Another typical Bolivian story

So I was scheduled to have an interview with Leonilda Zurita Vargas, the MAS senator from Cochabamba. We were supposed to meet at a MAS building at 6pm en punto, so we showed up 15 minutes early just to be sure. But when 6:05 rolled around, the senator's assistant came out to tell us the senator was asleep. "But when she wakes up, she'll still see you." The assistant said she didn't want to wake her up because the senator had a big trip to Tarija the next day. We waited around for about 20 minutes, and then decided to try and reschedule for next week, which didn't actually happen, but we'll cross our fingers I guess. This is starting to become typical, that something really screwy happens - like getting shuffled off to an interview with an engineer who doesn't know much about what I wanted to ask and couldn't say anything even if he did; or just getting shuttled around the phone tree because no one wants to deal with me (they have a strategy for this even if I show up in person). I have one week left in La Paz before I return to Peru for a little while, and I'm starting to feel like I'm not going to get anything done that I was hoping to. I didn't hear back from the PR woman for the office of the Minister of Hydrocarbons (who said she would call us back with an interview time with the vice-minister), I still haven't nailed down any opposition party interviews, I still want to interview an economist from a university (I have some names and numbers but nothing else yet), I'm still hoping to interview a senior MAS lawmaker... I'm not exactly making stellar progress.

I took the weekend off, because no one is around to answer their phone on the weekend anyways. After my morning ritual of making a bunch of phone calls and getting lots of non-answers, I went back to Coroico with Perttu, his girlfriend Sonia, and Sonia's friend Alex.

On the drive out through the lunar landscape of the high altiplano, I actually noticed a lot of stuff I hadn't before, like small mines dotting the hills, small plots of agriculture on 55-degree angles, and scores of some sort of vulture - they seemed to be keeping an eye on our bus, just waiting for us to go over the edge. I saw several keeping sentry just next to the road, and several more flew over our bus. They were big, black, scruffy-looking birds with white heads and red beaks, and they didn't seem nervous at all being near our vehicle. I guess when your business is death, it doesn't scare you so much. Kind of ominous.

Another thing I hadn't noticed before were the buildings on the edge of La Paz: they look half-finished, but if you look closely you'll notice that most of them are inhabited - even if corrugated metal is the only thing to cover the windows of the un-roofed brick building.

It was fun to be back in Coroico; the weather is so much nicer than in La Paz, even though it's just a couple hours away, and it's just a great place to relax. We hiked out to some waterfalls, laid out by the pool, played cards and pool, spied hummingbirds and big blue butterflies the size of a hand, and ate, and ate, and ate (it's one of the main activities when you're just laying around). One of the waterfalls we went to was really cool; it had carved out a large stone bowl where the water impacted, and you could stand on the edge and watch the spray swell around the sides and shoot back up, half again the height of the waterfall (which was about 100 feet - the waterfall, not the spray). It was like being in a mini-typhoon. We also went up to the Esmeralda for drinks, and I saw Fernando again. He acted like he didn't recognize me, or maybe he didn't want to talk to me, or maybe he just didn't know what to say. It's hard to tell with that guy.

I'm back in La Paz, and have until Friday to sort stuff out. Another round of unproductive phone calls this morning; Martijn and I are going to go in person back to the National Congress building, the office of the Minister of Hydrocarbons, YPFB, and Universidad San Andres this afternoon. Hopefully that will be more productive. On the phone, if the person isn't actually there, nothing will actually happen, no matter how many times the secretary says they will "deliver the message" or that they'll "call back." Most people just don't care that much - I think only if I bug them enough and they want to stop the annoyance will anyone agree to see me.

Just some dumb stuff I forgot in the last post

So first, I forgot to tell you about the Bolivian guy I saw dancing down the street, kind of in a pena dance, with his eyes closed, pounding out a slow march in tiny steps to music I couldn't hear. I wish everyone did that - then I would be more apt to break out when I hear "I've got the Power!" or something like that.

And I forgot to tell you about Ori, the Jewish Israeli that is staying at Perttu's for a couple days. When I told him I was from the US, he said he likes the money there, and added, with a straight face: "I love money. I love how it feels in my hands." I guess he has no problem reinforcing THAT stereotype. He's been traveling for a year, and was telling us how he's always up at 6am and in bed at midnight, with long days of checking museums and viewpoints off his list of tourist things to do. For a whole year? Sounds like a prison, to me, especially with a schedule like that. Isn't he supposed to be on vacation? I couldn't do that stuff for three weeks before I got bored and felt like just another tourist (he's been at it for 11 months now).

It's funny, every Israeli I've met traveling anywhere is just out of the army, and I think it shows: they can't have a conversation, they have a battle. Ori was really trying to convince me I was a dumb idiot for thinking I wouldn't have to pay for a Chilean visa (there is one for Americans, but only if you fly into Chile) until I told him my friend from the States crossed over by land a couple weeks ago and was fine. He was also explaining to me about the "reciprocal" visas down here, since I would obviously have no idea about those things. The impression I always get from Israelis I meet is that they keep a running tab in their head of how many "points" you each have, i.e. how many things each of you knows that the other doesn't know, or points for looking like a cooler backpacker ("I don't care how uncomfortable the busses are - I live like the locals. Plus, it's cheaper." Ah, the real reason becomes apparent. Besides, in a place like Bolivia, EVERY class of bus is the "local" person's class). And I don't think they can stop the conversation if they think you have more points. Israelis actually have a nasty reputation - I know a guy who is over 60 who has traveled all over the world, who confided that "they're awful." And in India, there are businesses with signs that say "no Israelis" (which made me feel like I was in pre-civil rights America or something, but if you've seen an Israeli ready to tear out the lungs of a store owner over a few rupees you'd have more sympathy for the vendors). Do you suppose the Israelis are aware of their reputation, and just mentally tell the world to fuck off (like they're so good at doing?), or do they somehow think that their behavior is normal? I guess I have to sympathize - if I had spent the last few years shooting rock-throwing kids and wondering when the next suicide bombing would be, I'd probably be a little on edge, too.

In a way, I've had almost as many stereotypes reinforced on this trip as I've had dispelled: the money-loving, arrogant Israeli; on my Salar de Uyuni trip I met an pretentious, confrontational Frenchman - who was a chef, at that. And I've met a few Irish who can really hold their liquor, and polite, dry-witted Englishmen. I guess stereotypes come from someplace... the Israeli stereotype is the worst one in my own head, though, just because I've met and seen so many that are pretentious and short-tempered, and I've only met one that I can think of that was a really mellow, nice - a guy I met on Ko Pha Ngan, Thailand, who taught me to play backgammon and smoked pot and ate mushrooms all day long. He was a cool guy. I guess I just need to go to Israel (that region is next on my travel list, I think), because I know it's a really diverse place in a lot of ways, and that it's a really unique and innovative place, especially for being such a small country. I feel like I read a lot about new innovations coming out of Israeli universities, like in crazy new farming methods for the desert. Plus, they've gotten really good at blowing the bejesus out of poor Lebanon, so I can learn about that, in case I ever want to make a hobby of it or something (like the Israeli army seems to have done). That reminds me, I was talking about travel in the region with Ori, who said with a smirk that I probably wouldn't want to go to Lebanon - "we just bombed the shit out of the airport, and all of Beirut." I should have added "and you really got Hezbollah, like you were planning on! Another successful, surgical-precision Israeli military operation that's left a bunch of people homeless, created more hatred of your country, and given Hezbollah yet another chance to show how they're more competent than the central government at providing for the Lebanese people. Good work!" But I was tired and had to get up early, and if there's one thing Israelis will argue to the death on, it's middle-east politics.

So my "interview" today turned out kind of like I'd feared: the guy couldn't really tell us anything, and was kind of amused that we'd come to him at all (I dunno, we explained at the front what we were doing, and that's who we were sent to). I'm trying to make a movie about the forest, and engineers tend to see only trees (like "butane" and "propane"). So we're trying to reschedule with the VP of YPFB, who's out of town now, but it's a possibility (only three points if you guessed it this time; it's starting to become predictable).

Stuff should be moving by Wednesday, though. Of course, I'll keep you posted.

Oh, going out in La Paz, you so crazy!

It was Perttu's birthday - well, it's today, actually, but we celebrated last night. I wanted to get him something, and thought maybe food or drink, but there's nothing really very nice or fun to buy here in terms of food (unless I want to get him a bunch of tasty zucchinis or something), so I bought him the nicest vodka I could find (because I knew he liked vodka), which was Stolichnaya (a whopping $8 for a liter, in case anyone was wondering). And then later that night his friends Luke and Bee brought another liter of the same vodka. Oops. Oh well, it's good vodka (Luke and Bee also brought him some sort of tonic, "Vigorol," that is supposed to cure everything from impotence to cerebral laziness. It has a picture of a body-builder who looks a lot like Robin Williams. Looks like good stuff). Too late I remembered that I was telling him about the movie "Grizzly Man," which he thought sounded really interesting, but I take solace in imagining that "Grizzly Man" probably isn't a movie that they would stock on the Prado (the main Ave where you buy all your bootlegs. Bootlegs are pretty much all that's available here, which makes sense - would you rather pay $.75 for a movie or CD, or $17?).

So we had a little party at the apartment, complete with cake, hats, and those party blower things (what the Hell do you call those things? That you blow in and the paper shoots out? No one really knew...). The hats were great because they had no elastic, just droopy strings that hung way too low, and cellophane around the edge that made them look like clown hats. In fact, in Bolivian tradition, the Birthday Boy had to take a bite out of the whole cake, which is when someone pushes his face into it. His red hat and white frosting mouth made him look just like a clown. And, I love the fact that Bolivians have a birthday tradition that everyone knows will end up in a face full of cake, but they do it anyways.

The party-blower-thingies were awesome, too: somehow, whoever had designed them had reversed the idea of short tube and long paper; instead there was maybe a 5 inch tube, and when you blew, an inch and a half of paper extended. And if you blew really hard, they kind of made a sound like a dying duck. So awesomely lame!

And I learned a new toast: seco mojado, which means "dry, wet." It's only for smokers though (which most people here actually aren't, supposedly because cigarettes are so expensive: $.60 a pack). But when you call seco mojado, you take a drag of your smoke for each person next to you, and then a swig of your drink (the cigarette being the "dry", the drink being the "wet").

After we cut the cake, we headed to a pena, a Bolivian dance club with a live band that plays traditional Bolivian music. Bolivian dancing is great because it's super easy: there's only a couple steps, all of which are easy and based on a simple 2-count or 4-count; and then the only other important part is to bend your arms at about 90 degrees and swing them like you're saying "hey hey!" while you bend forward and backward at the waist. For women it's the same, just a more feminine arm routine. It's great because you don't have to worry about being very good, just move your body and have fun. And I like traditional Bolivian music, too.

We drank the traditional Bolivian drink, singani, which is a grape liquor the Bolivians like to mix with tampoco (basically Tang - I'm not sure that part is "traditional"). The singani made my stomach churn though, which was a bummer. It made it seriously difficult to spin on the dance floor...

So when we were all singanied out, we filtered outside to catch a cab. But before all of us were outside (including me), some Bolivian guy decided to grab the butt of Sonia's (Perttu's girlfriend), and Perttu took off after him and his friend. When Luke and I got outside and figured out what was going on, we ran off after Perttu to make sure he was alright. We turned the corner to see Perttu in a fight with these two guys. When we ran towards them, the Bolivians ran off, but they had bloodied Perttu's nose and mouth pretty good. As we stood there helping Perttu mop up his blood, a car pulled up with two private security guards from a bar farther down the block. One of them said, in English, that he saw the whole thing and that it was really unfair. Wow, way to sit there and watch a guy get beat up, security guard! Then he said that he was sorry, and that he thought it was a black mark on Bolivians, because they're not all like that. Which is true, they're not all like that, but I still almost laughed when he said that. I mean, it's starting to become routine for me to be out and either be in a fight, see a fight, or be threatened.

So yeah, out in La Paz, always a story!

I actually ended up having three interviews on Thursday and Friday: after I interviewed Pablo Poveda, from CEDLA, we asked if they had any other ideas of who to talk to. Claudia, our liaison at CEDLA, said to hold on a minute. She came back 15 minutes later and said we have an appointment at 3pm with a guy from the office of the vice president. So that's close to the vice president himself, I guess. It turned out to be kind of lame though - he wouldn't let me videotape him, and all of his answers were really nuanced and politicized, and a lot of times he just invented his own question to answer instead of answering what I had asked. And he smoked like half a pack of cigarettes in the hour and a half we were there. He actually seemed like the kind of guy who would smoke that much just to show people how many cigarettes he could afford. He seemed really wary of the idea that a student would want to come to Bolivia and do what I'm doing, and I think he was trying to figure out my political stripes as well - to see if I was going to try and burn him in my questions? Anyways, not my new best friend.

The CEDLA interview was better, although I didn't exactly buy the story I was being fed: first, even thought CEDLA calls itself an "economic" think-tank, "policy" think tank would be more accurate I think, mostly because the guy I talked to wasn't an economist. His actual title was "investigator," which I think means the education he brings to the table is his life-experience. His - and CEDLA's - view is that Evo Morales has done nothing more than to solidify and legitimize the same neo-liberal claptrap of all his predecessors. According to my subject, MAS should have performed a proper nationalization, with expropriations and all. When I asked if Bolivia had the money and expertise to run a modern gas operation, he said that Bolivia did not, but basically what was important was to assert national sovereignty and kick out the Foreign Devils. And this was after he told me at the outset that CEDLA espoused policies that supported the economic well-being of the poorest segments of the population. This is a dangerously annoying, zero-sum-game I see authoritarian left-wingers engage in a lot (not just here, I see a lot of anti-globalization activists in the States take this attitude as well): if private companies are gaining, the "public" (which naturally does not include the owners and employees of private businesses) must be losing. So it follows that the more the "public" (read: the government) can punish business, the more public interests are advanced. Well, I hope I don't have to tell you how silly this is: if there was a finite amount of wealth in the world, and the only difference was how it was distributed, we would all still be living in caves trying to make sure everyone got the same amount of cave-space. One of the first things you learn in economics is that trade can benefits both parties, leaving both better off than they were before. It's the same with the gas situation in Bolivia: Bolivians are much better off if they let private, foreign companies extract and sell gas, and then tax some of their profits, than if no gas is extracted at all (which would be the case if it had been left up to the Bolivians themselves). And yes, the private companies also gain from the sale of that gas. But it's win-win. The question that should be asked, from the point of view of the Bolivian government, is what kind of arrangement should be struck to maximize Bolivian gains from the exploitation of the resource, and that's exactly the issue the Evo government is trying to address - they think the terms are too in favor of the private companies.

Anyways, I don't mind having an opinion to the left of the government at all - that will make it a a stronger film. But like I said, I personally didn't buy the story.

My interview with Franklin Pajera, the head of graduate studies in political science at Universidad Mayor de San Andres, was my favorite so far. He just seemed excited to talk to me, and about what I was doing, in a slightly paternal way that I found enduring. And I learned a lot about the politics of gas in the country, such as about how the gas riots broke out because then-president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada planned to sell gas to Chile - the arch-nemesis of Bolivia ever since war with Chile over control of the nitrate and saltpeter-rich coastal region of west Bolivia left the country land-locked. We also talked about the importance of Evo as the first indigenous leader, a leader of part of the population that has traditionally been excluded from most economic and political activities in the country. From the point of view of most Bolivian's, re-asserting a majority control over gas assets means asserting economic control and sovereignty for the first time since the Spanish conquistadores.

The interviews are hard though - I basically just get the jist of what's being discussed from Martijn, so it's really hard to ask pointed follow-up questions (I actually expect to have a lot of English interviews in Santa Cruz, which I think will turn out better). And there's other problems: like interviewing in offices right on the street, with a bunch of noise, and not having anyone to operate the camera (some of my shots aren't the greatest, and once the tape ran out without my noticing and I lost a bunch of good footage with Pajera). I guess for some naive reason I envisioned my being able to produce a really professional documentary, but I'm having to come to terms with the fact that it will be amateur because, well, I'm an amateur. I don't have a sound crew, or a lighting kit, or studio space for interviews, or any of that. But, with a lot of work in the edit room, I'm convinced I can make something cool, despite my lack of professional resources.

I'm still working on getting interviews with Carlos Villegas and figures within the Bolivian National Assembly. I talked with Villegas' secretary on Friday, who said to call again Monday. Jorge Quierga is supposed to call me back on Tuesday, and I have a couple other names from PODEMOS to try. I'm still trying to track down a senior lawmaker from MAS to speak with.

Although I won't be there until April, I have some exciting leads for Santa Cruz already: apparently my cousin works with a woman who is from Santa Cruz, whose uncle is a senator, cousin is the president of a gas plant in Santa Cruz, and is relatives with the mayor. It's so crazy and fun and cool how this stuff works out. Actually, for the most part I would say I've had incredible luck on my project thus far. So my cousin's friend is going to be back in Santa Cruz in April, which works out pretty perfect for me!

Instructions on the box of my musli andino (it has quinoa in it. Kick-ass): 1) serve at breakfast, in a bowl. 2) Cover with plenty of milk, and it's already done! Hecho en Bolivie
Thanks for the tips!