The driver starts up the car and lets it run to warm it. He says that we have a couple minutes, that gives me time for another cup of coffee. It will be my third but I can’t really wake up. It’s cold and dark outside and the dim yellow light in the kitchen is anything but exhilarating. It’s 5:30 when the car leaves the university driveway in front of my house. We stop and pick the doctors up at the Health Post a few minutes away and everyone teases me for looking so dumpy and worn out. If I didn’t feel so dumpy and worn out I’d try to think of something silly to say so I seem good natured. I didn’t really have it in me, anyway it’s just that morning REALLY hasn’t been my time of day.




I sort of zone out until we get to Coroico to pick up medical supplies a little after 6:00. I get out of the car to stretch my legs when while we wait outside the hospital. The adobe houses and cobblestone streets are totally alive in the pink sunrise. It feels like the light is emanating from inside them somewhere and the sun might as well not even be coming up. It’s the kind of light that has a texture to it, a density that you can almost touch. Bodies moving through it should leave churning wakes behind them and light objects could be suspended in it. The hopefulness from every new beginning in history has been collected and the soupy mass and poured into the valley where it’s so powerful that it might make you excited for a day of picking Coca.
My eyes open up a little bit.




Back on the road toward Santo Domingo I chat with the nurse next to me. She is a recent graduate of the UAC and now a full time employee. Behind us sit a nursing student and the campus doctor who was trained in La Paz. The visit we are going on is part of the campus health extension program, a couple times a week the health professionals and a student or two pack up some basic equipment and go visit one of the many small communities in the area. Santo Domingo has about 60 people and is 30 min from Coroico in the opposite direction as Carmen Pampa. Which means it’s poor and isolated but not at all unreachable. They have electricity, and I think some running water. When one thinks of rural life in a developing country this is what comes to mind, not desolate but anything from comfortable.





We pulled into town and parked on the soccer field. There are about 10 visible houses and a few more back in the woods. The doctors told me we are mostly here for the children and the elderly. They come here once a month and know exactly which houses to go to. The first one has a baby, I think three months old. We weigh it, give it a few vaccines and talk to the mother about basic health stuff. Has your child been sick? been eating regularly? sleeping? The baby is really normal, its weight is right, it’s clean, and it already has the big dark eyes that characterize the kids here. There are two older siblings who peek out from the door of the house. They look good, and only a little surprised to see a blond white person fumbling with their little brother in a baby scale.










In addition to drugs the doctors are here to provide information. To the mothers of young children they explain a new government benefit, all mothers are eligible to receive 120 B’s every other month until their child turns three. This comes in addition to all the other government benefits like the free medical care we are providing and food programs. There is a catch of course; the mother cannot get pregnant again until the child is three years old. In a country where condom use is low and sex ed is less popular than Ice Hockey many of these women could struggle not to get pregnant again. But that’s probably the reason for the incentive in the first place.






Later we visited an old couple, they looked like they should have been retired for 20 years and spend their time eating hard candy or falling asleep to daytime TV. In reality they probably weren’t much over 60 and they were working with their son when we arrived, drying and husking coffee beans. The woman was having trouble walking and said she was always dizzy in the morning. Her blood pressure was okay and the Doctor said she might need more vitamins, which we left for here. She won’t see another health specialist until the ones from the UAC come back in a month. She will be fine but I hope to be coddled a little more than that in my old age.


Some people gave us Avocados or Oranges for coming, they were pretty happy to have had the chance to talk to a DR. even though for the average person the conversation was like five min consumed mostly by pleasantries.






Every time I leave Carmen Pampa I am reminded of how much better things are in this community and in the university than in other parts of rural Bolivia. It’s amazing that a place which seemed so backwards to me for so long could actually be a big step up from other places so close but it’s really true.






Okay, well I miss the US and my friends and family. Don’t be afraid to drop a line and if you don’t hear back it’s just because I’m bien flojo.



LOVE



andy

It’s been nearly 10 months in the making, after hundreds of dollars and what seems like hundreds of trips to La Paz I’m finally a fully documented resident of Bolivia. At least the pic turned out right? I like it, a lot. I don’t care that my hair is unkempt or that my smile is a little crooked, during the picture the thing I was most concerned about was the cop next to me, the one holding my national ID#. I was really hoping he wouldn’t be cropped out. At least not entirely.

I could use the ID and the pic to generalize a ton of stuff about Bolivia. The time I waited to get the dumb thing says something, the fact that the pins on the number were broken and it had to be held could mean a lot, the glare on the numbers or the care that wasn’t taken to remove it might mean something too. RIGHT? Probably a lot of the generalizations would be accurate too.

I’ve made many assumptions and split second decisions in my time here. In most ways it’s just something you have to do in a culture that’s so different. The Bolivians I’ve met make them too. More than once someone has asked me if ALL the food we eat comes from a can. They mean it too, and when I say “no” they cite some friend of a friend who went to the US, or some movie. It’s okay to generalize and it’s normal, and it defines how we see and comprehend things. Getting a Bolivian to understand what’s a convenience store is a lot easier than you might think, sadly it doesn’t shatter the idea of how the people here see us.

My time away from home has made me think a lot about life in the US and how I see it from here. Going abroad to a poor country to volunteer makes it really easy to judge everything back home, and to be really harsh about it. Look I come here, my house is made out of MUD, I don’t have a microwave, my socks are so stretched and stained it looks like I’ve got burlap sacks jammed into my shoes, and I’m just fine. All this while you’re driving to work every day in your OWN PERSOSNAL CAR, eating Hot Pockets, and not even appreciating that the only parasites living off your sweat and blood are your own children.

I wouldn’t ever say anything so blunt outside of such an intimate context, so let’s keep the above to ourselves or someone might get upset.

Seriously though, it’s just not fair to take shots like that. That’s not what I want to do.

It’s not true anyhow - I mean my house is made out of adobe bricks covered with plaster and stones, so it’s only part mud.

I brought it up to say of course that I had a lot of misconceptions about life here when I first came, and I had a lot of unfair opinions about the US as well. I’m not promising to stop doing either one, I’m just saying that now I’m more conscious of it.

Let me reiterate some things. I live in a big, simple, partly mud house. I don’t have a microwave. I’m just fine, I’m happy. That’s the important part, that I’m happy. I don’t think it’s a surprise, and I don’t want it to be.

There is a surprise though, or for me anyway it was.

I’m not happy because I’ve left behind consumerism, because I haven’t. I not happy because I’ve changed so many lives, because I haven’t done that either - I hope I’ve touched a few though. I’m not happy because I’m a strong, incredible person doing something impossibly hard, because I’m really not that.

I’m happy even though most of the expectations I had about coming here turned out not to be true, and even though due to personal weakness I haven’t achieved the growth I hoped to. I’ve never been as peaceful as I am today and I can’t imagine I will be after I leave.

I don’t know why it is, I just AM happy.

Is that enough?

That’s the surprise…

The semester ends in two months. In two months I don’t know what I’m doing or where I’ll be. For the first time since I was in High School I’m okay with that.

LOVE

andy

Before too much time passes I wanted to write about Easter here. In many ways it wasn’t much different than Easter in The States. Bolivia is a religious country, by some measures more religious than the US. You know there was a lot of Spanish influence here in the past. One of the clearest reminders of that is the prominence of Christianity all across Bolivia today. It’s the biggest organized religion in the country, 95% of Bolivians are listed as Roman Catholic by the CIA World Factbook. At least in this part of the country every small community has a church, which might only be used a couple times a year but generally sits at the community’s heart and is the most prominent building.

The interesting thing about religion here is how it has mixed and coexists with pre-Columbian beliefs.

The first few days I was here we celebrated the feast of the patron saint of Carmen Pampa, or the year’s biggest party. There was a mass and the celebration took place in the courtyard of the community’s church. At this festival I was taught to give the first sip of whatever you are drinking to Pachamama or mother Earth. The dirt in front of the church was soaked throughout the day and night by this custom, and by all accounts Pachamama should have at least been tipsy. Our patron saint Maria del Carmen stayed stone sober, as she wasn’t offered a drop.

It’s not just at festivals. Miners give alcohol, coca, and even blood to ensure safety and good luck. They might say Hail Maries on their way to work, but the respects they pay to Catholic figures are nowhere near as institutionalized or ingrained into their culture as the rituals they perform for more archaic deities.

Every year around the beginning of Lent the Bolivians do a Challa, which is the cleaning, decorating and blessing of homes businesses and public places. I helped my old boss Diego bless his computer lab. After the decorating we poured potable rubbing alcohol all over the floor and said prayers to God and Pachamama. When I come home for lunch the Sisters had done the same in their garden. I think I’ve heard them talk about Pachamama in positive ways. Certainly the idea doesn’t seem to bother them, I’ve never heard a negative word about it anyway.

I took the following picture at the church in Trinidad Pampa a man dressed in VERY traditional VERY pre-Christanity wearing a cross and looking quite reverant.

Anyway back to EASTER. The UAC masses are more traditional Catholicism, at least by Bolivian standards. It started with a bonfire lit in front of the church, then we all lit candles and marched into the dark building. It was really beautiful.

There weren’t too many students around, so most of the people who came were community members. The kids here are nuts and only sort of supervised. No extra fires started and only one kid did anything dangerous chasing his brother with a fiery stick. Easter miracle. Then we ate fried dough and drank Api, which is a thick purple drink made from corn and served hot, very good.

In Coroico they welcomed back hikers finishing the Choro, LIKE ME. There were dances and mass.

How's this last pic grab you for interesting cultural Conflicts. Bolivian Tourisim student rocking a Favre jersey looking at the same beautiful curch the above photo came from.

I hope all is well back home.

LOVE

andy

Imagine three days hiking in rain and drizzle following an ancient Inca trail from The Cumbre (16,000 ft) to Coroico (6,000 ft). When we started there was icy snow in the air, when we finished our feet burned at least as much as one would expect after the 35 miles they had carried us. The drastic changes in climate we witnessed on the trail and the extremeness of peoples lives were both characteristic of Bolivia. They say when you walk The Choro you pay for your sins with the hardships you encounter. I might be a cleansed man now but it didn’t come easily.

I'm writing this to invite you to be part of what I hope will become an annual fundraiser here at UAC-CP. Every Easter hundreds of Bolivians walk The Choro trial, as penance for their sins. I did it and now I’m asking retroactively* for your support. I used to do Walkathons in elementary school at Baker Park, It was six miles and we got hotdogs at the end. Some of you may have been hit up for money then. This walk was much more difficult so I’m hoping you see that difference on your bank statement.

HERE’S THE LINK to the fundraiser FOR ANYONE ALREADY INTERESTED

http://www.firstgiving.com/uac-cpandy

I’m hoping to raise $2,000 which is the cost of educating, housing, and feeding breakfast to one student for a year here at UAC-CP, one student who wouldn’t otherwise have a chance at higher education. One person who will go on to create growth in a country that continues to grapple with terrible poverty.

SO WHAT DO YOU GET OUT OF THIS, there must be something special I can thrown in since in fact I already did the walking… Aside from peace of mind, and knowing the money you give makes an incredible difference I’ll also throw in a blog entry dedicated to The Choro and the experiences I had there. I’ll make it worth your money,BUT PONY UP OR IT’S NOT COMING

HERE’S THE LINK AGAIN FOR THE REST OF YOU

http://www.firstgiving.com/uac-cpandy

Most of you know what I’m doing here in Bolivia and have some idea about the mission of the school, if you are looking for more information about either you can check the following links.

Carmen Pampa Fund Website - http://www.carmenpampafund.org/

Vice Director Hugh’s BLOG- http://carmenpampa.blogspot.com/

Volunteer Sarah’s BLOG- http://uchumachi.blogspot.com/

*The internet has been down a ton and really slow the rest of the time, I just couldn’t get the site put together sooner.

Thanks so much for the time

andy

This Coke truck got jammed up against the wall outside our neighbors (the sisters) house. They left it overnight in the road, a little off to the side and during the night it slid in the mud. They have spent a couple days trying to dig it out, at some point they will probably have to call someone to pull it out.

The roads aren’t great here, the one pictured here is worse than most. I was told once that only 5% of the roads were paved in Bolivia, I don’t know if it’s true or not but around here the only paved road I know is the one that goes from La Paz to Caranavi, it passes close to Coroico but you have to take cobblestone and dirt roads to get into town. By the way when I say close to Coroico I mean you can see the road from town and make our cars or even people easily, but the drive is about 20 min from when you exit the “freeway” to when you arrive “downtown”. Coming from Coroico to Carmen Pampa or any of the surrounding communities is all dirt or in this season really deep mud.

On a positive note USAID put in a great sidewalk between Coroico and Carmen Pampa, now it’s really a pleasure to walk into town.

LOVE

andy

I saw a drag show two days ago. It was part of the “anniversary” of the nursing department. They also had a dance, played soccer and musical chairs, and hazed new students by making them crawl through mud in an orange plastic tube with a sign that said something like intestinal parasites. Just one more reason Bolivia kicks USA's ass. The annual celebration in the POLS department at UWRF was a wiener roast followed by a lackluster volleyball game.

I mentioned something about cross-dressing before in this blog. I hate to come back to it but it’s an interesting part of the culture. First of all I should say it’s really popular, street performers do it, it’s on TV, and the students have featured it a few times before. Mostly it’s done for comic value, after all can you think of anything funnier than a spiky haired guy in clip-on earrings and a skirt, who looks all too comfortable in heels and makes most of the girls jealous of his legs as he’s being chased around by either a big breasted cowboy or a “man” with a permanent marker beard wearing a suit that only half hides shapely hips as he grabs his crotch and walks so shoulder heavy you’d think his spine was fused.

I don’t know much about psychology but I’m pretty sure there is interesting research about sexual outlets for men in super macho countries, which would probably have something intelligent to say about why being left by your girlfriend can be seen as just lacking control over her but wearing fake boobs and lipstick is cool.

Anyway, Sister Jean doesn’t like it and won’t go, she says it’s sexist and disrespectful to women. Maybe shes right, but the girls cross dressed too and did their best to make macho guys look like tools, for whatever reason this never gets as much of a reaction and it is definitely viewed as just a supplement to the real action.

Yesterday Sam and I became the first semi-pro English speaking radio advertising icons in the Coroico area, or so we were told. One of our old students has a restaurant and thought there was an untapped English speaking market that he could corner by putting out an ad in their native language. I don’t know if it’s true or not but we’ll see. There are certainly plenty of English speaking tourists that come through here. We were paid with a few glasses of cold beer, made more RICO because we drank them at about 10:00 am.

We showed up with no script, no reservations, and no idea what was going on. In about 15 min we had written and recorded in two takes what will be the vocal track for a heavily produced typical Latin ad - Lots of sound effects, fast crazy music in the background, and at least one incredibly obnoxious voice (MINE!).

Okay, that’s all

LOVE

andy

Some volunteers and I with a few of the girls from the PRE. Note the girl who brought a stuffed animal for the pic.

One of the classes I teach is with the schools pre-university students. They are a swollen group of over 80 kids completing a curriculum that stands somewhere between minimum high school standards and college generals. For English they are divided into four groups but generally they have all their classes at the same time in the same low ceilinged closed up classroom that unmercifully overlooks the fútsal court.


Before the semester started, around 200 kids came and took an entrance exam, none passed but the 85 highest scores were accepted to the “PRE”. After the successful completion of the pre-curriculum they will all move into one of the other 5 “carreras” Veterinary, Agronomy, Nursing, Teaching, or Eco-Tourism.


I like the PRE, they remind me of kids at a summer camp experiencing a lot of new exciting stuff for the first time, sometimes full of excitement and wonder and other times just frustrated and homesick. Most of all they just seem young. They illustrate the conflict that exists in all the UAC students, a dichotomy between being emotionally young in many fundamental ways while having lived through incomprehensibly (for us anyway) difficult things. These are kids that don’t like to walk at in the dark because they believe there are ghosts and ghouls out at night. Kids who giggle in class and draw dirty pictures in their notebooks (carry around stuffed animals {told you so}). Many of them however have worked in subsistence agriculture as long as they have been physically able. They have seen preventable illness take friends or family members. They have cared for younger siblings, cooked, cleaned, and otherwise supported their families more like Cinderella than anyone else I can think of, minus the part about not being loved which depends on the family.


I don’t want to get carried away now… but really they are sort of the antithesis to my brother Nathan.


Anyway just like Nate they are very loveable.

Don't get jealous but this is their bathroom.

I said the group was a little too big, last semester there were only like 60 of them. Needless to say just finding enough beds has been a challenge. Below you can see a typical dorm room the girls have two of these. The classroom that felt crowded with 60 has the qualities of a beehive with 80+.


Most of these students are the first generation in their family to go to college which probably isn’t a surprise. But what is a surprise is that most students in the PRE are girls. I think there are only about 25 boys, or less than one third. The school as a whole has more female students but not by this margin. This kind of gender imbalance exists in the US at many institutions but it’s really interesting to see it here. Remember that college education being available to the general population is sort of a novel idea here. I wouldn’t dare speculate what it means, but many development experts including Greg Mortenson (Three Cups of Tea) who has been building schools in Central Asia for a decade and a half, say that educating girls is one of the biggest steps a country can take to reducing poverty and creating real social change.


SO maybe I would speculate that is a pretty darn good thing (and by the way we do accept donations).


In this time of economic crisis be thankful your diet includes meat!

Thanks for the time,

LOVE

andy

Carnaval was this last weekend. It’s sort of like mardi gras. The festival has roots in indigenous cultural and religious traditions, during colonial rule the festival was combined with Christian beliefs which have powerful influence today. The festival took place in Oruro, which is up on the altiplano at around 13k ft. The main attraction is the dancing, thousands of costumed dances parade the streets for two full days and nights. Wikipedia claims 28k people dance with over 1k providing live music. Dozens of traditional dances are featured all complete with their own elaborate costumes. I’ve never been to mardi gras but seriously how can it even compete.

This guy was dancing a rip off of the afrobolivian Saya. Yes he is in blackface, and no it's not really that racist.

Like I said some people have super elaborate costumes. I have written about the ways people spend money here. Most people are poor right, but when festival time comes around all the stops get pulled out. Spending hundreds of B's to rent the kind of crazy stuff everyone was dancing in is just expected. I frankly don't understand how the industry sustains itself for these outfits. Most are works of art, many are unique at least in minor aspects. There are a lot of festivals and dances like this are normal but seeing the sheer quantitiy of these things that exist (28k dancers each in their own) and knowing that there are still more being used in other cities and sitting in wharehouses I just can't understand how the people who make them or rent them or do whatever make any money.

In this machista country carnival is one of the times a tough mustachioed gnagsta like this can cut back and let his inner artist out. He is dancing a Llamerada and no matter how hard anyone tries it will never be a masculine dance. But anti masculine backlashes are common in Bolivian culture, especially in the perfoming arts. It is VERY common to see dudes in drag; dancing and acting in street performances.

On the other hand the super masculine Caporales left all the girls swooning, calling out for kisses blown from the fine gents pictured above. Don't let the bells fool you this dance features grunting, cowboy hats, slicked back hair, and shoulder pads that make professional football players looke like an exercise in finding ones inner woman.

Don't worry, I got in on the action too. Here I am weak in the knees myself .

And below making the bass drum cool again.

Carnaval was a riot. Bolivians are still friendly and fun. I met some cool people, drank some suprisingly affordable beer, and made some good memories.

In a couple days I'll try to muster up something a little more intelligent.

I hear MN has a lot of snow. WELL the bridge I cross going to work has been washed away by heavy rain. Every morning I'm crossing a fallen log like somekind of flippin' boyscout.

LOVE

andy

So death isn’t anything I would pretend to know about. I’ve felt losses in my life but never like that. They say it’s hard. I have been terrified of it as long as I have grasped the concept. I’m spiritual enough to believe in eternity, and that’s what gets me. You die and that’s it, I’ve always been taught that whatever comes next is forever. I’m pretty sure I believe that, and I can’t take the idea. Fortunately this isn’t about me.

Last week one of my college professors died. She was my advisor actually and on our best days I would call her a friend. She had emergency brain surgery for a surprise brain tumor. They are always surprises I suppose, but this was an extreme case.

One day she passes out on a couch at work and the next she is under the knife. That was a year and a half ago. I think she might have expected to make it, the odds couldn’t have been good but she tried to return to normalcy like nothing had happened. She was teaching classes the following semester, only a handful of weeks later.

I think I expected her to make it. I always take people for granted. Death was for my parents friends, people in newspapers, and the worlds intangible poor too far away too matter.
I’m fine though, maybe I’m too far away for it to matter.

There’s something interesting, she had Facebook and in the days since her death her “wall” has been flooded with support from friends and loved ones. (For those who don’t know Facebook is a social networking site, and a “wall” is a publically viewable message board). I haven’t written anything. It seems like such an information age way to pay ones respects. But it’s not fundamentally different from going to a grave and talking or leaving flowers.

Anyway it’s not like her husband can just shut the thing off. Nor can he change the settings or leave a message saying she has passed one. She might as well still be there reading the messages and writing back (wouldn’t it be a great science fiction story if she did). That’s how I found out about her, I went to her Facebook profile and saw all these goodbye messages. Surreal. There is still a pic of her at an aquarium. It’s a good way to remember her.
So the profile will stay, who knows for how long. Maybe forever - there’s that word again. Maybe she is looking down reading it. Like a “Family Circle” cartoon, face down on a cloud, arms crossed in front of here, laptop open, and a smile on her face. If I were her husband I’d show it at the wake.

I hope it stays up, that’s the kind of eternity I can wrap my head around. Somehow it’s just not so scary. Technology right, I’m just a product of my generation after all. If it does stay I’ll write, there’s even a way to send digital gifts. Flowers that don’t rot, that’s paying respect.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?id=799879548&ref=ts

LOVE

andy

Sam coined the phrase “Bolivian Party Trick” our first day here, at the annual festival in Carmen Pampa. It basically means something that is very commonplace here in Bolivia but seems crazy or unexpected or even unbelievable to an outsider. I’m going to talk about three today, this is not an exhaustive list, just the first three I came up with.

This first one is where the name came from.

They love their parties here, I’ve said that. I love their parties too. They are so different from how we do things in back in the US. Many of the differences are really just twists on customs I’m familiar with from home. They still dance - just in long awkward lines, they still talk to each other in really friendly ways - but by about 10 pm even the old people are a little more “handsy” than I’m used to, and they still bring drinks for everyone to share. But whether it’s a liter bottle of beer or a warm milky alcoholic mix served from a gas can it comes with the same plastic cup as it is passed/carried around. The thing about it is it’s just one cup per beverage, not per person. The ratio is probably around 10 to 1, ten people for every one cup. Don’t worry it’s still hygienic. After you slam a cup (you have to hurry others are waiting) you vigorously flick whatever is leftover on to the ground – that should take care of the bacteria right?

----

You know how when you buy mayo in the states it comes with this little warning on it that says "refrigerate after opening." And you know how when you don’t refrigerate it and like leave it in a warm place for a while it goes bad really fast. And how if you ate if when it was bad it would sort of make you sick. Yeah, well not surprisingly all that is true in Bolivia too. Mayo goes bad fast, can make you sick, and really should be kept in the fridge instead of the sun. One of the first weeks I was here I got burned by the most dangerous of all party tricks. I was sitting down to one of my first plates of street vender fried chicken. I had a sheltered, weak stomach and I was trying to stay on guard. I asked for it with no condiments, because I didn’t trust them. Anyway, it was dry and too salty, the fries were soggy and I lost resolve fast.

Before I know it I was reaching for the most harmless thing on the table, the mustard. It was warm to the touch, and sticky on the outside. Who cares I thought, it’s mustard, no one gets sick from mustard. I tipped it upside down and a runny stream of 85 degree, weeks old, yellow and white, bacteria heaven bathed my chicken - like a protester on the wrong end of a fire hose. It took me a few seconds to realize that this wasn’t just some weird Bolivian mustard I would have to get used to but learn to love like hotdogs or low fat ice cream. That this was MAYONASE improperly cared for and thoughtlessly disguised as a much more benign condiment. A veritable Trojan Horse of e-coli, selmenella, or whatever deadly bacteria would thrive there . But what could I do? There I was 22 years old, a little scared, really confused, and so concerned about not offending cultural norms that I ate it and even called it RICO twice.

P.S. I didn’t really get any sicker from that than I was in general for the first three months.

-----

So I have this hotel I always stay at in La Paz, the Angelo Colonial. It’s alright. Pretty cheap, with friendly staff that stays up all night watching dubbed Simpsons episodes in case someone comes home late and needs to get in. They still manage to afford extras like a guest kitchen and hot water. They cut some corners of course, like clean sheets and toilet paper, but life is about compromise. Anyway one of the best things about this place is the liquid soap they give you when you check in. It comes in this clear heavy duty plastic pillow shaped bag. It’s really heavy duty, any reasonable amount of tugging or tearing doesn’t even leave a scratch. It is sealed perfectly with no intentional imperfections to ease opening. The only reliable way I have found to open these things is with my teeth.

Anyway I don’t know where they are made but somewhere at a lower altitude because they come really pressurized, (stop me if you have heard this one before), but of course as you are tearing the plastic with your teeth the watery soap sprays out with considerable force, right into the back of your throat, every time.

It would be silly to expect these soaps to come with a “contents under pressure warning” in fact they come marked as “baby shampoo” with a picture of an adorable little kid on them – it’s cute but very misleading. By now this shouldn’t surprise me, this isn’t the kind of place where nothing comes with a warning.

Thanks for reading,

LOVE

andy

Toady we will be discussing ruins from the Bolivian Altiplano to the Sacred Valley in Peru. These Incan and pre-Incan wonders have captivated generations of American and European tourists while representing indigenous pride and history shared across the Andean Region. Today the pride is as strong as ever, and why shouldn't it be. The nobleness of the pre-Columbian Incan Empire stands in stark contrast to the humble life of an indigenous person in Latin America today, and it is completely incomparable to the lives they lead as property only a few generations ago.

A new trend is emerging that has drastically changed the face of tourism in this part of the continent. In the recent past only the wealthiest Latin American nationals were able to afford to travel and see attractions like the UNESCO World Heritage Site: Machu Picchu, but continuing economic development in countries like Brazil, Chile, and Argentina has brought a lot more regional tourism to the hotspots that used to be out of reach.

But what does heritage really mean, and what is its significance in this context?

HERITAGE - "something that comes or belongs to one by reason of birth" (Dictionary.com 2009)

And it's important because based on this definition the changes occurring are extremely important and welcome. More people than ever are having access to their roots, access that has traditionally been limited to outsiders. That's a great thing. There is a catch, the poorest people still can't afford to take trips like this, can't even afford to take the time off work. I think you should all know by now that these people are also the most indigenous, and the direct decedents of the people who built these wonders. Spanish speaking or not a lot of white faces walking around Machu Picchu is not heritage, not yet.

I've got a story. Last year a group of my tourism students took a trip. They had been saving up money for a while and decided that if they were going to have careers in tourism they should know the tourist attractions in the area. They headed northeast to Copacabana on Lake Titicaca, and then north through Puno in Peru and on to Cuzco. They slept on busses and ate fruits and bread from markets. They had week-long budgets that would have looked more like the dinner bill for American tourists. By the time they reached Cuzco they barely had enough to make it home again, and a trip to the ruins was absolutely out of the question because after admission and transportation were calculated the number was equal to a Bolivian professionals monthly salary. So they went home after seeing some cool stuff (but nothing like the wealthy foreigners were seeing), openly acknowledging that they would probably never see the ruins unless working as a guide for foreigners.

Lets talk ruins now. Machu Picchu, pictured above is the most well know site in South America if not the world. It was unknown to the Spanish during their conquest of the Incas, and as a result is very well preserved. It wasn’t "discovered" by outsiders until 1911, but almost immediately it achieved massive fame. In 1916 National Geographic dedicated an entire issue to the ruins. No one knows exactly what the city was used for or even how many people lived there. Hypotheses range from fortress to royal getaway. Regardless the location is definitely secluded. Here’s the path that comes through the back door. It wraps along this cliff face for a long way and is extremely narrow, only a couple feet wide in some places. The drop-off is a lot bigger than it looks, hundreds of meters down to churning muddy rapids.

Regardless of it's precise usage most experts are pretty sure the city was important because of the high quality masonry. The stone blocks are cut to fit together PERFECTLY. The pic below shows what at first looks like shoddy construction. But its not, it's just unfortunate placement. The ruins lie on fault line in a very active geologic zone. Over the years the ground has been moving under this structure causing it to come apart.

Some of the blocks used in construction are huge, like the one featured at the bottom center of the above pic. The rock type came from relatively distant quarries and it is believed that stones like this were moved by hundreds of men at a time using some type of rope or lever. There are two lumps on the lower part of the big stone. People think they are leftover from moving, and were in the process of being sanded away.

The pic on the right shows a cut rock that is thought to have been used by the Incas as some kind of meteorological calendar. Which is cool enough but the modern story associated with it is probably more memorable.

So the local beer brand Cusqueña was filming a commercial. They were using a big heavy video camera suspended above the rock on the right. They were swinging it all around and getting real close then real far away. Anyhow someone didn't quite secure the camera and it fell during the shoot. It hit the corner of the stone and actually chipped a section (not shown) off. Sort of ironic considering the beer features a pic of the ruins on every bottle.

People have been very critical of the fees associated with seeing the ruins. At every turn one is paying prices that would be high in the US, usually what they are receiving is basically free anywhere else. The 2hr/3hr train ride is over $30 each way. Admission is $20-40 for students/non-students. Busses from the town of Aguas Calientes to the ruins are $7 each way, it's a pretty short ride, the rout can be walked in about and hour and a half. All told it can cost upwards of $100 just in admission and transportation.

Another criticism of the park is the damage tourism is causing both ecologically speaking and in terms of physical damage to the ruins. Simply too many people are being allowed into the park. The UN has declared it one of the most endangered historical sites on Earth.

Outside of Oyantaytambo in Peru's Sacred Valley are some ruins that are almost completely overlooked by tourists. They are all that is left of a city named Puma Marka that was built by the Incas. It was inhabited until the Spanish came and burned it. Its residents were enslaved and sent to nearby mines.

The construction quality though impressive was not like that of Machu Piccu. This area was obviously of more modest usage. Some of the buildings were three stories tall, the irrigation system is extensive. Water is brought from mountaintop springs through brick canals along hillsides where is it used (even today) to irrigate crops. Some of these canals are miles long.
No one knows much about the village, even its population would be a big guess. The name comes from the shape when viewed from above... a puma. Sacred to the Incas the Puma can be see by those with powerful imaginations in building shapes, rock formations, and even the shape of water bodies across Andean America.

The last ruins we will discuss today are found on the Isla Del Sol island of the sun in Lake Titticaca. This island is considered on of the most important religious sites in Inca culture. It is supposed to be the birth place of Viracocha or the creater god who would later make humans out of rocks found on the shores of the lake. His head is the pizza slice shaped thing in he middle of the following pic.

The 12 year old that took my family and I around the Island guided our attention to this God by hucking rocks at his head.

There are 800 families who live on the island. Tourism and agriculture support the economy. On the island there are about 180 individual ruin sites most from Incas and Tiwanakus. These ruins include massive terracing projects that cover the entire island and make agriculture possible even today. Jacques Costeau came here in 1979 and discovered ruins a few meters underwater. Some claim these ruins to be the lost island of Atlantis.

That's all for this week be sure to tune in again soon when for when we discuss BOLIVIAN PARTY TRICKS.

Vicuña– a relative of the llama with the finest fur of any animal. It can only be sheared once every three years, and in Incan culture it was illegal for anyone but royalty to wear garments made from its fur.

After weeks on the road, and a welcome visit from my family I am back, with resolve to keep posts coming EVERY WEEK.

Summer classes are staring up, I am co-teaching a mixed level English class to about 20 tourism students who failed this last semester. English has been a major problem in that department where the upper two levels passed only small minorities of their students. Throughout the university many students and faculty view the English program as of secondary importance. The students especially have trouble grasping the role of English as a key language in the world economy and of the world economy's influence in Bolivia.

Some parts of this and other South American countries are extremely isolated. Communities where children still grow up speaking an indigenous language and have to learn Spanish as a second language are not unheard of. All the UAC-CP students I know of speak fluent Spanish, but many grew up in very isolated places. Though in some ways Bolivia is modernizing quickly (we have internet in Carmen Pampa) changes are recent and not occurring in all areas. Most students have little concept of globalization. Almost none have left the country and a surprising few have even traveled past La Paz. Needless to say they don’t see a use for English, especially the level of English they will have after the just two semesters they receive.

In most fields of study this isn’t the end of the world. In the field of tourism however we believe that English is essential for the success of the graduates. The first tourism class will be graduating in February (for many this is pending their completion of my summer term English class). It will be interesting to see where their degree takes them. Although tourism exists in Bolivia it is still an undeveloped industry. English or not these students have a fantastic opportunity to carve out niches and create the kind of new eco-tourism that, in theory, could help Bolivia grow in a more sustainable way.

I saw a lot of great stuff these last few weeks. Most notably ruins at Machu Picchu. I want to talk about them a different time, in more appropriate detail. I got to see Peru. A lot of stuff was really similar to Bolivia. One of the most important differences was how much more developed their tourisim industry is. As a result everything costs about 2x as much as here. There was a lot of English, most of the signs in touristy areas were in English, sometimes ONLY in English. Also most of their treasures have been preserved much better than those in Bolivia. All over the city of Cuzco are beautiful Incan walls, or portions of them.

Kate, her friend Chelsea, and I stayed in a town called Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley leading up to Machu Picchu. It had more of an old world feel than anywhere I have been. Absolutely pinched in a series of cloudy steep mountains the town had been destroyed and later rebuilt by the Incas in the 15th century. The streets were all narrow, and lined on either side by high tapered walls that dated well before the arrival of the Spaniards. There is a lot of rain this time of year, and after an especially heavy outburst we were treated to this rainbow.

Later we did some hiking and came across these corn fields.

Corn exists in Bolivia although we don’t eat much of it in my area. But in this part of Peru we saw it everywhere. It isn’t like corn in the US. As a plant it isn’t that different, shorter and not grown in as huge a quantity. But the edible part is novel to the point that Kate thought it was garlic when someone was selling it off the cob. That should give you a mental image, right? Garlic cloves with out the skins. Yellowish white, waxy, and BIG. I read a book that says as recently as 10 years ago (before recession of glaciers) the kernels were the size of AMERICAN QUARTERS. They aren’t a lot smaller than that now. They aren’t sweet and juicy like the corn you can get in MN. Eating it I thought that someone had found a way to grow yucca (starchy tuber, like a dry potato) on a cob. It’s filling, and probably nutritious, but not quite delicious. When they pop it becomes a substance indistinguishable from Styrofoam packing peanuts, which is sold to unsuspecting tourists all over La Paz and Cuzco. Here is Kate choking a bite down right off the cob.

The agriculture in this part of Peru (and Parts of Bolivia) is unique and a testament to the pre Spanish civilizations who lived here. Below are shown terraces (much different from those used in Coca production) that were built by the Incas. They are not on every hillside but they are on many and even some slopes that are essentially cliffs. The walls are high, 5-7 feet with flat areas of varying size depending on the grade of the hill. Not all are still used for agriculture but they are all still in GREAT shape. In some areas they constitute an enormous % of the hillsides. I can’t imagine the amount of work that went into their construction, even with modern tools it would be a monumental task to build them all.

Cristos – or big statues of Jesus overlooking cities from hilltops are really popular around here. The most famous is in Rio de Janero, Brazil (Christ the Redeemer – voted one of the NEW 7 WONDERS OF THE WORLD). Cochabamba has one too, the biggest on Earth at 46 meters. Kate and I hiked to Cuzco’s, which was only about 20 feet tall.

I thought this was such an interesting and contradictory image of Christ, surrounded by barbed wire he looked less like a savior and more like a Soviet-era political icon.

I hope you all had a good holiday season.

LOVE

andy