Welcome to our family blog!

We began in September 2010 by traveling a portion of the Camino de Santiago, the ancient pilgrimage route that leads to the tomb of Saint James in Santiago, Galicia, in the northwestern corner of Spain. The name of our blog is inspired by the camino, and we'll have many stories (cuentos) to tell! We spent 2010-2011 on an intentional international journey, living and working in Spanish-speaking countries. Since then, we are immersed back in our lives at home but will report on occasional openings and discoveries. Please join us!

Friday, November 18, 2011

My first experience in prison

 I have been volunteering in the Massachusetts prison system with a program that works with inmates to learn alternatives to violent behavior. The following is a piece I wrote for the volunteer newsletter.

Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) Experience “On the Inside”

 
“Nancy, I’d like to do that Light and Lively exercise after lunch.” “I’ve been thinking about that all weekend, and I think…” The conversations swirl around me as the AVP workshop at a medium security prison, “on the inside”, begins. We are 14 prisoners, mostly African American, including 3 trained facilitators and 4 white middle class women from the outside. It’s not hard to tell who is a prisoner here by race, class or gender.
But when I look closely, I see a different story. When I look beneath all these differences between “us” and “them” in my mind and heart, I feel that I have entered a monastery of sorts, where the inmates are focused on learning about themselves and improving their interactions with the world. True, this is a self-selected group. Unlike in some other programs, prisoners do not win a reduction in their sentence for attending AVP, so their presence is entirely voluntary, a contrast to most of the rest of their schedule.
Right from the beginning, I noticed a deep level of sharing that would be unusual in most groups on the outside. On my first experience inside a prison, I expected to be surrounded by a group of “hardened criminals” who were unwilling to share much, people who were mired in shame and fear of each other and themselves. I was surprised when we did an exercise early on asking us to name, in front of the entire group, positive and negative influences on our lives as well as the resulting effects on us. Absent fathers and racist societies were mentioned, but also loving relatives, success in school and at sports, good marriages and children who continue to love their fathers in prison. Many comments were accompanied by deep feelings, verging on tears.
Later on in the week, we reviewed “The Anatomy of an Apology” and then were given some time in silence to write a letter of apology to someone. The silence in the room was profound, even worshipful. Afterwards, one of the younger men said with much happiness and relief in his voice: “I feel so much lighter now! I can’t believe it! How would it be if I wrote letters to ALL the people I need to apologize to?” I noticed all the prisoners carefully tucked their letters away, one sliding his inside his sock. I wondered how many of these letters were delivered, and if so, how much healing could result?
I brought my own assumptions to this workshop, my first visit inside a prison.  I had been cautioned during the orientation that they might try to “set me up” so that I would compromise myself by bringing in something they could use.  I also came with a package of emotions ranging from anger and disgust at these men’s crimes to anger at a society that is willing to make humans pawns in this vast prison industry, which wastes lives and talents at enormous cost to us all. However, I learned that many of these people are not throwing away their lives, even though some of them have life sentences with no opportunity of parole. They are reading, thinking, praying and meeting together to do what they can in their limited situations. They are gaining the wisdom to see others with compassion and love, and to avoid violence next time, inside as well as outside prison. They are willing to trust each other and name their truths aloud. Watching them take these risks, I found it easier than I would have thought to lay aside my preconceptions and to share some of my inner truth. For the days that I was inside, I truly joined this little monastery and it became a journey of exploration for me as well.
So if you are considering going to a weekend retreat to gain wisdom and understanding of your own life, and to open your heart, why not spend it learning those things with people in prison?

Monday, November 7, 2011

Reflections on our Gap Year by Conor

In organizing my files from our sabbatical year, I came upon this summary of the year by Conor which he wrote shortly after we returned. It got lost in the avalanche of work awaiting us upon our return. It's a wonderful summary of our trip written from a 15 year-old's perspective, someone who gained many years of depth and maturity over the course of the year. In his understated way, Conor sums up the trip well: "This has definitely been a journey!"

We first had the idea to go on this trip a while back, when I was very young, and the thought of leaving friends behind was scary and unpleasant. We were able to do this trip because Laura and I entered kindergarten one year ahead of when we were supposed to. It worked out that Evan had just finished high school and we had just finished middle school, leaving us all in a good stopping place. We decided to take the year off and begin high school a year later. Our reasons for doing the gap year were also to get to know other cultures and people around the world, instead of staying in the US. Looking back, a big advantage of doing it was that we were able to spend a lot of concentrated time with our family. I think that normally we all do our separate things, and we don’t really get to talk that much to each other. Now with high school and college coming up, it makes me especially grateful to have done this.
            I first felt that going away would be a hard thing to do, to leave friends, your home and your routine to go do something different. As the time to board the plane crept up though, it was something different, something exciting, something new. It all depended on my point of view. In the first half of the trip, I didn’t feel that there I was homesick very much, I’m not sure why. It could be that there was still novelty in this idea, and there was so much more to do, so many more adventures. This feeling stayed the second half of the trip, which was something I was wondering about, about whether we’d get bored of traveling. I now realize that for me, to be bored of traveling is an oxymoron.
            On our trip, we spent a lot of time in Spain. In early fall, we walked the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage across Spain, ending in Santiago de Compostela, where the bones of Saint James are buried. The Camino was one of the most interesting parts of our trip. One can make the walk whatever they want to. It can be spiritual, athletic or just a time to reflect. There is a definite sense of community that I noticed on the trail. One might spend the night in one hostel, meet a person, talk to them and then see them again at a hostel two or three days down the road. Spiritually, I found the Camino very helpful. We would walk in silence, and all I could hear was the sound of my boots on the worn-down gravel path, and the noises of birds in the bushes. They were blackberry bushes to be exact, almost picked clean from hungry walkers, but there always remained a few hidden for the determined. I feel that the Camino also produced a healthy lifestyle. We got up early, and started walking with our backpacks. We’d have breakfast at the first town we came to, and keep walking for six hours, having bread, cheese and water for lunch. We’d go to bed with the sun and wake up with the sun. When we arrived at Santiago de Compostela, we went into the famous church, only to find a large part of it under scaffolding being cleaned for the Pope’s visit the following week.
            Once we finished the Camino de Santiago, we rented a car, and drove around for four days. We’d spend one night here, then another night somewhere else. There was a definite freedom of being able to drive the same section in two days that you spent the last two weeks walking. After walking, driving seems so unreasonably fast. We lived out of our suitcases for most of the first half of our trip, which can get a little tiring. We spent most of our time in the towns looking at the museums they had, then left. Thankfully, we didn’t do that all the time, as we stayed with friends for longer periods of time.
            We crossed the border into France as we came over the Pyrenees. To do so, we passed the border control station, consisting of an abandoned booth in the middle of the road, which we didn’t even have to stop at. A group of cows we stopped to let pass caused more of a hassle than going into France did. We later found out that we had taken the rustic road, quite a bit longer than the newly built highway. Almost immediately after we entered France, we stopped at a café, and were served Crème Brulé, and hot chocolate to counter the foggy day outside. We surveyed the café, and noticed a strange, seemingly out-of-place bicycle motif. Unbeknownst to us, the road we were driving on was part of the Tour de France. We had a bit of trouble as the people in France speak neither English nor Spanish and there wasn’t enough time to learn French, so we had to rely on our mother’s French, which was frustrating at times for me. I was used to communicating for myself!
Later, driving through the country-side, we saw row after row of grapes, all to be harvested for wine. We passed a wine store, and decided to drop in. Half an hour later, we were back on the road with two bottles of wine in the trunk, one for us, and the other for our next hosts.
            One of the highlights of our stay in France was seeing some of the cave paintings in southern France. We went down into the cave, a long way down. It grew hotter and hotter as we descended. We saw as we came around the corner a wall lit up, and displayed was a red hand painted on the rock, and a few feet over, a horse running. This was just amazing to see, to think that these had been around for 50,000 years. In the same day, we also saw rock huts built in the dolmens or hills. There are still castles around, a few turned into private homes, others into museums. Towns still look like they did in the Middle Ages, mostly preserved, except for the stores and new technology. We had a limited time in France and saw only southeastern France, the area of Toulouse, and not even all of that. We drove down the coast of France, and back into Spain.
            Then we drove down the eastern coast of Spain, and made our first major stop in Barcelona. We stayed with friends that we had made through the website Intervac. We had hosted their family in our house and their son on a separate occasion. We stayed in Intervac places throughout our trip, but it is an especially popular program in France and Spain. This definitely helped us keep the budget low. Our next stop was Valencia, the birthplace of paella (pai-eh-ya). We also stayed in a homestay there, an apartment right next to the beach, where we could hear the waves every night. After a week enjoying the surprisingly nice beach weather in early October, we drove towards Granada, stopping in Seville and Cordoba. Seville, famous for being the place where Colombus’ journey started in 1492, also houses a museum full of all the riches they brought back from the New World. There is one of the largest churches in the world, where Christopher Columbus is buried.
            Further down the coast, and a little inland lies Granada, the home of La Alhambra, a magical palace with a sprawling garden, for the most part left intact by the Spanish. The palace has beautiful poetry written all over the walls and is chock full of Arabic architecture. It is amazing to see it at night, with everything lit up and sparkling. Another large part of the culture of southern Spain is Flamenco. This is a type of dancing which combines Arabic and Spanish culture with gypsy, or Romano, culture from Eastern Europe. It has a lot of stamping of feet, almost like tap dancing, but louder, and clapping to the rhythm. After another relaxing week at a beachfront apartment in Almuñecar, a town just south of Granada, we took a thirty-five minute ferry across the fourteen kilometers of water to Morocco.
            Morocco was a completely different culture from Spain. There were calls to prayer five times a day, and the poverty we saw was much worse than it was a few kilometers north. There are streets so narrow that one can barely raise their arms, and it’s very easy to get lost, as all the signs are in Arabic. It took a little getting used to not to drink the tap water. We rented a car in Tangiers, the port city we landed at, also where a scene in The Bourne Ultimatum was filmed. The car wasn’t exactly in great shape, with one tire that had a slow leaking hole, but it drove just the same. We went south, to Marrakesh, Rabat (the capital), Casablanca, and a smaller town where we were hosted by our Moroccan exchange students who had visited us last May.
We continued farther south, to the base of the Atlas Mountains, where we hiked up for several nights and stayed with a Berber family. They live in the mountains raising livestock, among other things. We stayed in one man’s house who hosts school groups and others to take on hiking trips around the mountains. His organization is trying to bring money into the town, a two hour walk into the hills from the road. He has a lot of interesting projects like making jam to help raise funds. The food was very good in Morocco, we had sweet mint tea, which has been served there for hundreds of years, and tagines, a sort of stew cooked in a special pot. After a couple of weeks in Morocco, we took a very short flight back to Madrid.
            I enjoyed Madrid a lot in the three weeks we stayed in an apartment belonging to friends, a family who had visited us in the summer. Madrid has a very nice subway system, with stops in many areas, making travel easy. There are lots of things to do, such as visit the Royal Palace, or one of the many art museums such as El Prado or La Reina Sofia which exhibits Pablo Picasso’s Guernica. One museum I especially liked was the Prado, which had an exhibit on Greek Mythology, which I find very interesting. We took a few day trips to some of the surrounding towns, such as Toledo, known for its marzipan and silver. The silver was brought back to Spain after being mined out of El Cerro Rico, the Rich Mountain, in Potosí, Bolivia, a site we would later visit. Knowing that so many people have been forced to work in awful conditions by the Spanish added a somber note to our day there. Having researched Francisco Franco, it would have been interesting to see the Valley of the Fallen, a memorial to those who died in the Spanish Civil War, where he is buried, although this site was closed because of restoration.
            After a calm three weeks in Madrid, we flew to Nairobi, in Kenya, a twelve hour flight. We stayed a few days at the Kakamega AIDS Orphanage, teaching ultimate Frisbee, learning soccer, making crafts like Gimp and spinning tops, and on one particularly hot day, we organized a water balloon game. We then moved on to Esabalu, the sister city of Amesbury, Massachusetts, connected with the organization Amesbury for Africa. Without having seen it, I thought it would be more desert-like, but instead it was very lush and green, with many people growing corn. We helped with some projects in Esabalu for a few days.
Our final place in Kenya was a safari at two national parks. On a safari, one tries to see “The Big 5”: an Elephant, a Buffalo, a Lion, a Leopard, and a Rhino. The term was actually coined by big game hunters, not safari guides, these five animals known for their ferociousness when cornered. We saw only four, missing the elusive leopard, but we’d had enough of the safari after the four days. There were a lot of tourist vans, making it easy to see from a distance if there was something important by the number of vans gathered around one spot. We returned from the hot, almost always sunny climate in Kenya to the snowy New England under freezing temperatures, but still glad to be back after four months. I think the trip would have seemed a lot harder, and more difficult if we hadn’t come home for the holidays.
            As I mentioned before, in the first half of our trip, we moved around a lot, and didn’t spend very much time staying in one place. However, this was the opposite in the second half, where we spent eight weeks living in one town in Guatemala, where we rented an apartment. There were definitely benefits to each form of travel, and I’m glad we did both because just moving around the whole year would have been tiring, but it also was a good way to see a lot of the sites in Spain. Living in one spot also helped, it felt like we were actually citizens, living there, and not tourists coming to see things for a week, then leaving.
            We started the second half in Guatemala, in a small town called Antigua. Almost all the streets were cobblestoned, and it was definitely a walking city, as cars were faced with the challenge of lots of one way streets. It was hard to get lost because of the city’s grid layout. Albeit a small town, it still had a grocery store and lots of other facilities. Antigua has benefited from the ex-pats who come to live or retire there. One thing we did while in Antigua was attend Spanish school. A lot of fun, we had the lucky opportunity to spend four hours of our morning sitting with a teacher conjugating verbs. Guatemala is a good place to learn the Spanish language, as their accent is very clear; therefore, a number of schools have sprung up. Even though we may not have liked Spanish lessons, I think they definitely helped get most of the grammar down.
 In the afternoons, we volunteered at an afterschool center called Los Patojos, essentially, The Kids. This was a very nice program, encouraging peacefulness, love, and care for others to create a better learning environment, something much like the Montessori principles, and also Quaker testimonies. We spent roughly seven weeks working there, long enough to get to know most of the kids’ names. Antigua served as a base camp for our weekend trips around the area. We went to various places such as Xela (“she-la”) also known as Quetzaltenango, where one of the last Mayan rulers was killed by the Spanish. We built a new sustainably designed stove for a family while there. We visited El Lago Atitlan, a lake featured in many Mayan creation stories. One weekend we spent in San Juan Comalapa, where an NGO is building a school out of recycled material like bottles and worn down tires.
            After two months in Guatemala, we flew on to Bolivia, having a layover in Miami. We arrived in La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, with the highest commercial airport in the world, suffering slightly from soroche, high altitude sickness. We tried to quickly make our way to Sorata, lower in elevation, down in a valley. We stayed at the Quaker Internado, a boarding program for high school students. If they live up in the mountains but want to go to school, they can’t walk five hours each day. The Internado is a place where they can sleep and have meals in a five day boarding situation. It is funded by BQEF, the Bolivian Quaker Education Fund, which is doing other work in the area surrounding La Paz, such as helping the Quaker schools. In Sorata, one of the outings visitors generally do is to go with a guide up into the mountains and stay for a few nights. This is called “a trekking” in Spanish, with an obvious origin of the English word trekking. We tried to do something of the sort, but once we got up to the campsite for the first night, it was so rainy and cloudy that we couldn’t see the end of the lake, which was not bigger than some pools. The tents were leaky, and we decided to come back to Sorata after one day.
During the week, we helped the local high school with English by coming in and teaching. This was a very interesting experience for me, and I think it helped me be a better student by thinking about how to teach. It also helped me practice Spanish, because I’d think about the grammar in Spanish when teaching English. The students were beginners, so most our time we had to explain things in Spanish. We taught for four weeks in the school and hung out with the kids in the Internado the rest of the time. We participated in organic gardening and other projects with them. My brother had brought some silkscreening materials down for the kids in the Internado and we taught them to silkscreen t-shirts. Now they have a project to raise money by selling these t-shirts.
The majority of our Sundays spent in Bolivia we went to Quaker church service. The meeting was a lot different than what we are used to, there was no silence, and the preacher talked during most of the three-hour servide. We were only slightly affected by soroche, and when we felt some symptoms, we usually just took out our coca. Coca is a very big part of the Bolivian lifestyle, and mate de coca, coca tea, is said to cure many things such as a headache, stomachache, and just general aches. Although it is used to make cocaine, you don’t have to worry about getting the effects of cocaine, because the dosage is way too low to make any sort of difference. We showed the kids in the Internado how to play Frisbee, and left a few with them. We also brought a soccer ball which we gave at the end of our stay. We spent one month volunteering in Sorata, and one week of tourism in the surrounding areas.
            After leaving Sorata, we headed north to Peru. We stopped in Puno, a lakeside town which is the starting point to go see the Floating Islands, reeds strapped together to make a safe haven for the inhabitants fleeing from the Peruvians on one side and the Bolivians on the other. We continued on by bus, heading for Cuzco. Cuzco has a battlefield overlooking the city, where the Incans almost pushed the Spanish completely out of Peru, but their culture was also harmed by inter-tribal feuds. This kept them from being successful in beating back the Spanish. From there, we proceeded on to Aguas Calientes, the base point for visiting Machu Picchu. The reason Machu Picchu is so well-known is that the Spanish never reached there. They continued down in the valley after Cuzco, and didn’t climb up the mountains to Machu Picchu. This makes the site  well preserved in comparison to other sites where the Spanish killed everybody and stole everything of value.
            The food in Peru was delicious, and we bought gourmet foods for a third of the price we would get in the US, as the Peruvian Sol is three to one dollar. A few of the specialties in Peru are Llama, Alpaca and Guinea Pig (known as cuy). Llama and alpaca we did get to try, but we were eluded by the Guinea Pig. In my opinion, llama and alpaca taste the same, and they both mostly taste like beef.
            After our time in Peru was done, we returned to Bolivia, again by bus, but this time coming around the opposite side of the lake. We started traveling around inside of Bolivia, to places like Potosí, Sucre and Cochabamba. Potosí is famous for its mines, where the Spanish forced the indigenous people to work, mining out the silver that financed Toledo. With Potosí, the amount of silver in the world tripled what it had been before. We also traveled to Sucre, the legislative capital of Bolivia, also known for gourmet chocolate. Sucre was one of my favorite places in Bolivia. It felt very elegant and modern, and at the same time, there were also places to do volunteer work.
We stayed in Cochabamba for a few days, the site of the infamous “Water Wars”. This happened very recently, when big companies bought the rights to the water supply, and started charging Bolivians to use it. Riots were started, and eventually, they succeeded in getting the companies to leave. A movie was made about this, called Tambien La Lluvia, Even the Rain. It is about how they would charge even for the rain. We stayed with some Quaker friends in Cochabamba and played with their young son.
We arrived back in La Paz, for three more weeks of volunteering. We taught English again, and rented an apartment. We taught at an Evangelical private school there, and we taught both morning and afternoon sessions. In Bolivia, students only attend school half days, however they have smaller vacations. We taught students of all different ages, mostly from seventh graders to seniors in high school. The knowledge of English definitely varied between classes, but all of the classes required us to speak a lot of Spanish. We didn’t teach immersion English. We liked to incorporate songs and music into the teaching. We taught “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” and in the morning, a Quaker song before meals, performed with pretend trombones. They had asked us to teach Christian songs especially.
            One night, we had an idea to make brownies. We used a mix, which was Betty Crocker. It just so happened to have high altitude directions, which we just glanced at, seeing 3500-6000, and figuring that was in meters. We looked again at the directions after the brownies were a little sub-par, and realized that it was in feet. La Paz, which sits at a stunning 3,500 meters, was triple the height of the directions.
One thing that struck me about La Paz is that very few people actually own personal cars. Most people take the readily available mini-buses, which zip all around town for a small price. It’s better for the environment to have a lot of public transportation. One thing we noticed right away is that the indigenous woman’s outfit almost always has a bowler hat. There are many stories to why they all wear bowler hats, but a prominent one is that an English businessman ordered too many, and brought them to Bolivia to get rid of them while accidentally starting a fad. The majority of our travel between cities was made by bus. Sometimes they would be big, overnight, long journey buses; other times the very same mini-bus taken to get around the city. Taking these large buses is always an adventure, as they usually don’t have bathrooms, and there is almost always a section of mysterious sticky stuff on the ground somewhere.
            To change it up, we took the train from southern Bolivia to the Argentinian border, where we promptly got on a bus and headed further south into Argentina. We realized right away that it was more expensive. Food is more expensive, hotels are more expensive, and travel is more expensive. The buses’ high price is explained by the pristine conditions, and the fact that they gave out food, and sometimes even blankets to everyone. We stopped in Salta, known for Salteñas, a meat filled pastry, before continuing on to Buenos Aires. Once we arrived, I noticed that there were not any mini- buses zipping around, that most people seemed to own their private cars. We had a bit of a slow learning curve when dealing with the Argentinian accent in Spanish, and we still hadn’t completely gotten it down by the time we left, a week later.
There are lots of activities to do in Buenos Aires, like seeing tango dancing, going to some of the numerous art museums, or just walking around. Buenos Aires is a very European city, with most streets having traffic lights, not common in Bolivia. We stayed in a homestay in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, and took the commuter rail in on the days we decided to go into town. This was very peaceful, and we had no problems with the trains. Once inside the city, there is a growing bicycle program that lends free bikes to residents, with pick-up stations all over, and more planned.  Argentina is known for delicious steak and great wine. We tried the steak, and it was very good, but I’m not the one to ask about the wine. We ended up seeing a professional soccer game while we were there, which I was really glad to do. We weren’t familiar with the teams, but it was cool to see the game, and be there with the whole crowd, singing songs and waving banners.
            On the trip home, I was in a pensive state, glad to be home, but thinking about what I will do next, whether I’ll get bored, or be sorry not to be still traveling; I don’t know what will happen. I am definitely glad to have done this trip though. I think it better prepared me for the challenges I will face in high school, and further developed helpful skills like independence, cooperation, and dealing with stress. Traveling can definitely be fun, but there is always a certain amount of stress involved, and I think learning how to deal with that will be very valuable in the future. This time also provided an opportunity to bond with the rest of my family, learn more about other cultures, and the most significant achievement in my opinion was progress in Spanish. Having started the year without knowing almost a word in Spanish, we are now thinking about whether we’ll be in Spanish 4 or 5. This has definitely been a journey, and now I’m ready to begin high school, to begin the next journey.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Guatemala, Bolivia, Peru and Buenos Aires, spring 2011 sabbatical


Click on the image above to see some of our best pictures from this spring's travels!
Enjoy the summer,
Martha

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Kenya, December 2010



Click on the image of Kennedy above to see some of our best pictures from our trip to Kenya...in December 2010! If the pics are fuzzy, try the slide show or click on individual pictures.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Conor on leaving Bolivia

Cha-Chunk-Cha-Chunk-Cha-Chunk, the sound of the train tracks running under the slightly aged train. The interior is very dusty, although not because of its age. The tracks sit on very loose, dusty dirt, so the speed flings it up into the air and it eagerly jumps into the face of anyone sitting next to an open window. As the sun streams in through the window, dodging even the metal washboard blinds, slipping through gaps, the car’s temperature begins to rise along with the irresistible urge to just crack open the window, only the tiniest bit. Inevitably, the dust rushes in, just before the wind cools off the inside of the car.
We are heading south, towards the Bolivia/Argentina border leaving Bolivia, our suitcases with us this time, a sign we won’t be coming back after two or three weeks. The flat south of Bolivia, contrasting with the mountainous north, whips by, leaving two months of memories behind. Some, like playing ultimate Frisbee with the kids in the Internado in Sorata, teaching “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” to first graders and sophomores alike, spending long Sunday mornings with Quakers and many other memories cling to the back of the train, following us towards Argentina, infinity, and beyond.

Home at last

We’re home! Readjusting to life in the US will take some time, integrating all we have learned. One of the things that we learned already is that we have a google email account! Unbeknownst to us, we have been receiving lovely notes from our wonderful friends and family on this account all year while we are away. Now it is like a journey back in time, reading all your notes: comments on the blog, on the weather, on your activities. Thank you for your emails, and sorry we did not respond to them at the time.

Buenos Aires

Living in Buenos Aires, we seem to have come back full circle to the European start of our year. The city looks like Paris or Madrid: cobblestone streets, cafes, buildings built in the Neapolitan style, and high fashion everywhere. We feel like we need to upgrade our wardrobe from the old sneakers and jackets we wear every day. But the sneakers are needed for walking: miles upon miles of avenues, parks and museums to explore. Unlike New York, there is no overall organizing principle, no numbered streets, no “A” train from top to bottom. Instead there are huge “barrios” to visit, each one taking a full morning to explore. The subway system covers the downtown area, supplemented by a confusing patchwork of buses and commuter rail. We have loved exploring the wide avenues and narrow pedestrian streets, the gorgeous stone buildings with towers, turrets and gargoyles, the modern streetscapes that remind us of Fifth Avenue and 42nd street in New York.
The weather, too, feels like late fall in Europe, reminding us of our time in Madrid last November. A chill wind blows off the river, scattering the autumn leaves down the sidewalk. The days are sunny and warm, but the evenings (when the city comes alive) and nights are quite cold. In the mornings, fog floats over the city and looks like a sky full of snow. June in Buenos Aires is winter.
It feels odd being in such an opulent city after living in Bolivia. The number of private cars is astounding. There are no street sellers, no young men shining shoes. Professional dog walkers, no stray dogs. Starbucks has made inroads here, vying with local purveyors of fancy tea and coffee. We choose the local alternative, and ordering a simple cup of coffee, we were treated with fine coffee topped by a dollop of ice cream, along with cookies and a glass of mineral water. Though I certainly survived without coffee for two months, it is nice to enjoy a good cup of the stuff.
We happened upon the Salon de Glace, a circular building that was a skating rink, now a modern art exhibit with creative installations of all kinds. In MALBA, the main Buenos Aires art museum, we saw an interesting exhibit on beef by Cristina Piffer. Commenting on the centrality of beef in the Argentine diet, and its connection with colonialism and violence, she works with slabs of meet (generally frozen into plastic) and rectangles of white fat. Marble parquet floors, tombstones, ropes: meat is transposed into creative shapes to tell her stories.
We visited the little museum dedicated to Eva Peron, heroine of Argentine history though she was never elected to public office. There were no facts in the museum, but a telling emotion. The myth of the little angel who sacrificed all for her people (despite her extravagant wardrobe and her pre-marital affair with her husband-to-be, Juan Duarte). Her image lives on even today in the Peronista party.
The themes in the Eva Peron museum were oddly familiar, from our visit to Che Guevara’s childhood home outside Cordoba. The same prettified biography, the same story of a life of sacrifice for country and ideals, and the accompanying strong religious overtones. In both cases, the underlying message seems to head towards beatification. This despite the violence undertaken by Che as a Marxist revolutionary and later, as an enforcer in the Cuban government. Eva ran an orphanage for poor children, but we know that as a powerbroker in her husband’s government, she was party to violence and injustice as well. Her gravestone reads, in part: I am an essential part of your existence. All love and pain I have foreseen. I have accomplished my humble imitation of Christ.
We visited a museum of a different sort in Cordoba’s “Museo de la Memoria”, Museum of Memory. This museum, and another like it in Buenos Aires, is devoted to telling the story of Argentina’s “dirty war”, the many thousands of citizens who were tortured and killed by the government in the 1970s and 1980s. The police bureau used as a detention center is the actual site of the museum. First-hand recollections of survivors echo along the walls which are unchanged since those days, frighteningly recent in memory. The museum itself is a courageous undertaking in a country where perpetrators of those crimes are still alive and well, many of them still in power.

Traveling south from Bolivia

On the bus, heading south to Argentina. We left La Paz for Oruro, then the train overnight to the border town of Villazon, arriving at 7 am. Riding the last train line in Bolivia was an interesting experience, even though the reality did not match the amenities advertised. The seats did recline to varying degrees, but the cold wind emanating from the windows as we traveled through the altiplano prevented us from getting much sleep. As advertised, we were served a choice of hot dinner at our seats by bow-tied waiters, quite a change from the lurching buses we have been traveling on without even a restroom. I was impressed at the cleanliness of the train until I happened to see what happened to the trash swept up at intervals: out on the track it went. Nevertheless, the relaxing rhythmic sound of the train running along the old tracks all night, with a bowl-full of stars above and deserted plains all around us, was something to remember.
After arriving at Villazon, we crossed the border and took the next bus heading south. Traveling all day through northwestern Argentina gave us a chance to see the changing landscape. From the altiplano, we descended 3000 meters or 9000 feet, to a familiar 1100 meters in altitude. The first change I noted as we descended was vegetation: a wide variety: first, cactus in the dry Quebrada mountain range, then hillsides covered with hardwoods of all kinds. Further down, we traveled through fertile river valleys filled with cropland bordered by willows and the ever-present yellow-flowered perennial, rudbeckia, here growing to plants over 10 feet tall.
In La Paz, both the lack of public resources and the climate mitigate against green spaces. The Prado, the main street running through La Paz, has a park down the middle, where palm trees (amazingly prospering at that altitude) and green grass are growing, along with flower beds with hardy autumn flowers: petunias and marigolds. On weekends, Bolivians stretch out luxuriously on the grass and take a snooze, or play cards or chat. These are among the only green areas available in the city. It is quite a change to see hillsides covered with trees and fields of green crops growing.
The general level of prosperity is much higher in northern Argentina than in Bolivia: good paved roads, even highways, many private cars, and well-dressed travelers are everywhere. All the little towns we pass have playgrounds, green parks, well equipped football fields, and much more foreign investment than we are used to seeing. Pedestrian streets with antique streetlights and restaurants appealing to the middle-class traveler are in evidence.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Life in Buenos Aires

Living in Buenos Aires, we seem to have come back full circle to the European start of our year. The city looks like Paris or Madrid: cobblestone streets, cafes, buildings built in the Neapolitan style, and high fashion everywhere. We feel like we need to upgrade our wardrobe from the old sneakers and jackets we wear every day. But the sneakers are needed for walking: miles upon miles of avenues, parks and museums to explore. Unlike New York, there is no overall organizing principle, no numbered streets, no “A” train from top to bottom. Instead there are huge “barrios” to visit, each one taking a full morning to explore. The subway system covers the downtown area, supplemented by a confusing patchwork of buses and commuter rail. We have loved exploring the wide avenues and narrow pedestrian streets, the gorgeous stone buildings with towers, turrets and gargoyles, the modern streetscapes that remind us of Fifth Avenue and 42nd street in New York.
The weather, too, feels like late fall in Europe, reminding us of our time in Madrid last November. A chill wind blows off the river, scattering the autumn leaves down the sidewalk. The days are sunny and warm, but the evenings (when the city comes alive) and nights are quite cold. In the mornings, fog floats over the city and looks like a sky full of snow. June in Buenos Aires is winter.
It feels odd being in such an opulent city after living in Bolivia. The number of private cars is astounding. There are no street sellers, no young men shining shoes. Professional dog walkers, no stray dogs. Starbucks has made inroads here, vying with local purveyors of fancy tea and coffee. We choose the local restaurant, and ordering a simple cup of coffee, we are treated with fine coffee topped by a dollop of ice cream, along with cookies and a glass of mineral water. Though I certainly survived without coffee for two months, it is nice to enjoy a good cup of the stuff.
We happened upon the Salon de Glace, a circular building that was a skating rink, now a modern art exhibit with creative installations of all kinds. In MALBA, the main Buenos Aires art museum, we saw an interesting exhibit on beef by Cristina Piffer. Commenting on the centrality of beef in the Argentine diet, and its connection with colonialism and violence, she works with slabs of meet (generally frozen into plastic) and rectangles of white fat. Marble parquet floors, tombstones, ropes: meat is transposed into creative shapes to tell her stories.
We visited the little museum dedicated to Eva Peron, heroine of Argentine history though she was never elected to public office. There were no facts in the museum, but a telling emotion. The myth of the little angel who sacrificed all for her people (despite her extravagant wardrobe and her pre-marital affair with her husband-to-be, Juan Duarte). Her image lives on even today in the Peronista party.
The themes in the Eva Peron museum were oddly familiar, from our visit to Che Guevara’s childhood home outside Cordoba. The same prettified biography, the same story of a life of sacrifice for country and ideals, and the accompanying strong religious overtones. In both cases, the underlying message seems to head towards beatification. This despite the violence undertaken by Che as a Marxist revolutionary and later, as an enforcer in the Cuban government. Eva ran an orphanage for poor children, but we know that as a powerbroker in her husband’s government, she was party to violence and injustice as well. Her gravestone reads, in part: I am an essential part of your existence. All love and pain I have foreseen. I have accomplished my humble imitation of Christ.
We visited a museum of a different sort in Cordoba’s “Museo de la Memoria”, Museum of Memory. This museum, and another like it in Buenos Aires, is devoted to telling the story of Argentina’s “dirty war”, the many thousands of citizens who were tortured and killed by the government in the 1970s and 1980s. The police bureau used as a detention center is the actual site of the museum. First-hand recollections of survivors echo along the walls which are unchanged since those days, frighteningly recent in memory. The museum itself is a courageous undertaking in a country where perpetrators of those crimes are still alive and well, many of them still in power.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Environmental Awareness


Rio Choqueyapu

Bolivia has just passed a very encouraging – and groundbreaking – law of protection for Mother Earth, or Pachamama, the earth goddess and creator of all in the indigenous Aymara tradition. Now lawsuits can be brought claiming damages to Pachamama. The awareness is there, but the budget is not sufficient to the task, and enforcement will be hard to obtain. For instance, there are no laws in Bolivia against dumping trash on land or water. Just below our home is a dirty river called Choqueyapu, which is officially dead. Apparently 200,000 gallons of urine are dumped into it annually, along with 160,000 tons of excrement and tons of toxic waste from factories. The stench is overwhelming as we walk to the bus stop beside its foamy chocolate-colored waters. There are no leash laws and dog excrement is a part of sidewalk life, which adds to the runoff. We saw some laughing girls leaving an automotive business with a huge bucket which they dumped into the rushing waters without a care.
There are few private cars in La Paz, but many private minibuses which traverse the city constantly. This reduces smog and traffic though the buses themselves create major traffic jams and their emission controls are minimal. Littering is ubiquitous.

Not Pachamama, but another indigenous masked figure

 
On the other hand, the carbon footprint of most Bolivianos is tiny. Imagine the impact of not using any heat between March and December, of course no air conditioning, no hot tap water and just a little electric heater for shower water. No clothes dryers, hardly any plane travel and few cars. Bolivians are acutely aware of the climate changes that have taken place in recent years, as they have lost 30% of their glaciers in the last 20 years, according to a Quaker environmental conference we attended.

So it appears that in most parts of the world the pollution is right under our feet, whereas in the so- called developed world, we create our pollution miles away from where we live, in our coal mines, our jet streams and our meat factories.




Monday, May 9, 2011

Traveling by bus from Cochabamba to La Paz

Bus travel through Bolivia means mountains. Not just the trip down from the Cordillera to Coroico, the so called “death road”, called the most dangerous road in the world. Every trip in western Bolivia where we are involves climbing impossible roads up through the mountains with breathtaking views. Right now we are on the well-traveled route from Cochabamba to La Paz. We are inching along behind a 16-wheeler. It is an 8-hour trip, and the second driver is sleeping down below in the sleeping berth, awaiting his turn to drive. We are upstairs, on the second story. The higher level adds to the drama and the views. Evan is sitting in the front seat, perched over the front of the bus. We pass tiny villages of sheep farmers, whose mud brick houses with thatched roofs hug the hillsides. Families are out carrying water and watching their herds. Some have put their laundry out to dry on the rocks: enormous pollera skirts making a huge smile, matching petticoats, and handwoven blankets with earth tones and geometric patterns. The mountain ranges stretch out to the horizon in all directions. When we pass a town, little kids offer us soft drinks from their families’ stands. As the sun sinks behind the mountains, the houses blend into the rocks and the doors to the houses are all closed against the cool night air.

Machu Picchu and Potosí




Machu Picchu from above

The fields and Wayna Picchu
 
  

Perfectly aligned door and window (trapezoidal shape most stable)

Recently we’ve taken two tourist tours, and they represent the absolute opposites of human existence. At the heights of Machu Picchu, we saw the architectural, scientific and aesthetic accomplishments of the Inca civilization, in 15th century Peru. On the very top of the most inaccessible mountains, Incan engineers erected huge stone dwellings, ceremonial spaces, and terraced fields. The city of Machu Picchu was perfectly located so as to maximize the northern sun. Part fortress, part city, access was controlled by the high mountain passes and intruders could be seen from far off. They had to walk the path in the hot sun, where their every movement would be observed by those in the city, and they had to pass through occasional guard houses where many soldiers could hide. The walkway is a good two meters wide, made of flat stones and steps that can be used to this day. Within the city, water channels brought clear running water underground into basins where jars could be filled, with benches for resting and observing the cool water. The channels run clear to this day.

Potosí, the largest mining city of Bolivia, was once the largest city in the Americas, with 800,000 inhabitants in 1574. When New York was still Dutch, the Spanish ruled Potosí and worked the Bolivian miners to death churning out silver, riches which are still on display in churches all over Spain but especially in Toledo and in the Escorial, the palace built by Phillip II as a monument to the Spanish monarchy.

Current day Potosí may be the saddest place I have ever visited. Worse even than the Lakota reservation in South Dakota, with its evil liquor stores just outside the reservation, run by non-Indians. Potosí is garbage-strewn streets, where stray dogs and people work at night in the cold wind to find a few items of value. Potosí is 16th century Spanish buildings gone derelict with graffiti on their facades, and children of miners hawking pretty stones in the central square.  While the settlers in North America simply killed the indigenous people living there, the Spanish settlers in Bolivia worked them to death mining minerals to bring back to Spain.
Reaching the mouth of the mine, the wagon went off its track
The mine is still the biggest employer in town, and a mine tour is offered to tourists as a way to experience a small part of the horrific conditions that still reign in the mines.  We entered the mountain through a muddy hole no more than five feet tall. As we were led into the depths of the mountain, we brushed against walls furry with asbestos, gleaming with bits of zinc and silver, dripping with brown and yellow liquids. Occasionally we needed to move aside as men came by us pushing wagons filled with stone, one ton each. Three men pushed and hauled each wagon along the track, uphill and down, to reach the mouth of the mine and dump it over the cliff into the slag heap below. No mules or trucks were used inside the mine: men are the beasts of burden. To get through their day, they drink grain alcohol and chew enormous mouthfuls of coca leaves. Having been drilled through for over four centuries, the mountain is in imminent danger of collapse. And yet men choose to enter the mines, in the hopes of gaining a living, and with the dream of finding a large vein and making a fortune.
Potosí was the raw grinding of poverty against idle wealth and oppression. The whole city appeared like a slag heap, with most items of value long since gone, where the citizens continue to work centuries later to find a few crumbs. Over the centuries of the Spanish occupation of Bolivia, it is estimated that nine million Bolivians died in the mines, though no memorial has ever been built. The sadness of the past hangs over the present like a dense fog.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Two Quaker Meetings

Today was bookended by two very different religious celebrations. This morning we were invited to attend the 25th anniversary of a Quaker meeting in El Alto, the large indigenous community just above La Paz, on the Altiplano (high plain). It was quite cool in the church, but the crowd was energetic, and sang and prayed through a four-hour service. Laura and I represented the family, as the boys stayed in the hotel with a stomach bug. As is the usual practice, we were asked to come up to the microphone and make a presentation and this time we were asked to offer a song that was prayerful. We taught the community “Ubi Caritas”, teaching it in Latin, English and Spanish. As always happens in these Quaker meetings, I felt the strong support of the community hanging on our every word and gesture. It is so meaningful to them to have foreign visitors. Afterwards, we joined the large congregation for lunch. We enjoyed a bowl of chicken soup, sharing conversation with the women in their colorful wide skirts and bowler hats, and some teens in jeans.
Tonight I wandered into the Quaker meeting house that is near our hotel, just in time to hear a concert by a Quaker folk music group called Ministerio Canto Nuevo. The energy was electric, as was the music, indigenous pipes and guitars amplified by a very modern sound system. The church was packed with families taking pictures with their cell phones of each other dancing to the music. Teens were up front, singing and clapping along, with a few young couples finding their own private rows to listen. Older people were clapping and swaying to the music, including one elderly blind man who kept time with his cane. The music was fabulous, traditional Andean music expressing the love of God. The musicians spoke of how hard the year has been, and how important it is to raise our voices and remember our joy.

La Paz and blockades

Friday we entered La Paz with some trepidation as there is a large strike on. All the teachers, hospital employees, miners and other public employees are striking for higher wages (15% increase) as a result of the painful recent increase in the cost of food. Though strikes are frequent in La Paz, this strike is more powerful than usual due to the stridency of the demands and the fact that this is the first big strike against Evo Morales, the people’s president. Some of the roads were blocked off by strikers and we were uncertain as to whether we would be able to get to the city. We did get in, weaving through side streets to avoid enormous traffic jams.
La Paz is a very vibrant place. The streets are full of people and traffic at all hours. Sidewalk sellers display their wares across the entire sidewalk and out onto the streets. The lack of crosswalks ("Just pretend you’re a car", I said to Laura once as we wove among the buses circulating around a rotary) and the extremely steep hills make for an energetic walking city.
We went down to the area where the protesters were face to face with riot police, to have a look around. The protest was mostly non-violent downtown, with protesters closing off a number of streets, sharing pots of food and playing cards on the grass in the median strip. Now, during the evening, we hear firecrackers and occasionally and more ominously, the sounds of dynamite further downtown.
There is so much activity in the street that it is hard to tell what is due to the protesters and what is normal background noise. I woke this morning to a Palm Sunday procession, with hundreds of parishioners singing and waving palm branches to a 30-piece band. At least 2 other parades followed during the day. In El Alto, at least one street was blocked off by people sitting in the middle, apparently a parade unrelated to the blockades.
A daily check of the New York Times reveals that the blockade did not make international news. But it is big news here, with most schools in the country closed for the last week and some people dying due to lack of hospital care.

April 12, Dia del Niño in Sorata

Today is the Dia del Niño, the Day of the Child. All the elementary schools (K-8) celebrated the day with speeches, presentations, games and snacks. The principal of the government school asked the children: How much is a child worth? The children guessed – five bolivianos ($.70)? One hundred bolivianos? The price went up slowly as they made more and more extravagant guesses. He reminded them that children have no price – that they are priceless. Like the Mastercard commercial, only very sweet in the context. He reminded them that the Day of the Child was established in Bolivia in the 1950s and that all children have a right to enough food and a home where there is no violence.
In fact I read that 95% of the families here in the highlands experience nutritional challenges at various times of the year, especially in January before the harvest begins. There are no visible signs of malnutrition here in town, though fruit and milk products seem to be luxuries not affordable to many. Quinoa, an excellent high protein and low fat grain, has risen in price since the developed world has discovered it. Food prices in general have increased dramatically in the last year, since the gas subsidy was increased. Sugar is up 100%. Most children seem to attend school, though even this morning during the Day of the Child celebrations I noticed a number of school-aged children in town selling gelatin desserts to passersby, while others sold produce on the street or shined shoes.

Economic Essay by Conor

“Do not worry sir, these are [Dirhams, Quetzals, Kenya shillings], not dollars.”

We have heard this throughout our trip from desperate shopkeepers in markets. This cry seems to mean that since the price is stated in Dirhams (Morocco), Quetzals (Guatemala) or Kenya Shillings (Kenya), it is somehow worth less than if it were priced in dollars. The topic of economics in relation to travel is an interesting one. Seven or eight years ago, we would go to Canada in the winter and stay at a four star hotel, with a double floored-suite. I, being 7, wondered how we were able to do this. The answer was that the US Dollar was so much stronger than the Canadian Dollar. On the other hand, while we were in Europe this past fall, the Euro was much higher than the dollar. Because of this, we ate mostly bread and cheese whenever we could, and stayed with friends.

Here in Bolivia, things are very cheap to us. For instance, in the small town of Sorata, you can buy 5 bread rolls for fifty cents, and a popsicle for 20 cents. We have been thinking a lot about why the price is so low, or at least seems that way to us. While hiking in the beautiful mountains surrounding Sorata, we had a conversation about this, and one conclusion we came to was how lucky we are to have been born in the United States. If we had been born in Bolivia, and had done the same job, we would have made Bolivianos instead of Dollars. As a result, things would seem seven times as expensive in the U.S.

Taking an example like popsicles, it led us to ponder why the price stays so low. The store owner seems to be the only ice cream seller in town, conveniently located on the main plaza, and he could set the price as high as he wants. Given the limit to which customers would stop buying, he does not seem to be facing any other checks for his price. However, he still has to keep it low, because there’s a point at which the market won’t be able to bear the set price. Another possible reason that popsicles are relatively cheap in Sorata is that the cost of producing the popsicle is less than in the US. If the factory workers are getting paid less for making the popsicle, the end product will cost less. The transportation costs of driving the ice cream into the mountains and keeping it cold are also less. This is because the gas price per gallon here is a little less than two dollars per gallon.

Inflation is also a factor in the price differences. For instance, if a fruit seller thinks his mangoes will be more valuable tomorrow for whatever reason, he will charge more today. Other fruit sellers will then think that that is the accepted price for mangoes, and they will raise their price, so soon in fact it will be. After this spiral, someone from another country can come in, and buy some things with their currency, which would be much stronger than that of the country, creating the sense for the traveller that everything is cheaper. That is what we experienced in Sorata buying popsicles.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Trek above Sorata, meat and cocaine


 Trek above Sorata

Campsite at Laguna Chilata ("chilly lake"?)

This was to be our big trekking weekend. We had purchased the food and contracted for two mules to carry “the kitchen” (as they call the stove, pans and equipment), food for six, tents, and sleep gear up into the mountains. Eusebio, our host, who also has many years of guide experience, was to be our guide. Unfortunately, our hopes were dashed by a thick fog that enveloped us as soon as we got up into the hills. A slow rain started, and did not stop for our entire visit. We measured our hike in “Mount Washingtons”, the 4000 feet from where we usually park in the White Mountains to the summit of Mount Washington at home.
The first day, Friday, we hiked up 4000 feet, one Mount Washington. We camped next to a little lake in a saddle below the snowy summit of Mount Illampu. Arriving there felt just like arriving at the Lake of the Clouds, near the summit of Mount Washington, but without the hut to look forward to. The wind and driving rain made us eager to set up our tents and get into our sleeping bags, though it was only 3 pm. Once there, however, we discovered the limitations to our rented equipment. Tents and sleeping bags with no working zippers made it hard to keep warm, never mind staying out of the way of the rivulets of water that soon invaded the sides of the tent. We put on all our clothes and whiled away the afternoon reading “The Little Prince” in Spanish.
After a short supper in the rain heroically prepared by our guide, Eusebio, and the mule driver, Pedro (their tent had an extra exterior flap for cooking), we went back to bed for a long night of practicing sleeping. Laura and I got to laughing, since the lack of oxygen made us sound like two dogs panting in the hot sun. It is hard to fall asleep when you’re breathing as if you are walking uphill. We did get a lot of practice listening to the rain on the roof of the tent and wondering if the weather would ever clear up.
Unfortunately the morning brought more of the same: pea soup fog, with a possibility of snow above us. We decided to head back down to Sorata. Unfortunately, we were never able to see across the lake from our campsite, which supposedly has an odd configuration of colored rocks that look like eyes, making eerie faces when the lake and its reflection in the water are seen sideways. We never did hike the second Mount Washington, our destination at the glacier’s base, located at 15000 feet. We may have had problems breathing up there anyway. What we did see – a beautiful, desolate subalpine wilderness – made us glad to have made the trip.

Where meat comes from:
I saw an article on meat eating in the US press, and the topic seemed so far away from our experience traveling in the developing world. The article was about how to make consumption of meat seem more real, to appreciate the animals that died, whether to eat met at all, and the like. Here in Bolivia we see death every day. A regular sight in the streets is a wheelbarrow filled with meat parts, like a cow’s head with some fur still attached, the eye gazing out at us from a skinned face.
 Laura and I went for a run and there was a dead dog in the middle of the road, his muzzle frozen in death’s agony. We see exactly what happened, that the dog is not really here anymore. The dog’s expression gives some sense of how it felt. When people in the developing world get meat, they are thankful for having it. It is expensive. The prize for the youth soccer tournament was a sheep. It cost 
First prize at the soccer tournament
a great deal, they said: $35. The winning team would take it home, kill it and appreciate its meat. All the teens here know how to butcher a large animal and do it regularly.
When you can get meat, it keeps hunger away effectively. I am reminded of the Kenyan dish made with kale: “sukumawiki”. The direct translation is “stretches the week”. When you don’t have enough money for meat, sukumawiki staves off hunger for a bit and keeps you strong. Here in the Bolivian highlands, the diet is mainly composed of meat and potatoes, or rather potatoes with a bit of meat on the side. No joke.
All this is not to suggest that we all cart around wheelbarrows full of cow parts. Just to note that a concern for whether we are experiencing the “reality” of our food comes from our very privileged place. We do not have to do any of the messy work of raising, killing or preparing our food. Our wealth has allowed us to step away from this work and yet to keep all the benefits of plentiful, cheap food. Perhaps we should at least visit those places from time to time so we don’t forget where our meat comes from.

Where cocaine comes from:
It comes from the foothills of the Andes in South America, including here in Bolivia. Among the many points of conflict between the US and the Bolivian government is an argument about production of coca, the base element of cocaine. Coca leaf is legal here and is a staple in the Bolivian diet, used as a maté (tea) or chewed. It is a stimulant that reduces hunger and also prevents “soroche”, the altitude sickness that comes from the dramatic changes in altitude involved in travel in the Bolivian highlands. For example, the bus trip from here in Sorata to La Paz, which many take weekly, involves a climb from 8100 feet to 12000 feet. Even today, miners rely on coca leaf to take the elevators underground and work for long hours without enough food.
The Bolivian government has determined the amount of coca that is used for internal consumption, and is working to keep production low enough to meet those legitimate uses. However, the illegal cocaine market keeps the price very high, and coca production is a good way to use one’s land to make more money than, say, raising corn.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Latin American Spanish Language Guide – might be of interest to Spanish speakers…

The following are some observations of language particularities in various parts of the Spanish speaking world, as we observed this year in moving from country to country. Moving from Spain to Central America, the language is quite different.
  • Of course you have to stop using the Castillian “th” sound for “z”.
  • When speaking about a car, you have to remember to say “carro” which is a simple wagon in Spain, instead of “coche”. In Latin America, “coche” means pig and “carro” is the word to use.
  • When you take a bus, it is usually called a “camioneta”, or little truck.
  • Likewise, you must not use the word “coger” in Latin America for catching a bus, a ball or anything else, as is done in Spain. It has a vulgar meaning. Instead you must use “tomar” which Spaniards use for having a cup of coffee.
Guatemala:
Guatemalan Spanish is very clear and easily understandable to the student of Spanish. This is one reason that Guatemala is so popular a location for Spanish schools. Even up in the hills, and among those who speak Mayan languages, spoken Spanish is quite clear to the foreign ear. Nevertheless, Guatemalans are proud of their special speech patterns that they share as “Chapinos”, the familiar term for Guatemalans. Here are some of them.
Most common in Guatemala is to hear “Fíjate!”, which generally means “Just imagine!”. In Guatemala, this phrase loses its sense of surprise but instead is used at the beginning of any explanation, no matter how prosaic. For example, when I came home and found my landlady absent, she said later, “Fíjate – I had to go shopping”. The formal form, “Fíjese!” is also used very frequently.
Here are some words and expressions of Chapino Spanish:
Atól – hot corn drink
A puro tubo – out of necessity
Agarrar la onda – to catch on, as in “Agarre la onda” – “I caught on”.
Aguas! – Watch out!
Buena onda – great! or “Mala onda” for bad news or bad vibes, likewise “Que onda?” – “What’s up?”
The answer to this would be “Pues ahí voy”, or “I’m getting by.”
Boquitas – snacks
Dar la regalada gana – to want to very much
Dos que tres – more or less
Dos por tres – in a jiffy (“en un dos por tres”)
Embolarse, bolo – Get drunk, a drunk
Estar chino de – to be tired of
Estar hecho lata – to be in bad shape
Estar para chuparse los dedos – it’s finger-licking good
Estar colgado con alguien – to be in love with someone
Mira pues – used very frequently to mean “see here”, or preceding an explanation
Muchá! -  hey you guys! Used frequently.
Pura lata – cruel. For example: “No seas pura lata!”
Pucchicá! – Wow!
Tener un gran clavo – to have a problem

“Hay tres tipos de carne en Guatemala: cerdo, chancho y coche (all pork).”
Bolivia:
Bolivian Spanish threw me for a loop. It may be the back-country speech and the fact that for most people here in Sorata, Spanish is their second language and is not without errors. Some frequent speech patterns stand out, however.
The “r” sound is replaced by something that is closer to “z”. For example, when complimenting food, I hear “Muy zico!” That took some time. When I got to church and they were telling us to “ozar”, I caught on. Another speech pattern is to lengthen the past participle, to the point of accenting it. So “He has left” becomes “Se ha idó”. This tense, the past present, is used frequently. Then there is the replacement of “des” by a “ts” sound: “Tu aprents?” instead of “Tu aprendes?”. This “ts” sound appears in many word endings – I haven’t figured them all out yet. In addition, a common phrase is “No ve?” or simply “Ve?” to mean “You see?”
In addition, on the Altiplano in Bolivia it is typical to put the verb last. A common word is “harto”, which loses the pejorative sense it has in other parts of the Spanish-speaking world  and instead means simply much or many. So for example: “Harta gente hay”  means  “There are lots of people”. I suspect that this language pattern comes from the Aymara, where “Hi waki es?” means “Cool, huh?”
Many common food items call for different words in South America. A number of words are of Aymara or Quechua origin.
Api – hot drink made with lemon, corn flour, and sugar
Arvejas – peas
Camote – sweet potato
Chichi – fermented corn beer
Chopp – draft beer
Choclo – corn  (no one says “maiz”) (The corn is usually gray with large kernels, typically served on the cob)
Cuñape – yucca/cheese pastry
Humientas – corn, cheese and raisin porridge wrapped in corn husk
Locoto – chili pepper
Salteña – meat and vegetable filled pastry
Tucumana – fried meat and vegetable filled pastry
Palta – avocado (no one understands “aguacate”)
Zapallo – pumpkin

Other strictly Bolivian words:
Collya – indigenous person
Challa – ritual blessing
Chino – a familiar word Bolivians use to refer to each other, whether or not of Asian origin
Huaca – sacred place
Flota – bus
Sorache – altitude sickness
Refrigerio – snack time
Wiphala – indigenous Angean flag

It makes me feel slightly better to hear that Bolivians have trouble being understood by other Spanish speakers when they travel!