Sunday 31 March 2013

ONE: Günter Spiegel


Günter Spiegel
A challenge I've overcome: Stepping in the ring for my first boxing fight
A dream for my future: Falling happily in love! 
A hope for the global village: less fear of difference

Brilliantly chatty and hugely engaging Günter is German but decided one day he wanted to try living as a foreigner, so one day upped and moved to London with minimal planning.  Looking back he sees that choice as a little naïve, but I really admire that gutsy following of instinct and trusting in one's path, and as it turns out Günter settled well and successfully in London, working in fashion. Based in Hackney we had lots of London chat to share.  Günter swims six times a week in London fields lido where my old flatmate Isabel goes almost daily in the summer, and is clearly a dear member of that community because they had messaged him just that morning in Casa Esmerelda to say they were missing him!

Our interesting chat continued throughout the afternoon with Liam and Mel and as I was really grateful for the reflections and memories we shared while wandering the rows of extravagant but crumbling tombs at Cemetery Recoleta.  Something we're both agreed on is that experiencing the death of loved ones really motivates you to grab a hold of life and not put off plans and hopes.



A multi-skilled lad, Günter is really into hiking and after the South American part of his journey his plan is to head to national parks in the US to hike some more. He's also boxed for the last year and vividly remembers his first moment of stepping into the ring, to the blasted lyrics of Destiny Childs' 'Bootylicious': 'can you handle this'.  Winning that first fight against an established opponent by thinking 'I'm going to enjoy this as long as it lasts', Günter attributes success in the ring above all to mental attitude. He also spoke of the moment of seeing fear in an opponent's eyes as the moment of knowing you have power over them and can win, an observation we translated in travel terms by thinking about how important it is not to be irrationally fearful as a traveler of being robbed.  We spoke of how yes it's important to be sensible and alert, as you would anywhere, but also be open to people.  Folk will notice your attitude in your eyes and respond to the feeling you're transmitting.  (So let's share love and not fear eh?!)

And what beautiful honesty in Günter's personal wish, to fall happily in love.  A wish so simple, and common amongst all of us but so rarely expressed directly in words as clear as these.  Huge respect Günter, I certainly agree,  I have the same dream. Wishing that your dream comes to you very soon :-)

Love starts where fear ends

Thanks for all the stimulating chat Günter.  
Enjoy your travels and hopefully see you back in London lovely!
:-)


ONE: Liam Annesley


Liam Annesley
A challenge I've overcome: The fear of flying
A dream for my future: To connect more with my brother. To learn Spanish!
A hope for the global village: The abolishment of prejudice.  I also hope people remember how important it is to smile and not to be afraid to do so.

Liam is a lovely lad, relaxed and super-friendly with a real urge to learn more Spanish.  He spoke about how important it is just to share a smile.  He's originally from the Australian countryside where folk greet one another from across the road so is hugely aware of the oddity of city transport where folk can sit side by side without acknowledging one another let alone talking.  Sounds just like the London tube, that I find uncomfortable in general for exactly this lack of communication, and remember being particularly sensitive to in that first week back in London after the nine months cycling in Central America, where everyone greets everyone in passing with an 'Adiós'.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with the patchwork-postcard-portrait-project Liam.  Have a great trip, and keep sharing those lovely smiles!
:-)

ONE: Melinda Barbagallo


A challenge I've overcome: Forgiving my family and no longer blaming them for my childhood and their faults.
A dream for my future: To break out of my shell, love and be free of social burdens (i.s. job, family, as the ideal life)
A hope for the global village: More collected consciousness to be open, friendlier and to embrace each others need for love.

Australian Mel has a gorgeous spirit tattoo on her back, that amazingly she saw an almost identical image of sprayed up on a gate since arriving here in Argentina.   Mel studied architecture back home, where she says its very difficult now to get work.  She has been working, getting her years of professional practise which will mean she gets her certification as an architect.  She is traveling with her boyfriend Liam and they're hoping to move on from Buenos Aires to do some volunteering at a yoga retreat in the Argentinian countryside.  

Mel told us a brilliant story about having distributed hugs back in Sydney.  Apparently there is a bloke who gives out free hugs at the traffic lights, and one day she and a group of friends had nothing to do an d asked could they help him out. He handed them a stack of free hug  cards and they embarked on a brilliant mission of distributing the happiness of hugs!  

This reminded me a lot of Kristina's 'Se Vende Felicidad" (Happiness for sale) artist intervention in  the streets of Quito in Ecuador, where she also gave out hugs to locals, provoking surprise, occasionally confusion, but most of all elation!  Also by coincidence, just that morning I had seen this brilliant hugging image on Facebook.
Thanks for a lovely Argentinian afternoon Mel, and wishing you brilliant travels and plenty of happy hugs ahead!
Big love, 
:-)

1st day in Buenos Aires :-)


Rested after my first night at hostel Casa Esmerelda I spent the first morning on a cash-point hunt that took me through the streets of Barrio Palerma and past many interesting murals.


 
Made in China
The children observe the progress of a village when capitalism arrives.

I met fellow travellers Mel, Liam and Günter over a long relaxed chatty breakfast, and the afternoon we headed out as a group towards Recoleta Cemetery, where Evita Peron is apparently buried.  On our way Güunter pointed out the number of houses and apartments that had a pair of flags flying from their balconies for Easter weekend: the one on the left in the photo the Roman Catholic church and one on the right the Argentinian flag.




On the way to the cemetery we came across a car race in Recoleta Park, the Argentine Championship Super TC2000, where we stopped to enjoy chorizo rolls and later happened upon a pair of professional dancers busking under a sweeping tree.

After a chilled afternoon, and a short and peaceful visit to the cemetery we headed for a couple of beers at my first Irish bar of this trip, where Günter, Mel and Liam were happy to participate in the postcard project, thanks folks! :-)
Daniela and comic strip Mafalda on the metro:
"Look, this is the world, see?
Do you know why its lovely, this world? Eh?
Becuase it's a model.  The original is a disaster!"

I headed from our beers to meet Daniela, my friend from the Villa Alegre residency.  Originally from Colombia, Daniela came to Buenos Aires to study and has been here two years now.  Back at Dani's we made dinner with her mate Camilla, a lovely Chilean girl who also came to Argentina to take advantage of the free uni education.  Later that night we headed to Pachamama, a brilliant underground arts venue in a crumby old building, where poets and musicians performed on an open mic til the early hours of the morning, and where you show appreciation by clicking your fingers rather than clapping out of respect for the neighbours living above.

Shh! Pull it together and don't shout! 

There was a brilliant crew of folk at Pachamama, and it felt like a real privilege to get to come along to such a local artsy scene.  After a long night of enjoying the performances we eventually headed home around 6am, just sneaking in before the sun rose!



:-) 

ONE: Sylvia Nora Manani Yacori



Sylvia Nora Manani Yacori
A challenge I've overcome: yes, it was a football achievement, it was just this
A dream for my future: to study Hospitality, this is my dream
Una esperanza para la aldea global: to complete my dreams I hope for the best for everyone

Sylvia is one of the friends from the Bolivia to Buenos Aires bus.  She was also traveling alone, having  boarded in La Paz and was headed to Argentina to pick up her little sister (she is one of a family of 8 sisters in total, no brothers). Her plan was to have just one night in Buenos Aires before making the return trip with her sister to Bolivia, to be back in La Paz for school the following week.  Sylvia explained that although she is 21 years old, she's still at school because she took some time out a couple of years ago when she went to live in Brazil with an older sister and her family for six months.  Her face glowed as she spoke about those months, saying she'd loved the Brazilian people, and teaching me the Portuguese for the useful phrase 'please can you talk slower'.  She said she'd like to go back to Brazil at some point when she's finished school, she'd also like to go to Mexico, and she's hoping to study Hospitality and English, to be able to work in any of the Latin America countries.

Sylvia said she didn't have an email address because between studying and working in a t-shirt printing shop she doesn't have time to use the internet, but she gave me her number and we're hoping to see each other when I'm back in Brazil at the end of the year.

As well as Sylvia, the bus was full of individuals with fascinating stories.  There was There were a number of young Bolivian couples, including two with tiny toddlers who behaved amazingly well considering the length of the journey and one couple who were moving to Buenos Aires with the hope of settling and finding work.  This must also be common, because another of the driver's set of strict instructions at the border was that none of us must say to the Argentinean officials that we were intending to stay in the country any longer than one week to 10 days.

There was also Yola the older Bolivian weaver, who was coming to visit her sister.  Yola really has the most beautiful, wise and kind face, with twinkly eyes and a warm welcoming nature.   I'm also hoping to see her when I'd come back to Bolivia to learn a little about weaving.

What a bus-full of stories, hopes and dreams!  
Wishing all my bus-mates good luck in this next leg of their journeys and stories. 
:-)

57 hours Bolivia to Buenos Aires!


Phew... the longest journey I've ever made... 57 hours on this bus, leaving Cochabamba in Bolivia at 8am Wednesday 27th and arriving here into Buenos Aires about 5pm this evening, Good Friday 29th March!

Plenty of time, then, in transit to reflect on the swift three nights, two-and-a-half days in Bolivia.

Of the two points I'd heard about Bolivia before arriving, the first was certainly true, the food was incredibly cheap!  It's also damn tasty.


Vendors sell food of all sorts throughout the streets for just a few pence to a quid, from trolleys, baskets, tubs, coolers, big metal urns, often seated on the floor, or on park benches, or from stalls with benches for us customers to sit.  The proliferation of street vendors and the variety of the foods they sell intrigues and excites me here, as much as I remember it did in Guatemala in 2010, and in just 2&1/2 days I’ve enjoyed: a lunch of fish rice and salad served in a wooden bowl on a park bench (10 bolivianos/ £1); chips and salad eaten late one night on plastic stools at a street corner (5b / 50p) ; cheese-stuffed empanadas sold from shops, baskets trolleys (2-6b/20 - 60p), delicious orange juice freshly squeezed in front of you, drunk by the vendor’s trolley in the park (3b/30p)



The morning of embarking on this cray-long bus ride this was my breakfast of hot fruit & milk drink and deep fried cheesy puff-pasty, eaten on cloth covered benches in the streets of La Cancha, Cochabamba's huge market.  I'd met young lad Osvaldo at the (broken) cashpoint in the bus terminal and he offered to accompany my on my blanket hunt in the market (on my last overnight bus ride I learned the hard way that not all bus companies offer blankets with the service and so reckoned this was a wise choice). So as we looked for a cheap blanket Oswaldo chatted away, he is from La Paz visiting Cochabmaba for a holiday, and working in the mountains, where he's recently been bitten, so was walking with a plaster on his arm.

This experience and a few other random encounters with chatty Bolivians belied the second point that I'd heard about Bolivia that the people are very shy to talk.  Perhaps in some circumstances it takes a little longer for folk to open up but in just this couple of days I met some very open Bolivians, and all of them told tales of travels far afield (apart from the sweet lad in the 1st hostel who said he had never left Cochabamba because he was afraid to arrive somewhere and not know where he was.)

One young taxi driver, Boris, told me about how he and a group of friends had lived and worked in Paris for a few years, but he had ultimately come back to Bolivia because he's been dreaming of his homeland.

Another taxi driver told me about the 4 day car trip he and his family had taken through to Brazil, traveling only by night apparently because there is a risk of being car-jacked in Brazil because of driving a car with Bolivian number-plates.

So we left from the fascinating hubbub of Cochabamba bus station early Wednesday morning, and along the 57 hour route had many stops, where we would eat, go to the toilet, change money when we were at the border, all under strict instructions from one of the two shift-drivers.  His introduction to the journey was more than firm - we were told under no circumstances to use the toilet for any activity other than urinating, though that rule became redundant when we were banned from using the toilet at all after about 10 hours.  Not entirely sure why, there were no obvious signs of it being broken, but it meant that from then on at every stop we were like a bunch of school kids, being told when to get down from the bus and queue up at public toilets!



The other instruction from our driver was to vigilate amongst ourselves against drugs.  From this point on, and with the number of stop-and-search stops the bus made, I realised just how common drug trafficking by bus must be from Boliva.  Indeed at the first check Yola, a beautiful old Bolivian weaver and the first bus-friend I made, explained that the last time she made this journey a Peruvian lady had been found with a packet of cocaine in her backpack.  Apparently she was fined and sent home, but not imprisoned. And the driver had told us of two days lost at the border crossing when a packet was found in the bus toilet on a previous journey.


Luckily our trip was uneventful in this respect.  At one particular stop after the Argentinian border we were each individually taken into a private back room to be searched.  I was patted down by a uniformed lady with an aggressive manner who said that my surname sounded strange, and asked if I was traveling with the German girls, presumably because we were the only Europeans on the bus. 

This drug-vigilance aspect of the journey certainly confirmed what Guillermo had spoken of and what I had a already read a little of, that the coca-cocaine issue is pertinent.  The coca leaf is a natural plant and has been traditionally used within Andean culture for centuries.  The bitter leaves are chewed to promote alertness and combat the effects of high altitude, reducing tiredness, hunger, sensitivity to cold and digestive issues.  The raw coca leaf is neither harmful nor addictive and its high levels of calcium, iron at vitamins mean it has medicinal properties and is therefore also drunk as a tea.  You can see the list of healthy benefits below on the bag of powdered coca that Lucy gave me.  

Powdered coca leaf, Made in Sacaba
Preparation: half a spoon in a glass of warm water, drink before breakfast.
*Its high calcium content of more than 2000mg combats osteoporosis. 100% healthy
*Almost immediately relieves arthritic pains and/or muscular pains, combats diabetes.  Natural Leaf.
*Visibly increases physical stamina
*Combats serious problems of malnutrition and/or assimilation.  Triggers the cleaning of the urinary tract.

The issue with coca is therefore not the natural leaf itselft, but rather its derivative, cocaine.  And as Guillermo said, to become cocaine, coca has to pass through many 'blackmarket hands' and many processes.  Since cocaine became popular in the USA and Europe the demand for coca leaves has increased massively, resulting in laws being written in Bolivia to limit coca growth.  A1988 law permits 12,000 hectares of coca to be cultivated for legal use, but estimates of the actual production levels are much higher.

It seems absurd and typically aggressive that rather than address the cocaine issue on home turf the USA reacted by sending DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) officers to Bolivian coca-growing regions Chapare and Beni to eradicate the crop.  Appanrently the USA also put a lot of money into 'alternative' crops that in reality failed and led to increased poverty.  And besides, what appaling arrogance and disrespect of the ancient culture, and what a clear example of projection of blame.  Reports of brutality and human rights abuses inflicted on the 'cocaleros' by the DEA testify to the shocking levels of USA aggression.  

Coca is not cocaine!! F*ck it!

This coca-cocaine issue was pivotal in bringing current president Evo Morales into government.  Morales had been a cocalero (coca grower) in Chapare and became active in local unions, leading the resistance against the eradication policies.  His government set the popular slogan 'coca si, cocaine no' (coca yes, cocaine no) that you get on t-shirts and that I saw a hand written derivative of on the Plaza 14 noticeboard.  Morales has just achieved his aim of removing the coca leaf from the 1961 convention, meaning its chewing is now technically legal again.  According to an article in Bolivian newspaper 'la época' it also happens that this month, March, is the annual month of the 'carnival' of the anti-drug politics, in Bolivia, South America and globally.  The difference this year being that Bolivia is at the forefront of changes in the paradigm of the anti-drug war.

The 'Vienna Consensus' collapses
The international system of drug control is being eroded on all sides.  Various Latin American countries, starting with change in in the strength of their relationships, are questioning the USA paradigm that concentrates control on the supply, that militarises territory, encourages indiscriminate prohibition and criminalises the chewing of coca, and more.  Bolivia has already achieved the triumph of denouncing the 1961 convention with the support of 169 states.


So we reached the Bolivian/ Argentinian border at Salvador Mazza the morning of the 28th and ended up being stuck there for the major part of the day.  It wasn't really clear why - we'd all had our passports stamped out of Bolivia at the Bolivian window and then just waited and waited and waited in the stiffling heat of the bus.  A relief when we finally got moving again.


Over the course of the three days it was fascinating to watch the changes in the landscapes from the windows.  In Bolivia we passed by rough adobe shacks and many stalls piled high with multicoloured stacks of fruit, through mountainous regions covered in lush greenery and wide gushing rivers, a dramatic contrast to the vast desert and dried-out river basins of northern Chile.  Moving into flatter land towards the border temperatures rose and as we moved into Argentina we passed green and yellow fields, adobe ranch buildings, horses and more rivers.  Approaching Buenos Aires the buildings became larger, more expensive and industrial, many with walls of reflective glass, billboards appeared and multiplied and traffic got heavier.  

Eventually we pulled into Buenos Aires bus station, where the majority of our bus crew, me included, spent a good long time hanging out by the 'centro de llamadas' (a series of phone booths where you enter, make as many calls as you like and pay on leaving).  I tried to get a hold of my friend from the residency, Daniela, but when she didn't answer called around hostel after hostel.  Five were completely full, one closed for Semana Santa (Easter Holy week) and I'd started to feel slightly nervous about the prospect of finding anywhere to stay.  Luckily in a second round of calls I found a bed in the dormitory of hostel Casa Esmerelda, who gave me directions to get there.  A local bus ride and taxi drop-off later and I have a bed again!  


Big love from Argentina!
:-)

Friday 29 March 2013

ONE: Lucy Pickles

Lucy Pickles
A challenge I’ve overcome: Starting to face the difficult things from my past
A dream for my future: to speak Spanish better
A hope for the global village: An end to global poverty.

Lucy Pickles – hilarious, deep-thinker, hugely intelligent and passionate about social justice and inclusion, brilliant musician,  EFL teacher and adventurous traveller  -wow, what an incredible friend!  Lucy is one of the keen long distance cycling crew, a friend I met back in 2009 on the first of my rides fundraising with UK charity Macmillan Cancer Support.  It was on that cycle-camping trip that woke up one morning and it suddenly clicked, woa, you could travel the world like this! Lucy and I daydreamed all morning of a long-distant independent trip.  A year later in February 2010 I was setting out from the UK at the start of another 14 day Macmillan trip from Panama to Nicaragua, and from there set off on my own cycling north on a route that took me through the whole of Central America.  As it turned out Lucy couldn’t join me on the cycle but was living in Belize at the time, so I was able to stay with her as I passed through.  And in Cochabamba, our two separate Latin American journeys have happily crossed paths again.  Yay!



Lucy is in Cochaba,ba because she has been volunteering with Tearfund since January, working as a team-leader with a group of young British volunteers supporting local groups in running activity workshops with school age children from vulnerable backgrounds.  Apparently the posting's been pretty challenging; mainly because of the difficult behaviour of one particular volunteer who eventually had to be sent home early.   Also because Lucy's felt dissatisfied with the quality of work the unskilled volunteers are able to offer, and so feels uncomfortable about the vast amounts of money being spent by the British government on this particular initiative under the guise of ‘international development’.  Lucy believes the volunteers gain far more from the exchange than the organisation in Bolivia, who she believes would achieve almost the same outcomes in their work with or without the volunteers. 

Although these issues are tough, and it is not the experience Lucy anticipated, it's perhaps also exactly these types of tough or disappointing experiences that we learn the most from and that end up defining more clearly our own viewpoints and ethics.  I certainly look back at my first volunteering placement with ProWorld Service Corps in Urubamba, Peru in 2005, as being a very formative experience.  The six weeks I spent there was certainly massively enjoyable and positive in terms of self-development, and I also believe that the kids I ran art workshops with enjoyed the sessions and the access to the art materials we provided.  But I was disappointed to realise that there was little continuity in the projects we worked on, as they functioned mainly in the US University holiday period, after which the majority of volunteers went home and the projects in Urubamba ground to a halt.  I was also surprised to see the majority of our hard-earned cash go straight into the US rather than into the local community.

As well as being my first volunteering experience, that trip to Peru was also where love for Latin America began.  It was also the first time I touched Bolivian soil when we spent one weekend visiting Lago Titicaca.  That was a flying visit like this one, so I'm glad to know that as long as all goes to plan I'll have the chance to get to know Bolivia more in depth at the end of the year when I come back to Cochabamba for three months for the Sustainable Bolivia arts residency.   That was actually an opportunity I came across because of this placement of Lucy's with Tearfund, (so thanks Lucy!), and have also been able to pass on to friend and fellow artist Camilla Brendon, who'll be handing over to me at the beginning of September.

So it was a delight to spend that first night in Bolivia sharing pizza with Lucy, her warm company and wry comic ways particularly welcome in bringing me back from a slight low tired point to one of laughter and feeling on my feet in the new country.  We met again early Tuesday morning in a luxury cafe, ‘Casablanca’ where despite the Wi-Fi we never did quite manage to Skype our close friend and third member of this particular musketeer clan, Siobhan. ;-(

 

We did spend hours and hours intensely chatting though, about Lucy’s placement, intuition, psychology, the potential of self-healing and understanding through art therapeutic techniques and the importance of having compassion for oneself and well as others.  Alongside all the deep chat there was also a huge lot of laughter, particularly because of the combination of Lucy’s wry humour with my having only slept a couple of hours the night before (entirely my own doing – I was up all the night catching up on editing and writing!) ...plus the presence of a third entity in the form of a boiled egg that Lucy had brought along with her, painted wit black zebra stripes and cracked sufficiently to let off pungent waves of eggy–odor every so often, that had me thinking the one of the customers had a particularly dodgy belly until I belated related the smell to the egg!

This Egg accompanied us on the rest of our morning missions, cradled in my hand as we got a taxi to the bus station (I wondered would the taxi driver have the impression that we European ladies are particularly smelly!) The lovely old lady at the post office seemed surprisingly un-bemused by our request of a photo together with Lucy’s ONE postcard and the egg!  As I enquired about bus ticket prices at one particular window the lad kept looking down at my hand until we were all laughing once we’d acknowledged the Egg’s presence and that it was a little weird to be carrying her around.

This is not the first time Lucy and I have shared eggy experiences – the first was on a cycle-camping trip with Emma and Ollie along the Southwest coast of England.  One night sat around a mini campfire we did an experiment to see if a raw egg explodes if placed directly in a fire... what do you reckon?  We all huddled back shielding our faces from the anticipated explosion but in actual fact the egg eventually just cracked, oozed and by the time we removed it from the flames was a semi-burnt boiled egg that none of us wanted to eat,  so we threw it over the fence, meaning it landed on train tracks... triggering a series of concerns about the animals that might potentially risk a squashing by the train in the eating of the egg, or about the egg’s future, and what on earth the symbolism was of us women throwing an egg onto a train track, being as an egg strongly represents fertility!?!

 

This time round we thought through carefully where we’d like to leave this Egg, and eventually rolled her (with much aplomb!) into the basin of an empty fountain in the central square Plaza 14 de Septiembre, surrounded by pigeons.... hmmm what might the symbolism be in that?  Well, a fountain is a spring or source, and although this one is currently dry, there will come a day when it fills with nourishing water, enabling the egg to move and take flight with any one of the many opportunities waiting in the form of the surrounding pigeons.... Lucy, what do you reckon?!! :-)

 

On our evening wander we chatted about how it is to be a foreigner in a new place and a new culture.  Lucy, who’s lived in various places around the world, including Montana and India, remembers a particular moment of turning on classical music in her home in Belize and realising just how much she missed the cultural submersion of London.  As creative folk we are so used to the cultural saturation of London, that this is certainly something we can miss while traveling (though interesting in Central America I more remember being delighted and appreciating the cultural cacophony of London on my return rather then missing it while away).  In Chile tone of the huge draws was certainly the creative energy of the company and the variety of galleries and cultural events in the capital.  Here in Cochabamba , wandering the streets whilst wondering how I will settle for those three months at the end of the year I was glad to notice a number of good bookshops,  interesting social-focused newspapers and magazines, and a couple of galleries, cinemas and theatres.  I was also happy to get the Facebook contact of one artist from her husband in a gallery where I was really touched by the delicate magical beauty of her pastel paintings that seemed to celebrate feminine creativity.


One of the aspects of Bolivia that is more uncomfortable to face is the poverty.  There are many very elderly folk, painfully thin and in raggedy clothes, begging from the floor of the streets.  There are many grubby faced children, like one tiny little boy alone in a side street, playing a couple of notes over and over on a mini mandolin who looked up at Lucy and I with the most mournful eyes.  Poverty in Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in Latin America and is the reason why so many organisations are working here in International Development.  One of the activities that Lucy’s colleagues offer is a once-a week baby washing service in Plaza 14 de Sept. where local mums can bring their children to be cleaned in the open air.

200 years of freedom for who?

It was such a pleasure to see Lucy... it always is, but particularly lovely over her, so far from home.  One of her colleagues and friends, Colombian-German Diana, noticed my overly-rapid hard-to-understand way of talking in English and we laughed that maybe I was talking even more fast than my normal fast because of the excitement of having so much to catch up on, and the chance of talking in English, where there is no stumbling over vocabulary gaps! (In this aspect a big parallel with the Chileans who are known to, and admit to talking very fast and without clear pronunciation, just like some of us Brits perhaps ;-) )

This was actually Lucy’s last evening in Bolivia.  Her and her team were preparing to fly back home to the UK early the following morning, so when I was invited back to their halls-like home set-up for a tasty dinner the group were busy packing and starting to say their goodbyes.  Safe flight home folks.
 
[this image is actually from a perfume ad in Cochabamba, but I love the image... this is how my head feels after an afternoon in your company Lucy :-) ! ]

So thank you so, so much for such a great couple of days Lucy ... as always I’ve left your company with my head spinning extra-fast with thoughts and ideas...  Thanks too for my postcard and the antique 1 boliviano note!


Good luck settling back into London life and planning your next excursion to Greece.
I’ll look forward to seeing you in the summer!
Big love
:-)

ONE: GUILLERMO FERNANDEZ CLAROS



Paragliding teacher and car mechanic, 33-year-old Guillermo tells me he also teaches Quechan and has offered to exchange Quechan lessons for English when I return to Cochabamba for the art residency in October.  Brilliant!

Walking with a slight limp from a knee injury that happened whilst paragliding, Guillermo is currently off work and so happened to be in the central square, Plaza del 14 de Septiembre on the Monday afternoon, where he approached me as I was reading the articles and posters at Red Tinku’s information panel.  

Many of the newspaper articles posted up were about Bolivia’s struggle to reclaim a stretch of sea lost over a hundred years ago during the War of the Pacific. Apparently this is right at the forefront of Bolivian consciousness this week with it being an anniversary of the war, and Morales demanding that just 10km is returned the country.  Lucy told me the next day this struggle has existed ever since the war and she doubts the sea will ever be returned. The tone of the articles was very anti-Chilean (and anti-British) as you can see from the wording of the poster below, an indication that perhaps the hostility between the neighbouring countries is actually still strong. 




 The world has to know of the shame of the Chilean oligarchy with the complicity of the English – they have to return; the Bolivian sea; Arica (Peru) and the Argentinian Malvinas [Falkland Islands].  Advance yes, never resign!

Another topic covering a large part of the boards were posters reporting the commemoration the previous Thursday Jesuit and socialist Luis Espinal Camps., assassinated 33 years ago.  In his lifetime Espinal campaigned for democracy in Bolivia, freedom of expression and social justice and was kidnapped, violently tortured, shot with about 20 bullets and his body dumped as though rubbish, by agents of the then-government of Lidia Gueiler Tejada.   It seems the Bolivian people have a lot of love for Espinal and that his fight for democracy and social freedom for all lives on through them, with posters such as the one below shouting out messages of remembrance:

Compadre Espinal, you have not died.  Your presence lives in the consciousness of the people.

Guillermo’s question as he approached me in reading these boards was what I thought of Bolivia’s current situation.  I explained that I had really just arrived and so know very little, but was interested to know of the issues affecting the country.  I told him I was struck by the sea-issue, and the apparent anger towards Chile, particularly as I had just come from Chile so had it fresh in my mind that the sea for them is also a serious issue.  The Chilean sea is in fact owned mainly by foreigners and in the north one mining company is removing sea water in huge volumes to desalinate it for use in their mining processes, which contaminates it meaning that it is removed from the natural water-cycle.   Bearing in mind that Chile in the large part does not own its own sea it seems futile, perhaps even out-of-date, that the Bolivian anger is targeted at Chileans rather than the foreign investors.

Guillermo was very open in sharing his opinions and local knowledge with me, and when we quickly got into talking intensely about Bolivian issues he invited me for a coffee.  We continued our conversation over European style cappuccinos in a Parisian coffee shop on the corner of the square, and when I shared my idea for the ONE postcards and portrait-patchwork project he seemed delighted to be invited to join in (unfortunately I didn’t have the postcard templates on me, so am inviting him online).  He told me he too had the idea to travel around the whole of Bolivia, taking documentary photographs that he would print in black and white and fill all the walls, top to bottom, of an entire room with, to show the diversity of Bolivia.

Guillermo was hugely informative and in the space of that one coffee he managed to give me a swift introduction to the mains issues facing Bolivia right now:
1.    As above, the fight to reclaim even just 10km of the sea that was lost during the War of the Pacific.
2.    Drug problems: the natural coca leaf has been used for centuries as a medicinal plant chewed to alleviate affects of altitude and reduce tiredness and hunger.  However the plant’s reputation has been marred and it’s traditional uses threatened since it’s derivate cocaine became popular in the USA and Europe.  
3.    Violence against women.  In a culture that has traditionally been very machistic, there are apparently still today huge incidents of violence against women (and also children and the elderly).  Earlier in the day I had noticed furious graffiti screaming, “Machismo kills” and bought a magazine "Temas' whose cover article was "Femicide the daughter of Machismo"which reported that the death of journalist Hanalí Huaycho at the hands of her husband in mid February had re-opened discussion about violence towards women.  This article on the issue reports that 70 to 80% of Bolivian women have been victims of violence and that, shockingly, the murder of a woman because of her gender, femicide, is on the rise.  In the aftermath of Huayacho's murder Bolivian law has changed to make femicide punishable by 30 years in jail.  'Temas' praises the Cochabamban council for banning both the publication of sexist material and costumes of women and pregnant women, which have traditionally been used at carnival time but which are associated with a general disrespect for the female figure in a country which is apparently very patriarchal.  

      It seems there is a lot of movement in the Bolivian art world towards empowering women.  One poetry group, "Mujeres Poetas International" (International Women Poets) hosted a day festival of culture and poetry in Santa Cruz on 14th March "Grito de Mujer" (Woman's Cry) to promote a life without violence in Bolivia.  As 'Temas' writes, art, in whatever form it takes, saves us.  It may not imprison the perpetrators, but it gives voice and strength to the women's fight.

(left: strong screams on the walls:)
 "We will castrate rapists / Machismo kills" 
(right) Temas: Feminicido es hija del machismo.  
Muera el machismo! Ejecer el arte significa para una mujer romper las ataduras creados por el hombre. Mujeres, únanse al arte, a la lectura, prepáranse para vencer con ideas, no con la fuerza! Lean!
[Temas: Femicide is the daughter of machismo. Death to Machismo! For a woman to practice art means to break the ties created by man.  Women, unite yourselves with art and reading, prepare yourselves to overcome with ideas, not force! Read!]

4.    The death of Chavez:  this has left Bolivians shocked and concerned, particularly because the financial support his government supplied has been suspended in the weeks since his death.  According to Guillermo this has left Bolivia vulnerable and Evo Morales isolated as the only socialist political figurehead in Latin America.  (See more here.)


5.    The airport in Oruro.  Apparently in the past 6 days the re-naming of this airport from Juan Mendoza Aeropuerto after the first Bolivian to take flight, to Evo Morales, has triggered such fiery disagreement, including hunger stirkes by locals, that Guillermo was surprised our border-crossing-bus had got through the region without being held up by blockades and protests. 

6.   Mines.  When I asked were there problems of contamination from the mining industry here as in Chile, Guillermo wagged his head and let out a ‘aiii’ with a wry smile, communicating the enormity of the issue, but oddly didn’t go on to talk about it at all.  An area to look into in more depth at another opportunity perhaps.
 
When I expressed an interest in learning more about the Bolivian weaving tradition Guillermo offered to take me to the local ‘la Cancha’ market, and so began an afternoon of what felt like a personal guided tour of Cochambamba!


We started in Plaza 14 de Septiembre, which Guillermo tells me is the only Latin American plaza lined on all four sides by columns, indicating extreme wealth of the Spanish who brought the construction stone all the way from Europe, as they did the wooden furnishings of the cathedral.  Local saints are all currently ‘on holiday’ for Semana Santa, (Easter Holy Week), their statues in the cathedral covered head-to-toe in purple cloth, which means there’s a temporary suspension on lighting candles at their feet in prayer.

We passed a large white palatial building on one corner with checkboard marble-floor entrance which turns out to be the previous home of the late Bolivian mutli-millionaire Simón Isidoro Patiño, whose fortune, according to Guillermo, Butch Cassidy the Great Train Robber came all the way to South America on horseback to rob!  (Looking this up online I discovered Cassidy came to Bolivia to settle as a rancher, but then, so the story goes, having robbed a courier from the Amarayo mine, was killed in a gunfight with police.) As for multi-millionaire Patiño's story,  it is perhaps a lesson in money not buying love because it seems Patiño died heirless, meaning his fortune and homes were left to the state, this one in Cochabamba now functioning as a bank, and another an hour out into the countryside whose vast library and botanical gardens are now open to the public.

Arriving in la Cancha, I was fascinating by the sprawling streets filled with endless clusters of stalls, and mobile vendors with baskets, trolleys and baskets selling everything you could imagine.   More food and drinks, piles of colourful fruit, pirate DVDs and CDs, clothes, toys, radios, electronics, shoes (apparently mostly black-market brand imitations from China that had me wondering if the huge cargo ships that load up with copper in northern Chile arrive with hulls full of these products).  Guillermo proudly told me that la Cancha is the largest open air market of all Latin America, and seemed as excited by its raw hectic vibrancy as much as me, pointing out the different moods on the faces of the bustling crowds as we made our way through to the weavings that had triggered our trip.  Narrow rows of stalls were draped in traditional hand woven belts, hats, jumpers and blankets, alongside more commercial looking tourist-aimed products.  Wooden musical instruments dangled above our heads, guitars, pipes, mandolins, some carved with indigenous faces, some sadly made from the shell of armadillos (this is an illegal product as the animal is in danger of extinction).

On our way out of the market we passed through the old rail station which is pretty much out of action apart from a single carriage train that runs out to the rural lakeside community where Guillermo is originally from and where his parents still live and he has a a second home.  A German-made steam engine from 1905 is fixed in position on display, and I was reminded of the old steam engine in Victoria Park in Leamington where me and Daniel and the cousins used to play for hours, clambering all over... happy family memories!  (Thinking of family this also has me wondering again about Fish, this Sunday 24th being her due date for little Bazza-bump to arrive.. but no news from home yet!)
 

Phew, what a packed afternoon.  Thank you Guillermo for all the information, for the impromptu personalised tour and of course the felt hat!  I hope your leg heals quickly and look forward to hopefully learning some more Quechan words later in the year. :-)