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Well folks, we finally arrived at our destination. You know, the so called reason for traveling in South America: Buenos Aires, the capital city of Argentina. The city is expansive and culturally inundated with Italian style food and a mix of French and Spanish style architecture. The "New York of South America" truly exists, and it makes me wonder if all major metropolitan cities have a similar potential, regardless of language and culture. Cities are cities wherever one may end up, and the excitement is in the idiosyncrasies of daily life. This is why I am thankful to be with a Porteño (from Buenos Aires) family.
Andy and I arrived a little over a week ago from Salta, in the north of Argentina. We were received by Andy's grandmother's cousin's son, Emi (I'll leave it to Andy to tell the story of their relationship), and taken back to his apartment. For the last week we have had nothing but the comforts of home. Andy's family has taken excellent care of us and shown us around the city and a bit of the outskirt provincial area.
On a daily basis, we have been looking for things do get us out of the house. I found a life saving yoga class that is making me feel great after nearly 6 months of no routine exercise, and Andy is training for a 10k race at the end of the month. Otherwise, we have found some free Spanish classes and have plans to go out on the town with the cousins.
---FAST FORWARD TO AUGUST 31, 2009---
Now we are at the end of our stay in Buenos Aires and I never got around to posting the above post. I continued with my yoga classes and turned into work-out barbie, and Andy trained for the 10k, which he ran today. His time was 44.12 minutes and ran under the name of ¨Manuel Francisco Lopez¨because registration was closed to Emi´s (Andy´s cousin) company. Manuel ran a pretty good time for not having shown up, eh?
Our lives were a little lazy in Buenos Aires, but we enjoyed it all the while. We went to some great museums, took a few more weekend outings to the province with the family, and went out on the town a few nights til 5 am. The clubs don´t even open til 2, and dinner doesn´t start til 10 or 12 on the weekends. Coffee at 1 am? Sure.
We took our free Spanish classes that ended up being a pilot program for a new ´ex-pat´ program for the ever increasing number of ex pats in Buenos Aires. The class was great and focused on ´Lunfardo´ (the Porteño slang), the vos form that replaces the tú form in Argentina, hand gestures that speak for themselves, and Porteño history and culture. You won´t believe the dirty insults and foul words I learned, hah! No me rompe las bolas, ¿eh?
Now that we are used to the late lifestyle, we are leaving to work on early rising farms. Tomorrow we both leave for El Bolsón in the South (22 hours by bus). We are going to work on separate farms that happen to be hardly 30 miles away from each other. The personal space is much needed for the both of us and we look forward to seeing another side of Argentina. The government and money is centralized in Buenos Aires, so I am interested to see what the other regions are like. So far, Argentina has been the most comfortable place to live in terms of public services and amenities. Emi and his girlfriend Veronica were so nice to put us up for an entire month, as well as his entire family to take us out and treat us like their own. Ain´t nothin´ like Argentine hospitality. I do believe they can claim real Southern hospitality as their own (sorry Texas).
Also, Emi introduced me to the U.S. 1980´s tv series ¨V¨. Strange discovery while in Argentina, but it is probably the best series I´ve ever seen, and I don´t usually watch tv. Anyone know it? Was it popular in the states?
I don´t know about you, but I´m ready to come home.
Love you all,
Lauren
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Sucre: Basurero
As Lauren had promised, the thing you had been waiting so eagerly for... the DUMP, in Spanish, basurero. Apparently, landfill tourism isn't very popular (I'm not sure why), but it was one of our most memorable tours so far. Thanks to our friend Brendan Mulligan, whom we met in Sucre through our Spanish School, we had the opportunity to see something that even locals were not aware of.
Brendan is from Canada and completed his masters in hydro-geology. He is spearheading two landfill projects in Bolivia, one in El Alto (above La Paz), and the other in Sucre, where we visited. His objective is to mediate between Canadian students and Bolivian students to address the problems of leachate (water runoff) in both these sites. The work of a hydro-geologist overlaps with landfills in many regards: location of landfill in relation to water systems, type of soil/rock the landfill is placed on, and how to manage the leachate. Ideally a landfill is placed on bedrock that captures the leachate, if this is not possible, a protective liner must be used. Leachate can escape the bedrock through cracks, for which a hydro-geologist may test the surrounding soil.
We first met Brendan at his University and were suprisingly also met by the owner of the garbage company, the operations director of the landfill, and a master's student under Brenden's project. We were given a presentation by the director about the state of garbage in Sucre and how the company operates to serve the community. From the presentation and simple questions that we could ask in Spanish, we quickly learned that Sucre did not have a recycling program. This was shocking to us, only because our favorite park was equiped with three different recepticals: one for paper, one for plastic, and one for organics. Though these recepticals were painted different colors and had decent signage, there was no regular trash receptical aside from the recylce recepticals (first bad sign), which made the contents inside indistinguishable: mixed waste. The owner of the garbage company explained to us that the city merely put these containers in the park without consenting the garbage company, with whom they contract. Brendan had two theories about the matter: #1 The City merely wanted to look progressive under the false pretenses of having a recycling program, or #2 Some person from the City was naive and thought that if you simply have the containers, then you have recycling, giving no foresight to the fact there there needs to be a system in place to haul the segregated materials, not to mention a facility to process them, of which there were neither. We left the University with Brendan and the owner of the landfill to begin our tour.
The landfill was a drive into the outer-rim of the city. The suburbs are not like the suburbs of the States with large tract homes. They are rather shanty towns. The further you get from the city, the poorer the communities. We approached the entrance of the landfill, and digging through some exposed trash was a pack of dogs. As we entered the site, dogs were drinking from the toxic brown water that was the reason for our visit.
Walking the site, we quickly observed the purpose for Brendan's project. There were several exposed runoff locations that led into a large lagoon of black water with trash floating atop. The landfill was designed on the slope of a large hill, so that all rainwater from the top passes right through the landfill into this holding pond. A concrete wall was setup to dam the material, however, the wall was perferated to let the water escape, as the water pressure in the wet season is enough to break the wall down without drainage. We were encouraged to take pictures, which I have posted on the photobucket website www.photobucket.com/endlesswinter (under the Bolivia tab).
All in all, this was a wonderful experience and we have to thank our newfound-friend Brendan. We were honored to have recieved a presentation and tour from the official sources of Sucre's waste community. I asked myself at first, why would such professionals in the field take the time for two travelling B.A. grads as Lauren and I? The reason is that so little resources are available to make drastic changes. Any exposure possible to the situation opens possibilities to outside assistance. I explained to them my background in the waste management field, and Brendan explained to me that there are great the opportunities to do research in Bolivia, as the Country's universities and private sectors are usually unable to fund such undertakings. I hope to go back to school for my master's in the next couple of years. My visa to Bolivia lasts another 5 years... so who knows, maybe I will take Brendan up on his offer and use his expertise to guide me on a research project. The owner of the garbage company will have planted a good seed.
~Andy
Brendan is from Canada and completed his masters in hydro-geology. He is spearheading two landfill projects in Bolivia, one in El Alto (above La Paz), and the other in Sucre, where we visited. His objective is to mediate between Canadian students and Bolivian students to address the problems of leachate (water runoff) in both these sites. The work of a hydro-geologist overlaps with landfills in many regards: location of landfill in relation to water systems, type of soil/rock the landfill is placed on, and how to manage the leachate. Ideally a landfill is placed on bedrock that captures the leachate, if this is not possible, a protective liner must be used. Leachate can escape the bedrock through cracks, for which a hydro-geologist may test the surrounding soil.
We first met Brendan at his University and were suprisingly also met by the owner of the garbage company, the operations director of the landfill, and a master's student under Brenden's project. We were given a presentation by the director about the state of garbage in Sucre and how the company operates to serve the community. From the presentation and simple questions that we could ask in Spanish, we quickly learned that Sucre did not have a recycling program. This was shocking to us, only because our favorite park was equiped with three different recepticals: one for paper, one for plastic, and one for organics. Though these recepticals were painted different colors and had decent signage, there was no regular trash receptical aside from the recylce recepticals (first bad sign), which made the contents inside indistinguishable: mixed waste. The owner of the garbage company explained to us that the city merely put these containers in the park without consenting the garbage company, with whom they contract. Brendan had two theories about the matter: #1 The City merely wanted to look progressive under the false pretenses of having a recycling program, or #2 Some person from the City was naive and thought that if you simply have the containers, then you have recycling, giving no foresight to the fact there there needs to be a system in place to haul the segregated materials, not to mention a facility to process them, of which there were neither. We left the University with Brendan and the owner of the landfill to begin our tour.
The landfill was a drive into the outer-rim of the city. The suburbs are not like the suburbs of the States with large tract homes. They are rather shanty towns. The further you get from the city, the poorer the communities. We approached the entrance of the landfill, and digging through some exposed trash was a pack of dogs. As we entered the site, dogs were drinking from the toxic brown water that was the reason for our visit.
Walking the site, we quickly observed the purpose for Brendan's project. There were several exposed runoff locations that led into a large lagoon of black water with trash floating atop. The landfill was designed on the slope of a large hill, so that all rainwater from the top passes right through the landfill into this holding pond. A concrete wall was setup to dam the material, however, the wall was perferated to let the water escape, as the water pressure in the wet season is enough to break the wall down without drainage. We were encouraged to take pictures, which I have posted on the photobucket website www.photobucket.com/endlesswinter (under the Bolivia tab).
All in all, this was a wonderful experience and we have to thank our newfound-friend Brendan. We were honored to have recieved a presentation and tour from the official sources of Sucre's waste community. I asked myself at first, why would such professionals in the field take the time for two travelling B.A. grads as Lauren and I? The reason is that so little resources are available to make drastic changes. Any exposure possible to the situation opens possibilities to outside assistance. I explained to them my background in the waste management field, and Brendan explained to me that there are great the opportunities to do research in Bolivia, as the Country's universities and private sectors are usually unable to fund such undertakings. I hope to go back to school for my master's in the next couple of years. My visa to Bolivia lasts another 5 years... so who knows, maybe I will take Brendan up on his offer and use his expertise to guide me on a research project. The owner of the garbage company will have planted a good seed.
~Andy
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Trash Tourism, Riots and a Long Bus to Argentina
Of course ¨trash tourism¨ is a compelling title, but you will have to be patient and wait for Andy to post on the landfill we visited in Sucre. It is his industry after all. Instead I will just mention the visit to Sucre´s landfill in passing response to Brendon´s comment, and move on.
Here is the raving review of Sucre, the real capital of Bolivia.
Sucre has been the only city so far to which Andy and I have deemed a city that we could live in. The weather is mild, the streets are clean (though superficially, as Andy will explain), there are urban parks, white colonial buildings and nice people. Unfortunately the city is also accustomed to violent rivalry with La Paz for the title of capital, as well as other spurts of uprising. We witnessed a riot between campesinos (rural farmers) and police directly infront of our Spanish school concerning land rights. The campesinos threw rocks, breaking the windows of our building and the neighboring official buildings. The police responded with rubber bullets and tear gas in defense. A little gas leaked into our school, so we shut ourselves in the kitchen until it passed after about 20 minutes. Strangely enough, everyone was more annoyed than afraid. Though we were directly infront of the line of rocks and gas, nothing appeared to be threatening because we were clearly exempt from the fight.
The issue at hand was land rights, though nobody seemed to have a very clear explanation of exactly what land was in question. The riots were predicted to stop when a ´solution´ was met. Therefore, the riot was between two parties, we were safe in a buliding, and the uprising didn´t seem to make much of an impact on the city. If you recall the recent Berkeley tree sitters, they were peacefull and still made it into the NYTIMES . This riot hardly made people stop and look. I suppose after the several students were killed in the capital rivalry protests about 2 years ago, land isn´t a stop and stare issue. Note: this was the only english news I could find on the issue with a quick search. It says 1 student was killed, but I have heard that 3 were. It is a huge issue for the people of Sucre and one of the numerous reasons they hate Evo, for he never addressed the killings publically. No further opinions because as I said, I never found out the details of the protest. These are rather my observations about the impact of recurring violent protest in a city. It seems to have lost effect. Most people we spoke to commented on the aspect of racism - campesinos, or the indigenous population, vs. the urban police or law makers. We also heard comments like ¨pobre policia¨. Poor police man, instead of poor campesino. No sé.
Besides the riot, which really had no effect on us whatesoever so don´t worry, Sucre gave us a much needed rest. After the isolation of the farm, Andy and I were thankful to meet some young people, including Brendon, a Canadian hydro-geologist that was good enough to take us on a tour of the landfill, and Luli and Hernan, from whom we rented our apartment. Luli and Hernan took us to see some amazing Bolivian music, and invited us over for tea and snacks. They were so nice to us. They also had a cockerspaniel named Spock, excuse me, ¨eMr. eSpock¨, named after startrek, that delighted us with his presence. We took more Spanish classes, studied all the time, and generally did nothing much but enjoy having a well lit place of our own. When I come back to South America, I will certainly go back to Sucre for the nice people, young population, great weather and interesting political situation. Don´t let the riot story scare you from visiting.
Now we are in Argentina after about 24 hours of busses and taxis. The border was easy and beautiful, and the driving is agressive, but not towards pedestrians like in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. Get ready for the best part... GAS HEATED SHOWERS! We had our first one for about 5 and a half months in our hostal today. Let me tell you, those electric showers just don´t do it. The advertisement for ´hot water´in hostals started to loose meaning with electric showers, but meaning has returned and it is such a luxury. I have yet to make many observations except that Argentina has more money in cirulation, and this is apparent on the streets and in the city organization. However, so far we have only seen a bit of Salta, which is in the north. Tomorrow we take an 18 hour bus to Buenos Aires to stay with Andy´s cousins for about a month. Finally we are reaching the destination that has been our excuse for travel this whole time! We are quite excited to lay some roots for a month and maybe find some hostal work or volunteer jobs. I think I need to get to a gym as well. Too much greasy food on the road.
The Argentines seem to welcome us with any sort of help. They are quite friendly so far, but they speak extrememly fast and have more of a Spain accent which substitutes the c, s and z sounds for th. They also substitute the y and ll sounds for a ja sound. We are not used to this and it will take time.
By the way, we have flights home out of Uruguay for Oct 24!
Look forward to Andy´s post on waste management in Sucre.
Lauren
Here is the raving review of Sucre, the real capital of Bolivia.
Sucre has been the only city so far to which Andy and I have deemed a city that we could live in. The weather is mild, the streets are clean (though superficially, as Andy will explain), there are urban parks, white colonial buildings and nice people. Unfortunately the city is also accustomed to violent rivalry with La Paz for the title of capital, as well as other spurts of uprising. We witnessed a riot between campesinos (rural farmers) and police directly infront of our Spanish school concerning land rights. The campesinos threw rocks, breaking the windows of our building and the neighboring official buildings. The police responded with rubber bullets and tear gas in defense. A little gas leaked into our school, so we shut ourselves in the kitchen until it passed after about 20 minutes. Strangely enough, everyone was more annoyed than afraid. Though we were directly infront of the line of rocks and gas, nothing appeared to be threatening because we were clearly exempt from the fight.
The issue at hand was land rights, though nobody seemed to have a very clear explanation of exactly what land was in question. The riots were predicted to stop when a ´solution´ was met. Therefore, the riot was between two parties, we were safe in a buliding, and the uprising didn´t seem to make much of an impact on the city. If you recall the recent Berkeley tree sitters, they were peacefull and still made it into the NYTIMES . This riot hardly made people stop and look. I suppose after the several students were killed in the capital rivalry protests about 2 years ago, land isn´t a stop and stare issue. Note: this was the only english news I could find on the issue with a quick search. It says 1 student was killed, but I have heard that 3 were. It is a huge issue for the people of Sucre and one of the numerous reasons they hate Evo, for he never addressed the killings publically. No further opinions because as I said, I never found out the details of the protest. These are rather my observations about the impact of recurring violent protest in a city. It seems to have lost effect. Most people we spoke to commented on the aspect of racism - campesinos, or the indigenous population, vs. the urban police or law makers. We also heard comments like ¨pobre policia¨. Poor police man, instead of poor campesino. No sé.
Besides the riot, which really had no effect on us whatesoever so don´t worry, Sucre gave us a much needed rest. After the isolation of the farm, Andy and I were thankful to meet some young people, including Brendon, a Canadian hydro-geologist that was good enough to take us on a tour of the landfill, and Luli and Hernan, from whom we rented our apartment. Luli and Hernan took us to see some amazing Bolivian music, and invited us over for tea and snacks. They were so nice to us. They also had a cockerspaniel named Spock, excuse me, ¨eMr. eSpock¨, named after startrek, that delighted us with his presence. We took more Spanish classes, studied all the time, and generally did nothing much but enjoy having a well lit place of our own. When I come back to South America, I will certainly go back to Sucre for the nice people, young population, great weather and interesting political situation. Don´t let the riot story scare you from visiting.
Now we are in Argentina after about 24 hours of busses and taxis. The border was easy and beautiful, and the driving is agressive, but not towards pedestrians like in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. Get ready for the best part... GAS HEATED SHOWERS! We had our first one for about 5 and a half months in our hostal today. Let me tell you, those electric showers just don´t do it. The advertisement for ´hot water´in hostals started to loose meaning with electric showers, but meaning has returned and it is such a luxury. I have yet to make many observations except that Argentina has more money in cirulation, and this is apparent on the streets and in the city organization. However, so far we have only seen a bit of Salta, which is in the north. Tomorrow we take an 18 hour bus to Buenos Aires to stay with Andy´s cousins for about a month. Finally we are reaching the destination that has been our excuse for travel this whole time! We are quite excited to lay some roots for a month and maybe find some hostal work or volunteer jobs. I think I need to get to a gym as well. Too much greasy food on the road.
The Argentines seem to welcome us with any sort of help. They are quite friendly so far, but they speak extrememly fast and have more of a Spain accent which substitutes the c, s and z sounds for th. They also substitute the y and ll sounds for a ja sound. We are not used to this and it will take time.
By the way, we have flights home out of Uruguay for Oct 24!
Look forward to Andy´s post on waste management in Sucre.
Lauren
Monday, July 13, 2009
Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega
When we were in Arequipa, Peru, we went out on the town a few times. One time we happened upon this bar that had a classic rock cover band. They played Doors covers, the Beatles, Pink floyd and all the goodies. The catch was that they were Peruvian... which was pretty ammusing as they sang in better english accents than I do. Andy and I couldn´t hold ourselves together and moved some tables around to dance. I don´t know if any of you have seen us dance, but we are damn good. This English guy to the left of the bar took notice and made best friends with us in about 2 seconds by buying us drinks. He then gave us one of the best compliments of our lives... ¨You dance just like Uma Therman and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction¨. And so we did... without all that gangster drama.
Yesterday we arrived in Sucre, the capital of Bolivia. Since Arequipa (6 or 7 weeks ago) we hadn´t gone out much because we got annoyed with gringo drunkards and expensive gringo bars. No sense in wasting money when we can take language classes. So upon our arrival to Sucre we decided we would treat ourselves for the night. We found a gringo bar that looked fun, and they just happened to be showing PULP FICTION for their night´s lounge movie screening! Let me play down our excitement by saying that we were extatic. And we watched Pulp Fiction with our hearts on our sleeves for a taste of home via a little sick-dark humor that Quentin Tarantino delivered to us with everything we were expecting. Nothing like American humor when you haven´t had it in 5 months. In terms of humor, we generally get along well with Scandanavians and Brits best. They watch a lot of American television in Scandanavia, which relays in a similar sense of humor. Yet regardless of the other English speakers at the film screening, Andy and I were laughing and crying the hardest. I hope I am writing to a few Pulp Fiction fans out there... you will understand our feelings of joy.
As I mentioned in the last post, I´m getting over the homesickness. We found an apartment to rent for 10 days while we are taking more Spanish classes in Sucre. Seems pretty nice, and really cheap ($35 per week for both of us). Nice to have a kitchen and the comforts of home. Sucre is a great city. Clean, safe and has plenty of parks to walk around. The weather is mild as well. The nights don´t even freeze! Seems kind of odd that we went from La Paz to the very south of Bolivia (Tarija), and now we are 12 hours north in central Bolivia, but this is how things work out. After Sucre we head to Argentina, and probably have to go through Tarija again. Oh well... we are used to the long bus rides and now have face masks to avoid bus-illnesses that we so often acquire post-bus ride. Note: there is major media sensationalism about the swine flu (¨la gripe porcina¨) down here and plenty of people are wearing face masks. I refuse to become part of the hype, but I am wearing the facemask on busses because I am so sick of getting sick after every ride. It worked out well this time and we are both feeling well.
Not much to report besides our excitement over American films. City living doesn´t provide as much material to write about, but I´ll try.
´Royale with Cheese´,
Mia and Vince
aka Uma and John
Yesterday we arrived in Sucre, the capital of Bolivia. Since Arequipa (6 or 7 weeks ago) we hadn´t gone out much because we got annoyed with gringo drunkards and expensive gringo bars. No sense in wasting money when we can take language classes. So upon our arrival to Sucre we decided we would treat ourselves for the night. We found a gringo bar that looked fun, and they just happened to be showing PULP FICTION for their night´s lounge movie screening! Let me play down our excitement by saying that we were extatic. And we watched Pulp Fiction with our hearts on our sleeves for a taste of home via a little sick-dark humor that Quentin Tarantino delivered to us with everything we were expecting. Nothing like American humor when you haven´t had it in 5 months. In terms of humor, we generally get along well with Scandanavians and Brits best. They watch a lot of American television in Scandanavia, which relays in a similar sense of humor. Yet regardless of the other English speakers at the film screening, Andy and I were laughing and crying the hardest. I hope I am writing to a few Pulp Fiction fans out there... you will understand our feelings of joy.
As I mentioned in the last post, I´m getting over the homesickness. We found an apartment to rent for 10 days while we are taking more Spanish classes in Sucre. Seems pretty nice, and really cheap ($35 per week for both of us). Nice to have a kitchen and the comforts of home. Sucre is a great city. Clean, safe and has plenty of parks to walk around. The weather is mild as well. The nights don´t even freeze! Seems kind of odd that we went from La Paz to the very south of Bolivia (Tarija), and now we are 12 hours north in central Bolivia, but this is how things work out. After Sucre we head to Argentina, and probably have to go through Tarija again. Oh well... we are used to the long bus rides and now have face masks to avoid bus-illnesses that we so often acquire post-bus ride. Note: there is major media sensationalism about the swine flu (¨la gripe porcina¨) down here and plenty of people are wearing face masks. I refuse to become part of the hype, but I am wearing the facemask on busses because I am so sick of getting sick after every ride. It worked out well this time and we are both feeling well.
Not much to report besides our excitement over American films. City living doesn´t provide as much material to write about, but I´ll try.
´Royale with Cheese´,
Mia and Vince
aka Uma and John
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Goodbye Farmer
We left the farm today after Rita begged us to stay. She was so nice, but so crazy. Pity is not a feeling of friendship, and that´s usually what I felt. John, in his usual morning hurricane, rushed off to some meeting and threw in a hug and a goodbye. Not sure if he actually said the words ¨thank you¨, but he implied it, I´m sure. After all, we cleared an entire field for him for next to nothing, then helped hang a ridiculously large greenhouse tarp (remember the tarp sewing for 7 hours a day incident?). I most enjoyed the other workers on the farm. Nila was a strong manager lady who bossed all the men around. I liked her... of course. They were sad to see us go.
We left feeling good this morning. We worked really hard, accomplished a great deal, enjoyed some beautiful sunset-moonrises and moonset-sunrises, and had a place of our own for three weeks. I went through a pretty intense period of homesick loneliness, which resulted in a lot of mental negativity, but I have worked through it via physical labor. We are in our 20th week, which means 5 months. This means that my perspective is no longer that of traveling without a timelimit. We have a timelimit now, and I must try to be present in the trip rather than obsessing over past times and what I will do when I return home. I´m not feeling so travel tired now, and I am ready to make some friends. Andy and I have a lot of fun together, but the isolation can drive us a little crazy.
Now we are heading up to the capital of Bolivia, Sucre. We hope to take another week of Spanish classes, check out the surrounding area for a second week, then head south to Argentina.
More to come later.
Appreciate the readership.
Lauren
We left feeling good this morning. We worked really hard, accomplished a great deal, enjoyed some beautiful sunset-moonrises and moonset-sunrises, and had a place of our own for three weeks. I went through a pretty intense period of homesick loneliness, which resulted in a lot of mental negativity, but I have worked through it via physical labor. We are in our 20th week, which means 5 months. This means that my perspective is no longer that of traveling without a timelimit. We have a timelimit now, and I must try to be present in the trip rather than obsessing over past times and what I will do when I return home. I´m not feeling so travel tired now, and I am ready to make some friends. Andy and I have a lot of fun together, but the isolation can drive us a little crazy.
Now we are heading up to the capital of Bolivia, Sucre. We hope to take another week of Spanish classes, check out the surrounding area for a second week, then head south to Argentina.
More to come later.
Appreciate the readership.
Lauren
Sunday, July 5, 2009
LumberJack and LumberJill
Sorry to disapoint with such a long delay. However, don´t miss the post below, as it is from La Paz and I just now posted it.
The day to day
We have just finished our second week in Tarija, 3 hours from the Argentine border. The town is set in a valley that reminds me a bit of California. The climate is moderate, and the area grows grapes. The landscape is desert with mountains in the far distance, and the farm is a slight walk from a river.
Don´t forget that we are in mid-winter. We start work a 7 am, and while the nights have averaged -4 C (24.8 F), 7 am is frosty. We eat a load of toast with homemade orange marmalade every morning at 8, work again from 9 to 12. Then we eat an enormous Bolivian lunch, work lethargically and over fed from 2 to 5, then study spanish and cook dinner. Tired by 8 and in bed by 9. Every day save Sunday.
I didn´t like Farmer John, the owner, much at first. He´s a Brit who has been in Bolivia for 30 years. Thus he has developed a very South American opinion of women as house-slaves. The first two days he had me sewing green house tarp material the ENTIRE day, while Andy did the physical labor. I got so annoyed at this and demanded that I do the same work as Andy. I am not good at sitting and sewing all day just because I´m a lady. Andy is better at sewing than I am anyway.
The physical labor that we were both now assigned was the job of lumberjack/jill. Over the course of two weeks we successfully cleared with machettes and hauled away the brush of a 60 by 30 meter plot of overgrowth. Now John has an entire new plot to farm, and we will probably be doing something similarly monotonous and hard for our last week here. We are pretty buff now.
Back to John, however, once I was doing the same work as Andy, John would address us as ¨Andy¨as if he was doing all the work. Let me give an example:
Lauren and Andy, in a field clearing land with machettes and an ax. About 10 trees have been fallen. Enter John, stage left, speaking in a British accent.
John: Ah Andy, the Ax- man!
Andy: Actually, Lauren chopped all those trees down with the ax yesterday...
John: Uh, nooooo... (chuckles and walks away)
Lauren rolls her eyes as John gives new orders for the day.
You can imagine the dynamic. However, things have improved and I have realized that John simply doesn´t know how to interact with women until they prove they know history or tennis. I think he respects me a bit more because I could explain the history of American independence and how a tie-breaker is played in tennis.
Rita, John´s wife is another story. We see John for about 10 minutes during breakfast, and sometimes for lunch. Other than that he is a work-aholic off the farm for an agricultural business association that specializes in niche market products such as asparagus, red chard, kholrobi, cherry tomatoes and so forth. Right now the farm is nearly out of production, and he only works on site on Saturdays. Still, he is never around and we deal with Rita for the most part. She is Romanian and likewise has been in Bolivia for 30 years. She is a nice but extremely neurotic house wife that does nothing but tell us stories of drama and her bad marriage and so forth. Good Spanish practice, but I´m about to bust a nerve with all of her inappropriate stories and particularities. Nevertheless, she takes car of us as if we were her kids and won´t even let us wash a dish. Therefore, we cook our own dinners to get some space, even though she would be happy to cook all of our meals for us. Another strange dynamic. Oh god, I´m turning into her with this gossip about her! Excuse me, but we have been isolation with her for two weeks.
The Farm
The farm is not organic. This is my main qualm. Unfortunately it is also non productive during th winter season so we hardly set food in the fields. John spot sprays with pesticides or fungicides when there are pest problems, he uses synthetic fertilizers on top of his compost, and he does not intercrop. He is a business farm, and has nothing to do with the organic community that the organization WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms - through which we find these work-trade farm gigs) is supposed to support. I believe he heard about the free labor through a grape growing friend and signed up as a WWOOF farm while ignoring the organic part.
WWOOF in the USA is fairly true to the goal of sustainable farming. WWOOF farms do not have to be certified organic, but in the States they are generally operating beyond official organic standards anyway. Organic certification is quite expensive and many small farmers cannot afford the paperwork. South American agriculture proposes yet another complication: the global export market. As an organic farmer in California, there is little economic incentive in terms of government subsidies, to grow sustainably. Most organic farmers convert for ideological reasons of health, soil preservation and opposition to the excessive use of petrolium and chemicals in industrial agriculture. However, there is a local niche market in which to sell these more expensive organic crops. In South America, there is no such local niche market. All organic certificatied products are for export. Thus for organic certification to be financially feasable for a South American farmer, they must be part of a large organic or fair trade association that will gaurantee sale of their crop in North America or Europe. These crops generally include cacoa (for chocolate) and coffee beans. Further, these farms are organic, but still monoculture and farm far from sustainably if taken into account the ammount of transportation required for export. Yet without these export organizations, it is simply not viable to farm alternatively in the South. One must produce crops for local markets, and this is done with chemicals.
The result for a program like WWOOF in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia is that the farmers are generally gringos that fall into several categories: they either have farms for their own hobby and consumption, thus operate ideologically but lack the financial means to operate on a level of sustainablilty attainable in the US. Otherwise, WWOOF farmers are not so organic production farms that hear about free labor through the gringo-farmer network. The third and most bizzare category to me is that of the ´agro-eco-tourism´organization that somehow finds it´s way onto WWOOF. I find these organizations somewhat exploitative and under the umbrella of rural development through tourism economy (i.e. bring money to the poor countryside via touristic amenities). A few of these organizations offer treks and a really ´natural´experience all inclusive with yoga, spa treatments and ´pay by the thousands to volunteer´ programs. This is not exactly the exchange of information about growing that I´m looking for. The situation is unfornunate for us because we are here to learn different forms of sustainable agriculture. It´s a pity that we can´t work with locals... they don´t have internet access and I doubt they would know what to do with a bunch of gringo transient-hippies traveling around doing work for free and looking for sustainable farming practices to take home. I suppose that´s why the organizations that set such programs up charge by the thousand. They take care of gringo needs while the gringos can pretend to help locals. We, on the other hand, don´t know what we´ve signed up for until we´ve arrived and started work. At least it is always a break in spending our budget, as we are basically living for free right now. And after nearly 5 months of hostals and street food, it is a luxury to have our own room, kitchen and bathroom. We are finally feeling healthy and without parasites (as I know is the most interesting subject of this blog). Further, we´ve got time to try different things out, which is what a lot of travelers don´t have.
Fear not, however, because we will be returning sooner than later. We are travel tired and will be WWOOFing and staying with Andy´s family for the remainer of our trip. We didn´t ¨tour¨much, but we did our fair share with Machu Pichu and we are done with being tourists (as much as we can be). We want to stay long term in our destinations from now on. My Dad and Lori will be visiting Oct 10-19, and we have decided to shorten the trip by a few weeks and leave about a week after them. We should be back before Halloween, but we have not yet booked the flight. See you all for the holidays, and HAPPY 4TH OF JULY! I hope everyone got their fair share of budwiser on the beach. What I wouldn´t give for a stars and stripes jump suit, some fireworks and a beer cozy out in the desert right about now... I miss you USA. More than the USA, I miss family and friends. Hope all is well. Send e mails and comments!
Love,
Lauren
The day to day
We have just finished our second week in Tarija, 3 hours from the Argentine border. The town is set in a valley that reminds me a bit of California. The climate is moderate, and the area grows grapes. The landscape is desert with mountains in the far distance, and the farm is a slight walk from a river.
Don´t forget that we are in mid-winter. We start work a 7 am, and while the nights have averaged -4 C (24.8 F), 7 am is frosty. We eat a load of toast with homemade orange marmalade every morning at 8, work again from 9 to 12. Then we eat an enormous Bolivian lunch, work lethargically and over fed from 2 to 5, then study spanish and cook dinner. Tired by 8 and in bed by 9. Every day save Sunday.
I didn´t like Farmer John, the owner, much at first. He´s a Brit who has been in Bolivia for 30 years. Thus he has developed a very South American opinion of women as house-slaves. The first two days he had me sewing green house tarp material the ENTIRE day, while Andy did the physical labor. I got so annoyed at this and demanded that I do the same work as Andy. I am not good at sitting and sewing all day just because I´m a lady. Andy is better at sewing than I am anyway.
The physical labor that we were both now assigned was the job of lumberjack/jill. Over the course of two weeks we successfully cleared with machettes and hauled away the brush of a 60 by 30 meter plot of overgrowth. Now John has an entire new plot to farm, and we will probably be doing something similarly monotonous and hard for our last week here. We are pretty buff now.
Back to John, however, once I was doing the same work as Andy, John would address us as ¨Andy¨as if he was doing all the work. Let me give an example:
Lauren and Andy, in a field clearing land with machettes and an ax. About 10 trees have been fallen. Enter John, stage left, speaking in a British accent.
John: Ah Andy, the Ax- man!
Andy: Actually, Lauren chopped all those trees down with the ax yesterday...
John: Uh, nooooo... (chuckles and walks away)
Lauren rolls her eyes as John gives new orders for the day.
You can imagine the dynamic. However, things have improved and I have realized that John simply doesn´t know how to interact with women until they prove they know history or tennis. I think he respects me a bit more because I could explain the history of American independence and how a tie-breaker is played in tennis.
Rita, John´s wife is another story. We see John for about 10 minutes during breakfast, and sometimes for lunch. Other than that he is a work-aholic off the farm for an agricultural business association that specializes in niche market products such as asparagus, red chard, kholrobi, cherry tomatoes and so forth. Right now the farm is nearly out of production, and he only works on site on Saturdays. Still, he is never around and we deal with Rita for the most part. She is Romanian and likewise has been in Bolivia for 30 years. She is a nice but extremely neurotic house wife that does nothing but tell us stories of drama and her bad marriage and so forth. Good Spanish practice, but I´m about to bust a nerve with all of her inappropriate stories and particularities. Nevertheless, she takes car of us as if we were her kids and won´t even let us wash a dish. Therefore, we cook our own dinners to get some space, even though she would be happy to cook all of our meals for us. Another strange dynamic. Oh god, I´m turning into her with this gossip about her! Excuse me, but we have been isolation with her for two weeks.
The Farm
The farm is not organic. This is my main qualm. Unfortunately it is also non productive during th winter season so we hardly set food in the fields. John spot sprays with pesticides or fungicides when there are pest problems, he uses synthetic fertilizers on top of his compost, and he does not intercrop. He is a business farm, and has nothing to do with the organic community that the organization WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms - through which we find these work-trade farm gigs) is supposed to support. I believe he heard about the free labor through a grape growing friend and signed up as a WWOOF farm while ignoring the organic part.
WWOOF in the USA is fairly true to the goal of sustainable farming. WWOOF farms do not have to be certified organic, but in the States they are generally operating beyond official organic standards anyway. Organic certification is quite expensive and many small farmers cannot afford the paperwork. South American agriculture proposes yet another complication: the global export market. As an organic farmer in California, there is little economic incentive in terms of government subsidies, to grow sustainably. Most organic farmers convert for ideological reasons of health, soil preservation and opposition to the excessive use of petrolium and chemicals in industrial agriculture. However, there is a local niche market in which to sell these more expensive organic crops. In South America, there is no such local niche market. All organic certificatied products are for export. Thus for organic certification to be financially feasable for a South American farmer, they must be part of a large organic or fair trade association that will gaurantee sale of their crop in North America or Europe. These crops generally include cacoa (for chocolate) and coffee beans. Further, these farms are organic, but still monoculture and farm far from sustainably if taken into account the ammount of transportation required for export. Yet without these export organizations, it is simply not viable to farm alternatively in the South. One must produce crops for local markets, and this is done with chemicals.
The result for a program like WWOOF in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia is that the farmers are generally gringos that fall into several categories: they either have farms for their own hobby and consumption, thus operate ideologically but lack the financial means to operate on a level of sustainablilty attainable in the US. Otherwise, WWOOF farmers are not so organic production farms that hear about free labor through the gringo-farmer network. The third and most bizzare category to me is that of the ´agro-eco-tourism´organization that somehow finds it´s way onto WWOOF. I find these organizations somewhat exploitative and under the umbrella of rural development through tourism economy (i.e. bring money to the poor countryside via touristic amenities). A few of these organizations offer treks and a really ´natural´experience all inclusive with yoga, spa treatments and ´pay by the thousands to volunteer´ programs. This is not exactly the exchange of information about growing that I´m looking for. The situation is unfornunate for us because we are here to learn different forms of sustainable agriculture. It´s a pity that we can´t work with locals... they don´t have internet access and I doubt they would know what to do with a bunch of gringo transient-hippies traveling around doing work for free and looking for sustainable farming practices to take home. I suppose that´s why the organizations that set such programs up charge by the thousand. They take care of gringo needs while the gringos can pretend to help locals. We, on the other hand, don´t know what we´ve signed up for until we´ve arrived and started work. At least it is always a break in spending our budget, as we are basically living for free right now. And after nearly 5 months of hostals and street food, it is a luxury to have our own room, kitchen and bathroom. We are finally feeling healthy and without parasites (as I know is the most interesting subject of this blog). Further, we´ve got time to try different things out, which is what a lot of travelers don´t have.
Fear not, however, because we will be returning sooner than later. We are travel tired and will be WWOOFing and staying with Andy´s family for the remainer of our trip. We didn´t ¨tour¨much, but we did our fair share with Machu Pichu and we are done with being tourists (as much as we can be). We want to stay long term in our destinations from now on. My Dad and Lori will be visiting Oct 10-19, and we have decided to shorten the trip by a few weeks and leave about a week after them. We should be back before Halloween, but we have not yet booked the flight. See you all for the holidays, and HAPPY 4TH OF JULY! I hope everyone got their fair share of budwiser on the beach. What I wouldn´t give for a stars and stripes jump suit, some fireworks and a beer cozy out in the desert right about now... I miss you USA. More than the USA, I miss family and friends. Hope all is well. Send e mails and comments!
Love,
Lauren
Friday, June 19, 2009
La Paz: Pollution, Protests and Pretty
I wrote this in La Paz and didn´t post. This is a litle over 2 weeks old...
We´ve been in La Paz, Bolivia for a week and a half taking Spanish lessons. There seems to be a protest every other day, though they are nothing serious like violent riots. Simply marching for indigenous rites, or protesting the loco bus drivers for overcharging. Today, the day we were planning to leave, there is a blockade getting out of the city. No vehicals may pass. We hear the Peru border and buses to Cuzco are blocked as well. Not too much of a problem considering the farm we had been in contact with for the last 2 months overbooked and can´t accept us at the moment. Luckily another farmer happens to be in La Paz right now, and we are about to meet with him. His farm seems more organized for production and sale, however he is near the Argentina border near the city of Tarija, which is a lot more south than we planned on being for the moment. We would like to see the jungle, but that would require a lot of backtracking after the farm. We´ll see how plans go. Tarija is a 20 hour bus ride. Brutal.
As far as the protesting goes, it is constant and seemingly inefficient. The reason for protest is generally ambiguous to me. This week we have seen signs about dirty elections, unemployment, bad economy and all calling for ¨a solution¨whatever that may be. Of course I am not involved in the news here, so it is hard for me to understand exactly what is going on. However the protesting seems very controlled. For example, in Peru there were blockades to Cuzco, which of course blockes tourists from Machu Pichu, the number one economy in the area. The government allowed 2 days of blockades before they threatened to bring in the army, and the protesters withdrew. The controversy was (and still is) over water rights, a major issue with privatization of previously nationalistic governments, in South America. No further opinions because like I said, I´m never quite sure what the protests are all about and how the government actually responds in the long run.
Pollution - self explanatory. Cities are dirty and give me asthma attacks. Haven´t been able to get over a cold since Cusco since we haven´t dropped below 7,000 feet in a while. It is cold and dry. Oh, we both have parasites again. I´m getting used to those little guys. I´m fine with them until they decide to have a birthing party and give me gas and/or worse. We got more thorough testing this time and have more serious meds. The problem is that once we get rid of them, we´ll just eat something nasty again. Can´t avoid food and water. Just getting used to being kind of sick.
Aside from the pollution, La Paz is beautiful and probably my favorite city so far. I really like the people here. The only issue we had was being accused of theft at this huge market in the sky (literally, on the highest road in La Paz - 4000 meters or so). Apparently La Paz has the biggest market in South America. Let me change that to black market. One can buy anything from used t-shirts to a car engine. We bought some nicer clothes so we don´t look like scum bags for Andy´s family in swanky Buenos Aires. I learned a lesson about traveling and buying traveling clothes... don´t do it. When traveling I wear what I always wear... jeans, t-shirt or a dress. Sporting stores like REI talk everyone in to these lame hiking pants that you will never want to wear in a city... we sent home about 8 lbs of stuff in Peru, including the hiking pants. Oh well. Lessons learned.
One last thing about La Paz... most of the gringo tourists in their 20´s are looking for cocaine in Bolivia. There are even secret cocaine bars that cater to this demand. The Bolivianos know near to nothing of this cocaine use, as the entire industry is for the US and Europe. Rather, Bolivians chew coca or drink coca tea. The coca leaf is legal and chewed as a subtle stimulant by the campasinos (rural farmers). It is less stimulating than coffee or black tea, and helps with altitude sickness, stomach problems, works as an anesthetic and has other medical uses. It is far from cocaine, but the US and UN have implemented coca irradication policies which terrorize the coca farmers with areal sprays and illegalization in parts of south america. Obviously, the problem is the demand for cocaine, and not the growth of coca leaves for chewing and cultural rituals. The punishment is on the wrong end in my opinion. I wonder if all these white kids would want cocaine if they visited a production ´lab´out in the countryside somehwere, where it takes a whole room of leaves to produce a gram out of cocaine and the workers´ hands and feet degrade from mushing the leaves with acids and chemicals to prep the leaves for refining? Coke doesn´t seem so cheap then... (about $20 USD per gram in La Paz, as I found out from asking some people in our hostal).
Sorry, never took a picture of La Paz. We need to get better at the piture taking thing.
We´ve been in La Paz, Bolivia for a week and a half taking Spanish lessons. There seems to be a protest every other day, though they are nothing serious like violent riots. Simply marching for indigenous rites, or protesting the loco bus drivers for overcharging. Today, the day we were planning to leave, there is a blockade getting out of the city. No vehicals may pass. We hear the Peru border and buses to Cuzco are blocked as well. Not too much of a problem considering the farm we had been in contact with for the last 2 months overbooked and can´t accept us at the moment. Luckily another farmer happens to be in La Paz right now, and we are about to meet with him. His farm seems more organized for production and sale, however he is near the Argentina border near the city of Tarija, which is a lot more south than we planned on being for the moment. We would like to see the jungle, but that would require a lot of backtracking after the farm. We´ll see how plans go. Tarija is a 20 hour bus ride. Brutal.
As far as the protesting goes, it is constant and seemingly inefficient. The reason for protest is generally ambiguous to me. This week we have seen signs about dirty elections, unemployment, bad economy and all calling for ¨a solution¨whatever that may be. Of course I am not involved in the news here, so it is hard for me to understand exactly what is going on. However the protesting seems very controlled. For example, in Peru there were blockades to Cuzco, which of course blockes tourists from Machu Pichu, the number one economy in the area. The government allowed 2 days of blockades before they threatened to bring in the army, and the protesters withdrew. The controversy was (and still is) over water rights, a major issue with privatization of previously nationalistic governments, in South America. No further opinions because like I said, I´m never quite sure what the protests are all about and how the government actually responds in the long run.
Pollution - self explanatory. Cities are dirty and give me asthma attacks. Haven´t been able to get over a cold since Cusco since we haven´t dropped below 7,000 feet in a while. It is cold and dry. Oh, we both have parasites again. I´m getting used to those little guys. I´m fine with them until they decide to have a birthing party and give me gas and/or worse. We got more thorough testing this time and have more serious meds. The problem is that once we get rid of them, we´ll just eat something nasty again. Can´t avoid food and water. Just getting used to being kind of sick.
Aside from the pollution, La Paz is beautiful and probably my favorite city so far. I really like the people here. The only issue we had was being accused of theft at this huge market in the sky (literally, on the highest road in La Paz - 4000 meters or so). Apparently La Paz has the biggest market in South America. Let me change that to black market. One can buy anything from used t-shirts to a car engine. We bought some nicer clothes so we don´t look like scum bags for Andy´s family in swanky Buenos Aires. I learned a lesson about traveling and buying traveling clothes... don´t do it. When traveling I wear what I always wear... jeans, t-shirt or a dress. Sporting stores like REI talk everyone in to these lame hiking pants that you will never want to wear in a city... we sent home about 8 lbs of stuff in Peru, including the hiking pants. Oh well. Lessons learned.
One last thing about La Paz... most of the gringo tourists in their 20´s are looking for cocaine in Bolivia. There are even secret cocaine bars that cater to this demand. The Bolivianos know near to nothing of this cocaine use, as the entire industry is for the US and Europe. Rather, Bolivians chew coca or drink coca tea. The coca leaf is legal and chewed as a subtle stimulant by the campasinos (rural farmers). It is less stimulating than coffee or black tea, and helps with altitude sickness, stomach problems, works as an anesthetic and has other medical uses. It is far from cocaine, but the US and UN have implemented coca irradication policies which terrorize the coca farmers with areal sprays and illegalization in parts of south america. Obviously, the problem is the demand for cocaine, and not the growth of coca leaves for chewing and cultural rituals. The punishment is on the wrong end in my opinion. I wonder if all these white kids would want cocaine if they visited a production ´lab´out in the countryside somehwere, where it takes a whole room of leaves to produce a gram out of cocaine and the workers´ hands and feet degrade from mushing the leaves with acids and chemicals to prep the leaves for refining? Coke doesn´t seem so cheap then... (about $20 USD per gram in La Paz, as I found out from asking some people in our hostal).
Sorry, never took a picture of La Paz. We need to get better at the piture taking thing.
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