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.