about time

a short note: in my entire time in bolivia, i have not seen a functional clock.
our hotel room didn´t have one. our house doesn´t have one.
the wall clocks in my workplace, all the workplaces of my friends that i´ve seen, every classroom i've been in at my spanish school, and anywhere else that i can´t specifically remember, have been dead.
clocks on computers in internet cafes are always wrong.
needless to say, this isn´t the kind of place where people are perfectly on time.
however, it's not as bad the clocklessness might lead you to assume.

Culture shock?

Being a vegetarian in bolivia has been a lot easier than i expected. things like quinoa and avocados and lentils are everywhere. there are not one but two vegetarian restaurants within a block of my house. like in north america, most restaurants have at least a couple of vegetarian options.
Ironically, the times when it's hardest to avoid meat are when my co-volunteers choose the restaurant.
This ties into something that's generally surprised me about the other volunteers i'm working with, as well as people in some of the organizations we're working for: to use a clichee, i assumed we were all here with the intention of making the world a better place. and by extension, i assumed we would all have a sense of awareness of the consequences of our actions, and have a similar sense of ethics.
But really? no, not really. no one really seems to care about animal rights. i met a girl in montreal who had worked in the same program and she joyfully showed us a blanket (and matching pillows) she'd brought back which was made entirely of fur. no one seems to mind eating meat. we eat at a vegetarian restaurant near here pretty often, but for everyone else it seems to be out of convenience, pure proximity to the house. while i'm enjoying what i consider to be the luxury of fried tofu and quinoa, other people are talking offhandedly about how unfulfilling vegetarian food is and how they don't mind it once a day but "have to" eat meat at some point.
As someone who has said and done the exact same things in the past and is now surviving nicely without meat, i can't help but see the things they're doing and saying as a bit naive, contrived, and as an attempt to justify doing something which, when you think about it, is not that ethical.
But beyond that: in two weeks of talking to my co-volunteers, i'm surprised at how little some of them seem to care that the clothing and shoes they're buying for extra cheap here were, whether they're a good deal or not, made in sweatshops.
I'm surprised, and disgusted, that everyone except me smokes.
I'm shocked to discover that there are people who are here to volunteer in a country which is living proof of the beauty and diversity of indigenous culture, and its ability to exist alongside of other cultures, who think that the problem with first nations people in canada is that they're allowed to live together, as opposed to assimilating.
I see people who seem to appreciate the culture here as if it was a show, or entertainment, without seeming to have a sense of genuine respect for it.
I'm depressed by some peoples' total oblivion to the idea of conserving resources, and doing things sustainably.
To be clear though, all of the people i´m with here are really good people. Some are really amazing. and i have to say as well that there's lots of things i could improve on myself, and in a way i appreciate being in an environment that forces me to think very carefully about my values and why i've adopted them. And this has made me really appreciate the kids i spend time with in Montreal (and other places) who do actually care about these kinds of things. You guys are precious.
So ironically, if i'm experiencing any culture shock in bolivia, it's not because of bolivian culture, but the culture and values of my fellow quebecois and canadians.

photos online..

i've got two albums on picassa now....
http://picasaweb.google.es/turnoffyourcomputer
the photos in the slideshows here come from there.
there's a permanent link above the slideshows.
more coming soon.

...when i saw the electric cross i was secretly pleased.

It took a few days to notice it, but i was walking home one evening and there it was, on the hill ahead of me:
A huge, bright white lit-up cross.

I've always found the one in montreal sort of weird, (it's a religous symbol, looming over you, everywhere. it's made of cold hard steel and glowing white filaments. it's surrounded by an evil looking iron fence with sharp points curved outwards towards potential interlopers. it doesn't really seem to embody the ideals that christianity claims to stand behind.)

So, when i saw that Sucre also had a giant electric cross, i wasn´t that surprised. It is a catholic country. Maybe there's a factory somewhere that mass produces them. And secretly, i was sort of happy. It does, afterall, remind me of home.

(oh, and pictures coming soon, really.)

Sucre

sucre!
it´s a lot quieter here than la paz.
but still tons of pollution.

i´m in an apartment. the older parts of the city are really spanish feeling. (logically, having been built by the spanish)
the buildings are built right up to the sidewalk, the walls are whitewashed (but covered in political graffiti.. no one writes their own name in graffiti, everyone writes evo's) but the interior of each block is a really nice courtyard or series of courtyards.
so if you walk through my front door (old, dark wood, double doors, arched at the top, heavy, reminiscient of castles and fortresses) you come into a courtyard, paved in stones, with a fountain, non-functional. this is pretty standard.
stone stairs going up to the second floor, or an arched walkway under the second floor through to the second courtyard: grassy, a tree, rose bushes, a basin carved out of rock for washing clothes.
the second floor is a series of rooms (bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen, dining room) connected by a long balcony. no interior hallways.
the view from the balcony is of part of the city, a few hills in the distance, it´s nice, and it´s being slowly blocked by the construction of some new building.
ahhhh, development.
the stove is attached to a propane tank a la barbecue. there´s no sink in the kitchen. there´s no hot water anywhere, in sucre, in general.
the shower has a large showerhead which heats the water in a similar way to those electric kettles everyone has these days. the tap for the shower is well-wrapped in electrical tape, because apparently before that was done people were getting really good shocks from touching it.

i went to the mercado campesino (farmer's market?) with my roommate feyla, and at one point she was like,
"whoa, look at that!"
and i was like, "whoa yeah, handspun alpaca wool!"
"no,beside the wool!"
"... oh, dried llama fetuses, yeah!"
i don't know how i saw the wool without seeing the dried llama fetuses but this must say something about me.

i opened a bank account here,
lots of military dudes with knee to thigh high guns at the bank.
when we were leaving the bank we realized they still had a paper we needed, and the guy who had helped us wasn´t at his desk.
so jean alex, our coordinator, just grabbed the paper off his desk, and there wasn´t any problem at all, despite how securitized the bank appears to be.

i can´t even begin to explain how amazing buying groceries is here.
if you want, there´s a supermarket, like in north america, (boooooo)
or, there´s this giant open air market full of indigenous women who are really specialized. cheese, avocadoes, mangoes, or sometimes they´ll have a big pile of various vegetables or spices.
it´s so big and mazelike and crowded, it´s insane.
you can taste stuff before you buy it.
so if you even make eye contact with a cheese seller she´ll have a slice balanced on a knife blade for you to taste before you can blink.
you can also taste spices. this is useful, but sometimes unpleasant.
you can barter, but for the most part things are already ridiculously cheap.
with small artisans and farmers i don´t really barter.
with people who are just acting as middlemen and selling stuff they bought somewhere, i do.

spanish is coming along.
i can kinda speak, usually.
like a hack, though.
i forgot what it´s like to not know how to say things like, "i would like".
i spend a lot of time walking into places and just naming things.
or at best asking, probably improperly, how much they are.

In la Paz!

i´m in bolivia, and everything´s good (i didn´t get altitude sickness, which is unusual, although my stomach seems to like liquifying things lately, so my luck has balanced out) (oh, and feeling a little off for the first while in a developing country is pretty normal, ie not cause for concern)

where i´m actually at:
la paz.
i may go to sucre soon.
that depends on whether or not the city returns from its present state of anarchy.
(to clarify, if things don´t calm down, oxfam will probably find something for me to do in la paz).
i may have a cell phone soon. or possibly not. i´m not sure yet.
i may eventually have an address. between now and sunday i´m living at a hotel.

how to reach me:
email is wise.
if any of you want to try and call me, you might be able to get me at the hotel..
the number, from canada, is 011-591-2-2363355, or 011-591-2-2313775
i´m in room number 505.
i´m not sure if the hotel staff speak english. they might.
if you´re gonna do that, it´d be a very good idea to get a calling card with good rates for bolivia.
you could definitely also just email me, and ask me to call you. it´s not that expensive from here.

postcards:
if you want one, send me your address...

la paz:
is crazy. there are dogs everywhere. this morning there was a small protest for the rights of dogs.
you can´t drink the water (which also means you can´t eat raw fruit unless you peel it), and you can´t put toilet paper in the toilet. suddenly that little garbage can in the bathroom becomes much more useful.
traffic is insane, taxis are cheap, busses are even cheaper (equivaled of 25 cents a ride)
and the busses are way better, just because they´re old school bus-looking things with crazy 70s racing stripes on them.
there are also smaller private busses, which are recognisable by a guy, or girl, hanging out the window and screaming the names of various places the bus is going to.
who needs a sign, when you can just yell.
crossing the street is an art form. montrealers would be much better prepared for this than people from other cities in canada.

i´ll get pictures up on some kind of a blog eventually. right now i can´t use my laptop because of the altitude.
that´s right.. la paz is so high that my computer is not designed to operate here.
oh, and another interesting thing: the highest part of la paz (the altiplano) is a full KILOMETRE higher than the lowest parts.
3000ish m above sea level vs over 4060, i think.
it looks like someone put a city on and around the world´s largest open pit mine.