Departures are never easy and although I wasn´t the one to go, saying goodbye to the others and finishing such a huge amount of work was quite emotional. The end of the prgoram here was made better by a lovely farewell fiesta we had at Ismael´s. After getting lost at the market and running like crazy to make it to the premier of our documentary on time I walked down Ismael´s street exhausted. I could hear Lupe, his wife´s Hari Krishna music blaring from the outdoor speakers. My family here calls Ismael and Lupe bohemian´s with a flavor of criticism. They aren´t wrong though. I guess it is all about perspective. The joy and ecclectic worldview that the two of them share are quite lovley to behold.
We showed the film in their Tai Chi room, sitting on soft pillows in our socks (which is only strange because Bolvians never take off their shoes...walking in socks or barefoot causes illness...they tell me). The families and friends recieved our work very well and we were all relieved to have finished on such a good note. We began the after party with a Qóa, an offering to the Pachamama, mother earth. The four of us students and aspiring documentarists held the corners of a large green paper. On top it was covered in confetti, coca leaves and prayers. We lowered it into the fire and each took turns pouring a bit of chicha to the four corners than taking a swig calling out, Jallalla (ahyaya) Alleluia! Then the dancing began. For hours we circled around the patio laughing, stepping to the rhtyhm. Each of our host fathers in turn took us into the middle of the circle to give us a twirl. It was a beautiful night.
I am excited to begin a new kind of observaiton here that will also be participant but in different ways. I´ve been focusing so much on capturing - images, experiences, words etc. in the past few weeks and working hard to compile them all, no matter how imperfect. I´m looking forward to having time to visit a few more places here, to reflect on all the work and continue a bit of Spanish learning before heading back. So many things about this journey so far have been imperfect, miscommunications, language barriers, technical difficulties and the list goes on but in many ways that has made it more interesting at the very least, if not more beautiful.
The excursions to come promise more beauty.
Love to all!
Nora
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Waterfalls and Politics
There´s a rooster here that crows in the morning before the sun comes up. It seems I´ve been awake early enough quite a few times to hear him.But as soon as daylight breaks it´s quiet for at least an hour, no rooster and osmetimes even no dogs barking while the day begins in the Northeastern barrio of Cochabamba. This weekend I was up before dawn to trekk out to an amazing waterfall about three hours from the city. Carmen, my sister and her chico brought me along with some o the others. My arm is a bit bruised from the ride, constantly hitting the metal bar at my side as we charged over craters, potholes and roe through places with no roads really at all. Somebody told me recently that only 20% of the roads in Bolivia are paved. I beliee them and have the warwounds to prove it!
We climbed into the side of amoutnian over rocks and rivers exclaiming at the beauty until we came to the atually falls and were taken a back by the raging crystal waters that seem to fall from the sky. We spent the rest of the afternoon chatting and sleeping by a river at the foot of the mountain while sheep and cows grazed nearby. It was heavenly, like some other world!
Politics are stirring up some tension these days as they usually are here but especially because in a couple of weeks the government is holding a coutnrywide referendum for the president and all of the governors. It is kind of Evo´s democratic response to a pontential coup. Politics are so intertwined with bloodlines and ancestory that unfortunatley there is still a lot of bloodshed on behalf of political opinion. Opinionated, I htink is a good word to use to describe many o the bolivians I have met and spent time with. It is not at all about everyone having their own opinion but rather giving your life, fighting as hard as you can for what you think is just. This kind of passion is both inspiring and overwhelming. It is very different coming from a country, or better to say, an upbringing that values intellectual respet for the individual. Of course respect is a strong Bolivian value but it seems to have familial and communal identity as its back bone instead of individualism.
This idea f community is on of the pillars of our doucmentary taht for being relatively short is an increible amount of work. This final week is the most intense yet. Finishing a project like this often is overwhelming but the hardest part has been balancing workload with family obligations and still having a few adventures here and there. This family has been really wonderful to me but also more or less the most ifficult part of being here. I´ve esperienced some of this before as an exchange student and on other travels but not quite so accutely. It is very hard to become accustomed to the problems of another family. Ligia is always telling me things I´m not supposed to know or tell the others.It´s a funny obligation and I often miss my independence. And yet, it will be strange to say goodbye at the end of this week because all challenges included, I have become somehow accostumed to this little life I am leading here in Cochabamba. Small details like family struggles, editing one clip for hours, trying to find the right bus to the right part of the city etc. all make me feel like I have been here forever living a small, present life. But truly time has flown by.
Much Love,
N
We climbed into the side of amoutnian over rocks and rivers exclaiming at the beauty until we came to the atually falls and were taken a back by the raging crystal waters that seem to fall from the sky. We spent the rest of the afternoon chatting and sleeping by a river at the foot of the mountain while sheep and cows grazed nearby. It was heavenly, like some other world!
Politics are stirring up some tension these days as they usually are here but especially because in a couple of weeks the government is holding a coutnrywide referendum for the president and all of the governors. It is kind of Evo´s democratic response to a pontential coup. Politics are so intertwined with bloodlines and ancestory that unfortunatley there is still a lot of bloodshed on behalf of political opinion. Opinionated, I htink is a good word to use to describe many o the bolivians I have met and spent time with. It is not at all about everyone having their own opinion but rather giving your life, fighting as hard as you can for what you think is just. This kind of passion is both inspiring and overwhelming. It is very different coming from a country, or better to say, an upbringing that values intellectual respet for the individual. Of course respect is a strong Bolivian value but it seems to have familial and communal identity as its back bone instead of individualism.
This idea f community is on of the pillars of our doucmentary taht for being relatively short is an increible amount of work. This final week is the most intense yet. Finishing a project like this often is overwhelming but the hardest part has been balancing workload with family obligations and still having a few adventures here and there. This family has been really wonderful to me but also more or less the most ifficult part of being here. I´ve esperienced some of this before as an exchange student and on other travels but not quite so accutely. It is very hard to become accustomed to the problems of another family. Ligia is always telling me things I´m not supposed to know or tell the others.It´s a funny obligation and I often miss my independence. And yet, it will be strange to say goodbye at the end of this week because all challenges included, I have become somehow accostumed to this little life I am leading here in Cochabamba. Small details like family struggles, editing one clip for hours, trying to find the right bus to the right part of the city etc. all make me feel like I have been here forever living a small, present life. But truly time has flown by.
Much Love,
N
Friday, July 18, 2008
Going to the Doctor and Making the Movie
I finally convinced myself to visit el medico yesterday and was diagnosed with an advanced sinus infection which,sorry if this is too much info for some, unfortunately has included its fare share of bloody noses which can be quite painful up a few thousand feet in the mountains. But I´m stocked up on meds and tissues now and feel better just knowing what it is. Editing continues in all its glory and pain. We´ve been trying to split up our days - a few hours editing, a few hours at the market or exlporing parts of the city the other girls want to see before we wrap things up next week and they head back up North. It is a grueling process to go through days worth of footage and synthesize it into a 20 mintue doc using the best of our material if we can. Though yesterday our profesor Ismael, former rockstar, current tai chi master, former exile, current filmmaker, told us that we sometimes have to kill our darlings, cut our favorite clips from the movie for clarity or continuity. Killing your darlings feels just about as awful as it sounds. Below I´ve included a little clip that actually is making the movie. I tried to upload a little preview of some footage but my goodness it is just to glitchy at this internet cafe. I´ll look forward to sharing more pictures and videos in mid August.
Life continues South of the Equator, N
Life continues South of the Equator, N
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Bolivian Prose...
This Kitchen Table:
We sit at the kitchen table at dusk
and they tell me secrets I can´t understand.
We sip tea with sugar
and spread fruit on stale bread.
They say there are tigers by the Amazon.
They tell me this is the richest country in the world.
In the mornings we sit at this table,
same cups, same people, same bread
and we stare at the steam from the hot water, keeping our secrets to ourselves,
holding onto our dreams from the night before
while the parrots are just waking in the tree outside
and a Mexican man preaches about Jesus on the radio.
I´ve been learning what to call each dish as we lunch together everyday
for hours - joking, teasing.
Sometimes I laugh and everyone winks. I don´t understand their secrets,
though everything I do understand comes from hours spent sipping tea,
eating stale bread, the laughter, the winking and the silence
that wait at this kitchen table.
Kitchen Tablle II:
Let me tell you a story
is always how meals begin
and hours later even the food and the drink are forgotten.
Hours later I sometimes have forgotten how to smile,
trying to console a broken hearted woman in Spanish,
or explain to her that I can´t stay here forever
because more than anything else, I don´t want to.
Instead I tell her how grateful I am for her gifts to me
and how sorry that life is so hard.
After lunch I drink a ritual cup of coffee with her husband.
He tells me what its like to mine gold
and that he used to drink his cafe con cognac to keep warm on the job.
But really he loves to drink chicha.
In the afternoons we drink our coffee black,
no alcohol, no milk, sometimes a teaspoon of sugar.
Since he´s too old to keep working coffe is the new gold.
There´s a man whos sells the best coffee in Bolivia, he tells me,
somewhere on the street.
He pours hot water in the cups while he steeps rich dark grounds
in a small pitcher by the stove.
I stare into black water.
Somewhere in the distance I hear him laughing.
He told me something funny.
I lift my head from the grounds, and here we are again in the kithcen.
The faucet still dripping even though the water´s been off for days,
raw meat and the bread machine on the counter.
I steal a glance at the cacao fruit sitting in a basket by the door.
I can taste it´s sweetseeds on the back of my tongue.
I return to the conversation and offer back a little chuckle,
not wanting to laugh too hard at soemthing I didn´t really get.
I´m not sure he knows I´m lost to his stories, though I´ve learned the nuances of his accent.
They still seem like secrets, just waiting to be discovered
right across the kitchen table.
We sit at the kitchen table at dusk
and they tell me secrets I can´t understand.
We sip tea with sugar
and spread fruit on stale bread.
They say there are tigers by the Amazon.
They tell me this is the richest country in the world.
In the mornings we sit at this table,
same cups, same people, same bread
and we stare at the steam from the hot water, keeping our secrets to ourselves,
holding onto our dreams from the night before
while the parrots are just waking in the tree outside
and a Mexican man preaches about Jesus on the radio.
I´ve been learning what to call each dish as we lunch together everyday
for hours - joking, teasing.
Sometimes I laugh and everyone winks. I don´t understand their secrets,
though everything I do understand comes from hours spent sipping tea,
eating stale bread, the laughter, the winking and the silence
that wait at this kitchen table.
Kitchen Tablle II:
Let me tell you a story
is always how meals begin
and hours later even the food and the drink are forgotten.
Hours later I sometimes have forgotten how to smile,
trying to console a broken hearted woman in Spanish,
or explain to her that I can´t stay here forever
because more than anything else, I don´t want to.
Instead I tell her how grateful I am for her gifts to me
and how sorry that life is so hard.
After lunch I drink a ritual cup of coffee with her husband.
He tells me what its like to mine gold
and that he used to drink his cafe con cognac to keep warm on the job.
But really he loves to drink chicha.
In the afternoons we drink our coffee black,
no alcohol, no milk, sometimes a teaspoon of sugar.
Since he´s too old to keep working coffe is the new gold.
There´s a man whos sells the best coffee in Bolivia, he tells me,
somewhere on the street.
He pours hot water in the cups while he steeps rich dark grounds
in a small pitcher by the stove.
I stare into black water.
Somewhere in the distance I hear him laughing.
He told me something funny.
I lift my head from the grounds, and here we are again in the kithcen.
The faucet still dripping even though the water´s been off for days,
raw meat and the bread machine on the counter.
I steal a glance at the cacao fruit sitting in a basket by the door.
I can taste it´s sweetseeds on the back of my tongue.
I return to the conversation and offer back a little chuckle,
not wanting to laugh too hard at soemthing I didn´t really get.
I´m not sure he knows I´m lost to his stories, though I´ve learned the nuances of his accent.
They still seem like secrets, just waiting to be discovered
right across the kitchen table.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Adventures Part II: Sacred Lakes and Ancient Ruins
Before I went to Copacabana it seemed silly that no one could describe it as anything other than un sueño, a dream. But having visited this pueblo on the highest navigable lake in the world, I can now understand why. This beautiful, dark blue water that by day sparkles as if it were a field of diamonds and glows like the moon by night is where it is believed human beings sprung forth into being. And truly there is something very powerful about this place where incredible myths and legends are known to come from.
We took a boat out onto the lake one of the days we were up there to Isla del Sol where the sun is said to have lived when the whole world was still dark. On one of the pathways you can see two enormous footprints where the sun leaped from this island to the sky and thus the world began. We hiked around the entire island, which is quite large, through deserted mountaintops and two tiny pueblos, one that relies on farming fields terraced against the mountainside and another on fishing. We ate amazing fresh trout and tiny fish - whole bodies, eyes ad everything. After lunch we hiked some more then took the boat to a sacred island where we jumped into the freezing cold water. Seriously I think the water may have been just above freezing!. As I struggled to surface from a rather harsh and deep plunge I felt lucky to be treading in the sacred waters of el Lago de Titicaca, though it was a very scary jump and it took me hours to catch my breath.
It is not easy to stay healthy while traveling and already I have been sick twice. I´m sure the cold waters didn´t help, even if I am a little sacred now. This time around it is just a head cold instead of a stomach infection which was not as romantic as it sounds in Garcia-Marquez novels. But the added pressure of this cold on top of the altitude made our visit to the ancient ruins of Tiawanaku particularly surreal. There is a saying here for when you are feeling totally spaced out which is, estoy en la luna. It really did feel like I was on the moon, walking back in time, clay and copper underfoot in a feverish daze.
Tiawanaku is a fascinating place. I learned that the time of the Incas was actually quite short in Bolvia´s history. In reality the Tiawanakus lived here for about 27 centuries before being taken over by the Incan Empire. Many archeologists compare the Tiawanakus to the Greeks and the Incas to the Romans. The Incas are so well known because they are the people the Spaniards first encountered here. Can you imagine windows, tables and temples still standing today so many centuries later? Structures, tools and bones are still being excavated in these parts.
This week we are beginning to log and edit our footage.The studies here have been and continue to be incredible and incredibly exhausting. I have had moments, especially while ill where I have thought it´d just be easier to hop on a plane and spend the rest of the summer relaxing in the Northeast but ultimately I am grateful to have these courses here and the time afterwards to do a little more traveling. I´m like a rubberband without any give...my mind keeps stretching and stretching.
Here´s to getting healthy!
We took a boat out onto the lake one of the days we were up there to Isla del Sol where the sun is said to have lived when the whole world was still dark. On one of the pathways you can see two enormous footprints where the sun leaped from this island to the sky and thus the world began. We hiked around the entire island, which is quite large, through deserted mountaintops and two tiny pueblos, one that relies on farming fields terraced against the mountainside and another on fishing. We ate amazing fresh trout and tiny fish - whole bodies, eyes ad everything. After lunch we hiked some more then took the boat to a sacred island where we jumped into the freezing cold water. Seriously I think the water may have been just above freezing!. As I struggled to surface from a rather harsh and deep plunge I felt lucky to be treading in the sacred waters of el Lago de Titicaca, though it was a very scary jump and it took me hours to catch my breath.
It is not easy to stay healthy while traveling and already I have been sick twice. I´m sure the cold waters didn´t help, even if I am a little sacred now. This time around it is just a head cold instead of a stomach infection which was not as romantic as it sounds in Garcia-Marquez novels. But the added pressure of this cold on top of the altitude made our visit to the ancient ruins of Tiawanaku particularly surreal. There is a saying here for when you are feeling totally spaced out which is, estoy en la luna. It really did feel like I was on the moon, walking back in time, clay and copper underfoot in a feverish daze.
Tiawanaku is a fascinating place. I learned that the time of the Incas was actually quite short in Bolvia´s history. In reality the Tiawanakus lived here for about 27 centuries before being taken over by the Incan Empire. Many archeologists compare the Tiawanakus to the Greeks and the Incas to the Romans. The Incas are so well known because they are the people the Spaniards first encountered here. Can you imagine windows, tables and temples still standing today so many centuries later? Structures, tools and bones are still being excavated in these parts.
This week we are beginning to log and edit our footage.The studies here have been and continue to be incredible and incredibly exhausting. I have had moments, especially while ill where I have thought it´d just be easier to hop on a plane and spend the rest of the summer relaxing in the Northeast but ultimately I am grateful to have these courses here and the time afterwards to do a little more traveling. I´m like a rubberband without any give...my mind keeps stretching and stretching.
Here´s to getting healthy!
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Recent Adventures Part I: La Paz y El Alto
They call La Paz un gran hueco, a big empty basket. It is an enormous valley in the Andes. The center of the city rests over 1,000ft below the rim where El Alto makes up more than 1 million of the inhabitants of this area. El Alto, the so called rim ofthis bakset, has grown exponentially in the last 20 yers by immigration in from el campo. This land up above seems infinitely expanisve. There is hardly any access to water or electricity and it seems that in reality if you just squished all the people in the countryside together and hardly changed their routines or customs it would becom this sort of coutnry-city mix. The world feels extrememly different 12,000ft in the air, I often felt like I was drowning just trying to breath in a bit of oxygen. The specificity of this city is also quite tangible. The poverty and crime in El Alto ar enoromous social hurdles and many of the people here struggle on a daily basis to feed themselves and their children. In places of xtreme struggle it seems there are often counterparts of equal beauty. While in La Paz last week, Emily, a delightful and hardworking young woman from South Carolina, jumped on a microbus and wound our way up to El Alto to take some footage of a children playing music and dancing at a cultural center that we had heard about. We eventually found it hiden in a small building of the road where dogs were figthing, children sitting on hte stoops of their hubles casitas, the sun beating down ith undesirable force. The cultural center opens its doors to all the children of El Alto, Many of whom line on the streets and have had to leave elementary school to work (which could be anything from selling gum and cigarettes on the street, yelling out prices and destinations of the micros to robbing...just to make ends meet, narely). I as amazed by these children. They greeted us joyfully and were excited t oplay the songs they had been learning. One young boy told me that he loved music for the rhythm. He grabbed my hand and brought me to the patio where he began to dance and asked if I would film him.
Bolivia is a very unique country in many ways - historically, politically, culturally. The longer I m here the harder it is to reconcile class and race discrepencies that not only exist between Bolivia and the rest of the world but also in between social groups in country. The intensity of different experiences and concepts of life are potent and often feel like insurmountable barriers. Last week a woman wouldn´t sell me bananas because I am a gringa. I left her shop with a stomachache but ultimately can´t justify feeling sorry for myself in the face of the struggle that woman and many others I have met here eal with every day. It is equally unhelpful to feel sorry for those who live that struggle. It is not the first time I have felt this way whiel traveling and I suppose what I have learned before and am learning again is the value in bearing witness to these kinds of challenges and hoping that good intentions can carry you at least part of the way to some form of understanding.
To be continued...
Bolivia is a very unique country in many ways - historically, politically, culturally. The longer I m here the harder it is to reconcile class and race discrepencies that not only exist between Bolivia and the rest of the world but also in between social groups in country. The intensity of different experiences and concepts of life are potent and often feel like insurmountable barriers. Last week a woman wouldn´t sell me bananas because I am a gringa. I left her shop with a stomachache but ultimately can´t justify feeling sorry for myself in the face of the struggle that woman and many others I have met here eal with every day. It is equally unhelpful to feel sorry for those who live that struggle. It is not the first time I have felt this way whiel traveling and I suppose what I have learned before and am learning again is the value in bearing witness to these kinds of challenges and hoping that good intentions can carry you at least part of the way to some form of understanding.
To be continued...
Friday, July 4, 2008
Subtitles
Couldn´t figure out how to title each picture so what you have below are vistas of the Andes around Cochabamba, a few shots of the city, the solstice celebration, farmer´s market en el campo, musicians,a couple photos of other students, and a few shots from El Alto (the city above La Paz...12,000 ft!). Enjoy! Much Love, N
ps- In the first picture I am standing next to my little brother, Juan. I´ll try to include more family photos next time for those of you who are interested...mom.
ps- In the first picture I am standing next to my little brother, Juan. I´ll try to include more family photos next time for those of you who are interested...mom.
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