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.