Los Glazers

The last post...for now

2005-12-08T08:50:00.000-05:00

Signing off.
Back in Philly looking for a reporting job in a market that is even worse than it was when I left. Also wrapping up a piece I reported in Bolivia for Mother Jones magazine. Check www.motherjones.com this winter or the magazine racks at your local bookstore this winter.
Finally, I wanted to post for the handful of Spanish-speaking readers the final assignment turned in by my older students. It's an impressive profile on La Unión Juvenil Cruceñista -- a youth group supported by Santa Cruz's political pro-autonomy movement that some have compared to Hitler Youth. This story paints a more nuanced portrait.
Please shoot me an email (andrewglazer@gmail.com) if you are interested in reprinting this assignment.

Comienzos de junio. Dos bandos, por un lado predominan las polleras, la coca y abarcas, por el otro las gorras, los jeans y las zapatillas. Se enfrentan.
En medio de humo de petardos, palos, patadas, golpes sin destino, “Corran por su vida collas de mierda”- se escuchaba a viva voz desde la garganta de un joven quien traía un escudo verde y blanco. Mientras obedientemente los oponentes corrían hacia donde pudiesen para no ser alcanzados y agredidos.
Al final, seis personas heridas como resultado de una marcha que se suponía sería pacífica.
Aquí fue que volvió a sonar y tronar la Unión Juvenil Cruceñista. ¿Pero de qué manera….?

-“¿Qué opina usted sobre la Unión Juvenil Cruceñista (UJC)?
- Son unos pobres muchachos, vagos, sin oficio y más para colmo racistas.”
Son las palabras de Mariana Maldonado, una potosina que vive hace 9 años en Santa Cruz, y así expresaba su desprecio por esta agrupación, después de los hechos ocurridos en la carretera de la Doble vía a la Guardia.
Pero esta no fue siempre la visión que se tuvo de la UJC, ya que cuando se creó en ningún momento se planteó el ir a patear collas.
“Los unionistas son los que aman a su tierra y hacen todo por dejar su nombre en alto, sin portarse como maleantes” decía Pepe Terrazas quien era un unionista de pura cepa, aunque actualmente está retirado de toda acción relacionada con esta organización sigue muy de cerca todo el desenvolvimiento de la misma.

Luego de unos momentos de cavilaciones, Pepe frunce el ceño y dice “es que no se puede pedir peras al olmo…los unionistas de mi época éramos todos de clases alta, intelectuales e incluso estábamos los más pintudos del pueblo” decía mientras se reía pícaramente. Poniéndose nuevamente serio, con una notoria desilusión en el rostro y moviendo en señal de protesta el dedo índice señalaba: “En cambio ahora no hay nadie de la clase pensante de este pueblo dirigiendo nuestra pobre unión”

1957, Santa Cruz se encontraba en una etapa de plena efervescencia cívica, con la lucha por las regalías petroleras del 11%, que no había sido cumplida hasta el momento. Con todo este contexto, 63 jóvenes se juntaron en una reunión realizada en la sala del rectorado de la Universidad Autónoma Gabriel René Moreno. Allí un joven Carlos Valverde Barbery dió toda una disertación sobre las regalías petroleras convenciendo a toda una muchachada sobre el peligro que corría la región de perder sus ingresos por el petróleo, formando así una agrupación juvenil que apoyara esta lucha. Con esto el 7 de octubre nace la Unión Juvenil Cruceñista.

De allí en adelante la UJC, ha seguido con su lucha contra el centralismo cambiando por una cuestión de contexto las formas de lucha, pero no el objetivo de la institución en sí. Cabe resaltar lo que mucha gente desconoce como por ejemplo, existe una secretaría de Cultura que tiene la responsabilidad de coordinar junto a los establecimientos educativos el promover las actividades culturales exclusivas de la región, como muestra de ello está el grupo cultural “Kerembas”, una organización artística oficial de la institución.

Por otra parte la UJC desde su fundación hasta el momento sigue apoyando y siendo apoyada por el Comité Pro Santa Cruz.

Según la secretaria actual de la UJC, Teresa Vargas dice: “nosotros dependemos del comité Pro Santa Cruz, ellos desembolsan un monto de dinero cada mes para la Unión Juvenil”. Pero pareciera que nadie conoce el destino final de ese dinero: “esa plata no pasa de la directiva… porque como es notorio al menos para esta oficina no se invierte un peso” comentaba Ricardo Calvo sentado en una simple silla blanca de plástico, en una oficina cubierta con una alfombra que en algunas partes dejaba ver el piso, con polvo en los estantes y escritorios, las ventanas no dejaban pasar ni un poco de luz por lo sucias que estaban y como resultado de esto el único decorado de la sala, un arreglo de flores que estaban marchitas desde ya hace tiempo. Teresa sentada enfrente a un computador notoriamente antiguo, simplemente asentía subiendo y bajando la cabeza, pero con los ojos y la cara demostrando mucha vergüenza.

Al final la misma Unión Juvenil no se muestra tan unida como parece, ya que existen relatos descontentos de muchas personas que están involucradas de alguna manera con esta agrupación. Este es el caso de Harold Limpias un ex integrante de la unión, que se unió a esta agrupación el 12 de junio del 2004, para la realización del Primer Cabildo por las Autonomías. Harold comenta que respeta mucho a esta institución, sobretodo a Carlos Valverde, quien es, como lo denomina “un patricio y único sobreviviente de los que pelearon en su época por las regalías del 11%”.
De baja estatura, tez morena y constitución delgada, aparentando ser solo un muchacho que no pasaba de los 17 años, impresión que cambia totalmente después de compartir con él toda su experiencia como ex miembro activo de la UJC.
“Me salí de la UJC porque no compartía muchos de los accionares de la institución”, comenta Harold.

Según él, actualmente la unión se maneja bajo un lema “Yo soy el jefe y vos te callas si no querés, palo!”, en este caso, Harold se refiere a que dentro de la Unión no existe una democracia, y que sólo los la directiva eran los que opinaban, mandaban y gozaban de todas los beneficios. “Nosostros los pelaos de barrio sólo estábamos para los bloqueos, las marchas y todas esas cosas. Por ejemplo para la toma de la Prefectura éramos nosotros los que nos moríamos de hambre, sed y frío. Mientras que los jefecitos estaban en su casa tranquilos y sólo daban la cara para la cámara.”. Al recordar esto, era notoria la rabia y decepción que sentía este ex integrante con respecto a la agrupación.

Pero hoy en día no es sólo Harold quien desaprueba los quehaceres de esta agrupación, aún más ha cambiado la percepción de la sociedad hacia esta agrupación después de aquel enfrentamiento protagonizado por la Unión y los marchistas pertenecientes al MAS y al Movimiento Sin Tierra, quienes como ciudadanos con todos sus derechos marchaban pacíficamente por la nacionalización de los Hidrocarburos y por la convocatoria a la Asamblea Constituyente.

Racistas, neonazis, xenofóbicos, fascitas, discriminadores y violentos son algunos de los calificativos que se le otorga a este movimiento juvenil.
Sobretodo los del “otro bando”, en su mayoría gente de bajos recursos y pertenecientes al occidente boliviano.
Este surgimiento de fuerzas opuestas a la derecha, que según muchos ha fracasado en el país, ha originado el nacimiento de movimientos populistas, siendo el más representativo de éstos el partido con tendencias socialistas MAS (Movimiento Al Socialismo).
Este partido y su ideología han entrado en directo conflicto con la Unión Juvenil Cruceñista y su aparentemente contraria doctrina.
Muchas y variadas son las opiniones sobre la UJC entre los militantes de este populoso partido.

En inmediaciones del mercado Abasto atiende la casa de campaña del MAS la militante Lidia Ávalos, ella es una joven cruceña de origen humilde que al ser entrevistada se sentía renuente a dar su opinión acerca de temas políticos. Sin embargo, luego de que se le pidió su sentir acerca de la Union Juvenil Cruceñista perdió su timidez y vehementemente afirmó “ellos son unos egoístas, no quieren que otras gentes vengan a Santa Cruz”, también opina que los unionistas son racistas porque –según explica Ávalos- “a los otros dos candidatos que son collas no los molestan ni los odian como a Evo Morales porque ellos tienen plata y son de cara blanca, “a Evo no lo quieren solo porque lo consideran un indio” afirma.

El candidato a diputado por este partido, Ricardo Quesada Escalante dice que él ha sido de la Unión y que todavía se considera parte de ésta, porque es camba.
“yo veo ese movimiento muy aburguesado -comenta- no los veo con el sentimiento profundo de abrir los espacios donde ellos están a la gente humilde, o sea son burgueses como el Comité Cívico, son un padre y un hijo”. Sin embargo, los valora por su actitud de las luchas por Santa Cruz ya que el luchó junto a ellos pero comenta que “ahora ya se ha aburguesado, esto desde hace uno tres años atrás”.

Compartiendo con militantes del MAS en su casa de campaña estaba el Comunicador Juan Romero. Él al ser interrumpido en su amena charla y deleitándose con un sabroso refresco emitió su comentario acerca de la Unión .Afirmando no ser militante del MAS pero si ser simpatizante de este partido, opina: “la función de la unión es represora y ellos mantienen la línea fascista que siempre han tenido, creo que tienen un pensamiento similar al de Musoulini o al de Hitler. En el cual solamente la raza aria tiene que gobernar y los morenos no..... obviamente son racistas e intolerantes y en democracia hay que respetar el pensamiento ajeno” Èl también dice estar preocupado por que hay gente que piensa de esta manera y los compara con el Ku Klux Klan. Finalizó señalando “no creo que sean grupos de poder los que auspician a la Unión , sino gente interesada en dividir al país”.

Ante esta aseveración Nino Gandarillas, ex dirigente de la UJC, comenta que en su gestión en el año 1983, se organizó la Guardia de Honores con un orden fascista, sin embargo la ideología central de la agrupación no es la misma. Dentro de la agrupación hay integrantes de toda índole social. Mario Vargas, actual integrante de la UJC desde hace dos años cuenta: “La Unión es buena, a todos los jóvenes siempre desde el principio nos enseñan que hay que trabajar y no esperar a ser viejos para empezar a hacerlo, nos enseñan los himnos, la historia, la cultura de nuestra región. Y sobretodo nos dicen que hay que ayudar en la familia, que hay que defender lo nuestro, pero sobretodo que los jóvenes somos lo primero.” Muchas de las personas que siempre han apoyado a la UJC, lo siguen haciendo, como es el caso de Mario y también Fernando Villarroel, pero ambos reconocen que esta agrupación se ha desvirtuado por la cantidad de personas de diversas clases que han ingresado últimamente y que han hecho que se pierda el objetivo de la institución.

Según la visión del Lic. Javier Villa, psicólogo, alega que el comportamiento existente en el enfrentamiento entre unionistas y campesinos fue por que... “En Santa Cruz y en Bolivia en general, el hombre tiende a ser violento, machista por naturaleza. Ahora en Santa Cruz, enfocándonos en la UJC, este comportamiento se debe a la misma cultura, ya que siempre se ha vivido con una sensación de invasión de otras culturas, idiomas, regiones, etc. Entonces como resultado se tiene una combinación entre defensa y racismo, porque el racismo existe, y en ambos lados. – comenta Villa - En aquel momento en la situación de encontrarse en un enfrentamiento, el efecto de masa lleva a que se de este tipo de actos, ya que el individuo tiende a hacer más las cosas cuando está en masa y no solo. Pero desde mi punto de vista en lo personal, todo grupo que genere violencia es negativo, lo que más bien hay que hacer es trabajar para lo positivo.”

Lamentablemente si se hace un análisis en general se puede notar de lejos que existe un alto grado de desaprobación hacia la UJC, no en el sentido de rechazo a la institución en sí, sino más bien al comportamiento de los actores integrantes, y al mal manejo que se esta haciendo de la misma.

Si la Unión Juvenil Cruceñista, con la misma cantidad de integrantes y con el mismo impulso con el que se enfrenta en luchas, se pusiese a trabajar en obras sociales, en contra de la delincuencia, por la seguridad, etc. los resultados y la percepción de la sociedad hacia la UJC serían totalmente distintos.
Se dice que “la unión hace la fuerza” pero al parecer ésta denominada Unión Juvenil Cruceñista debido a que se encuentra en un conflicto ideológico y pragmático con las emergentes fuerzas sociales, inspira poco menos que Unión.

The End

2005-11-22T14:59:00.000-05:00

Better to write about the last day of school a week later, here in Ushuaia, Argentina -- the end of the world. Better to let the experience digest with the grilled short ribs and marbled beef that I've been gorging on in Argentina and to wash it down with some Mendoza red.
I met with the rector of the university, some of her aides and my direct boss, the uniquely competent director of the faculty of communications there, in an awkwardly diplomatic debriefing session. A PR flack from the university shot photos as they handed me a plaque, some UPSA pens and a mug, and thanked me for my experience. I thanked them for the opportunity of shaping (corrupting) young minds.
The PR flack then followed me to what turned out to be my last class. It was the younger first-year students who had sportingly thrown me a party a few days earlier even though I had failed a good portion of them on their midterms for not handing in a single assignment.
To the flack's embarrassment, one student was waiting for me outside the classroom with teary eyes. I had emailed her the previous night to let her know that I realized that she had plagiarized her final assignment and would likely fail the course.
In the hallway outside she denied she had committed the academic crime even after I had shown her the identical copy of the article she handed in from a Web site.
"Did they plagiarize you?" I asked.
She then asked why I had failed her the prior marking period. I responded that she hadn´t handed in a single assignment.
"You didn´t tell us those counted for our grades," she cried. The entire class was silent inside, listening to the outbrust.
I told her that I had said so about a dozen times. I suggested that she should have come to class on time once in awhile.
She stormed off.
The remaining students handed me a signed Santa Cruz flag and hugged me goodbye.
I went to my office to say goodbye to my secretary, my boss and others who had helped through the semester.
Two of my students from my evening class were there. They asked if we had class that night. I said I had hoped to say goodbye. They said they were busy with finals. I had lost them a week before when I failed a popular student for plagiarizing two major assignments. They cancelled my goodbye party and stopped showing up to class. This was their way of getting me back. I cancelled the last class and wished them both well.
I will resist drawing sweeping conclusions about the state of Bolivian higher education, a culture of corruption and victimhood, and the engraned sense of entitlement of the white elite who made up my students at La UPSA.
Instead, I will say that it was indeed rewarding to push my students and have them push me back.

Not sure how to continue with this blog now that our time in Bolivia is over. Check back every once in awhile, if you want, and I will at least post a definitive last post.

Jewdar

2005-11-21T13:40:00.000-05:00

A student at La UPSA (where I teach) a few months back was directing me to a bookstore downtown.
"It's called Levy Libros," he said (in Spanish). He then paused for a second and said, "The owner is a Jew."
I spent the last couple of months wondering about this Jew of Santa Cruz. What brought him there? Is he religious? Where does he come from? Is he the only one (other than me)? I figured so, since it is so well-known that he is a Jew. If there were lots of Jews in Santa Cruz, I imagine it wouldn't be news. (It's kind of like the gay couple who run a bar we go to frequently, Lorca Cafe. My students all wanted to do stories on the "tipos gay" --gay guys-- from Lorca as if they were some sort of rare discovery. They were incredulous when I told them that at least one of their classmates is gay, statistically speaking.)
With two days left before we leave Santa Cruz, I experienced a nice bookend moment. I was meeting with a student activities coordinator about starting a student magazine. A man knocked at the door who looked like people I know back home. Gray curly hair, a moustache, thin, glasses, light skin. I knew deep down that I had found the Jew of Santa Cruz.
But I didn't think it was appropriate to ask him if I was right. He talked to the professor about a book fair, left a business card and walked out. While the professor answered the phone, I picked up the card and confirmed my suspicions. That I had just been in the same room as Peter Levy, the Jew of Santa Cruz.

A phrase I never thought I'd ever utter but did tonight:

2005-11-18T23:18:00.000-05:00

"Tienes wasabe?" (We ate at a Japanese restaurant)

More excuses for late homework

2005-11-17T20:36:00.000-05:00

The pregnant student had unmentionable problems. "You know how hard it is to be pregnant."
A male student was feeling anxious and needed to see the university shrink.
But my favorite -- my real favorite -- is the girl who wrote a few minutes ago that "in these moments my life is a disaster. Please, I beg you...I don't want to fail your class and I know that I am bad...But please give me one more day even though I am bad...Please...Help me with this."
I gave her a three day extension.

Class Struggles

2005-11-16T20:04:00.000-05:00

I caught two of my students plagiarizing. One handed in an article on student alcoholism that he claimed to write. What tipped me off was that the sentences were coherent. A search on Google revealed that he had taken a published story on student violence from the internet and changed a few words. Under interrogation, the student confessed to plagiarizing a previous assignment as well. On Tuesday a disciplinary board kicked him out of my class.
His classmate stole quotes from another published story. For this, she failed her mid-term exam.
The two each showed up to class, nonetheless, to face me off and rally their classmates.
"It was just a homework assignment," the female student, a television personality on a Bolivian extreme sports show explained. "You should fail me for the assignment, not the whole midterm."
She looked confused when I attempted to explain the seriousness of their intellectual dishonesty.
"I know people who plagiarized their thesis and copied exams, and they didn't get in trouble," was her best response.
And I believe her. Most professors, who hold other jobs, let cheaters slide because they don't want to waste time finding proof, I have been told. Many are afraid of pissing off the students' powerful parents.
So like all over Bolivia -- where protestors regularly shut down highways, cops demand handouts for "gas" and red lights are a suggestion -- there are books of clearly delineated laws at the university that go unenforced. A culture of permissiveness and corruption threatens to undermine yet another important institution.
Before walking out of class, the other student, with tears in his eyes, explained that he had done good work in the class apart from the two assignments he had plagiarized.
"It doesn't seem fair that you're failing me."

Assletics and other news

2005-11-14T14:21:00.000-05:00

Two telling images appeared in today's El Nuevo Dia, a local newspaper:
1) A photo of a female track meet. In the right context, I suppose, it could be a progressive attempt to highlight women's sports. But the vantage that the photographer chose -- not to mention the caption and headline -- show that it's just a cheap ass shot.
2) A menacing full-page ad (threat) on the back page for the Bolivian army. I'm guessing it's a not-so-subtle reminder that there is a solution to disorder -- or the wrong presidential candidate -- should it be needed (see previous post on presidential elections).

Inflation

2005-11-11T14:39:00.000-05:00

The last time I watched professional soccer with any regularity was when I lived in Madrid 10 years ago. If Real Madrid scored a goal, everyone in the bar I was in would toast, hug and slap five as the announcer wailed a minute-long "Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!" Only when a spectacular or clutch goal was scored would the announcer flourish it with an "azo" -- "Golazo" meaning "really big goal."

I don't know if it's a South American thing or if the standards have dropped, but television announcers here are very promiscuous with "golazos." I was at our bar watching Boca Juniors play last night -- they're the Argentine former team of history's second best soccer player, Diego Maradona. Boca was already ahead of International 2-1 with just a few seconds left when the ball, lost in a blitz by Boca players, slowly scooted across the goal line. Hardly a spectacular or clutch goal. But nonetheless, it earned repeated "gooooooooooooolazos!" from the announcer.

On a side note, the most entertaining part of the game for me was the cuts to Maradona's box. The guy -- also one of the world's most famous former cocaine addicts, strugglers with obesity and now talk show hosts -- has one of the strangest, most expressive faces ever. After each goal he would around the stands in a manic state of exuberance and then sink back into his seat sobbing and weeping. I could watch him for hours. And in fact, I have: He's been on television news here in Bolivia all week after joining Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian presidential hopeful and cocalero Evo Morales in the anti-Bush rallies in Mar del Plata last week.

Apocalypse Tomorrow

2005-11-07T20:55:00.000-05:00

The only thing a divided Bolivia can agree on is that something very bad will happen after the Dec. 18 elections. Over the past four months, I've spoken to U.S. embassy officials, men on the street across the country, journalists, an oil man, activists, academics, taxi drivers and, today in the sauna at our hotel, a DEA agent.
These are the scenarios that most people I've talked to believe could play out:
If Evo Morales --a leftist coca grower with alliances with Hugo Chavez and Fidel --is elected to be Bolivia's first indigenous president, the U.S. will get pissed and likely sever most diplomatic and economic ties with South America's poorest country.
The Bush administration doesn't like Evo's career as a grower of the leaves that can be processed into cocaine. Nor does it fancy his friends and their opposition to hemispheric free trade.
The Spanish and Brazilian petroleum companies will flee the country if Evo is elected fearing that the new president will nationalize the industry. Evo and his supporters -- and those that form a disenfranchised indigenous majority -- shut down La Paz last summer and drove President Carlos Mesa from power. They also managed to get a 50% petroleum tax established -- the proceeds of which are supposed to go toward improving schools, universities and other social services. Without Petrobras and Repsol around, there won't be anyone to pull gas out of the ground. No gas out of the ground means no taxes.
If Tuto Quiroga takes office than Evo's supporters will go apeshit. Tuto is seen as an American stooge tied to the white oligarchy that has ran Bolivia for centuries. They will shut down the country again with violent protests and highway blockades and perhaps drive it into civil war.
The wildcard is the military, which insiders say is trying to buck history and support "democracy."
But if Evo takes power and isolates the country economically, who knows what the men with guns will do. And if Tuto becomes presidente and things heat up on the streets, the army could likely step in and attempt to establish order. Historically when the military takes charge like this, human rights suffer.

Misfire

2005-11-04T12:35:00.000-05:00

Conservative presidential candidate Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga (right) picked up more than just good English and a fondness for American-led neoliberal economic policy during his many years in the U.S. It seems that he learned the potential political benefit of a jaunty jogging photo-op. This one is taken from the pages of El Deber, Santa Cruz's leading newspaper.
Bill Clinton did it, and though he looked like a sweaty hog, somehow pulled it off.
George Bush I and II both did it and it and it projected an image of health and vigor.
No such luck for Tuto. His cocked left hip and short stride make it look like he's speedwalking and there's nothing presidential about that. And the lavender striped soccer jersey, hanging hands and headphones give him the appearance of a Chelsea aerobics instructor. Hardly the imagine one wants to give off in this macho country.

Floating

2005-10-31T18:14:00.000-05:00

Sonya and I and two old friends -- Scott and John -- spent five days floating on a riverboat down the Rio Mamore in the Bolivian Amazon. Highlights were galloping on horseback through rainforest, swimming with piranas and catching and eating them, drinking and smoking Swiss cigarillos and bullshitting on the deck of the riverboat and falling asleep watching stars in a moldy hammock. Here are a few images. Click to enlarge.

Off to the Amazon

2005-10-25T22:40:00.000-04:00

Won't be posting until Monday. Hasta entonces.

Type A(merican)

2005-10-23T22:38:00.000-04:00

Los Tajibos, the hotel where we live, hosted a food festival this past weekend in which hundreds of chefs from the Americas offered samples of their regional cuisines. We were eager to indulge in something other than fried meat and yucca fries, Santa Cruz's regional cuisine, so we snuck into the festival on its night. Sadly, the rest of Santa Cruz was equally eager for some new tastes and left us with only cold dregs. We returned Saturday night as paying customers. But the experience was more stressful than fun.
Sonya and I, being intense in a way that only greedy gringos can be, worked out a strategy so we could eat as much as our stomachs would hold. We bought tickets to the festival 45 minutes in advance and sat at a bar across the street, waiting until the line looked like it was getting long before joining it.
Once inside, we grabbed plates and took turns shovelling Mexican sopes, sucking pig, Vietnamese duck, Lebanese lamb and anything else that looked good onto our plates and reporting back to the other who was guarding our seats. We ate as quickly as we could so we could return to other stands and be finished in time to have our choice of desserts.
Before long, we were full and almost sick after about 45 minutes and left without anything else to do (besides eating, ain't much to do at a food fair). At our table, I looked around at others and saw that they were slowly enjoying their food and conversation and so I began a bloated period of self-reflection.

Drunk, oversexed...and anti-Semitic

2005-10-21T15:42:00.000-04:00

Three recently arrived American Airlines flight attendants went on a rant about Jews in Florida this morning after four hours of sipping bloody Marys. Actually, the one female flight attendant went on a rant and the two men with short-cropped blond hair laughed and repeated, "I know, I know." I would say the two men seemed a little Nazi-like had the previous conversation not been about their recent threesome with a man with a toe fetish: "When you had his big toe in your mouth, his eyes rolled back in his head." Can't wait to fly American again.

Trend Story

2005-10-19T14:35:00.000-04:00

You get a unique perspective on flight crews, especially U.S.-based American Airline flight crews, when you spend five months sharing a hotel with them. A few observations:
1) They drink a lot. It is normal to see pilots drinking a beer breakfast after arriving on the overnight Miami to Santa Cruz flight. Let's hope they don't do the round trip. Last week, the flight attendants and pilots of one crew plopped down in the restaurant and sucked down capirinhas for a solid five hours. The party tailspinned when one raspy-voiced stewardess started complaining about how her pilot insisted on flying in foul weather. "I don't care about his life, but he's flying me as well," said the woman who reminded me of someone you might have seen (or smelled) at a Phillies game at Vet Stadium. Her flippancy was chastised by a co-worker and everyone dispersed. Some of the better drinkers later converged by the pool for another few hours of drinking.
2) They talk about sex a lot. Sex with each other, sex with prostitutes, sex with passengers. And they speak loudly (that's how I am able to report this). This morning a pilot -- not sure which airline he was from -- was talking about how his regular Santa Cruz hooker tried to get him to finish quickly so she could move on. A month or two ago, I overheard two pilots discussing their fondness for "golden showers." One said his wife indulged him. I'm not sure how to read the other's giggles.
3) They take advantage of the down time here in Santa Cruz by getting cheap plastic surgery. Those puffy eyes you see on your flight crew could be the result of spending the previous night drinking and having sex OR could be the work of a Bolivian botox doc. The availability of plastic surgery is another subject they talk about quite openly in the halls of Los Tajibos, probably under the assumption that there aren't many English-speakers around. I was in line at the reception last week and an American Airlines stewardess in uniform begged her colleague to not ask why she was wearing sunglasses inside. She later admitted she had dashed out earlier that morning to have a little ass fat pumped into her crow's feet. Can ya' blame her?

Too good to not post

2005-10-16T18:02:00.000-04:00

Through a journalists' listserve, I got a solitication from a Pakastani source-for-hire offering his punditry services to reporters covering the earthquake.
It's "clear as crystal" that his skill with the English language should make him sought after throughout the "orb." (It's worth "gazing" on his personal Web page for more laughs. It reminds me of the way the Ukranian guy wrote letters in the book "Everything is Illuminated").

Here's the pitch:

I shall feel gratified and delighted if the information, being listed
herein in disseminated through splendid helix of knowledge, SAJA
[saja-disc@lists.jrn.columbia.edu] to the eventual benefit of all those
who are interested to engage an bona fide source to get hold of latest
info on the catastrophic Quake in South Asia, explicitly in Pakistan.

QUAKE:Credible Journalist available in Pakistan

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Light posting this week

2005-10-16T14:38:00.000-04:00

I will be back online later this week once I wrap up a freelance article. Hang in there.
Meanwhile, enjoy this photo from the most pathetic museum I've seen to this day -- One commemorating the loss of Bolivia's sea access to Chile more than 100 years ago. It was full of maps showing Bolivia's incredible shrinking area.

This is a quote by a Bolivian fighter that translates roughly to "Surrender? Let your grandmother surrender, damnit!"
We all know what happened soon afterwards. And since then, Bolivia has been whining to get its ocean view again. And amazingly, Bolivians still hold out hope that Chile will cave. Imagine if Mexican newspapers almost every day reported on talks between low-level Mexican and American diplomats about the return of California and Texas.
Give it up.

Even Mennonites get a Big Mac attack

2005-10-14T14:11:00.001-04:00

In the spirit of this blog being a repository of odd things that we come across here in Santa Cruz de La Sierra, here's a new one:
Yesterday was the second time in four or so months that I felt the need for a fast food fix, so I popped into the city's only Burger King.The first thing I saw was a table of four Mennonite men -- sunburnt skin, blond hair peeking from under straw hats, pressed blue overalls -- digging into four Whoppers.
The site of Mennonites walking around Santa Cruz was a bit jarring when we got here, but we quickly got used to that. There is a devout community from Germany and Canada that settled outside the city and farms soy and sunflowers and they often come in to buy food and supplies in local markets. Women are usually covered in bonnets and long dresses. Men almost infallably wear the overalls and straw hats.
But something about catching Orthodox adherents of a sect that encourages its members' separation from mainstream society in the very symbol of mainstream society made me laugh.

Another insidious U.S. export

2005-10-12T14:45:00.000-04:00

A few months back I was alarmed to see a conga line of blindfolded executives outside my glass door.
In a trust game, participants in the Hay Group retreat were blindly making their way across the putting green using Teamwork and Synergy. My guess is they were "thinking outside the box" and Continuously Improving (tm) and using Total Quality Management (tm) too. I could smell the proactivity.
Not even the rutted roads of Santa Cruz, the high Andes, the vast rain forest or the Gran Chaco could deter the culty corporate training that has brainwashed legions of MBAs across the globe into thinking that productivity and creativity can be coaxed out by PowerPoint (tm) and buffet brunch.
A symptom of how pervasive this epidemic has become is the propensity of multi-day seminars here, like the two I participated in back in La Paz. The goal of organizers seems to be to take an interesting subject and invite "experts" to discuss it in the most theoretical and abstract way in marathon sessions until the subject is no loner interesting.
By the time I took the podium in La Paz -- two days deep into a seminar about responsible journalism -- not even a reincarnated Simon Bolivar could have roused my audience. PowerPoint is hypnotic. Pretty colors, flashing pictures, wipers. Zzzzz.

Invasion of Floricienta and Fans

2005-10-10T10:42:00.000-04:00

Los Tajibos, our hotel/apartment complex, was invaded by an army of little girls dressed in pink and orange and striped stockings this weekend. They were hoping to get a glimpse of Floricienta, the tv/music/dance star from Argentina in town to perform to 20,000 screaming fans at the soccer stadium and, as you can see in the photos, giving hotel staff a good workout.
To compare Floricienta to Britney or Hillary Duff or another female American pop star would underestimate her influence. Her fans form a cult whose adherents must wear clashing fluorescent colors and odd newsboy hats, who buy up newspapers whenever they include a free color poster and convince their parents to let them stake out her hotel early into the morning with the hope of catching a glimpse (she snuck out a side door without notice, but co-stars graciously signed autographs all morning Sunday.)
The scene reminded me of one of my more shameful reporting assignments: To stake out the apartment of the lover and beneficiary of former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey. Me and 40 or so odd reporters from other media, all with equally uncreative editors, were forced to spend some 36 hours in the FRONT entrance of Golan Cipel's apartment building.
Editors didn't want to hear that the high-rise building had several fire escapes, a garage and a few back doors that likely provided escape to the bugger soon after he made news. Or that if he did decide to leave his apartment through the front door, he probably wouldn't have said, "Well, alright: Since you guys have been stalking me for three days, I'll throw you a bone and give you each an exclusive interview."
So like teenage pop fans, we waited in the rain and cold, under umbrellas, in front of the building off Eighth Avenue for 36 hours straight. It wasn't until he appeared on television in Israel that we were given a license to go home.

La Paz photos

2005-10-05T16:42:00.000-04:00

Click to enlarge

Lake Titicaca

2005-10-05T11:56:00.000-04:00

Click on images to enlarge.

More images around Lake Titicaca

2005-10-05T11:50:00.000-04:00

Click on image to enlarge

La Mano Dura

2005-10-05T11:08:00.000-04:00

Bolivian government typically alternates between liberal democracies that implode due to corruption, disenfranchisement of the masses, and ultra-weak and untrusted institutions and the repressive military dictatorships that seize power to tidy everything up.
I began my classes at La UPSA under the former model: I am going to give each student freedom to pursue stories that interest them out in the city. Unlike my predecessors, I am going to eschew theory and compositional dogma and embrace unconventional storytelling to help loosen up writing muscles by embracing experimentation and interactive class discussions. I will use what little pull I have here to bring weekly guests to the class who can discuss first hand the problems that Bolivia faces.
The result: Mass student no-shows on the days I invite guests, no homework assignments handed in, whining about how the city is too dangerous to report on, and silence during attempts at classroom debate.
Well, the new regime is here. And the purge is on.
During an exam yesterday, one that I had to postpone because of a general strike closed the university the day it had been planned, I caught several students talking. They expressed shock, I mean real shock, when I told them to shut up and threatened to fail them. I also failed students who didn't turn in assignments on deadline.
Sound basic?
I think I may be the first teacher they've had who actually made them follow rules. And La UPSA is widely regarded as one of Bolivia's best universities. Yikes.

Caution when using Thomas Friedman aphorisms

2005-10-03T21:55:00.000-04:00

The point of the story was to explain how Bolivian newspapers fail to explain complicated politics beyond the back and forth. I wanted to coax the reporters from Las Yungas in attendance to pick up where their colleagues had left off. But my attempt at folksy wisdom missed like a fruit bat hunting for guava in an orange grove before sunset.
I began my talk about journalistic responsibility with an apocryphal story about how I arrived to Spain 10 years ago not knowing anything about soccer. My friends, I said, had invited me to watch games with them. But being a gringo, I was lost trying to figure out who had the ball and what offsides and stoppage time meant.
Only after a few weeks of watching the games and consulting my patient and knowledgeable friends was I able to learn the game and even choose a team -- Real Madrid.
Now in Bolivia I feel lost again, I told my class. Only this time I'm lost in Bolivian politics and am without patient friends or newspapers to help me through the thicket.
Are the elections on or off? What does state autonomy mean in the context of Bolivia? Why is everyone on a hunger strike? No answers in local newspapers or television. No one knows the answers.
Such satisfaction when the some 40 participants nodded in agreement.
It was a warm feeling that frosted over during the question and answer period, when a male radio reporter beckoned for the floating microphone.
"Senor Andrew," he said, his eyes squinted in an expression that I read as sympathetic. "You said it took you four weeks to pick a soccer team. Don't worry. You will pick a political party to support in even less time."
(Take a look at the snowcapped mountain in the background: Maybe that's why they seemed so interested in what I was saying.)

Such creativity

2005-10-01T21:28:00.000-04:00

I assigned my students to write a few stories while I was in La Paz these past two weeks. Each is assigned a beat in Santa Cruz and is responsible for developing sources and finding stories there. Despite threatening zero credit if I didn't receive the assignments by email on the appointed deadline, only about 20% of my 30 or so students emailed me the homework. Many others, however, sent me some quite elaborate excuses. Thought I'd share a few good ones:

"I was away all week at my cousin's house in X town where there's no electricity. So I couldn't send the homework."

"My parents wouldn't let me go to the beat you assigned me after the jailbreak (27 violent felons did, indeed, bust out of Santa Cruz's Palmasola prison last week)."

"I'm pregnant (ed. note: though just barely showing) and I don't have a car and it's hard for me to walk around."

"I didn't come to the last class, so I didn't know what the homework was."

Don Lucho

2005-09-30T09:15:00.000-04:00

How information is delivered in a museum, guidebook or tour can be as revelatory as the information itself.
The Museum of the Revolution in Havana, with its unabashed deification of Castro and Che and demonization of the U.S., undermines its own message of how Cuba was "liberated" from a ruthless dictatorship. Only a ruthless dictatorship would go through such lengths to create a cult of personality around its leaders. What place do thought police have in a free democracy?
At first, I thought La Paz's Museo de Coca had a similar bent. As Sonya and I passed through exhibit after exhibit of how wonderful this medicinal leaf is, I asked aloud why they didn't have an exhibit of me getting mugged and chased by crack addicts in Philly, or a panel describing how my car was stolen four times in one summer. But I hadn't given the museum enough credit -- We turned the corner and discovered the "crack epidemic" section, complete with a lifesized model of a junkie taking a hit. And within this section of the museum, special mention was given to North Philly (photos will be posted early next week).
Mil disculpes, Museo de Coca.
Then there was the tour Sonya and I took yesterday. We had spent the night in Las Yungas, a tropical region halfway between the high Andes of La Paz and the low Amazon basin. The area is how I would imagine parts of Colombia: Rolling green mountains, terraced farms of coffee, bananas and coca. Dramatic waterfalls. And a large community of descendants of black Africans.
They had been brought to Bolivia to work the mines of Potosi, but couldn't adapt to the harsh conditions, so they settled in Las Yungas to harvest coca. Many women have adapted the cholita fashion -- bowler hat, flouncy layered dresses, twin braids hanging down their back. And many members of the community speak not Spanish, but the indigenous Ayamara language.
We hadn't planned to take a tour, but an affable old man named Don Lucho offered us a cheap rate for a jeep ride to some waterfalls, coca plantations and villages.
Lucho's perspective became pretty clear early on. I should point out that Lucho, whose family has lived in the Yungas village of Coroico for at least four generations, was one of the whitest people I've seen in Bolivia. And he lives in a big house on the main square.
As we drove by an old Spanish church and latifundia, he sadly recalled the day when villagers -- coaxed by a government encouraging land reform -- forced the Spanish settlers away at gunpoint.
As we passed a school set up by an Italian N.G.O. designed to teach the children of campesinos advanced agricultural techniques, Lucho said it was a good idea.
"But it will never work because the Ayamara speaking campesinos have nothing up here."
As we crested a hill, he pointed to a village on a distant hill.
"That's where all the little blacks live," he said. "They used to behave themselves. Now they all use bad words."

Now I know why they hate us so

2005-09-27T22:14:00.000-04:00

I used to think Bolivia's anti-Americanism was rooted in a perception that our government meddles in its own, or that our aggressive multinational companies have pillaged its economy.
No.
It's that the first person visitors to the embassy meet is the nastiest, most officious puta Bolivia has to offer.
I had to drop my passport off there to get a visa extension.
But first I needed to get past this hag. She faces the street in a small office cloistered behind a thick glass window.
"Hola. I have a meeting with Diego (the guy in charge of Fulbrights) please."
She points to a phone on my side of the glass, but doesn't look up from her newspaper.
I pick it up. She picks her phone up, but still doesn't look up.
"Hola. I have a meeting with Diego," I repeat.
"Call him then." She gives me his extension and points to another phone.
I get his voicemail.
I pick up the phone connecting the receptionist to the outside world again. She looks up, annoyed.
"Hi. Could you please page him? He is expecting me."
"Can't you wait?" she said. She then hangs up her phone and continues to read.
I tap on the glass and point to the phone again. She picks up her end.
"He doesn't know I'm here. I would like you to page him please. Can you try his secretary?"
She shakes her head, hangs up her phone and picks up another phone, dials and extension and starts talking. I can't hear the conversation.
She then hangs up the phone and starts reading again.
I look at Sonya. Sonya nods. I tap on the glass again and point to the phone.
"What did the secretary say?"
"She said to wait."
"Did you tell her who I was?"
"No. You never told me."
"Tell her I'm Andrew Glazer. Diego is expecting me."
"Can't you wait?"
"No."
She dials again. Five minutes later, Diego is downstairs.

Cracked Sonya up, pissed me off to no end

2005-09-25T21:05:00.000-04:00

We bought a bottle of water at the pharmacy down the street from where we're staying in La Paz. It was 3.50 bolivianos. I gave the cashier 3.60.
"I don't have change," she told me, cutting a vitamin from a blister pack she pulled form a drawer beneath the register. "Take this little vitamin instead."

Rocky Mountain high

2005-09-24T19:28:00.000-04:00

Los Glazers are fatigued, hungry and back in La Paz after three days at the world´s "highest navigable lake," Titicaca.
The sun is bright up there and roasted both the fair-skinned and the browner members of this pseudo-Bolivian family as we hiked around what locals believe to be the birthplace of civilization.
We spent Thursday with a new friend from Madrid hiking the length of La Isla Del Sol, about a three-hour ferry ride from our base in the travelers´ hub of Copacabana. At the northern tip is a set of pre-Inca ruins -- a labyrinth used most likely for ceremonial purposes (isn´t that the archeologist´s cop out?). There also was a hole purported to be the mouth of a tunnel, dug by the Incas, that led to Cuzco hundreds of miles away and other important hubs.
We learned all this from a nice Dutch grad student who is there doing his dissertation. He also shared some coca leaves with us as we hiked the six-mile rolling Inca trail to the southern part of the island. Doesn´t sound like much distance, but at close to 15,000 feet each step is a chore. The wad of pungent leaves in our mouth -- yes, Sonya partook as well -- gave at least a placebic boost for the second half of the trip. Of course we have lots of photos, including one of Sonya spitting out her chaw, but won´t be able to post them until we return to Santa Cruz next week.
We took another hike yesterday from Copacabana but got a bit lost. While we didn´t see any of the ruins or fish hatcheries that the cabronazo Lonely Planet promised us, we did catch some good scenery and exposure to Andean farm life.
We also made the acquaintance of a black sheep dog who we named Sebastian. The poor guy followed us, panting, for three hours from a village in the middle of nowhere back almost to Copacabana. When the city was finally visible, Sebastian started to whine and turned around. I guess he realized he had followed the wrong couple.

El Alto workshop

2005-09-20T18:36:00.000-04:00

Strange as it may sound, a university in a city known for its radical anti-Americanism and mass protests and riots that drove two presidents from power in two years invited me, El Gringo Grande, to speak about how to improve local journalism. What makes it even more of a shock is that the U.S. Embassy was a co-host of the event.
The 60-so attendees couldn't live in the same country as my wealthy white students at La UPSA. Most speak Ayamara at home, not Spanish. Most have to walk several city blocks to get clean water. Most support the leftist Cocalero, Castro-Chavez friend Evo Morales for president.
But they were a polite and engaged audience. I think I had them when I bashed Bush's slow response to Hurricane Katrina. And when I opened with the line, "So I hear they don't like Gringos much up here."
The theme of my talk was that it's normal to have opinions, but that as a reporter you have to leave them at home. A simple concept, but many of the participants of the seminar run some of the 300 neighborhood radio stations that rally the masses to close off the highways and shut down La Paz when they want to "negotiate" with the government.
I got asked some interesting questions -- How would I cover Cuban immigration to the states? Can I print whatever I want in the U.S.? Have I ever been threatened?
Afterwards, I visited the newsroom of El Alto`s only newspaper, the three-year-old El Alteño. It has a staff of five reporters and a circulation of some 2,500, the director said.
Surprising since El Alto is a city of about 1 million and growing. Made up of Quechua and Ayamara migrants from other parts of the country, the city sits in the hills about 1,000 feet above the capital city, La Paz, which is at 14,000. To get there, the white Chevy Suburban provided by the embassy (not too obvious) climbed winding roads as steep as any in San Francisco. There is an amazing view of La Paz from up there, a splash of red roofs that climb up onto the hillside. The white-capped Mt. Illumani is the backdrop.

Permiso

2005-09-17T10:01:00.000-04:00

Posts will be light over the next two weeks. We will be in La Paz and heard the high altitude isn't kind to laptops, so we're leaving ours behind.

FexpoCruz

2005-09-17T09:40:00.000-04:00

Welcome to FexpoCruz, the eagerly-awaited two-week long celebration of esoterica. Sprawled across a massive fairgrounds, national and international companies use elaborate displays -- and of course, sexy spokesmodels (called azafatas here) -- to tout their cell phones, couture and bovine inseminators. Cigarette and liquor companies set up hip bars where the city's wealthy, dressed in their finest, transport themselves to Miami or Buenos Aires for a few hours.
It's a little bit agro, a little bit hip, a little bit schmaltz.
...Ever wonder where show animals spend the night? FexpoCruz puts them up in the city's best hotel, which, coincidentally is where we live. That herd of handsome white bulls is right outside our door.

Restful unrest

2005-09-15T17:53:00.000-04:00

General strikes can be quite relaxing. Classes were cancelled. And everything -- airports, highways, bus stations, restaurants, supermarkets -- was closed. There was nowhere to go but to the swimming pool. Kind of like a snow day with nice weather. Apparently the department of Santa Cruz and the federal government have temporarily broken their impasse. So all things are back to normal tomorrow. Unless the norm has become political chaos. Then it will be going back to abnormal.

A Rite of Passage

2005-09-14T15:51:00.000-04:00

Protestors are mounting a general strike tomorrow and nationwide highway blockades to demand more municipal control of a new gas tax. It will be the culmination of nearly a week of hunger strikes and marches by city and public university officials in Bolivia's largest cities. Last week, students from Santa Cruz's public university took over the city's tax office.
The latest protests will be the result of simmering discontent by Santa Cruz and other cities that feel as though the national government shouldn't hold the purse strings of the new tax. Conceding to mass protests from largely indigenous groups who demanded a greater share of Bolivia's oil wealth, former President Carlos Mesa in May allowed a law to pass that effectively put a 50% tax on natural gas. He then resigned -- the second in two years to bolt in the face of mass protests. His resignation only temporarily postponed the current mess.
As often seems to be the case in Bolivia, the congress wrote the law in a way that left it with more holes than a fish net. It left in question how the some $400 million will be distributed. Crumbling public universities are now demanding a 5% cut. States including Santa Cruz -- or departments as they're called here -- are demanding the distribution be determined by the number of inhabitants in each department. The booming city of Santa Cruz -- which became Bolivia's largest after the latest census -- is getting the least amount of dollars per head, according to a recent study. And Crucenos, who have long advocated greater regional autonomy, resent the fact that much of the gas being sucked from the ground comes from their own department.
How will this affect us?
Not sure yet. I will have to cancel mid-term exams for my two classes since students won't be able to get to school. We are scheduled to fly to La Paz Saturday...Still not sure if the highway will be blocked.

Scenes from Cochabamba

2005-09-14T14:38:00.004-04:00

Here are a few photos from a long work-vacation weekend spent in Cochabamba, Bolivia's fourth-largest city. We spent much of the time swimming through the crowds of a few busy weekend markets -- that's where the chicken lady was. We also visited an important shrine to the Virgen of Urkupina a bit outside of town, where hundreds of pilgrims lined up to leave flowers at the virgin's feet. Outside the shrine a line of dozens of drivers waited hours for the local priest to bless their cars. Part of the ritual involved splashing clear liquor on the outside and inside of buffed autos, each decorated with pastel ribbons. As always, click on photos to enlarge.

Las Aguilas

2005-09-12T23:22:00.000-04:00

I was somewhat surprised to see a man wearing an Eagles hat in our hotel hallway. We had just gotten back from a weekend in Cochabamba and I was en route to our room to dump my bags and bolt out to a nearby bar that was showing the game. Turns out the guy is Cliff, a computer technician from Philly, who is dating a Bolivian woman and is in town to meet her folks. He was frantically trying to pick up the x's and o's of the game on his laptop when I bolted by. We quickly introduced one another only to bolt off to our respective rooms after we realized that ESPN had acquired Monday Night Football and that the rooms have ESPN en espanol. So here I am right now, in Bolivia, watching the Eagles get batted around by the Falcons. Sure, Huari isn't Yuengling. Sure, lomo de cerdo isn't a cheesesteak. Sure, Sonya isn't quite as animated as Gumby. Sure, the Spanish-speaking announcers keep calling Brian Westbrook "Michael." It's still good to see Las Aguilas on the cancha otra vez.

It says so much

2005-09-08T12:55:00.000-04:00

My cab ride from La UPSA takes me along a rutted dirt road and over a bridge spanning a narrow channel. For the past couple of weeks there have been four or five men standing at the bridge with shovels shaking down drivers for spare change.
For a few bolivianos, they fill the deepest holes so drivers can avoid snapping an axel. Everyone pays before they pass. I suspect if they didn't, the shovels would be used to crack windshields (or skulls). After each driver passes, the "road crew" then re-digs the hole so to not make their very career obsolete.
Drivers are essentially paying a tax that allows them alone to pass. But the money only goes toward making the road passable for them. And it rewards an unproductive venture. Without this money, though, these men and their families would likely go hungry.
The problem is the basic institutions needed to feed these men, educate them so they can fit in as productive members of society, to make the roads passable, and even to collect taxes needed to fund road projects are all broken or nonexistent.
I am hoping one of my political philosopher friends (everyone's got one -- paging Dr. Brettschneider! ) can throw a little Hobbes or Rousseau this way to help explain what the hell is going on.

Sad news

2005-09-07T13:34:00.000-04:00

My grandfather, Milton Belson, died Tuesday. He was 92. Grandpa: I hold no grudges for your attempts to steal Sonya from me. We will both miss you a lot.

The 20% rule

2005-09-05T15:59:00.000-04:00

I've conceded that no matter how well I understand the language spoken in a foreign country, how long I live there or how many locals I get to know, about 20% of what goes on around me will remain a mystery.
Here in Santa Cruz, I had learned not to hold my breath when someone we meet asks for our phone number and promises us to invite us out to dinner or visit them at their weekend home. The intention is good, but life gets in the way. I get it. I've made the same flimsy invites myself.
So I didn't expect a functionary from the city's budget office, who I met briefly as we were on the wrong side of an angry mob, to follow through with an invitation to see her neighborhood.
A week later, my new friend Adela actually called. Wanted to know when I could drop by.
"This week won't be good," I bluffed. "How about you call me next week."
We met on Saturday, outside the same office we were trapped in a few weeks before. We took a 20-minute bus ride to her sister's beauty shop. After a bit of polite chatter, the two incongruously asked to see what my driver's license looked like. Always accommodating, I pulled it out and answered all 25 questions they had about the holographic New York seal, the birthdate, eye color, weight, etc.
The two then took me for the promised walk around the neighborhood -- to the tented outdoor market where locals played fooseball, ate rotisserie chicken and watched soccer games; to the bus and train station, where thousands of brightly-dressed campesinos from across the country were waiting to return to their pueblos with arms full of packages; and to a photo studio.
"Do you want to take a photo?" Adela's sister asked me.
"Sorry, I didn't bring my camera."
"No, they take our picture inside."
We walked through a curtain to the inside of the studio.
The two sisters picked out a background for our portrait -- a blue tartan -- and the three of us posed. I stood in the middle, towering over the two sisters.
After the shot, and another quick walk, I said goodbye and hopped a taxi home.

Taxing taxistas

2005-09-02T09:38:00.000-04:00

After submitting to pushy students and even pushier professors in the taxi line at school last night for 20 minutes, I revert to New York mode and shove my way into an idling cab. But in my eagerness to get home, I abridge the ritual of leaning my head through the passenger window and setting a price. I've done the ride dozens of times now and know it should cost between eight and 10 bolivianos (about a dollar).
"Ten Bolivianos for Los Tajibos (our apart-hotel), right?" I said, climbing into the back seat.
"Who told you that price?"
"Every taxi I have taken in the past month."
"Are you a professor at UPSA (the university)?"
"Yes, for this semester."
"How much do you make?"
"None of your business how much I make! Why do you want to know what I make?"
"Well, because you live in Los Tajibos."
"None of your business. Just drive."
"Are you North American? Estadounidense?"
"Yes."
"The country of the rich, no?"
"I'm not paying you more than 10, so give up."
"What religion are you?"
I knew where this was headed.
"Drive please."
"I am a Catholic."
"Well, I'm a passenger. Please take me to my hotel."
We pull up and I give him two five boliviano coins.
"Buenas noches," he says and smiles.

Twenty minutes later, Sonya and I hail a cab to a restaurant. Normally, the ride costs eight bolivianos.
I lean in the window this time and ask how much.
"Fifteen pesos," he said.
"Nonsense. I'll give you 10."
"Okay. Just tonight, I'll take you for 10."
We get in.
"What do you mean just tonight? I've never even paid 10 for this trip."
"Since you're two people, it should be 12."
This is a rule he invented on the spot.
"Wow, I've never heard that rule before. Normally I pay eight to downtown. You know, just because I'm gringo doesn't mean I'm stupid."
He cranes back and gives a wounded look.
"I wouldn't try to take advantage of you. Those drivers you've had in the past are new. They're learning."
"So you're the only driver we've had who knows the rules?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Okay, good. So I have some questions. How much would you charge me for a ride to UPSA?"
"Twelve bolivianos."
"How about if my wife was with me."
"Same."
"Why? I thought you said an extra passenger would cost two pesos more."
"Not to La UPSA."
"Ah. Okay...How much would you charge me to go downtown if I brought another passenger. But this passenger doesn't have legs and has only one arm? Would that be just one additional peso?"
"No, senor. It would be the same."
"Okay. How about if the other passenger was a midget?"
"Same."
"How about if the only passenger was a two-year-old baby? How much would that cost?"
Our driver turns on his stereo. Vanilla Ice is performing a live version of his only hit.
"Do you like it?"
We did.
"Yes."
The driver then points to two massive speakers peeking out from the trunk.
We nod.
He flicks a switch and the bass and volume shake the windows and echo off the buildings surrounding the main plaza.
Having reached a chest-thumping musical detente, the three of us, smiling, proceed to our destination.

Decent article on Bolivian elections

2005-08-31T11:32:00.000-04:00

It doesn't reveal anything new, but this AP article frames the issues in a pretty clear and straightforward way.
It's worth noting that in the last presidential election, cocalero candidate Evo Morales (Movement Toward Socialism party) wasn't a contender until the U.S. Embassy threatened to withdraw aid to Bolivia if he won the election. The Morales campaign suddenly surged to place a close second behind "our" candidate in a sort of referendum against U.S. meddling.
The current ambassador, David Greenlee, won't publicly pick sides in the current presidential race, a U.S. diplomat I spoke with said.

Trust

2005-08-29T20:24:00.000-04:00

On our flight from Sucre to Santa Cruz this morning we didn't have to show IDs or go through any metal detectors or patdowns. That must mean that Bolivia is a really safe and stable country, right?

Back from Bolivia...

2005-08-29T12:15:00.000-04:00

and resettled in Santa Cruz.
We spent this past weekend sucking up all the Bolivianness of the country's official capital, Sucre. Just a 30 minute flight away, soulful Sucre couldn't be more different from the smog and silicone-filled Santa Cruz. Unlike the boomtown where we live, which seems to ooze its tangle of dirt roads into the surrounding flatlands like an uncontrolled virus, Sucre has a charming and walkable downtown hemmed in by high steep hills. The whitewashed churches and colonial buildings look like they took more than a day to build.
The city also has a feeling of tradition that is lacking in Santa Cruz.
The Sunday market outside town offers traditional colorful weaving. Each Sunday, it's flooded by residents from outlying indigenous communities wearing helmets and pompommed hats whose styles are fancified versions of the helmets worn by the Spanish conquistadores 500 years ago.
Note the photo of the red bags filled with dried leaves. They are coca leaves, the main ingredient for cocaine. The U.S. government has spent millions of dollars trying to eradicate this crop from Bolivia, causing great resentment from those like the customer depicted, who enjoy chewing the leaves to combat fatigue.
Sonya and I also spent a few hours exploring a cement quarry where several thousands of dinosaur footprints were discovered 10 years ago. If you look behind Sonya -- she's the one too vain to wear her hardhat -- you'll see a dark trail in the limestone wall. Those are the prints of some long-dead lizard.
(As always, click on photos to enlarge)

Spanish insight

2005-08-26T16:20:00.000-04:00

We had dinner the other night with a geologist from Spain who just moved to town to oversee his country's local gas and oil interests. At one point, the conversation turned to how different our respective hometowns are from Santa Cruz. As I was giving my two cents, the geologist stopped munching on his suckling pig and stared off into the distance with a sincere look of confusion.
"Philadelphia," he said. "How is Philadelphia? You don't hear much about Philadelphia. It's kind of like the Paraguay of the United States."
Not a bad analogy, I thought. But where does that leave Cincinnati? French Guyana?

A humble apology...

2005-08-24T17:49:00.000-04:00

from his Holiness Pat Robertson. The Bush friend and founder of the Christian Coalition, you see, got quite a bit of flack for asking the C.I.A. to "take out" popularly elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez -- a man Donald Rumsfeld recently accused of manipulating Bolivian elections.
The host of the "700 Club" was kind enough to sprinkle some cute equivocation into his contrition.

''I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should 'take him out,''' he explained to an Associated Press reporter. '''Take him out' could be a number of things including kidnapping.''
Duh.

Dumbest scam ever

2005-08-20T20:06:00.000-04:00

Our waiter at a restaurant made us pay him when we ordered and then bolted without bringing us change. He might as well never return. I went to his boss -- the owner -- mentioned what had happened, and made it clear we wouldn't leave without getting our money. He gave it to us, wrote the punk's name on a pad and sent us on our way.

Greetings from Okinawa

2005-08-20T19:54:00.000-04:00

No, not that one.
It's a town about two hours from Santa Cruz settled by Japanese immigrants more than 50 years ago. We were there as the town celebrated its annual fiesta last weekend with karate demonstrations, Bolivian and Japanese folkloric dancing and soba stands. The festival also marked the annual wheat harvest, so I included a photo of La Senora Wheat herself.

Forget natural gas...

2005-08-20T19:35:00.000-04:00

soy and sunflower exports. Santa Cruz's best chance at economic success would be to exploit its most abundant resource: Wannabe models. Drivers from around the city converge on this gas station so they can be served coca tea and coffee and have their gas pumped by pretty women in go-go boots, miniskirts, or whatever the outfit of the day happens to be.
Already one MBA I know is drafting a business plan for the U.S. Any investors?
(Click photo to enlarge)

Hamas, Bolivia and coca

2005-08-17T19:31:00.000-04:00

Rumsfeld made the connection during his visit to Paraguay today. Click here to read the Washington Post article.

A friend of our enemy is...our friend?

2005-08-17T14:25:00.000-04:00

Shock and confusion here as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announces plans to replace Bolivian imports of soy and sunflower oil with American products.
Shock because it means $40 million in lost income for South America's poorest country, according to news reports.
Confusion because Chavez is a big pain in the U.S.'s ass and lots of U.S. dollars have been to counter his popular Leftist and anti-Yanqui movement. It is strange he would favor U.S. trade.
Several State Department officials have accused Chavez and Fidel (yeah, that one) with funding the campaign of populist Bolivian presidential candidate Evo Morales, a coca farmer.
So Morales, by the transitive property, has become a pain the ass for the U.S. -- and the ass of the current administration of the Harvard-educated, neo-liberal and IMF-friendly interim President Eduardo Rodriguez (though he has been very muted since the same Leftist movement drove the last president, Carlos Mesa, from power in June and his neo-liberal predecessor two years before).
Here's why the U.S. considers Morales a threat: Aside from admitting that his campaign will be funded by the crop used to make cocaine, Morales favors the nationalization of Bolivia's natural gas industry and, not surprisingly, the U.S. and IMF don't like that.
(The embassy wants me to lead a seminar in the Morales stronghold El Alto on how citizen reporters can report fairly on popular indigenous movements and free trade. I will try to do just that.)
The punchline of the story is that a trade official in the U.S.-friendly administration is now pleading with Morales to ask his "friend" Chavez to change his mind.

Damn Bolivian wi-fi

2005-08-17T14:10:00.000-04:00

We have some nice photos to post from a festival we attended in a nearby Japanese village last weekend, but the Internet connection here has been too slow. Ironically, there's a telecommunications conference at the hotel and guests have used up all the bandwidth. Check in a few days for some new photos.

An update

2005-08-17T13:58:00.000-04:00

The director of the municipal agency who was beaten and spit upon by the mob that took over his office has struck back.
His supporters -- allegedly from the same neighborhood -- raided the adjacent Plaza 24 de Septiembre yesterday and beat up people believed to have been involved in the building takeover.
To further complicate matters: Local press reports that the mob that took over the building on Monday and demanded a neighborhood cleanup also accused one of the officials in the agency of passing off phony bills at her lottery stand.
As some kicked and spit on her boss inside on Monday, others chased her outside and tore most of her clothes off (a tasteful photo of the act appeared in the next day's paper.)
She (wearing a neck brace) and her supporters formed part of the retaliatory mob that flooded the central square on Tuesday.
Local press reports that the municipal offices are still occupied by SOMEONE other than those who are supposed to be there. I read the articles more than once and can't figure out which mob is hanging out. Either way, it didn't concern the hundreds of military police officers who gathered in the same square Wednesday to celebrate Bolivia's flag day. Why bring order when you can blow a trumpet instead?

A scary reminder

2005-08-15T12:47:00.000-04:00

I got a terrifying taste this morning of how close Bolivia teeters toward anarchy.
I was meeting with an official from the municipal independent budget office at a long table that he shares with a few other functionaries in a tight loft. Imagine a room the size of a Manhattan living room reached by climbing a narrow spiral staircase.
About five minutes into the meeting we heard the pops of about a dozen large explosions that shook the windows. No one inside the office reacted so I assumed the booms were construction noise or firecrackers.
Then we heard a human commotion outside. Like a flash flood, several hundred demonstrators had converged outside the office building in the five minutes I was inside. To announce their arrival, the demonstrators had thrown the dynamite – I am told it is an Ayamara custom. Everyone in the loft stood when they heard the stomping of protestors on the wood floor downstairs. The mob had pushed past the security guard and through a metal gate.
“They’re inside!” someone in the loft shouted. We all rushed to the spiral staircase, but several dozen demonstrators were already climbing up and wouldn’t let us pass.
The demonstrators were from a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of town and demanded a meeting with the director of the budget office. They said he had ignored earlier, more civil requests. They wanted to tell him that they were angry about the amount of trash in their neighborhood.
A leader of the group, spitting with rage, rushed to the director of the office and cornered him at his desk. The crowd around him squeezed in blocking all means of escape. The crowd pushed a female secretary and I against a wall and, fortunately, largely ignored us.
Some of the female protestors then began to open file cabinets and dump and tear documents. The secretary and I tried to escape down the staircase but were forced back upstairs.
As the director of the office listened to the leader of the mob, wiping sweat from his forehead with a rag every few seconds, the crowd grew more and more animated. Then, several of the demonstrators began to beat the director on the head, face, in the neck and back. As he crouched to protect himself, a few women spit their chaws of chewed coca leaves in his face.
A few of the director’s deputies managed to push the director through the crowd toward the spiral staircase toward the exit. But the mob pushed him down the staircase and he must have fallen about 12 feet. I couldn’t see whether he was injured.
The crowd then turned on my friend and began hitting him and spitting on him. He managed to squirm to the staircase and descended uninjured.
The mob had effectively taken over a government building with me and the secretary inside and no police were visible.
No one seemed to notice us there until leader of the mob turned to me and asked if I worked there too. I explained that I was a professor and journalist and that we wanted to leave. He waved me and the secretary out and we had to push hard to climb down the stairs and outside the building.
On the street were close to a thousand demonstrators from the neighborhood and a few National Police officers, holding shotguns, who -- I swear -- shrugged when I looked their way. It took more than 20 minutes after I LEFT THE BUILDING before riot police were standing in front of the adjacent mayor’s office.
A leader of the demonstrators held a press conference outside.
“We demand a meeting with the mayor and with the (independent budget office),” he told reporters. “This was a pacifistic march. If this doesn’t work, we will have to look at our other options.”

Reward for a long week

2005-08-12T11:08:00.000-04:00

The sprawling grounds of Los Tajibos Hotel and Convention Center, where Sonya and I rent an apartment, is where many of Santa Cruz's fancy social functions are held. From behind our glass sliding door, we've watched The Beautiful People come and go and, frankly, felt a little left out.
So on my way back from a tough class last night, I noticed a sign announcing an event titled "A date with Johnny Walker." Johnny and I hadn't hung for awhile and I thought we should catch up. I roused Sonya from her verb conjugating and the two of us, dressed in our EuroTrash finest, walked 30 feet to the party. Turns out Johnny Walker had visited the night before. This night, however, was hosted by his very friendly Scottish cousin, Chivas Regal. It was a runway show highlighting "Bolivia's high fashion" and was quite easy to sneak right in.
As usual in Santa Cruz's fancy social scene, Sonya was the brownest guest by several hues.
An announcer informed us that the night was dedicated to five homes for child burn victims. Several of the waxy-faced Botoxed guests looked like they were the beneficiaries, but otherwise we saw no hint that any money was being raised for the cause and no sign of any literature being distributed. Who wants to ruin a party with pictures of burn victims anyway!
The whole affair (free drinks) was grand until the fashion show started. Fashion shows, we learned very quickly, are quite boring. After about 15 minutes we retreated to our Botox-free apartment.
(Click photo to enlarge)

disculpenme

2005-08-12T10:58:00.000-04:00

Apologies to our four regular readers for a dearth in posts. Classes started for real this week and I've learned that teaching is no joke. It's been taking me about six hours to prepare each 1.5-hour class and I've got five each week. My boss at UPSA initially said I'd be teaching one section of seniors and co-teaching a freshman class. My co-professor, after a meeting Wednesday, decided he wasn't interested in sharing a class and dumped the whole thing on me, so I had about 12 hours to begin preparing a curriculum. This happened at what is said to be one of the best universities in Bolivia.
About four of my 30 or so students want to be reporters. The rest are interested in corporate communications and various forms of public relations. Very few read newspapers. I threw my first of several regular news quizzes at them last night and they failed to answer many basic current affair questions...like naming the four presidential candidates. Most couldn't name even one!

What tha?

2005-08-08T11:24:00.000-04:00

My reporting led me to Sunday Mass in a small town of 30,000 about two-hours outside of Santa Cruz. The city of Yapacani has been a crossroads for coca growers and narcotraficantes and legitimate day laborers in the soy and rice fields. Yapacani's frequent blockades by union thugs and it's high murder rate and active red light district lend it a feeling of lawlessness, of The Wild West.
So given this setting and the fact that I was in a CATHOLIC MASS, I found it very incongruous to hear the priest lead the congregation in a very familiar song: Shalom Aleichem. For those of you who weren't with us when we crossed the Red Sea, that is a Jewish song.

Justice

2005-08-05T13:06:00.000-04:00

I interviewed a state prosecutor this morning for a freelance story I'm working on. He couldn't stop raving about the U.S. justice system.
"Even if someone is sentenced to death and they are innocent," he said, "at least he and the public believe the penalty was reached legally. Even now that DNA tests are finding innocents on death row, American people continue to trust your system. It's not about the individual, it's about the system."
A strong law and order man, Oscar Vaca Coria feels impotent in his country, where where mass protests have driven two presidents from office in as many years and where village lynchings often remain uninvestigated. Unlike many of his countrymen though, Coria is not nostalgic for the brutal dictatorships of the 1980s that kept everything nice and tidy.
"We can't have police and military everywhere," he said.
He offered no other solutions.

Recount!

2005-08-05T12:59:00.000-04:00

Miss Santa Cruz Carolina Lopz didn't even place, so I'm afraid there are no winners this year. Miss Litoral Desiree Duran will represent Bolivia in the Miss Universe contest. Another contestant from Litoral and a student at the university I teach at, Viviana Mendez, will represent Miss World. And who cares who will represent Bolivia in Miss International? Never heard of it.

An ever gracious Srta. Lopez was quoted in El Deber saying that "it was what God wanted and He decided this is what is best for me." Good to know "He" has enough time to follow the contest as well.

Sonya here

2005-08-04T22:24:00.000-04:00

I had my first busy day in Santa Cruz. I was invited to join Kelly Clark Boldt, who moved to Santa Cruz almost five years ago with her husband David Boldt, a former editor with the Philly Inquirer. First stop was their daughter Julia’s school, which was having its 6 de Agosto program in celebration of Bolivia’s independence in 1825. After the entire school marched around the neighborhood waving Bolivian flags, kids of all ages modeled traditional Bolivian outfits, including the pollera (the flouncy skirt and bowler hat - my favorite). Next stop was Juan Latino, a small village about an hour outside of Santa Cruz where I will volunteer a couple days a week teaching very basic English. Never having taught before, I mostly observed the other teachers. I did get to show off a little jumping and running in place to illustrative vocabulary though.

Quien Sera La Ganadora?

2005-08-04T13:46:00.000-04:00

Knowing that our readers also must be swept up in Miss Bolivia fever, we at Los Glazers have decided to launch a little contest. Guess the winner before tonight's coronation and you win 10 Bolivianos (prize will be split between multiple winners and is subject to all applicable local taxes). Just click here to see the contestants. Valid entries must be submitted to the comments section before showtime. Buena suerte a todos.

Alfredo Barba!!

2005-08-02T16:32:00.000-04:00

Sonya and I were walking back from our local fruteria when we heard the squeal of teenage girls. We looked up and saw several dozens of autograph-seekers swarming a short kid with a baseball hat. A few boys were on the fringes, mocking the girls that had pushed them aside.
I asked one of them who the kid was.
"Alberto Barba," he said. "He's a dancer. Those girls are crazy, no?"
I assumed Barba was someone big and did a little Web research. No citations in the Google universe. I'll assume that like Miss Santa Cruz he is about to become a star.

By contrast, one of the few officially declared presidential candidates, Samuel Doria Medina, just walked into the bar I am sitting in right now. He only got one handshake and it was from a member of his staff.

Let the games begin

2005-08-01T20:43:00.000-04:00

I was forced to vamp through my first class this evening. I had pretty much everything written out -- discussion points, introduction of self, introduction of class -- but only five of my 12 students showed. Four of them, they revealed, are taking my workshop because they must to graduate. They revealed that they have no interest in journalism or reporting at all. Most want to be in corporate communications and public relations. Most seemed pretty put off by my plans for the class: Assigning them each a beat and sending them out to find and cover municipal stories.
Apparently, in the past the class had been more of a chalk and talk. Lots of theory, no doing.
"I thought we'd be doing more public relations," a faux redhead said after I coaxed some feedback from my stunned class.
"I hate public relations," I responded. "Good reporters break public relations people."
I was trying to provoke discussion. They smiled at each other, but it ended at that.

Great news!

2005-08-01T11:25:00.000-04:00

Our favorite Miss Bolivia contestant, Miss Santa Cruz Carolina Lopez, is well on the way to taking the crown. Late last week, news reports indicated that she had snagged the coveted "Miss Silueta" title. We at Los Glazers wish her continued success.

Wedding Weekend

2005-08-01T10:41:00.000-04:00

My boss at UPSA invited Sonya and I to her daughter's wedding in Concepcion, a sleepy town about five hours east of Santa Cruz. The area is known for a set of beautifully restored 18th-Century Jesuit missions. From these sprawling church complexes, the European priests helped civilize the Amazonian Indians by teaching them to read, to embrace Jesus and to play classical music, according to the literature provided there. The Jesuits clashed with Portuguese colonialists who tried to enslave members of their congregations and were eventually expelled from Bolivia. They argued that their flock had become too civilized to serve as slaves (watch "The Mission" to see Robert DeNiro play an anguished Spanish missionary).
The wedding took place in a church built by a Swiss priest -- fitting, the current German bishop who led the ceremony pointed out, because the groom is Swiss as well. The bride's family shipped in tasteful white candles and orchids, a 12-piece orchestra and a an understated wedding cake that Sonya would have picked out herself (except that it wasn't chocolate.) Guests wore stylish suits and dresses.
The reception hall, with bottom-lit white columns of cloth and chocolate buffet -- could have been in New York or L.A. The only reminders that we were in a poor Bolivian town were peering in through the window bars from the outside, watching the first dance and the toasts with smiles as if they were invited guests themselves.

Sloth News Day...

2005-07-28T22:06:00.000-04:00

So it's worth commenting on our second home here in Santa Cruz. It's La Plaza 24 de Septiembre, the main square where everyone and a three-toed sloth seem to hang. The plaza is literally in the center of Santa Cruz and it's one of the few places I've seen the city's divided factions in one place. Spend a few minutes there in the evening and you'll see Japanese chess players, Moonies, Mennonites walking home from the market in overalls and straw hats, Cholitas in their bowlers and petticoats, kissing teenagers and convalescing seniors. There are guys in white dinner jackets selling coffee from carts and six-year-old kids selling newspapers. And a sloth. Guidebooks say he had been relocated to a zoo after falling ill. But yesterday I was sitting under a tree and saw a few leaves fall. Looking up, I saw the guy's beady eyes glaring right back at me. His mouth was full of leaves. I swung back to the same bench today with Sonya, hoping to snap a pic. But he had climbed high enough to look like nothing more than a furry piece of trunk.

We will be out of town until Sunday night. So check in again Monday for the latest post.

AP article

2005-07-26T18:22:00.001-04:00

Interesting...but the source leaves me skeptical.

Another day in the park

2005-07-26T17:45:00.000-04:00

We're in La Plaza 24 de Septiembre, the city's main square. Sonya's reading Atlantic Monthly. I'm reading the beauty pageant section of El Deber. More than soccer, more than the presidential campaign, more than the department of Santa Cruz's upcoming bid for autonomy, the newspapers have been covering the heated contest for the title of Miss Bolivia. The winner will compete in Miss Universe and Miss World and become a perennial celebrity here -- the society pages yesterday noted the birthday of Miss Santa Cruz 1978.
So as I'm reading the bios of the 18 contestants, I hear a bit of a stir in the otherwise quiet park. Looking up, I see five of them passing by. Que casualidad, no?!?
It wasn't long before a small crowd formed. Some passersby posed with the contestants. Others gawked and whistled. Most just gawked.
All local biases aside, my favorite is Miss Santa Cruz (top right, click to enlarge). There's something very down-to-earth about her. Look at that smile!

The end of Bolivian poverty

2005-07-25T22:28:00.000-04:00

I'm no Jeffrey Sachs -- I got a B in microeconomics and did even worse in macro -- but I think I've got a solution to some of Bolivia's economic woes. See, things shut down from 12-3PM for siesta, like in many Latin countries. But unlike in, say, Spain, they take their siestas very seriously here. Nothing, I mean nothing, is open. I tried to buy the Sunday paper during siesta yesterday and wound up taking a long, long, fruitless walk. So what if a few kiosks stayed open and became known as the places where one could buy a paper, smokes, batteries, phone cards, etc. during siesta time? I think they'd do mad business. Who knows? Maybe that and the country's rich natural gas reserves could bump it up a few notches from its ranking as one of the hemisphere's poorest nations.

Our "Santa"dote

2005-07-24T16:03:00.000-04:00

We took advantage of free time before Andrew's journalism classes begin and took a four-day trip to the quiet mountain town of Samaipata. About three-hours west of Santa Cruz, It's where Cruzenos go to escape the noise and ugliness of Bolivia's most populous city. Think of the Poconos or the Berkshires or Big Bear. It's also a jumping off point for treks into the largely untouched Amboro National Park. The part of the park that we explored with a biologist and a young Austrian couple was pretty dramatic -- 20-foot high tree ferns that looked like dinosaur food, bright orchids, bee-like hummingbirds.

Since the park extends from the foothills of the Andes to the Amazon basin, there is a diverse array of ecosystems within its 1.6 million acres. The area also was a crossroads for the highland Incas and lowland Amazonian peoples. We visited ruins that archaeologists and anthropologists believe are evidence of an unusual coexistence between the two peoples.

Click on the photos of our trip to enlarge:

El periodismo cruzeno

2005-07-20T13:31:00.000-04:00

I've been blessed with a great guide to Santa Cruz's active news media. Osman, a former reporter and ombudsman for the region's most respected newspaper, El Deber (www.eldeber.com.bo), has dragged me over the past few days to reporter union meetings, newsrooms and a city council meeting in a poor part of town. Seems like there are quite a few people, like Osman, who want to practice serious journalism and are embarrassed by the bikini girls on the front page. It also seems like there are a lot who don't know how to do it. El Deber -- I remind you, the region's most respected newspaper -- had to issue a front page retraction of a profile published last month on a German Catholic bishop. The reporter had written in the story that, "It is said that the priest has a girlfriend and four bastard children." How's that for attribution? Osman is amazed that the author of the story and the three editors who read it are still working at the paper. But he isn't shocked. He was driven from his job as the reader's representative by reporters who resented his attempt at keeping them honest. "I lost all my friends there," he said with a shrug.

The council meeting we attended this morning was one of 12 held each year each of the city's districts. In this case, it was a poor barrio in the western part of town where roads are unmarked and unpaved, the milkman rides in a horse-drawn cart, and kids play in the dirt. Osman was doing a remote dispatch for his brother's morning radio show using a cell phone. The council was an hour late and Osman's brother was left vamping...and taunting the council. Playing recorded sounds of snores, he beckoned them to wake up. His co-host, a guy who talks in a nasal clown voice, accused them of having spent the night dancing the "chuculun" (a raunchy reggaeton dance that has scandalized the country).
Eventually they showed to dodge demands from residents to pave streets, build soccer fields for children, and increase security. Reminded me of New Jersey.

Sonya's scratching her bowler hat

2005-07-18T18:54:00.000-04:00

When Bolivia's Miss Universe candidate, a fair-skinned 6-footer from Santa Cruz, was asked by pageant judges last year what a common misconception about her country was, she gave the following answer: Bolivia is primarily "poor people, short people, Indian people." She went on to say that she was from "the other side, from the east ... We're tall, white, and speak English." Needless to say, the comment caused a flap in this country, where outside of Santa Cruz, the majority of citizens are from various indigenous ethnic groups.
In the U.S., not much attention would be given to what a beauty contestant had to say about anything. But middle class cambas are obsessed with Western, big-boobed, bottle blonde beauty. Plastic surgery clinics are almost as common as gyms. And several pages in each of the daily newspapers are devoted to coverage of models and beauty pageants.
So Sonya and I weren't sure what to think when we saw the following photo run in one of the city's newspapers. Was it a progressive step toward inclusion or a mean-spirited poke at the underclass?

To put things in perspective...

2005-07-17T18:35:00.000-04:00

Bolivia is the poorest country in South America, is almost all non-white and has some of the most striking scenery anywhere. Santa Cruz is pretty white, pretty wealthy, pretty ugly -- but visitors from North America can live quite well. You're looking at a shot of our living area and the garden outside. We're in the fancy suburb Equipetrol off a strip of bars and restaurants where the rich "Cambas" (that's what Cruzenos like to call themselves) play.

Fun in Bermejo

2005-07-17T18:12:00.000-04:00

We had our first excursion from Santa Cruz into real Bolivia on Sunday. We hired a car driven by a nice man named Roy (trill the "r" and it becomes a Spanish name) and drove 80 kms out of town, through orange groves and crowded markets of women in braids and bowlers trading corn for sugar cane for baby goats. We hiked up a dirt path to the rim of a volcano and looked out into a valley of red dirt, a brown river and stone arches like those in Utah. Roy bought us oranges on the ride back, tight little packets of juice and seeds that squirted all over the back seat as we ate. It was nice to have some fresh produce after all the beef and very fried fries we've been eating.