The XXXII International Conference on Environmental Sanitation Engineering

I attended this conference as a part of PAHO's sustainable development and environmental health team. As a partner of AIDIS, we arrived in the Dominican Republic early to host a series of panels on the future international culture of water, and the implications of the changing context for the resource to human health. We also hosted a panel on health in disaster situations. I was there to assist with our pilot project on water and human rights, as well as with conference logistics.


Tropical storm Tomas was in full swing on the island, dumping rain and leaving a steamy, humid after effect. The conference center must have hosted a dozen weddings in the week we were there. The most surreal part, however, was our proximity to Haiti. Nothing about Punta Cana indicates that the poorest country in our hemisphere is some 300 miles to the west. To be fair, nothing about Punta Cana indicates the existance of any other place could be possible. The beach was quite pretty and idyllic and made me think of (real, old fashioned) pirates and the first discoveries of the Caribbean islands, which then made me quite sad. Though Haiti may be the starkest example of the oppression, exploitation, and devestation wrecked by brutal colonization, slavery, and more modern forms of domination, no Caribbean island is without these traces. Haiti was the first country in the America's to win their independence, back in 1804, and yet today they cannot even choose their own president.


While we were in Punta Cana we drank a lot of bottled water and talked about the cholera crisis next door and about engineering techniques. This juxtaposition was not lost on folks, but what could we do, at that moment, to counter act it? Yet you end up in a fancy conference center on the beach taking about clean water and you begin to wonder how you got there and why exactly its useful. I do believe that, for engineers and others with practical skills and jobs in the area, the whole thing was necessary and beneficial, so I am not all complaints. Many talks were quite inspiring or innovative or informative.


The international effort is so necessary and so frustrating. Coordination is perhaps not a human strength. But giving ourselves opportunities to be together offers a network of support that I think makes this work possible. And I include everyone when I imagine "ourselves" or "our work", it is in partnership and in solidarity that we move forward.

Update

Due to a family health issue, I will be returning early to Seattle. I hope to leave you all with a small photo capture of Lima and some rambling thoughts at a later point. With love
m

Studying the sociology of sexual health in Lima, Peru

On my first day of work my colleagues told me that, in order to arrive safely, I would have to sprint the three blocks between the bus stop and the Barton health clinic in Callao, on the outskirts of Lima. I spent that day observing gynecological exams given to female sex workers from the neighborhood. For someone who usually gets queasy just seeing a q-tip change color as it´s dabbed, zooming in with a camera and watching cells in the cervix change color was pretty intense. The next day I observed the treatment for male patients, including one young man who tested positive for HIV, syphilis, throat bacteria, and a urine infection. We also advised a young man on which hormones might be most useful in becoming more physically effeminate. Next came a day with the clinic social worker, in which we talked with a 17 year old working in order to make fast money in order to pay for her father´s medical bills. Though prostitution is legal in Peru, it is only legal in government certified locals, for women over 18 years of age. A record of health checkups is also required. As an experience with reality it has been both shocking and also inspiring, if that can be understood.

The Barton clinic is working with the University of Washington to research HPV/HIV infections in the sex worker population of Callao, as well as looking at the effects of violence and pressure on incidence. Every afternoon the clinic provides free exams and treatment to sex workers from the neighborhood. Each patient also meets with an on site social worker. The clinic runs an outreach program using promoters, who bring in folks to the clinic, and site visits to local government approved brothels.

Every one who works here and who comes in have struck me as just lovely and incredibly strong. It´s been really marvelous, and I often wish that these doctors could see themselves the way I do, if only for a moment. 15 plus years in the clinic has made their work into a routine, as is the usual way of things. To me they are incredibly inspiring folks, doing work which I find to be immeasurably important and neglected, in an isolated corner of a huge city in the vastness that is Latin America... such programs are just such tiny specks in the face of social ills, or social change, or reality, however you want to look at it. But one thing I´ve learned this year is to really appreciate these bastions of health and constructive action amidst what can be very dismal or difficult spaces. And the whole system runs on paper and stamps! No computer database at all!

Of course personally my mind is all over stimulated with fantasies for the kinds of ways that I could intersect with this kind of work without becoming an MD toting doctor. Ideas of sociological studies incorporating oral histories, working simultaneously to empower and support these vulnerable populations (esp with the women) while working hand in hand with public health programming (which doesn´t currently exists) to form larger projects to improve living conditions etc. Projects dealing with drugs and homophobia, violence and pressure, antagonism towards immigrant populations, and so on. How exactly to get my hands on this sort of work and make it happen is still a mystery, but that´s part of what keeps me young and idealistic, no?

Also, June 2nd was international sex worker rights day! Which originated in France. I marched with a collection of sex workers and their supporters through downtown Lima, wearing a glittery mask and waving a little noise maker. Sort of a strange place to find oneself, unexpectedly. We were such a small group that it felt like the police were making more of a cage for us than a protective barrier... but I think it was good for the jarring of many Limeños senses, a good kind of message, and folks were generally pretty positive on the streets, if shocked. Of course the general sort of condescending humor directed at the scene was hard to counter. But still, I think visibility is important for the movement.

Lima in general is a strange place. It´s hard to remember that it´s a desert city on the edge of the sea, or that it´s old, or that it´s in an Andean country. I love my neighborhood. Lima sits along the Pacific ocean along a set of cliffs that drop off to beach access, and Barranco, my neighborhood, looks out over the water via a series of tiny alleys and bridges. People keep telling me to fear for my life in this city, but I feel pretty alright most of the time. I have a lot more exploring to do, and no time to see even a third of what I would like to in Peru in general, but so it goes. I went trolling through some museums- found an exhibit on the indigenous art movement and one documenting the times when the MRTA and Sendero Luminoso and the government created a state of civil war and mass deaths in Peru. Tried very hard to locate myself in time and space, remember how close all the Andean culture is both historically and geographically from here. I wish I had more time to be out of the city. I miss Bolivia.

From Rio to Bahia

It´s impossible not to get to excited about Rio. Even for me. Even in the dark and in the rain in a car I couldn´t help being like - IS THAT A MOUNTAIN RISING OUT OF THE SEA IS THAT WHAT THOSE LIGHTS ARE YEAHHH RIO. The city is actually pretty small, but nice, and stunning, clearly. I hear that Rio has the beauty but São Paulo, now São Paulo is the city. Which is probably true. Sampa has the culture and the ethnic neighborhoods and the crazy complexities, and Rio is, as they say, basically a beach town. Of course there are the favelas, but they might as well be in another country- so so isolated and invisible. Which is a whole different story, for another day perhaps. I got to enjoy the whole fame-appeal of Ipanema and Copacabana (named after the beach in Bolivia due to a series of shipwrecks, survivors, and saints), plus walk around the lovely neighborhoods of Urca, Lapa, Santa Theresa, and the center, where there were a number of super interesting tiny museums and cultural centers to be visited. Also two glorious garden-parks set against the jungley hills and filled with treats like carnivorous plants and GIANT lilly pads! Oh, and Paris Hilton does beer commercials here.

Of course the best part about being in Rio is that I was finally with Paula!!! She picked me up at night at the bus station and brought me home, where they were in the midst of holding a giant housewarming party for the place. Brazilians are overwhelmingly friendly, and way more curious than most Latin American´s I´ve met. I field all kind of quesions on behalf of the US all the time. Hope that´s ok with folks. I have also been asked by three different young Brazilians whether, in the US elementary schools, we are taught that the Amazon is an international and/or US territory. Quite the urban legend, no?? Or have any of you actually been told that?Anyhow, everyone here is lovely and they have taken me in and around and I have received a(n alphabetised hand written) list miles longs of movies and books and CDs that I am told are necesary to really appreciate Brasil. One of the ladies here has her own radio station- streaming here. We also went to a Samba club (Samba is deceptively impossible to learn) and a punk rock karaoke bar, so I guess I have Rio´s music scene covered?

Salvador, Bahia, is finally getting into the North of Brasil. When I come back I´ll have the whole North East (and the interior) to explore. The region is famous for being poor, African, hot, and beautiful, with some of Brasil´s best music and beaches. Unfortunately I don' t think Salvador, where I'm staying, is the best place to enjoy it. It doesn't help that I'm sick and sleepy and staying in a hostel that reminds me of some kind of frat-gym, and oh, it's raining. On the plus side, I'm in Barra, right by the ocean, and taking a week of Portuguese classes which come with free Capoeira classes (so awesome! If you would like to see some American made Capoeira-taken-to-the-inner-city-to-save-youngsters-from-gang-violence, check out the film Only the Strong, which I was lucky enough to see on one of my many bus rides in Bolivia). Salvador would be beautiful if the historical center weren't so so touristy that it had ceased to resemble any kind of actual city. These days it's mostly good for finding any object imaginable plastered with the Brazilian flag. I was seriously tempted by some short shorts, I must say.

Also it's national museum week here, which is cool. Brazil is super into popular works and street theater which caters to and involves the general population, with a special focus on the favelas and homeless folks, integration and "social harmony". Pretty cool. Also once the weather cleared the beach was pretty translucent and nice. And the African-Christian church ceremonies and the drumming and the samba. Also nice.

If I weren't so sick I would go into the traditional culture up here, the history, the Candomble religion, etc etc, but I'll give yall a break this time.

Headed to Peru on Sunday to work for a health program run by the University of Washington for a month or so. More on that soon.

xo

Brasil!

Crossing the border into Brazil involved 24 of the sketchiest, scariest, longest hours I have thus far spent in the South. In short, between the 8 hours to kill in central Uruguay (at least there was one major soccer game to be watched in the neighborhood bar), the pitch black 5 am solitary arrival (only passenger left on the bus), the borderless border (no blockade, no crossings, just step across the street and you're in Brazil! great for illegal immigrants, less great for Americans in need of visa stamps only to be found down deserted streets and by passing passports beneath locked doors into the hands of- hopefully- police) and the dubious conditions of the local bus stop and apparently notorious highway to Porto Alegre, I'm counting my blessings just to be here.I celebrated a little bit with Minha Menina, a resolutely cheery tune (hear some of David Byrne´s thoughts on Brazilian music here, thanks to Laura for the link).

Brazil has been a long standing fantasy of mine, as it seems to be for many an American over exposed to pictures of gorgeous palm laden beaches. I arrived in the pouring rain to a very chilly very non-beachlike urban center. Porto Alegre is ugly but super chill, known for its gaucho culture (which just goes to show that borders have a lot less to do with culture than geography) and its pretty indie kids. I was stoked about it after many years of reading about the World Social Forum events and the Participatory Budget, though I was a little shocked to arrive in such a big, crazy space. Ultimately I suppose it's impossible not to over simplify in scholarly work, but still, the neighborhood-citizen focus of what I read seems illegible in real life. Ah well! I stayed with four wonderful ladies, all friends of a lady I met in Bolivia. They basically adopted me into their lives for a week, taking me around town, to a fantastic modern art museum, a terrible play, some crazy bars, a park good for mate drinking, and a great cliff for city views, among other treats, of which I have not a single photo, so you'll have to take my word for it. The best part was that the FOOD here involves veggies and beans and other things I haven't seen in months. Meu deus. My Portuguese is pessimo, and it's harder to communicate than I imagined. I get by on Spanish, but every time I think I'm improving I realize I'm just dragging everyone else down with me into Portuñol, a Spanish-Portuguese hybrid in which both parties invent words that seem probable. It works out.

I stuck around all week in order to go out to an MST encampment. The MST is the Landless Workers Movement, Brazil's most famous. I've long fantasized about visiting one of their occupied territories, and was just so so happy to get to go. This particular area is about half an hour outside Porto Alegre, in the countryside. They've been fighting for their land for more than eight years, and now run a cooperative school and cooperative farms on the land. Under Lula the movement has continued to face precarious conditions, but these folks seemed optimistic. The MST also run a national university with degrees in cooperative management and other activist related fields, much like the popular university of the madres de la plaza de mayo in Buenos Aires (so awesome). The lady who showed us around was super powerful and eloquent and friendly, and, as it happens, had stayed with friends of mine at the MTD I worked at outside of Buenos Aires. Reminding me that, as Laura says, the world has a total of 35 people living in it. It was nice to see that the reality of the MST areas was just what I had hoped. Though what one can take concretely away and into ones life from such a place... much harder. I did buy a radical planner? Well.

From Porto Alegre I headed south to Florianopolis. Renan, a crazy, marvelous, revolutionary journalist who took care of me in POA sent me to stay with his son, a musician and recording artist on the island. After which he wrote me: "I tell you about the beaches of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and off you run. Revolution: postponed". And I suppose he's right on some level. That's Brazil for you, a massive place full of contrasts and complexities, histories and realities to study, and ummmmmm beaches to sit and drink cheap beer on... Apparently the south of Brazil, up to Rio, is the wealthiest part, and poverty really kicks in up north. All the Brazilians down here like to add that, down where they live, everyone is attractive because they are descendants of Europeans, but up north they get all ugly and indigenous. No racism in this country at all, eh?? You should hear what they say about Bolivia...

Floripa is a super ugly city built on a super incredible gorgeous piece of land. Fortunately you can easily escape the city center and troll on the more chill interior of the island. There are something like 40 beaches on this tiny stretch of land, plus two lagoons. Renan's son put me up for free in his bandmate's hostel, right on the Lagoa de Conseção. One could step from one's bed directly into a hammock, into a kayak on the lagoon, into the ocean on the other side. It's hard not to love something so easy, but my capacity for sitting around is, somewhat surprisingly, not all that high. Met some lovely Brazilians and kids from southern Cali to take me around. Plus we got to see Jeco's band play!

From Floripa I headed up to the super eco super organized city of Curitiba (and stayed with the super lovely family of my friend´s uncle), from which one can drop a little (via train, bus, and then boat) and access the Ilha Do Mel, a somewhat more isolated island experience. The train, bus, and boat rides were so astoundingly gorgeous that I figured the island would be sort of beside the point, but no, it was still pretty much a Brazilian fantasy paradise.


This is the only place I´ve really been alone alone in my travels, which was a little rough. Though very empowering and exhilarating, the solitary travel can be a bit much at times. How can one really complain about paradise? Lots of folks are ready to adopt me everywhere I stop, but it´s not always for the best. I have zero complaints about my strolls around this nearly deserted marvelous place though. I´m enjoying being everywhere off season, while it´s still warm enough to do everything. I can´t imagine these places swarming with surfers and hippies and such, though perhaps they would have provided company beyond my hostel kitten and my hammock.

From Curitiba up through São Paulo, which I hadn't planned to visit, but, connected with more friends of friends, I decided to swing through. 24 hours in a city of 12 million, how much can I really say? I stayed at a tiny, homey hostel my friend Paula recommended, and it felt a little like staying in the SoHo of São Paulo. Lots of cute art galleries, super expensive clothing and home decorating stores, and lots of tiny restaurants. It was pleasant, especially given what I'd heard about São Paulo, the only city to boast a river running through it so polluted that it has reached an oxygen level of zero. I also swung by the modern art museum to check out a really cool Max Ernst exhibit. It was so wonderful- wild evil lurking in the corners of real life, women floating happily about as the world drowns and dies, and the most delicately cut and pasted critiques of state power and bourgeoisie life I've ever seen. I went out for some beers with a friend of Paula's who works for the newspaper Brasil de Fato, a paper created in a World Social Forum meeting designed to provide coverage of Brasil's social movements written by and for activists. Pretty neat.

2010 is a big year for Brazil. Presidential elections (Lula's time is up), world cup (viewing basically shuts the whole country down), plus the usual soccer craziness (currently two major cups) and prep for the Olympics and the home turf World Cup in the future... interesting years ahead. I feel that if I start to get into the idea of this country, the socio-politics of the geography, the history, the craziness that it is... well. It's just impossible. But I keep talking about it, so you can see I want to. Well.

Sitting in Rio, yet another longtime fantasy, I think I'll bring this to a close for now. I'll leave you with a couple of lovely lines by Mario Benedetti (my new favorite bit of Uruguayan poetics)-

We are the emigrants
The pale anonymous
With the impious and carnal century on our backs
Where we pile the legacy of questions and perplexities.
Who will amputate the discrepancies
On what dock in what chance in what twilight
Will the veins uncover their century
To present the complete and the free.

----El Acabose

Beijo----

Across the River

I had forgotten how much I love Uruguay. I love crossing the giantness that is Rio de la Plata, I love getting on the bus in the sun and looking at the green flatness and palm trees. It isn´t wild or exotic, just lovely. I´ve missed the ocean. I´ve missed watching the sky change over it.

I have discovered that I like certain parts of traveling alone immensely. I love to leave and arrive places by myself. To cross borders. To look out my bus window. I´m not such a fan of the parts where company would be nice- like while walking along the sea at sunset, or getting dinner, or catching an Uruguayan punk band performance. But I´m just not into people enough to do the whole friendly hostel companion thing. Fortuitously, I think my number of travel days without a single companion comes out to less than 10. I´ll manage. And in spite of myself I seem to have acquired a troupe of of Brazilian theater kids who sing and play absolutely every kind of Brazilian music imaginable and are headed to the deserted Uruguayan coast. Can't wait for Brazil.


Another thing I forgot about Uruguay is the absolutely fantastic hospitality of all its residents. This whole welcoming, friendly thing is pretty much the standard in Latin America, but here it might be at its max. On every visit, every person I have met has invited me to share anything they have to offer. They have a running joke that an Uruguayan will show up at your house, knock on your door, and ask what time dinner´s at and where the bed is. But this joke is only charming because, in fact, anyone here would cook something up and make a bed for you at a moments notice. A lovely friend of a friend showed up to walk me around the city, took me out to lunch, and then took me home with her to northwestern Uruguay, where she cooked me food, showed me her paintings, and lent me her bike. When I have a door again, consider it open anytime.

Maria and I checked out this marvelous underground public museum in Montevideo and were delighted to find it taken up entirely by an exhibit on city spaces as utopias- as spaces of creation, discovery, wonder, and exploration. Cities designed to play to our human desires for whimsy and for home, for the environment, for play. I´ve spend loads of time studying this idea, from Debord and the situationists, to Latin American ethnographies of space and studies of the history of domination and oppression written into city architecture, in Latin America and worldwide (check out Wikipedia´s definition of psychogeography, it´s neat). It was a lovely treat and really smartly done.


Uruguay has a grant total of 3 million residents. Maria tells me they sometimes think they would have been better off staying a part of Brazil, thus winning 5 world cup titles. I was in Montevideo during the biggest game of their national season. Our power went out 5 minutes in. No riots though! We carry our mate gourd and thermos to the grocery store, to the beach. Jose Mujica, the new(ish) president, is a marvelous lefty expolitical prisoner, who says charming things on his radio show. Maria was good to ask, however, how a country of 3 million can justify being unable to support the entire population. The poverty may be more low profile, but it´s still here, after all.

I´ll resist the temptation to back track and wax on about Argentine political history and current realities-I spent too long studying it to get into it now, and I was on vacation. But don´t forget to read about the exciting stuff going down at Bolivia´s alternative climate change summit right now! (and more). Chaves, Evo, Ortega, Correa, Naomi Kleine, Noam Chomsky, and Eduardo Galeano (those last three being three of my all time favorite folks), will all be in attendance. Adelante, pues!

55 Hours To Buenos Aires

All you busy folks with real jobs and lives keep saying that you just want some time to think your thoughts and come to understandings, but I can now definitively say that after 55 hours on a bus I have no thoughts left to think at all, and no profound realizations to extol. I now know that one can actually become motion sick from sitting down in a cafe and NOT seeing things rush past outside the window, and that most of the part of Northern Argentina that links up with Tarija is pretty, but uninteresting. That`s where Rush Hour 3, The Marine 2, and 10 hours of the bus uniting telenovela Corazon Salvaje come in, I suppose. And at least 7 of those hours were spent just getting across the border and then through the following 5 identical security checkpoints all paced about 20 minutes apart on the highways of Northern Argentina. Nothing like bureaucratic transactions at 4am to reaffirm the ridiculous nature of borders and nations, and the consistency of corruption in low level positions. I was feeling very much like a co-sufferer along with my 100% Bolivian bus group, until we hit the checkpoints. There, my passport was both an invitation to mild ridicule and an easy pass out of any real inspection. Though my light ray based water purifier (I was camping in Mexico!) and my bottles of prescription meds inspired a lot of smug chuckling (where´s she from- the states?) I didn´t have to unpack anything or put up with the insistent derogatory questioning the other folks had to deal with.

55 hour nest

I thought coming back to BA would feel a little more like coming home- I did live here, after all, but mostly it seems just like any other huge city... Seeing my old friends again is wonderful though, and I have a tiny space in a tiny bed in a tiny apartment, so I`m all set! And that`s really the idea, after all. Seeing folks. We have an american queer dj to see spin, a drummer celebration to attend, a Colombian birthday party, and who knows what other strange and largely improbable places to end up. Plus 3 years of local politics to catch up on. And onwards!

ps- keep your eyes out for a guest post on some Bolivia adventures, and a snapfishlink to photos of the crazy boat and motorcycle trip I took last month to the Bolivian Amazon!

Travel Plans

Here is an updated itinerary for those of you thinking you might make it down here to visit:

March- Bolivia travels with FSD folks and then Laura!!!

April- Buenos Aires and Uruguay

May- Brazil (South to North, Puerto Alegre, Rio-Varginha, Salvador, Manaus, Brasilia...)

June- Peru (health research shadowing- possibly in Callao?)

July- Pantanal with Mom

July- Seattle

August- NYC

September- DC

Come travel!
Besos
m

Leaving

Today is my last day formally with FSD, and my last normal day in Cochabamba. I´m trying to resist the urge to qualify and quantify my time here- trying not to question whether I did it right, what I should have done, all that... I´ve loved my jobs and been very lucky to do this kind of work, to be here. But it´s hard, hard to come, to stay, to leave. I think the hardest part is moving around so much, in general in my life, and never settling down to a point where everything is just easy and familiar. But there is huge payback, of course, in the form of thrills and beautiful strange things. I´m terrible at goodbyes, but as a lovely friend here pointed out to me today, it´s probably better than being good at them. I do know that I prefer being the person doing the leaving. I am taking away a bunch of fantastic songs, a shakira-boa towel, and a prowling jaguar blanket, among other material treats. I´m looking forward to traveling, though it´s slightly frightening as it stretches out in front of me. I´m ready to be going onwards.

Suerte a tod@s, besos,

m

In the News

Just a quick note-

So I´m back at work after a two day hiatus brought on by a national and local transportation strike run by what is arguably the strongest union in the country. And what was this fantastic display of worker power and union strength put forward in the name of? In support of the liberty to drink and drive. Well ok, that´s an obvious over simplification. But in short, Evo just announced a new law which would punish entire transportation companies and their drivers with extreme measures whenever a driver in their employ is caught driving drunk. I definitely think it´s a great idea- there´s a serious amount of drunk driving here and the bus and traffic accidents which tend to occur as a result are really terrible. I would like to feel better about being on the roads. And in order to build a real culture against it, yeah, you have to take some serious steps, and yeah, the companies and other drivers are gong to have to know that they will suffer the consequences as well if you want to create any kind of positive peer pressure. The blockades were pretty intense. And politically it´s been really strange- folks in Santa Cruz and the eastern parts of the country, who are usually really against all things Evo, have been really supporting the law. Some of their companies even broke with the union decision, as did a few companies hyper loyal to Evo in the areas around La Paz. And Evo asked his supporters, largely the campesinos, to support him by countering the strike, which lead to a lot of violence and fights breaking out between strikers and campesinos. The whole thing has just been strange. And after spending so much of my life stoked on workers´rights and union power it´s a little disheartening to see the way that power can go...

Photo: El Alto, Agencia de Prensa Alteña

Another strange political moment is unfolding at the Martadero, a really cool cultural center here in Cochabamba. They just opened an art exhibit of... pictures of Obama´s face. They have all the graphic design campaign contest images up. Which is just so, so strange to see here in the middle of Bolivia. At the same time, yesterday they began free screenings of the Obama Deception, a new film that´s either promoting anti-Obama conspiracy theories and crazy extremist opinions, or a film that deals the problems of corporate and financial power and the lack of differentiation between political groups and the lack of any real change in America... depending on what you read. Which is unfortunate, because the political discourse is actually interesting and positive, but the smear campaign aspect makes the whole thing more of a destructive waste. Even for a cynic like myself it seems like the worst idea ever to show a film like this, in the center of a country already filled with hate and mistrust for the US, when so much more could be done to build positive relations... At the same time the US has decertified Bolivia once again, primarily as a means of basic political chastisement toward an ¨unfriendly¨southern neighbor. And recently I saw this mention of Hillary Clinton expressing ¨deep concern¨over Venezuela. It would be nice to see some ¨deep concern¨over the assassinations taking place in US supported Colombia or in US affirmed Honduras. It might do some good for us as far south as Bolivia.

Anyhow, just a note on things over here. Saludos-

WARMI

My new job is amazing. It´s not with the abuse victim center, but with WARMI, a youth center and daycare connected to an autonomous female microbusiness that produces soap. I´m working with both halves- supporting the women by helping them expand their market, connecting them with other autonomous businesses and such, and working in the library of the youth center encouraging literacy amongst the little ones and the teens. For the little ones we have made a giant map of South America for them to travel across with every book they read, and for the older ones we have started a book club. Everyone who works at WARMI (Quechua for ¨woman¨) is amazing, and all the kids (all 150 plus of them) are super sweet and enthusiastic and well behaved, which is somewhat astounding to me after years of working with rather angry little ones on the Lower East Side and outside of Buenos Aires.

I had forgotten how instant the gratification can be working with kids. I´ve been trying my whole life to work with adults and on big social problems but I always seem to end up coming back around to kids. And it´s a relief, just now. To be reminded that with these little ones, if I teach them how to solve a math problem, I´ve actually taught them how to do something. And if I tell them what an awesome job they´re doing (Bolivia is not big on positive reinforcement or workplace praise) they remember. And they catch me going out the door, awkward and blinking after 3 hours of translating, and point me out to their parents and I mumble something incoherent back. But it´s really nice, for just now.

Anyhow, it´s great and now I almost wish I could stay.

On a side note, a few remarkable things that Bolivia has to offer:

Drive through liquor stores (that will open your drinks for you through your car windows)

Bras utilized as bags to carry nearly anything a cholita could need, capacity depending on breast size

Syringes, needles and all, filled with ink and sold to refill printer cartridges

Cars that managed to fail emissions tests in other countries and were sent here, where, in order to put the steering wheel on the correct side of the car, everything was ripped out and moved over, leaving huge gaping holes in front of the passenger seat in most taxis

A totally Bolivian lexicon to be played with and enjoyed. Probably one of things I will miss most about Latin America in general

Dance music for every occasion

Oh those long stretches of the earth seen through the bus windows

Carnival!

Bolivia has transformed this month, which I usually hate, into one long glorious celebration. I have had confetti on my head, a drink in my hand, and a foot on the dance floor for the last two weeks straight. First we celebrated conpadres at a fellow intern's home:

Then, a week later, conmadres with my host sister and her friends:


And this week two days of national holidays, water fights, koas, and parties:


Of course the really big deal was Carnival itself, for which we went to Oruro. I sincerely tried to find out some things about about the festival in order to further our collective education, things like, why is it celebrated and how is it related to the specific dances and how do the various countries relate and what does it all mean? But no one seems to have concrete answers to any of these questions.

In Bolivia, Carnival is largely an Andean cultural celebration, loosely concealed under Catholic pretexts. Oruro hosts the biggest celebration in Bolivia, probably one of the largest in the world. Eight days of festivities (we stayed three), hundreds of bands made up of hundreds of musicians, over 350,000 dancers. Folks prepare for years to dance in Carnival, saving money to cover the massive band, costume, and entrance fees. UNESCO declared the festival a part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. It's totally gorgeous, amazing, chaos. Insanity composed of water balloons, foam spray, masses, beer by the bucket load, urine, mud, noise, colors. The main dances are corporales, tinku, morenada, and the diablada. There were also some fat bear dancer sections and an amazonian set. The dancers come through in groups along with the bands, which are equally famous, and the crowds stick briefly to dancing instead of conducting war with each other. The dancers pass by continuously from 10am saturday till 10 at night sunday, pausing at sunrise sunday morning to dance into the main church and kneel. At night the devils danced through walls of fire.

Development(s)

More than four months have passed in Boliva and I´m settling into a stage where my primary interest is keeping still and finishing what I´ve started, rather than going out to find new things all the time. At work, however, things will be looking a little different. I will be continuing to work with Pro Habitat to finish my project (thanks to all who generously supported), but during the week I will be working in a center which runs programs for children and adolescents who are victims of sexual abuse. Sexual abuse and domestic violence have long been interests of mine, though perhaps that´s not the best word for it. It seems so strange to say- I´m interested in violence, in prisons, in the tragedy that is immigration policy- interested in injustice. I suppose on some level it denotes the fact that I believe that I can change something, do something positive. But then why shouldn´t that be the case? If we believe we can do nothing, we might as well be living at the bottom of a bottle. Reading this reflection on the life of the late Howard Zinn, I was pleased to be reminded that, though we may live with a history of exploitation and injustice, we also live with a history of popular struggle and victory. Everything good in this world we have built ourselves, and what we manage to build with each other is stronger (in the classic words of Against Me) than everything they taught us that we should fear.

I often like to think of Mirah´s old lyrics as well

We´ve got it all worked out the plans all made,
if we believe in the fight then, we´re all saved
it´s gunna hurt for a while but it would anyways,
we´ll stay resolute with our voices raised
we have a right to demand to be free and brave
if that should cease to exist I´ll throw my heart away
so aren´t you gunna come along? aren´t you gunna fight?
aren´t you gunna hold your hands up to the light?

As Brecht wrote, there will be singing in the dark times, oh yes, there will be singing


This in contrast to the fact that my little host sister has been singing Rihanna´s Roulette song about 10 times a day. But don´t worry, in my revolution there will still be an impetus for the production of songs about texting with a martini in your hand and movies where Michael J Fox turns into a werewolf.

In smaller news, the rainy season is finally here in true form, and instead of 95 degree days we have sheets of rain and thunder that wakes me up in the night. Carnival is approaching, which means that teams of youths are stalking the streets, by foot or in car, lobbing water balloons at anyone risking the sidewalks. Between that (which in all seriousness requires me to run, duck behind trees, and peer fearfully into any car with an open window- I even begged three boys not to hit me and escaped only due to their laughter at my state of agitation) and the fact that I was robbed last week at nine am a block from my house by men who pulled up onto the sidewalk in a car and ripped my bag in half, my strolling has been somewhat more stressful as of late. But I only have six weeks left, and then it´s off to travel. I´ll be back in the states over the summer and then will be starting an internship in DC with the World Health Organization. Hope to cross paths with you all, somewhere in that trajectory.

un abrazo

m

ps- thanks so much to all of you who responded with wise wise words to my last post. much appreciated.

(My) Latin American Imaginaries

So I´ve been trying to keep the idea of this whole time in Bolivia together as one analyzable and understandable ¨thing¨, which I suppose I´ve finally realized is impossible, since this time is really just more of the usual- me living my life. One point that irks me though, is the gap between the glorified (and in some ways, truly glorious) presidency, historical moment, and conflux of social movements in Bolvia vs the every day lived experience here. The more I read inspiring articles about Bolivia (here, and here, and here, and here, for starters) the more I wish I could feel swept up in or even just a part of it. ¨It¨ being something grand and life/world changing, of course. But on the daily level, lives don´t look very different to me. Of course, I´m not in the poorest sector, and I suppose that perhaps for the previously landless and the previously exploited, discriminated indigenous, a new era really is dawning. New political mechanisms may be forming, new dialogues between movements and populations and government may be beginning, but on the individual lived level it all seems pretty much the same. I don´t know what that means, if it means I´m asking too much of politics (like I tend to ask too much of everything), looking for a visual representation of something that will never be imbodied in the present, looking for a impact on the heart that´s much to broad and long term to show? But what I want is the energy in the air of a revolt, of a win, of, you know, a dawning. I admire what Marina Sitrin shares in Horizontalism because what happened in Argentina was a transformation of the heart, perhaps the only kind of change that can truly last. But then, who am I to say? Class and age and race all count against me, I know. Well. I realize this is a little personal for a public forum, but maybe we´ve just spent too much time dismissing sincerity as cheesy.

President Elect of Uruguay, José Mujica writes,

There is no fixed list of things that make us happy. Some think the ideal world is full of shopping centres. I’ve nothing against this vision, but I simply say that it isn’t the only one. I say we can imagine a country where people repair things instead of throwing them away, where they choose a small car instead of a large one, where they put on a sweater instead of turning up the heat.

I like the spirit of Latin America´s political community today. We get kids at Red Tinku from Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia, as well as the states, looking to teach or to sit in on our presentations and forums. I like the activity. But it´s easy to write long excited articles about Bolivia when you come in for the elections, or a big cultural event. I´m sick of reading scholarly leftist papers, news headlines, and NGO mission statements. Sick of getting excited and finding a reality that fails to correlate. I´ve been wanting to write seriously about Bolivia but I just cant bring myself to follow that same track. There´s a government agent watching our NGO everyday now. Reporting in on a walkie-talkie. And you have to wonder what´s to come if this kind of paranoia and anti-Americanism is on the rise here, if this is what´s in store. My host sister warned me away from Red Tinku, afraid that folks will perceive me as a spy rather than a helpless idealistic kid. Parents, I know you think I´m a cynic every time we talk about Obama, but maybe I just need to expand my cynicism to more of the world. And anyhow looking up North from the South it´s hard not to be upset. Look here. But I´m open to participating in the States in a way that seems positive. Here? Well anyhow. The point, so say the poets and the guerrillas of this long continent, is to walk. To walk and see what you find.

Al fin y al cabo, somos lo que hacemos para cambiar lo que somos.
-Eduardo Galeano

Dad and I go to Chile!

Here we are in Santiago!


Chile is a fantastic and sunny place filled with wine and beaches. It was a little shocking to get there and realize just how much more developed it is than Bolivia, and what that means in terms of elegant promenades of palm trees and vegetarian food. It was awesome. What that says about my radical values and all that... well. It's vacation.



We started in Santiago, which was a warm and jolly giant city. I didn't love it, per say, but it beats most of the other Latin American Capitals for charm, anyhow. We went to Neruda's house and looked at the graffiti, wandered around, and watched Sci Fi movies in our hotel. Good times.



We spent Christmas in Valparaiso, which was gorgeous. We walked up and down the huge hills and looked at the pretty murals a lot, and I got to feel magically super human, as my body had apparently adjusted to the altitude in Bolivia at last, and I could pretty much take the hills at a run without loosing my breath at all. Cheating, I suppose, but glorious. We spent Christmas on the beach where dad amused me and a large crowd of Chileans by getting into this large plastic ball suspended in water and trying valiantly to move around or even stand up in it. We also went to some more deserted beaches that looked a lot like Northern California and Dad found a small lizard, which made his trip.



We followed the glorious sunny milling around with a rather hard core trip Kayaking in the fjords of Northern Patagonia. We landed in Puerto Montt-Varas, and headed south to the tiny town of Hornopirim, the ¨oven of snow¨. It was certainly freezing and wet, and surrounded by snowy volcanoes and huge glacial rivers. Very beautiful. Very very cold. Some of us were not quite prepared for this change in climate. We stayed on the edge of the witches´ mountains. We were close to Chiloe, which is famous for it's folk tales. We went South from there, along part of the Austral road (which sounds somehow both romantic and tough to me) and kayaked in and out of these huge, wild, empty fjords.



I don't believe I ever really thought too hard about what a fjord actually is, beyond a crinkly thing that Slartibartfast made and something massive that lives in Norway. These were very beautiful immense hills covered in a strange and rare southern rain forest and hundreds of cold waterfalls. At the end of each fjord is a mountain covered with a huge glacier, which is what forms the waterway. We saw dolphins, sea lions, seals, a lone lost penguin, and exactly 3 other humans, whom dad mistook for birds at first. There were a lot of hidden hot springs for warming up in, some utilized by Germans hiding out in their warship in WWII. Every peak looked like it might have a whole Indiana Jones type hidden city in it, still lost to man. And no one has ever climbed many of these peaks, so you never know, though the indigenous folk Chile is famous for are all from further South, where they went around in the cold naked and painted in stripes until some Europeans came and took them off to a zoo in Paris. Yeah.

Our last day paddling we had to do 15 miles before afternoon, which nearly wiped my dad and I out completely. Some of us may have shed a small tear. That day it was sunny and warmer at least. New Year's Eve was promptly slept though. Then it was back to 90 degree plus Santiago, and a trip to Isla Negra to see Neruda's beach house. He loved the sea but was afraid to sail, and built all his homes to resemble, quite impressively, boats. He also collected immense amounts of strange things. We approved. Dad ended up spending two days in the Santiago airport while I made my way back by bus from Arica, in the North of Chile. I was treated to a surprise route through an apparently famous national park in the desert, filled with volcanoes and alpacas. It was gorgeous and made up for the last five hours of buses in Bolivia, which I spent in a luggage hold under the bus due to a shortage of seats. (It's ok family friends, it wasn´t so totally bad, ok? I had granola bars, my sleeping bag, my ipod, and a traveling companion. It was just like camping out! Or train hoping!)




Now I'm home! Which is strange, but really great, actually. I'm excited to get back to work, back to life. No one here was pleased that I went to Chile- Bolivia is still upset that they stole their ocean 150 years ago, and they refuse to fly directly into Chile or even have ambassadors there. They also make fun of their accent, which is weird but actually pretty fun. I learned the slang for money, dude, girlfriend, and lame, which is pretty decent, I think. Anyhow! Onwards. Check out Bolivia's newest radical plans here, and you still have till the 15th to give money to my project in Santa Barbara if you feel like it. Also did you know that Google can be used in Quechua? Kosa pacha! Besos!
m