Readings, Vol. II

"Bolivia's Morales Faces Biggest Test"
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-evo25dec25,1,6724043.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

The title isn't exactly applicable (saying the president of Bolivia is facing his biggest test is like saying the Cubs' general manager is having his most challenging season), and this reporter's stuff hasn't always been that on the mark, but this article does a good job of giving context to the range and depth of opinions regarding current west-east tensions.

"In Bolivia's Affluent East, Anger at Morales is Growing"
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/26/world/americas/26bolivia.html

More on sentiments of cambas, i.e. eastern Bolivians.

"Reid Seeks Better U.S.-Bolivia Relations"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/28/AR2006122800883.html

"I came to Bolivia because I felt that our country and Bolivia need to have a better relationship," Reid said. "We're here as Democrats and Republicans to help North America appreciate the potential of this mighty little country."

Seriously? A (prominent) U.S. senator is giving credence to U.S./Bolivia relations? Sweet! And, not only is this bipartisan six-senator delegation led by Reid giving credence, but Bolivia was also the first country they're visiting on their current tour. ("Mighty little country" strikes a bit pejorative, but hey, at least they're there and noting the potential.) Ken Salazar (D-CO) also was a highlight, adroitly addressing local government and media in native Spanish.

Notes on the 2003 Entries

a lot of these entries were for our field studies course and may not be too enthralling to that extent, but they nevertheless give an interesting snapshot of the more under-reported, mundane details and things i probably wouldn't have bothered to write down otherwise if not assigned. also, because they were school assignments, some parts were originally written in spanish, but i've put translations up for most of it, with the exception of the interview with my host grandma.

one entry is about a half hour of free-flow typing of the things i saw outside the window while on the bus to potosí. there's an interview i did with my host grandmother about three weeks after getting there that is painful for me to re-read (my spanish was so bad at the time, and i clearly am understanding and subsequently responding to very little of what she's actually saying; she was really sweet in obliging me), and it looks like i only got about halfway with the second round at transcription, so it's a bit unfinished. that being said, she saw a lot, and the first-hand account is hard to beat. there's also an entry from when we went to the jungle (written in one entry, but i think i must have been jotting it all down over the course of a few days), a whole slew of entries from la semana negra (including lots more stunning bits from conversations with the host family), two entries from our "exile" in buenos aires, and the conclusion to my independent study report.

it was interesting reading 2003 writings again this time around. at first, a lot of me was hesitant to put different parts up, in particular la semana negra entries, in all their unedited tones. but, as i say in the oct 16th entry, i was past the point of trying to be objective, whatever that would've meant. i was just an undergraduate, caught in the middle of a remarkable moment, writing for myself and no one else. (those entries were not field studies assignments.) to that degree, it's better that i wasn't writing it for anyone at the time, because there would've been a lot i'd have left out or written more guardedly. all this to say that what i wrote was what all that happened meant to me, including all the incredulity and all the fury, and i don't want to undermine or discredit it by giving some sort of disclaimer.

The Life Oxymoronic

one of the mexican restaurants is called highlander's.
there is a pub here, called "irish", run by two uruguayan men.
in one of the country's biggest traditional bolivian bands, one of their musicians is a japanese man who plays the bagpipes.

and all of this is in la paz, aka "the peace", a remarkably inapt name in and of itself.

Bonafide Socialism and Sadistic Little Girls

theme no, this will not be +100,000 words
well, i had this brilliant idea that this update's theme would just be pictures, seeing as how i hadn't sent you all any yet and as i've probably bombarded you all enough with words thus far. as it would happen, though, over a hundred or so pictures i'd taken on a friend's camera over the last few weeks were tragically erased ... so you're stuck with words for now. (but i will send pictures as soon as i can.)

hello rainy season good bye illimani
hmm. i have to admit, i forgot about this when i was packing to come down here. it's not strictly summer here, but rainy season. basically, this means that when it's sunny here, it's about in the 70s or 80s (although it's more draining since the sun is so intensely felt), and when it rains, 1) it's around 50 and 2) it pours. on the rainy days, traffic routes are routinely altered because certain roads are washed out, although the road you end up taking is so covered with water sprinting downhill that you hydroplane anyway. it's about a half and half split between rainy and sunny days, much like seattle in the spring, i'd say. i love it, personally (i couldn't handle a sweltering, santa cruz-style summer), although my wide-brimmed felt hat has been smelling a lot like wet dog lately. and the clouds cover up illimani regularly, too, which is sad. this will last until february/march.

día de acción de gracias thanksgiving, o-blivia style

three years ago, i spent thanksgiving here in la paz, actually, treating myself to a lovely meal at a japanese restaurant, by myself. (i'd gotten two key interviews right at the end of my research project and had jetted up to the city for less than 48 hours, much less time to find americans with whom to celebrate.)

this year, i did better. roommate and i hosted a great thanksgiving dinner that included 4 americans, 3 bolivians, and 3 brits. i will say that it was not all that pretty, by any means (the kitchen was a disaster afterwards), but it was tasty and fun. even the turkey turned out. and actually, the table was pretty, complete with woven blanket tablecloths, candles, and namecards. other menu items included pumpkin soup, mashed potatoes, green beans, biscuits, sweet bread, currant jelly (my friend scoured the city for cranberry sauce to no avail), pumpkin pie, apple tart, and cheesecake. we even went around and said what we were thankful for. (mom and dad, you should be proud we're keeping the tradition alive, however corny it may be.) everybody really liked it, especially the people who were new to the whole thing, i.e. the bolivians and brits. i swear, all we needed were pilgrim and indian outfits (and some other third group), and the modern reincarnation of the first thanksgiving in all its glorious cultural exchange would've been complete (or so we'd like to think), although i duly hope a cultural extermination won't follow in coming years. the one thing that got nixed due to lack of more americans was a turkey bowl, as we were in no mood to explain downs in spanish, much less convert yards to meters. next time.

this land was your land now this land is everybody's land
most people who are in charge of monitoring bolivia from abroad love to focus on evo's nationalization of the gas reserves as the big, exciting chapter in the Tales of Bolivia's Crazy Socialist President series. (my one friend's editors, for example, regularly ask him how, rarely if, story x that he's proposing has any relation to gas. his response, "um, no, not really," usually dampens the editors' interest.) most of us who are here, however, would say the far more interesting of evo's policies has to do with land reform.

one of evo's campaign promises last december was to address the question of unequal land ownership and "redistribute," i.e. take from the rich and give to the poor, those lands, let's say ... the lands the rich don't need, and a lot of it too: one fifth of the country's total area, or a territory about the size of nebraska. the catholic church did a study a few years ago and found that 50,000 families own 90% of the land. then, i couldn't find the exact stat, but we can crudely break it down this way: the average bolivian woman has three children so we'll say average family has 5 people (family structures here and still largely traditional), and bolivia has just under 9,000,000 citizens, so this works out to just under 3% of the population owning 90% of the land. even if you estimate these families at 20-25 people each, it's still about 12-15% of the population owning 90%. (but please don't quote me on that stat.)

the logic with the whole idea of land reform is this: if there is this handful of wealthy families who are just sitting on the majority of their lands but not using them, and there are huge swathes of poor campesinos who don't have land to use or farm, or any other significant means to make a living for that matter, you should give the land the rich people aren't using to the poor people so that they can make a living for themselves in this country of virtually nil economic opportunity. totally robin hood.

the nationalization of the gas reserves, arguably, was not really that socialist of a policy. the whole thing, in the end, resulted in the renegotiation of existing contracts, which all companies already here re-signed (no one left) and were legally signed into effect on sunday morning. it was much more a policy of economic necessity since the previous contracts were so skewed in favor of the foreign companies that they provided almost no benefit to the bolivian economy, much less development of any market infrastructure, completely defeating the purpose of trying to inject foreign capital and investment into an economy. (most countries charge 50% tax on directly exported natural resources; norway charges 78%. bolivia had been charging 18%, and virtually zero of that paltry amount of that actually ended up in the bolivian economy, most of it in the hands of government officials. the last figures i saw had it back at 50%, with the possibility of going to 82%, i.e. try and compensate for what bolivia lost when the foreign companies got 82% and give the foreign companies the 18% share.)

land reform, on the other hand, you could easily say is a very purely leftist policy. in any other country, where there was even a basic sense of equal opportunity, this could never be pulled off. in bolivia, on the other hand, a country where anybody off the street will be able to express to you just how strong the sentiments of historic exploitation and disenfranchisement (over 400-500 years) among the bolivian people are, can an idea like this actually contend. true to habit, in the evocation of symbolism and history, these large landowners, whose names and pictures were widely publicized by evo & co., were called latifundistas, essentially, the latin american equivalent of a plantation owner. (the latifundio is/was a type of feudal estate, like haciendas, in latin america, but much longer lasting, especially in brazil.) and the idea here is that, for as long as these latifundios continue to exist, the vestigial colonial inequality and repression of the poor by the rich are perpetuated.

leading up to last week, opposition senators (bolivia's senate has 27 members), mainly from the party podemos from the east, where all the land in question is, had been boycotting the senate, where podemos has a majority, in a move to block the legislation. evo had even threatened to discard the senate entirely and just go with the house of representatives, which mas controls, in response to the boycott. then, last tuesday, after some intense special sessions of the senate, and some apparently dubious legal maneuvering, the senate actually passed the land reform bill.
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while it might look like mas is being the difficult party, neither mas nor podemos has lately played the role of anything other than the petulant child of bolivian politics lately, both adamant in their refusal to negotiate with the other side out of sheer spite for the other. one podemos senator was expelled from the session the other day after he broke a window and fought with the guards who were trying to carry him out.

tuesday was a big day. a few thousand campesinos had been marching, some literally dozens of miles, to la paz in support of the passage of the land reform bill. i went to plaza murillo, i.e. capitol (on a) hill here, during the afternoon, talked with some people who'd marched, one who tried to set me up with his son, spent a couple hours waiting to see if evo was going to make a speech, got the word he probably wasn't, and left. the striking thing was how perfectly normal this idea of taking land from one person to give it to another was to so many of the campesinos. in talking to them, they would generally explain things almost with nonchalance: "why wouldn't you take land rich people aren't using and give it to us, the poor people, who don't have any other way to make money?" i'd wished i'd gotten to talk to some people who were against the idea, or even hesitant, but all those people are in the east, and protesting in the streets isn't really their style (although they've made some pathetically amusing attempts lately).

later that night at a late dinner, my friend called me to say that the senate had passed the land reform bill, that evo was going to sign it at 11 pm, and to hurry because they were letting people into the congressional building, which was filling up fast. i used my last bolivianos to take a cab back up there, had to run the last couple blocks because the streets surrounding the palacio del congreso had been blocked off (uphill, super intense), and arrived perfectly out of breath only to see guards holding back people who hadn't been able to get into the building itself.

not to be defeated, i went up to the door to the guards holding the crowd back with their riot shields to try and get in. they asked if i had my [press] credentials with me, i said that i'd just gotten there and i didn't have any of my things (true, although "my things" didn't involve actual press credentials, just my notebook, pen, and camera), looked exasperated/despondent (which i was, i think the running gave my cheeks more flush, only heightening my looking flustered and out of sorts), and one of the guards, probably assuming that, due my skin color and wide-brimmed hat that i had some important purpose being there, just pulled back his shield and went, "here, go on in." often, i resent being a gringa. in this case, it worked to my advantage. (although i still resented the fact that i got let in to witness the events, while others who marched got stuck outside.)

the hall was packed with campesinos in all their electric-colored traditional wear, smelled of coca that most of the marchers had been subsisting on all day as they waited and boxed fried chicken dinners with which the government had provided them that evening, and erupted in cheers when evo, alvaro (the vp), and other ministers came down the stairs to sit down, speak, and sign.

people make a big deal of evo having never worn a suit, but really, he's just the tip of the iceberg that is this administration's dress. one official got up to speak in a short-sleeve buttoned shirt and cargo pants. a minister in a sweater. a campesina leader, who'd led one of the marches all the way to la paz, in her skirt, sweater, braids, and sun hat. another campesino leader spoke in full traditional garb, complete with poncho, woven hat with ear flaps, wide-brimmed hat over that, coca bag hanging off his side, and plenty of neon colors to go around. alvaro was the only one in a suit, yet even he was sans tie. i kept thinking how few governments in the world looked like this one, and fewer still with a 67% approval rating, no less. it's refreshing, really.

evo signed the legislation, and then a slew of government officials and other leaders involved in the deal spoke. one of the speakers mentioned this being the end of decolonization. that was about the only bit i remembered, though, because by that time, it was about 12:30 a.m. and the smell of the fried chicken was making me nauseous, so i went to sit out in the hall. another woman came to sit down. turns out she was a senator and exhausted from the day (she was in heels, no less), but very satisfied and relieved the legislation had gone through and that this impasse was behind them. she said it had been an important step. she also told me that, because they were able to pass the land reform in the senate, it looked like talk of closing the senate was over. a man walked by holding the actual bill, and i asked if i could and got to hold it, just to see the ink on the page.

we went back in the room as evo was about to speak, he spoke, people cheered, and it was over. people exuberantly shook hands for a few minutes (i got to shake the land minister's hand myself), and then left to go home. it was 1 a.m. by that time.

time will tell how this all plays out practically, how hard the latifundistas will fight (there are reports they're hiring british mercenaries), how hard the politicians will defend (there is more general acceptance of the land reform, even from people in the east, than one might think), but the symbolic part of land reform, and the first step in the process has actually come about. (cf. friends' articles below for more professional reviews, i.e. more facts, less flowery details, of the events.)

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el lago titcaca home of the bolivian navy and sadistic nine-year-old girls

a couple weekends ago, feeling completely stir crazy in la paz (i realized it'd been two months since i'd gotten out of the city), i abruptly decided to go up to lake titicaca, by myself, just to chill. i also went because i inconceivably had not made it up there (the lake is bolivia's most well-known attraction) in all the time i'd thus spent in bolivia, and thought it necessary to rectify that situation.

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lake titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world at just under 3,900 m (12,800 ft), and huge. it's the third largest lake in south america, although smaller than the great lakes, yet feels like an ocean as you can't see the other side of it looking out. it's easy to see why, for a mountainous people like the incas, for whom the lake was sacred and the civilization's spiritual center, and for a landlocked country like bolivia, such a big mass of water has so much significance.

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it is also at the lake where bolivia's navy is stationed. yep, bolivia has a navy. and, although easily disparaged from a foreign perspective, in bolivia, the marines are very highly regarded and often are the branch of military that is used during official state proceedings. the marines are stationed at the ferry crossing en route to copacabana from la paz and walk around in their uniforms, complete with white sailor hats.

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i spent a night in copacabana, the main vacation/tourist spot on the lake on the shores of the lake, walked around, and took pictures of the cathedral (which is huge, and stunningly beautiful), the sunset over the lake, and the little sail boats that dotted it. the next morning, i got up early to take the 2-3 hour ferry boat ride to the isla del sol, one of the most sacred locations for the incas and the location of their creation legend.

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we disembarked on the northern end of the island, walked around the Labyrinth ruins, saw the ceremonial table, as well as the sacred rock. i know this may seem like blasphemy, but i didn't find the ruins all too impressive: the Labyrinth was from the 18th-century, the table was ... a table, and i could not see the panther in the rock to save my life. far more interesting was my local guide, an eleven-year-old boy, who taught me my first aymara phrases and, when we got to the sacred rock, picked up some stones, threw one at the rock and goes, "the eye is right there," threw another one, "and the other eye is right there," and when i told him i didn't still didn't see it (silly tourist), scrambled up to the top the 20-foot high rock (before i could tell him he didn't have to) to point the features out to me himself.

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i then trekked down to the southern end of the island with some trekker tourist friends who'd made friends with me (determined as i was to be asocial that weekend), about 4-5 hours in all. it was funny hiking along an island by a lake because you keep thinking, oh hey, i'm at sea level, and then the minute you go up any incline, you are quickly reminded that you're at over 4000 m on that hill.

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besides tourism, which supports most of the island's economy, the rest of the island is agrarian, and the whole island has an almost tranquilizing pace to it, complimented by its remoteness. my favorite things we passed were the rambling, and from the looks of it shepherd-less, herds of sheep and pigs that we ran into, scampering over the hills with the lovely lake as the background. i got into the town at the southern end of the island, got a room at a hostel at the top of the island and a pineapple juice, and sat looking over the western edge of the lake as the sun went down. i also took a great picture of my hand holding my glass, the edge of the table, and the lake directly in the background that would've rivaled any corona ad. it was hard to beat.

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that evening, i spent over an hour talking with a little girl who lived on the island and some of her younger friends, with whom she'd talk aymara as they hadn't learned spanish in school yet and then translate into spanish for me, and vice versa. we had a charming conversation about tickling and politics, including her saying, while giggling, that evo was coming to the island and going to kill all us gringos, likely the result of her overhearing her parents' bitter complaints about obnoxious tourists. (i'll admit i've done a fair bit of tourist-derision of my own as well. seriously though, they walk around town in their ski boots.) i assured her that there were plenty of gringos who were buena gente, or good people. she kept smiling.
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another little girl enthusiastically asked me to take a picture of her, so i did. then she immediately asked for a peso for the picture. when i told her i didn't have any on me, she looked as if she were about to cry, as if i'd just robbed her. i erased the picture for her, and she looked much more relieved. tired, i went to bed early.

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i woke up the next morning at about 5:30 to the obnoxious braying of donkeys, but the sun was just coming up, so i grabbed my camera, and went to the east side to take pictures of the dramatic andean cordillera on the other side of the lake, and the sunrise coming up over it. i was amazed to find, too, that i could see the silhouette of illimani all the way at the other end of the cordillera, further south beyond la paz. it was gorgeous.

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i then took the ferry back to copacabana, then the bus back from copacabana to la paz, realized i'd completely sunburned my hands (the only part of me not covered when i trekked isla del sol), and thus ended my trip. the next day, monday, i got an email from a friend, saying a bunch of us girls were going up to the lake for a little getaway. so, after 7+ months of being here and not going to the lake, i got two back-to-back weekend trips. in material news, i replaced the original bolivian fish vertebrae earrings, one of which i lost this summer, with new ones, and picked up some lovely mother-of-pearl shell ones.

good journalism holly's plugs for friends (who also happen to be very good journalists)
damian on npr re land reform:

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2006/11/29/PM200611296.html
dan's articles on evo's political capital and land reform: http://www.quepasa.com/english/news/latinamerica/537892.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/29/AR2006112900318.html
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/americas/16136833.htm

and finally, richard simmons on letterman historic, in its own right
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SCJLlSf21Y

un abrazo para todos.

Insane in the Membrane

November 1st may be Todos Santos, and 2nd Día de los Muertos, but November 8th is, at it turns out, the Día de las Ñatitas, or Day of the Skulls, and likely one of the more surreal holidays there is anywhere. People dress up the skulls of their deceased loved ones, or skulls of some anonymous soul the have paid someone to excavate, give them drinks and cigarettes, shower them with flowers, and tote them around as if it were nothing. People also introduce their skulls to each other, and to the other skulls; some described how they slept with the skulls next to their bed, so their relatives could watch over them.

a much more descriptive account: http://www.eastlincolnstreet.com/2006/12/29/bring-your-skulls-to-church-day/#more-58
a more visual account: http://asap.ap.org/stories/1045145.s

Three Years Later, or As If It Were Yesterday

It's been an intense day.

Today is the three-year anniversary of the resignation of then-president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, or Goni, at right in his official presidential photo, the culmination of La Semana Negra (The Black Week) in which 59 people officially died. (Unofficial estimates reached the 80s.) I spent this morning covering a march for the deceased and injured of the Gas Wars of that month, and many of the sentiments of those I talked to have had little chance to abate over the last three years.

I spent Friday, October 17, 2003 in Cochabamba glued to the TV, waiting for and then watching while Goni's resignation speech was read to an emergency session of Congress, all the while trying frantically to pack up everything and say good-bye to my host family because the U.S. State Department had put a travel warning on Bolivia and our study abroad program insisted on "evacuating" us for insurance reasons.

That Sunday before on the 12th, I remember coming home from one of our group trips to find my host mom listening very anxiously to the radio in the kitchen. Granted, she was a nervous person in general, but even still, she usually watched the news in the evening in her bedroom, and here she was hovered over the radio in the cold, empty kitchen. She told me that 24 protesters and one soldier had been killed in El Alto. The details weren't clear at that time as to what specifically had been the catalyst. People in El Alto had been protesting Goni's decision to sell contracts to Bolivia's natural gas reserves to foreign companies since September, but the protests, led in large part by MAS, had become more intense by mid-October and cut off access to La Paz's airport, which is only accessed by going through El Alto.

(Today, I got to talk to one man who'd said that he'd been on the sides of one of the roads on that afternoon with a bunch of other guys, throwing rocks at a yellow tractor/tank that had come out of the gas plant, when armed soldiers stepped out and started shooting at them. He got shot in the leg and had it amputated the next day in the hospital, where he spent the rest of that strange week.)

The next day, Monday, we went to school, and about 45 minutes before we were about to go home for lunch, one of our directors came in to tell us that we all had to go home right then because protests calling for Goni's resignation had erupted in the center of our city about three blocks away, and they had started gassing people. (Not the easiest thing to explain to your mom on the phone and keep her fears assuaged.) That afternoon, the economic minister resigned, then-Vice President, Carlos Mesa, officially separated himself from Goni, saying he couldn't continue to align himself with someone who pursued such policies ("políticas así"), and the U.S. Embassy issued a statement of support for the "democratically elected" president.

Throughout the week, the situation kept dragging painfully on with Goni repeatedly denouncing vitriolically the "narcotraffickers who were trying to derail the country," the death toll mounting, and the same statements being issued. My upper-class host sister and her boyfriend fumed over the uncouthness of the protesters, frequently calling them delinquents ("maleantes"), and asking why they didn't go back to their pueblos. Three-year-olds of friends played pretend Soldiers & Protesters. When the one little boy pretended to be a protester shooting the soldiers, one of the mothers interjected, “No, what we want is dialogue.” “What’s ‘diálogo'?” her daughter asked. I can’t tell you what the mother’s response was, though, because I was stuck on the thought that "dialogue" was certainly not part of my vocabulary at three years old. Another night, my friend and I went with her host brothers into the center of the city to see the eerily empty streets, littered with glass from broken windows and tires still smoldering from the day’s protests. We also wore running shoes, just in case we ran into some lingering and likely inebriated protesters, but the only person we saw in the end was a dummy of Goni, hanged, charred and dangling from a lamppost. Suffice it to say, I left this part out when talking to Mom.

You knew it was bad when, by Thursday, hunger strikes had started across the country, and the wealthy urbanized Bolivians were marching for peace in their pressed white button-down shirts. It was, in short, one country's excruciatingly long breaking point. People were more than ready for Goni, whose popularity rating had fallen to 8% in preceding weeks before any of the violence had started, to announce his resignation when it was finally read on Friday. Mesa was sworn in as president, and the whole country pacified immediately. Of course, the State Department's travel warning was still in effect, and hence our program's insurance concerns, which meant that we had to still go to Buenos Aires the next morning at 5 a.m. (We came back the following week once the travel warning had been lifted.)

That was Cochabamba. Today was all about what happened in El Alto itself. The march was a (slightly awkward?) Gringo March in support of families of the deceased and injured, and also to support Evo's calls for the extradition of Goni, who's been living in Chevy Chase, MD, doing the social bit on Capitol Hill and periodically giving presentations and lectures at various colleges.

Legally, the question of whether or not Bolivia can demand his extradition from the U.S. is, to some degrees, an irrelevant one. Goni could plausibly be extradited to face charges for either 1) ordering the soldiers to shoot the protesters, or 2) taking money as he and his ministers fled Bolivia, estimated (but unconfirmed) at about $40,000. At the same time, it would be nearly impossible to guarantee Goni a fair trial here in Bolivia, should he be extradited. (Bolivia's judicial system is a mess, simply put.) Hence as an official at the US Consulate here said, as far as the U.S. is aware, Goni is not illegally residing in the U.S. Different government and advocacy groups are working to file the necessary requests and petitions, although responses have been muddled and the process is only slugging along.

Legality aside, the U.S.'s support of Goni is much more of a symbolic one, especially to families of those who were killed or injured. What it basically boils down to is that Bolivia doesn't have enough leverage to make the U.S. give Goni back, and so the U.S. will let him stay up there, not the least of reasons is because the U.S. is arguably responsible for the fact that he's so hated here. (Goni has said that the U.S.'s denial of his request for funds in early 2003 led to serious unrest in February, when about 20 people were killed, a precursor to the subsequent events and continued unrest of October. Also, the U.S.'s continued statements of support throughout la Semana Negra only further embittered many Bolivians towards the perceived U.S./Goni ruling bloc in their country.)

So the march, which started in a plaza and ended a few blocks away at the U.S. Embassy was set up 1) to let families of the deceased and injured bring their complaints to the ambassador's door, and 2) for gringos to voice their disapproval of the U.S.'s failure to extradite, and moreover respond to calls for the extradition of, Goni.

Usually, I like to describe cholas, which is basically the term for Bolivian women who still wear traditional dress (although it does not necessarily have anything to do with economic status), as colorful volcanoes, with their little bowler hats on top of long black braids running over bright shawls on narrow shoulders, down to big wide printed and often sparkly skirts. Today, though, the hats, shawls, and skirts were all black and grey. Ashy, in a way. Some of them made the morning greetings with a very normal and composed buen dia, but some were already starting to well up. There were also a few of the men who'd been injured, in all their cases lost a leg and on crutches.

The campesinos led the march down to the embassy, and the Gringos followed behind carrying crosses for each of the deceased. When we got to the embassy, the campesinos went right up to the steps, and the guards quickly came down the steps and set up in barricade position, with their arms crossed, holding each other's batons. The initial sentiments were ones of intense anger. One of the campesinas, who didn't look over 25, with a baby on her back and a toddler by her side, hit one of the guards, breaking his glasses. Another older lady kept asking the guards, who were all Bolivian, why they weren't "supporting your compañeros in our own land." One woman who'd been talking to me, stopped to tell me that she was shaking with rage. The climax was when the father of one seven-year old girl who'd died from a bullet that went in her house and killed her in the middle of the night vowed that they would not stop protesting because "we don't have any fear left: our dead are already in their tombs." I was standing there, trying to take notes, trying to keep from losing it and having serious doubts about my fledgling future as a journalist, until I saw a TV reporter who was crying as she held the microphone up to his mouth. People quieted and the mood became much more somber as the march directors read the names of the people who'd been killed. The march then went back up to the plaza where it'd begun and people headed home.

I got frustrated trying to think of a type of article I could pull together from all of this. It'll get dismissed as some young 20-something's leftist (hey, at least according to the truism I have a heart, right?) my-government-is-evil phase, tiresomely impassioned and idealistic, and hopelessly impractical plea for wrongs to be righted, I thought. And then I got frustrated with my own resignation. Why did I need to think of some spin, some new twist, to this story of grieving widows and dead children? Why was I concerned that simply relaying their grief and the lack of response to that grief, which was the sum of what I observed, wouldn't be enough? At what point does the pain become cliché?

Throughout the morning, the protesters chanted for Goni to "show his face", for the U.S. ambassador to come out and say something, and, the most common, for justice. When interviewing, I tried to ask most of them what "justice" would mean, more or less, in practical terms. The injured asked for rehabilitation services. A lot said that they wanted Goni in jail. (No one said they wanted him dead.) Others, looked at me and simply said, "Just that they'd respond to us."

I asked one man what the third anniversary meant. He caught his breath a bit, and his face dropped. "It's been three years of massacre."

Le Quotidien

my last email was all about high-flying adventures and fun with diseases. this one, partly because i haven't traveled since saira left and partly because people keep asking, is going to be about the daily things of living down here. so, no stories, just the bits and pieces that make up a day in la paz. much love to all my adhd friends out there: you should like this one.

transportation
on a daily basis, i'd say about 10% of bolivians drive their cars, another 10% take taxis, and the other 80% take what can loosely be described as public transportation. there's a union of conductores (drivers), but no official transporation system (from what i can tell), no official stops, or anything like that; just people who have a van or a bus, joined the union, bought some signs with names of locations in the city on their route, and started driving around the city picking people up. there are three zones to the city, and prices for travel between them are based accordingly. here's what we have:

*micros, aka buses: 1 boliviano (bs), hold about 30 people seated, but you can pack about 20 more in the aisles, slow
*minibuses: 1 bs within one zone, 1.50 bs between two, 2.30 between more, 3.80 to the airport (25 minutes), hold 14 passengers when full, plus one driver and one vocedor. these are what i take most often.
*trufis, i.e. cabs with fixed routes: hold up to 5 passengers, 3 bs between two zones (haven't taken one farther than that)
*moviles, or cabs: about 6 bs within one zone, 8 between two, and 15 between more, 50 bs to the airport, and prices go up a bit at night. there are "free-lance" cabs and radio taxis, and it is definitely preferrable, and in some cases imperative, to take a radio taxi versus a non-radio taxi, as the latter can be on of the easiest ways for someone to rob/kidnap/etc you. although their prices are 2 bs cheaper per ride than radio taxis.

vocedores on the minibuses can be guys or girls, probably as old as late 20s and as young as about 6 or 7. as the name would indicate, your caller, when the minibus isn't full, has to constantly and quickly shout out those names of the different zones to which that particular minibus is traveling to people on the sidewalk. while a high nasally voice is really obnoxious to listen to during the morning commute, getting a caller with a good, strong voice is a lot more pleasant.

sometimes the minibuses break down and sometimes there are bloqueos on certain key roads so you can't drive between certain parts of the city. in either case, you wait by the side of the road until a new minibus comes or you walk. you usually only get charged part of the fare, depending on how far they've already taken you along your route.

there are tons of minibuses and micros and moviles. at the busiest, i don't think i've ever waited more than 10 minutes for a minibus to my street. it was a brilliant stroke by the bolivians to do away with the tedium that is reading a bus schedule.

certain road between different zones are three lanes: one going one way, one the other, and the third middle lane is just kind of for whoever needs it at the time. your minibus will usually pull into it to pass the slower bus going uphill, and sometimes you see another car or minibus coming the other way in the lane, so you duck back behind the bus. no one really drives very fast ever (i doubt we get above 30-35 mph), so it's no big deal, but an interesting arrangement.

my cab driver the other day, in the middle console of his taxi, where other people might store loose change or gum, had a potato. unpeeled, small, just chilling. (an anecdote that makes for a nice transition to ... )

food
here are some supermarket prices:
*bread: generic bread rolls 5 for 1 bs, good-size french bread rolls 3 for 1 bs, generic wheat bread 2 for 1 bs, loaf of bread at the supermarket 5 bs.
*milk: 3.60 bs for 1 liter of whole milk, 2.30 for soy (that's right, soy is cheaper than normal milk in bolivia, hallelujah.)
*cheese: 5 bs for a decent-sized wheel of bolivia's standard, what they call menonite cheese, or about 20 bs for a modest sized block of other types, cheddar, brie, etc.
*yogurt: most yogurt is liquid and sold in bottles for 8 bs
*cereal: about 20 bs a box
*ice cream: 10 bs a liter
*wine: 15 bs bottle of house wine, between 35-70 for standard bottle of good wine, 80 for the bubbly
*ramen noodles: 2.80 bs a pack
*bottled water: 3.30 for a two liter bottle
*big box of matches: 2.90 bs
*jar of peanut butter: about 30 bs
*jelly: 5-10 bs
*box of tea: 5-15 bs

and outdoor/indoor market prices:
*mangoes: between 3 for 10 bs and 2 for 5.
*papayas (normally about a foot in length and six inches in diameter): between 5 - 8 bs
*platanos/bananas: 2 bs for a bunch
*carrots: 1 bs for a bunch (usually about six a bunch, an inch in diameter)
*tomatoes: a pound for anywhere from 80 centavos to 1.50 bs
*calla lilies: a dozen for 8 bs
*chirimoyas: 5 bs each for bigger ones (but they're out of season now, alas.)
*peppers: about 2 for a 1bs
*onions: about a half dozen small ones for 1 bs
and they pretty much sell everything else under the sun, too, from antennas, to herbal remedies, to tupperware, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. the picture up above is a typical street market here in la paz.

also in the markets, the blessed juice ladies. a full glass of carrot juice costs 2 bs, other fruit juices cost 1.50-4 bs. one of my favorite ways to start the day is go buy my pancitos (bread), get my carrot juice and head off to work. (i'll probably get crap for drinking carrot juice, but all i have to say is that it is the sweetest carrot juice i've ever tasted, and i promise you'd drink it too.)

and restaurants:
*breakfast: between 10 bs for basic, usually toast, fruit juice, and coffee, and up to about 30 to include things like eggs and a croissant
*lunch and dinner: soup 15 bs, salad 15-25 bs, most main dishes including personal pizzas 25-50 bs. mixed fruit juices (smoothies with either water or milk), about 7 bs each, pop 5 bs, a glass of wine about 15 bs, mixed drinks about 25 bs (yes, your drink can cost as much as your plate, very exciting/disconcerting). the most you might be able to spend on yourself for a multiple course meal at the nicest restaurant is about 150 bs each, tops.

on the streets
every 25 yards on the sidewalk, there will be a chola woman selling usually the exact same things the chola at the previous stand was selling. i usually buy little yogurt packs at 1 bs, or juice ones at 50 centavos (100 centavos = 1 bs). you can get toilet paper from them for 1 bs, pack of sour gummy worms for 4 bs, a pack of any imported candy (skittles, m&ms, twix) for 6 bs, newspapers for 4 bs (5 bs, sundays), magazines for 20 bs, make a phone call for about 50 centavos a minute, etc.

boys, usually around 10 years old, will shine your shoes for you for 5 bs, boots for 8.

there are also api and pastel stands. api is a type of sweetened, usually blue, corn meal drink, and the pastel is just a big pastry with (menonite, naturally) cheese in it. both are served hot and make a good breakfast for 5 bs.

there are grain stands, too, where they sell, among other things, bags about the size of a cereal box of sweetened puffed rice or wheat for 1 bs.

there are carts where you can buy little packs of things like peanuts, soy beans, chocolate covered raisins for 50 cent. - 2 bs each.

also exciting are juice carts where you can get fresh-squeezed orange, mandarine, or grapefruit juice for 2 bs a cup. the juice man or lady usually has the oranges peeled, and then when you say you'd like a juice, halves a couple, and squeezes your juice right there.

any dogs that are pets are kept on people's properties (and everyone's house is gated), making the only dogs that you see on streets stray and quite sickly. when people first get a puppy, though, they carry it around and so every now and then you see someone talking to a friend on the sidewalk casually holding a precious little dog in their arm. and, i'm just realizing this as i'm writing, but i don't think i've ever seen a single cat, stray or pet, ever in bolivia. (dad, did you hear that?)

merchandise shopping
prices vary significantly based on where you're shopping. boutiques with imported clothes from argentina or the u.s. are the most expensive, with prices usually in dollars and priced for about what you'd pay in dollars. the department stores are the next expensive, with new shoes running around 160 bs, shirts around 120, jeans about the same. (i'm guessing on these prices a bit too, since i never shop in these stores.) the tourist zone, sagárnaga, where they sell artisan things is predictably pricey, but the stuff's really good quality. el alto, where i went shopping with my friend that one time, is going to represent the cheapest of these markets.

market zones are where it's really at. bolivia is somehow like the second hand store of interamerican commerce, i.e. pretty much anything that doesn't sell anywhere else, usually ends up here. i've bought pants with the tag from the american thrift store still on them, seen cars with oklahoma state bumper stickers, bought cans of refried beans a month away from their expiration date, seen this year's bloomsday shirt, etc. they're all stores that you walk into, it's just that the merchandise is rarely new.

here are some things i've bought recently:
in el alto,
*the green skirt: 30 bs
*the pink dress: 20 bs (22 bs to dry clean it)
*very broken-in leather boots: 10 bs
*two shirts from the grab-box: 2 bs each

in uyustus, a good market section for household things in la paz,
*headset with microphone (to make skype calls): 40 bs
*peacock feathers (for the living room): 5 bs each
*big, floor length trophy: 200 bs (ok, we didn't buy this, but we thought about it for the family room)
*toaster oven: 160 bs
*my felt, indiana jones-style wide brim hat: 35 bs

i must add that i wear this hat every single day, not only for its practicality at this latitude and altitude, but because, frankly, it looks pretty sweet and everyone else thinks so too. i'd estimate that about 86.3% of any popularity or distinction i have in this city is due exclusively to this hat.

in calle comercio & plaza san francisco, probably the city's principle plaza/general hub, where you can get lots of random trinkets, such as:
*notebooks, usually with captivating pictures of thalia, jean claude van damme, people on the beach, puppies, or a holographic one with dolphins, which i recently bought (hey, why not): 6 bs for small ones, 12 bs for big ones
*hot water pack: 8 bs for a small one, 12 for a big one
*monopolio, or, you guessed it, monopoly: 22-25 bs (18 bs in el alto)
*postcards: 1.50 bs each
*earrings: 5 bs each for a simple pair, about 10 bs for bigger ones
*bottle of pantene: 22 bs
*deodorant: 15 bs
*chirimoya hand creme: 2 bs for a little dish
*burned cds: 10 bs each, or 20bs for 3-cd sets
*burned dvds: 10 bs for legit copies in la paz, 6 bs in el alto, 3 bs for ones that have about a 25% chance of working in your computer or dvd player
*dvd rental: 6 bs for 3 nights [as the price would indicate, almost all of these places are going out of business]
(note: yes, technically they're pirated cds and dvds, but this is what everyone buys; this isn't any type of underground black market. only the really rich actually buy the original cds and dvds because they cost about what they'd cost in the states. the dvds the video stores rent you are burned.)

oh yes, and $1 = 8 bs.

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miscellaneous

because i don't think i explained in the last email, MAS, the president's party, stands for movimiento al socialismo, or movement towards socialism. (and again, the "towards" is important, because, in this case, going more leftist means centering because the country has been so far right for so long.)

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september, being the beginning of spring down here, is known as the month of love. the tv channel i watch los simpsons on, in addition to reminding us of the previous fact, also regularly proclaims itself, "unitel, el canal de la belleza," or "unitel, the channel of beauty." (doesn't anyone think that would be a great network slogan for cbs? letterman would eat that up.)

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also, someone asked if i worked with a lot of gringos at work. nope. out of about the 20-25 people in our office, our director's columbian, i'm american, and the rest are all bolivians. and also, we're funded by usaid, but we don't consider ourselves as working for the government. (of course, some could debate that fact.)

the two soccer teams here (bolivia's got its own league) are called bolívar and "the strongest" (in english), and people say they're pretty much like the yankees and the mets, respectively. last night, there was it was fan day for the strongest right in the plaza below our apartment where they had fireworks. my friend and i went down and had fun mingling with all the fans doing all their chants, everyone from adolescent guys in black and gold jerseys, hats, and whistles jumping up and down in the middle of the crowd, to professionals who'd made sure to wear the gold tie or blouse with black jacket over chanting along the perimeter. another friend also just bought a foosball table, with the players appropriately painted in bolívar's light blue and the strongest's black and gold.

some people ask, too, if bolivia is as soccer-crazy as other places in the world. i wouldn't say necessarily so, in that, i wouldn't say bolivians are any more into soccer than your average american is into sports; it's just that, instead of following three or four different sports like we do in the states, here there's just one.

i also recently learned that, far from being some neighboring city of la paz, el alto is now the country's second-largest city with 1,000,000 people. and, if the other statistic i saw is correct, only four years ago it was the third-largest city with 500,000 citizens. part of the reason it's been able to explode in population is that the altiplano, where el alto is situated, is exactly like just it translates: very high and very flat, and it goes on forever, letting development just sprawl. think of l.a.'s expanse crossed with gary, indiana's vivid color palatte, all on a windswept plain at 13,500 ft, and that should give you a pretty sense of what el alto looks and feels like.

lots of names around here are derived from quechua and aymara, the two most widely spoken indigenous languages in bolivia (and both official languages, along with spanish). both languages involve a lot of w's, ch's, and hard k's, or aspirated clicking at the back of the palate, like arabic, from what i understand. here are just some of the names of places around here, which it has taken me considerable effort to straighten out, as you can see: cala cala, calacoto, cota cota, quillacollo, chasquipampa, achumani, chulumani, sopocachi ... and miraflores, to name a few. say those ten times fast.

on the subject of names, one of cochabamba's joke nicknames is coche-bomba, or car bomb.

my mornings usually start by getting woken up by the incredibly annoying and continual honking of the trucks that go around carrying propane tanks, which almost everyone uses for their stoves. the trucks honk so that people know that this truck loaded with propane is coming around the corner, but they literally honk about three times every block as they approach each intersection.

then, however, i get breakfast and usually move two of the chairs our maid has so nicely arranged in the living room, prop my feet up on one, sit in the other, and watch the plaza as the sun comes up over illimani.

it's a nice life :)

Readings, Vol. I

following news from any far away place is always a bit tricky, but here are some of the better u.s. articles i've found recently on bolivia:

1. alma guillermoprieto's new york review of books articles, "a new bolivia?" part i, august 10 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19210
2. and her follow-up article, "the new bolivia: ii", september 21*
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=19298

*for the later one, you can read the intro and then you have to buy the article (or maybe it will be posted in full for free later, as the first one is now), but it is well worth the $3. i've been reading a book by guillermoprieto on latin america that is remarkably well done, and these articles on bolivia are no exception. i really think i'm developing a sort of journalistic crush on her, because her work is just immaculate and incredibly accurate.

3. npr story on evo as president and bolivia's political temperature http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6061781

in general, this is a solid article, especially as it highlights how the historical context is so forefront in so many bolivians' minds right now. it's part of npr's series of "latin america shift to the left" series, though, and that title and the idea behind it irk me to no end in regards to bolivia because 1) bolivia has been soooooo far right for so long, politically and economically, much farther right than the u.s., for that matter, that it is going in the direction of the left, but really it's centering by coming away from the far right, and 2) what's happening right now is a result of about 500 years of history unique to bolivia, and to describe it as bolivia jumping on some sort of regional ideological bandwagon is to grossly understate and misrepresent the situation. but again, it's still a good report.

4. john tierney's nytimes column, "reading the coca leaves", 23 september
http://www.mapinc.org/tlcnews/v06/n1266/a03.htm?155
this is really exciting to see. this is the type of context, i.e. cultural context for the coca leaf, that is so badly needed in the north american dialogue on coca.

he had a curious sentence, however, where he writes, "The tiny amount of cocaine in the leaves is a mild stimulant and appetite suppressant that isn't more frightening than coffee or colas -- in fact, it might be less addictive than caffeine, and on balance it might even be good for you."

1) there is no cocaine in the coca leaf. there are something like 15 or 17 alkalides in the leaf, one of which is the one from which cocaine is derived, but the coca leaf has to go through an incredibly intense three-stage chemical process (during which you add sulfuric acid multiple times, among other things) before you get cocaine. to use a facile analogy, to say there's cocaine in coca is like saying there's a cookie in a chocolate chip.

2) where tierney proposes that coca "might" be less addictive than caffeine, i can say for myself that while i had to stop drinking coffee, after giving up pop years ago, because the caffeine affected me too much (made me jittery, dependent), i have coca tea (mate) every other day or so, especially if i'm not feeling well. also, i have never heard of any study saying the leaf is addictive, and as anyone living down here or in south america will tell you, its benefits are extensive.

notwithstanding, i wrote tierney to thank him for writing the column.

and again, if you see anything from la paz by the ap is most likely by my roommate. it's pretty good, too :)

Robbery and a Road of Death, Among Other Adventures

hmm. a month might be too long to write these updates, because it seems like everything and its mother has happened in that time. (this might be one read more easily on printed out on paper than the computer screen.)

highlights:

1. getting robbed, (i'm pretty sure by my landlords), and subsequently moving. but don't worry, it's turned out far for the better.
2. hosting the lovely saira for two equally lovely weeks
3. pondering my mortality while traveling down what is likely the world's second most dangerous road
4. being probably as relieved as i could have been to hear i got salmonella, because it wasn't malaria
5. being a mock socialite
6. debating whether a) the constituent assembly is or isn't going to fall apart or b) the country will or won't

ok, so here we go:

cochabamba = pretty much one of my favorite places
early in the month, i went back to cochabamba, the city where i was for my study abroad three years ago. i got to spend a great afternoon with my host parents and their relatives who i knew well as they were the host family for another one of my friends and lived on the other end of our block. it was really great to be back and see them all. besides the fact that a couple of the kids are married now, it felt just like three years ago. i also had lunch and spent an afternoon with one of my academic directors, ismael, and his family, which was equally pleasant. fun side note: people here have a tendency to "tell it like it is" (actually, this was exactly the same in france, too), and so my host mom, when i've first gotten there and we're catching up over the last three years goes, "well you look great: you haven't gotten fat or thin since we last saw you." thanks for noticing.

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housing drama and subsequent delight
i got back to la paz, and realized i had somehow had charges on my backup credit card. turns out, someone, two days after i moved into the house where i was renting a room, had gone into my locked room (hence the reason i'm suspecting my landlords, plus i never really liked them in the first place), taken out my credit card, charged it, and then put it back. it was a strange experience. we (people i work with and i) were thinking about filing a report, but a) since the credit card company knew they were fraudulent charges, i don't have to pay so filing a report wouldn't accomplish much, and b) claims rarely, if ever, get processed (the police are one of the least reliable public service sectors, a recent poll ranked them second from the bottom at 31% when people were asked if they had confidence in various sectors), and there was little chance they would do anything except try to scare my landlords, who would just deny everything anyway, so we didn't file a report.
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at first the whole thing just left me hurt and feeling really really fed up with being a gringa, because gringo/a = money, and as one you always have to be attentive to avoid getting robbed or scammed. but as i've thought about it more, i am a gringa (and very gringa by their standards; they consider me a blonde), and, really, it's true: i do have more spendable income in a country with a starved economy. i can afford to get robbed and be ok (true, it helps that the credit card company isn't making me pay, but even still). why wouldn't they try to rob me? wouldn't i rob myself if i were in their situation? if i'm ok with or permit the robbery/slight graft, is it still a crime? and no, i haven't developed the robbee's version of stockholm syndrome, it's just that the social context is very different than if i'd gotten robbed in the states.

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the good news about all of this is that my new living situation is as awesome as my old one was awful. i now am sharing an apartment on the tenth floor of a building right on a plaza right in the center of town, facing south, with a full gorgeous view of illimani (none of this half view stuff anymore). really, we and anyone who's been to the apartment thus far just spend time looking out of the living room window, admiring it all. the windows open right up onto the plaza, too, and there aren't any screens, which makes it hard to resist the temptation to drop things out of those nice big tenth story windows. it must also be said that to be able to enjoy this lovely apartment, i am spending half of my income on rent, but i'm already making about four times the national average while working part-time, so i suppose it works out. plus, i've figured, when else in my life am i going to be able to live in an apartment like this? (i.e. why hold back now when i've already up and moved to south america?)

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the fun thing too about this gringo community here is that, everybody is usually here for some really good reason (usually they have a really interesting job), as bolivia isn't the place people just happen to move to. and most of us are being paid in american dollars or euros which means our money goes realllly far, and so most of us live in swank apartments and entertain each other at these apartments and go out all the time. there are moments when it feels uncomfortable, but then you get these fascinating dinner parties, where, like we had the other night, there was a guy who ran an alpaca fur trading business, a woman who ran a language institute, another who worked for unicef, two fulbrighters, the bbc correspondent, a usaid program manager, the ap correspondent, and me (random 20-something who moved down to south america on a whim just so she could indulge, or suffer, her friends and family with incorrigibly long email updates). the discussions are fascinating, simply put. again, i figure it's probably the only time in my life when i'll have a life like this, so i'll enjoy it while i can.

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shop-ping

one of the following weekends, i went with my friend up to el alto to wander its sprawling sunday market. el alto is a city that usually gets written off by north american media as an industrial slum city of la paz but really shouldn't; it's fascinating and in many ways perfectly indicative of the people and issues most representative of bolivia, although it is pretty slummy. el alto is up on the altiplano overlooking la paz, at about 13,500 feet, and the view of the mountains from up there are even more spectacular than from la paz. not only can you see illimani in even more of its grandeur to the south, but the whole range, going up to huayna potosí, with an elevation four feet shy of 20,000. (bolivia, by the way, has over 1,000 peaks over 6,000 meters, or 19,685 feet. take that colorado.) so besides taking in the breathtaking views, we wandered around buying trinkets until, just when we thought we were done, we found the party dress store/shop/stand and spent well over an hour digging through piles and racks of all the best retro dresses and skirts you wished your grandmothers, aunts, and mothers had never gotten rid of. oh, and i made a killing. suffice it to say, the Green Skirt might actually be able to contend with Sparkle Suit in the category of Best Reason to Thoroughly Peruse Bolivian Markets. the pink dress isn't too bad either. sadly, i did not have enough money on me for the pink polka dot dress. i also got 18 glasses for the equivalent of $1.25 for the apartment, so day and my money were not spent solely on me.

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saira, yungas, back to cochabamba, and buses

next, my fabulous friend, saira, decided that she needed a vacation before she started grad school this fall and chose to come experience all the glory bolivia had to offer her over visiting one of our other friends in germany. with all respect to deutschland, it was a wise choice, if i may say so myself.
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she arrived in la paz (but not after i'd gone to the airport the night before, not found her, thought she was lost somewhere in the city, and had to make one of the most uncomfortable calls of my life to her parents to inform them of that; turns out i was a day early), i showed her the city, and then we decided that for our first weekend trip, we'd go to the yungas, a couple hours north of la paz and one of bolivia's two sub-tropic jungle regions. there is one town, coroico, that most la paz people go to when they want to get out of the city, but the road to that city is officially called the World's Most Dangerous Road (according to our guide book, there were 80 deaths in eight months in 2002), and it didn't seem to have much else to do there besides hang out with other travelers. so, we opted for chulumani, as the guide book boasted lots of interesting history and activities about the place, and it didn't mention anything about the road.

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it should have. we took off in our bus, went up over la cumbre, a gorgeous +15,000 ft summit northeast of la paz with a reflecting lake and this amazing jagged ridge that looked like it was slicing through the clouds on that particular day. we then started going down, down, down into the yungas and quickly found ourselves seeing greenery again (i realized it'd been a while since my landscape had been any other color but brown and red). soon we'd turned off onto our dirt road to chulumani. it was fine at first, but very quickly we were going down along the sides of these mountains on one-lane roads so narrow, that when you're sitting in the window seat on the outside of the bus, you can't see the road underneath the window, but instead a drop into a ravine several hundred yards below. the constant sound of our driver pushing on the air compression brakes as we went down was only interrupted by the intermittent honks he gave as we came around bends in the road so as not to run into other vehicles coming in the opposite direction. when our bus did meet another vehicle, bolivian transportation law then makes it more exciting by stating that the vehicle traveling downhill must pass on the outside of the road. saira's and my best guess was that this is because they don't want vehicles that are traveling uphill (and exerting more pressure in doing so) to wear away the sides of the already narrow dirt roads, which become narrow mud roads during the rainy season.
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suffice it to say, it was pretty harrowing, and an odd feeling not being able to do much more than sit and just pray your driver's a good one. saira spent the drive trying to figure out if it would be better to have an older driver (who'd possibly drive more slowly and carefully, but be less alert), or a younger one (faster, more alert). i found myself appreciating the times we hovered over the edges of the deeper ravines, thinking that if we fell down those, death would be swifter, and moreover, it would be a pretty place to die among all those lush trees and bushes. saira understandably did not find this thought reassuring.

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happily, we made it to chulumani with everything but our nerves in tact. we checked into our hostel, walked into town, only to find a fiesta going on in the town center. we'd somehow managed to come right on the weekend of the town's yearly celebration. it was great, because saira got to see some good displays of some of the traditional bolivian dances, one of which, the morenada, is one of the most popular of all of the bolivian dances and originated in chulumani.

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the next day we went to go walking on some of the paths that go through all the hills in the area. the yungas is the area from which 1) almost all of the coca grown in the country to be used for traditional purposes comes and 2) where la paz gets almost all of its fruit and other produce. we passed lots of coca fields, usually planted on steeped hills usually at about 60 degrees. we also were delighted to find a mandarin tree. saira took a nearby rod and hit the mandarins down for me to catch while i stood underneath to catch them as they bounced down through the thick branches. "it's like plinko!" was her comment. our joy was only to be made further complete when we ended up later in a mandarin grove, and an old farmer who was there with no teeth and a big machete, which he used to peel the mandarins, told us to help ourselves.

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we made it back to chulumani and checked into a different hotel fully worth the recommendation in the guide book. the hotel owner, xavier, was a wonderful man and talked to us a lot (he spoke great english). he's bolivian, but lived for a while in the states when he was little and his mom was a diplomat, met the jfk and jackie o at a state event when he was about nine, went to the original woodstock later ("what acts do you remember?" we asked him. "oh, there was richie havens and joe cocker … but we were all so stoned i don't remember much after that besides the rain, oh and janis joplin."), had other such stories, and asked us lots, too, especially about religion.

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xavier set us up the next day to trek down further in the valley to see some of the area's waterfalls and butterflies. one added feature was that one of the waterfalls was at the back of what used to be the property of the nazi officer klaus barbie. apparently, a lot of nazi officials such as barbie and others escaped to the yungas after the war. ironically, there had been a group of jewish people that had picked to settle there 12 years earlier. locals however, aren't fully cognizant of the history. one man i talked do in the town center, when i asked him why he thought all these germans had moved to the town, just said, "oh, they probably thought it was a pretty place to move to. there were some turks who moved here, too." xavier said, too, "the locals always wondered why the gringos spat at each other in the market place." so anyway, there i was walking to a waterfall, looking at klaus barbie's house. it was strange. i couldn't decide if i wanted a picture or not, but took one then and decided i could figure out the ethical dilemma of if i wanted to keep or delete it later.

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to get to the second waterfall, saira and i took off our shoes and socks rolled up our pants, and hiked about a hundred yards up this stream/river to this gorgeous cascade that seemed to jump down from pool to pool in between the two crags that made the side of the ravine. xavier had assured us there were no fish, although it's amazing how startling a stray twig or leaf can feel. the area has tons of butterflies, too: we saw at least a dozen blue morpheuses as big and blue as any picture of them you might have seen, and scads of others, and we didn't even make it to the butterfly nesting area. i also took an excellent picture of saira almost falling. (speaking of which, don't worry, i'm going to send these pictures to you all as soon as i get them.)

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then it was time to head back on the road, this time going up the mountainsides to la paz. either because we'd already done it or because going uphill we got to be on the inside of the road when passing, i found the trip going back infinitely more enjoyable and spent most of it enthralled and snapping pictures with saira's camera (which she graciously lent me) of the scenery.
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and it was gorgeous. the trip roughly starts at a mile high in elevation and ends at two, but you would never know you were that high up as you're going among all these gorgeous looming verdant mountainsides, with trees and bush so thick, that it just makes you want to be a giant so you can run your fingers through all the plush tree tops. a river cut its way through the bottom of the valley/canyon as we cruised through and along the road. every now and then we'd come along the little towns that inconceivably would have found a way, not just to perch themselves on this hillside, but usually make a decent-sized soccer field, besides. i was so engrossed in it all (as well as in trying to take a picture that included the window's edge and a view of one of the steep drop offs to show all of you), that saira had to get my attention because everyone else in the bus was cold now because i was the only one with my window open, and wide open at that.
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while trying to calm my natural fears on the trip, i think the one thing that most consistently reassured me throughout was that, this is the road that people who live out here take all the time. heck, the campesina women had their babies with them (we even saw one baby asleep between windshield and the sloping dash of a passing bus), which made me wonder if we, two grown ladies in our 20s, were justified in our insistence on being scared.

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and oh yes, it turns out i got salmonella from the trip. how, i have no idea, but the pills the doctor prescribed me have worked like magic and i'll go have a follow-up appointment to affirm that i'm cured. one more thing for to add to holly's list of ailments caught in bolivia, i suppose.

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we finished the trip alive again, which was good, and made it back to the apartment. from there, saira went up to lake titicaca (the highest navigable lake in the world) / isla del sol / copacabana while i stayed around to go to work (stupid work always getting in the way of trips). she came back, with rave reviews, nonetheless, and we headed off to cochabamba so 1) she could see the city and 2) i could swing by and meet and chat as the official alumna of the s.i.t. program with the newly arrived group of exchange students.
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we hopped on a bus to cochabamba and went straight to one of my favorite restaurants in all of bolivia where i had a half chocolate/banana and half mixed fruit pizza (both with cheese, without tomato sauce, INCREDIBLE) and then saw the movie "¿quién mató a la llamita blanca?" or "who killed the white baby llama?), which was an equally amazing, remarkably accurate, really funny portrayal of, and moreover felt just like, bolivia. ismael, one of my study abroad program's academic directors and a bolivian filmmaker/aficionado, and who knows half the cast and the director, had already seen the film three times. the next day, we got to go up to the cristo with the group to admire the city from up there. (cochabamba boasts the world's highest cristo statue, at 40 m tall, it's two meters higher than rio de janeiro's.) this was followed by a group dinner at ismael and lupe, his wife,'s house with all the exchange students and heidi, the other academic director.
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sunday afternoon, saira went off to the airport to go back to the states, and i headed to the bus station to catch my bus back to la paz. unbeknownst to us, though, sunday had turned out to be pedestrian day in cochabamba which meant that, not only were there no cars on the streets all day (which made for a lovely motorless day), but there weren't even any buses that left the city for the 7+ hour ride back to la paz until 6:30 pm, so i didn't get back home until 2 am, but that was ok, as the trip was made notable by 1) finding out that one of the guys i work with and his wife were on the same bus, 2) talking to the very interesting older bolivian guy sitting next to me (probably one of the most politically introspective and moderate bolivians i've thus far talked to), and 3) watching the jean claude van damme movie "cyborg", which really was not ok and rather torturous, except for the fact that i was fully reassured, if i ever had any doubt, that mr. van damme's movies do not ever need to be on my list of "need to see" films.

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and while i may have painted a less than glamorous picture of bolivian bus rides, i will say that they are by far and away one of my favorite (and cheapest) ways to see the country. the ride from la paz to cochabamba, is essentially seven straight hours of going through bolivian rural and altiplano regions. the towns up there are almost completely colorless, with all their buildings blending right into the brownish hills and fields. this probably isn't surprising, given that much of the material used to make the very neat mud bricks comes from those hills and fields. the walls, made out of the same materials, go along the perimeter of families' properties and usually run right abut the walls of their houses, making them all look like prim mud lego towns. as the bus goes by field after field, you see a random cow in a field, chickens, herds of llamas in other places, i also saw an amusing pig furiously digging up something once, and then every now and then you'll see a campesina grandmother or someone out in the middle of the field, and you crane your neck around to try and see the town because you can't remember passing one and there that person is all in the middle of seemingly endless altiplano.
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and these are only the towns on one of the country's main roads (a paved one at that). there have to be so many more towns and communities in so many more remote places that i don't even know about. my conclusion is that i'm not roughing it by living in my posh apartment in la paz. sure, i have to avoid the sick dogs i pass on the street, but my life's more or less normal and all the necessary conveniences and then some, given the affordability of everything (i have a maid for the first time in my life), are there. actually pushing myself would be life in towns like those.

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la política

the assembly opened beautifully. evo named silvia lazarte as speaker of the assembly, which was nothing short of huge, seeing as she is a campesina (basically someone from the rural areas) and a woman. it was very significant historically, because, less than five years earlier, the thought of someone like that holding a position like that (i.e. indigenous and female) would have been absolutely unheard of (and probably very fiercely rejected) by so many of the old political scene. in the weeks since then, however, the aura has abruptly ended and a lot of people have become exceedingly pessimistic about the possibility of progress, or at this point any notable outcome of the constituent assembly, convinced it's going to fall apart. the debacle has centered around MAS's efforts to try and change the assembly procedural bylaws to say that amendments to the constitution only need to be passed by 50% majority, and not the prescribed 2/3. this would enable MAS, which holds 57% of the seats, to effectively overhaul what the current constitution, which see as european colonialism-derived and therefore inherently discriminatory of the majority indigenous population, for their new one, which many people are hoping will address the needs of the indigenous peoples, and therefore cure so many of the country's ills. there was almost a compromise worked out, but 1) MAS is splitting among itself and 2) other parties are trying to split MAS up, and talks fells through. PODEMOS thinkS MAS (and evo and the vice president, álvaro garcia linera, a stunningly smart man with hair like andy warhol's who's always very neatly dressed compared to evo who has yet to wear a suit) are the political devil incarnate, and vice versa, and no one wants to compromise por nada. my take is that, while this is all incredibly serious, MAS is still very young politically (less than ten years old as a party, and most of its members have been involved for less time than that), and this is nothing more nor less than their very hard lesson that the symbolism embodied in the efforts to mobilize and engage literally hundreds of thousands of historically disenfranchised people in movements and elections in past years does not translate in the actual practical, lamentable yet necessary, legal working out of legislating change. there are some members of MAS right now who are dead set against compromising with other parties, but, when it comes down to risking a chance of any progress at all, i.e. the question of the Constituent Assembly having any significance, i really do think they'll bite the bullet and compromise, at the risk of having what is indeed a historic opportunity be considered a failure. and the four eastern provinces are not so subtly threatening to break off from the rest of the country if MAS doesn't give them more autonomy. time will tell.

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i also cut off four years worth of hair. it was sad, but it's what i get for not getting a cut in over a year. it's still to my shoulders, though, so nothing too drastic.

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i promise i'll write sooner next time, or at least before so much happens and my update gets so big that it overloads any email servers.

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much love to all.