A genuinely perfect sunday afternoon

Sunday afternoon the local team’s playing Potosí, the nearest city. Nicolas and I go with one of his co-workers, Adam, to watch.

Adam has given me a vague idea of where the stadium is; Nicolas and I weave through crooked streets in that general direction. We approach a set of stairs, Nicolas says he’s always wondered about them and I convince him we should go up.

At the top we stroll as nonchalantly as possible through the middle of a party: a collection of umbrella tables, possibly from a restaurant or maybe just random, completely blocking the street for any cars. People are listening to music and drinking, and watching us. We emerge from this and realize the entire road ahead of us is soaked and half a dozen kids are staring at us gleefully as they fill balloons and jugs (jugs!) with water. We walk slowly and calmly, as though we were passing though a pack of lions, trying to balance our careful observation of the potential assailants with the tactic of not showing fear. We pass through unharmed. When we get to the end of the block, one kid throws a globo which I dodge, laughing.

But we’re not out of the woods yet. We pass another two or three kids, and the one five year old seems like he really wants to get me, so I hold my coat in front of me and go, “Yeah? Do it. Do it!”.

He throws the globo. I deflect it with my coat. It hits the ground but doesn´t break. While we’re both scrambling for it his sister throws another one nails me in the head. I grab the globo and get him with it. Yes.. I threw a waterballoon at a five year old. If there is any injustice in this (and he started it, so maybe there isn’t) it’s corrected when another kid from the group dumps a jug of water on my back.

Now i´m definitely wet. But it´s sunny and my cell phone and mp3 player seem to be alright, so i´m not that worried.

Outside the stadium is a lineup. We find Adam. We buy globos and lob them at other people with globos. Every thirty seconds or so one flies by somewhere. Somehow we don’t get hit. A middle aged lady squirts us with a watergun that looks like a coke bottle and snickers.

Inside, we sit down and wait. Really young kids, 6 some of them, are selling pop and junk food. The game starts. Riot cops in full gear with shields are on the field. They protect the Potosi team when they come onto the field. They protect the refs from the players after the game. The crowd does it’s best to penetrate the shield and nail them with globos, or anything else that’s expendable. Behind us is a guy listening to the game on the radio. We hear something about a goal. On the field, nothing.

“Is he listening to a different game?”
“… yeah, I think he is?”

There’s a commotion behind us: A Potosi fan has for some reason sat in the Sucre section and is being pelted with globos, garbage, pop bottles.

The ref makes a few bad calls and for the rest of the game globos are constantly landing around her. Someone shoots a firecracker at the Potosi goalie and the game stops while medical checks him out. Apparently he’s fine.

The fact that it rains through the second half of the game doesn’t stop anyone from throwing globos. It’s the thought that counts.

On the way home, we follow a marching band for a while. Kids run out of doorways trying to throw buckets of water on the marching band and the crowd behind it. Some guy offers his drink to Nicolas, it seems to be singani (hard liquor made of grapes, a bit like vodka) mixed with milk, in a re-used 40. I pass on that one.

Eventually we split off and find our way home.

...in which i try to be only a pair of eyes but my brain follows like a loving and persistent pet dog.

saturday:  it's sunny and after a week of rain i appreciate this. 

the market, you smell the meat before you see it.  piles of sliced beef, flies, dogs waiting below.  halves of animals hanging, heads on countertops, intact naked dead chickens, a stack of white legs with pink hooves, sawn off at the knee. pigs?  they're huge and a bit translucent 

my vegetable lady waves, 

she's sitting on a platform, halfway up a mountain of food, 

comes down a precarious set of steps that are really just a pile of wooden crates

a kiss on the cheek. 

what will you take?  

i list unfamiliar names for familiar things.  papas, zanahorias, cebollas.

she thows in a green lumpy thing for free, 

"it's like zuccinni!

ciao mamasita, ciao-ciao!"

a five year old boy wants to carry my groceries for me, but i don't have much and they fit in my purse. 

"lo siento, no necesito"

walking home, i think about the argument that most people on the streets don't really need the money they're asking for. 

i think about the relativity of "ability" to work, (doesn't  being a single mom with five kids impede your ability to work?  doesn't old age, young age, blindness in one eye, inability to speak the dominant language, cultural alienation impede your ability to work? these are the situations of many of the people who ask me for money here)

i wonder how much any of us "need" the money we get, and how slippery the term "work" is. 

the mom trying to take care of five kids isn't "working", she's just asking for money. 

telemarketers, on the other hand, "work", even if they're just calling people and ripping them off. 

which of the two is actually doing something good and useful?

well, i guess that's a different thing than work, whatever it is. 

busses pass, the outsides painted like 70s bowling alleys, and where you expect to see a destination or route number you see jesus, or sometimes che.  once, chuck norris.  

strung along the inside of the windshield: tinsel, pom poms, religious icons.  

the door stays open all the time.  when you get on the driver takes your money and gives you change with one hand while he drives with the other.  

the coins are stacked neatly in a wooden box with rows for each size, hand made. 

about half the people on the street are indigenous, small ladies (some of the older ladies don't even come up to my shoulder) in fancy elaborate skirts and shawls, modelled after high society fashion of two centuries ago, with long stockings and classy men's hats.  two long thick neat braids, to the waist, with sort of an ornamentation at the bottom to make the bit of unbraided hair look nice. 

the sidewalks are covered in exploded balloons.  a piece of yellow rubber falls off the wall beside me as i walk past and flutters downwards.  

a waterballoon explodes on a wall between me and a girl walking ahead of me and we jump. 

"de donde...?" (how do i say "it came from?"...  who knows)

"creo alla".. (over there) 

a marching band thumps and jubilates nearby.  every weekend.  the birds in our garden compete with the trumpets.  petares, small fireworks, go off somewhere.  every weekend.  

i pass the marching band, it's more like a roaming pack of kids, my age or younger. no uniforms.  one guy has stopped playing to talk on his cell phone.  a party is following them around, kids in the front doing elaborate footwork as they dance ahead, reminding me of movies like hair and grease.  kids behind jumping up and down like they're in a mosh pit, yelling and carrying alcohol in pop bottles which they pour into the glasses they drink out of.   everyone's ecstatic.  the band doesn't seem to have any kind of itinerary, it just weaves through the city.  traffic doesn't seem to mind. this is a normal occurrence. 

Overall, though.. (sv part 7)

Overall, though,

Being out in the country for a few days, seeing smaller towns where people live really simply, reminded me how excessive north americans are.

I'm not just talking about hummers. I'm talking about how many outfits of clothing we think we need, how often we think we need to shower, all the unneccesary stuff that's manufactured for us like hair gel, make-up, and fragrances... how disturbingly big our houses apparently have to be, how much energy we waste on things like washing machines (and especially dryers), dishwashers, ohhhh and xmas lights... all the useless and unsustainable things we do like growing grass where we could grow food, etc etc etc. The list is almost infinite.

In general, this trip reminded me how many ways there are of doing things, and that the way we do things, contrary to popular opinion, may not be the best ways. In many cases, the way that i saw things being done might not have been the best ways either.

Basically we've all got a lot to learn from each other and for that we all need to work on our sense of humility and open mindedness.

On the other hand... (summer vacation part 6)

On the other hand...

I do have to pull a spoiled north american act and complain briefly about toilets.
In the last week or so i've used toilets that didn't have seats, didn't have toilet paper (they never do.. don't even expect there to be any.. you always bring your own), didn't have soap, (you're lucky if they do) didn't have towels (almost never) didn't have hot water (even the one in my house doesn't), and sometimes didn't have running water at all. (get a bucket, bail water from the water barrel into the tank, then flush). oh, and as i've said before, the toilet paper, used, goes into a garbage can. not as disgusting as you might imagine, but sometimes pretty disgusting.
oh, and busses don't have toilets.
so i've also had to pee in the middle of the desert, where everything is flat and there are no bushes or trees to hide behind.
in the end you just walk really far and hide behind a large tuft of grass.
this is a functional toilet in a hostel we stayed at at laguna colorado:













the other stall was a little nicer, with amenities like a toilet seat.
that didn't help the fact that your feet stuck a little to the floor, though.
and this is the inside of the door to the stall:













and after touching that, you get to the sink, which has no running water, and no soap, and realize that if you're going to wash your hands it's going to be with your own bottled water and that if you didn't bring soap you're not getting any.
mmmmm.
i think i preferred peeing behind a tuft of grass.

oh, and i've also seen kids peeing on sidewalks, and, in potosi, a lady squatting over a drain in the gutter, carefully keeping her skirts off the ground. I was more impressed than anything else.

Summer Vacation part 5:

On a related note to part 4:
Cultural relativism, attitude, humility.

There are lots of things that we do a certain way, on the assumption that our way is the proper way of doing those things.
On the bus ride from Potosi to Uyuni, the bus was packed. All the seats were full. Kids were sitting on parents' laps. People were standing in the aisles. People were riding in the cabin with the driver. Nicolas, who i was travelling with, was kind of uncomfortable. His reaction was pretty natural, because based on his experience of Canadian busses, he didn't expect to have anyone standing beside him, looming over him, leaning against him on the sharper corners.
It takes a sense of humility to deal with things like this. You have to remember that this may not be appropriate to you, but it is appropriate in Bolivia, and guess what? You're in Bolivia!

And of course, these things work both ways. While we felt sort of crushed on the way to Uyuni, on the way home from Potosi we wouldn't have been allowed on the bus at all if we'd been in Canada. The seats were all full, so they put us in the front of the bus with the driver, which is about the size of a large bathroom and partitioned off from the passengers. Actually, it wasn't just Nicolas and I who were in the cabin. At one point, including the driver, there were NINE of us. A tenth guy tried to jump in while we stopped, but the driver decided nine was enough and closed the door on him.

Of course, there are limits to cultural relativism, like avoiding food that looks really unsanitary, even if it seems to be acceptable by local standards. And there's rights and equality issues, which prettymuch every culture needs to work on in one place or another.
But for the most part, whenever you want to think something's not being done "properly", you may need to check your ethnocentrism and think again.

This isn't just a question of being respectful of the culture you're living in.. it's also a question of expanding your understanding of things and growing as a person.

Maybe, for example, the north american obsession with personal space bubbles is kind of egotistical and selfish.
And while cleanliness is important, maybe north americans take it to a degree that is a bit on the excessive side.

People in Bolivia, in general, are really friendly. (summer vacation #4)

For the most part you can ask anyone anything you don't know and they'll try and help you figure it out. People tend to be curious about us, ask where we're from, what we're doing here, what we think of it all, etc.

Occasionally though, people are kind of stand-offish and cold.
On one hand, we're invading their space and so i'm willing to have a little humility about it.
But on the other hand, we're really careful to be respectful of how Bolivians do things, and peoples' attitudes towards us are occasionally sort of demeaning or antagonistic in situations where we probably haven't done much to deserve it.
Not the end of the world, but still a really alienating experience.

This made me think a lot about the way i've seen people in medicine hat, alberta,(and many other places in canada) act really standoffish towards mexicans, or south/central americans, or africans. Or, of course, first nations people. There's this cliquishness and sense of implicit superiority that i find really juvenile and disgusting. And i think Canadians do this a lot more than Bolivians do. I hope we can eventually grow up a little bit and learn to appreciate each other.

Bolivia = Mars (summer vacation part 3!)

To the left is one picture of Bolivia, and one picture of Mars. You can all have the fun and excitement of guessing which is which.

Actually, most of bolivia is pretty green.
But for about a day, south of Uyuni, we drove through dirt, dirt, rocks, dirt and dirt. This could have been because it was really dry and also over 5000 m above sea level in some places.

Summer Vacation Part 2!

Summer Vacation Part 2!
some observations from this trip:

First, a reminder: Bolivia is the poorest country in south america.
You don't get that impression when you're in city centres, but if you're not convinced just take a look at how people live in the edges of the cities and in the country. Mud or clay brick houses, usually with roofs and doors, or sometimes not. Both of the places we stayed during our three day tour south of Uyuni were not connected to a power grid.

Check the "countryside in Bolivia" photo album for pictures.

The hostel at the first place we stayed (San Juan) had a generator, so there was about two hours worth of electricity. At night, the whole town was pitch black. Some of the kids with us went out in the evening and had to feel their way home.
The second place we stayed, at the Laguna Colorado (the red lake), to my delight, had solar panels.
Way to skip all the dirty electricity and move straight to the sustainable stuff!
Of course, the solar panels are probably there because they were cheaper than installing hundreds of kilometers of wire, not because of a deep and personal concern for the environment. Still, I’ll take that.
On the other hand, while the second place we stayed did have more than two hours per day of electricity, it didn't have running water.

Summer Vacation: Part 1

(because yes, it is summer down here...)

Over the xmas break I got the chance to travel a little. Now i´m finally getting the chance to write about it.

first stop: Potosi; the highest city in the world, 4060 m above sea level.
[it should be noted that while potosi is the highest *city*, Wenzhuan, the highest *town*, is over a kilometer 1000 m higher. i'm sure the tourism department in potosi has nightmares about population explosions in Wenzhuan....]
The altitude slowed us down a little... we were a little more out of breath than usual and were really appreciative of mate de coca (coca leaf tea, which helps with the altitude), but we didn't have any serious problems.
potosi is a mining town.. we didn't get the chance to tour the mines because it was xmas.. instead we celebrated xmas with about a dozen other people from our hostel. we had dinner, drank wine, and watched music videos from the 80s.
(If you ever miss the 80s, just come to bolivia.)
Before going on to Uyuni, Nicolas and I did get the chance to climb up into the bell tower of a church and take pictures.

(check the potosi and uyuni galleries for photos)

then, Uyuni:
what's in Uyuni? not a lot. but what did we see on a three day tour south of uyuni?

salt desert. salt, piles of salt, hotels made of salt, salt carvings. an island with giant cacti and a cave. surrounded by salt. dirt, rocks, dirt, dirt dirt. coloured lakes, flamingos. volcanoes, geysers, hot springs, boiling glooping pits of something steamy and muddy looking. train cemetery.

(all, or almost all, in the galleries)
Coming up: Summer Vacation Parts 2, 3, 4, etc: a series of posts with my overall impressions of the trip.
(more interesting, i hope, than a checklist-like list of things i saw)