What a Man

An interesting article on the current situation in Venezuela. Chavez is incredible: a man who doens´t seem to think he has any limits (and I don´t mean incredible in the sense of greatness).

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/world/americas/11venez.html?ref=americas

La vida es una caja

Today I did an oral presentation in my spanish class about immigrants in the United States. I´m sure many of you know it is a controversial issue and there are a lot of mixed sentiments towards immigrants. After my presentation we discussed our opinions on the issue and talked about why we think there is still so much discrimination throughout the world. Hannah and our professor, Toni, brought up an interesting concept that I think puts discrimination into a perspective that can be understood by all. We all live in boxes: our ideas, our beliefs, our homes, our transportation, etc. Everything is made into a box and we choose to stay within that box. It is like a comfort zone that we refuse to leave or look outside of. Ideas are passed down from generation to generation and with that discrimination continues, as does the box. Below is a poem Toni read to us. It is in spanish and my translating skills aren´t exactly the best so I´m just going to post it as is and let you do with it what you will. Hope you enjoy.

Cuadrados y ángulos

Casas enfiladas, casas enfiladas, casas enfiladas.

cuadrados, cuadrados, cuadrados.

casas enfiladas.

Las gentes ya tienen el alma cuadrada,

ideas en fila

y ángulo en la espalda

Yo misma he vertido ayer una lágrima,

Dios mio, cuadrada

-Alfonsina Storni

Los Cleferos

I´m not sure if many of you remember me mentioning in my first blog the children who live on the street here in Bolivia. As I have heard, it is fairly common for children to live in the streets throughout all of Latin America and I´m sure what I am about to say goes for all street children, not just those who live here in Cochabamba.

Los cleferos are the children who live in the street here and get high by sniffing glue. Obviously, they become highly addicted and they are often times dangerous to encounter because of their tendencies towards aggression and for robbing people. There are several reasons for them living in the streets, many which I am still learning about, but the two main reasons seem to be because they have escaped an abusive household and would rather live in the street or they have no other option. The majority, if not all, of the orphanages here only allow children to live there up to a certain age, usually 14, and once they reach the age limit they are forced out onto the streets. You can only imagine the large amount of children there are without a home.

Today on the news they were talking about how the police are going into the streets to ¨capture¨ los cleferos and take them to a home. I feel like this is only a half attempt to really solve the problems of los cleferos and it doesn´t really do much good at all. Many of los cleferos end up escaping the homes they are taken to and return to the streets to continue doing drugs.

It is really a difficult situation that requires strong action from both the government and the community, something that is not happening right now. There are people who work with los cleferos, some in the streets individually and some with organizations. My host dad´s sister works with an organization called Mosojyan, which means ¨new path¨in quechua. They largely work with young girls who become pregnant, trying to give them jobs so they can become self sustainable. For those who work with Mosojyan the pay is very little for the hard work they do.

This brings to mind the little pay the social workers receive in the United States. It is hard to understand why those who work so hard to help solve the problems of others receive such little in return. I believe it is something that strongly needs to be addressed and changed not only for the sake of social workers but for those who need help as well.

I wish I had answers for how Bolivia could change the current situation of los cleferos. I think the policies of the orphanages definitely need to be addressed and there also needs to be some way to address abusive home issues. For those who are taken to homes, their psychological issues need to be treated and transitioning them from drug addiction is also highly important.

These are only my opinions: opinions that I´m sure others have held as well. In the United States we are very fortunate to have a goverment that functions well enough to effectively address the issues of homeless children. Of couse our system isn´t perfect, but in comparison to Bolivia I think we have a better working system, thus a better situation and better options.

Furthermore, I don´t think the issue of los cleferos is only a Bolivian issue but rather a wordly issue. This might make it too broad of an issue to be addressed but all the same it is a pressing issue that communities need to address individually. All children deserve a future and it is up to the human population to ensure they are given the opportunity.

Chapare

Hola Amigos!! I have an exciting tip to share with you all! This past weekend mis amigos y yo went to Chapare, a town located in the tropical area of Bolivia. It is a bit of a tourist town for both Bolivians and gringos although it doesn´t appear that way at all. We stayed in a nice little hotel called el Hotel Bibosi located in the main plaza within walking distance of almost everything. It was very simple and quiet with the only down side being not having any water while we were there. They told us they only turned the water on during certain hours of the day in order to conserve it, but we never managed to receive the schedule or catch it turned on for more than five minutes. Chapare is not exactly the place you want to be with out running water and we were in definite need of showers while we were there. It was sooo hot we felt like we were in a sauna the whole time! With no water to shower we were thankful there was a pool to bathe in!!

Fish is a speciality in Chapare and we definitely ate plenty of it! Alanna and I went to one of the little vendors in the street and they gave us a plate with two whole fish, eyes and all! The bones were a bit of a pain to pick out but it was still delicious and worth all the work! (Especially since it was so cheap)

We visited two parks while we were there, one being el Parque Machía (mostly known as the monkey park). It serves as a safe have for thousands of abused animals, has saved over 1,000 hectares of rainforest and is currently the largest NGO Bolivian conservation. The coolest part about this park is the monkeys literally just hang out with all the visitors and they even go looking in your pockets for goodies! Rumor has it that if the monkeys do get a hold of your belongings they give it to the keepers and you have to pay to get it back! All the monkeys were friendly and there was one jumping from person to person, but you do have to be careful because sometimes they bite. Luckily we left without any marks and with all our belongings.

The second place we visisted was called La Jungla: a minature amusement park for adults. You definitely feel like you need a Tarzan costume as you swing from trees on a little piece of wood attached to a rope. The tallest swing was about 50 feet in the air and thankfully they harness you in on this one! It was a bit dangerous but definitely something that couldn´t have been passed up :)

Getting a ride back to Cochabamba was a bit of a challenge and ended up being another adventure all on its own. This past monday was the Day of the Dead, a popular holiday here in Bolivia and in many other Latin American countries. Since everyone was celebrating, there was only one taxi going to Cochabamba and another group beat us to it. We ended up flagging down a huge two story bus, what they call flotas here, and asked if they had any space. They told us they didn´t have any seats left but we could ride in front with the driver, so we piled into a little space in the back and rode shotgun for four hours back to Cochabamba :)

Overall, it was a beautiful trip and it was great to experience a different part of the country. It was interesting to see how much Evo support there was, which I think has a lot to do with it being such a small underdeveloped town. Traveling helps put the political situation into context and brings the ethnic divisions into perspective, something that I think is hard to grasp without seeing first hand.

This weekend we´re off to Uyuni to see the Salt Flats and I can´t wait to share with you all the exciting details!!

Besitos!