I don't know what to call this post, so I'm going to call it... Gus

I finally made it out of La Paz, although I didn't make it to Cochabamba as planned. I found that Oruro is a pleasant enough place, and I didn't really fancy an extra 9 hours on the bus. Plus, I know I'll be back in Oruro for La Diablada carnival, and I plan on heading to Cochabomba after that. By then the film school there might be back from break, which is the main reason I'm going there anyways.

The La Paz bus terminal has perhaps a dozen companies providing service to Oruro; they all say they charge the same price, most run every hour or so, and they all have the same exterior shots of their buses that look pretty much the same. So I picked one at random, which I'm going to say is in the bottom quartile of the providers (although if I save 10 ticket stubs, my next ride is free!). The interior of the bus looked as if if hadn't been cleaned for weeks, with a plethora of various-colored crumbs and mysterious, dried white crusty spots on the seats. If the person in front of you leans back, you are either going spread-eagled or having your knees crushed. Fortunately, the music was played on low volume(!); I believe this is the first time I've seen this in South America.

It was a beautiful ride though: for the first part of the ride, dusty green hills rose like walls a ways back from the road; occasionally there would be a small break, revealing the snow-covered caps of the Andes. After a while the hills became less uniform on the land, which reminded me of the American West, like southern Idaho and northern Utah. The ground looked as if it hadn't seen water in a long time, even though this is rainy season - except in a few low spots, like the half-submerged playground I saw. Crabgrass and scrub brush dominated the vegetative landscape. Occasionally I saw state road workers in yellow vests on old, rusty bikes, heading to or working on a job. I wonder if the bikes are provided, or if owning a bike is a great asset in securing that job?

The hills looked as if they were the legs of a sleeping giant with vericose veins - something was causing distinct lines along virtually all of them, although I'm not sure what. It didn't seem to be from agriculture or any human interference. There was farming going on though, it what looked like some of the poorest soil in the world (generally the Altiplano is known for its mineral wealth, not its agricultural wealth). Occasionally we passed small pueblos; you could tell which way the wind blew by following the trail of plastic bags running from the mounds of garbage surrounding the towns. Generally speaking the life looked... bleak. So much bleaker than anything I've experienced in places like India or Cambodia, places that have their own share of poverty. The farther south we got, the more other-worldly and bleak the landscape became; the vegetation grew even more sparse, dust-devils swirled across the horizon, the soil grew redder, and the salt began to appear. By the time we were on the outskirts of Oruro, I felt like I was closer to the moon than the earth - the ground was white and rumpled-looking, and the wreckage of unidentifiable machinery was cast about.

Once you get into Oruro though, you get the sense that the town is one with some money. There are carefully kept public spaces in the center; many of the sidewalks are being renovated; and scores of new traffic lights are going in. In fact, the huge number of private vehicles is a dead giveaway that the town is not the poorest in Bolivia, although you don't need to stray far from the center to begin to get a sense of the poverty that does exist (I am in the second-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere).

At first I tried to find a hostel from my Footprint guide that was supposed to be about midway between the bus station and the center of town, but all I found was an old abandoned building. I wound up in the first place I saw: the owner spoke English, which is a rare nicety here; he had a collection of maybe 10,000 key rings on the walls of the main office; and I thought the naked lady bent over the pool table next to the picture of Mary and baby Jesus was a nice touch. My room has a lot of space and good light (two things I look for in a room when traveling), although the pillows are so big and firm I can't even sleep on them. Pillows are a perpetual nuisance traveling anywhere outside the rich world: straw is a common filler; in South America they tend to use something that feels like big mothballs or rolled up socks.

My hospedaje has a shared bathroom, and everything is taffy-pink: pink toilet, pink tub, pink tile, even pink toilet paper. The plumbing looks like it was installed as an after-thought; the shower head comes out from the side of the shower, instead of at the end. It's hot though, which is always nice (a tip: my experience in South America is that point-of-use hot water guarantees a crappy shower, central hot water guarantees a good shower. It's worth remembering if you're ever here).

I had stopped here to book a room for the carnival, but once I got here and started asking around I found out that the government sets a price ceiling and floor, and they don't do that for a couple more weeks. I don't know why they would need to set a price floor, since the prices of rooms triple or quadruple for carnival time. But I guess to make sure they wouldn't undercut the floor, the places that would quote me prices quoted me at grossly inflated levels: "this dingy, windowless room is US$20 per person, per night." I talked to one place that said to give a call in a couple of weeks, and that the price would probably be about $8 pp/pn. That was the closest I came to an actual reservation, though.

So I'm kind of just kicking it here until Tuesday, which is when the next train runs to Uyuni. There are two train companies: one runs Friday and Tuesday, and arrives in Uyuni at 10pm; the other runs Wednesday and Sunday, but arrives at 2:30am. I don't fancy a 2:30am arrival in a strange town. But the train cuts out almost 4 hours of travel time, plus trains are way more fun than buses. So I decided to wait a few days.

T'was two days past Christmas...

... And in La Paz, nothing is happening with me. Although I did get a tattoo recently (see the picture). I spent Christmas in my room by myself, playing guitar and drinking wine. Actually I had a pretty good time. Christmas eve was noisy; people here count it down like we do New Years.

I am leaving the city tomorrow though, and after a couple of logistically-necessary stops, I'll be in Uyuni, the main town next to the salar, the world's largest, highest salt flat. Chinchillas trapped on islands of cactuses, Andean flamingos (only place in the world they live in), multi-colored lakes (bizarre algae growths, apparently), people living off the salt. Sounds cool, no?

There's a little Bolivian boy who was drawn to my typing skills when I was writing emails earlier (either that or he's a very clever voyeur). At first I was a little uncomfortable, because he's almost in my lap watching me, but then it occured to me that if he can read, he probably can't read English, and he's just a kid anyways. Does it really matter that he sees me telling my mom that I didn't do anything for Christmas?

The only other thing I have to say is that the CEO of Oracle corporation, Larry Ellison, has given about $150,000,000 of his wealth to charity over the years ($100,000,000 of that was to his own charity for a court settlement involving Ellison's $1 billion sale of Oracle shares with insider knowledge). That's 1% of his net worth (Ellison is number 5 on the Forbes 400). Meanwhile, prostitutes in El Alto make Bs. 5 per customer (that's about $.62), and after 10 customers the brothel owner lets them cash in their coupons and go home. This is considered a lot of money for women of their education level and economic status. Merry Christmas. I think I've said so before, but anti-Americanism and terrorism aren't what shocks me. What shocks me is that there isn't more of it. Larry Ellison is lucky they don't read Forbes in El Alto.

No spell check today for some reason (sorry). The button is mysteriously missing.

Happy Holidays everyone!

This poem was written in the mid-19th century. Funny how stuff like this seems so applicable to any time, huh? I'm not a Christian, so I don't celebrate Christmas as the birth of Christ, but for me it's one of the best times of year (especially coupled with New Years) to envision what a better world would look like and how we can help make that happen. That's what this poem makes me think of, anyways.

Hope goodwill and cheer finds you all this holiday season.

Only 2 days until Christmas!

Large parts of the city streets are closed to vehicles today, so vendors could set up stands for last-minute Christmas shopping, and the streets were choked with shoppers. It's a lot like Mall Madness in the US, only you can wander through and check it out without having to go to the smelly ol' mall. Some vendors had loudspeakers set up to announce their wares and their prices, which sounded a lot like the safety speeches at the carnival - you know how sometimes they got on those crappy speakers and you can't understand anything, and you just hear "so absolutely don't kkkkkkkrrrrrrrkkkkkkknks for riding the John Denver Experience." Mostly there were toys, chinsy plastic stuff from China; but there were also some interesting board games, one of which was called "Terrorismo!" which had a box sporting a large picture of a Bin Laden-esqe fellow shouting a war cry and holding his AK dramatically over his head. I also saw someone selling big, live snails - like 8 inches long and 4 inches high - for some unknown purpose. There are even more people selling fruitcakes today, although I haven't noticed anyone actually buying them yet. Pet supplies came out for the final weekend, as well (maybe people buy for their pets last). I saw a lot of leashes, collars, and dog beds being touted in the streets. I also saw a poster for a $500 reward for a lost dog. In the pictures, it had droopy ears and was wearing a pink and red sweater. $500? At that rate I'm surprised there's not a dog-kidnapping ring. $500 is several months wages for a lot of people here. The best though are the guys who don't have stalls and are just holding what they're selling, and it's always really random: OK, that guy has scotch tape and a pair of binoculars, that guy has safety pins and meter sticks, and that guy has one hat, some loose pieces of paper, and some gum.

Yesterday at all the big hotels, families could come and get free toys. I think the big hotels are the most convenient, large indoor areas in the center of the city (they're not the ones giving away the toys). It was pretty fun to see all these really happy little kids on the street though - Army kits for the boys, doll houses for the girls (of course). Occasionally there was something more interesting, like a chess set or a wooden bulldozer. I saw this plump little 3 year old wearing two sweaters, carrying a large, yellow truck. He was looking at it like at that moment, him and that truck were the only things that existed in the whole world.

For myself, I of course picked up a copy of "Terrorismo!" and tried to find a book in Spanish that was geared towards little kids or the mentally incompetent (the latter being my category), but the closest thing I could find was Harry Potter, which I decided was beyond my ability. I asked at one stall for books for kids, and they gave me books about kids; at another stall I told the woman I needed something simple and she just started handing me stuff she thought a gringo would buy, like Dan Brown. In Cusco my teacher recommended The Little Prince, so I've been keeping my eye out but haven't seen a copy yet.

I also saw a guy selling these little toys that have a little wooden man that spins on some elastic. He was turning one, but I wouldn't say he was playing. He was old, in his 60's I'd say, with a weathered sport jacket, soiled slacks, cheap flip flops and a newsie hat. He had a small tarp full of the toys, and looked as if he hadn't sold anything all day. The toys looked home-made, and I wondered if he had made them himself. He looked so alone, in a street full of people. Like he didn't care anymore. Waiting for a customer, or to die. Whichever. It's funny how you can spend a lot of time walking by street families, people hoping to sell some safety pins and meter sticks, and then something like this happens and it makes you really sad. It made me really sad, anyways.

I saw maybe a half-dozen Mormons out today as well, something I had never seen in La Paz. Maybe a last-ditch effort to get Bolivians to celebrate the REAL prophet this Christmas. Which is just what Bolivians need: just as they're starting to discover their own autonomy and work around some of the more repressive doctrines of the Catholic Church, another group of white people come in with an even more authoritarian religion. Although I guess it's a close match in that arena. Have you ever noticed how the Pope always says he wants to fight "secularism and moral relativism"? Clever bit of PR on his part, kind of like saying "don't worry, post-9/11 America, we're going to get Bin Laden and Saddam." Of course he's implying that someone like me, who is a secularist, has no morals just because I'm not part of the Man in the Funny Hat Club, and that religious people, but Catholics in particular, are the only true moral force in the world. Just one more way the Pope manages to make his Church look like a bunch of assholes. In the same vein, the Mormon church posthumously baptizes people without permission, like they tried to do with Simon Wiesenthal, a Jew and a well-known holocaust survivor and Nazi-hunter. In the words of Rabbi Marvin Hier, "Mr. Wiesenthal proudly lived as a Jew, died as a Jew... and at his request was buried in the state of Israel. It is sacrilegious for the Mormon faith to desecrate his memory by suggesting that Jews on their own are not worthy enough to receive God's eternal blessing." Oh, but what Rabbi Hier doesn't realize is that once we die we'll realize our horrible mistake of being non-Mormon and be really happy that the Mormons have a freaky, posthumous baptism program. I know this isn't a proper will, but let me say this to my family: under no account am I to be baptized as Mormon after I die (the Mormon church claims that this only happens at the families request (like with Mr. Wiesenthal, right?). Well, quite frankly, my religion is my choice, not my parents or anyone elses).


So the good news about my room is that the construction has ceased. The bad news is that the room next to me is now inhabited by a serious snorer. Not like a saw, or even a chainsaw. More like a whole sawmill. I had some very decent silicone earplugs in and he still kept me up. After an hour of that, I banged on the wall a few times, thinking that if he woke up and stopped snoring for a few minutes, I could nod off. But he didn't wake up. I always forget that a lot of guys snore until I'm around a lot of different guys, which happens travelling. If I were someone who dated men, that would be a dealbreaker for me, I think.

Another thing that I find strangely annoying about hostels here is that they're all locked in the front, 24/7, but very, very rare is it that you will receive a key to room and to the front. Instead, you have to ring the bell and wait. It makes me feel like I have servants or something, and I can't help but feel a little guilty making someone come open the door for me several times a day.

Since I'm on the subject of little annoying things, the Bs. 2 coins here come in two different sizes, one of which is the same size as the Bs. 1 coin. Both are the same, uniform silver color. What person in charge of that decision ever thought that would be a good idea?

It's hard being all alone for so long. That's the hardest part. It'll be a lonely Christmas, and there certainly won't be any kissing on New Years. You lose a lot of your personality when you can't speak the language, too. Nobody here knows how smart and funny I am! They only get the handsome part... actually, I was sitting in a park the other day and a lot of people were staring at me, and one guy even told me I need to get a hat for the sun (I think that's what he said. I heard "sombrero" and "sol" at least). I had gotten kind of burned on my face, and it looked like I had been in a fight - both my eyes were black, I figured out once I was home. Part of that is I've been getting allergy-eyes at night, so I scratch them. I might have to try some potatoes or cucumbers I guess. Does that really work, you think? I'm not really trying to impress anyone, but for like half an hour I was thinking "why the Hell is everyone exchanging closeted words and staring at me and snickering?"

Roll up your britches and wade through the rain!

I'm back in La Paz, where it rained so hard today the streets had 6 inches of water in places! Running water too, not just low places with puddles. Fernando really wants me to come back in January so I can run the internet while he's on vacation, in addition to remodeling rooms. I told him I'd think about it.

It's Christmas time in La Paz, and the streets are awash with vendors of nativity scenes, lights, candy canes, etc. Santa's ho-ho-ho-ing with all their might in the street, Christmas-tree vendors, public holiday displays. At night some of the streets are so full of people shopping that they essentially become closed to cars. It's downright Christmasie. And there's lots and lots of fruitcakes for sale. Entire stores dedicated to fruitcake! I mean britches.

I don't know if the shopping madness is the reason, but I noticed yesterday morning that you can easily spot a bank coming up by the reams of people in line waiting for it to open. I went out in the morning to go to the immigration office, and noticed that every single bank I passed had scores of people waiting outside, and that these lines persist to the end of the day. I have no idea what's going on, but I have noticed that everyone is clutching copies of their ID's. Bolivia is kind of paper-crazy; you need multiple copies of your passport to do anything official (like get your visa renewed, I found out). Even something simple, like buying ice cream, involves a paper trail: first, go to the register and tell them what you want, eg. single or double scoop, and pay. They give you a receipt, which you give to the person at the counter, who takes your receipt, stamps, and files it. Then a third person gets you your ice cream. The process is similar buying popcorn at the theater, even though the cashier and server are literally about two feet away from each other. Pay, get your receipt, turn and extend your arm to hand your receipt to the server, who stamps it and serves you popcorn.

Another thing I hadn't noticed before is how many gold buyers there are in La Paz. Scores of them, most of which are just people with a table and scale in the street. Is there a lot of gold floating around in La Paz? There is in people's teeth, which caused me to have the eerie thought that if people get hard up, they sell their fillings. Sort of a particularly perverse predatory lending.

So while I was in Coroico I met some girls who were volunteering at an outreach center for sex workers in El Alto called "La Casa de Esperanza" (The House of Hope). I got in touch with some of them when I got back to La Paz, to learn more about what they do and to see if it might be a possible project for a documentary (I think I've settled on wanting to try and make a documentary about oil and gas nationalization in Bolivia, but I'd like to get my feet wet first with something a little less ambitious, practice interviewing, get some experience with my equipment, etc.). But my conversation with Heather and Kara didn't exactly go as I had hoped. Kara basically said my idea was exploitive (although I think that's a LITTLE unfair). They don't think any of the women they work with are far enough along dealing with their problems to be doing anything like telling their story to a stranger and a camera. They actually had someone produce a promotional tape for them, and I guess there was a lot of fallout from that; the girls having anxiety over not knowing who would see it, whether they said the right thing, etc. They ended up not using the video (and it didn't even really have interviews in it, which is what I want the backbone of my video to be). Heather was a lot nicer and took the attitude of "we'd have to be really careful about how it was done," but not that it couldn't be done, and she supported the idea of exploring the issue via video. But after talking with them for a while I don't think it is the right idea. In retrospect, it might have been naive of me to think that sex workers from a really poor area of a poor country who are regularly exploited would want to talk to some guy from the US. So I'm kind of in limbo in La Paz now. I paid for my hostel through Tuesday, and everything kind of shuts down for Christmas anyways. I might head to Cochabamba or Ururo after the week if I can get a bus (I think they're pretty full around the holidays), but it might be more fun in La Paz for New Years anyways. I don't have the urge to be doing anything touristy right now, and I definitely want to do a smaller project prior to oil/gas/politics. A couple ideas I have: salt harvesters on Salar de Uyuni (the largest, highest salt flat on earth), silver miners in Potosi, illegal logging in the east, and water privatization in Cochabamba. Of those, I think I like the idea of the salt harvesters most (partly because it takes place in such a cool environment). Whatever I settle on, I want the video to focus on ordinary Bolivians telling their stories.

But right now I'm thinking a lot of it will have to do with how much people want to talk to me wherever I end up. I might need to work on my Spanish more before I can really talk, too. I'll probably just go someplace and see what happens, although I'm looking into more Spanish lessons. If I do take more Spanish lessons I really want to do them in a group, which means I'd probably have to be in La Paz, or maybe Cochabamba (which would be nicer I think - the "city of eternal spring" they call it). I'm also thinking about the idea of finding someone (a student maybe) that would want to translate for me. I think this might be necessary, although ideally I could find someone locally. The problem with that is I don't know if that's possible. Uyuni, for example, only has about 10,000 people in it.

I took a long walk to the other end of the city today to see embassies and go to a supermarket. Kind of just for the hell of it, since I don't have a lot to do right now. I tried to sleep in, but they decided to drill through steel or something above my room today (cool, I paid for a week and the second day they start heavy construction work on the floor above. Ah, the joys of travel). At the market a girl holding various yogurt products let out a rapid stream of Spanish for about 30 seconds that I understood not one word of. Was I supposed to taste these products? Buy them? I have no idea - I just smiled. Later I smiled at a girl holding a fruitcake, without noticing that she was an employee. That was all the invitation she needed to try and convince me I wanted to buy that fruitcake, which she spent several minutes doing. Other than aggressive marketing, there wasn't anything all that fun really. There was a refridgerated aisle of fresh cream pies with no covers - no doors on the shelves, nothing over the pies. I really wanted to stick my fingers in them, and there wouldn't have been anything stopping me. There was also $6 Stoli vodka, but I settled on some $2 wine (same brand that I'd been drinking in Coroico. Guess I'm hooked).

After leaving the supermercado, I kept walking down embassy lane: Spain, Brazil, Paraguay, and of course the US. I think I read that the US embassy in Bolivia is the second-largest in South America (Columbia takes the cake). All the embassies are in buildings that are interesting in their own way: Brazil has a very modern, sleek, all-glass building with some modern art in front; Spain has a sort of Colonial-villa style house with lots of hard-wood; Paraguay has an curious, silver, Russian-style spire dominating the facade; and then there is the US embassy, a huge, scary, concrete skyscraper, with narrow little windows, set far back from the surrounding blast-wall. It looks like they expect to come under attack at any moment (given US drug policies, I wouldn't be surprised). It actually gave me the same impression I had the first time I saw the administrative headquarters of the Mormon Church: it seemed to portray this attitude that "we will rule everything. It's only a mater of time. And no, we're not interested in negotiating."

The best way to Go Green for Christmas... plus a new address for me

Hi all. So I got an email from my dad today, who was thinking of buying some "carbon credits" for Christmas. He asked if I knew anything about Carbon Fund, one of that MANY companies that now sell the ability to be "carbon neutral." Basically, a company will calculate how much CO2 you emit in a year (by asking how much you drive, fly, use electricity, etc.), and then sell you that amount of carbon in "Green Tags," which in principle neutralizes the carbon you emit in your daily living, thus making your own life "carbon neutral." Ironically, I was working on a research paper that concerned this exact topic last spring, since Green Tags are so in vogue right now (see the WWU program, or the Syriana movie production; the latter used to advertise that it was produced "carbon neutral" on its website). Nothing was published, but here is what we were researching in a nutshell (as told to my dad by me):

Hi dad. Interesting that you should bring up Carbon Fund. I interviewed a senior fellow there for the research paper I was working on last year with Dan Hagen, my environmental econ. professor. So basically, when you go "carbon neutral," you're buying what's called a Green Tag. Green Tags are generated when electricity is produced by green sources, ie. wind. So a windmill produces two things as it spins: electricity, and a Green Tag for each kilowatt-hour of electricity. So there are two markets in renewable energy: the electricity, which is bought under contract by utilities and then re-sold to customers, and Green Tags, which can be bought - and sold - by anyone. That's right, there is a secondary market for Green Tags, that is, I can buy a bunch of Green Tags and then sell them to you at whatever price (basically market speculation - but look how cheap it is to be carbon neutral!). How many green tags are out there that haven't been bought yet? 10? 1,000,000,000? No one knows! What year were the tags produced? Well, most organizations, such as Carbon Fund, say they come from "new" sources. What's a new source? Any facility that has come online since 1997. So when you buy green tags, you could be buying something from a windmill that came online in 1997.

I don't know if you remember, but the thrust of our investigation was this: why suppose that your money spent on Green Tags is putting up new windmills? Did you read what you're buying on the website (there are many such sites, and many of them do a poor job of explaining exactly what you're purchasing. The certifier of green tags is Green E, whose website has an OK explanation that still leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Interesting, considering they are THE regulatory body of Green Tags. They are also the ones who define "new," which is now anything built since 1997)? Virtually all of these organizations that say you can go "carbon neutral" via renewable energy purchases are selling the same product: Green-E Green Tags.

The kicker? We found no evidence that the revenue stream from Green Tags encourages additional capacity (ie more windmills, solar plants, etc.) to be built. Electric plants are built around 30-year payment schemes and financing, thus the contracts for the electricity produced are usually at least for 5 years, often times much longer. How could a renewable producer rely on what is essentially a one-month contract (MAYBE one year) that could be canceled at any time? They can't. Thus, the people that build additional renewable energy generation capacity do not consider Green Tag revenue. It's just icing on the cake for them.

That's the situation in a nutshell. Let me know if any of that didn't make sense. I would say that if you want to help the environment, use a carbon-calculator (the most sophisticated apparatus on those sites, the ones that figure out how much you PAY them) to find your footprint, and then find a friend of yours who doesn't have a lot of disposable income and weatherize their house for them. You'll help someone save on their utility bills, and your actions will have tangible, measurable effects on the environment - plus efficiency measures are ALWAYS the best thing for the environment when it comes to the energy world (in terms of money spent versus benefit received). Sure, they're way less sexy than a Prius, but it's easy to do: just figure out kWh saved and multiply by the amount of fuel burned for that energy. Yes, it involves some math and some basic research (like where you get your energy). Or, if you're not interested in that, just take the same amount of money you would spend on Green Tags and invest it in efficiency. You're guaranteed to do more.

Even the guy at Carbon Fund, when I directly asked him, said "of course our stance is that the purchase of Green Tags encourage additional capacity," even though he couldn't really say how they did. And then he added, "off the record though, I have my doubts. Would you let us know the results of your research?" Dan Hagen told us "the more I learn about this tag issue, the more I support these renewable portfolios, because you can be sure they're actually doing something!" A renewable portfolio, like the one that was recently mandated in WA, requires a certain amount of electricity to come from renewables in each utility district. WA now requires 15% by 2010 or 2012 I think, although districts can buy credits from other utilities that are over-producing. The portfolios do not count large hydro as renewable.

Green Tags are actually what Western Washington University spends almost half a million dollars on each year (thanks to the group I'm a part of, Students for Renewable Energy). We're currently in a 5 year contract with Stateline windfarm, which may or may not encourage them to expand. But the expenditure is more symbolic than anything else, and it's only more so with individuals buying small amounts month-to-month. That was the whole thing that encouraged our research: is the university spending a whole lot of money on symbolism? No one seems to care; Western even won a big award from the DOE and EPA for being so green with our program!

Speaking of the Prius, under the EPA's new mileage estimation guidelines (which basically acknowledge that people today drive faster with bigger cars than in 1975, and that they use more power-hungry gear like stereos and air-con), the Prius' expected mileage will drop from 61/51 city/highway to 44/44 (I got almost as good of milage on the highway in my 2000 Honda Civic). In independent tests, the Toyota Corolla gets about 30 in the city, where people do most of their driving. Price difference? The Corolla is about $8,000 cheaper. Sure, it doesn't wrap you in a cocoon of super-cool, I'm-so-green, tempered steel, but it's a similar car for a lot less money that still gets decent mileage. My advice is to use that 8 grand to buy some extra insulation for your house, slow down on the highway (every mile above 55 reduces milage by 1%), keep your tires inflated (can reduce milage by up to 5%), and walk or drive to work or school. It's better for your health, your wallet, and our environment. Or buy $8K worth of tree seeds (some programs here) or donate to programs that alleviate poverty in Africa so the people there won't feel compelled to clear-cut old growth for cooking fuel, or... there's lots of other options! Don't forget that the mining, smeltering, and production of the steel in a new Prius emits not just CO2, but a whole host of other nasty pollutants, not to mention the plastic, batteries, rubber, wiring... OK, my Prius rant is over. In short, I know we all want to help, but most of us don't have a lot of money to do that. So it's important to figure out how your money will do the most good! It's too bad that being a responsible global citizen isn't as easy as just buying a new car, but it isn't. What's a better option? Well, donate to the Solar Electric Light Fund, which displaces polluting energy AND helps the worlds poor, or to Native Energy, which uses donations to build windmills that otherwise couldn't be built; the windmills also provide a revenue stream for some of the poorest people in America (and a people that the rest of us owe, big time). Or donate to E+Co, which uses money to actually replace dirty energy with renewables and, again, help the worlds poor.

If any of that is confusing, don't hesitate to ask me to clarify! I like talking about this stuff (in case you couldn't tell, 10 pages later).


So I asked at the La Paz post office today, who told me THIS is where you should send me mail (since I know my 5 readers really want to send me a fruitcake! Don't bother - fruitcake is ubiquitous over here):

Devin Malone
Correo Restante
Correo Central
La Paz, Bolivie

No, that's not a typo, it's how they spell Bolivia here. At least at the post office.

One other thing, because I think it's funny: the spell check on Blogger thought that "fruitcake" was me trying to type "britches," a word in the lexicon that does deserve more use. Point taken, Blogger. I'll hitch up my britches and try and use that word more often.

Certain leaders in government look or act like certain pop culture references!

Nothing happened today, unless you count a praying mantis falling into my soup at lunch. Later, a teeny, purple and black waspy thing with striped wings took an interest in my kabobs. A big day for bugs, I guess.

My room is infested with koala bears... It's the cutest infestation ever

OK, so there's no koala bears in Bolivia, but yesterday at lunch termites migrated past/through my table outside. It wasn't as gross as it sounds. There weren't that many of them, and they were small. It was kinda cool, actually.

It's rained REALLY hard earlier... conversations in the dining room were drowned out by the rapping of rain against corrugated steel. Thunder was BOOMING all around the hotel like artillery shells... it was really intense, but I loved it! Last night the rain was so hard against the concrete outside my room that I couldn't sleep. Now the hotel is wrapped in a thick layer of clouds. I snapped this picture when the fog cleared a bit:
You know how if you use the internet in the states you get all these pop-ups for things like "you're our 1,000,000 customer, you win $1,000,000!" or "Click here for your free I-Pod!" or "Big Beautiful Black Singles!" Well in South America, every pop-up and banner ad is about one thing: getting to the US. "Click here for your Green Card!" "Live and work in the USA!!! a) Me b) Myself and my spouse c) My whole family." I guess in America, we dream of something for nothing, and in South America, they hope "please, pretty please, let me come to the US to work 16 hour days for minimum wage in a slaughterhouse."

Today in town I watched two dogs get in a fight while a lady savagely beat one of them with a steel rod (the one that was hers, to get it to stop killing someone else's dog? The one that wasn't hers to get it to stop killing her dog? I couldn't tell at first). It didn't really work. A teenage boy had to come out and pry the jaws apart of one of them (which turned out to be their dog, the one being beat). Then the lady picked the dog up (maybe a 50 pound dog) by its ears and took it inside. The dog showed absolutely no sign of any aggression toward either person, totally passive, but it definitely had a death-lock on the other dog.

I was on my way into town to look for Milky Way candy bars. For those of you who have traveled abroad much, you probably understand developing an addiction to a taste back home, even if its something you never eat at home. Milky Way candy bars have become that for me in Coroico (since the ice cream is frozen water with some cinnamon flavoring and red food dye). Anyways, I've developed a ritual around eating a Milky Way each night (as embarrassing as it is to report), and I had run out. But the problem is, I've bought all the Milky Ways in town. All of them. There's lots of Snickers, and some Twix, but no more Milky Ways. I don't know how often these places re-stock, but my guess is not very often. In the meantime, I tried some locally-produced cheesy poof things, which tasted like they were made 6000 months ago. Even in their shrink-wrap they were stale. Ironically (a word that gets a lot of use here, I've noticed), there's a calendar stamped onto the side of the bag, which presumably would indicate when the food was made. But it was unmarked. I bet if they used it, no one would buy the cheesy poofs, because invariably they would all be at least 6000 months old. Although there wasn't a year, just month and day, so maybe they'd be safe...

But I guess I'm out of here soon anyways. I'm going back to La Paz on Monday with Fernando. I told him today, and he tried to convince me to come back after the New Year, since I guess I wouldn't be able to work over the holidays (so why did he hire me just before the holidays, and why is he so dismayed that I'm leaving?). I told him I would think about it. I tried to tell him how uncomfortable his wife had made me feel, and that if I'm not comfortable, there's really no point in my staying, since I'm just working for wine, but I'm not sure if he heard it. I said that, and he said, "well, you should come back after the New Year." OK, Fernando, block it out. I guess that's what you have to do in a country without divorce. Once I'm back in La Paz I guess I'll have to write him and let him know in no uncertain terms that I wouldn't come back because his wife was incredibly, consistently rude to me. I told guests at the hotel that I'd made friends with what she said to me, and they couldn't believe I was still here. And that was before she told me to work "mas rapido". I think Fernando is miffed that I'm leaving (although it's almost impossible to tell what he thinks, since mostly he seems like he's trapped in some sort of private psychedelic world most of the time, staring off into the distance. He often just walks away from conversations without saying anything) - today he keeps accusing me of things, like changing the cable stations, or turning off the computers. It's high time I leave, I think. I'm going to work tomorrow, on what is supposed to be my day off, to finish up Room 6. I think in five hours I can finish all the miscellaneous jobs that are left, and get everything cleaned up, and mask out the crappy lines that he asked me to repaint (and definitely wasn't happy about), but if I can't get to repainting the lines, oh well. Maybe Fernando's wife can repaint the lines; she was the whole impetus that made them turn out shaky in the first place.

So I still average 5 visits a day on my blog. But in my latest site report I noticed something interesting... someone decided to visit at 5am on Sunday, December 10th. Who loves me that much? A little blogging over morning coffee before work? I mean that's beyond love, that's like an addiction! Well, I'm flattered at any rate. Actually it's probably someone in Georgia (the central-European one) or something trying to spam me: "Hi, I saw your blog, and didn't quite find what I was looking for. But I found this site giving away Playstaion 3's and I thought you should know!" (I have actually had visitors from Georgia, and have gotten messages like that)

Updates on drama, micro and macro

We'll start with the micro-drama of the hotel, since it's simpler. So today I was going to paint dark brown lines along the corners of the room I'm working on, per Fernando's request. Originally I had planned to mask out the lines, to make them look nice. But after my conversation with the mistress last night, I decided that would take too much time. I ended up just freehanding the lines, which as you can imagine, looked kind of shitty. But it sure was mas rapido! It didn't actually look as bad as I thought it was going to, but it didn't look very professional either. Actually, it kind of gives the impression that there are logs running the span of the room, a situation I consider salvageable; more salvageable than, say, looking like some punk with a dried-up oil brush got high on the paint fumes before starting work. Anyways, the first time I saw Fernando today, he said "what happened with the lines? They're all crooked." That they are, and that's because your wife keeps telling me to hurry up, and to be gone by New Years. He replied that "oh, she's always like that," as if I should just ignore her regularly insulting me (that is, every time she says anything to me). Then he quickly changed the subject, adding "well, what should we do [about the lines]?" Well, if your wife is always like that, then I think what should be done is a divorce. I don't know or care about the lines. Seriously, most of the guests I meet bring her up, and not in a positive way. She's downright awful. Today a girl told me about how she tried to say if she and her brother wanted to stay in the dorm, they had to pay for all four beds. You'd think someone who runs a hotel would understand the concept of a dorm: if you pay for all four beds, you don't have a dorm, you have a room without a bathroom and a bunch of extra beds. The whole point of a dorm is that you might have other people put in with you; that's why they're cheaper.

So that was a fair outburst for Fernando, being a quiet Dutch-German kind of guy, but he hasn't said anything to me yet. A couple hours after I wrote my last post I remembered I have two packages on the way to Coroico, so I haven't talked to him about leaving yet. Tomorrow I plan to ask the post office if the boxes could be forwarded to La Paz.

There's a guy behind me trying to burn photos from his camera, and I guess it's not working, because he's cursing loudly, giving melodramatic sighs, and hitting the mouse buttons really hard. He just said "dude, this computer fucking sucks," obviously addressing me (the only other person in the room), like maybe I would chime in with "it sure does!" I haven't actually seen him, but I know I probably wouldn't want to spend any time with him. Another guy that seems too stressed out to travel.


So now onto the macro-drama of Bolivian politics: the reason this one is trickier is because today's La Razon article is hard for me to understand even after it's been translated: "In the middle of that panorama, the Government gave guarantees for the accomplishment of the encounter, in the measurement in which these do not harm the law." Got it? From what I can tell, the departments want to be able to have regional elections as opposed to presidential appointments for certain offices; be able to introduce departmental legislation; and to control the extraction of natural resources (I don't know if this means total control or what, but I doubt that would happen). Evo Morales has continued to insist there will be no military siege, and has said that he would allow some sort of regionalism to take form - within the context of the Bolivian legal framework. Three of the four departments today have said that they will allow the movement for independence to take form within the Constitutional Assembly, which is currently drafting a new constitution; Morales has refused to reinstate the 2/3 majority rule the Assembly was voted in with (and probably won't).

I think that's kind of where the situation is at. Generally, it sounds like both sides (particularly the departments), are demonstrating willingness to compromise.


Did everyone hear that the baiji (a blind, albino river dolphin), from China, is extinct? The government was fully backing the international expedition to survey current population levels, because they thought they could bring the dolphin back and make themselves look good, like they did with the panda. Man, I bet someone got fired and exiled/executed for that one. One thing that annoyed me about the article, which seems common in the media, is their discussion of free-market economics as something that destroys the environment. That's usually true, but the wording media uses tends to imply that state-controlled or some other form of economic development is harmless to, or good for, the environment. You know, all those green projects the Chinese undertake, like state-owned coal power plants that run at 6% efficiency (modern coal gasification plants can approach 65% efficiency; half of the mercury that makes many Minnesota lakes unfishable comes from other countries, primarily from coal-fired Chinese power plants), or the Three Gorges Dam.

Hey, speaking of coal and energy, anyone interested in a really good alternative energy blog should go here.

Speaking of tacit slander in the media, check out this article on Saudi reaction to the situation in Iraq, and how the Saudis are really trying to met things out and help the situation, while the Iranians are busy plotting the destruction of puppies and Freedom. Like all that freedom in Saudi Arabia. Hey American policy makers, there's a word for not caring about Israel having nukes (even after they finally admitted it) but tearing out hair because the crazy towel-heads in Iran getting them: racist. For the admission part, see a fairly intelligent discussion from the fairly intelligent Christian Science Monitor here, for more Iranian fear-mongering surrounding the same issue, look here, as MSNBC spins the story to highlight Iran's hostility towards Israel and calls Olmert's comments only a "confession" not a Confession. Not that I have a lot of respect for a country which is currently hosting a conference to determine whether or not the holocaust occurred, but neither do I have much respect for a country like Israel which kills kids and then tells Desmond Tutu he can't look into it. I admit that Iran would be somewhat likely to exercise the nuclear option if they felt pressed, but I feel the same way about Israel - since when has that country EVER restrained its use of force? "Oh shit, we're getting kicked out of Lebanon again, drop a bunch of cluster bombs on the way out. For the kids." I mean Tony Blair is still talking about the need for a nuclear "deterrent" and Iran has nuclear-armed Israel to the west, Russia to the north, China and Pakistan and India to the east, and Diego Garcia/Red Sea-based Americans and British to the south. I'd want a bomb too.

OK, so much for my half-baked shakedown of world news. Good night, and good luck.

How does someone so mean run a hotel?

So I'm on the internet in the hotel right now, and Fernando's wife just came in and told me I need to work faster on the room. They have lots of people coming. Mas rapido! I gave my best grimace and said "OK, I get it" in English. Look lady, I'm working for wine here. It's funny, every time I meet someone here she somehow comes up, like "who's that mean woman that works at the front desk?" "Oh, that's just the owner." I can't believe her tenacity! Well, I was kind of getting fed up with this job anyways. Fernando went to La Paz today and won't be back until tomorrow, but I think I'll quit when he gets back. I mean, I'm frustrated with how the progress is coming too, but I only have one set of hands, people keep stealing my tools (my tape measure went missing yesterday), I'm working in the dark (room 6 is in the back of the hotel against a hill), and I don't speak the language, which is handy when making trips to the hardware store. That's a story in itself actually, because it's kind of like the buy/sell counter at a stock exchange - whoever yells next gets helped next, which pretty much means I wait until people stop coming in so I can slowly explain what I'm looking for. It's pretty crazy. The store is just a small room crammed with stuff, and there's no line or anything. I can't even tell who works there. Sometimes the employees try and help figure out what I need, sometimes it's other customers.

So the four departments I mentioned in my previous post have decided to hold community meetings in their respective departmental capitals to discuss the idea of pursuing "autonomy" from the central government and what exactly that would mean. President Evo Morales has said that the actions the departments are contemplating would be illegal. Both sides claim the constitutionality of their positions. The military has finally piped up (I was wondering when that would happen, this is South America after all); the head of the Army, Freddy Bersatti, has said that if the departments do anything illegal the National Police will be sent in to take control of the areas. If that isn't sufficient, the Army will be called in. Morales has ruled out the idea of a military siege or solution to the problem, however (I assume he's commander in chief, although I don't know that). For anyone who's concerned about what this means for me, this is all happening far, far away in the eastern side of the country.

Anyone interested in access to some Bolivian media can go to www.la-razon.com (Reason newspaper, where I got the above information). It's in Spanish, but if you go to a translation service like Altavista's Babel Fish (free) they will translate it into English for you. However, you can't click through links on the La Razon website from the translated Babel Fish page - you have to click through on the Spanish language page, and then copy-and-paste the new page address into Babel Fish.

Did everyone see that Augusto Pinochet died? On International Human Rights day? The irony doesn't get much more ironic than that. On the off chance someone doesn't know who that is, Pinochet was the leader of the Chilean military who took power in a US-supported coup to overthrow the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende on September 11th, 1973 (I guess that's two ironies for Pinochet). Once in power, Pinochet promptly started "disappearing" dangerous individuals like student union leaders. What I don't get is that he still has supporters in Chile, mourning him. Are these the "he made the trains run on time" sort of crowd? Who mourns dictators who kill people for no reason? I would grant that he implemented reforms that are partially responsible for the economic prosperity of Chile today (richest country in South America in per-capita terms) - but isn't that sort of grasping at straws? Not to use the most trite example I could, but didn't Hitler do quite a bit to improve the German economy?

Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State under Nixon at the time of the coup, was later criminally charged and requested for questioning in numerous countries for his involvement in Operation Condor, a program of cooperation between the intelligence and security services of the US, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay (most of which had military dictatorships when Kissinger was around). The program was designed to facilitate the kidnapping, torture, and murder of dissidents across boarders throughout South America. Say, that type of program sounds familiar. S'pose Kissinger would be good buddies with Donald Rumsfeld? Anti-Americanism doesn't surprise me. What surprises me is that it's not worse than it is.

Hopefully I don't have to talk to Fernando's wife again before he gets back. I could totally see her kicking me out.

Gasoline Pajamas

So I guess I'll be using oil paint for some stuff in the rooms, and you have to mix gasoline into it. Which solves the mystery of why Fernando was concerned about my getting gasoline onto the wood finish, but creates a whole new mystery: why is anyone making paint that you have to mix with gasoline? I went to buy some today, but the hardware store, like most stuff in town, closes from 9 am to 6 pm for lunch, which makes it a bit tricky to be a customer.

I had a Spanish lesson today, which was excruciating. I'm surprised I didn't break out in hives or something. Nothing like having a native Spanish speaker "finding out what you know" by speaking to you in advanced Spanish to make you feel real dumb. I could have told you I have no idea what "future future" tense is if you had asked. In Cusco there were two other students, so the spotlight wasn't on me all the time, and we could play off each other. It was way better for me, in fact it was fun. This lesson felt like an hour long test. So I've nixed the idea of paying someone to make me feel like I'm trapped in a steel box with no ventilation, but I might try and find group lessons again once I'm settled in La Paz.

Which may happen someday, but in the meantime Fernando keeps finding more stuff he wants done in the room I'm working on (room 6). Today he decided the balcony needs to be refinished and repainted, and he's already talking about room 4. I said let's wait and see how long it takes me with 6 (I'm anticipating two more weeks for everything at this point, but I'll probably skip out before then. In fact I have to, because I need to get my visa renewed). It might be nice to be here for Christmas though, because there's going to be turkey. So maybe if I take a few days off next week to go to La Paz, I can come back, eat turkey, finish the room, and leave before New Year so wifey can have her precious room back. I was a walking dollar sign in Cusco, but here I'm more like a walking black hole of currency, symbolizing the money that COULD be made if only my waste-of-carbon personality wasn't in the way.

Pictures for your enjoyment

So arranging these pictures onto Blogger is kind of tricky, but I'm just happy they're up. All these pictures are from Bolivia.

Top: view from my room in Copacabana

Second: Baroque cathedral, Copacabana

Third: view of La Paz from El Alto (taken from a moving bus, so not the sharpest picture)

Last: a street in La Paz with several small museums that attempts to recreate the feel of the colonial city. It's a fake street, but it's a pretty fake street.

"The problem with Bolivians is that everyone wants to be involved in politics"

... this is according to my boss, Fernando. This is a problem because politicians just want to figure out how they can skim off the system instead of doing "real work" (in fairness this is partially true I think; in every country, not just Bolivia). People are definitely heavily involved in politics here; hunger strikes and protests seem to be the rule, not the exception to it. Right now people are protesting the move by Evo Morales to "force an agreement" in the constitutional assembly that requires a simple majority vote to approve a new constitution, instead of the 2/3 vote that was originally mandated in the assembly. The article I read didn't say how Evo "forced" that agreement, but it happened three weeks ago, and there are still hungers strikes around the nation in protest, and you see people sporting t-shirts with large, colorful "2/3" decals. Contrary to what we might consider common sense, and contrary to what is reported in our media, "business interests" and "foreign investors" aren't the only ones opposed to Evo Morales and his socialist MAS party: the strikers in the country today are comprised mostly of students, and also of business leaders and even union leaders, such as Mineworkers' Union leader Juan Lechin Weisse. According to a Knight-Ridder Tribune article, "the hunger strikers include 13 of the country's 27 senators, four of the nine governors (I assume representing the four departments of Santa Cruz, Beni, Tarija, and Pondo, the departments pushing for greater independence in the new constitution), local mayors, powerful businessmen, poor farmers and even Miss Bolivia." The situation has resulted in violence in several circumstances, such as last Tuesday when supporters of MAS forced their way into a church in downtown La Paz and forced out hunger strikers using sticks and even explosives. "Rampaging youths" beat up government supporters on Wednesday and Thursday in Santa Cruz. But despite all of this being reported in local and international media (thank you Pro Quest), I haven't actually seen any of this going on. In fact, I read about a rally planned supporting the recently passed land-redistribution legislation, but I went and nothing was happening. It's hard to keep on top of the political situation when there's no English-language media in the country, and since there's no political commentary aimed at the 4-year-old level, my Spanish just isn't up to the task.

One of the contentious issues Morales wants included in the new constitution would give special political rights to Indians (Morales is a native Aymaran), which would allow him to remain president past his term, which is set to expire in 2011 (apparently you only get one term in Bolivia, but I'm not totally sure. Local papers never say this stuff since I guess most people know it already). Morales currently enjoys a 60-65 percent approval rating, but the country seems to be becoming increasingly divided. Even poor farmers in the east seem concerned that their land will be seized under some pretext or another. Neither side seems willing to yield ground, but something will have to happen to release some of the pent-up opposition pressure, or Bolivia faces the prospect of its social fabric unraveling. Morales holds most of the cards, so it's up to him, really.


So I'm beginning to tire of Coroico. I think part of it is because I want to start making a movie (but not here), and another part is because Fernando isn't much fun, and his wife is less fun. Much less fun. She asked me today "when will you be done with your room?" I didn't even know how to answer, or if I had understood the Spanish correctly since the question seemed so strange. When I'm done working I guess? "Because we need the room for New Years." Ah, I see. You wish I was gone and probably that I was dead (keep in mind that the only other thing she's ever said to me is "you have to pay for internet," and that our primary interaction is her scowling at me). And here's a couple exchanges I had with Fernando today that are typical: he likes to start a lot of his sentences with "see, the problem with Bolivia is..." Today it was "... that no one has any work ethic. It's like you hire people to be waiters, and they just want to hang around and talk with the other waiters instead of figuring out what else they could be doing." First, let me remind you that the hotel is all buffet, and all the three waiters do is clear plates for the 8 people eating (refilling food isn't even an issue). Second, I hate to break it to you Fernando, but low-wage workers everyplace in the world prefer talking to each other to "figuring out what else they could do," especially when they're working 16 hour days 7 days a week.

Also today I asked Fernando today if I need to be careful to keep the wood varnish off the glass or the paint, and he launched into a lengthy explanation about how if you get gasoline on the varnish it will ruin it. OK, I'll scratch my plans to mix Molotov cocktails in the room I guess... but what about the windows and new paint? A couple people have asked me if he smokes pot, which I hadn't considered since he seems pretty conservative, but it would go a long way to explaining some of his mannerisms.

If anyone wanted to send me a Christmas Card, don't bother sending it here (Coroico), since I'll be gone in a week or so. As soon as I figure out post restante information for La Paz, I'll let y'all know.

Well I'll be, it worked

Blogger says that Firefox works better to upload pictures than Internet Explorer. Esmeralda is the first place I've seen with Firefox, so I thought I'd try it. Here's a picture I took on a 20 minute hike that was aborted due to incoming thunderclouds. I haven't really been taking any pictures yet, so this is the only one I have really.

Who votes for these people?

Seriously, I don't think I know any registered Republicans. Check out this excerpt from a December 6th Wall Street Journal article - not exactly a flaming bastion of liberalism in America:

"WASHINGTON -- Like a retreating army, Republicans are tearing up railroad track and planting legislative land mines to make it harder for Democrats to govern when they take power in Congress next month..."

"... The unstated goal is to disrupt the Democratic agenda and make it harder for the new majority to meet its promise to reinstitute "pay-as-you-go" budget rules, under which new costs or tax cuts must be offset to protect the deficit from growing."


Can anyone say "sore losers?"

And that's when the Crips came at me...

So some people have been asking me where they can send me stuff now that I'm in one place for a while. The label should read as follows:

Devin Malone
Coroico - Nor Yungas
La Paz - Bolivia
Hotel Esmeralda

This is according to Gloria, the post office employee. Did you know that Ben & Jerry's will pack six pints of ice cream in dry ice and ship them?


Not much new to talk about here. There's an Australian couple who was going to pay to work on an organic farm for a few weeks but might work here instead; it would be really fun to have some company. Fernando said he would have to ask his mean wife (editorialized in my own words). I think she views me as someone who could be paying her money, but I'm not, and she resents that. I avoid her.

I brought name cards on this trip, because I want to win some lunches

They say "Devin Malone - Potential Lunch Winner."

So now I'm typing on a German keyboard, so if anything seems strange, suspect that. Most prominent is the switch of the Y and Z keys, which is driving me crazy. Figuring out the switch between German/English/Spanish keyboard layouts is throwing my brain for a loop I think. Fernando was born to a Bolivian father and a German mother, which explains the German keyboard. He's an . I'm pretty positive his wife hates me, but I take solace in the fact that I'm pretty sure that his wife hates everyone. Someone who just scowls at anyone who says "hello" can be described as an unhappy person I think.

I started painting today finally. It's hard to work here because everything is so sub-standard compared to what I'm used to. You can only buy white paint, to which you have to add color, and the more you add, of any color, the more brown the paint turns. At best you get this sort of mushy pastel. It didn't help that Fernando thought adding lots of black would help when what we were going for was a vibrant red-orange. My boss is odd: he's not much of a talker. When I got here he handed me a room key and literally said "OK, see you later." Hey, what about food, work, internet, anything!? When I first met him he seemed like a stereotypical sex tourist; blond white guy with a big pot belly, shirt unbuttoned with a nest of gray hair poking out, lacking in social graces (He was rather awkward in our interview; I don't think he had thought at all what he would ask. He said "OK, you can work" and then said "do you have any experience with this sort of stuff?"). I was definitely relieved to hear that he was born in Bolivia and that he had a wife.

Let's see, other stuff they don't have: masking tape (apparently part of the chain of cocaine production. Who knew?), those big wide buckets for paint rollers (so it goes on pretty thick), lights you can plug into the wall (I work almost literally in the dark), buckets (I cut up old water bottles), drop cloths (I have enough newspaper so if I move it to the spot I'm working in I'm covered). There are a couple of tools, like screwdrivers, but I have to share them with Jorge, the main maintenance guy, and he doesn't like to share. Friday I spent half my day just trying to track him down so I could ask if I could have my scraper or stepladder back. Most of the time when I need stuff I go to a scrap heap in the back and dig around. In a way you could call it "resourceful," but I think a more accurate word is "annoying." I mean if your scrap heap is your tool box, you could organize it at least. It's pretty nice though. I mean mostly I just hang out in a room and paint while I listen to Democracy Now and Mitch Headburg.

There's a drawing by one of Fernando's kids on the wall next to me. What is it about all kids that they go through a stage when drawing people means a circle with a face, plus arms and legs sticking out? I'm pretty sure all kids do that at some point. I sure did. I guess we focus on faces, not bodies, but even a child can't get away with drawing a person as just a floating head.

I went on a short walk yesterday (short because it looked like rain, which actually didn't materialize until last night, when I awoke to the sensation that I was sleeping under a waterfall with thunder all around. I had to put in earplugs. It was kind of awesome actually). On my walk I saw four species of ants (what, I like ants), one of which had carved 1 1/2 inch wide super-highways away from its nest. I don't know how many times an ant has to walk on dirt and grass to create a path a human can see from 20 feet, but my guess is a bunch. I also saw a radio tower inside a small barbwire compound which included a concrete bunker-like building. You would think that would hold machinery and stuff, but it actually held a family with little kids. I was sort of incredulous, kids living in barbwire. The girl waved back.

The music here is funny. We went from Pink Floyd to Backstreet Boys to Dave Matthews to Biggie Smalls. Last night it switched from Rolling Stones to Afroman. Afroman. Now there´s a quality American cultural export. Up there with Baywatch, in quality if not in quantity.

Even more fun with translations

A sign in the internet cafe of the Hotel Esmeralda:

"Se prohibe usar la mesa de billar a menores de edad."

Or, as they have translated it: "It is prohibited to use the table of billiards to minor"

I have no idea what they're talking about, but I watch my step around the computers.

Chillin' in Coroico

So I got a job. I'm remodeling hotel rooms in Coroico, which is a little town a couple hours from La Paz. I work 5 hours a day, doing pretty simple stuff - painting, sanding, spackling, wood finishing - and in return I get room, board, two 22oz. beers or a bottle of wine a day, and access to hotel facilities, which include pool, sauna, internet, and pool table. It's pretty plush. The bathroom in my room is about the size of the room I had in La Paz, and it has excellent hot showers; I've got cable TV with a choose-your-own movie channel; walk in closet; foyer (sure, just a wood-paneled room with no lights or furniture, but a foyer nonetheless); and king-sized bed (actually it's big but not that comfortable). I saw the ad online and decided it was an opportunity not to be passed up. Coroico is tucked into the Yungas, the jungle-covered foothills of the Andes, and has a sub-tropical climate; it's about 85 during the day and 65 at night. It's too high up for mosquitoes. Even when it's raining it's beautiful, with the mountains shrouded in a mysterious mist. There are scores of hawks riding the thermals around the hotel (which is perched on the hills and has a fantastic view), wild parrots, lots of exotic looking bugs, and supposedly Andean condors, although I haven't seen any yet.

So aren't I supposed to be making a movie? Well, there's a film school in Cochabamba that goes on break at the beginning of the year, and my idea is to head there just before the break starts and try and find someone to travel around with me and translate and help with technical issues. I think I've decided to film about the oil and gas nationalization here, which I can easily incorporate with other political issues in Bolivia if I want. The congress here just (narrowly) passed a land-redistribution law, with the goal to redistribute 20% of Bolivia's land (about 77,000 acres) from "idle" or "illegally held" lands to landless peasants. I thought I would film about that, since it's current, but I think it's too current. One university commentator said he thought it would take the government a year to build the institutional capacity to actually enact the legislation, and not much is expected to happen for a few months at least apparently. Already the issue of what land is "idle" is contentious. The law says any land that has not been used for two years or more, but soy farmers are complaining that they have to allow their fields to lie fallow for five years in order to rotate their crop properly.

Push is really coming to shove here I think; Evo said that if congress didn't pass his land bill, he would put it into effect via presidential decree, which opponents say smacks of despotism. I really have no idea, since I don't know what powers of decree are granted a Bolivian president. Also, the bill only passed because three senators were not present to vote, only their aides, and allegations of bribery to the aides have been made. Meanwhile, about half of the 9 provinces here (led by Santa Cruz, by far the richest) are pushing for more "independence" from the central government. They are trying to incorporate these ideas into the new constitution currently being written. And since Evo's party, Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement for Socialism, or MAS - an acronym which means "more" in Spanish) lacks the 2/3 of elected Constitutional Assembly seats required to approve a new constitution, MAS must at least listen to those demands (in the meantime they hope to change the rules so the new constitution requires only a simple majority vote, which MAS has. No wonder the opposition views MAS as despotic).

Politics here work the same as everywhere - you can't please all the people all the time. Even Evo is accused in newspapers of reverting to "old neoliberal ways", and not having done enough to fulfill his election promises. I wonder what the people here expect? He technically nationalized the oil and gas almost immediately upon taking office, although it took the state oil company, YPFB, nearly a year to figure out how to actually do that and renegotiate contracts - this due to lack of political infrastructure and funds to do so. But the contracts did eventually get negotiated at the 11th hour before the year-long deadline, and Bolivia now receives four times as much revenue for each unit of oil and gas sold (Bolivia sells mostly gas, but has a very small internal market - mostly they sell to Argentina, Chile and Brazil). The government is now using some of that money to distribute 100 Bolivianos ($12) to all schoolchildren for uniforms and supplies. That could be mere window-dressing, but prima facae it's a good way to begin investing in human capital in South America's poorest nation.

So now it's a year later, and the effects of nationalization are beginning to be seen. I think that makes it a good topic to film, especially since I think the way Bolivia nationalized their assets was particularly clever: they took control of the resources themselves, but none of the infrastructure that removes the resources and takes them to market. In that way they avoided the catastrophic idea that YPFB actually has the money and expertise to market the oil and gas itself, and they didn't alienate their largest investors/customers as much as they otherwise might have. In essence, what Evo called "nationalization" was a cancellation of old contracts that heavily favored foreign investors. The new contracts are short-term (only two years I think), but the government has demonstrated that the oil and gas companies will pay substantially higher prices for the fossil fuels. I wonder how much of this will be passed to consumers in Brazil and Argentina, and how much will just be reduced profit rates for companies like Petrobraz (the state oil company of Brazil). Bolivia's customers are pretty wealthy; Chile is the richest in South America and Brazil is the world's ninth largest economy - but also the world's most unequal (top ten percent of population represent about 1/3 of consumption, bottom 10 percent 3/4 of one percent; this is compared to 30 percent and nearly 2 percent for the US, or 20 and 4 percent for Sweden. These numbers come from the CIA World Factbook, which also publishes the Gini index on family income. Brazil's number is 59, Swedens is 25. The US scores a 45, although in the explanation of the Gini index, the Factbook says that "the more unequal a countries income distribution... the higher its Gini index, e.g. a Sub-Saharan country with an index of 50. OK, so the US compares with corrupt-as-fuck Sub-Saharan African countries. But not that I guess I'm surprised at a pro-US bias at the CIA. Who doesn't love Uncle Sam, Latin American Death Squads, and musicians with fleets of private jets that complain of "intellectual property theft"? Lars Ulrich, I'm looking in your direction. Jackass).

Today I wanted to buy a dust mask in town, and that was fun. This is what I could communicate: "I need this," hands cupped over mouth, "for when is very dirty here," make talking motions with hands around face to indicate dust, "for protecting here," breathe deeply, place hands over chest. I thought that was pretty good. One store thought I wanted mosquito repellent (in a town with no mosquitoes, no less). The pharmacy told me to check at the Hotel Esmeralda (the place I'm working at - the irony). Anyways, I need to chip some paint and sand some stuff, and I don't know if the "lead-paint-bad" message made it this far south or not.

I eat buffet three meals a day, which is not as bad as it sounds, although not surprisingly, the dishes are variations on what was served earlier that day. There's lots of veggies, like eggplant and broccoli, which is nice. Damn good cole-slaw. Generally it's pretty tasty. Tuesdays and Fridays are Pizza Night, which is excellent, and Sunday is Chopstick Night (I haven't been here for Sunday yet). The beers here are the coldest on the continent I think, which is great (the condensation is frozen to the bottle by the time it gets to your table), and there's a good pilsner and porter available. I'm not sure what kind of grape the house red is made of, but it's similar to a pinot noir, and pretty satisfying. And let me say I had a huge grin on my face the first dinner I ordered a bottle of wine for myself. Does anything beat working for wine?

My last day in La Paz was a flurry of shopping for Christmas gifts and venturing to the post office several times (nowhere in my travel book did it mention you need a copy of your passport to paste to the outside of international packages!). I was worried it would take ages to ship stuff, but the told me five days. I'm skeptical, especially since one package was going to Alaska. Does the person at the Bolivian post office know that Alaska isn't in a white box next to Hawaii, that it's way up north? A lot of Americans don't know that. And if anyone was wondering, Bolivian postal workers behave much as postal workers tend to in the US: a little annoyed, a little bored, not particularly helpful. I guess I can see work at the Post Office as totally mind-numbing though, so the attitude is understandable.

Other last-minute La Paz adventures: $.18 hot dogs from the street. Awesome. In a "I-didn't-eat-it-but-I'm-glad-It's-there" sort of way. Running the gauntlet of barbershops who all want to cut your hair, trying to call you inside: "Amigo! Es facil (easy)!" Sure, I bet it is easy when the customer's hair is 3/4 of an inch long and you don't have to do anything. I still wonder what they would have done to my hair exactly had I gone in. You may be thinking "shave," but I still have my beard.

La Paz has great public buses: late-50's era Dodge school buses from America, painted various primary colors with white pinstripes, hundreds of rivets where the square-foot panels are attached to the frame. Probably what we called "foreign aid" for some fiscal year circa 1979. "Hey, we got a ton of these old buses rusting about, and Bolivia is poor, they'll take anything. Tell them if they buy some F-16s they can have them."

I stayed right next to a street full of mueblerias (muebles is Spanish for "furniture"), and it became my inside joke with myself while I was there. First, because muebles sounds fun, like a children's TV show, and second, because it was so funny to walk down the street, with brightly-colored signs proclaiming Se Vende Muebles! (We Sell Furniture!) and Muebles Aqui! (Furniture Here!). It's just like in the States, where furniture stores have way more exciting signs than they need, except that in a Bolivian furniture store all the furniture, even really nice stuff like Italian leather, is stacked on top of itself floor to ceiling. Sometimes it's in an alley on the way to other stores. Anyways, whenever I saw a sign I would always shout "muebles!" to myself.

My last day in La Paz (Tuesday) there was a rally for the land-reform vote. I got there too late to get close enough to see anything, but I did have some ice cream. The vendor had a brown ice cream and a white ice cream, and I got a scoop of each. Now, in my mind it's obvious that if you're selling ice cream on the street, and you only have two flavors, and one is brown and one is white, you're selling chocolate and vanilla. The base flavors, the popular ones. Anyone want to guess what I had? The white was pineapple. OK, not too shocking, white/pineapple, I can see it. And the brown? It tasted mostly like Frozen, but also like bubble gum. Who knew? And no, I haven't seen brown gum for sale here yet.

Oh yeah, I also bought a guitar to strum on during quiet Coroico nights. It's pine and jacaranda for any guitar enthusiasts reading. It was quite a task to find a decent steel-string guitar in La Paz, because although there are scores of shops, Bolivian music is played on classical guitars. Most of the steel-string ones were poorly airbrushed (to hide cheap wood?), although there were many beautiful classical guitars to be found. I eventually found a pretty steel-string made just from finished wood for $75 with strap and soft case. I don't think middle-class and up people in America appreciate the fact that we can go into most any store and buy whatever we want without thinking about it. It's fun though, huh?

Oh yeah, there's some beautiful pictures of the place I'm staying if you go here

And if anyone out there used my credit card to make $139 in purchases at a used computer store in Texas, I'm mad at you and you don't get a Christmas card.