A fugitive from a killer. A remote outpost. A fight to the death.

One of Evo’s unpopular new laws was the ban on imported cars from Japan that are over five years old. Reports suggest that previous unregulated car importation has transformed access to public transport throughout the country. More cars, more rides. But also more traffic, more pollution. Meanwhile, there are micros which continue to thrive in Cochabamba, and most other major cities in Bolivia, that look as though they have been around since the seventies.

It is very possible that these were imported from overseas as a hand-me-downs but I cannot find any articles to confirm this. These vehicles recall the yellow school buses from the United States but have stylized paint work and elaborate hood ornaments like the Jeepney in the Philippines.

The paint jobs are all the same and only vary in terms of color scheme; blue-red, green, blue and orange-red. When you get on the bus you can always tell were the owner is from as the front windscreens are covered in stickers of Bolivian football teams (usually Bolivar).

To individualize the buses the owners also add their own personal touches. A lot of buses have images of Freddy Krueger or wolves painted on the back of the bus. My favorite personalization is the Legionnaire themed bus I saw a couple of weeks ago. Why throw-back to the 80s with Freddy Krueger when you could throw-back to a late 90s, Claude Van Damme, straight-to-video classic like this? The best part is the guy must have had this costom made. Today the colors are sun faded, but the quest for freedom continues.

I've never seen a Prime Minister of New Zealand

This week was the 200 year anniversary of Cochabamba. So not surprisingly we were treated to more marching bands and more public holidays. The event did provide us with one unique opportunity. Evo Morales acknowledged the day by gracing the Cochabambinos with his presence. This was a stroke of luck for me because I really wanted to see him in the flesh and I thought it would never happen. I felt especially lucky about this when I heard he had declined to attend the Santa Cruz annual event.

It is likely that this was because Santa Cruz is part of the Media Luna region which does not have a lot of affection for El Preseidente. In fact they hate him, more or less, in those parts. Evo is busy representing an indigenous majority meanwhile people in Santa Cruz, who are predominately mestizo and progressive/modern, do not agree with his policies.

That is not to say people love him in Cochabamba. There is plenty of graffiti about the town that says "Evo Cabron", "Evo Culo", "Asesino Evo" and "Vota NO". These comments are routinely supported by locals that we chat with. While they do not want to kill him they do not rate him and are looking forward to the day he is out of office. This is also supported by Facebook Data Mining that gives me suggestions to join groups like You Do Not Know HOW MUCH I hate Evo Morales. This surely reflects the inclinations of (the everyday, normal) Bolivians who I am connected to on that site.

Me personally, I can't get with that. There is no doubt he is an average politician and has made mistakes but he has also done some cool stuff. Like the new Constitution that acknowledges the indigenous diversity (plurinational) of the country and more recently the work he is doing to change the media's practice of describing campesinos in defamatory ways. On this latter point I am a little strident. Surely the fact that he needs to pass this law reflects the everydayness of racism here and highlights why people in Santa Cruz fail to connect with his position.

Whatever the case it was really fun to see the president march through Cochabamba this week. It was a really hot day and it must have been hard work walking the streets. The other thing that was great was the support Evo got on his march. Everyone was running up the street cheering for him and chanting his name. I had a big cheesy grin on my face and skipped up through the crowd trying to get a decent photo of the man. It was so refreshing to be around Bolivians actually supporting their president. The reality is that I have not seen Bolivians outwardly supporting him in all my travels. As such I now have a small, but important, bit of context on Bolivia. There are some people living in a city that like who they have running the country.

20 photos to and from work: Saturday 11 September

Walking to and from Performing Life

On my walks this week I have taken a some of photos in an attempt to capture the everydayness of life for Sarah and I. Absent here are a couple of subjects I wanted to shoot but couldn't. The first is the Potosi beggars (grandmothers with their grandchildren). The second was an image of an older man sitting in a park throwing popcorn to the pigeons. I am still not comfortable shooting the former (and there are enough photos on the Internet anyway) and on the latter... well, I wish I had but at the time did not want to abuse his privacy.

The one thing I have not been able to capture - that I wanted to - is the bird life in Cochabamba. At the moment there appears to be a migration happening due to the change of season. Sadly my camera and my ability as a photographer have not allowed me to frame this part of the city.

Seeing is believing: Friday 10 September

Thoughts you have when you are leaving

Sarah mentioned to me that I needed to buy some toilet paper today. The mundane nature of that task combined with the year in South America coming to an end (and possibly the influence of watching the first 20 minutes of 2012 last night) got me thinking about the toilet and its place in our life.

But first some background: Travelers

Ask any traveler and they will concur. It happens about ten minutes after a group of them sit down together. They will start going through the motions (pun intended); relating what they have been doing and where they are going next. Then something else happens. Without noticing 45 minutes will have passed and the group will have only just started to realize they have, unabatedly, talked about feces and piss that entire time.

The script for talking about your own excrement normally follows along the following lines:

• The psychological trauma of having severe diarrhea for more than a week
• The profundity of having a solid shit after two weeks of diarrhea
• The worst toilet you ever encountered and had to use (AKA “Excuse to Let People Know You Were in South East Asia Once”)
• The most exposed place you ever had to relieve yourself in
• “This one time on the bus”
• And finally, a half hour digression about how you cannot believe you have just talked about your own piss and shit for so long…

This is a typical meet-and-greet traveler’s conversation. I would not blame anyone thinking that this is either a “tall story” or on the other end of the spectrum “typical, puerile and tedious”. Only the latter is true. It is what it is.

Back to Sarah’s request: What doesn’t seem to get talked about

The first custom you have to get used to in Latin America is throwing you toilet paper in the bin next to the bowl instead of in it (apparently the pipes just cannot handle the excess waste). This is more difficult to do than you might first imagine for three reasons.

The first is that you do not realize how programmed to the practice of ripping, wiping and dropping. Initially you believe that you will stick with your own custom because not flushing it seems unhygienic. Then you start realize that dropping it might lead to the cubicle being flooded with water from a full bowl so you don’t take the risk. The third hurdle to get over is the simple fact that it is reflexive to drop it in the bowl. One of the weirdest conversations you have with yourself in Latin American (after having accidently dropped some paper in the bowl) is “do I pick up that up to avoid the embarrassment of making an unwanted mess here or do I hope like crazy that this thing goes down”. Outside you hear waiters rushing around and a car murmur past the building but there you are, squinting, still wondering what to do.

Anyway. You eventually get used to sitting next to basket of other peoples shit-smeared toilet paper and its presence barely causes you to flinch. It is what happens next that is fascinating to me.

After you drop your paper in the basket you stand up and then lean over to the cistern and flush. Through this act of flushing you naturally glance at the waste. This was the thought that struck me this morning when Sarah she asked me to go to the store. For all my life I have never really looked at my own feces. Now, in September of 2010 in Bolivia, Cochabamba I realize I have, everyday (more or less) for ten months been looking at my own shit. Back home this was not even an issue. It was always covered with the discarded paper.

Something for the marketing team

We travel the world to see new things and experience new cultures. And to not have to work. Maybe this isn’t Machu Picchu but I assert that this is one of the most unexpected and interesting views going. Nothing puts you in touch with your own eating patterns, habits and general health than looking at your fresh turd floating in the bowl. Have I gotten accustomed to this? I really don’t know. But the thing that strikes me about this is that while this is not the Galápagos Islands it is something cultural that I can take home with me. Not a photo, not a colloquialism and not souvenir from a shop.

No milk today: Thursday 09 September

The day ran out and there is no time to write a blog but some how it has ended with my brain on ice and watching 2012.

We are in Bolivia… they are in Christchurch after the quake: Wednesday 08 September

After I got over my irritation surrounding (a) The Heralds over-reporting on the earthquake (what do sales figures do after a national disaster?) (b) John Keys demagogic rhetoric about staying in New Zealand instead of going to Europe (why was this even a question) (c) the Save National Radio Facebook groups sanctimonious comment that it is “times like this that people realize what a national treasure this service is and that it must be protected from the tinkering ideologues” (and I love the National Radio) and (d) somnolent articles that assert that “researchers” have figured out that the timing of the earthquake and the level of poverty in Haiti led it to be a much “deadlier” earthquake (thanks for the insight The Researchers) I finally got to wondering about this whole deal.

OK, on that last one I am still irked. A more bald fact could not be present in this situation. I do not see why I should have to accept such shallow reportage on something so serious.

In Bolivia both Sarah and I have been surprised about how many people have asked us about the quake and, of course, if any of our family has been affected. A fair question to ask. Our reaction: on the one hand we both have an unearned sense of pride that someone is asking about our own country and on the other we are unable to fully appreciate the reality of the disaster and therefore give a solid answer with a fitting tone. What is unique about this situation is our distance; figuratively and literally. While Sarah has family in Christchurch we know that they are OK so there is only a moderate level of concern for their wellbeing.

In actuality this event reminds me that we are disconnected. Sarah and I are not part of the day-to-day national discourse about the recovery effort or the sharing of stories of family and friends whose lives have been forever changed by this. We did not grow up or spend “special times” in that part of the world to link us to the place. Consequently, when someone asks us about the quake we are only able to give dry answers with little feeling or context. We are part of the periphery on this one with the rest of the world.

Being on the periphery has been interesting (in no way do I say “interesting” to trivialize the suffering of real people in Canterbury). People are checking the papers from their home towns or cities and reporting back to us what they have read about New Zealand and we in turn are doing the same. Our discourse about the quake relates to that of what other foreigners ask and know. The only advantage we have is that we can also refer to Facebook ‘status updates’ to get an edge on what people are experiencing.

It is this last point that genuinely pleases me. Facebook gets a lot of (warranted) flack. On this occasion I have welcomed seeing status updates from the whole gamut. Like the girl I worked with five years ago who is having a cupcake sale to raise money. Or hearing from people who live in Christchurch casually refer to aftershocks without the heavy-handed emotional style that I would have endured on the six o’clock news. The media is never going to be democratic or egalitarian but at least these days we don’t have to only listen to the Herald for a view on what is happening on the ground level.

Jeezum Crow: Tuesday 07 September

Today I walked to work listening to Steppin Out by Joe Jackson and found the new entry from TONY along the way. It was in a new area too. I really hope this guy continues this trend for at least the next month; consistency will elevate this average (though competent) stencil style to something bigger and better. The new location of the stencil makes my imagination run wild. I want this TONY project to be as wacky as wacky as the alleged Hexagram Murders.

As I dreamt about this stupid idea a lady strolled toward me walking her dog. A dog on a leash is a conspicuous sight in this part of the world. As it turns out this well-heeled dog skipped up to me and attempted to bite my leg. I was so mad but in the moment did not react (I think, absurdly, that I didn't want to give the dog the pleasure of seeing my surprise). All the meanwhile the lady just kept on walking, did not acknowledge me, did not say sorry or look over her shoulder. Ha ha [...] I was livid.

They day finished up with a rendezvous with Ken Moody. We met Ken via some friends who knew him through the Maryknoll Institute. On this occasion Ken invited us out to see the group Awatiñas. Great to finally see a classic, traditional, Bolivian band play live. On more than one occasion we had made plans to see Bolivia's most famous act, Los Kjarkas, play but it never happened. I am convinced that Ken does not have a lot of dough. Despite this he paid for our tickets into this show anyway thus providing some symmetry in the day following the petty confrontation in the morning.

Days go by… coun’nem: Monday 06 September 2010

Today I finally found myself back at Casa Cuna. This turned out to be a downbeat visit. Virginia said that she thought I wasn’t going to come back. This made me feel lame but only for a moment. I soon felt even worse was when she told me why they asked me back. They had a present for me.

The present was a hand painted (by Virginia) length of cotton detailing men and woman in traditional Bolivian dress. A thoughtful gift and one that would have taken a lot of effort to complete. There is a lot of detail on this thing.

Besides this Israel looked morose and didn’t want to talk much. He looked lonely. But I am projecting with that; pure conjecture. I do not know what was up with the dude. Virginia gave me some papaya and told me that they are still waiting (until October now) to find out if they are going to get the kids back. Make of this situation what you will… what do you say. Keep hope alive and stop living in the past?

They are good people at Casa Cuna so it was nice to see them. Despite this the overriding feeling after the visit was sadness. It was hours later until I felt better. It took an afternoon run up the Cristo and some wind in my face. After the run I tried to think of something to do to break up my routine. Something new to create modicum of spontaneity in the day. The best I could come up with was buying a Paderborner Brauere from Super Hass instead of Taquiña from the lady on the corner.