Amanda, Cholita

Imagine my surprise when I arrived in Boston and Amanda had become a Cholita!

Get back... get back... back to where we once belonged.

Hello,

Just posting to say I'm back in the States safe and sound. The flights were smooth and without any problems. Only that I sat with two Cruceños, or people from Santa Cruz, in the West of the country. Santa Cruz is the epicenter of the opposition to Morales. One saw that I was reading a book about coca production and said that coca was a national disgrace, the other said that Morales was trying to turn Bolivia into Cuba. I guess Morales was denied the right to land at the airport in Santa Cruz once and another time was refused entry to a hotel there.  Anyways, the flights went alright and I'm here safe and sound. 


Andrew

This and That

Last weekend I had my first taste of archiving fun at the New England Archivists Association fall meeting at UMass Boston.  It was a full day of workshops and speakers and general nerdy fun on the topic of archival appraisal.  Richard Cox was the keynote speaker from the University of Pittsburgh.  I guess he as been pretty controversial in the past but he's speech was pretty tame this time. I think everybody was on the edge of their seats waiting for something ground shattering but it never came.  It was a little disappointing, as angry academics can be quite entertaining.  I was going to buy his book but that was before I saw it was $104 (perhaps thats why its not selling so well?).  I attended a workshop entitled "Take your lumps" simply for the title but it ended up being the most interesting workshop I attended.  It was basically about appraising artifacts instead of manuscripts.  Everybody that presented worked at an institution connected to a museum so they talked a lot about communication problems and conflicts with museum workers who want to save absolutely everything including file folders and camera film boxes at one place simply because they were old.    

Other than NEA I've been drinking a lot of tea with friends as apparently every library students likes tea (and most have a cat).

This is the main building on campus and was accurately named Main Campus Building, the others are named after the streets where they are located.  Creativity is apparently not a strong suit of Simmons.

I toured the archives of the JFK musuem which is this funny triangular building.  The glass part has nothing in it so the building really is just a triangle which makes it not very convenient for fitting in bookshelves. 

My mother would be proud, my life is (for now) organized. Each and every category of bill has its own fill and I have even organized my receipts.  I've also bought an under the bed tote for Andrew's clothes and cleared one drawer. Sorry, first come first serve.

I'm going back home.

After 3 months working on my internship at Chakana I'm wrapping up my first stage in Bolivia this Saturday when I fly back home. I've had quite a nice time here, have met a lot of nice people and have learned a ton, although I've missed my family and friends at home and in Wageningen tremendously. It's been fun but now it's done.

I'll fly to Santa Cruz, Bolivia at 8 on Saturday morning and then leave Bolivia at about 10:30 and arrive in the States at 4ish. Then I'll fly to MSP at 19.40 and arrive at 22.30. I'll fly to New York on Monday at around 9 and arrive and 12.35 and leave for Boston at 14.35 and arrive around 16.00.

Then I'll be back home

Llama meat

I ate lunch at a very nice little restaurant near my apartment today and they had a lot of signs extolling the virtues of eating llama meat. I also bought some llama sausage for the long flight home.

This afternoon I had a demand for getting work done but a lack of supply of enthusiasm so I searched for 'llama meat' to enlighten myself. I stumbled a very interesting (or disturbing?) website. The website is for Jersey Bob's Llama Ranch and the address is http://www.krug.org/bob/about.html . What was striking to me is that if you click on the 'meat' link it explains that you can come to the ranch and watch them kill, skin and butcher a llama before your eyes before you bring it home with you. Under the 'ride' section, about riding llamas at the ranch (I've never seen anyone here riding a llama) it says that if you really enjoy riding a certain llama they will provide you a valuable service. They'll butcher it for you so that you can take it home and enjoy it even more.

I'm no animal rights activist by any means, but I also don't enjoy watching a llamas being slaughtered or eating something I just rode around a coral. Of course, the only way to eat meat is by killing the animal, but it seems odd to make the slaughter and butchering part of your advertising campaign.

Just a funny and unique site. Be sure to watch Amanda's video below, it's about the cutest thing I've ever seen.

Andrew

Uyuni

I've just returned from a quick but productive trip to Uyuni in the South of Bolivia. Uyuni is the centre of quinoa real production and is where I will do my research. I left Sunday afternoon around 14.00 by bus to Oruro and arrived there at 18.45; my train for Uyuni left at 19.00 so I was quite worried. Nonetheless a very capable taxi driver got me to the train station on time. Actually, when I arrived all of the cars were locked up and so I had to ask for a worker to let me in, close call for sure. The train is quite comfortable and has a lot more space than the buses, only I had a screaming kid next to me for most of the time and a snoring dad for the rest. One interesting thing about the 7 hour trip is that one of the workers (who looks incredibly like the villain in the James Bond movie filmed in Bolivia) mopped the floor at least 3 times.

I arrived in Uyuni at around 2 in the morning, found an open hotel directly and checked in. Six hours later I started my day. First I met with a friend of my advisor who will be helping me in Uyuni. He is working on augmenting the trade of products from the Uyuni region in Potosi, and later expects to expand this to other cities. We chatted for awhile and then left to meet an intermediary. The meeting went quite well and she (most intermediaries are women) mentioned that I could go with her when she buys quinoa. She even said that I could be her driver! Imagine that! After this meeting we went to another intermediary, but she was not in so we broke for lunch and siesta. By chance, I ended up sharing a table with an Italian motercycle racer and so we chatted awhile while we ate. After lunch I went for a coffee where I talked to a 14 year old kid from La Paz who was working at the restaraunt. He has been working in tourism (and out of school) for 4 years and in Uyuni for 9 months. He said he was taking night classes, but didn't like school much. At 2 we started again and we visited a producer organization which buys organic quinoa. They aren't a cooperative, but a social organization; I honestly don't know the difference. Next we talked to an organization of buyers, producers and sellers of quinoa, but didn't learn a whole lot there.

After the last meeting Hugo and I seperated so that he could travel to work in Potosi and I went for dinner. This time I ended up eating pizza with a German botanist! Strange, no? So we chatted about agricultural development (he is quite confident in technology transfer as a means of development, not I though) and then I went to bed early. My train back left at 1.30 in the morning today (Tuesday). The train ride was much nicer than the first because part of the trip was under the illuminating light of the sun. I saw incredible views of land stretched as far as one can see and also a lake filled with flamingos. I arrived in Oruro at 9ish and walked to the bus terminal. I really enjoy walking through cities just to see what they're like, it's something that one can't understand by taking a taxi or bus. I walked through a few markets and enjoyed the beeming sun before boarding my last bus for La Paz.

Now I'm quite tired as it feels like I've done a week worth of activities in 2 days. It doesn't help that I haven't had a full night's sleep in a few nights. Below are just a few pictures. I didn't have a chance to take many, but  I assure that I will have more when I return in January. I'm now getting ready to come home for awhile; I leave Saturday morning for Minneapolis (here I come James!) and Monday I fly to Amanda.

This is from one of the main streets.

This is on the bus ride from La Paz to Oruro. 

Another one from the same street, just further down.

Thanks for reading, Andrew

French Fairytale (with subtitles)

This little girl is pretty adorable.

Signs

The following is a series of murals that I saw in La Paz last week, really beautiful drawings and important messages. La Paz is full of political messages on every surface that can be written on. Just another form of democracy I would say. 

On the left, it basically says that everyone has a right to work. On the right it says that the accused have the right to defend themselves and are considered innocent until proven otherwise.

Everyone is equal in dignity and rights.

No one should be exploited or be in slavery. No one should be tortured or be treated poorly.

Everyone has rights and liberty of religion, opinion and expresion

Andrew

Bolivian drought

There is some very worrying news coming from the Bolivian papers in the last few days. The dailys are focusing on a series of natural disasters hitting Bolivia at the moment. As I mentioned in a previous post, the climate is changing quite dramatically in Bolivia, increasing rains in the East, inducing droughts in the West and increasing temperatures throughout the country. Adding to this is the El nino effect this year.

Essentially what is happening now is that in the southeast, where I will do my research, precipitation levels are way down and the same is happening in several areas in the West of the country. The area in which Chakana works is also feeling pressure from the lack of rain. In the East, the lowlands, rain is also an issue, but it is that there is too much of it.

The ministry of development has declared that 2.5 million cattle, sheep and llamas are in serious risk of dieing of hunger and thirst. Also in Uyuni, farmers are currently planting quinoa and quinoa requires a certain amount of rain within it's first month or two in the ground to germinate. These two factors add up to quite a dangerous situation for the farmers in the Uyuni area who depend on llama production and quinoa production. This is especially serious due to the drought that occured last year in the same region, which seriously reduced quinoa production (100% loss in some places). Let's hope that the situation radically improves soon.

I will be traveling to Uyuni on Sunday so will be able to ask there about the effects and their thoughts on what's going on.

http://www.laprensa.com.bo/noticias/06-11-09/ultimas.php?n_a_c=nacional_061109_133930.inc&seccion=0&titulo=M%E1s_de_2,5_millones_de_ganado_a_punto_de_desaparecer

http://www.la-razon.com/ultima.asp?id=905928

A good article on Todos los Santos

There is a very nice article in La Prensa today that explains Todos Santos better than I can. Of course it's in in Spanish but if you copy it translate it with translate.google.com you'll be alright. Click on the title of the article to read the whole thing.

Fiesta, sobriedad y recojo espiritual marcaron la despedida de las almas

Fiesta, mesas y altares, flores y oraciones marcaron ayer la despedida de las almas en tres cementerios de la ciudad de La Paz y El Alto.

Mientras que en el camposanto Héroes del Gas, en Santiago I, en El Alto, se escuchaban las melodías de los grupos musicales que eran contratados por los dolientes, en el Cementerio General de la hoyada paceña la gente armaba mesas para sus difuntos y en el cementerio Jardín de la zona Sur, colocaban flores en las tumbas.

“Tenía tres años y medio cuando murió por falta de auxilio”, lamentó Yolanda Escóbar, al referirse a su hija, cuyo cuerpecito descansa en el Cementerio de Santiago I, mientras que al son de la banda Los Papichulos marcaba un paso de baile y su esposo ofrecía cerveza para acompañar lo que llamaron la “despedida”.

Aunque no había una mesa colmada de panes, fruta y comida sobre la tumba de la menor, su madre dijo que “los tres primeros años (luego del fallecimiento) hay que ir al cementerio en la fiesta de Todos Santos, porque el alma espera la visita; después ya depende de cada uno”.

Como es el caso de la viuda de Aldo Velásquez (protagonista de la serie La bicicleta de los Huanca) fallecido hace diez años, Rocío Escóbar, quien, pese al tiempo transcurrido, aún acude al cementerio y cumple con la tradición. “Siempre hay dolor, pero creo que hay que acordarse con alegría”. .....

More if you follow the link....