And he means it... - June 28th, 2008

biatch.

Oy! Peru! - June 28th, 2008

Howdyhowdy,

Just a quick note from Puno, a few hours across the Peruvian-Bolivian border. I had to make a day trip to refresh my thirty day visa for Bolivia, and sigh had to do it this way. Man Peru is expensive, or rather, I guess compared to Bolivia. But when I hear people at the market paying one dollar for five bananas, I tell you that is ´effin ridiculous expensive.

Now last night I managed to find myself swept up in the tides of South America, and stayed up past midnight to boot. I´ve been organizing a trip to a farm very very much in the middle of nowhere through my contact, Claudia, for a while. And finally last night we managed to meet up in El Alto, and then I managed to wrangle myself an invitation to her cousin´s graduation fiesta.

I cannot explain how very much I have been trying to attend a typical Bolivia fiesta. I didn´t have my camera, and wouldn´t have used it anyways, so I´ll try some imagery.

It works like this, imagine a rented hall, varying in quality, with several hundred very large bottles of Huari beer piled on tables sorrounded by dozens of family members. Picture all the teenage girls in club clothes, the men in suits, and of course, all the women in the standard Aymara apparel, but the flashier fiesta version, and everyone covered in white confetti.

Now there is a big space in the middle for dancing, and somewhere a DJ with the standard play list of traditional Bolivian dances. I haven´t mentioned this before, but if you go to a bumping club in most places in Bolivia, you´re going to be in for watching every single person partner up, and form giant lines facing each other, where upon everyone proceeds to dance the correct dance for the song playing. Whether it´s wacas or tomas, it´s insane to see teenagers dancing all night long to traditional, indigenous dances. I don´t mean to push the point, but it´s enthralling and a huge indicator of how powerful the culture still is.

Okay, so, moving on, don´t forget that every first sip of your drinks you need to pour a little out for Pachamama, the earth goddess, so the lino floor of the dance hall is just soaked. And so the scene is set for the standard Bolivian mass-drunkeness, something Jess and I had seen spilled into the streets often before, but had never been in on from the start. If you will please, imagine the lovely lady above, maybe twenty years older, drunk out of her mind like a fourteen year old girl and having the time of her life.

So the night grows on, the comradery between the family and the surprise gringo grows, jealous tensions flare a little at the end as some girls play who´s my man, and eventually I get the hang of the 3/3 beat and learn a few dances pretty well. I can´t say thanks to Claudia enough for such a wild and original night, her family is frankly incredible, and her mother can dance me under the table any day.

Well, I gotta go do something cheap, I might be going to the farm a week earlier than expected, this Wednesday. Oh, in case you´re wondering the farm is a three day trip into the Amazon, somewhere like here:

Hasta pronto,

Ñick

I lift a lot of bricks during my day. - June 24th, 2008

Hey all,

Well life continues at work and here in El Alto, the main unchanging factor being my unrelenting dirtyness, which grows daily and has now found a place in my room where it breeds. There are no laundromats in all of El Alto, because it´s really an unneeded luxury, so I need to wait a good deal of time until I´m not working.

Last night I was suddenly swept off to a fiesta courtesy of the extended family I´m working with. The fiesta was San Juan, which celebrates the coldest night of the year in Bolivia, and of course, it consists mainly of sitting outside, making kites, blowing up fireworks, and cooking meat with big fires.

All in all, the entire story could be related with tourist zeal, an incredible experience of being a guest of a large, wonderful Bolivian family, the house buzzing with stories and games, all in spanish and aymara, myself ignorant for the most part, playing rampantly with the kids, and causing mischief. A guest in a country, made personal and tangible through being a guest of a family, so far from home.

And yet, as complete a moment and unique a feeling, the story itself is about as standard as one gets. There is something that caught me today as I began to relate what, for me, was such a fulfilling evening. I paused at the banality of the context, surely I have heard the same story from countless uninteresting white lips while abroad, and most of us have heard the same in turn. Why then, recount such a standard, banal tale of warm hearths and laughing children, which is quite frankly, the kind of story that makes you stare into space and think of how the teller should go find Jesus. Or something along those lines.

The nature of tourism is abhorrent to me, Jessica can attest that at times traveling with someone so judgemental can be unbearable. On a quick explanatory note, my detestment of almost every other foreigner I meet is quite clearly a reflection of anger at myself, a point that is obvious but should be made early, and although I´ve spent some crash-course moments in Bolivia trying to not be an ass, I live here in El Alto mainly because I crave the dissapearance of any reflection of myself, and the experience of being in a place completely without other travellers. It´s a clear-cut psychology case, but I haven´t been able to clear it up yet, and so with Jess gone have made a life most easy in this manner.

Anyways, my point is that to have an experience so typical, and yet so incredible, perhaps lends a different and more prudent credence to the word tourist.

Perhaps to be a tourist is to experience a litany of thoughts and moments, that while both transformative and expanding, remain neigh identical to all others. Seemingly incredible stories, that are in fact without uniqeness or interest, and reflect perhaps nothing except for the status, ignorance, and privilege of rich youth. That time you got really high with those crazy guys on the beach somewhere, and that little poor colored child who you gave your coin purse to, and finally that time you snuck into something or woke up somewhere or met someone and it really...changed you.

And yet, the point of that sameness suddenly seems to me, as I reflect upon my own growing library of likewise stories, the binding strain that serves to, maybe, underwrite and give purpose to the entire endeavour. If I have collected these moments, and can plainly see that they stand not out amongst the thousands of others, that should not in any way diminish the quality of my experience.

The story, while common, is still incredible. And the collection of those, while perhaps not for the retelling, is certainly an endeavour worth attempting, maybe for your whole life. They remain of such unique opportunity in my own pale life, and do so for all tourists, that the sameness of our experiences does not cause them to blanchen, but instead serves to reveal the quality and candor of being a tourist. The same tome that we all carry may be, in fact, some of the best stories of all.


The time I saw the most beautiful thing in the world.
How I met her under strange stars and we cried all night.
When I gave away almost everything I owned.

That time I was lost.
That time I was found.


ñ

Feliz Año Nuevo - June 22nd, 5516

Hey all.

That´s right, you may have noticed the year is 5516, at least, since yesterday was the winter soltice, it was also the first day of the new year on the Aymara calendar. The Aymara make up a great deal of Bolivia´s population, and are one of the reasons for the incredible indigenous vitality and cultural power of the country. They live mainly around Lago Titicaca and La Paz, and south into the Altiplano. The classic bowler hats and giant dresses also come from the Aymara. I´m trying to learn Aymara right now, but it´s a bit different, as you can guess.

Anyways, I should really take some time to talk a lot about the Aymara people, but for now, here is a pretty bad video of my work place.

Please ignore the greasy filthy hair. I know, I know, but there are very few showers in El Alto, and veeery few with water above freezing, and that just does not make your whites whiter and your brights brighter.

I´m not in El Alto actually, but a pueblito forty minutes south. The view is great, but I think the shot from this video makes the town seem much more developed than it is. The house is going up really quickly, I wish I had a photo from the first day to compare already, but the progress is remarkable. I have certainly had my reservations about Habitat, mainly because they´re Christian, but also standard questions about ngo efficiency and utility.

This has been a very good example of what a ngo is, and isn´t. Habitat is barely a drop in the bucket with so much poverty, but no one thinks they´re saving the world. There are 5 guys at the site with me, all very Bolivian, and no other volunteers or administration. The main office in El Alto is suitably dumpy, and yet the program is building ten houses in El Alto right now, and dozens more across the country. That is very impressive. Plus, God hasn´t been seen so far.

Anyone out there who is giving to Habitat, don´t worry about your money, it´s being used very well.

Okay, I found a new hostal in the Ceja of El Alto where people don´t try to break into my room in the middle of the night and I don´t sleep with a knife and the bathrooms aren´t filled with blood, so that´s nice. However, still incredibly poor, so no phone calls for a while. Or postcards. Or meals. No, no, kidding.

Chala, tengo que ir,

Ñick.

p.s. It took a little less time to upload the video than I thought, so I´ll upload some of the actually cool videos I have. This also just proves again that the internet in Australia is being beaten by Rural Mexico and The Slums of Bolivia. No worries.

El Alto - June 19th

Hola todo.

Let´s seeeeee. Alright, so Jess had to go home Monday, which was rather a pathetic sad day, and frankly the dinner conversation has really gone downhill.

Me: Munch munch munch

Brain: No one likes you.

Anyways.

As most know, getting even the simplest things done in a foreign country, in a different language, is far more difficult than one is used to. It gets so that the laundry list of traveling errands becomes a monthly notepad, only dented by including such items as: Write list, have pen, and, be an idiot in Spanish.

Today I finally accomplished the impossible by clearing up some banking matters in Australia, a task that normally I would allot thirty minutes, but has taken me at least three months. I know this is not interesting, but in the wood-paneled den of my life, there is a dusty bowling trophy rewarded this task.

Also, on Tuesday I had my long awaited second meeting with MSF to say hi, and learn a bit more about how exactly to get this job I want. I was somewhere close to ridiculously nervous, because the language we were to be talking in results in intelligent remarks from me about 10% of the time, stupidity bordering on galactic 20% of the time, and the rest is almost assuredly a blank face, nodding, with lots of Hmmmms and So, claro....

Anyways, it went well, and both Tom, who´d I met before, and Camilo, the head logistician, were super cool and even went so far, (I would say too far), to express surprise at how good my Spanish was. That was when I knew they were lying men who could not be trusted, but I foiled whatever plot they had constructed with another carefully placed ¨Hmmmm.¨

Today, was able to finally find the Habitat for Humanity office, which rests somewhere in the cleft of dimensions, as not one of hundreds of people would admit that the street the office was on even exists, and would, in fact vehemently deny the possibility, as if I was polling Bolivians about their feelings on capitalism. I would rate the task of finding this building, which has occured for several days, at the level of epic. But all went all, and tomorrow I should start doing a bit of work in my two favorite areas, construction and human rights.

Oh yah! And finally, I´ve moved to El Alto, the vast, sprawling city that sits on the canyon rim above La Paz. It´s the fastest growing city in South America, and that isn´t exactly a good thing, as the whole city is essentially a slum, hence, Habitat.

No photos yet, since whipping out a camera here would be testament to great insensitivity and RobMeNow vibes, but here are some from the net.

The graffiti reads, kind of, El Alto stands, never kneels.

On that note, the graffiti here is unbelievable, as far as messages. From super radical feminest messages to day-to-day political slogans, there are quite a few that hit home.

There is something very beautiful about living in a place where the government graffiti slogan´s are: ¨The Revolution Advances¨, ¨Live with Dignity¨, ¨Bolivia is Changing¨

Still, I saw a painted billboard today that struck me down. To my memory...

¨Bolivia, be proud! We have proved an Aymara man is better than the system!¨

ñ

Que Triste - June 16th, 2008

sigh

Jess had to fly home today to be with her family, there is so much going on in the Arczynski realm, including the arrival of Penelope, the newest of the growing girl horde. Thus, I am suddenly all by my lonesome in Bolivia for the next month and a half.

Truly I am without my better half at the moment, and a little love sick. Also, I just seem less respectable.

I´ve got quite a few plans on the go now, I suppose I´ll know more by Wednesday.

Nick.

Picture This - June 11th, 2008

Hey hey party people.

Rather than upload a couple of pictures to this space, I managed to get quite a few online at the photo album. There is a link on the bottom right, or just here I guess, www.viasolus.myphotoalbum.com

If you haven´t been there for a while, then I don´t think anything´s changed! All the new stuff is captioned, but there´s about a small mountain of photos left to upload. But hey, everything is mountains here.

Chala,
Nick

El Lago - June 10th, 2008

Wha? What happened, one minute it´s all calm on the La Paz front, and the next thing I know I´m chopping down jungle with a machete. Nine days as the guest of a crazed Belgian named Bruno, a midnight escape, and we managed to hook up with the excellent Haligonian Andrew Fanning, my dear friend from the east coast.

We´ve just said farewell to him to him here again in the bustling streets of La Paz, after an incredible jaunt to Coroico and Lake Titicaca. That´s right, the funny name you´ve been joking about your whole life.

As for tonight things are running pretty loud and crazy, with lots of change up in the air but little in my pockets. Here are a couple of ridiculous photos, one of the ridiculous beauty of Lago Titicaca, and one the ridiculous nature of my jungle fantasies.

Details tomorrow,

Ciao.

Ñ