its tail around my leg, tightly! The bottom eight inches of the monkey´s tail is a skin pad, just like the skin of the palms of its hands and feet, so it can use its tail to grab things and swing from branches.
Another spider monkey leaped towards me and tried to grab my arms. Having been taught not to touch wildlife, I pulled back and the monkey jumped on Gary instead. I asked the Parque Machía volunteer, a young woman from British Columbia, if we should encourage this, and she said it´s fine to touch the monkeys when they approach us.
There were monkeys everywhere, swinging from trees just like in the cartoons, running, playing, and cuddling with humans. One reportedly climbed up high on a rope and then let go freefalling 20 feet into some tree branches.
I sat on a bench and several spider monkeys climbed all over me and sat in my lap. They like to have their backs scratched. A couple of Capuchín monkeys cuddled with me and then slyly stuck their little hands into my pants pockets, opening the velcro pockets but finding nothing.
A mama spider mnkey lay in my lap and let me hold her hand while her baby climbed on me and used its tail to swing from my arm and reach some plants which it ate. Another mama had a smaller baby that held tightly to the mama´s belly. I held its tiny hands and feet. Their palm skin is a little bit thicker, but smoother than human palms. They have tiny fingernails, and tiny ears just like human ears. They like to cuddle with each other as well as with humans.
One monkey grabbed my glasses and pulled them off of my face, but I held onto them and got them back.
A family of coati (tejón in Spanish), including two babies, passed through the clearing.
As we left the park, we looked high up in a tree and saw a bear sitting on a branch. A volunteer, a young woman from Cochabamba, told us that the bear is not native to the rain forest. He is an Andean mountain bear, from the highlands closer to La Paz. When he was a baby, a poacher killed his mother and sold him as a pet to someone in La Paz, who abused him. Now, he is 18 months old, not yet full grown, but he doesn´t know how to live in the wild. One of the Parque Machía volunteers acts as his "dad" and, by acting as an example, is teaching him to climb trees, swim in the river and catch fish.
There are also wild cats in the park, but we didn´t see them because that section was closed. There isa puma that was rescued from a zoo in Oruro where it lived in a cement pit beneath the cage of a lion that constantly peed and pooped on it.
Anyone can come and volunteer at this park. (http://www.intiwarayassi.org/) The park asks for a 15-day commitment.
We walked back into town and went to a restaurant where the menu included three choices: Surubi fish, deer or something else that we couldn´t understand. We asked the owner about the third choice that we didn´t understand, and she said, "It´s similar to that animal over there." Over there as her son´s pet, a rodent as big as a medium-sized house cat. It was on a harness and leash. None of us ordered that.
After our meal, we checked out the rodent. It´s called a jochi, and it´s brown with white spots, like a young deer. I pet it on the head and was surprised that it responded by closing its eyes and nuzzling into the petting like a cat. I almost expected it to purr.
Nonetheless, it´s still a rodent with long yellow rodent teeth, and when I stopped petting the jochi it returned to its rapid sniffing and wiggling of its nose, like a hamster.
We watched some men reapiring the highway in Villa Tunari. The highway is asphalt, but they repair hotels using cobblestones. One man carefully fitted river rocks into the hole in the highway, carefully placing them as close together as possible like a puzzle and sometimes modifying their shape with a hammer. Another man dumped some water on the side of the road, creating mud. He shoveled the mud over and between the rocks, packing it down and making a pretty decent highway surface.
The next day while our house mates went rafting we went to Hotel El Puente, 4 km outside of Villa Tunari. We swam in two of the 14 beautiful pozos, or swimming holes. The pozos are deep and slow sections of an Amazon tributary. They have a sandy bottom, and there were beautiful butterflies everywhere. Orange ones, yellow ones, and the beautiful and huge blue morpho butterflies. We also saw a bright yellow tropical bird.
We saw a tree that walks (grows many above-ground roots, some of which break off when the tree needs to move on account of a changing earth surface due to landslides) and a huge bunch of plants growing in a ball in the air hanging from a vine (like a hanging planter) and many spider-type plants growing high in the air on tree branches.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Eclipse, Bolivian media, United World Colleges, piss, etc.
Last night we watched a full luner eclipse! We watched it from our balcony, with our house mates. Did you see it elsewhere in the world? It was amazing here.
*****
We´ve been in the Bolivian media a bit! While attending an art exhibition, we were photographed for the society page of one of the local newspapers, and it came out in print and on the internet:
http://www.lostiempos.com/click/click150208/invitados1.php
*****
Also, I´ve been helping out with the Bolivian selection committee for the United World Colleges. I attended one of the United World Colleges, an international high school, in New Mexico from 1989 to 1992. My friends Bertha and Harald and Christian, mentioned in my January postings about Harald´s run and Isla del Sol, attended the UWC with me. Since we´ve been in Bolivia, I´ve met a number of UWC graduates in La Paz and in Cochabamba. My new friend Andrea attended the UWC in Canada. She is originally from Cochabamba, and is going to college here now. José Luis, also from Cochabamba, went to the UWC in Hong Kong, and Simón, from Quebec but living in Cochabamba, went to the UWC in Canada.
We are all part of the selection process for the four scholarships that will be given to Bolivian students to attend UWCs in Norway, Wales, Costa Rica and Italy next year. This evening we are having an informational meeting about the application process, and in the past few weeks we´ve been promoting scholarships and inviting Bolivian students to attend. Andrea and I visited several high schools, and we appeared (live and in Spanish - yikes!) on a Bolivian TV talk show last week. I am enjoying being involved with the UWC movement again. In case anyone is interested, the UWC website is http://www.uwc.org/, and the site for the school I attended in New Mexico is http://www.uwc-usa.org/.
*****
At the art exhibit mentioned earlier, I saw a woman wearing a T-shirt that said "Fergus Falls Basketball." I started a conversation with the woman and told her that I enjoyed seeing her T-shirt because Fergus Falls is a town in northern Minnesota, near where I grew up. She quickly told me that the shirt was a gift from someone who must have been there. Then I felt bad because I realized that she was making that up because she probably didn´t want to tell me that she got the shirt in the used American clothing section of the local market. Bolivia is trying to outlaw the sale of used foreign clothes, which undercuts the work of skilled Bolivian tailors, but for now we see used American clothes everywhere and on everyone, some with unexpected slogans. "This is what a pro-choice American looks like."
*****
One of the many nice things about living in South America is that, at least in the countries we have visited so far, men don´t tend to make cat calls at women on the street. Unlike in many countries, the U.S. included sometimes, women can walk down the street in Bolivia without getting any unwanted attention or harassment from men.
*****
All of our house mates speak British English, and I´m continually amazed at how many ways Kristina, in particular, can use the word piss!
To be pissed is to be drunk or angry
It´s pissing down means it´s raining
A piece of piss is what you call something very easy
Pissing oneself laughing refers to laughing a lot
piss poor and piss ugly are obvious
To take the piss out of someone is to make fun of someone, and is interchangeable with ripping the piss out of someone
Pissing it up against the wall is spending all of your money
pissing against the wind is making a futile effort
and in Australia, let´s smash piss means let´s drink beer.
Gary went to get a couple of medical tests here recently and I interpreted for the technician who, when talking about urinating, used the Spanish phrase "hacer pis" (to take a piss).
Our English as well as our Spanish is getting more colorful!
*****
We´ve been in the Bolivian media a bit! While attending an art exhibition, we were photographed for the society page of one of the local newspapers, and it came out in print and on the internet:
http://www.lostiempos.com/click/click150208/invitados1.php
*****
Also, I´ve been helping out with the Bolivian selection committee for the United World Colleges. I attended one of the United World Colleges, an international high school, in New Mexico from 1989 to 1992. My friends Bertha and Harald and Christian, mentioned in my January postings about Harald´s run and Isla del Sol, attended the UWC with me. Since we´ve been in Bolivia, I´ve met a number of UWC graduates in La Paz and in Cochabamba. My new friend Andrea attended the UWC in Canada. She is originally from Cochabamba, and is going to college here now. José Luis, also from Cochabamba, went to the UWC in Hong Kong, and Simón, from Quebec but living in Cochabamba, went to the UWC in Canada.
We are all part of the selection process for the four scholarships that will be given to Bolivian students to attend UWCs in Norway, Wales, Costa Rica and Italy next year. This evening we are having an informational meeting about the application process, and in the past few weeks we´ve been promoting scholarships and inviting Bolivian students to attend. Andrea and I visited several high schools, and we appeared (live and in Spanish - yikes!) on a Bolivian TV talk show last week. I am enjoying being involved with the UWC movement again. In case anyone is interested, the UWC website is http://www.uwc.org/, and the site for the school I attended in New Mexico is http://www.uwc-usa.org/.
*****
At the art exhibit mentioned earlier, I saw a woman wearing a T-shirt that said "Fergus Falls Basketball." I started a conversation with the woman and told her that I enjoyed seeing her T-shirt because Fergus Falls is a town in northern Minnesota, near where I grew up. She quickly told me that the shirt was a gift from someone who must have been there. Then I felt bad because I realized that she was making that up because she probably didn´t want to tell me that she got the shirt in the used American clothing section of the local market. Bolivia is trying to outlaw the sale of used foreign clothes, which undercuts the work of skilled Bolivian tailors, but for now we see used American clothes everywhere and on everyone, some with unexpected slogans. "This is what a pro-choice American looks like."
*****
One of the many nice things about living in South America is that, at least in the countries we have visited so far, men don´t tend to make cat calls at women on the street. Unlike in many countries, the U.S. included sometimes, women can walk down the street in Bolivia without getting any unwanted attention or harassment from men.
*****
All of our house mates speak British English, and I´m continually amazed at how many ways Kristina, in particular, can use the word piss!
To be pissed is to be drunk or angry
It´s pissing down means it´s raining
A piece of piss is what you call something very easy
Pissing oneself laughing refers to laughing a lot
piss poor and piss ugly are obvious
To take the piss out of someone is to make fun of someone, and is interchangeable with ripping the piss out of someone
Pissing it up against the wall is spending all of your money
pissing against the wind is making a futile effort
and in Australia, let´s smash piss means let´s drink beer.
Gary went to get a couple of medical tests here recently and I interpreted for the technician who, when talking about urinating, used the Spanish phrase "hacer pis" (to take a piss).
Our English as well as our Spanish is getting more colorful!
Friday, February 15, 2008
Jail in Bolivia
I went to visit a jail in Cochabamba with two volunteers from my office, who are teaching a computer class there.
In Bolivian prisons, you have to pay for a bed and a place to sleep. If you have money, you can have a nice room with a TV and telephone. Wealthy drug dealers run their business operations from within prison. If you are poor, you have to fend for yourself and find a place to sleep, maybe on the bathroom floor.
Family members can live inside the prison, or live outside but come inside for contact visits. Many spouses and children of prisoners live inside the prison. There is a project here that offers outside activities for children who live in prison, so that they have an opportunity to go outside sometimes.
We arrived at the jail and went through security, which involved providing ID and emptying our pockets. There was no metal detector, but a female soldier gave me a pat down check. The jail is run by military police, the only type of police that exist in Bolivia. The two volunteers, both male, were given a visitors stamp on their wrists. I asked for my stamp, but was told that it´s only for men.
While going through security, we could see the prisoners standing on the other side of the iron bar gate. They looked like they were waiting for something, maybe visitors. The prison has no uniforms, and the prisoners were dressed in street clothes.
A soldier opened the padlock on the iron gate, and we walked inside. The computer lab was just a few feet from the gate, and consisted of a narrow closet-like room with five computers, three of which work. A sign said that it costs 3 Bolivianos (about 40 U.S. cents) per hour to use the lab. Several kids were in the lab playing video games. We met the man in charge of the lab, also a prisoner. He told the kids to leave since we would have class.
Three prisoners came in for a class. Two of them practiced typing using a typing program, while one of our volunteers helped one write a letter to his wife. It seemed like the man had never written a letter before, and he struggled to spell words.
Another prisoner, who spelled very well, worked at creating a table showing his weekly schedule. It consisted of visiting time for immediate family, general visiting time, church, information from his attorney (brought through his wife), computer class and rest. The man told me that he pays a private attorney because he thinks that the public defenders are inexperienced.
The kids came back to try to use a computer, but the prisoner in charge of the lab kicked them out again. The man told me that there are 260 prisoners. Of those, only 20 have had a trial. The rest are awaiting trial. Unlike in the U.S., all accused people in Bolivia have a trial rather than accepting a plea bargain. A Bolivian attorney friend was shocked when I told her that very few criminal cases in the U.S. go to trial, as nearly everyone, even innocent people on occasion, accepts a plea bargain in the U.S.
The man told me that 60 children live in the prison, and many wives. I asked him what he thinks of the presence of families within the prison. He said that when families are there, the men are more relaxed. Sometimes there is a strike, and the families must leave the prison. When the families are gone, tensions really rise among the men. When the families are present, the men work together to take care of them. For example, the men have agreed that 9 p.m. is bedtime for children.
I think it is horrible that Bolivian prisons don´t provide even the basic necessities such as beds for prisoners, and it´s heartbreaking to see that children are growing up inside a prison. At the same time, it´s more humane to allow families to stay together, and for children to stay with their parents. I was impressed with how respectful the prisoners were to me, and with how safe I felt within the prison even though the prisoners were not behind any bars or glass as in U.S. prisons. I suppose that Bolivia has to let families of prisoners live inside the prisons, as they have nowhere else to go, and Bolivia has no social welfare system.
In Bolivian prisons, you have to pay for a bed and a place to sleep. If you have money, you can have a nice room with a TV and telephone. Wealthy drug dealers run their business operations from within prison. If you are poor, you have to fend for yourself and find a place to sleep, maybe on the bathroom floor.
Family members can live inside the prison, or live outside but come inside for contact visits. Many spouses and children of prisoners live inside the prison. There is a project here that offers outside activities for children who live in prison, so that they have an opportunity to go outside sometimes.
We arrived at the jail and went through security, which involved providing ID and emptying our pockets. There was no metal detector, but a female soldier gave me a pat down check. The jail is run by military police, the only type of police that exist in Bolivia. The two volunteers, both male, were given a visitors stamp on their wrists. I asked for my stamp, but was told that it´s only for men.
While going through security, we could see the prisoners standing on the other side of the iron bar gate. They looked like they were waiting for something, maybe visitors. The prison has no uniforms, and the prisoners were dressed in street clothes.
A soldier opened the padlock on the iron gate, and we walked inside. The computer lab was just a few feet from the gate, and consisted of a narrow closet-like room with five computers, three of which work. A sign said that it costs 3 Bolivianos (about 40 U.S. cents) per hour to use the lab. Several kids were in the lab playing video games. We met the man in charge of the lab, also a prisoner. He told the kids to leave since we would have class.
Three prisoners came in for a class. Two of them practiced typing using a typing program, while one of our volunteers helped one write a letter to his wife. It seemed like the man had never written a letter before, and he struggled to spell words.
Another prisoner, who spelled very well, worked at creating a table showing his weekly schedule. It consisted of visiting time for immediate family, general visiting time, church, information from his attorney (brought through his wife), computer class and rest. The man told me that he pays a private attorney because he thinks that the public defenders are inexperienced.
The kids came back to try to use a computer, but the prisoner in charge of the lab kicked them out again. The man told me that there are 260 prisoners. Of those, only 20 have had a trial. The rest are awaiting trial. Unlike in the U.S., all accused people in Bolivia have a trial rather than accepting a plea bargain. A Bolivian attorney friend was shocked when I told her that very few criminal cases in the U.S. go to trial, as nearly everyone, even innocent people on occasion, accepts a plea bargain in the U.S.
The man told me that 60 children live in the prison, and many wives. I asked him what he thinks of the presence of families within the prison. He said that when families are there, the men are more relaxed. Sometimes there is a strike, and the families must leave the prison. When the families are gone, tensions really rise among the men. When the families are present, the men work together to take care of them. For example, the men have agreed that 9 p.m. is bedtime for children.
I think it is horrible that Bolivian prisons don´t provide even the basic necessities such as beds for prisoners, and it´s heartbreaking to see that children are growing up inside a prison. At the same time, it´s more humane to allow families to stay together, and for children to stay with their parents. I was impressed with how respectful the prisoners were to me, and with how safe I felt within the prison even though the prisoners were not behind any bars or glass as in U.S. prisons. I suppose that Bolivia has to let families of prisoners live inside the prisons, as they have nowhere else to go, and Bolivia has no social welfare system.
Carnaval in Cochabamba
Carnaval in Cochabamba was on Saturday, and consisted of a parade that lasted for twelve hours. It started with the military police dressed as: the Simpsons, Egyptians, Spartans, gigantic babies, Indigenous women and more. The crowd pelted the cops with water balloons and foam. After several hours of cops, the real carnaval began, with all of the traditional dances. I still don´t know what most of them are, but here is my (probably erroneous) understanding of a few of the dances:
Tinkus is an indigenous style dance, developed from the tinkus custom in which two villages would fight each other until someone died, as a sacrafice to Mother Earth, or Pachamama. Today it´s still done, but only until someone sheds blood. At a tinkus party in Cochabamba on Saturday, two people lost an eye each. Despite its gory history, tinkus is my favorite dance on account of the brightly colored traditional costumes.
Caporales: The men in this dance wear big boots with bells on the outsides, huge puffy sleeves, and some of them carry whips.
They represent Spanish overseers. Other dancers repreent African slaves, and their grotesque masks represent the fatigue, suffering and altitude sickness that they experienced in Bolivian mines. The women in this dance wear very short skirts and high heels, and I don´t know what they represent.
La Morenada: The men in this dance wear outfits that I used to think look like wedding cakes until someone told me that they represent the Spaniards in their armor with big beards and pipes. They spin a noisemaker, sometimes made from a dead armadillo, that makes a rattling noice, representing the chains on the people they enslaved.
The Tobas represent jungle tribes conquered by the Incas, and they perform war dances with large tropical feathers on their heads and carrying lances.
La Diablada originates in 12th century Spain and represents a struggle between the Archangel Michael and the devil. There are lots of wild looking devil costumes, and some sexy women dancers representing carnal temptresses. The condor and the bear, ancient Andean symbols, are also part of this dance.
Another dance was performed by Afro Bolivians from the Yungas. These dancers are probably the descendents of slaves who were brought to work in the Potosí silver mines in Bolivia. They couldn´t survive at Potosi´s altitude, over 12,000 feet, and they were moved to the yungas (Coroico area, where Harald did his run) to work on coca plantations.
Other dances seemed more traditionally indigenous, but I don´t know their meanings.
In all, there were more than 90 dance groups. I took a lot of pictures (available at flickr.com/photos/kimigary), although I kept my camera in a plastic bag on account of all the water balloons and foam being sprayed.
Later in the day, huge water fights broke out between spectators on opposite sides of the street. I only got directly hit once, and Gary wasn´t hit. I took some pictures of the kids´water fight, but when adults joined in I didn´t dare take out my camera. We left after watching carnaval for ten hours, and it continued on into the night.
Tinkus is an indigenous style dance, developed from the tinkus custom in which two villages would fight each other until someone died, as a sacrafice to Mother Earth, or Pachamama. Today it´s still done, but only until someone sheds blood. At a tinkus party in Cochabamba on Saturday, two people lost an eye each. Despite its gory history, tinkus is my favorite dance on account of the brightly colored traditional costumes.Caporales: The men in this dance wear big boots with bells on the outsides, huge puffy sleeves, and some of them carry whips.
They represent Spanish overseers. Other dancers repreent African slaves, and their grotesque masks represent the fatigue, suffering and altitude sickness that they experienced in Bolivian mines. The women in this dance wear very short skirts and high heels, and I don´t know what they represent.
La Morenada: The men in this dance wear outfits that I used to think look like wedding cakes until someone told me that they represent the Spaniards in their armor with big beards and pipes. They spin a noisemaker, sometimes made from a dead armadillo, that makes a rattling noice, representing the chains on the people they enslaved.
The Tobas represent jungle tribes conquered by the Incas, and they perform war dances with large tropical feathers on their heads and carrying lances.
La Diablada originates in 12th century Spain and represents a struggle between the Archangel Michael and the devil. There are lots of wild looking devil costumes, and some sexy women dancers representing carnal temptresses. The condor and the bear, ancient Andean symbols, are also part of this dance.
Another dance was performed by Afro Bolivians from the Yungas. These dancers are probably the descendents of slaves who were brought to work in the Potosí silver mines in Bolivia. They couldn´t survive at Potosi´s altitude, over 12,000 feet, and they were moved to the yungas (Coroico area, where Harald did his run) to work on coca plantations.
Other dances seemed more traditionally indigenous, but I don´t know their meanings.
In all, there were more than 90 dance groups. I took a lot of pictures (available at flickr.com/photos/kimigary), although I kept my camera in a plastic bag on account of all the water balloons and foam being sprayed.
Later in the day, huge water fights broke out between spectators on opposite sides of the street. I only got directly hit once, and Gary wasn´t hit. I took some pictures of the kids´water fight, but when adults joined in I didn´t dare take out my camera. We left after watching carnaval for ten hours, and it continued on into the night.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Water fights
A few days ago, five days before carnaval, we sat in the plaza near our house and watched as six kids, age 12 and under, three avid dads and a mom showed up with water guns, the big kind about a foot long. They sprayed each other with the water guns for awhile, refilling in the big fountain pool in the center of the plaza. Soon it became evident that superior weapons were needed, and one of the dads picked up a plastic bucket, filled it with water from the fountain, and dumped it over the head of one of the kids. Then everyone used buckets to throw huge quantities of water on each other.
In a separate family, a 7-year-old girl was armed with a raincoat and a backpack water gun. The tank was strapped to her back, connected by a hose to the gun. She was squirting her grandma and her aunts, who didn´t seem to like it very much. The girl in the rain jacket started watching the family with the three dads and squirting water in their direction, although she was too far away. One of the dads noticed that she wanted to play, and dumped a bucket of water squarely over her head. The girl loved it but her grandma rushed her out of the park.
Then four big boys, around 18 years old, showed up with water balloons. The big boys started filling their balloons in the fountain as the six kids of the family with the three dads circled around the fountain toward them. All at once, the six kids hurled water from their buckets over the big boys, who quickly noticed the inferiority of their weapons and exited the park.
Soon, three more big boys showed up with water guns and some kind of foamy spray and covered the six kids with white foam. The kids chased thes big boys out of the park too, and then dumped water over their own heads to wash off the foam.
What fun my dad and brother and I would have had fun playing this game!
I like the water fight in the park, because it´s only between the people who choose to play. We sat on a bench the whole time and nobody bothered us.
Elsewhere around town, the streets and balconies are lined with boys with balloons. It´s summer here, and noone is in school. On some streets, the targets are pedestrians who walk by. In particular, the balloon throwers try to hit anyone who is female. On other streets it seems more like organized warfare between groups of boys hiding behind cars. The balloon sellers provide ammo to both sides.
Our street turned into part of the war zone. Three girls across the street from our house like to hide behind their tall fence and jump out to throw balloons at anyone who walks by. Sometimes they just throw the balloons over their fence, and their aim is very bad. They are in a war with our neighbors to the right, who play the same way. Some young adult men take aim from their balcony in the same house. Our house mate Miranda got drenched. I managed to avoid it by looking directly at all of the balloon throwers as I walk by, as they seem to prefer to strike when one is off guard.
The next day we went to the plaza again, but all was quiet. An indigenous woman washed her clothes in the fountain and dried them on the fence while a man took a sponge bath without a sponge. There were firecrackers everywhere. Only four more days to carnaval in Cochabamba!
The next day was Tuesday before carnaval, and everyone had the day off work. It was a hot sunny day. I left the house several times and each time I saw the girls across the street watching me. I decided that Gary and I had better get in on the water action, because who knows when we´ll have another chance. So I bought a few packs of balloons. The girls across the street watched me as I left for the corner store, and they were waiting for me with buckets on my way back. I threatened to throw eggs at them, but I guess they didn´t take me seriously and they drenched me. (But it feels good on a hot day!) I went in the house, where my co-worker Fatima tricked me into going into the back yard, where she sprayed me with the hose. From then, the fight was on.
Our house mates were preparing a pancake meal with delicious toppings, a British tradition for Shrove Tuesday. Several volunteers and students from our program also came over to share in the meal, and we all started filling water balloons. Soon, our whole neighborhood was in a huge water fight that lasted all afternoon and got most of us drenched from head to toe. We used balloons, buckets, a hose, and water guns. It was great fun! I took a few pictures, which are on our flickr site.
Carnaval was just a few days later, but I´ll save that for another blog entry!
In a separate family, a 7-year-old girl was armed with a raincoat and a backpack water gun. The tank was strapped to her back, connected by a hose to the gun. She was squirting her grandma and her aunts, who didn´t seem to like it very much. The girl in the rain jacket started watching the family with the three dads and squirting water in their direction, although she was too far away. One of the dads noticed that she wanted to play, and dumped a bucket of water squarely over her head. The girl loved it but her grandma rushed her out of the park.
Then four big boys, around 18 years old, showed up with water balloons. The big boys started filling their balloons in the fountain as the six kids of the family with the three dads circled around the fountain toward them. All at once, the six kids hurled water from their buckets over the big boys, who quickly noticed the inferiority of their weapons and exited the park.
Soon, three more big boys showed up with water guns and some kind of foamy spray and covered the six kids with white foam. The kids chased thes big boys out of the park too, and then dumped water over their own heads to wash off the foam.
What fun my dad and brother and I would have had fun playing this game!
I like the water fight in the park, because it´s only between the people who choose to play. We sat on a bench the whole time and nobody bothered us.
Elsewhere around town, the streets and balconies are lined with boys with balloons. It´s summer here, and noone is in school. On some streets, the targets are pedestrians who walk by. In particular, the balloon throwers try to hit anyone who is female. On other streets it seems more like organized warfare between groups of boys hiding behind cars. The balloon sellers provide ammo to both sides.
Our street turned into part of the war zone. Three girls across the street from our house like to hide behind their tall fence and jump out to throw balloons at anyone who walks by. Sometimes they just throw the balloons over their fence, and their aim is very bad. They are in a war with our neighbors to the right, who play the same way. Some young adult men take aim from their balcony in the same house. Our house mate Miranda got drenched. I managed to avoid it by looking directly at all of the balloon throwers as I walk by, as they seem to prefer to strike when one is off guard.
The next day we went to the plaza again, but all was quiet. An indigenous woman washed her clothes in the fountain and dried them on the fence while a man took a sponge bath without a sponge. There were firecrackers everywhere. Only four more days to carnaval in Cochabamba!
The next day was Tuesday before carnaval, and everyone had the day off work. It was a hot sunny day. I left the house several times and each time I saw the girls across the street watching me. I decided that Gary and I had better get in on the water action, because who knows when we´ll have another chance. So I bought a few packs of balloons. The girls across the street watched me as I left for the corner store, and they were waiting for me with buckets on my way back. I threatened to throw eggs at them, but I guess they didn´t take me seriously and they drenched me. (But it feels good on a hot day!) I went in the house, where my co-worker Fatima tricked me into going into the back yard, where she sprayed me with the hose. From then, the fight was on.
Our house mates were preparing a pancake meal with delicious toppings, a British tradition for Shrove Tuesday. Several volunteers and students from our program also came over to share in the meal, and we all started filling water balloons. Soon, our whole neighborhood was in a huge water fight that lasted all afternoon and got most of us drenched from head to toe. We used balloons, buckets, a hose, and water guns. It was great fun! I took a few pictures, which are on our flickr site.
Carnaval was just a few days later, but I´ll save that for another blog entry!
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Fiesta in Totora
We spent the past weekend in the beautiful colonial village of Totora. We got to Totora via a 3 1/2 hour ride in a Trufi Taxi, which is a collective taxi that runs a set route and packs in the passengers until it´s full. And they do mean full. Our taxi, a Toyota car of some sort, held eight people. The driver in his seat, Gary and me in the passenger bucket seat, and four adults and a baby in the back seat. Our backpacks were in the trunk, and everyone else´s luggage was strapped on top of the car using straps cut from old tires.
The driver let us get out to stretch when we stopped for gas and again when we stopped to look at an accident scene where an old pickup truck had gone off the road into a ravine. For the rest of the trip, I quizzed Gary on his Spanish vocabulary flash cards while our driver dodged huge potholes and avalanche residue. The Bolivians who can´t afford the US $2 for this taxi ride must ride on top of freight in the back of freight trucks, under a tarp if they are lucky.
The plaza in Totora is surrounded by beautiful arcades, and the streets are cobblestone. Unlike the sterile perfectly matched cobblestones of revitalized American downtowns, these cobblestone streets are rough, used, and pissed on for centuries (you can smell it).
We walked down one of the narrow streets and crossed the brown muddy river where a woman was washing clothes on a stone. From the bridge we watched the sun set over the hill, behind houses that reminded me of Toledo, Spain.
Back on the plaza, a band marched through playing carnaval music, and then the band and people entered the church for mass. Outside, a group of boys jumped up and down on an eight-foot heap of branches that was waiting to be burned in a bonfire. People walking past us on the plaza greeted us with a polite "good evening."
Totora is a Quechua speaking town, although most of the people seem to speak Spanish, too. Quechua was the language of the Incas, and in general the people who speak Quechua are from cultures that were at one time conquered by the Incas. Most of the women in Totora wear traditional clothes: a knee-length pleated velvet skirt, leggings, a white lace blouse, a sweater or shawl and a delicate straw hat. The older men tend to wear jeans or pants and sandals and a sweater, and a felt hat. Most of the kids and young adults wear typical western clothes (jeans and a sweat shirt or fleece) but a few young girls wear traditional clothes and some young boys wear the traditional sandals made of old tires.
When mass ended, the people built a bonfire about 15 feet in front of the church, on the cobblestone street. The fuel was some sort of evergreen branches, mostly supplied by little boys. A Mexican-style mariachi band played Mexican music, and Mexican-style folkloric dancers danced. The men were in chaps.
A man carrying a bucket served us a delicious chicha, or Andean home made beer. It had a fruity flavor. He served it from a gourd cut in half. In situations like this, it´s best not to think about how many people drank out of that gourd before us!
There were fireworks in front of the church. As soon as they exploded, the little fire-loving boys grabbed the spent cartons and played with them, or threw them into the fire. Nobody seemed concerned about safety.
The military band played, and then a local carnaval band played. A man served sandwiches to everybody, and more chicha of a different type. We left just before it started pouring rain.
We stayed at the municipal hotel, a beautiful old colonial building that was once a hospital. The hotel has two patios. As elsewhere in Bolivia, there is no heat, although I think Totora is well over 9,000 feet in altitude, and it rained all night. But our body heat warmed up the room fairly well. The military band was also staying at our hotel.
In the morning it was still raining, but we headed down to the plaza and sat under the arcades as mass was happening in the church. Through the open doors, we could hear that the band was playing Paul Simon´s Sounds of Silence. Simon and Garfunkel songs are popular here, maybe because Paul Simon made an Andean flute song, "El Condor Pasa" famous. It´s the one that says "I'd rather be a forest than a street, yes I would, if I only could, I surely would. I'd rather feel the earth beneath my feet..." with beautiful Andean flutes playing. (Thanks to my mom for remembering these words and the name of the song!)
A man saw me journaling on the plaza and sat with us to strike up a conversation. His name is Osbaldo, and he lives in Totora. He is a farmer, growing corn and potatoes, and he has a cow. He spoke a mixture of Quechua and slurred Spanish, on account of the chicha that he had been drinking.
When mass ended the people had a procession around the rainy plaza, carrying a huge effigy of a virgin. The military band played, and also the local band. Kids lit fire crackers. Then the procession moved out of the plaza and down a side street, into a house. We were hesitant to enter, but a woman came out and told us to come in and eat some food.
The statue of the virgin was inside, surrounded by flowers and candles. People gave us seats, and we were served champagne, then lady fingers. Next were some white balls, slightly bigger than marbles on toothpicks. They turned out to be hard boiled eggs, probably from quail. Then came green olives and chunks of cheese on toothpicks, then cheesy empanadas.
There were about 200 people at the party, mostly on the house´s patio which was covered with a tarp on account of the rain. We sat next to a few peole from Cochabamba. Then our hosts passed out the beer, in the standard one-litre bottles that are used around here. We were given a crate of 9 one-litre bottles, for me and Gary and the guy sitting next to us. Then, we were served a bucket of chicha. A wooden drinking bowl made from a gourd floated in th the chicha, for everyone to share. The Mexican mariachi band played, and we danced.
Our hosts served lunch consisting of a huge plate of chicken, pork, choclo, potatoes, cooked vegetables and fried plantain. Gary and I shared one plate and still couldn´t finish it all. Then we danced some more. Every now and then, someone served us a mixed drink, and they would have refilled our chicha bucket but we never came close to emptying it. The mariachi band kept playing, and our hosts passed out party favors: small Mexican style hats and a few big sombreros, and tiny baskets and other party recuerdos.
A Tarija style band played next. Tarija is in southern Bolivia, close to the Argentina border, and this was an Argentinian style band. They had dancers, dressed as vaqueros with chaps and cowboy hats and boots. Their boots were really interesting looking, with accordion-style tops. Some of the dancers did stunts with two balls on the ends of ropes. I have heard that cowboys in Argentina us a device of balls on the end of a rope to rope cattle, rather than the lasso used in the U.S.
Someone presented a couple of American flags with dollars pinned to them, representing a gift of money that this community received from its members who are working in the U.S. The money will help this community during the upcoming year. The people living here no doubt imagine their relatives living in the U.S. with a lifestyle like the people they see on TV. They have no idea what it´s like to be an undocumented dishwasher in a restaurant or a sheepherder in Idaho.
The local band played, and I attempted to dance cueca, a dance done with handkerchiefs. We met lots of really nice people at this party, including a neurosurgeon who told me that we could eat the food without fear because it was all cooked. (And he was right!)
The party went on for about five funfilled hours, and then everyone went up the hill for the bullfight (corrida), still in the rain. The first bull was wearing the American flag, upside down and still with the American dollars pinned to it. I don´t know what that meant, but I am tired of being from a country that is such a bully in the world. The bull was scared, and ran back into the corral. The other bulls did the same thing, even though people tried to make them mad. I couldn´t stand to watch it anymore, and we turned in for the evening.
The next morning the fiesta was over, but we spent some time watching the weekly market. People set up booths to sell everything, from clothes to meat to vegetables.
On the way back to Cochabamba, we told the cab driver that we would pay for three seats, so we wouldn´t have to be so squished. That would mean that only three people would ride in the back seat. We started out that way, but a few miles down the road our driver saw a family of eight, an opportunity to make more money. He proceeded to move all of the luggage out of the hatch back and strapped it to the roof of the car. For the rest of our journey, five people rode in the hatch back, four (including us) in the back seat, and three, including the driver, in the front, for a total of twelve. Well, at least we didn´t have to pay for the extra seat.
At one point, one of our drunken co-passengers asked for a break. The driver pulled over and everyone poured out and peed on the side of the road. Women who wear pants rather than skirts are disadvantaged in this situation!
When we got home, we went to a play, "Alicia en el País de las Maravillas" (Alice in Wonderland). It was meant for kids, which was nice because it was easier to understand than the Camus play we saw in Chile. And yesterday we had a beautiful warm and sunny day, perfect for all the water fights that were taking place in Cochabamba!
While we were in Totora, our house mates went to Bolivia´s biggest carnaval celebration, in Oruro. And this coming weekend we will see all the same bands just two blocks from our house, at carnaval in Cochabamba. Meanwhile, I can´t walk from my front door to the Tienda Don Costo, a store half a block away, without being targeted by water balloon throwing kids!
The driver let us get out to stretch when we stopped for gas and again when we stopped to look at an accident scene where an old pickup truck had gone off the road into a ravine. For the rest of the trip, I quizzed Gary on his Spanish vocabulary flash cards while our driver dodged huge potholes and avalanche residue. The Bolivians who can´t afford the US $2 for this taxi ride must ride on top of freight in the back of freight trucks, under a tarp if they are lucky.
The plaza in Totora is surrounded by beautiful arcades, and the streets are cobblestone. Unlike the sterile perfectly matched cobblestones of revitalized American downtowns, these cobblestone streets are rough, used, and pissed on for centuries (you can smell it).
We walked down one of the narrow streets and crossed the brown muddy river where a woman was washing clothes on a stone. From the bridge we watched the sun set over the hill, behind houses that reminded me of Toledo, Spain.
Back on the plaza, a band marched through playing carnaval music, and then the band and people entered the church for mass. Outside, a group of boys jumped up and down on an eight-foot heap of branches that was waiting to be burned in a bonfire. People walking past us on the plaza greeted us with a polite "good evening."
Totora is a Quechua speaking town, although most of the people seem to speak Spanish, too. Quechua was the language of the Incas, and in general the people who speak Quechua are from cultures that were at one time conquered by the Incas. Most of the women in Totora wear traditional clothes: a knee-length pleated velvet skirt, leggings, a white lace blouse, a sweater or shawl and a delicate straw hat. The older men tend to wear jeans or pants and sandals and a sweater, and a felt hat. Most of the kids and young adults wear typical western clothes (jeans and a sweat shirt or fleece) but a few young girls wear traditional clothes and some young boys wear the traditional sandals made of old tires.
When mass ended, the people built a bonfire about 15 feet in front of the church, on the cobblestone street. The fuel was some sort of evergreen branches, mostly supplied by little boys. A Mexican-style mariachi band played Mexican music, and Mexican-style folkloric dancers danced. The men were in chaps.
A man carrying a bucket served us a delicious chicha, or Andean home made beer. It had a fruity flavor. He served it from a gourd cut in half. In situations like this, it´s best not to think about how many people drank out of that gourd before us!
There were fireworks in front of the church. As soon as they exploded, the little fire-loving boys grabbed the spent cartons and played with them, or threw them into the fire. Nobody seemed concerned about safety.
The military band played, and then a local carnaval band played. A man served sandwiches to everybody, and more chicha of a different type. We left just before it started pouring rain.
We stayed at the municipal hotel, a beautiful old colonial building that was once a hospital. The hotel has two patios. As elsewhere in Bolivia, there is no heat, although I think Totora is well over 9,000 feet in altitude, and it rained all night. But our body heat warmed up the room fairly well. The military band was also staying at our hotel.
In the morning it was still raining, but we headed down to the plaza and sat under the arcades as mass was happening in the church. Through the open doors, we could hear that the band was playing Paul Simon´s Sounds of Silence. Simon and Garfunkel songs are popular here, maybe because Paul Simon made an Andean flute song, "El Condor Pasa" famous. It´s the one that says "I'd rather be a forest than a street, yes I would, if I only could, I surely would. I'd rather feel the earth beneath my feet..." with beautiful Andean flutes playing. (Thanks to my mom for remembering these words and the name of the song!)
A man saw me journaling on the plaza and sat with us to strike up a conversation. His name is Osbaldo, and he lives in Totora. He is a farmer, growing corn and potatoes, and he has a cow. He spoke a mixture of Quechua and slurred Spanish, on account of the chicha that he had been drinking.
When mass ended the people had a procession around the rainy plaza, carrying a huge effigy of a virgin. The military band played, and also the local band. Kids lit fire crackers. Then the procession moved out of the plaza and down a side street, into a house. We were hesitant to enter, but a woman came out and told us to come in and eat some food.
The statue of the virgin was inside, surrounded by flowers and candles. People gave us seats, and we were served champagne, then lady fingers. Next were some white balls, slightly bigger than marbles on toothpicks. They turned out to be hard boiled eggs, probably from quail. Then came green olives and chunks of cheese on toothpicks, then cheesy empanadas.
There were about 200 people at the party, mostly on the house´s patio which was covered with a tarp on account of the rain. We sat next to a few peole from Cochabamba. Then our hosts passed out the beer, in the standard one-litre bottles that are used around here. We were given a crate of 9 one-litre bottles, for me and Gary and the guy sitting next to us. Then, we were served a bucket of chicha. A wooden drinking bowl made from a gourd floated in th the chicha, for everyone to share. The Mexican mariachi band played, and we danced.
Our hosts served lunch consisting of a huge plate of chicken, pork, choclo, potatoes, cooked vegetables and fried plantain. Gary and I shared one plate and still couldn´t finish it all. Then we danced some more. Every now and then, someone served us a mixed drink, and they would have refilled our chicha bucket but we never came close to emptying it. The mariachi band kept playing, and our hosts passed out party favors: small Mexican style hats and a few big sombreros, and tiny baskets and other party recuerdos.
A Tarija style band played next. Tarija is in southern Bolivia, close to the Argentina border, and this was an Argentinian style band. They had dancers, dressed as vaqueros with chaps and cowboy hats and boots. Their boots were really interesting looking, with accordion-style tops. Some of the dancers did stunts with two balls on the ends of ropes. I have heard that cowboys in Argentina us a device of balls on the end of a rope to rope cattle, rather than the lasso used in the U.S.
Someone presented a couple of American flags with dollars pinned to them, representing a gift of money that this community received from its members who are working in the U.S. The money will help this community during the upcoming year. The people living here no doubt imagine their relatives living in the U.S. with a lifestyle like the people they see on TV. They have no idea what it´s like to be an undocumented dishwasher in a restaurant or a sheepherder in Idaho.
The local band played, and I attempted to dance cueca, a dance done with handkerchiefs. We met lots of really nice people at this party, including a neurosurgeon who told me that we could eat the food without fear because it was all cooked. (And he was right!)
The party went on for about five funfilled hours, and then everyone went up the hill for the bullfight (corrida), still in the rain. The first bull was wearing the American flag, upside down and still with the American dollars pinned to it. I don´t know what that meant, but I am tired of being from a country that is such a bully in the world. The bull was scared, and ran back into the corral. The other bulls did the same thing, even though people tried to make them mad. I couldn´t stand to watch it anymore, and we turned in for the evening.
The next morning the fiesta was over, but we spent some time watching the weekly market. People set up booths to sell everything, from clothes to meat to vegetables.
On the way back to Cochabamba, we told the cab driver that we would pay for three seats, so we wouldn´t have to be so squished. That would mean that only three people would ride in the back seat. We started out that way, but a few miles down the road our driver saw a family of eight, an opportunity to make more money. He proceeded to move all of the luggage out of the hatch back and strapped it to the roof of the car. For the rest of our journey, five people rode in the hatch back, four (including us) in the back seat, and three, including the driver, in the front, for a total of twelve. Well, at least we didn´t have to pay for the extra seat.
At one point, one of our drunken co-passengers asked for a break. The driver pulled over and everyone poured out and peed on the side of the road. Women who wear pants rather than skirts are disadvantaged in this situation!
When we got home, we went to a play, "Alicia en el País de las Maravillas" (Alice in Wonderland). It was meant for kids, which was nice because it was easier to understand than the Camus play we saw in Chile. And yesterday we had a beautiful warm and sunny day, perfect for all the water fights that were taking place in Cochabamba!
While we were in Totora, our house mates went to Bolivia´s biggest carnaval celebration, in Oruro. And this coming weekend we will see all the same bands just two blocks from our house, at carnaval in Cochabamba. Meanwhile, I can´t walk from my front door to the Tienda Don Costo, a store half a block away, without being targeted by water balloon throwing kids!
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