The Constant Tourist

[in "exile" buenos aires, while the us state department's travel warning to bolivia was in effect.]

que inútil es mi vida aquí. en serio, qué he hecho hoy de interessante, de amable, o cualquier cosa que hace algo más de hacer seguir a mi propia pequeña vida. fuimos en el barrio boliviano de buenos aires un poco lejos (más o menos 45 minutos) del centro para charlar con un hombre allí. yo estaba un poco triste que no pudimos hacer más en este barrio, u hablar con otros que vivían allí. después de salir del edificio para resubir en el bus, hemos notado que había mucha gente afuera del edificio, más que había cuando entramos, y parecía que estaban escuchándonos. me pregunto lo que ellos estaban pensando de nosotros y nuestros preguntos (suponiendo que pudieron oír la charla).

había olvidado de que íbamos ir en este barrio, y entonces, llevaba ropa no muy discreta: mi falda blanca de tenis, mi camisa con rayas azules y blancas, y mi gorro blanca, i.e. muy preppy. me sentía incómoda [vestida así] en este barrio tan lejos de lo en que estuve horas antes por la ciudad. nadie nos vino para hablarnos. nadie de nuestro grupo fue para hablarles. nos quedamos entre el pasaje entre la puerta del edificio y la puerta del bus. si, había algunas que fueron para comprar salteñas a la tienda a la otra esquina, un poco más de 30 metros, al otro lado de la calle polvada sin coches, pero no había salteñas como el hombre ya nos había dicho a esta hora de la tarde.

era la hora para mirar, la hora después de regressar del trabajo cuando todo lo que quieres hacer es no estar levantada, no estar pensando en nada, y mirar vacantly sin ver nada, ready to let thoughts and things and actions slip through you without the laborious task of processing it all, and so you let it slide right across the film of your irises and off outside your peripheral vision, forever forgotten to you, as you wanted it. quizás yo diga todo este para justifiar la falta de efuerza de la parte del todo el mundo allá en la calle, la laziness de nuestro grupo y de los de la calle de no intentar a conocerse. no sé.

my life is so useless here. seriously, what have i done today that is interesting, considerate, or anything that does something other than further my own small life. we went to the bolivian neighborhood of buenos aires a bit far from the center [of the city] (about 45 minutes) to chat with a man there. i was a bit sad we couldn't do more in this neighborhood, or talk with others who lived there. after going out of the building to get back on the bus, we noticed that there were a lot of people outside of the building, more than there were when we went in, and it looked like they were listening to us. i wonder what they were thinking of us and our questions (assuming they could hear the talk inside).

i had forgotten that we were going to this neighborhood, and as such, i wasn't wearing very discreet clothes: my tennis skirt, blue and white striped shirt, white visor, i.e. really preppy. i felt incomfortable [dressed like this] in this neighborhood so far from where we were hours earlier in the city. no one came to talk with us. no one from our group went to talk with them. we stayed on the sidewalk between the door of the buildling and the door of the bus. yes, a few girls went to buy salteñas from a store on the other corner, a little more than 30 meters away, on the other side of the dusty carless street, but, as the man had already told us, there weren't any salteñas at this time in the afternoon.

it was the hour to watch, the time of day after coming back from work when all you want to do is not be on your feet, not thinking about anything, and watch vacantly without seeing anything, ready to let the thoughts and things and actions slip through you without the laborious task of processing it all, and so you let it slide right across the film of your irises and off outside your peripheral vision, forever forgotten to you, as you wanted it. maybe i say this all to justify the lack of effort on the part of everyone there in the street, the laziness of our group and of those in the street to not try to get to know one another. i don't know.

On Not Running Into Barbed Wire While Biking

[more notes from buenos aires it looks like i wrote with the intention of sending to all of you. these do more to describe the feel of the city that week.]

it was an intense week, to say the least. over 70 people died during the week, i think the actual number was 74, none in my city, cochabamba, although we did have a lot of protests. tons of our roads were blocked off, and protestors put a ton of stuff in the street: chipped off pieces of concrete from the sidewalk, garbage bins, burning mounds of trash, etc.

we (the students in my group and i) weren’t allowed to be out much because a gringo can be a pretty vulnerable target in an anti-government rally (the current government has, to make an understatement, some pretty serious ties to the american government), so i watched a lot of tv. i had to take a lot more cabs, too, which usually took longer because we had to take so many alternate routes due to the fact so many roads were blocked off. police usually had to guard the bridges to keep them from being blocked off. around the university where i live, they strung barbwire between posts on either side of the streets, too, which was an odd sort of thing to have to look out for when i was riding my bike, but they usually propped things like palm leaves up on them so you could see them easily.

one night, i went with a friend and her host family down to walk through downtown. we wore running shoes, just to make sure we wouldn’t be held up by broken heels in the possible case we ran into some drunken (or just belligerent) mob, but there was almost no one in the streets, a really eerie feeling, given all that we knew the streets had witnessed that day. they were filled with rocks, tree branches, and trash, some which was still smoldering. windows of the prefecture in la plaza principal were broken, a rag dummy with the president’s party written in red across its chest hung from a lamp post. with the smells and the debris, it felt at times like the streets were just too tired to clean themselves up after such long, emotional days.

"Una Tensa Calma"

[goni's resignation was read today, in the evening. these are clips i took down from the television, which i was trying to watch as i packed up everything.]

one more minister resigned. “please, movemiento por la paz”

“por supuesto, estes eventos están afectando muchos extranjeros que viven o que están visitando este país sudamericano.” no me digas, mientras que estoy haciendo mis malestas. "of course, these events are affecting many of the foreigners who live or who are visiting this south american country." thanks for letting me know, as i'm packing my bags.

‘bolivia se encuentra en una tensa calma durante que espera el anuncio del presidente.’ bolivia finds itself in a tense calm while we want the announcement from the president. ("tense calm" was by far the distinctive phrase of the day.)

‘a menos 74 muertos’ 'at least 74 deaths.'

‘dignidad y soberanía’ 'dignity and sovereignty' poster behind evo, along with the wiphala (aymara nation flag), during interview with cnn e.

‘[goni va dar] una decisión patriotica por la paz.’ '[goni is going to give] a patriotic decision for peace.' jaime paz amora
'la valor de la democracía bolivia … y no creemos que the value of bolivian democracy ... and we don't believe that we will be responsible for the disorder and the confusion. we ask that this dialogue from us would transform, and that reflexion the decisions we take would contribute directly to the dialogue of the national congress.'

mineros festejando en la calle antes de que goni hable. miners celebrating in the streets before goni speaks.

Ya Basta

yo sé que hemos estudiado mucho sobre los métodos correctos para hacer una analísis cultural, cómo debemos estar objetivos y todo, pero no puedo. i’m past that point. estoy harta de hablar con mi familia sobre la política y otros ricos porque me enojan tanto. y dicen que son los campesinos que son ignorantes.

volví a mi casa para almorzar, o, a la hora para almorzar. estaban todos listos para comer, estaban poniendo la mesa. yo dije, ‘oh, no estoy comiendo hoy.’ paola se dejó. bertha parecía muy confundida. ellas parecían un poco más aliviadas cuando dije que estaba tomando jugos. no dije nada de la huelga de hambre, y no sé si querían creer que yo no sabía nada de eso, habría sido más fácil de pensar que la situación no había venido a su propia casa. durante todo el almuerzo, ellos hablaron de todo lo que se pasa ahora. las siguientes son partes de esta conversación:

‘si [los campesinos] están muriendo de hambre, porque hacen una huelga de hambre?’ (paola)
‘la defensora del pueblo era eligido como parte indipendiente, non governmental, entonces ahora, por qué está en huelga de hambre, es política esta huelga.’ (eddy)
‘si [los campesinos] no querían solucionar, qué vas hacer?’ (paola)
‘quieren que goni se vaya, pero, si él no puede solucionar, ¿quién entonces? ¡no hay nadie otra!’
‘ellos están en huelga de hambre porque saben que es un último recurso.’
‘están muriendos y no dejan la violéncia.’
‘katy, ¿quieres fruta?’ (bertha)
no, no gracias.
‘¿haces una dieta?’ (eddy)
bah, no.
‘entonces, por qué estás preocupada?’ (eddy)
‘¿por qué? por la situación.’ (all the more incredulous)

de todo de lo que hablaron, no era una discusión. no había dos lados. ellos han evitado el otro lado, él de los campesinos, durante toda la comida. yo estuve alla con ellos, evidamente no comiendo a causa de la situación, y no me preguntaron nada, sólo si hacía una dieta. sabían que no estoy de acuerdo con mucho del gobierno, que yo podía representar el otro lado de la discusión, pero no me preguntaron nada de lo que pensaba porque no les interesaba este lado. y ellos tienen sorpresa cuando los campesinos dicen que no tienen fe que el gobierno vaya escucharles. ¿qué simbólico, no?

ayer y anoche tuve convesaciones muy interesantes y muy apasionantes sobre lo que se pasa ahora con paola, rodri, y bruno. a mí, me encanta la política; es muy conmovedora. pero hoy, no pude hablar. tenía palabras gritando en mi cabeza, cada vez queriendo que ellos escucharan a los campesinos, que ellos intentaran ver porque esta gente están bloqueando, no porque a ellos les gusta la violéncia, sino porque si no bloquean, no les verían, y que gritan porque no les escuchan cuando hablan. no pude hablar porque sabía que ellos no querían escuchar. evitaban a propósito el dólor que siente esta gente, evitaban a propósito porque yo no estaba comiendo.

no había una discusión esta tarde, había muchos sordos hablandos.

i know we've studied a lot regarding the correct methods for doing a cultural analysis, how we should be objective and all, but i can't. i'm past that point. i'm fed up with talking with my host family and other rich people because they infuriate me so much. and they say it's the campesinos who are ignorant.

i went back to my house to have lunch, or at lunchtime. they were all ready to eat, setting the table. i said, 'oh, i'm not eating today.' [people across the country were fasting for peace.] paola stopped. bertha looked very confused. they seemed a little more relieved when i said i was drinking juice. i didn't say anything about the hunger strike, and it seemed like they just wanted to believe that i didn't know about that, i.e. it would've been easier to think that than acknowledge that the situation had arrived in their own house. the following bits were parts of the conversation at lunch:

'if the campesinos are dying of hunger, why are they on hunger strike?' (paola)
'the public defender was elected as an independent party, but now, why is he on hunger strike? [the hunger strike] is political.' (eddy)
'if the campesinos don't want to find a solution, what are you going to do?' (paola)
'they want goni to go, but if he can't resolve anything, who then? there isn't anybody else!'
'they're on a hunger strike because they know it's a last resource.'
they're dying and they don't stop with the violence.'
'katy, do you want fruit?' (bertha)
no, no thank you.
are you on a diet?' (eddy)
um, no.
'so, why are you worried?' (eddy)
why?? for the situation.' (all the more incredulous)

of everything they said, it wasn't a discussion. there weren't two sides. they avoided the other side, the campesinos', during the whole meal. i was there with them, obviously not eating because of the situation, and they didn't ask me anything, only if i was on a diet. they knew that i do not agree with a lot of the government, that i could have represented the other side of the discussion, but they didn't ask me anything about what i thought because the other side did not interest them. and they are surprised when the campesinos say that they don't have faith that the government will listen to them. symbolic, no?

yesterday and last night, i had really interesting and fervent conversations regarding what's happening right now with paola, rodrigo (paola's boyfriend), and bruno (family friend). politics fascinate me; they're so poignant. but today, i couldn't speak. i had words screaming in my head, each time wanting them to listen to the campesinos, to try to see why these people are blockading, and not just saying it's because they like violence, but why, if the campesinos don't blockade, the government won't see them, and that the campesinos scream because the government doesn't listen to them when they talk. i couldn't speak because i know that my host family didn't want to listen. they purposely avoided the reason for which i wasn't eating.

there was no discussion today, there were a lot of deaf people speaking.

The Tipping Week

[looks like i wrote this one in anticipation of sending it to people, as it includes more summary and background info.]

it’s all coming together, or falling apart, depending on your point of view.

a couple weeks ago, i was on the street and i saw an older campesino trudging along the street yelling at a couple soldiers from the national guard on the other side of the street , telling them how the government was ruining the country. the soldiers just laughed at him as they ate their empanada. i remember thinking how futile his protests looked and how deaf the ears upon which those insults fell looked. but now, those protests are making a deafening noise.

it’s absolutely astounding that the vestiges of the spanish colonialism and persisting oligarchy have lasted this long. or maybe it isn’t. maybe every other american country (usa included) just eliminated completely even the possibility that its indigenous population's voice from the government (in very Machiavellian fashion nonetheless). maybe it’s only because bolivia is one of the only countries in latin america with an indigenous majority that this conflict is more pronounced or crystallized, less difficult to ignore. one of the most profound souvenirs i’ve seen thus far has been chess sets: one side is the conquistadors, the other, the incas. it’s on murals, it’s in their dress, it’s everywhere. it’s hard to explain how much this oligarchy persists and how present the history is. in my upper class family, they talk about bloqueos as annoyances, disturbances to their otherwise tranquil lives. when i asked my sister what she did during the water wars in 2000 when the protests were right outside our house. she said she just took advantage of the time off from school and tanned. they say the campesinos like violence, that they like to march and protest, and that they throw rocks because they’re badly brought up. they say if you ask them they they’re marching, they won’t give you a straight answer. ‘they don’t just wake up and decide they want to go cause violence,’ i said at lunch today. ‘yes they do!’ my host sister and her boyfriend cried in unison. it’s incredible how real the lies can become in their heads the longer they keep telling themselves that. they both go to work on other rich people’s teeth during the day when other people in their country don’t have anything to put in their mouths to eat. they go to each other’s birthday parties, talk about how much they’ve traveled, and their european/asian/anythingotherthanlatinamerican heritage.

to the poorest country in south america, and only third poorest in all of latin america after haiti and nicaragua, the idea of bolivia selling off its immense natural gas reserves seems like a stellar idea. but the problem, as was made clear during the Water Wars of 2000, was that a country opened up to free markets in the mid 80s had neither the resource nor the capital to develop its own enterprises to benefit from this opening, and thus, all was sold to foreign firms, including rights to natural resources. selling natural resources is always bad; you have to develop them, at a minimum, to get any sort of added value or development of market infrastructure.

it’s hard to really explain the legitimacy of the statement that the people won’t see a dime of this money from selling the gas. it’s not like the alaskans getting money from whatever firm drills their reserve. they at least have the power to demand that alimony. these people don’t have any type of that power, even the rich ones. we don’t trust our politicians, but at least we can rely on the system, and if nothing else, the option to take to court if we feel that the system was mean to us. here, they don’t even have a system to rely upon. everyone here pays personal guards to patrol their streets because the real police are considered absolutely useless. my abuelita told me that when one of her friends called the police to report that her house had been broken into, they told her they didn’t have enough gas in the car to come to the house. under the law 1008, the controversial anti-drug law introduced under heavy pressure by the US in 1988 (the first version appeared in english), people have been imprisoned for years before being convicted of any crime. the law actually contradicts the bolivian constitution, but of course, the officials will just tell you you’re not reading it right.

the bottom line is that there is no faith in the system, and the campesinos are fully justified in their conviction that they will see no benefit from the selling of the gas, and if anything, they’ll lose their job because a foreign company bought the contract to export the gas. during the water wars, bechtel, through two different child companies, bought the water rights to the city of cochabamba and tripled the prices so that people who were making $80 a month were being forced to pay $20 a month, up from the $6-7 they paid normally. bechtel knew people would protest the price hike. they knew this so well they had the foresight to move their headquarters from the cayman islands to amsterdam because the netherlands have a special trade agreement with bolivia that would protect any “dutch” company from legal action taken by bolivia. so why did they go ahead with raising the prices? the best we can guess is that the bolivian government had assured them that the campesinos could be kept under control, heck, that’s what they’ve been doing for the last 500 years, right? but something went wonderfully wrong. protests shut down the city of cochabamba for six days, and the officials of the company fled. they didn’t take it, and they’re not about to again. the campesinos are not letting this government sell off what they view as (and likely is) their last natural resource without promise of some benefit for them.

over fifty people have died thus far in the last three days. the vice president has officially cut his tie to the president. (he’s still retaining his office, most likely in anticipation of goni’s resignation.) the president’s economic minister resigned yesterday. two weeks ago, his approval rating was down to 8%, and that was before anybody had died. yet, david greenlee, our american ambassador here in bolivia, as well as bush, have said that they continue to support goni. it would be so easy for us to stop hurting situations like this so badly.

When Did You Get a Day Off of School Because of Protests?

we got snow days. the kids here get bloqueo days. jj and maya, three-year olds [of our program's academic directors, ismael and heidi, respectively], were talking today during class about how they couldn’t go to preschool because of the bloqueos. jj then gave a very graphic description of how he was going to kill the soldiers with fire, waving his arms around and making a big whooshing noise with each passing swoop. maya’s eyes would light up as she too raised her arms saying ‘bang!’ with all of us who were watching laughing, albeit a bit tentatively. heidi, then interjected to tell them how we want dialogue first. ‘¿qué es el diálogo?’ asked maya, as if it were a new toy she hadn’t heard about. i don’t remember exactly what toys i played with when i was three besides play-doh and finger painting, but i know dialogue wasn’t one of them for many years to come.

La Semana Negra Commences

wow. during class this morning, we heard shot-like sounds, but there are usually some things that go off during protests, which i was sure there would be given all that happened in el alto yesterday (26 people, 25 civilians and one military, were all killed during protest). at 11:30, we decided to take a five minute break before finishing at 12, but we were all called back in a minute later because the protests were serious and they were using gas on some of the protesters [in the main plaza, a couple blocks from school]. they told us all to go home in taxis and to call the office once we got home so they could be sure we were safe.

so rachel and i left school to go get a taxi to go home. calama [the street our school was on] was all closed off to cars. the garbage dump on the corner was on its side in the middle of the street and someone had set fire to random trash lying next to it. we walked a couple blocks south to where the cars were, got in the first taxi we could and set off for home. traffic was pretty much stop and go. at one point, we were stopped in this one street and when we got to the intersection, we found burning cardboard boxes in the middle that had to be cleared for cars to get through. we finally got out of the center of the city and over to the university district which was completely calm, much different than what they had told us (that it was one of the zones seeing the most protests). but we got home sin problema.

apart from lunch, i haven’t done much but watch the news. there is a lot of unrest in el alto, la paz, and here in cochabamba. it was crazy, when we were leaving class, they told us to go around la plaza principal if that was normally the route we took, then on tv, they showed the crowds there throwing rocks at the windows of the prefecture, a woman running across the plaza with a baby in her arms accompanied by a soldier, all right in our plaza. when i was watching with paola, she was telling me about how during la guerra de agua [the water wars in 2000], the bloqueos went right past the house on belzu. trying to imagine what it was like to have all that action literally right outside your front door, i asked her, ‘what did you guys do??’ ‘oh,’ she said, ‘nothing really, it wasn’t violent, just people marching. i just tanned the whole time.’ i wanted to slap her, but i feigned a smile and laughed. later too, as we’re watching people north of mercado 25 de mayo (on the corner where all the cambistas are) throw rocks at the police about 100 yards away, she goes, ‘see, the police aren’t being aggressive towards the protesters, the protesters are the ones throwing the rocks and being violent. the police, they’re defending themselves.’ she also called the people throwing rocks in the plaza maleantes. while we’re watching footage of protest in la paz, she remarked she didn’t know why they just didn’t throw a little bomb in the middle of all of them to break up the protest. it’s crazy how much their focus is the problem of ending the bloqueo or the protest, and not the problem of why there is all this unrest in the first place.

campesino leaders are calling for goni to renounce the presidency, but goni’s saying he won’t. he tried to say today that they’d postpone the signing of any contracts regarding the rights of the gas until december, and i don’t know, but this can’t be the first time they’ve said something like this before, i.e. postponed something and then never found a solution at the later date. there’s a lot of dialogue about goni being a dictator and the fragility of the democracy right now. goni said there’s no way to replace a democracy with a civil dictatorship, as if he somehow represents the former and not the latter. there’s a lot of movement, too, to get the church involved to try and mediate some sort of dialogue.

vice president mesa announced this morning that he’s broken from the government because he can’t support an administration which continues in this manner. he emphasized many times that he wants to have a dialogue with the national community. what a breath of fresh air amidst all the tear gas of this unrest.

last night, the newsman ended the nightly news by saying, ‘good night and i hope we have better news to give you tomorrow.’ today, the newsman in la paz gave the general call to everyone in conflict zones to respect the red cross and ambulances. crazy stuff. news i’ve certainly never heard in my life. the most advisory any news has been that i’ve seen was about weather warnings, snow storms or tornadoes, but certainly never the red cross or bad news in general (sept 11th being the likely exception). channel 7, the ones my parents watch, is out. and for now, so am i.

Siendo la Gringa

[part of a response to readings for field studies on cultural integration]

A menudo, quisiera que no sea estadounidense, es decir, representativa del país con tan influencía aquí en Bolivia. No creo que yo vaya a poder lograr un nivel de integración muy profundo aquí en Bolivia, y ese me duele mucho, pero, creo que es la verdad. Mi papá aquí me ha puesto el nombre ‘la gringita’ con mucho cariñoso, por su puesto, pero todavía, es un recuerdo cada día de como el me ve, en primer lugar, siempre conectada a mi nacionalidad ... Veo mi cultura en las tiendas, en la televisión, en la ropa. Mi pelo y mis ojos son bien diferentes que la mayoría de las bolivianas, pero ademas, son cosas que reconocen y que representan mucho, entonces, no tengo diferencias neutrales.

Often, I wish I weren't American, or, representative of a country with so much influence here in Bolivia. I don't think I'll be able to have a very deep level of integration here in Bolivia, and this hurts a lot, but I think it's the truth. My host dad has given me the nickname, "la gringita," with much affection, of course, but all the same, it is a daily reminder of how he sees me, primarily as always connected to my nationality. I see my culture in the stores, on the television, in the clothes. My skin and my eyes are definitely different than the majority of Bolivians, but moreover, are things that represent a lot, i.e. I don't have neutral differences.

[2006. i love being american; i would never change my nationality. what is often frustrating and disheartening while abroad is that, with so many people, that fact of my nationality imposes a whole slew of stereotypes that take a lot of work to counter, let alone undo. a lot of what this entry in 2003 was coming out of was how much of an adjustment for me from my experience in france, where integration was, more or less, possible. in bolivia, as i was beginning to learn then, full integration is just not possible, mainly because my and other gringoes' physical appearance immediately affects bolivians' reception of us. no matter how good my spanish is, no matter how much time i've spent here, i am seen and treated first and foremost as a gringa. in short, integration is possible, but as a gringo/a, only to a degree.]

Welcome to the Jungle

Fuimos en la celva hoy día. Antes de venir aquí, pensaba que no me quisiera la humedad, como he vivido toda mi vida donde no hay mucho humedad, y a veces, nada de humedad. Pero, lo que encontré aquí es que la humedad es una cosa bonita por que me hace d e j a a a a r. Cuando no puedo mover mucho, tengo nada otra opción de mirar y escuchar todo que está arriba, abajo, y alrededor de mí. We went to the jungle today. Before coming here, I thought that I wouldn't like the humidity, as I'd lived my whole life where there wasn't much humidity, and at times, none. But, what I found here is that the humidity is a lovely thing because it makes me s l o w d o o o o w n. When I can't move much, I have no choice but to look and listen to everything that is above, below, and around me.
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La celva era todo lo que he nunca vivido o visto en mi vida. Era lo que había leído en mis libros cuando era niña y hoy, este lugar es donde fui. Hoy, las mariposas que admiraba por la pagina estuvieron aquí justo en frente de mí. Vimos a las palmeras las segundas más grande de todo el mundo, después de Madacasgar. Nadamos en un rio donde piranitas modieron unos de nosotros (pero no muy grave). The jungle was everything that I had never before experienced or seen in my life. It was what I had read about in books when I was little and today, it's where I went. Today, the butterflies I admired on the page were right in front of me. We saw the second biggest palms in the world, after Madagascar's. We swam in a river where little pirahnas bit a few of us (but not very seriously). I saw trees that looked like brooms, with tens of little spiky branches for feet and no trunk, like the whole thing was on stilts. We saw a four-inch-long beetle, and two-inch-long baby birds. I waded through a green velvet sea today, walked on carpets of dried leaves, and inhaled air until I was full.
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I saw thatched roof huts, for the first time in my life, that weren’t tourist attractions. It was amazing, farms with a-frame thatched roofs, cows with horns like cornucopias grazing in fields dotted with palm trees, but not the tall skinny kind, but the big fan-like ones, i.e. leaves at least five meters long, or tall as the tree itself. not your so-cal palm trees that so kindly lift up their skirts for development to sprawl underneath them, but the big fat men palm trees that sit out on their porch and watch it all go by.
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last night, we went out to another river to go swimming. on the bus on the way out there, i had a lovely ride with jonathan, who saw a sloth at the beginning. i subsequently spent the rest of the ride trying to no avail to see one. we got there at the beginning of the evening to a wide river bed with jungle-lined banks. the water was low, so our river was wide and flat. it was also probably the most beach-like river i’ve ever been to. the water was as warm as a pool and about 95% of the bottom was sand, not rock. the river was never much more than a foot deep so we spent a lot of time crawling around in the water, mud slinging (literally :) and making fun of each other’s butts which kept popping up as we slithered through the water. we stayed until the sun set when we sadly put back on our clothes and trudged back to the bus. rachel and i picked up rocks, in some sort of childlike nostalgic practice. the best part is i actually brought them back to cochabamba. they’re sitting on my desk right now. i’ll probably haul them back to idaho where they’ll sit in one of my boxes until i a) get my own house or b) decide i have better ways to commemorate my excursion in the jungle than rocks. we’ll see.