Thanksgiving and La República

Thanksgiving morning is sunny, after a rainy night trying to figure out where our friends coming in from the campo are. Our Peace Corps security coordinator calls to say they are still stuck in a blockade a few hours outside Sucre, sounding as cheerful at 8 a.m. as he did at 3 a.m. when we called to report them missing. It’s another protest in the wannabe Capitalia Plena - routine marches, blockades, boycott of session by opposition members of the Constituent Assembly, etc.

Then the majority party of MAS locked out the boycotting asambleistas and voted to approve the framework of the constitution, details to be worked out for the December 14 deadline. The new constitution addresses everything from abolishing the term limit on the presidency to whether private property goes to the state. Sucre exploded. Even my neighbor, a tranquila mother of 4, was out in the streets rioting.

In record time the roads and airport were blocked and the air black with smoke from burning blockades of tires and trash on every corner within a 10-block radius of the town center. The city itself was fairly quiet, since the Constituent Assembly had been moved outside town to the military base. The volunteers who could get out of town left and the rest of us ventured out for food. Then came the calls from Peace Corps, people boarding up store fronts, rumors of the first deaths, and trucks full of flag-bearing young men tearing out of the city. The marches continued the entire night, even passing by my neighborhood where it’s usually always calm.

A few of us spent Sunday holed up in my apartment or sitting on my roof watching the progress of smoke across the sky while trying to filter information from the storm of “news”. 3 confirmed dead, over 100 injured, 100 prisoners escaped from the San Roque jail, and the police in Sucre fled to Potosí. Meanwhile, 3 of the national news channels cut their feed and a 4^th had “live” coverage showing everything as peaceful in Sucre. It was actually footage from earlier in the week; volunteers that already left Sucre for Cochabamba were on the tape sitting in the plaza!

Today the sun is out, buses are running, and people are out walking like we didn’t have a massive breakout at the jail and still have no police in the city. This will always bewilder me. Bolivia can be like T.V. magic, where all hell breaks loose and then is wrapped up before the hour spot is over. Except here the situation isn’t necessarily resolved, but gets shelved for the next blowout. I went to work today but the office shut down in the afternoon for the burial of Gonzalo Durán, the first death in the weekend siege. The plaza crowd is angry, chanting “Evo asesino”, but otherwise peaceful out of respect for the mass taking place before the burial. The prefectura building is scrawled in graffiti of varying political wit, but it shows a change of mood against the current administration and the influence of Venezuela. Instead of putting up Christmas decorations I pack a few boxes with my most important belongings here, in case of evacuation. But with the holidays coming up it´s more likely we will be waiting until 2008 for this to be pulled back off the shelf.

FUN FACT / QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Chavez manda, Evo cumple” – graffiti on the walls of Sucre´s prefectura
[Hugo (Chavez) commands, Evo fulfills - a play on Morales campaign slogan]

Burnt tires, burnt out

It is the August meeting of one of our groups in the town of Yotala. Something tells me I won’t get to my class today (which, ironically, is about communication and conflict resolution). Señora 1 wants to guarantee Señora 2, but no one else. The credit assistant and I explain that participants in a solidarity group loan must guarantee every other member of the group. Señora 2, ignoring what we just said, thinks Señora 3 shouldn’t even be allowed to take out a loan. Señora 1 says that most in the group are being irresponsible. Señora 4 says Señora 5 insults her when she’s drunk. Señora 5 says now is not the time to talk about that. Señora 4 says well, it’s true. Señora 6 is sleeping and Señoras 7-12 have not attended the meeting, as usual. I’ve finished counting the bricks in the courtyard archways. There are 256.

It’s not always this way. And when it is, I’m usually more resilient. But almost a year of slow, frustrating work plus losing a string of volunteers in my region, including my best friend in the Peace Corps, is really getting to me. I have no buffer here, nothing to control swinging from wild optimism to crushing disillusionment. I don’t want to sound like a discouraged idealist who wanted to save the world, or a pampered suit expecting to be admired and obeyed. I am honestly neither; I am just tired.

I think my poor city is tired too. In August, Sucre began a movement to be reinstated as the capitalia plena, the sole capital of Bolivia. There were protests, blockades, and paro cívicos (complete shut down of the city, including businesses, schools, and all air and land transportation) almost weekly. The pretty white buildings are now marred with political graffiti and after each protest the streets are littered with the ashes of burnt tires. In September the protests were bad enough to make the Peace Corps nervous and those of us in Sucre were evacuated to Santa Cruz for a week. Sucre even had to postpone the parade for Virgen de Guadalupe for a month.

The Virgen de Guadalupe Entrada is our biggest town festival. There are more than half a dozen traditional dances, performed by numerous dance groups in beautiful, elaborate costumes from 8 a.m. until 2 in the morning. I joined a group to dance chacarera, an Argentine dance from the Chaco region. 6 practices a week and the delays from protests weren’t so terrific, but the parade itself was one of my favorite days in Bolivia. I didn’t fall on my face even once (powered by obscene amounts of caffeine and fabulous volunteer friends and Mama Lu, bearing water and snacks) during 6 hours of dancing in a long skirt. This is a huge accomplishment; next, I’m going to try learning to walk in a straight line.

FUN FACT / QUOTE OF THE DAY: Next week is our mid-service conference! 1 year down, 1 to go..

Habits I´ve picked up in Bolivia

1. Accepting anything.

Example 1
Neighbor: “There is a protest today. You’re going to have to take a taxi to where they’re blockading the plaza, walk past it, take another taxi to where they’re blockading the market, and walk the last ten blocks to work.”
Me: “Oh really? That sucks. Okay.”

Example 2
Other volunteer: “They just revoked the 22nd amendment.
Me: “Oh really? That sucks. Okay.”
Other volunteer: “I was kidding.”
Me: “Oh really? Okay.”

2. Giving long, formal opening statements at meetings that involve individually thanking every person for their attendance. Sitting through said statements of everyone else at meeting.

3. Dealing with fleas. It’s no longer appalling when I get fleas from the campo (or a bus ride, or another volunteer…). Nor is scratching the fleabites until they bleed. I’ve thought about using the cheese grater, but I’m not quite there yet.

4. Being able to sleep through horrific, long bus rides over broken rocks and rubble with a spanish-dubbed Steven Seagal movie blaring in the background.

5. Eating cream cheese. By itself. With a spoon.

Things I will never get used to in Bolivia:

1. Listening to static.

2. Yapsss, or Ya pueeees…

3. My Bolivian work partners hiding from me. HOW OLD ARE WE??

4. Walking reeeally slow while blocking the entire sidewalk.

5. Kicking starving dogs, games that involve burying live chickens in the ground, etc.

FUN FACT / QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Como es...en Gringolandia?” (What´s it like...in Gringoland?) -My Bolivian work partner

Cambaland

I went to the campo of Santa Cruz this week to help my friend start a community bank. San Jose de Chiquitos is a town of red dirt roads and spring greens even in the dead of winter. There are bulging trees that are said to hide duende, leprauchan-like creatures that play tricks on people. The Bolivian town is dotted with pocket communities of fierce indigenous nomads and Mennonites, tall Europeans related to the Amish that speak low-German and mostly farm (think Children of the Corn, in dark denim overalls, light blue dress shirts, and straw hats). In the hills you can hike to a great rock formation called Valley of the Moon and collect a fruit that tastes like dates and looks like smooth brown rocks on the ground, but you have to watch out for the crazy three-fingered man that lives there looking for gold. It feels like a fairytale land, or maybe a Hayao Miyazaki film.

The students are on winter vacation, and it´s quieter and cooler than the last time we were here in the stifling spring heat. Cooler meaning, you still don´t have to sleep with a blanket and cold bucket baths feel great in the afternoon. Jenny´s counterpart is a priest named Brother Melchor. He is like a jolly little elf and claps and shouts “Ánimo!” after each of our ideas. He lives with two other priests in a cozy little house in the ghettos of San Jose and they are all teachers at the Catholic Marista high school. The hermanos Melchor, Nacho, and Francisco are wonderful. They feed us lunch and tell us animated stories with exaggerated facial expressions like cartoon characters. I miss the fireworks and BBQ´s of a real 4th of July, but we bake a lemon pie for the brothers and spend the evening playing basketball with the orphanage kids Jenny works with. “Basketball” is any number of kids grabbing the ball and running halfway across the court before dribbling it twice and throwing a wild pot shot. There are 2 full-court basketball games and a soccer match taking place on the same court, miraculously without any casualties.

It is a nice break from malingering in my office, trying to track down people who don´t want to work with me. But it´s a short break; the blockade rumors begin in the afternoon. A paro near the border of Brasil, which will block the train from arriving in San Jose. Then, protestors demanding “autonomia indigena” close in on all roads to Santa Cruz. By the time we catch the last spots on a 2 a.m. train back to the city the miners have locked down the altiplano and the students are blockading Sucre roads. It´s an all-star week of civil unrest. Back in Santa Cruz I gorge myself on all the food and shopping I don´t have in Sucre. The city is decked out in green and white; the departmental colors of Santa Cruz and the autonomia movement in general. July 2 was the anniversary of the movement and everywhere banners and t-shirts scream “100% Camba” and “¡Autonomia, Carajo!” I assume that´s what the demonstraters on the street are saying too; the cambas drop their s´s and slur and I cannot understand a damn word they say.

Somehow, the only road not blockaded is the old, unpaved road between Santa Cruz and Sucre, so I am able to get back home via a 14-hour rattling wreck of a bus ride. When I left Sucre last week, police were lining the streets to protect the Constituent Assembly from torch-bearing students protesting state control of the university. In typical Bolivian fashion, it flared up and died down within the week. Now the new constitution, originally due August 6, has been postponed to December. So we can look forward to another half year of come-and-go blockades until the constitutional blowout. Ánimo!

FUN FACT / QUOTE OF THE DAY: “This would be SO much better if we had, like, a 40% chance of getting kidnapped.”

Dear Diary

Cold. Undercaffeinated. Irritated. Bolivian work partners ignoring me. Feel like I´ve accomplished nothing. Insert new date and repeat.

FUN FACT/QUOTE OF THE DAY: The plaza was tear-gassed last week while students were protesting for university autonomy. Oski would be proud!

Haikus for Bolivia

Got hit by a bus
Because in Bolivia
They don´t share sidewalks

Ahorita means
In 5 hours or a month
But never right now

Que lástima que
no traduzca en inglés
“capacitación”

FUN FACT/QUOTE OF THE DAY: Today is the anniversary of the revolution for independence, or the “first cry for liberty”

From Santa Cruz

This is from my friend Jenny, another volunteer. Note that 1) snacks come before medical attention, and 2) no one is surprised.
Ahh, Bolivia:

..I got on my normal train at 2am from San Jose to Santa Cruz. I fell somewhat asleep until I was woken up by the intense bumping and terrible train sounds. Then I woke up to see all my stuff from the right side of the train fall and smash into all the people sitting on the left side of the train. Then we were stopped. No one seemed to be getting upset or freaked out at all which I was more in shock about than this train problem. Well the people in charge started yelling not to move or we would tip the train over. This is when I started to wake up enough to notice that out car was almost completely sideways. People slowly starting getting out of the train one by one with the help of the guys who were pulling us out of the train. Of course my pants got stuck and I was sort of hanging from the train there for a second but the some nice guy caught me. The car behind mine was even worse and was completely sideways and the people were climbing out the windows. Somehow during all of this no one was hurt, no one seemed to express anger or fright, or even annoyance. The Bolivians just seemed to take it as oh damn our train crashed time to hang out and wait. I was thinking holy shit I was just in a train wreck this is so cool and crazy.

When the sun came up after an hour of our crash at 5 it started getting hot. So the Bolivians started making fires which I thought was weird since it was so hot already and who packed for food for the BBQ but then I noticed we didn't have any food for that and someone informed me it was to keep away the killer mosquitoes who were eating us alive. Then the Bolivians started picking these huge leaves from the brush and wearing them on their heads like hats to keep cool. After about 6 or 7 hours I was getting annoyed and the novelty of the crash had worn off but I still didn't seem to see any Bolivians complaining. We finally were given some water and a piece of bread about 7 hours in and finally after 9 and a half hours of waiting a train from the other direction came and picked us up. They handed out fried chicken and rice to us and now after 9 and a half hours sent around doctors to check and see if we were all right. We endured the next 5 and a half hours on the train to the bridge near Santa Cruz where they then transferred us to buses to take us the rest of the way. Meanwhile feeling pretty nasty and tried a camera crew and news woman ran up to me and started interviewing me about the crash. I felt so gross and tired I pretended not to speak Spanish and they went away eventually. So at 7 p.m. we finally arrived in Santa Cruz only 11 hours later than expected.

FUN FACT/QUOTE OF THE DAY: "My host mom gave me a gun to shoot the donkey that keeps coming into my courtyard."

Campo Envy

It is the December meeting of a group of our socias (clients) in the community of Ravelo, a two-hour drive via a feo road of dust and rocks clattering over steep, crumbling edges. Our tin box jeep is a Suzuki Samurai with the shocks of a tricycle and the back door held together with a clever knot of the only seat belt and part of the tire jack. I feel like I’m in a pinball machine. And the sensation of dirt between my teeth and my telescoping spine gets old after, oh, 15 minutes. But the town is beautiful, sparsely tucked under an expanse of purple mountains and washed out sky. It looks like the pueblo I imagined living in before site assignments.

The meeting is underway. Having stuttered out my part, I am examining the mud and straw-thatched roof of the room we are in thinking, this is where Chagas disease comes from. The socias are signing their guarantee of the women in their solidarity group, surrounded by children who shuffle restlessly and drift in and out of the room with the dust particles. One child stays the whole time. He constantly has a smile on his face but amuses himself by covering his ears and screaming every ten minutes. It’s unnerving. “Smiles” steals a 1 Bs. coin during the loan disbursement, which no one notices until he swallows it and promptly vomits. I start to panic because I don’t know if you can perform the Heimlich on a two-year old, but just then he swallows the pesito completely and starts bawling. I go home and Google `toddler heimlich maneuver´. This is my “analysis” for the diagnostic report we´re assigned our first 3 months; tagging along with the folks of Pro Mujer and talking to every socia in the campo that will humor me. In 20 dusty courtyards or adobe rooms I have conversations that usually go as follows -

Me: Do you keep any record of the potatoes and corn you sell? Socia: Where are you from, Japan?
M: I am from the U.S., but my parents were born in China. How far do you have to travel to sell your vegetables?
S: Depends, sometimes far. Japan is pretty far, isn´t it?

Sometimes the women even give us fruit, pastries of fried goodness, or refrescos (warmish corn porridge drink with little black specks of suspiciousness, or a neon soda that tastes like carbonated liquid jello). I miss these long days of travel to and from the communities, getting stuck in storms, daydreaming in each town about where I would live if it were my site. The last month I’ve been office-bound, turning my surveys into something measurable. Outside my non-ergonomic holding cell, December passed with another B43 volunteer resignation and a temporary evacuation of our Santa Cruz volunteers when the military took over a few towns to keep rioters from burning the houses of MASistas (political party of Evo Morales). The protest is over the November approval of an article that allows constitutional reform by simple majority of the Constituent Assembly (MAS is 54% of the CA).

Not to be outdone by the cambas, last week Cochabamba marched in a few thousand cocaleros and informally ousted its Autonomía-friendly governor, Manfred Reyes Villa, when he tried to force a revote on the referendum for autonomy. This week marked the Morales administration´s 1-year anniversary, B43’s 5th month, and the arrival of the new bottom rung, B44, in Cochabamba.

FUN FACT/QUOTE OF THE DAY: Bringing large amounts of toilet paper on the bus can be considered cocaine paraphernalia during drug check stops.