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.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
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!
Friday, February 1, 2008
Carnaval is this weekend
In case you heard about the small earthquake that happened in Cochabamba last night, be assured that it wasn´t near us. (And nobody was hurt anyway). We live in the city of Cochabamba, which is the capital of the department of Cochabamba. The earthquake was in a rural region of the department.
This weekend is the big carnaval in Oruro, the biggest in Bolivia. Our housemates are all going to it. Hotel prices in Oruro are usually very cheap, but skyrocket during carnaval, and so our housemates are going to stay up all night at the party in the street, rather than getting a place to stay. I don´t think I´m up for that, so we are going to the tiny colonial village of Totora. It´s supposed to be very beautiful, and they are having a fiesta this weekend too. A small fiesta should be much more our style. Totora is a 3 1/2 hour bus ride from here, and we´ll probably stay for a few days since I have Monday and Tuesday off work for carnaval. Then the following weekend will be carnaval here in Cochabamba, so we´ll watch all the dancing and drumming and festivities, just a couple of blocks from our house.
Last night was Día de los Comadres, which is a day when the women of Cochabamba go out together and celebrate. All the women who work with me, and the students in our program, went out to an all you can eat restaurant (dodging water balloons as we walked to it). This restaurant was a meat-lover´s paradise. Waiters were constantly coming by with huge skewers of meat. I don´t know what most of it was, but I did hear that one skewer impaled a row of chicken hearts. Luckily, they had some good vegetarian options, too. The guys stayed home and played poker. But ... Gary´s college friends won´t believe this ... Gary insisted on staying in our room because he had a lot of HOMEWORK! He is making tons of progress in his Spanish classes.
I´ve joined a yoga class, which feels wonderful and is also good for my vocabularly. The instructor uses some sanskrit names for the poses, but she pronounces them differently than English-speaking instructors do. So I´m learning Spanish sanskrit as well! And I´ve been reading the local newspaper at least a few times a week, now that we´ve settled down. A few headlines to give you a flavor:
Bush Authorizes Increased Spying on the American People (Why don´t our newspapers explain it so clearly?!)
Local Shoemaker Fights Against Invasion of Chinese-Made Shoes (Most of the shoes sold in Chile and in Bolivia are cheap plastic shoes made in China. Some of them even have soles made of PVC, the white stuff that plumbing pipes are made of. Gone are my hopes of finding markets of beautifully homemade shoes, like you can buy in Mexico. Who knows if you can still buy them in Mexico.)
We are still in the rainy season, which should last another month or so. But now the sun is shining and it will probably get up to the 80s this afternoon.
This weekend is the big carnaval in Oruro, the biggest in Bolivia. Our housemates are all going to it. Hotel prices in Oruro are usually very cheap, but skyrocket during carnaval, and so our housemates are going to stay up all night at the party in the street, rather than getting a place to stay. I don´t think I´m up for that, so we are going to the tiny colonial village of Totora. It´s supposed to be very beautiful, and they are having a fiesta this weekend too. A small fiesta should be much more our style. Totora is a 3 1/2 hour bus ride from here, and we´ll probably stay for a few days since I have Monday and Tuesday off work for carnaval. Then the following weekend will be carnaval here in Cochabamba, so we´ll watch all the dancing and drumming and festivities, just a couple of blocks from our house.
Last night was Día de los Comadres, which is a day when the women of Cochabamba go out together and celebrate. All the women who work with me, and the students in our program, went out to an all you can eat restaurant (dodging water balloons as we walked to it). This restaurant was a meat-lover´s paradise. Waiters were constantly coming by with huge skewers of meat. I don´t know what most of it was, but I did hear that one skewer impaled a row of chicken hearts. Luckily, they had some good vegetarian options, too. The guys stayed home and played poker. But ... Gary´s college friends won´t believe this ... Gary insisted on staying in our room because he had a lot of HOMEWORK! He is making tons of progress in his Spanish classes.
I´ve joined a yoga class, which feels wonderful and is also good for my vocabularly. The instructor uses some sanskrit names for the poses, but she pronounces them differently than English-speaking instructors do. So I´m learning Spanish sanskrit as well! And I´ve been reading the local newspaper at least a few times a week, now that we´ve settled down. A few headlines to give you a flavor:
Bush Authorizes Increased Spying on the American People (Why don´t our newspapers explain it so clearly?!)
Local Shoemaker Fights Against Invasion of Chinese-Made Shoes (Most of the shoes sold in Chile and in Bolivia are cheap plastic shoes made in China. Some of them even have soles made of PVC, the white stuff that plumbing pipes are made of. Gone are my hopes of finding markets of beautifully homemade shoes, like you can buy in Mexico. Who knows if you can still buy them in Mexico.)
We are still in the rainy season, which should last another month or so. But now the sun is shining and it will probably get up to the 80s this afternoon.
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