I had a silly charming story to tell and instead decided to post this boring rant about politics and slums. That´s how it goes.

This week, while sifting through some volunteer abroad sites, I came across this advertising line which probably expresses what I most despise about concepts of development work:

After your first few days sampling the delights of these two cities, you can, if you wish, get down to some serious work with street children, or perhaps volunteer with orphans!

My instant grumblings went something like- howcanthesepeoplebeokmakingmoneyofftheideathatcharitymakesyoua
goodpersonandworkingabroadisasacrificeforthepoordefencelesssuffering
peopleof theworldmerrrrrrrrr.

And then I found myself in Santa Barbara for the first time. Santa Barbara is a slum, a product of neoliberal policies, privatization, modernization, and internal migration. It is a community built on the highest point of a steep, rocky, dusty mountainside to the south of Cochabamba. It may be the first place I have ever been where people told me the folks were poor, and when I looked around, instead of thinking about how calm and idyllic their meager living spaces were (re: Mexico, Nicaragua), I just thought- shit, this looks miserable. But the thing is, I immediately started to think- well, it could be worse. I bet in India and Africa you really see how horrible and disgusting and... and I caught myself and thought- what the hell? Is that what I want? To see people suffering? To be shocked? To be justified in all my years complaining about the state of the world? And if what I want to see is suffering then, on some level, don´t I buy into my most hated- I came here to save the world and do good- bullshit? I know that I don´t, which should be enough, I suppose. But if I´m not just spectating here, what do I think I can do?


Well, for starters, the people who live in Santa Barbara are amazing. That was always a part of the idea, what I wanted. To learn. And I don´t know what it says, that they are so lovely. That we can make inhospitable awful places into homes, I suppose, unlivable lives into... lives. Whether that should be considered a good thing or not is hard to say. And then of course we of Pro Habitat are up there to do development work. So there are our projects. I like them. Sure they are community and empowerment based and all that, but of course, at the bottom line, they aren´t exactly political tools. But still. If the world is one enormous disaster, it´s nice to know that there is in fact some bizarre and intricate patchwork of projects spreading across it. That there is no real answer but there are folks driving pick-up trucks, and community groups talking. And that might be enough, from the development perspective. It´s up to collective action and politics and whatnot to meet it half way, in the transformative sense, i suppose.

And so, speaking of transformative politics, on Saturday I went to see almost every Latin American president come and talk in a stadium filled with indigenous peasants and assorted South American residents. I went with Red Tinku, a social movement I´ve joined up with. Their movement seems to consist primarily of selling leftist books and conducting free popular education classes in the plaza most nights. Within five minutes of meeting the organizer he had sent me to make photocopies. Well, I wouln´t be one to knock the revolutionary fire of the xerox machine. Anyhow. We went and sat in the 100 degree sun. I was forced to wear a Bolivian flag and felt somewhat silly. We waved flags and yelled. Chavez, Morales, Correa, Ortega, Zelaya, and Cuba´s vice president (sadly, no Raul), sat onstage and watched dancers dance, singers sing. They declared the creation of a new Latin American currency. Talked about unity. Sometimes it´s hard to see how politics on that level connect with reality in its everyday forms. It´s nice to hear about the revolution and the possibilities, but life changes so little, and so infrequently. For the first time that I´ve ever heard of, the presidents met with the folks from the social movements here and said- sup? what can we do with you? And that´s kind of amazing, to me. But when do meaning and reality coincide? And can our eco bathrooms be a part of the change? Does it matter so long as the folks building them are making demands?


And of course, in the end, I do believe in all this. That a better world is possible. It´s below, and to the left, as the Zapatistas like to say. That collective action and solidarity and struggle can produce change, even on the daily level where you feel it, and that change is necessary. I don´t know about how it will be led or constructed or planned or if it can be. I don´t take myself too seriously, as I sort of stumble around and look at stuff, but I do mean it. For the record.

The place where other people´s heroes come to die

Wow, or, as they write it here in Latin America, GUAU, this has been quite the week. After a single day of work with Pro-Habitat I found myself hopping onto yet another bus, this time to Santa Cruz, a tropical place off to the East. Most of Pro-Habitat was traveling, along with an assortment of community members, youth leaders, a trio of indigenous ladies, a host of representatives from our myriad partner organizations, and a relatively famous old man on a speaking tour. We are currently engaged in this huge project in favor of the Right to the City (El Derecho a La Ciudad), a project which demands equal access to and enjoyment of the city, from access to land and water to cultural diversity and participation, popular control over public spaces and city politics, and collective construction and ownership of property. It´s a pretty inspiring and complex platform which I am excited to learn and think more about. We presented first at a conference for International Habitat Day, where the esteemed old man (Enrique Ortiz) spoke at length, and then got back on the bus to head to Vallegrande, where we presented as a part of the 5th Alternative Social Meeting, which was a kind of smaller scale regional World Social Forum type event.


Vallegrande is the tiny Andean city where Che´s body was brought after he was shot in La Higuera. The town is super old and lovely. We went to see the various places where his body lay in the local hospital, in front of which we took slightly absurd and solemn group photos. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are among the other famous souls who were killed in these mountains, which lead my project director to describe Bolivia as ¨the place where other people´s heroes come to die¨. This may be the single most depressing description of a country I have ever heard.


The Social Alternative was pretty awesome, and mostly what I expected: a bunch of young punk and hippie kids from Argentina, Uruguay, and Bolivia, plus a random bunch from Switzerland and a few unidentifiable gringos. Our delegation was by far the oldest bunch, though I suppose there were a fair assortment of adult types about. Because Mercedes Sosa died just a few days beforehand, we got to have a really lovely ceremony for her wherein they played a gorgeous song and we all stood silently with our hands on our hearts. It was nice to be somewhere where they really felt her death as a social thing, and also to be able to celebrate the legacy of radical music in such a space. There was also a speaker from Honduras, which was really amazing, since she had basically come as a refugee to ask for our solidarity, and everyone in the room screamed and clapped and declared their trans-national Latin American support. It´s amazing that a military coup can still be happening here at all. The echoes of the 80s in Latin America are terrifying even as echoes. So nice to see the United States working so hard to protect democracy now... (Work to shut down the School of the Americas, the US program to turn Latin American armies into assassins and murderers, which coincidentally trained the current Honduran coup leaders, here.)


For reasons I don´t understand but am grateful for, these indigenous and Quechua speaking ladies have taken a particular liking to me. They giggle and pat me on the shoulder a lot. I tried to impress them with my two words of Quechua. Everyone at the social forum wanted to take their picture and they kept dragging me in. I bet my gringa presence really threw off their indigenous photographic charms. My other coworkers took me out for a night and lived up to their Bolivian reputation for drinking hard- I actually had to surreptitiously pour my drinks into potted plants, off of balconies, and hide my glasses behind napkin holders and empty bottles just to maintain a basic sense of consciousness. Guess we´re all friends now though! I also fell for an adorable four year old from the slums, whose father has vowed to take me to see some radical indigenous hip hop artists, which Bolivia is rather famous for, in small, obscure circles, anyhow.


It´s weird to suddenly be busy. I´ve had to cut down on the sulking. When I got back from Vallegrande I felt like I was coming home. That is really something, I think. Hasta la victoria, entonces.

Away

This is how I'm feeling, mostly.

When I landed in La Paz at 5:30 in the morning it was still dark out, and the temperature was a stunning 34 degrees Fahrenheit. I had been dreading the altitude and its possible nose bleed inducing effects for weeks but had somehow managed to eclipse any concept of cold from my mind. I fled the plane with two covertly stolen airline blankets and hit the tarmac breathing ice. At the bus station in Al Alto, hovering 13,000 feet up on a steep incline above La Paz, I could see the snowy caps of the nearest peaks of the Andes as dozens of marvelous looking indigenous women trudged between the buses. Everyone looks so damn cool here. I know nothing of the socio-economic geographies of this country yet, so if El Alto´s bus station is the most hard core I get to see, I will have to go back. Old men in woolen button ups and caps giggled at my state, helped me get my shit together.

On my double decker bus I sat next to an Andean woman; black and grey braids down to her waste, tied together at the tip with bright blue wool strings from which hug woolen bell shaped pieces, a long bright satin skirt, sweater, rainbow cloth tied intricately into a bag, fabulous bowler hat with tassel perched improbably on her head. Apparently I will soon be able to tell the exact region of origin of these ladies by the length of their skirt and shape of their hat. The folks behind us brought on a couple of chickens which clucked quietly and intermittently throughout the ride, like my cat might on a long ride to the vet. At a certain point, as the sun got up over us in the afternoon and we found ourselves gliding neatly along the bends of the Andes, through miles and miles of desert, that same couple pulled out a small boom box and serenaded the bus with classic pop hits from Bolivia and the States alike. Bolivia may be the most bizarre and fascinating place I have ever been.

When I woke up on my first morning in Cochabamba, after a blissful 18 hours if sleep at my hostel, I held my eyes shut and tried to stay floating in that nebulous place where you don´t remember where your body could possibly be in space or time or intent... but when I finally did get the balls to get up and get out the door I had one glorious moment when I couldn´t help but think- fuck yeah. I got here. I moved my little feet along, into one thing that moves, into another, and here I am, in a valley in the middle of South America, in the sun, completely and totally alone. Which is a feeling that fast becomes disquieting. But still. When some well dressed young lady at the French-Brazilian dinner party our neighbors in Brooklyn were holding in their loft upstairs asked me for one piece of profound advice on traveling, all I could think to tell her was: it´s easier than you think. I stand by that. For all my anxious whining, I´m standing here disposed to create a life from scratch, for a while, because I can.

I went into the city center and got myself a phone for cheap. As I worked out its inner workings, I came across the pre-made texting quicknotes. I´ll be there in 5. I´ll be late. I´ll see you soon. Take care. And lastly: Te amare por siempre. I will love you forever. Can´t wait till I settle down enough to start sending that one out to folks.

I´m still figuring absolutely everything else out.