Danielle abroad.

Full Circle

A year after my last blog update, I find myself back in the last location of 2010's South American adventure: Santiago de Chile. With some friends headed to Bolivia toward the end of the year, I can only hope my 2011 adventure eventually allows me a trip back to the place it all started...

Keep reading for more updates on why I'm here and what I'm doing.
Chao for now!

Hello from Chile; How I got here

May 17, 2010. Santiago, Chile.

After more than two months in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I was beginning to feel the need to travel once more, so I called up my favorite tour guide and asked which locations are good this time of year. He enthusiastically told me a spot that is supposed to be just lovely, and a few days (and 29 hours on a bus) later, I found myself in Santiago, Chile.

While going on a ¨guided tour¨ of some places in Santiago, I continually wondered, how did I get here?! Which is what I´m about to explain, going back to where I last left off in Asuncion, Paraguay...

February 25, 2010. Asuncion, Paraguay.

Finally, with help from Haydee and Gustavo, I nailed down a time and place for the meeting with Martin Almada. I took with me my camera bag, a notebook with questions I had scribbled, and of course my new assistants. We arrived and I realized how horribly nervous I was, but as soon as Sr. Almada answered the door, I couldn't help but love him. Wobbling over to the gate, he looked calmly content and pleased to see us and invited us inside, taking us to a nice dining room where small postries and teacups had been set out for the occasion. We sat and we began chatting; thankfully he spoke slowly and pronounced which was easier for me to understand. The tea and cookies went untouched as I nervously sat upright and answered his question as to how I came to learn about Operation Condor, something that many South Americans didn´t even know about (Haydee and Gustavo both admitted they had never heard the term either).

For those who don't know (...or didn't read my other post about it) Operation Condor was the covert plan created between the military dicators of South America between 1976-83, supported by US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Ask any South American about la epoca de la dictadura, and any one of them will be able to talk for hours about their country's own military dictators, but not much is widley known about the link between the countries. I told Sr. Almada that I had done a project on it and he was actually part of my project. The reason I wanted to interview him was to make a short documentary about Operation Condor to bring back to the states for students to learn about. He told me the reason he decided to respond to my email and give me an interview was because after making a few speeches at universities in the US, he realized that students there were absolutely clueless, and he thought it was a good idea to have the story told by a young person to young people. So I read him the questions, turned the camera on, and sat nervously upright, afraid to wipe away the sweat dripping down my forehad, for over an hour recording him recount his experiences during the dictatorship in Paraguay and his knowledge of Operation Condor.

I cannot begin to explain what was said, nor do I care to attempt to retell it in my own measley words, but to give a basic overview, he started from the beginning: For his entire life he's always been a law-abiding pacifist, but for being involved in a cooperative with liberal (a bit socialist) thinking, he was targeted by the Paraguayan government and thrown in jail. While there, he began to realize that his torturers came from other countries because of their accents (and I can tell you that there are definitely different accents!) and he wondered, Why am I being tortured by foreigners? What is really going on? After he got out, he began investigating who was responsible for the death of his wife, and he came upon an entire archive full of torture files, and later learned about the link between countries. After I turned the camera off, I sat there not knowing what else to say but... wow.

After chatting a bit with Gustavo about what had been said concerning Chile (Sr. Almada blamed a lot of Operation Condor on leaders from both the US and Chile), Sr. Almada asked us if we were a couple. We laughed and said, no, actually we just met today! Then with a completely serious expression he said, Well, would you like to get married? I'm a lawyer, you know, I can do it right now.

So I suppose that perhaps the reason I'm in Santiago right now is less to see my tour guide and more to see my husband.

...To be continued (again).

Goodbye Cochabamba > Santa Cruz, BO > Asuncion, PY

Feb 18, 2010. Cochabamba, Bolivia

Accommodation, check. Interview set up with victim of Paraguayan dictatorship, check. Nonrefundable plane ticket, check. Paraguayan visa... nope.

A week before I was supposed to get on a plane to Asuncion, Paraguay, I read in a guidebook that the entrance visa must be obtained BEFORE you enter the country. A few hours of hyperventilation, panic, and cookies later I found out that there was a Paraguayan embassy in Cochabamba. Perfect. We called and the ambassador was out of town, so please call back on Thursday, thank you, buh-bye. Awesome, except that my flight was leaving from Santa Cruz, Bolivia that coming Sunday, but there was nothing I could do but wait. When Thursday came we called back and they informed us that it would take a week to get the visa processed. A week... I didn't have a week. Apparently the embassy in Cochabamba didn't have any legitimate authority to sign visas, and because of that it took a week to send my passport to Santa Cruz, get the visa, and send it back. How long, might I ask, would it take to get the visa if I just went to Santa Cruz? Only one full business day? Okay. What's today? Thursday. Flight to Asuncion: Sunday. Must go to Santa Cruz... tomorrow. 

So I scurried downtown, bought a ticket on the earliest flight to Santa Cruz the next morning, came back to pack my bags, said goodbye to my dear familia Cochabambina, slept, got on the plane at 6AM, arrived in Santa Cruz around 7AM, was at the embassy at 8:30AM, and finally had my Paraguayan visa by 3PM. Not only was I figuratively sweating from the stress of this whole situation, but due to the intense humidity created by a city built directly in the center of a jungle, I was also physically sweating away my entire body weight. 

Feb 19, 2010. Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

Luckily I wasn't alone, as Katie's friend Jeff decided to jump on the plane with me to Santa Cruz to visit his friend that was working abroad there. Somehow I have had remarkable luck at always having somebody awesome to travel with. We checked into a typical creepy-hospital-style hostel for $4 a night, visited the tropical local zoo, and later met up with Jeff's friend. She was extremely hospitable and immediately became our Santa Cruz tour guide, explaining not only the city's layout but history and politics as well. The inhabitants of Santa Cruz, unlike Cochabamba, are very much against Evo Morales and his government. Signs reading "AUTONOMIA" were graffitied everywhere, replacing the colorful "EVO DE NUEVO" signs seen everywhere in Cochabamba. Long black braids and babies peaking out of aguayos strapped to their mothers' backs were less apparent, almost nonexistent. Santa Cruz was a newly booming city, and its citizens-- angry with the pro-indigenous, anti-capitalist national government-- had no desire to share any of their newly acquired wealth with those non-deserving indigenous easterners. I felt privileged to experience this new face of Bolivia, but after two and a half days of non-stop sweating, I was ready to move on.

Feb 21, 2010. Asuncion, Paraguay.

 

 Unfortunately, I would not be returning to the eternal springtime weather of Cochabamba. After a two hour plane ride feigning interest in conversation with Mr. English-Speaking-Bolivian-Yuppie, constantly trying to impress me by using charming phrases like "I was so wasted," I was ready to just get to Asuncion already! 

Having finally arrived, I was picked up at the airport by a girl named Haydee, who agreed to host me through Couchsurfing.org, her cousin Carolina, and also their three-legged dog Trini. I had heard before that Paraguayans were supposed to be hard to understand, and although I was hoping it was only an exaggeration, I soon found out for myself. Mixing Spanish and the indigenous language Guarani into a lightning-fast slur of words, Haydee and Carolina were completely impossible to understand when talking to each other. The first round of surface-level get-to-know-you questions they fired at me were easy, therefore I  managed to trick them into believing my Spanish was much better than it was. This, however, was short-lived, as the next day Haydee already saw through my blank-stared nod and started to repeatedly ask me if I understood her. No, I would say. Repeatedly, no. I could not understand her for the life of me. 

When Haydee was at work, I walked around the city with Rodrigo, another person from Couchsurfing. Rodrigo was an environmentalist vegetarian who had learned English mostly from watching American movies (I learned after interrogating him about how he knew words like 'shrink'). This combination of attributes made him quite the character and good company. He explained to me more about the culture of Paraguay, and after I told him my interest in Operation Condor, he gave me a brief run-through of the Stroessner dictatorship and its effects on Paraguay today. He was explaining that although many Paraguayans acknowledge that the crimes committed by Stroessner during the dictatorship were horrible, that rigid political structure still seems, to many, better than their current weak democracy which is unable to keep neither the economy from sinking nor crime off the streets.

Hoping to learn more about the issue of the dictatorship, I had been waiting to hear back from Dr. Martin Almada, who I had contacted before arriving about an interview. He responded positively and gave me his contact information. After much miscommunication back and forth, Haydee finally helped me set up the time to meet with him and agreed to come with me. When the day arrived, I suppose you could say I was a little nervous. But first, I was informed that Haydee had agreed through Couchsurfing to help another traveler coming from Chile, so we went to the airport that morning to pick him up. She had earlier shown me a picture of what he looked like online (to which I stupidly yelled out ¡QUE GUAPO! and she later informed him of ) and as we sat around waiting for him to arrive, she told me that she didn't understand how Chileans only give one kiss on the cheek. There are two cheeks, there should be one kiss per cheek, she said. So, when this guapo boy from Chile arrived, Haydee gave him one kiss per cheek and I awkwardly followed suit, not really knowing whose rules I was playing by anymore, caught in the middle of an American-Bolivian-Paraguayan-Chilean cultural contradiction. We introduced ourselves, he told me his name was Gustavo, and right in front of me Haydee proceeded to explain to him that I'm still learning Spanish and don't always understand people when being spoken to. After that, I decided to be very calladita, and just hung out with Trini in the back seat of the car. Trini and I had no problems understanding each other at all. 

Because Gustavo and I both wanted to go to Iguazú Falls, Haydee helped us plan the trip, and decided it would be best if we left that night at 1:30AM. The rest of the day was spent running around Asuncion with him, so that he could see as much of the city as possible (which ended up being pretty much just the zoo and the palace, which is seen in the photo above). Quite the instant pal, he used his gift of being an hispanohablante to play secretary for me all day while maintaining contact with Haydee and Martin Almada, and later accompanied us to the interview...

 

...to be continued.

Carnaval in Oruro, Bolivia

Watch/listen to this video as you read. This is a group of dancers in Cochabamba, Bolivia, that performed at Carnaval in Oruro. If you listen to the words of the song, they're singing about moving and living in Virginia, USA!

February 13, 2010.

 After having just gotten back from Villa de Independencia the night before, I once again woke up early in the morning to take a cab to the center and meet up with the group of us going to Oruro for Carnaval. We were an odd bunch, the five of us: myself from the States, Alan and his friend Jaime from Bolivia, Hyunjin (the other volunteer) from South Korea, and a girl named Andrea from Switzerland. With quite the mini melting pot of culture right inside Alan's car, we spent the four hour drive talking and telling stories in Spanish, the one language we all knew, more or less.

When we arrived in Oruro, we parked and headed toward the main road, which had been blocked off for the huge parade of dancers. In order to find Jaime's aunt's house, we had to push our way through huge crowds of people selling and buying snacks, beer, or water balloons. Alan had warned us that people in Oruro were expert thieves and we really needed to watch our valuables, so I had my little backpack with my camera equipment in front of me, holding onto it for dear life. Not but five minutes later, Hyunjin was looking distressed and said that his camera was gone. Not just any camera, but a $1500 Nikon DSLR. He had had it slung around his chest in it's case, but he wasn't holding onto it, and when he was in the middle of a crowd, it had gotten pushed behind him, where it was easy enough for someone to steal it and run before he even noticed anything was wrong. Alan's warning had suddenly become very real. 

CARNAVAL, for those of you who don't know, is a cultural event for the entire month of February that occurs all over South America, although some countries have more events than others. In Cochabamba, Bolivia, the kids used this time to wage water balloon wars all over the city. The weekend of the 13th was the Carnaval parade in Oruro, which is supposed to be the second largest Carnaval in South America after Rio de Janeiro. 

 

 
 
 

In every city Carnaval is different. In Oruro, groups of dancers come from all over the east of Bolivia, wearing extravagant costumes costing a fortune, and literally dancing out the story of their town's history. Some groups appear more tribal than others, holding spears and helmets, and those represented warrior cultures, which used to resolve conflicts with fighting matches, man on man and woman on woman. There were also traditional Andean groups, with Cholita women in longer skirts and bright aquayo designs and even groups from universities that have the girls in short skirts, tiny tank tops, and high heels, still somehow dancing their hearts out. 

After a while of walking around we found our seats high up in the bleachers and sat down to enjoy the show. I filmed a little, but we were high up, and I wasn't getting a good angle. I started noticing that a few brave souls had ventured out into the center to film or take pictures of the dancers. I asked Alan why they were allowed to, and he said anyone was allowed to. He then told me that if I wanted to, I just had to protect my camera on the way down, go straight to the center, and don't smile or laugh. He said that because I was a not only a gringa but a girl, I would be a huge target. After a few minutes of gathering my courage, I put my video camera in a plastic bag and cut a hole for the lens. I then wrapped it up under my poncho, held it close to my chest, and started my descent. It felt like I was making my way through a warzone: I can't count how many water balloons and foam were thrown at me. I had to just shake it off and keep moving toward the center, my sanctuary. When I got to the bottom, I hopped the fence, and noticing that the next group of dancers were still a few yards away, I waited by the policemen as if they were my best friends, assuming nobody would be stupid enough to throw anything at them. Right before the dancers got to where I was, I stepped out into the center and began filming.

 

It was incredible. I watched through the camera lens as I captured close-up footage of the costumes, the dancers' expressions, some smiling and others very serious, and their feet moving in sync. They danced on either side of me, a few looking directly into the lens either bashfully or making funny expressions. Some of them wore tall hats with huge bird feathers creating a semi circle above their head, and when they passed by I felt the soft feathers brush against me. I was so in it.

The whole day and all through the night the dancers never stopped and the crowd never thinned. The environment changed a little: less children throwing water balloons and more drunk people dancing. At around midnight Alan told us that at the main plaza we could dance with the groups, so I said let's go! We got down from the bleachers and walked along the dancers for a long time. Halfway there we found ourselves in the middle of a lot of people selling food, so we hung around and snacked some. We made some young Bolivian friends and they followed us to find the main plaza. We got there and it wasn't exactly what we expected, just the groups still dancing in the street and the crowd dancing in the bleachers. After a while, we lost a few people, and Alan said he was going to go back, but Andrea and I wanted to wait for the Madrugada to see all the bands unite in the plaza for a huge finale. Hyunjin said he would stay with us, so we told him to stay put and we'd run to the bathroom and be right back.

When we got back Hyunjin wasn't there, and he didn't have a cellphone to call, but we figured he must have just gone back to the house, so we shrugged and kept dancing. We met a cute Bolivian couple, and the girl started teaching me a few steps from one of the dances. She asked if I wanted to try to join the dancers, so we jumped along side, looking absolutely ridiculous, and followed them all the way down the street and then ran back laughing at ourselves. By 6AM I was feeling tired, and kept asking when the finale would occur. People kept saying, just wait another half an hour! But we waited and waited, and at 7:30 we decided it was time to give up and head back to the house. When we got there Alan and Jaime were awake and asked us where Hyunjin was. He's not with you? No, we thought he was with you...

At that point I was half panicked, half giddy at the thought of a 37 year old Korean man sleeping on the side of the street somewhere, most likely naked and with obscene objects markered on his face. Alan and Jaime decided to go out and look for him while Andrea and I slept for an hour. They got back having had no luck, and just we started talking about calling the police, in walks Hyunjin, looking like a zombie. I immediately interrogated him about why he left when we told him to stay there, and he mumbled something about having been at the top of the bleachers, and then he laid down on the bed and immediately started snoring. Andrea and I were at that same spot for hours and never saw him, so I can only conclude that he found a seat at the top and then fell asleep there for a while, not quite as funny as the naked on the street scenario, but still a little humorous. 

When we were driving back I realized that had been the second dawn I witnessed in Bolivia, and it was definitely worth it. 

Buenos Aires, estoy aqui.

When I was laying in a hammock in San Ignacio, Argentina, in the shade of the long palm leaves protecting me from the summer heat, I realized that this was not normal. I had forgotten that at this time I would have been back in the cold of Harrisonburg, VA, preparing for the approaching midterm exams. Instead there I was, having lived the past two months of my life with little more obligation than to travel, learn, and live. Only today, when I finally arrived at the student residence for my study abroad program Road2Argentina, did it dawn on me that the whole purpose of me being in South America was to actually study abroad. 

Apparently this requires me actually taking classes. I finally made it to Buenos Aires today at noon, having taken a 13 hour overnight bus from San Ingacio. The apartment is crazy: 25 people live here, all doing different programs, some staying for a while, others having already been here a couple months and leaving at the end of the week. 

Orientation for my four months of studying Spanish at la Universidad de Belgrano starts tomorrow. Here we go.

EDIT: I will be writing entries backwards, back dating them to show up in chronological order, to catch up with everything that's happened up until now. Make sure to check back to see what I've been up to these last three weeks.

Independencia: Chicha, Coca, and Landslides

 
     The jungle where the Yurakaré indigenous tribe that I wanted to meet and make a short documentary on was unfortunately horribly flooded all week. It's rainy season, and it's relentless. Alan, the DELPIA Foundation's director, knew that I was disappointed about this, so he arranged for me to go with the new Korean architecture volunteer, Hyunjin, to a little town called Villa de Independencia that they do other projects in.

    Independencia is about 7 hours away by bus. Or supposed to be. Wednesday morning Hyunjin and I met at the bus terminal at 7AM and prepared for the long journey ahead. As soon as we sat down and started moving forward, he was completely passed out, as I later found out that he is rather good at passing out on any surface whatsoever, but unfortunately I have never been lucky enough to be able to fall asleep on buses, cars, planes, anything. Having accepted this long ago, I brought a book and a little notebook to write letters in. Once we got outside the city, though, I didn't bother to open either of these, as the journey through the Andes mountains was absolutely breathtaking. I couldn't take my eyes off the passing landscapes out the window. Beautiful though it may be, I won't forget to mention that it was also terrifying: we drove on a thin dirt road along the sides of the mountains. At times I'd look out the window and not be able to see the edge of the road, as if we were floating. At one point I caught the plump Cholita beside me performing a Hail Mary as she looked out the window and then went back to sleep, perhaps also silently reciting some Quechua version of "if I should die before I wake..."

 

    The journey already taking longer than expected, about 7 hours later the bus came to a complete stop. After some commotion, we soon found out that the road ahead had been blocked by a small landslide. Awesome, I thought, what else can we do but turn around? But just as this pessimism came over me, some men walked over and started tossing aside some of the larger rocks so that the bus could cross, and soon they motioned for us to walk across to the other side. As the group of about 50 of us started passing, some small rocks started falling, and we started running. When we all had made it, the bus gunned it, and in my mind I saw a huge rock falling from the side, crashing into the bus and sending it over the edge. Fortunately the bus made it just fine, and two hours later we were in Independencia. 

    The pueblo is, as you may have guessed from the 10 hour journey through the mountains, in the middle of nowhere. Stepping off the bus, I could already tell that everyone in the community knew one another. It was like a big family. There are no taxis, only one or two hotels, and only recently has a discoteca been built, feeding the newborn metropolitan lust of the town's youth.  Alan's father, Don Tito, met us off the bus and took us to his house. Walking inside, he smiled a little and rather shamefully told us that it was a country house. But I absolutely loved it; through the first little walkway we were under the sky again. The kitchen, bathroom, and a bedroom were under roofs straight ahead. Don Tito brought us up some wooden stairs and we found ourselves staring out over a handful of other tin roofed houses similarly styled with the sky as their living room ceilings. I couldn't help but tell him he had a tree house! 

    My job in Independencia was to interview the elders about how the town's culture has been changing in the last 50 years. As is true of most cultures, elders absolutely love talking about the past. Each one we went to spoke for almost half an hour. What they were saying was good solid material, but I still couldn't help but wonder what I was supposed to do with an hour and a half of footage of old people talking. (Alan is helping me with this, giving me footage of the town's important festivals, and old photographs, etc). After the interviews, Hyunjin and I went on a hunt through the mountainous forrest for the waterfall that had to be at the end of the rushing river that led our way. It was a beautiful path, with trees that turned into tunnels and occasionally rocks acting as stepping stones, but after half an hour of hiking we never did find the waterfall. 

 

    Later that night, I asked Don Tito if we could try to find a Fiesta de Comadres to film. This festival, one of many that are part of Carnaval, celebrates the women that are godmothers to each others' children (literally "co-mothers"). But after asking around, we realized there were no fiestas, only social gatherings to drink lots ad lots of chicha, the Bolivian alcoholic drink of choice made out of fermented corn. Later that night, having already shared plenty chicha, I noticed that I appeared to be the only girl present, and made note of this to the others. The younger men present laughed and exclaimed, "There are no girls in Independencia!" No wonder there were no Fiestas de Comadres. I told them even that because there were no girls to partake in the festive activities, they would have to teach me what one does on Dia de Comadres. They all laughed and one quickly went out to buy colorful streamers, which they call serpentina, which are routinely wrapped around the comadres. They excitedly tore off bits and wrapped them around each other and myself, for apparently that night we were all comadres. 

    It was a good time for all, and of course the copious amount of Chicha only helped. This beverage is traditionally drunk out of round coconut-like shells (I asked what they were, they said some word I didn't recognize, and of course I just nodded blankly), and every first and last sip is poured out as payment to the Quechua god Pachamama. It is also custom that after you finish your cup of Chicha, and of course the men would finish in one huge gulp while I quietly continued to sip at mine, it's polite to fill the cup back up and offer it to somebody else by saying sirvese. Because of this custom, it was very hard for me to refuse a drink. But Don Tito, or Padre Tito as I soon began to call him, was looking out for me, and scolded them to give me less. At the end of the night, myself having probably drank only a third as much Chicha as the others, Pachamama was very happy with us all.

    Another cultural first for me that night was chewing the coca leaf. With Evo Morales's New Consitution, the coca leaf is completely legal. Passing around the bag of coca, the men argued about the medicinal properties of the coca leaf and how it is completely different than cocaine. For farmers who work out in the sun all day literally reaping the fruit of their labor, coca leaves suppress hunger, thirst, and exhaustion, allowing them to keep going for longer. At an altitude as high as this, it also relieves headaches. When the bag was passed to me, I said I'd never had any but I would try, and they all politely informed me that I just needed to stick the leaves in one side of my mouth and chew for a while. So I did. Eventually, the leaves began to dissolve and so I naturally swallowed the slosh that was left. But when I went to grab a handful of goat's cheese, they laughed and teased, "Are you going to chew coca on one side and cheese on the other?" I replied that I'd finished with the coca and they all immediately howled with laughter. My eyes grew wide and I quickly asked if that was bad. One of them replied that it wasn't bad, but that I was supposed to keep the coca in my mouth for hours, just chewing and adding to it, and eventually it would release some of the positive chemicals. Oops. Cultural failure. 

    Looking at my watch, the numbers 11:45 flashed bright a warning that we had to wake up in 3 hours to catch our 4AM bus back to Cochabamba. One of the boys told us that he had heard the road was closed because of another landslide, and I asked what we were supposed to do. Apparently, as we soon found out, there was nothing to do but get on the bus at 4AM and a few hours later, upon hitting the blocked portion of the road, sit there for three hours while heavy machinery attempted to push aside rock and mud so we could pass. Sitting on the side of the road, we watched as bus after bus attempted and failed to cross through, each time getting stuck in the mud and being pulled out by a tractor. Finally though, our bus made it and we were on our way. This time if only took us 13.5 hours to get back to Cochabamba, and although the journey had been rough, my adventures in the little town of Independencia had been rich and definitely worth it all.

 

Things I am excited about.

I like to learn about people's interests, values, and passions. I like to hear when people are talking about something, anything, and you can tell from their voices and that crazy look in their eyes that they're so excited about it. It's obviously hard to keep this enthusiasm going all day everyday, but I think everyone should have a few things they're excited about at any given time. 

So, without further ado, here are: Things I am excited about, plus pictures (Because who makes a blog without pictures?! Oh, oops).

 

1. Rainbows. It rains a lot in Cochabamba during January and February. Apparently I have really good timing. But even though rain usually means that I have to carefully traverse down the mountain-turned-creek every day, it can also mean walking back up in the afternoon to find that a bright rainbow is now spilling out of the clouds over the house.

2. Music. Sometimes, like this morning, Alan will call or text (for those of you who are confused, Jenny is lending me her phone!) to tell me he is going to be outside the office all day, so I should work from home. On these days, I set up my laptop on the dining room table, open up my itunes, and spend the day working and listening to Brooke Waggoner, Fleet Foxes, Joni Mitchell, Sigur Ros, and the Swell Season. Yesterday when I was in the office, Alan asked me if I had any Bolivian music. No. Do you want any? Yes. So he pulls out his external hard drive, attaches it to my computer, opens his music folder, and finally points to the one titled "música boliviana" containing over 300 songs. So of course I snatched them all. One group called Kjarkas has a song called Viva Cochabamba, which I love!

3. Spanish. When in situations where there aren't other Spanish-speaking gringos to rely on, I've found that I can do quite well on my own. After I told Alan that I was interested in taking classes here, he arranged for the Spanish professor that has worked with the other volunteers to come to the office to meet me. After sitting down, she informed me that she was going to interview me to see which level I was at. She asked me about my family, where I'd been, what I've noticed about Bolivian culture as compared to other countries I've visited, etc. I caught some mistakes I made and there were a few times I couldn't find the right words, but at the end she told me that I was at an advanced level, which is good to hear after having studied the language for 7 years or so. So even though I won't be in Bolivia for much longer, we're going to move through her curriculum for advanced speakers, and hopefully I'll learn a lot!

   
 
 
 
 4. Reading. I just finished reading a fictional book called Ishmael, which is about a man who answers a newspaper ad for "Teacher seeking pupil with an earnest desire to save the world." Through many lessons with this teacher, who ends up actually being a gorilla named Ishmael, the man comes to learn "we are deliberately destroying the world because we are, in a very literal and deliberate sense, at war with it." Today I also went to the correo, which is just the post-office, except that outside there are all of these stands selling books, Bolivian craftwork, and clothes- a real tourist trap. I picked up two books- one that I'd already read in English, Cien Años de Soledad (100 years of solitude), which I highly doubt I am close to being able to read in Spanish, and another that Alan told me about called Venas Abiertas de América Latina (Open Veins of Latin America), all about how Latin American people and resources have consistently been exploited by Euro-American politicians. Not remembering the exact name of the second, I mumbled something to a lady about "venos abiertos" and she knew exactly what I was talking about and whipped it out. Apparently it is a very well-known book across the continent, and even what Evo Morales (president of Bolivia) gave to Obama as an inauguration gift. Unfortunately, the words are so tiny I can barely squeeze in the English translations I need to look up. Needless to say, I'm only a page into the Introduction. More of an academic read than for leisure, but Ann also just lent me Animal, Vegetable, Miracle tonight which I hope to start soon. It's apparently about a woman and her family who only ate food raised in their own neighborhood or grown themselves for an entire year. Seems like it'll be a perfect follow up to Ishmael. 

 
 

5. Asunción. (Actually the city's full name is La Muy Noble y Leal Ciudad de Nuestra Señora Santa María de la Asunción. Which is the capital of Paraguay, by the way). Today I bought my nonrefundable plane ticket to Asunción for February 21st, meaning that I am definitely going there, even if I don't currently know exactly what I'll be doing or where I'll be staying for a couple days. I am waiting for another reply back from Martin Almada (please see my last post about him) to see when he is available. Otherwise, I'll be checking into a hostel and doing the whole "I'm a college student backpacking through South America" thing that seems to be so popular these days. Or something. But really, I am very excited about this, and I know that things are going to fall together as they always do. 

6. Talking to people who are passionate about things. I love being here because the people that I meet are involved in such different things. I've had a lot of good conversations about the effects of religion and colonialism on Latin America, what exactly "the church" means and if we agree with it, vegetarianism vs cultural sensitivity, etc. It's all really made me think about some things more in depth and how I can better express my own opinions and values to others, especially those from a different culture that may not understand. 

As I'm not really sure how to end this, I suppose I will do it abruptly.

 

Martín Almada + Operation Condor (and a potential interview?!)

“I was a victim of Operation Condor and the one who discovered its secret archives in Asunción, Paraguay, in December 1992.” - Martín Almada 
     (McSherry, J. Patrice. Predatory States.)

On November 25, 1975, military leaders of Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Paraguay met to create the covert plan Operation Condor, outlining how to “eliminate Marxist Subversion” throughout South America. The end result was more than 100,000 workers, students, professors, journalists, lawyers, doctors, and farmers murdered across the continent.

Last semester in my class titled "The Documentary Producer," taught by David C. Taylor (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1452913/), I worked on developing a hypothetical documentary about Operation Condor, researching and reading through declassified CIA documents proving the atrocities that occurred and the American government's support for such crimes. 

One part of my project was investigating the Archives of Terror discovered in Asuncion, Paraguay by Martín Almada, himself a victim of Operation Condor.

“My wife, the educator Celestina Pérez, died as a consequence of the psychological tortures to which she was subjected, being forced to listen on the telephone, systematically for days, to my cries and screams from the torture chamber.” 

Since I currently do not have a way from Cochabamba over to Buenos Aires, I've been looking into different methods of traveling there in order to avoid paying the $131 entrance visa when flying into the international airport. One way plane tickets to Asuncion, Paraguay are cheap, and buses to Buenos Aires run every day. Having found this a potentially suitable solution, I remembered about Señor Almada, looked him up online, and decided to send him an email explaining who I am, why I'm interested in learning about Operation Condor, and asking if he would have time to meet with me if I came there. 

Let me say, I did not expect a response at all. Especially one two hours later with such enthusiasm as his. He responded thanking me for me investigation into Operation Condor, told me that he would be in Asuncion until February 25th, and would definitely have time to meet with me anytime. He gave me his cell, home phone number, and address. At the end he added a note about friends he has in Cochabamba who are also researching Operation Condor and interested in making a documentary about it. WHAT?!

Having previously had two cups of coffee and then receiving an email such as this, I spent the entire afternoon bouncing around, not knowing what to do with my energy and enthusiasm. John and Jenny are having a joint birthday party tonight and invited lots of friends over, so we've been making food and getting ready, and that will definitely be a good time. So the future's lookin' up, and it was even sunny long enough to take a hot shower today! 'Sup, God!

Interview with a krzy boy in Kyrgyzstan

A little over a month ago my good friend Jenni Marsh introduced me to her pal Baylen Forcier because she thought it was interesting that we were both going to die, I mean, leave the country, within a day of each other. As overdramatized as I had tried to make my trip seem, he always seemed to one-up me: I gave 75% of my clothes away on loan for 6 months. He gave 75% of his clothes away for good. I was entering a country where I had 8 years experience studying the language. He was entering a country with 0 years language experience. You win, Forcier, you win. 

So I decided to pretend like we're legit or something and do a little interview for you all to read and find out why some other young folk have decided to go abroad. 

Interview with Baylen Forcier of sonsofhedin.org

1. So, what, did you spin a globe and land on Kyrgyzstan or something? How did you pick that country of all places?

I actually bought a giant world map and one dart; closed my eyes, spun around 3 times and did a back flip while throwing the dart and it magically landed on Kyrgyzstan. 

I picked this country because I wanted to develop an understanding of Central Asia. When I told people I was moving to Kyrgyzstan their response was often, "it's pronounced Kazakhstan," which is actually a country north of Kyrgyzstan that I plan on spending some time in.

2. What is this Sons of Hedin nonsense? Is that a Lord of the Rings game?

Most people here think it's a religious organization called "Sons of Eden." Please let everyone know, especially the Kyrgyz government, that this is not the case.
 
Sven Hedin was a Swedish explorer who spent his life in Central Asia and wrote Scientific results of a journey in Central-Asia and many other books.

Sons of Hedin was created by myself and my friend D. Dalton Bennett. We document not for profit and development NGOs in Greater Central Asia and feature them on sonsofhedin.org in an attempt to create a dialogue between Central Asia and the West.

We are currently working with the Eurasia Foundation of Central Asia (http://www.efcentralasia.org/en/) and documenting their work with the disabled here in Kyrgyzstan. We are also setting up many other projects with other actors.

We also work with and have many interns from the American University of Central Asia

3. What are your goals with this organization?

I hope that Westerners read our website and gain an understanding of the region. Most Americans don't know anything about this place, and I would like to change that.

4. Are you learning Russian? How's that going?

So far it's not that bad. I got the alphabet down, now it's just a matter of learning the rest of the language. I'm taking private lessons which start in February. No one in this country speak English, even some of the kids at the American University. 

My biggest problem is that some of the words in Bishkek are written in Russian and some in Kyrgyz, which is a Turkic (not Turkish) language that uses the a modified Cyrillic alphabet. I still can't tell the difference. 

5. What have you learned about the people so far?

Though they're mostly Muslim, they love Vodka.

Everyone I've met has been extremely nice and understanding. There are very few Americans here so most people think I'm Russian, German or British. When I tell them I'm Amerikanski They get all excited and start to talk about Miami, unfortunately they know nothing about Virginia.

6. What has your favorite experience been so far?

Whoa, haven't really thought about that. 

Probably meeting Nuraly. He is a taxi driver that followed a taxi I was in across the city so he could talk to me. At first I thought he was going to kidnap me and make me his bride (still a big problem in Kyrgyzstan) but he just wanted to trade English lessons for rides, which is awesome. I spent a wonderful Sunday with his family were they spoke Kyrgyz while I ate plove and sat there awkwardly. Nuraly has a degree from a technical college, but jobs are so scarce in Kyrgyzstan he can't get one. I hope to help him find a job too.

7. Which direction do the toilets flush in? Do they even have toilets?

It depends on where you go. If you go to a place that caters to westerners then they have toilets, but most places have porcelain holes in the ground that you squat over. I'm a little too scared to try these, though I will probably have to soon.

The western toilets are so low flow that they don't really spin when you flush them, the water just kind of leaves while new water rushes in.

8. Anything else you want to say?

Check out our blog and subscribe to the RSS feed and e-mail list, we're working on that other social media stuff.

That's all for now. If it sounds interesting, check out sonsofhedin.org.

Update on Alejandro

Annelise: i keep picturing that he wasn't wearing a shirt

and looked like some sort of oiled up god

i have no idea why

Those of you who have been picturing our dear latin lover this way, I just want you to know this is a completely accurate representation of his appearance. Unfortunately there have been no other Alejandro sightings, but I have seen a couple cows being herded down the mountain. I'm sure he's lurking around somewhere.