Silvia

Un Diablo del Carnaval de Oruro

So I woke up Monday morning to Silvia and Nico screaming at each other--I guess Nico didn't even say hello to her, his keys are still lost, and a variety of other things. It's funny to be in Bolivia living with a spoiled art student. Although we're getting along: he brought me a really good salteña today (a Bolivian empanada with vegetables) which I'm pretty sure a) was one of the best things I've ever eaten and b) fairly close to vegetarian.

Then last night I sat in on the meeting of her research collective. Usually it's in the living room but she hurt her knee (something with a bus in Bogotá, she's in bed for a week) so we had the session in her bedroom. We sat surrounding her bed, and she just talked and talked while chewing mountains of coca leaves and smoking cigarettes--she constantly uses the words jodida, huevada, and carajo to mean great, which is even better when you remember that she's a famous distinguished professor her 60s.

First she explained all about this politics and performance conference she went to in Colombia, which seemed pretty wild and intense, especially the performances: a woman played a symphony with an instrument attached to her vagina, while another snorted cocaine onstage as the culmination of her performance. Silvia recounted this in very colorful detail. Then she announced that she had the idea in Colombia for the group to organize a big five-day conference called Coca Sin Fronteras, to combat Evo's "chauvinistic nationalism." She wants the conference to be at the end of october, so she delegated tasks to the research collective . She also wants them to do a graffiti project to promote it, with a tag for the collective. (She excitedly-yet-firmly gave them a huge amount of work, which made me stop salivating and remember the downside of the mentor-protege relationship for at least 30 seconds.) During all this she was intermittently passing books around and handing back papers and commenting on them, as well as chewing the coca and smoking.

They are all working on Sociology of the Image, which Silvia is convinced is the wave of the future but I'm a little fuzzy on still. Right now they're working on doing oral histories of diablos, these indigenous dancers who do these devil dances at carnavals all over and appear in early colonial art. So the students are going out and interviewing the diablos, but then they complain that they are expected to get drunk and dance with them. I guess Silvia also wants the conference to feature diablos from all over. The students seem very brilliant and friendly. Silvia invited me to do some kind of ceremony with them this Saturday, so I will definitely report.

Silvia was not impressed with my cooking (I mixed rice and quinoa, which in retrospect was a bad idea and really didn't taste very good, but there was just a little bit of quinoa left--she was pretty horrified by that), but she is going to teach me once she gets better. A few days ago she said "you're going to become like a daughter to me,"which was nice. She's pretty stressed out right now for the moment, with the injury, Nico, and the conference, and she's also had a parade of guests and students coming through, but I'm hoping things will settle down at some point and I can have more of a real conversation with her. In the meantime, I'm getting a lot of writing done, preparing to go to the archives, and still exploring the city. I'll post more pictures soon.

In which I nearly get my face chewed off and live to explore La Paz another day

I really like this one: "Trabajen, Derechistas, No Lloren"

This feminist mural is really nice too.

Last night I was awakened by a dog (which I thought was just feral but actually semi-belongs to the family) opening my window. Now the window was firmly shut, if not completely locked, so I have no idea at all how this dog managed it, but it was as close to a horror movie scene as I've ever come. I had to push/wrestle it back onto the sill--luckily it didn't gnaw my hand off--and then it sat there pawing at the glass. This is what happens, people, when you breed a species to be utterly dependent on humans.

THEN at 3 AM, I was awakened again by a loud knocking on my window. I thought it was the dog again and just decided to pretend it wasn't happening, but then it turned out to be Nico, who had come home drunk and somehow locked himself out.

But today Nico was at least sort of embarrassed (I wouldn't go to apologetic), and he and I made lunch with Silvina's husband--I don't know his name but Nico calls him "Maestro."

Though really, Maestro pretty much directed me and Nico; we cooked trout (which I ate; I will probably even eat chicken if Silvia cooks it), quinoa soup, and three different vegetable dishes. Everything was very lemony. The Maestro explained every step of the meal preparation and offered extensive commentary on the history of trout in Bolivia and the health benefits of lemon. We had to prop the oven door closed with a chair. It was like a cooking show.

Then I went out walking to the Plaza Murillo, to see the Archivo de Relaciones Exteriores, where I will start doing research sometime soon (when I get it together) . On the plaza, these schoolkids were walking, and this convoy of 3 SUVs went by and the kids all yelled "Evo, Evo!"and waved. It's cool to be somewhere where the left is actually in power; it feels really different than anywhere I've been.

Post #2 with authentic photos

I took a walk today and bought a cable (somehow I said la cable even though I totally knew it was el and didn't realize until I left the store that I sounded like an idiot, but at least I won't see the camera shop person again and it will be etched in my brain) and just walked around the busy student neighborhoods.

Walking in La Paz is exhausting, and people walk fast. I thought somehow that people here would walk slowly like in Santiago (yes, silly logic) but La Paz is way hillier than San Francisco, even, lots of streets that are just stairs, and people just go zooming by (me). Schoolkids run laughing and talking up these incredibly steep hills. Not many smokers here either, that I could see, again unlike Santiago. I may not need a futbol game after all.

Also, the graffiti seems really nice: Che Vive! (only once defaced by a "no") si al voto (about the constitutional reform) and shoot, something impressively derogatory about the right that I can't remember. I'll take more pictures of the graffiti when I find my memory card that has more than 6 pictures on it.

Nico and I had lunch together today, although we were only in the same room talking because he rejected my quinoa stir-fry and ate two ham and cheese sandwiches in like 30 seconds instead. We spoke Spanish and bonded over having stayed with conservative families in exchange programs--he was actually kicked out of his program in Switzerland for going out drinking too much, which is kind of amazing, and he was also kicked out of school in Texas on the first day for fighting these guys who were making fun of the word "Cochabamba," but then he became friends with his neighbor who taught him Reiki (the way he said it it almost sounded like a euphemism...) and who he still keeps in touch with. So that was nice; I thought maybe he was resentful/suspicious of me and/or just spoiled, but I think now that he was just working on his art project. He may be spoiled but kind of in a fun way.

I feel much better oriented today, after getting lost a bunch of times and realizing that the Calles Muñoz and Muñoz Cornejo are not the same, even though they are very close together. My face is still tingling from the altitude sickness medication.

More soon.

Post #1 de La Paz

I landed yesterday morning very early in La Paz. The airport is in El Alto, above the city, the indigenous capital of Bolivia and the place where they staged massive blockades to protest the possible moving of the capital to Sucre, to guarantee indigenous representation, etc (apparently nobody was very happy with Evo's decision to grant constitutional indigenous representation rather than an actual percentage of representatives in the congress, which is one of the reasons the radicals think Evo is a sellout already).

This is more or less what it looked like driving down from El Alto (note that I forgot the cable to upload pictures from my camera, so whatever pictures you see, for a little while at least, will be filched from other people's blogs/websites. I apologize for the lack of authenticity and promise to get the cable soon.). I actually think my view was prettier, with the sun rising over the mountains. Plus the cabdriver kept insisting that I was Latina--"but your parents came from South America"--. I chose to interpret it as a compliment on my (admittedly, extremely imperfect) Spanish rather than as a transparent bid for a bigger tip.

When I got here Beatriz, Silvia's research assistant, helped me get settled. She was very nice but kind of in a hurry. Silvia, the famous professor, is away at a conference until Monday and everyone seems a little lost without her. Today at lunch everyone--me, Nico (Silvia's son, in his early-20s, also living here, in our mutual friend Nancy's words "a playboy with a pop art sensibility" but not that friendly to me so far), and this couple who comes a few days a week to take care of the house--was just talking about when she would be back and what she likes to eat. They can do amazing things with quinoa here-I always thought people in the states just pretended to like it to be sanctimonious, but today we had it for two courses, first in a soup and then in a stir-fry with sesame oil and soy protein and vegetables. It's so good! The housekeeper, Silvina, explained to me how to make like 10 different kinds of food, but I'm not sure if I got it all. She is an amazing cook.

Today I walked around a bit in Sopocachi, my neighborhood. Again, the pictures I took are not yet available, but it looks kind of like this:

Actually, my part of Sopocachi is both grittier and more beautiful: the houses are all sorts of interesting colors and there is a lot of political graffiti which I think I need someone to help me interpret. I mean, I get the stuff that says "down with fascism!" but beyond that I'm a little lost. Walking around, I got lost and asked a few people for directions, but nobody knew where the street was. Then it ended up being very close by. I guess this is important to note, that I live on a very minor street.

Sorry this entry is not more exciting; my excuse is that I'm still feeling a little woozy from the altitude, despite the coca tea which is quite excellent. I'm not terribly sick, but I slept most of the day yesterday, and every few hours exhaustion hits me and I have to take another nap. The other reason, I guess, is that not much has happened yet. I will work on it and write again soon.

IMPORTANT MESSAGE

The Savage Detectives are suspending this blog until the financial crisis is resolved.

Trickle Up Economics

Today I had the wonderful honor of attending the White House Summit on Hispanic Educational Attainment, sponsored by the Boeing Company and the FedEx Corporation. I was waiting for the leading staff to spew the names of other corporations sponsoring the even. I mean, where were Coke and Pepsi? Is the economy so bad that not only has the current administration outsourced the war in Iraq to private companies, but now the U.S. Department of Education doesn’t have enough money to convene a meeting on an initiative begun by the current administration. I mean, it is not like they spent a lot of money on the event. The food sucked, they served home made sandwiches, cookies, soda, and miniature muffins from the supermarket. I was astounded by the how bad the food was, and I am not a foodie. On another note, the event took place at the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Education, and not at the White House, like the name would imply. Yup, it appears the recession is trickling upwards as the U.S. Department of Education is clearly going through tough times.

The Angry Left: Can You Feel the Rage?

Watching the RNC has been quite interesting this week.

I am amazed at how a party that has been controlling Washington for 8 years is trying to position itself as not being a part of the establishment. Furthermore, they will "stand-up" to the establishment. This is the party that has brought us the Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist lobbying scandal; has expanded government (not in a good way); and has made nepotism and cronyism an accepted practice in the nation's capital. What cognitive dissonance! I feel as angry (and disappointed) as the Republicans were when Gustav failed to become a massive hurricane.

Nevertheless, the biggest news at the RNC is that the presidential campaign is no longer a battle between McCain and Obama. Instead, it has become a battle for the souls of "hope" and "change". Who will the angry left side with, and why are they so angry? With whom will the community organizers side? The truth is out there, but not at the convention....