Bolivia, ahoy

I've been nerding out a little in order to rev up properly for my time in Bolivia. For those at which I have yet to gush, I should mention that I will be working for Fundacion Pro Habitat, a local non profit that works to improve the lives of squatter residents in the south of Cochabamba. To this end they run programs in sanitation, market building, housing construction, and political lobbying, and partner with other grassroots organizations including a group of women's cooperatives that organize in a horizontal manner. It's pretty much my fantasy job, and it should be interesting to see if participating in this kind of action actually makes me happy.

Squatter's rights has long been an interest of mine, and for those interested, Robert Neuwirth's Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, a New Urban World provides a pretty decent overview of the sociological phenomenon across the globe. The Bolivian context is of particular interest to me. Bolivia is one of the poorest, most rural, and most indigenous countries in Latin America. With the election of indigenous president Evo Morales in 2005, the indigenous population is becoming a stronger and more visible political and cultural force. The rural/urban dynamics of Bolivia, charged with hundreds of years of formulations of cultural and geographic meanings, continue to impact social interactions and daily lives. As neoliberal policies devastated rural livelihoods across the country, cities like Cochabamba experienced high levels of immigration, and the squatter settlements that filled these cities took on an indigenous, marginalized, and castigated character. Daniel Goldstein's book, The Spectacular City: Violence and Performance in Urban Bolivia provides an amazingly detailed investigation of the urban dynamics of performance, protest, and citizenship in this context. Benjamin Dangl's The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia provides a more basic overview of Bolivian history and social action in recent years.

Bolivia is perhaps most famous, in the activist and lefty world at least, for the large scale protests that took place in major urban centers in the early 2000s rejecting the privatization of water and gas. These resource "wars" were immensely successful and represent one of the few cases of a local population triumphing over large corporations. They are also yet another example of community solidarity, mass political understanding, and direct action. With Morales's public defense of the coca leaf and his partnerships with other, more radical Latin American democracies, politics have remained central to Bolivian social life. I am excited to visit some of the dynamic projects in action in La Paz, El Alto, and Cochabamba, as well as to see a bit of reality in action. Of course I don't expect to find some marvelous utopia of revolutionary struggle. What interests me most is, in fact, daily life and how it is understood and lived in these contexts. I am hoping to learn, and to lend a hand in any way I can. Working for this non profit is the best way I can imagine to try out this bridging of justice and aid, action and development. Fundacion Pro Habitat seems committed to this idea, prioritizing empowerment over construction or statistics. The struggle to combine activism and aid, and my ongoing struggle to understand if that is possible or even worthwhile, will hopefully be both illuminating and engaging.

I begin in ernest on Saturday, after a red eye flight tomorrow evening into La Paz followed by an 8 hour bus ride down the Andes into Cochabamba. Today the weather forcast in Cochabamba simply read: smoke. I have some misgivings. I am hoping for the best. Cheers

Oh, Mexico...

Given that every breath exhaled by a North American about Mexico these days comes loaded with warnings, fears of flues, drugs, violence, and danger, I think it's time to find some new words to be define the subject. Words like beauty, tranquility, kindness, and joviality. And of course, normal words. Giant messes and paragraphs and pages of words. Words for 109 million people. Some of the kids I met there begged me to declare publicly that people are just the same everywhere, which is true, to an extent I suppose. But we are attached both to our roots and to our exact and individual present: it isn't always a global world.

Oh Mexico, you crossroads of indigenous, colonial, religious, ceremonial, modern, revolutionary histories. You combination of forgotten lore, neglect, treasure, reverence, and celebration. It's impossible to imagine the wealth and depth of history in this country, both old and new. As present as modern capitalism and economics may be, as evident as the paths of domination and exploitation, immigration and poverty might be, within it all is a constant reinvention and reliving of what in means to be Mexican, to be in Mexico. And then each kilometer is different, geographically, economically, culturally. It's amazing: you drive for 5 minutes and everything changes, jungle to forest, forest to desert, and you suddenly look around and crane your neck to find out when and where the change happened, the cactus appeared, disappeared, but you can't tell- you've dropped clear into another region. So of course, no generalizations. But still. It's all happening to everyone, at once, this living in the world thing, you know? We must be able to say something about it.

And so yes, I've seen evidence of health concerns, military men, fears of police, the presence of poverty. But. For starters: swine flue? No one follows the instructions on the signs not to shake hands or kiss hello, everyone is still walking, talking and living. But then Carlos can't get a tetanus shot anywhere in Monterrey. But then folks die every month from preventable diseases. But then Mexicans in the US are dying in the desert by federal decree. Some things to consider, some things more dire than swine flue, perhaps, to those who live here. The military men only manifested on the state borders, where they looked for drugs headed north. The local police were much more problematic and exploitative. As per usual, the local problems are the worst. But even they are not interpreted as something horrific here. Just a part of the day, a part of the discussion over beers and tortillas.

The most stunning thing about the poverty here is that it is largely rural and not dire, comparatively speaking, which is to say, no one is outright starving or terribly ill or suffering, for the most part. The kind of poverty in action here is older. We stayed with these families, we talked with them, and really it seemed enviable. This lifestyle of tranquility, living with your family, working with your family, working hard but working in order to live together. Oh, cultural relativity. This is not to say that there is not poverty in Mexico. Of course there is urban poverty, desert poverty, the struggle to live. But to me it's more important to remember that what's worst is oppression, exploitation, suffering, fragmentation, and sadness. Thus material poverty should not necessarily be our primary target. Being able to eat until you're overweight and relax until you're obese, buy whatever you want and work overtime does not seem like a right we need to fight for abroad. Their lives may already be better than ours. The work that needs to be done has to do with empowerment more than development, justice more than food. And sadly the legacy and current practice of injustice, in Mexico as across Latin America, across the world, will be harder to fight. When you can't throw money at something, can't pick up a gun against it, where do you begin?

Mexico's cultural and historical memory is strong, despite what urban folks might tell you. Their cities are full of art and practices in remembrance of an indigenous past about which they are still proud of and outraged by. The rural areas keep up their ties to their heritage, to thousands of years of traditions and stories of a hundred different ancient societies. The Mayas are not the only history remembered. And the revolutions are still memorialized and interpreted on a yearly basis, through ceremony and celebration. It is the economic side of this country which seems so silently, invisibly turbulent these days. Under the sheen of neoliberal policy and practice rages a war of perceptions, lived experiences, rejection, embrace, and reinvention. As the rest of Latin America sways left and begins to redefine itself, invent new words for itself, grow and transform, it will be interesting to see where Mexico's roots will lead it. Somehow this trip has made me more optimistic. These people I have met are so strong, so full of their lands and stories, I feel somehow that despite the great oppressive forces of our times, there is power in their hands. And something good will come of it.

Brooklyn welcomes me home

Photo: Laura

There once

Was a young girl from Nicaragua
Who smiled as she rode on a jaguar
They came back from the ride
The young girl inside
And the smile
On the face
Of the jaguar

Thanks to Salman Rushdie´s Jaguar Smile, I can tell you that that proverb is a lovely revolutionary allegory. Thanks to the years that have passed since I read it, I can also tell you I am about to mangle it. However, I believe that the jaguar is meant to be the people of Nicaragua, and the girl the revolution. First the revolution rode on the backs of the people, and then the people consumed it, were filled by it, and the people smiled and all were happy. I think the reverse can also be construed, but I prefer it this way.

Where Mexico is stunning, Nicaragua is wild. Where Mexico is difficult, Nicaragua is impossible. I was deathly ill within three days. One cannot even imagine asking about camping places. One sees signs for ¨prospective¨ tourist areas. Yet it’s so gloriously beautiful here, and pure jungle. In Managua, the capital (an ugly city, just what you might expect modernization to force onto the wilds, cement and telephone wires) I saw graffiti celebrating 30 years of Sandinista revolution, and was filled with joy. Until I realized that, as it continued for miles and miles, it could not possibly be spontaneous. but must be paid for and regulated by the party. Perhaps nothing here is real except the banana trees that line the horizon, and the jungle that rises to the sky on the sides of the volcanoes. That might be enough, though. For a country with such a fiery history, what I can see is mostly smoke, dust, bicycles, and green. But I love it here, with my second family, and the constant, massive rains.

I am in the airport. New York awaits me, I suppose. Onwards!

Something about health, something about revolutions

On Revolutions:
It´s possible that, at the bottom line, Carlos and I see the world in the same way, as a disaster with beautiful potential which can be accessed all the time. But our methods of enacting change, and therefore our methods of living, are at opposite ends of pretty much every spectrum pretty much all the time. It´s been good to receive so much to think about, really. Carlos is primarily about inner peace and tranquillity, which of course is a state I can hardly even visualize. But at heart, this idea of living your values daily, and putting your ideas into practice in your life, learning as you construct, is a basic revolutionary principal which we share. Whether we have to be at peace or have to struggle in order to find a better world; that is the point where we diverge. We always seem to find people, in the mountains, in the towns, who want to talk to us about our revolutionary potential. About the youth who will change the world. I suppose it helps that we find ourselves in remote locations, but still, it's heartening to find adults and farmers who tell us we are onto something good.

On top of this general tendency, we get the 2012 legend and all its myriad formulations. I have come to enjoy the interpretation given to it here. In 2012 (the Mayan date for the end of the world), what's to come is not so much global destruction and the elimination of the human race (a la the upcoming film where it seems John Cusack will fly a plane as a giant boat crushes the White House), but as a time of intense changes in social, political and economic structures, in lifestyles and global conditions. Or rather, a word will end, but it will only be this terrible kind of world we have created. Disaster may strike, but it will only mean that we will have to learn to live together in new ways. In fact, basically, this interpretation means that disasters will come and they will force the global revolution, and the anarchist autonomous hippie punk socialist revolution, the better world we've been dreaming of, will be forced into existence, and everything will change. We will have to learn to live together, share, and recreate the modern world. It means that our generation will live to see it. If you know, you buy into that Mayan legend stuff...

On health:
Carlos is obsessed with natural and indigenous medicine. It is one of his primary passions and something we are often reading about, looking at, or trying out. I have actually become rather interested in the practice as well, which seems strange in some ways, because natural medicine is pretty much at direct odds with public health programs. But then, massive social change and activism are also mostly at odds with public health. It seems tragic, really, that things which are so closely tied in reality can be so isolated in both the academic and professional worlds. Natural medicine has its values, and even though it drives me crazy when Carlos tells me that Malaria and Dengue are just health myths invented by those in power which we can ignore, I can see that natural medicine can be healthier, more sustainable, and more honest than dealing with giant drug companies. It is another form of DIY action, I suppose, a means of putting power, once again, into the hands of people. That doesn´t mean that the absence of doctors and lack of access to services can be dismissed, or that there is no need for health systems and planning. It is something to consider though, and so now I'm left with yet another paradigm to think about as I try and do something that I think is positive.

I have also been doing a series of interviews with health providers here in Oaxaca for the Public Health Delivery Project, a venture organized and sponsored by Harvard's medical school and Paul Farmer's non-profit, Partners In Health (my favorite health non-profit ever). The program aims to create an online forum for health practitioners to share best practices and discuss challenges and successes in the health world. The survey project aims to collect data from health programs all over the world in a attempt to aggregate and analyze data and basically look at the way we provide health care and figure out how to do it better. You can join up with this program at ghdonline.org, or learn about it at globalhealthdelivery.org/blog. I interviewed a lady from a project called Puente al Salud, a non profit doing community work in Oaxaca, as well as a doctor at Hospital Carmen, a private hospital in the city. These two interviews provided the perfect example of the gap between community work and health services. While Puente did amazing projects with nutrition, empowerment, training, and community development, they offered no clinical or advanced medical services. The private hospital, on the other hand, provided no social services but had a high capacity for technical health provision. The doctor I spoke with there told me that private care is actually cheaper than the public option, which I imagine is true, but the lack of community connection was striking. The lack of a single organization that can provide both health and justice was expected but somewhat frustrating. It was satisfying to get in some studying time on my favorite subject, however. Onwards, then.

Endings

The beaches in Mexico are really about as fantastic as any cinematic fantasy might lead you to believe. You really can camp right on the sand, beside some small family´s home and makeshift restaurant, and wake up to spend the day in a hammock, next to the big blue ocean and a line of cold one dollar beers.


You can also wake up on that beach at four in the morning as a gale blows suddenly in, upsets your tent, soaks everything you own, drenches you, forces you to run up the beach under the roof of said family run restaurant, ditch everything you own, and sleep in the car.

Carlos and I both have colds.

But really all of Vera Cruz was lovely, from the beaches (Roca Partida, Monte Pio, and Barra de Sontecomapan, for those who might someday end up nearby) to the monkey filled lagoon, the jungle and the mountains. Carlos and I are always surprised to find ourselves driving over mountains. Going from over 100 degrees into a freezing mist is rather stunning.

Oaxaca is lovely, as is my mother. We have been wandering the city and are off to explore the nearby crafts towns, more ruins, and a famously large tree in the next few days. Tales and pictures to be posted later!

From here I head on and out, which feels strange, but for the best. I have said so many goodbyes in the last four years, they don´t really feel like goodbyes anymore. I have faith that strangeness and luck will bring me back south (still missing out on Chiapas) and back with these various companions once again, in some way, at some point. My flights from here to Nicaragua go in all the wrong directions, first north when I need to go south, then too far south, then back up north... I look forward to being done with planes for a while. Looking forward to being home in the states for a while as well, which will be happening in September. Rambling soon. Seriously, I have actual thoughts on some of the subjects I studied in regards to this place, to be posted later.
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Southwards

I actually had begun to think we would never escape from Mexico City. First we were waiting on a delivery, then the car mechanic, and then, the day we actually headed out of the city, the police stopped us 15 minutes into the ride and attempted to take away our car because the license plate ended in a 3, and 3s do not drive in Mexico city on Wednesdays. Luckily police bribery case number two of the vacation saved the car, but we had to leave it in a park till the next morning.

We did, however, manage to get out the next day, and after the two hours necessary just to leave the massive city itself, we made our way to Cuernavaca, which was very pretty. From there we went on to Tepotzlan, where we camped in the dark in the middle of a massive thunderstorm, and later climbed up a huge mountain (on a very official and well marked vertical trail) to sit atop a pyramid and look at the lovely valley. We continued on toward Puebla via the national park which hosts two of the largest volcanoes in the region. We drove over the mountains, into the mist, and at the topmost viewpoint I stood in the cold and ate a chocolate bar on the roof of that world.


In Puebla we mostly ate, and pointed at things and said- that’s pretty. Because it all was. We crashed with the family of a guy we picked up and drove around back in Xilitla. They were super adorable and cooked us many massive meals. We stayed in a room that was a shed up until 10 minutes after our arrival. There were cockroach bodies and old engines next to our bed, but we didn’t mind. ´We are in our twenties! In addition, Puebla was hosting an indigenous cultural festival this weekend, which meant lots of music and crafts all the time.


From there we headed to Vera Cruz, where we are crashing at a musical engineering school that Carlos worked for years ago in Monterrey. I thought I would hate Vera Cruz, but actually it pretty much rocks. There was gorgeous music and dancing all over the center until past midnight. We have a whole crew to take us around as well, which is nice.

From here we go in search of deserted beaches. On the 15th we meet up with my mom in Oaxaca, where we will explore and take a few classes and such, after which I head to Nicaragua and Carlos goes on toward Chiapas. I am somewhat sad to be missing the Southern coast and jungles, but this was the only way to make plans work. Of course, now that the trip is ending, I really want to keep going, though who knows how I would feel if I were, indeed, headed onwards. In any case, cheers! Photos at some point. Hope all is well back North.

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