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