A Day with the Bolivian Navy

Here's lovely Caitlin enjoying our outing on the lake today. She refused to jump in the water.
Here's Jaron with, believe it or not, short hair. Also in the distance is Isla del Sol. Jaron did jump in the lake. He may or may not regret it.
So today we retrieved our friend Fatima's boat, which she keeps docked at Copacabana's Naval base. Yes, that' right. A landlocked country with a Navy. Boy do they keep the waters of Lake Titikaka patrolled and safe. Actually, the whole Navy appears to be nothing more than about 20 eighteen-year-old boys who alternate between wearing goofy 1940's Navy garb and drinking beer in dirty fatigues. Oh and officially stamping random papers. When Caitlin and I asked the Navy boys to get us the boat and bring some oars and life jackets, they honest to God took 45 minutes to move the boat about 20 yards. They didn't appear to know how to row very well and their fleet, or singular boat, looks something like a beat up swamp buggy from the 1970s. At least they have Jesus overlooking them in those dapper outfits.
A shot of town from the Naval base. It's way more beautiful and scenic in person. I promise.

A Few Shots of Copa

There are sunsets like this literally every night. It's an incredible thing here, the end of a day. We go from frost and a serious nip in the air in the early morning, to profusely sweating in the shade at about 3 pm. Next is the nightly water color spectacle over the lake and finally a deep chill as soon as the sun finally disappears. Lovely bookends to a day, really.

Locals joke that there are 360 holidays a year in Copa. I seriously don't doubt it. There seems to be occassion to drink and miss school nearly every day. Sometimes this is problematic, sometimes they fill the main square with flower petals in these pretty and ornate designs. Just glad I don't have to get an education here.

A Week Back in Copa

Life here is something like I would imagine living in Tuscany in the 1960s to be. Only there is a giant, epic and unendingly blue lake as the center piece of the whole experience. Everyone knows everyone (who's not a hippie, tourist or unseemly vagabond) the market is a staple of the social sphere, vendors chat with street artists whiling away the hours under a sky that appears to have forgotten what a cloud even is.

There is time to read and write and sit. There is time to chat and enjoy a long meal at midday. Working in the store, and officially taking the lead on it at this point, has already taught me a bit about business and aesthetic. Even if I don't have a blade of interest in retail I still find the bartering and endless interactions with tourists to be totally fulfilling. And Caitlin and I have even figured out how to cook with a little gusto up here. As if things couldn't be going well enough already.

The characters are developing. Dreamy Argentine coke heads who just can't seem to stay away from this place. Young mothers, conservative beyond their years, babys slung in colorful blankets across their backs. Brooding English bar owners, always with a cigarette in his mouth and scowl across his face. Not to mention his short, big nosed Bolivian wife. It's all quite intriguing and potentially the funniest thing of all time.

Long bike rides through eucalyptice forests, with that smell, as the Lake glares at you in the distance, make me realize that Caitlin and I are pretty lucky these days. We could be in an office building in a parking lot in Dallas staring at a screen for 10 hours a day. But no. We have the pleasure and challenge of life in the center of South America at 13,000 feet in the air. Damn.

Jaron

Dragon Slayers

Great Googley Moogley We Did It!
After literally a month of fighting a vicious, uphill battle against the chaotic disorder that is Bolivian bureaucracy, Caitlin and I officially obtained our visas and national identity cards. Some 200 photocopies, 4 lawyers, 2 bloodtests, 63 stamps (each), 6 sets of fingerprints and 4 rounds of mugshots later and we are done with the process. Though we still have to wait until Thursday to pick up our identity cards. Honest to God this was the most difficult task of my life, or at least cost the most trees. Unbelievable. I rather take a ten hour economics exam than deal with that ever ever again. But hey, we got really good at standing in line.

One quick anecdote from the process, as Caitlin and I were getting fingerprinted for the final time yesterday the stoic and rather unfeeling officeworker in her starchy green outfit ordered Caitlin to take out her nosering for the official photo. Somewhat understandable. Then, in a joking manner, I asked her if she thought the nosering was pretty. Flatly, she said no. Then told Caitlin that she would get cancer from the piercing and that she was tired of Americans and their negative influence corrupting and ruining Bolivian purity. Ladies and Gentlemen, Bolivian bureaucracy: wildly inefficient, costly and rude! Makes New Orleans seem like Finland.

Thursday night we head back to the sanctity of Copacabana, and I could not be happier. Maybe then there will be some more good pictures to put up.
with great strength
Jaron

Reflection on Santa Cruz

Hello all few of you who may look at this site.
Since life here in Bolivia is, we´ll say, not fast paced
I´ve started writing some political opinion and social commentary pieces. Here is the first one I wrote. It´s about the recent referendum vote in Santa Cruz. After lots of dialogue with lots of folks and some good help from Caitlin, these are the conclusions I´ve come up with.
enjoy

Democracy Through Racism

By Jaron Berliner

Can a racist referendum really be the most democratic step in a nation's history? Such question is being asked around Bolivia following the referendum put forth by the populace of the country's easternmost state, Santa Cruz. A direct attack upon, and also a deep questioning of Evo Morales' leftist government, the vote produced little in terms of results other than to further fracture a country already greatly divided. Santa Cruz, the wealthiest state in the Republic, is indicative of the colonial residue that coats the entire continent. Much like an aged snow before warming, colonialism still lingers on street corners in dirty, brownish heaps.
While this sentiment may appear overwrought, the referendum is, at its core, based on racism. Just as with persons of African descent in Brazil, the United States and throughout Europe, those of indigenous blood are similarly oppressed in Bolivia. Only here they are the majority. Nearly 50% of the populace still exists as subsistence farmers, living day to day on cultivatable crops or in many circumstances forced into begging, making Bolivia the poorest nation on the continent.
However, Santa Cruz is not alone at the forefront of this deep rooted conflict between the wealthier mestizos and the poor indigenous. Three more states, Pando, Beni and Tarija are determined to go forth with their own referendums for autonomy in the following month. But there seems to be no clear consensus on the intended outcome of these votes against Morales' blooming socialism.
Frenzied crowds gathered in plazas screaming vehemently for autonomy while skirmishes between fractured political parties tainted the day of the vote (red state/blue state ain't nothing compared to these primal, stone throwing battles.) Yet, with all this passion and fury, it remains difficult to decipher what autonomy truly means for any of the discontented states. Apart from fiscal selfishness and vague party lines such as, "Today we said to the world that we are autonomous. Viva Santa Cruz,"[1] from Branko Marinkovic, president of the Pro Santa Cruz Committee, there is little idea of what autonomy truly portends.
Though the vote did pass in a sweeping majority, 85.4% to 15.6%, nearly 40% of Santa Cruz's population refrained from voting many at the behest of the national government, who continue to publicly declare the referendum unconstitutional. Thus supporters of Morales interpret the results as far from overwhelming, arguing that the 39% in abstention, in addition to the other 15%, totals more than 50% of the state's populace.
As an impartial viewer to the political theatrics, it feels little more than another act of under-planned pageantry, a group of elites grasping onto the last ledges of power in a rapidly changing country. Santa Cruz is the capitalist oligarchy fighting and flailing against Morales' impending socialist dawn. Even if the national government, for some reason, acquiesced to the results, the chances of Santa Cruz existing as a singular and successful republic are slim to none. Neither the infrastructure nor support exists for a peaceful and successful secession.
One young citizen of Cochabamba, a city vying for its own autonomy, does not support Morales but was able to distance himself from the factionalizing influence of the referendum. He expressed that the vote was not good for Bolivia as a whole, saying that it hurts business, damages tourism and is little more than a lot of "blah blah blah" without a definite result.
This is not to say that all the drama was for naught. These could be the growing pains of a nation openly dealing with a reshaping of its national power structure. Morales is the first indigenous president in South American history, symbolic of a previously disenfranchised people coming to terms with their strength in numbers.
This brings us back to racism. There is little doubt that Morales' public position to attempt a greater equality for all Bolivians (proposed land reform, nationalizing the gas industry and foreign telecommunications company Entel) instigated the referendum for autonomy. Santa Cruz's elite refuse to give up their land and money, creating a vote born of racial distaste and political disagreement. That is not what is important to take away, however. What is truly on display is a developing country converting its political priorities towards a socialist structure, where the discontented broke with a violent, coup-ridden history, and chose to express themselves via a pure form of democracy, the referendum. They did not take up arms against a majority, democratically elected official. Regardless of the referendum's racist backbone, it is democratically birthed, and that is progress.
In this conflict, both sides have chosen democratic means to promote their dissonant political and personal agendas. On the day of the vote, dissenting indigenous activists showed up in the tens of thousands to exercise their civic rights, peacefully waving the Bolivian flag, a deluge of red, yellow and green for unity. Since there is no looming Republic of Santa Cruz, this vote could be little more than the thrashing of the affluent coming to terms with the fact that they are the political minority in a country determined to rectify its unequal past. Either way, it appears this conflict will be settled through peaceful, democratic means. And that is significant for South America's poorest nation.
[1] Los Tiempos. May 4th, 2008. Cochabamba, Bolivia. Referendum Section. Page 4.

Brothers?

Obviously my parents have a deep, dark secret they´ve never revealed. He and I look startlingly similar. No?
Once our monkey friend noticed the bunny ears I jokingly put behind his head, he commenced feces throwing and summarily beat me to a living pulp.
Caitlin cheating on Jaron. But seriously, spider monkeys are incredible. So relaxed. So concerned with their upkeep. So comfortable in the laps of pretty women.
Though the town of Villa Tunari was not particularly scenic, the view from high up in the jungle hills was certainly stunning. If you look close, you´ll notice that I´m an artist by utilizing the color focus feature. Watch yourself Anne Geddes, I´m on your tail.

Bug bitten, but alive

Just got back from a few days in the Amazon, Villa Tunari to be exact, and it went more or less swimmingly. Villa was a remarkably ugly town, considering the surroundings, and offered little in terms of diversions. We did, however, visit the Inti Wara Yassi animal refuge. It is a shelter for abused and previously domesticated wild animals (the main culprits being hotels and the circus...not to mention the exceedingly nasty black market that exists for tropical animals) and it was a totally incredible slice of jungle. The animals, who are eerily not afraid of humans, will literally hop in your lap. Case in point the monkeys that cooly walked up to Caitlin and I, climbed up our legs and made themsevles quite comfortable on our shoulders. I, for one, have never had a monkey within twenty feet of me, let alone sitting on my neck. They were so responsive, interactive and personable. One of the monkeys in an attempt to break into the nearby parrot cage, which had loads of food, used a leaf in mimicry of a key in his failed robbery. I wish desperately I had footage of this. I would just run it on loop and force as many intelligent design, right wing Christian fanatics to watch it as possible. The way those creatures interact with us and each other is not a whole lot different than a 14 year old boy early in the morning. I´m convinced .
There are pictures of the monkey adventures. They will be up soon. For now, we wait until our visas are ready on Thursday. Tomorrow is the Santa Cruz referendum for autonomy. Twill be really interesting to see how the country responds. Violence, indifference, chaos, a giant love-in? we shall see.
Until then
Jaron