I was in the countryside over the week conducting surveys

20 July 2011

When houses cease to be just pueblos (formations of mud) and begin to be places where families live-

The Doña with kids in the front yard who imagine that they are owners of a store,

The young mother with three kids jumping on the bed and one on the way...

I can walk out in the morning now and see the effort in the boy's eyes as he tries hard to peddle on his rusty bike to school.

I can see on women's' faces the places where wrinkles form not because they always work in the fields or outside with their children, but because when they laugh from their bellies they smile and squish their noses while gathered together discussing who is considered the "leader" of the household.

12 July 2011


I am starting to really like you, Bolivia.

at a hostel in Salar de Uyuni

1 July 2011

I've made a friend. A little girl wearing a purple jacket is reaching for my hand so that I may give her more Pringles. Her mom is telling her to come inside to eat.

So yesterday we took a bus and then a train and arrived in Uyuni last night. I thought Bolivians exaggerate the cold, but after being here, I realize that they weren't overemphasizing the the frigid weather of the Salar. The temperature on the train dropped significantly as were coming upon the town. Luckily, Pepe's mom lent me a huge, insulated, rapper-style jacket.

When we got to the town the four of us plopped our backpacks in our hostel rooms and headed out in search for a bar. The town was deserted. Imagine the movie "Silent Hill." Okay. Good. We walked around until we saw this colored discoball outside of a doorway. We walked in and sat down next to the propane heater. We were the only ones at the bar and shared a Huari together. That night was freezing. Either from my cold or the altitude or the cold, I woke up a few times gasping for air. I decided then that I wasn't going to change my clothes. (I slept in the same outfit for days.) In the morning we found some alpaca legwarmers, gloves, and a sweater. Afterward, we (along with a Brit and 2 Brazilians) squeezed into the Toyota SUV and drove to the salt hotel, the salt flats, artisan stores, until finally making it here.

It's been somewhat a fantasy of mine to be among llamas and wild alpaca...and here I am! This hostel has a stone-fence enclosing a handful of llamas. Not knowing what to do until dinner, we took out our cameras and walked around the hostel. You can see "wild" (or unreleased) animals - donkeys, llamas, and there are also flamingos and small birds. After Ana and I took some shots of randomly placed llama carcasses, I began exploring alone. This "town" (maybe 6 houses? a church?) has these stone-walls all over the place. At first, the walls didn't appear to have a specific layout, but after entering more and more rectangles I realized that I was lost in some planned out property maze. I guess this trip has been my closest experience with actually living in a "third-world" country. The houses here are made out of mud and those that have been abandoned still show the previous tenants' presence: rusty cans, bones, feathers, and remnants of pottery. I couldn't imagine living in this cold like this longer than a few days. Bolivia certainly has many, many contrasts.

Well now that the group has returned back to the hostel, I can give the little girl's mom her pen back and see what's next on the agenda.

ciao!