Hanging out with the kids in the parc

I'd told my grandmother i'd buy her some gum here and send it to her..  (canadian gum is ridiculously intense, while bolivian gum is milder, the way she likes it)  

So, saturday i went to the main plaza and hung out on a parc bench to find a chico selling chicles. 

It's always like this when i go to the plaza: at first it's incredibly quiet, non-working kids (i think of them as tame kids) playing with balloons, a pair of tourists making out on the bench next to mine.  

Nina, a girl i met the day before, shows up and we talk a little.  

Then a little dude shows up wanting to sell us gum ("chicle?") (that's not a brand; all gum is chicle.)

Then an older kid, a shoe shiner, shows up to help him negotiate.  I buy six packs of chicle and somehow a shoeshine gets worked into the deal.  

While i'm getting my first shoe shine, (they're more or less skate shoes, they don't really need shining) three or four other kids show up.  They sit on their shoe shine boxes and show Nina their WWF wrestling stickers.  They try to sell them to her but she declines, as they've already been stuck.  The kid shining my shoes spins the brush over the backs of his hands, twirls it, and whips the rag around like a pro, careful not to dirty my neon pink and neon green shoelaces.  

I ask Christian, the kid selling gum, if i can take his picture.  (for my grandmother) 

I wasn't sure how this part was going to go, because in some situations people here will never let you take their picture.  The two things i've especially wanted to photograph are the markets at Tarabuco and the dried llama foetuses at the mercado campesino, but every time i ask i get a sour look and a "no".

"Si!" says Christian, and everyone gets excited.  I take his picture, he takes my picture, Nina gets out her camera and the boys start photographing us, themselves, each other, pigeons, stray dogs.  They do cartwheels and handstands for the camera.  After every photo they crowd around the camera to see how it came out.  I get a list of email addresses and promise to email them all copies.   

I get an impromptu quechua lesson.  Cecilio, who i've gotten lessons from before, commandeers my slingshot (anarchist dayplanner, not weapon) and pen, and teaches me how to say "i speak quechua, i speak a bit of quechua, and i love you."

Nina and i decide to take the bus up to the mercado campesino, which is a huge outdoor market, and Ceci tells us to say we're universitarios because it's cheaper.  He writes that down too.  I know this but thank him anyway.  

Nina is impressed that the kids can write.  She comments that they all have the same supplies. 

"Is there some kind of organization.." Nina asks..

"They're unionized!" I smile..  "The organizers are the older ones, 14 or 16.  I don't know if it's totally collectivized.. i think it might be, because when one's working the others kind of help.."

"Yeah, there doesn't seem to be competition between them.."

"Exactly.  And the union supplies the polish and everything."  

I tell her about Nanta, the drop in center they go to, and we stop by Nanta on the way to the mercado.  Nanta is operating at the usual level of chaos, kids running around, hanging out, playing soccer in the empty swimming pool.  Vayu's there, we talk to him for a bit and Nina asks him about the center.  A kid interrupts to try and sell him a chicken sandwich.  

"I told you, i don't eat chicken.  Here, go ask Franz, maybe he'll buy one"  

Vayu is the only other resident vegetarian in sucre that i know of.  

The conversation is interrupted again while Vayu rescues several kids from a tree. (or vice versa.)  

The kid with the chicken sandwiches comes back.  

"No..  I've told you five times-"

"Six, now"

"Okay, six times.  I don't eat chicken." 

We laugh, talk a little more, then go on to the mercado.  

In the pictures: Christian is the kid with the hat and the sucker.  Cecilio is the one with the popsicle.