Wednesday,Sep 6 2006, 04:01:47 PMAugust and everything after . . .

Monday, August 14, 2006      7:00 AM                  San Antonio de Lomerío

Back here in San Antonio after a fun dust filled micro ride of 10 hours. Yeah. Well tomorrow will mark two months since the motor has been broken and I have been assured that the mechanic is going to start working on this motor today! Yeah. I really hope he gets it done because the relative comfort of 80’s temperature wise is slowly disappearing in favor of the 100’s that it is going to be for the rest of the year and the possibility of sitting front of the fan for 3 hours a day is looking sweeter as the days go by. So the fan and that it has not rained a drop in 3 months now which is really a double edged sword. On one hand the road is passable and I haven’t had to push in a while, (knock on wood) even though the micro did flip over on its side when I was in it a few weeks ago which is another story, on the other hand it is completely dusty and our water tank is almost empty. Thankfully the wells are not dry as in other years so there still is water in the wells even though supply is getting low.

So I went last night and talked with the new Catholic Father here in town who is American. I think he was a little shocked when I walked up to his house in the church compound and started talking to him in English. The Padre is from Michigan and is taking a 6 month break to work down her in Bolivia while our Franciscan Padre recovers from some back issues in the hospital in Santa Cruz.

Well that is it for now. I miss all the friends back home and hopefully a few of you will remain unmarried, 3 good friends engaged in the last month. I hope that by the time I get back still have a few people to go out with!

Geoff

Tuesday, August 15, 2006      8:44 AM             San Antonio de Lomerío

So it starts today. We are now officially on water restrictions and the lines have started down at the water pump and all of this during the hot part of the year. I have thus been cut down to one bath every two days. It is ok though because my sweat right now serves as about the equivalent. Right! I guess that is why Chris is here helping the people here build these water tanks at their houses. It just turns out that most of the people squandered a lot of the water by using it to wash clothes and so forth instead of for drinking which they now need it for.  Well I am off to find some way to cool down today and maybe go harass the motor mechanic as to how much longer it is going to be before the motor is fixed.

Thursday, August 17, 2006    11:00 AM             San Antonio de Lomerío

I just got back from meeting with the professors, or high school teachers, about the economics class that I would like to start teaching and they are all for it. I am starting the class this Monday and it will consist of ten classes during a two month period.

Once again I sit here in the Mayor’s office to use the generator as the motor has been fixed, but now has to be broken in until Monday before it can begin providing electricity to the town. So it won’t be mañana, but several mañanas before I can start using the electricity that runs to my house. The Mayor has also asked me to come back and meet with him this afternoon about organizing this monthly fair so we will see what happens this afternoon. I hope that he gives me some one on his staff, preferably someone who has some extra time and the ability to introduce me to all of the community leaders when we go out to the comunidades, to help with planning the monthly market day. I think it should work out pretty well and if anything maybe that will be my lasting legacy here in San Antonio as who knows what the artisans will still remember about me 5 years from now.

The truth has pretty much come out about the profe that was killed and it is more disturbing to me then previously thought. Apparently the attacker, profe Antonio, called Profe Anicleto, who died, a maricon or fag, as he was walking by to go and use the bathroom. Profe Anicleto came back after using the bathroom and said something along the lines of why don’t you say it to my face and not like a punk at which point profe Antonio stood up and essentially sucker punched Anicleto in the jaw, (all of the profe’s lower teeth were broken so he must have really hit him) Anicleto was knocked out and fell and his neck/head hit a piece of wood that was lying behind him. Then this is the most disturbing part for me. The people who were at the party left Anicleto lying on the ground for 25 minutes before they went and got the ambulance. Some of these people were supposedly his friends, including two of our artisans who I had been refering to as shady 1 and shady 2 due to the various shady and unscrupulous activities that they engage in. Their actions really disturb me as I already didn’t trust these two because I think they steal money from other community members and they have sold me out several times. I mean could you imagine seeing someone who was knocked out right in front of you and not doing anything about it until the body starts twitching? And this is someone who thought you were their friend. I mean who knows if it would have made a difference as I think he probably died instantly from the neck trauma, but it could have made a difference and more than anything shows me not to trust those two with anything.

We will see what the fallout is with the artisans. I think that it will be yet another dividing political force between them. I mean would you want to be in a room with someone who stood idly by while your husband died. I don’t think I would. So yet another struggle in what is the daily life in San Antonio.

I miss everyone, and tonight when you go to bed and wake up with a fan, or air conditioning, just think of your good old buddy Geoff who is sweating up a storm down here in South America but on some twisted level still enjoying it.

Geoff

Friday, August 25, 2006         3:22 PM              San Antonio de Lomerío

Well things have been pretty busy here in San Antonio over the past week. Hey hey. So weird, yesterday was my one year anniversary here in Bolivia. There was no cake, no ring, no romantic dinner and the day passed as any other did. But one year, wow! I once again sit here in the Mayor’s office as the motor is still not fixed. Come to find out that once the mechanics fixed the main problem they found that another replacement part was needed which is going to cost another 800 dollars which who knows where that is going to come from. So for now it seems as if we are going to be without electricity for quite a while longer. Several people in town have said that it is without hope.

On Saturday morning I went out into the jungle to participate in a minga. A minga is when the community gets together to work for one person in town usually doing manual labor of some sort. Think of it as a barn raising. About 45 men, and one super gringo (me), armed with machetes and axes went out to clear a field for one of the elderly men in town. We got their about 8 in the morning and worked until noon. I couldn’t believe how much land we cleared. It was a track about 200 yards wide and 300 yards long. It was a lot of work and my hands were blistered and my machete dull after 4 hours of hacking down shrubs and small trees. Needless to say I came back at noon, drank about 2 gallons of water, chowed down my lunch, and passed out for an hour until I was awoken by friends to come and drink chicha, the reward for our minga . . .yeah.

My economics class was great this past Monday. 14 of the professors showed up and it was great to see that they were learning something different and a bit out of the ordinary. I also hope that maybe they can take away some of my teaching style, i.e. interactive, fun, participatory and so forth and apply it to their classroom teachings. In Bolivia most of the learning is rote memorization style and that type of learning is not very effective or captivating for the students. It was a great class and several of the profes commented that the hour passed in what seemed like minutes which was encouraging for me.

I got back to my house to find that it had been temporarily converted into a slaughterhouse. Yeah. My family was going to be butchering two cows over the next 2 days and if you have never had the pleasure of hanging meat in your living room then you haven’t lived but who says that you really want to. It doesn’t really bother me that much, other than when you wake up in the morning to what seems like some bad scene out of the Godfather awaiting you in the living room of your house. The thing that I really don’t like about them butchering beef is that people start arriving to buy meat at about 4:30 in the morning and like to talk about it right outside my window.

I have been meeting with the new padre here in town as I hope to collaborate with him on a few projects. After seeing the effects that alcohol has here in town, the most sad for me being that a lot of the parents go off and get drunk on Sunday afternoons and leave the kids with nothing to do but sit at home. The padre and I are going to try and set up a program on Sundays where the kids in town can come and play games like monopoly, uno, life, etc . . . I have already seen that the kids love playing these games and more than anything I hope it gives them a positive place to be during the afternoons on Sundays, instead of waiting for mom and dad to stumble back to the house at 8 or 9 oclock.

Well that is it for today, I miss everyone and everyone do a little rain dance for me.

Thursday, August 31, 2006    6:09 PM          Roboré            (Near Brazil)

So here I am sitting in Roboré, Bolivia which is on the way to the Brazilian border. I am here in Roboré with plans to help one of the tourism volunteers give an accounting workshop to all of the local hotel owners in her town. Things have been going pretty well since I last wrote. Except for holding someone down who was possessed by demons while they sprinkled holy water on them . . .

So the night before I left for Santa Cruz, last Tuesday, I had an economics class. It was once again a success other than the fact that somehow the subject of what Bolivia needs to do if it needs to be a success economically came up. And that could be a very long conversation.

Subsequently I came home at about 8:30 on Tuesday night and was chilling and having a nice evening when I heard a lot of noise coming from the space outside my room. I opened my door and saw that my uncle was being held up between my mother and my grandmother. My first thought was that he had to be drunk. You can imagine my thrill after the past several weeks events involving drinking and drunks. It turns out that my thought process was only half true. It turns out that he was having convulsions, which I recognized to be epileptic seizures. He had been drinking fairly heavily and the only other time it happened, Easter, he was drinking as well. So Chris and I had to hold him down for what amounted to about 2 hours as he went through several seizures which were very severe. The doctor in town couldn’t give him a tranquilizer because of the alcohol in his body and just told us to make sure he didn’t hurt himself. Now he was having severe convulsions that looked exactly like what happens in the exorcist, minus the green vomit. My family obviously thinks that somehow the devil or somehow a demon is at work inside of him and if it wasn’t for my upbringing I would most likely place the blame on satanic powers as well. Holy water was thus sprinkled over him to thwart out the demon. How much longer I have to wait before we do a full out exorcism is still to be seen, but I don’t think our new American Padre will most likely not participate.

So that has really been the last few days. Anyone else helped hold down someone who is possessed while they are sprinkled with holy water in the last month? I feel like I need my own MTV true life show. . . You think you know, but you have no idea . . . .

Geoff

Tuesday, September 05, 2006  11:26 AM Santiago de Chiquitos (Near Brazil)

            So the last few days have been really awesome. I am out here in Santiago de Chiquitos and we have finished teaching our accounting workshop and it went really, really well. A tourism volunteer from my group, Shannon, invited us out here to work with all of the small business owners in order to strengthen, or more likely than not, start some basic accounting of their businesses or organizations. The workshop went well and this morning we worked with the people on setting up their books.

            That pretty much covers the work part of the last few days but the best part about being out here was the surrounding natural beauty. This is the first place that I have been in Bolivia where I would actually come as a tourist. As can be seen in the photos, there are amazing waterfalls that are virtually deserted, great views of endless valleys where toucans, parrots, macaws and so forth fly all over the place, and more than anything the “naturaleza” is what makes this place nice. On Saturday we hiked up to this waterfall and went swimming in the pool below it. We were the only ones there and it was great just to relax.

            One interesting thing regarding Shannon’s site is the presence of Milton, an American Quaker who left the states as a conscientious objector during Vietnam and continues to live here in Bolivia as a sustainable farmer. Who would have thought that on the fringe of the Amazon basis there would be an American with 5 kids with Indiana country accents? I had a really good time talking with Milton and even better was eating the milk, cheese, and yogurt that are homemade from their cows.

            That covers the past few days adventures but I also want to comment a little bit on the political situation here in Bolivia which most Bolivians are saying is pretty “grave” or grave. For those of you who are not aware Bolivia recently elected a new president, Evo Morales, a former coca union leader and the head of the MAS or movement towards socialism party. Through his leadership they are busy trying to write a new constitution that is more “representative” of the Bolivian people. As of right now the process has almost completely broken down because the two sides, neo-liberalist and socialist, are very far apart on a number of issues. During the elections the voting line was basically split along the lines of the poor, indigenous, campesinos voting for Morales, and the wealthier, more mestizo, city dwellers voting for Tuto, an Aggie, who was president about 5 years ago. Even more difficult is that the voting was split along regional lines with the wealthier provinces of Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni, and Pando going to Tuto and the provinces of the west including Oruro, Potosi, La Paz, and Cochabamba going to Evo Morales.

            Basically the two conflicting views come down to the haves and have-nots. That is if you could even break down hundreds of years of history into two issues. Either way I am starting to worry about the complete breakdown of the political process as it looks like the constitutional assembly is about to dissolve and many people here are . If that happens all bets are off as to what will happen. Many Cruceños, people from Santa Cruz and the wealthier districts think that autonomy or even civil war may be the only solution.

Either way the signs of increasing tension here are troubling and living day to day not knowing what the future holds or how much longer I might be here is a little troubling. I guess all I can do for now is hope that the democratic process works itself out and that the glass half empty people here in Santa Cruz have erred in their judgment of the current political situation. Either way it is time to keep the passport with you for any quick escapes that may be necessary.

            That is it for now, I am back to Santa Cruz tonight and then to my site for another 3 weeks. Who wants to make bets whether or not the motor has been fixed? Oh yeah, how about the phone as well. It has been broken for a month now as well. So I had no idea about the political situation until I came into the city.

Geoff