Beenie Weenies and Brad Pitt

August 10, 2007

Mi cumpleano. I overslept today. I wanted to get up and at em by 6:30 or 7 am, but I think the hiking from the day before did me in. The night (9th) before I checked into a less expensive hostel. I stayed at la residencial Paris for 15 bolivianos. I grabbed a late dinner at, again, a Bohemian place called Pueblo Viejo. There´s many little Bohemian spots in Copacabana-it´s got the feel of a beach town. It´s a cool little place, though touristy, as I´ve already mentioned. Pueblo Viejo was good. I ate a dish called Pique Machu-a Bolivian dish said the waiter. It was patatas fritas, covered with green and red peppers, and 3 types of meat-beef, chicken, and my favorite beenie weenies. It was good. I slowly sipped on a Bolivian pilsner which was really refreshing after being under the sun all day.

The waiter, Javier, was really cool. We got to chatting and I asked him about a couple of things I was curious about. First, about how the people have reacted to Evo Morales. Talking politics can be an iffy subject in foreign countries. You really have to take what you hear more as a personal opinion than as the facts. Living with the Owambo people in Namibia they raved about the president Sammy Sam Nujoma and the SWAPO party. However, analyzing it a little more Owambos are more than 60 percent of the population meaning their tribe will probably always carry the most weight when voting time comes around. This may mean that SWAPO rule is great for Owambos, but may not be for the Hereros or the Namas, or the rest of the nation. Anyways, Javier stated that it depends on who you talk to. He said some really like Morales, while others don´t. He did say though that only about 50 percent of teh population votes. I told him that was about the percentage of voters in my country as well. Some of Javier´s responses I didn´t quite understand but didn´t pry too much, we were having a good conversation.

The other thing I asked him about was the relation between Catholicism and Incan traditions in Bolivia, if there was any. He stated that almost all of the people were practicing Catholics, but celebrated Incan ancestry out of respect. I thought this was quite a response. If that´s the case in general, I have to tip my hat to the open mindedness, humility, and sense of this-life-is-much-greater-than-I perspective of the people of this region. Que linda!

I woke up on the 10th around 9am not to an alarm, but to my cell phone blowing up. I´ve been using it as an alarm clock since I didn´t bring a watch. It was some unidentified New York number. I think it was one of my students. I usually give them my number at the beginning of the school year thinking they probably won´t use it and even warn them that if they blow up my spot at 4 in the morning I´m not answering. But oh contrar. Be careful giving your number to knucklehead students.

I got my stuff together, took a drip-drip cold shower with no soap or towel (don´t ask for details) and did some internet errands. Wouldn´t it be nice if when you left the country your bills were just on hold until you got back (insert question mark-i´m sitting at an internet cafe in la paz but the keyboard is in chinese and i really can´t decipher this thing)

I grabbed a late breakfast and caught the one oclock bus to La Paz. I am to meet the Habitat group over the next day and a half as folks start to arrive. The bus departs from Copacabana and stops at Tiquina where we take a ferry and continue on our way. The bus ride was pretty smooth-this wasn´t a kambee bus, but a larger charter bus. For most of the way we passed rolling hills with brown grass and tiny pueblos where the people were beginning to till the land. I asked the lady sitting next to me what they would grow and she said beans...I think. Talking Spanish with people with no English background is a little more difficult. The accents, I´ve found, are much thicker, and I guess I´m a bit embarrassed to continue asking que, que diciste, que, no entiendo. Hopefully my ear will become a little more accustomed to the language as time passes. I did make out, however, that nothing will be growing for another month or so. The people are working a bit early in preparation for the big celebration day on August 15-el dia de Pachamama (the earth mother)...At least, I think that´s what she said.

I arrived to La Paz by 5:30 and found the hotel-estrella andina-where I will meet the rest of the group. Only 2 folks had checked in, and I figured they were crashin´from jet lag, so I headed out to check out La Paz. It´s a crazy, hilly place. Very steep hills.

I was walking down a hill and saw a peloqueria. I decided to stop in and get a haircut. Un hombre named Juan cut my hair for 40 bolivianos. He gave me a nice trim and a shave. We were talking and I told him I had a friend in the States who was a stylist and that he had to go to school for 6-12 months. Juan said it was the same here and that he went to school for one year. A reggaeton video was playing on the television and Juan said that was becoming very popular music in Bolivia. I asked him about la musica autentica de Bolivia and, I don´t know the name of it in Spanish, but, it´s the music with the flute thingys. You know, that one. I´ll bring some back home. Juan is a jugador de musica as well. As I departed we exchanged names and we ran into the same problem, if you will, that I did when I lived in Spain some years back. There´s not many words in the Spanish language that end in ´d´, so when I told him my name, Juan replied, el pan-which is bread. I said, no, como el actor Brad Pitt. Ah, Brad, Juan said. When I lived in Spain though I guess he wasn´t quite the world famous person that he is now so many times I just left it as, si, mi nombre es pan. It was the same when I worked at Brothers Pizza with mis amigos mexicanos in the kitchen. They just called me Pan. Reckon there´s worse things to be called.

Tomorrow morning I will meet everyone and we will depart to Sorata for 2 or 3 days for orientation. After, we will head to Oruro where we will work, helping to build residential houses for the people in various communities. Pasas bien!