Last Minute Sightseeing

Hey everyone!

I am currently sitting in the foyer to my hotel because the internet in my room somehow got worse overnight. Yes, I am that dedicated to updating this blog.

Well, ok.. really I'm just bored. I went out for a bit yesterday but I'm not feeling great and I'm trying to rest up so that I can be 100% in Spain. So, I've been avoiding going out in the cold as much as possible. I keep waking up feeling like my tonsils are still there because it hurts to swallow. After having a couple cups of tea it feels better. But where was I...ah yes, the blog! I wanted to share with you all some pictures from this past Saturday! As I told you the other day I went to the Catacombs and two museums. The number of pictures I can put up will depend on how slow the internet is down here.

First of all, I should explain what the Catacombs are. I'm just going to say what I can remember from reading a few signs while we were there, and from what I saw for myself. The Catacombs is really one thing, so I'm going to use "is" instead of "are." The Catacombs is a series of underground tunnels that was built a few centuries ago by quarry diggers in France. Because of some incident, all of the bodies buried in the cemetery of innocents had to be dug up and placed somewhere else. There was either a flood..or overcrowding..or something. They started burying all the dead people in these underground tunnels, and families were allowed to visit them. As the burial site for each dead person began to look like it had not been visited for years, the skeletons were moved to the piles of skeletons already under there. So eventually what they had was 8,000 skeletons down there, their bones are piled along the walls in huge stacks, and the skulls rest on top of the piles.

We arrived at the entrance and were confronted with a sales lady who refused to accept my 20 Euro bill, saying she didn't have change. The ticket price was 4 euro for youth (16-25 yrs). Well, I didn't have change, and I sure wasn't going to just hand over 16 extra Euro. Besides, I knew there was no way that she didn't have ANY change. I mean where are we, Bolivia?! She stared at me until I said I'd pay for Hira too, and she handed me back 12 Euro. So off we went down the stairs to reach the underground cemetery. I was immediately nervous. The winding staircase we descended was so tightly wound that there wasn't that hole in the middle that you can look down to see how far you have to go. We just had to descend blindly for what seemed like hours, I kept looking for the moment when the wall would stop curving and we'd be there, but it took a very long time. I started getting nauseous. Once down there we walked through several dimly lit tunnels.

The ground was dirt and the walls were stone and mud brick. Initially I was like "this is so cool, this is JUST like Harry Potter!" Then I noticed that the ceiling was maybe 5 foot 7 inches high. And then I started thinking about how I would escape if I needed to, and I started to feel slightly claustrophobic. The only escape that we knew of was that hellish winding staircase and we were walking farther and farther away from it. There were supposed to be phones down there to call up to someone in case of trouble, but the only one I saw was out of order.

I made myself ignore that fact and that feeling went away. In one area of the tunnel there was a replica of what looked like a roman palace carved into the wall. Apparently the same guy dug them when he was prisoner down there and then he died from a cave in. After walking for 20 minutes through these tunnels, we reached the entrance to the cemetery.

This says "ARRÊTE! C'EST ICI L'EMPIRE DE LA MORT," this translates to "STOP! HERE IS THE EMPIRE OF DEATH."

It smelled funny in there. It wasn't as gross as I'd expected because they weren't whole skeletons, it was just piles of the same looking bone in neat stacks with skulls on top. Hira said she saw a hip bone, but all I saw was what looked like femurs and skulls.

There was a really cool skull and cross bones built into a couple of the piles, but because we weren't allowed to use flash, the picture didn't come out great. As we walked through the cemetery part of the tunnels, we noticed that the ceilings here were dripping every now and then, creating pools of dirty water on the ground. The last thing I wanted to do was get dripped on with what I decided was death juice in a cold underground cemetery from which there was no escape.

At the end of the cemetery there was another winding staircase to return to the land of the living. At this staircase there was a sign that told us exactly how many steps it would be until we reached the top (87). Thank goodness for that sign, or else I think Hira and I might've lost it.

After this we headed over to Musée d'Orsay to see some art. Hira said we should get in free by showing our long stay visas and our Sciences-Po student IDs. We walked over to what we thought was the appropriate entrance (out of like 5 entrances) and Hira, who is in Intermediate French but decided that since she was 2 days from being home she no longer needed to speak french, asked the doorman in english if he spoke english. He shook his head and said "Français, Español, et Italiano." Hira looked at me and said "spanish!" so I hastily switched to spanish mode and said:

"Hablas español?"

"Sí."

"Ok..uhm..somos estudiantes..y.." (we are students..and..)

Then he broke off in French and said something and pointed to the door, motioning for us to enter. After saying what he'd said in french, for some reason unbeknownst to me he switched to italian! The only word I caught was "Inglese." I very bewilderedly entered the revolving door, and behind me Hira, also obviously confused, tried to enter too but she walked straight into the glass. It was priceless.

I really liked this museum, it seemed overwhelmingly large when we first walked in, but after an hour and a half we'd walked through almost 2/3 of it. I don't have pictures from this because they weren't allowed. All of the Monet (which this museum is famous for) was gone for the Monet exhibit at the Grand Palais, but we saw Manet, Van Gogh, and some other guys. It was 4:30 and the last museum we wanted to visit, Musée de l'Orangerie, which is in the middle of the Tuileries Gardens in front of the Louvre, closed at 6pm. We walked across the Seine and through the gardens to wait in line for our free youth tickets.

I absolutely love Musée de l'Orangerie!! I hadn't been before. It is TINY and so it is extremely doable. It is known for the two oval-shaped rooms of Monet panoramic paintings that wrap around the entire room, creating the feeling that you are in his gardens. Those rooms were pretty sweet, but all the seating space was taken so we stood staring for a bit and continued downstairs.

All of the paintings downstairs (we saw Matisse, Renoir, Picasso, and some other people I can't remember), were very beautiful paintings. I really can't appreciate most modern art, but this kind of art I can truly enjoy. And pictures were allowed! (As long as you turned off your flash). So I have a few pictures of paintings that I especially enjoyed. I would put pictures up of these but the internet connection is like Crabbe and Goyle: almost too slow to function.

Of course at this point we needed nourishment.

We chose to descend the walkway in front of the museum to Place de la Concorde (where the end of the Christmas market on the Champs Élysées and the end of the Tuileries Gardens meet) to get it in the form of waffles covered in melted Nutella. For dinner we met Yomna and walked to our Indian restaurant, only to find it closed. It looked like it was undergoing construction. After walking up and down Montparnasse looking for other ethnic food and failing, we settled on Pasta Papa.

Thus ends my last night with the people on my program. That night I was up late, being awoken by tipsy people saying goodbye, someone wanting me to return a library book they forgot about, my roommate getting the handheld luggage weigher she'd borrowed from a girl she doesn't like stuck to her bag, and the 20 minutes that ensued with a parade of people stopping in our room trying to help get it unstuck. Of course, I was glad for these nightly interruptions. Anything to extend my time with new friends. Not to mention, at 3 am all of these events were experienced with a healthy dose of hilarity. I've really enjoyed my time here. I am so grateful that I was able to be a part of this program.

That's all for now. I'm off to pick up some lunch. I may decide to update again later today.

Love,

H.

I'm a YouTube star. No big deal.

Hey everyone!!

Hell week is ALMOST over!!

This morning a few members of my group met to brainstorm ideas for our presentation on Tuesday. This presentation is supposed to summarize our 100 page group research papers in a fun way. Our teacher really emphasized fun. Of course we also need to discuss our findings, but the point is to keep it light. So we decided to use a flip camera to film a few skits!

The online presentation maker that I use allows you to paste a youtube link directly into the presentation, and then the video appears onto the presentation magically! So for the purpose of making everything easier, we posted our videos onto YouTube so that it will be easy to insert into our presentation.

This means that we are all now YouTube stars.

Well ok maybe that's pushing it, but it does mean that I can share the videos with you all!

Each clip is really short because we didn't want to use up a lot of time in our presentation showing these videos. We plan to show each skit before each of our segments, and then explain what the video was intended to show. Then we'll go into our research.

I'll give a little context so you know what is going on with each video:

I'm filming the following video. It is to show that it is much harder to see a doctor in South Africa than in the United States.

Access:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PBQ6gi_CFE

This one is to show that cultural identities can have a large impact on health. (I'm in this one!)

Culture:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCuGn1zPHNI

This video shows that women have very different levels of power in sexual relationships depending on gender roles, specifically in regards to using protection. The woman is offered money in the last part of the clip because being a girlfriend in poorer populations in South Africa is sometimes a real job. A woman will take more boyfriends because she wants more money. (I'm in this one too!!)

Gender:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CobIEQxoiM0

This clip is about literacy. It doesn't require much background.

Literacy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4ga8ZOtlnI

I'm in this one! This one is for my section of the research. I did socioeconomic status as it relates to obesity and disability prevalences. The first person is poor in the U.S., and the second person (me) is rich and in China. This video is on the obesity part of my research.

SES:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZv-ZM0jyRU

BLOOPERS!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy_6epD2pw0

Enjoy!

If anyone wishes to see our research paper, let me know! I can e-mail it out.

Love,

Ragga Muphin

How do you like my new stage name? I'm sure I'll be using it a lot now that I'm famous.

Portugal Ch.1: Porto

Hey everyone!

Halloween is over and thus I am allowing myself to think about Christmas. Only 7 more weeks!! There better be snow when I get back to Chi City. Before you judge-I've improved over the last couple of years- I used to start listening to Christmas songs once August hit.

This is the first chapter on my week in Portugal.

We left before the sun rose on Friday morning and got to Portugal a few hours later. Our first stop was Porto, in the northernmost part of Portugal. After stopping by the tourism office and dropping our bags off at the hostel we set out to visit one of the many wine cellars in Porto. We chose to walk so that we could explore the town a bit.

Many of the buildings were decorated with beautiful tile designs. While many of the buildings were beautiful, they were also old and not kept up very well. Many of the streets closer to the river were very narrow and could only be reached on foot. Clothes-lines hung everywhere and all of the houses had orange tiled roofs.

This was the beautiful bridge that we walked over. We thought it would take us to the river's edge, but instead it runs completely over the river. To reach the river we snaked down streets lined with buildings so tall that we couldn't see where we were going. But we eventually reached the wine cellars!

We stopped for lunch before venturing down to the cellars. In the tiny café we experienced our first real run in with the portuguese language barrier. There was no menu. Menus are my friend in foreign countries. I can use them to point at what I want rather than look super dumb. So I ended up using spanish to order the same thing some other woman had. It was EXACTLY like the food in Bolivia. Over the course of the week I discovered that I do not like Portuguese food. We ate fried fish, cabbage, and french fries. I found myself avoiding the cabbage because I was reverting to my habits in Bolivia. The locals in the restaurant all seemed to know each other. I felt like I was in Greece or Italy. All the old ladies were yelling to each other. Then this lady sitting next to us decided she should include us, and she said something to me in her attempt at spanish that I took to mean "there's a cathedral over there." I looked out the window and, alas, there was a cathedral! I'd seen the church already though but I politely said "ohh.. sí..muy linda." (Oh..yes...very pretty). She kept looking at me and smiling and nodding. She said something else then, so instead of trying to understand her I asked in spanish how old the church was. She didn't understand me. The lady behind her did, and she interrupted and translated for me in Portuguese. Then the lady I'd originally been talking to yelled to another woman behind me, asking her how old the church was. That lady speculated, and then the translator lady corrected her guess. Eventually I learned it was built sometime in the 1400s. I think. In all this spanish speaking, french words were slipping out of my mouth. Where "sí" and "gracias" used to be my reflex, it is now "oui" and "merci." That first day I asked someone how to say "thank you" and "hello" in Portuguese. We learned that those translate to "obrigada/o" and "óla" or "bom día."

We took a tour and learned about Port Wine, which is different from table wine. Port Wine has a higher alcohol content and is much sweeter. It comes in tawny, ruby, rosé, and white. We also learned that the barrels (made of oak) that are used to age the wines are given over to whisky makers after around 60 years, and the residue from the wine in the barrels gives whisky it's color.
The tour ended with a taste of ruby and tawny Port Wine. Jennie and I decided we... do not care for Port Wine. It was so sweet!! It literally tasted like it contained syrup.

After walking around some more, we went back to the hostel and I took a much needed nap. I'd gotten about 4 hours of sleep the night before, and it wasn't a restful sleep either; I kept dreaming about missing my flight. At dinner the waiter brought over a basket of bread (pão) and some appetizers. We thought that was very nice and we each ate a piece of bread and some of the appetizers. We'd been duped. They showed up on our bill later!! We couldn't exactly protest because A) we didn't speak portuguese and we'd already had trouble communicating to the waiter, and B) we ate the food. They even charged for the bread! We read the next day in a travel book that 50% of the time a restaurant in Portugal will charge for bread. We didn't touch the free bread the rest of the trip, and the next day at lunch when a waiter tried to bring us food, I told him we didn't want to pay for it so he took it away. Anyway, I had wonderful gelato after dinner. They had a flavor that was chocolate with raspberry flavoring! It was divine.

We left the next day for Lisbon. The Lisbon leg of the journey was really awesome, and I'll have more on that later!

Love,

Hillary

Tourism Terror Threats

Hi everyone,

As most of you already know, the U.S. has heightened the threat level for tourists traveling to Europe; specifically to the U.K., France, and Germany. I wanted to make sure I let you all in on some of the facts.

Photo Courtesy of The New York Times

First, I should say, "don't freak out." The travel advisory isn't a formal travel warning. This means the State Department isn't telling Americans NOT to travel, but that they should be aware of recent threats to security.

"The precise details of the alleged plan remain unclear, and the information that is available in the public domain cannot be verified, rendering an assessment of its credibility difficult."

The attacks are supposed to resemble Mumbai attacks, which targeted high-profile tourism areas.

"Media reports quoting unnamed intelligence sources on 29 September referred to an alleged Islamist extremist plan to launch coordinated attacks in the UK, France and Germany. The purported plot, which has been linked to al-Qaida leaders based in tribal areas of Pakistan, reportedly calls for teams of gunmen to simultaneously strike targets in major cities and take hostages, in the manner of the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai (India). A German counterterrorism official indicated that much of the information was derived from the interrogation of Ahmed Sidiqi, a member of the militant Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) who was detained in Kabul (Afghanistan) in July."

We've been warned by Northwestern Study Abroad to avoid crowded tourist infrastructure, American 'icons' (like Hard Rock Café and Starbucks), and to be alert when using public transportation. An article from the Associated Press Sunday stated:

"The alert wasn't intended to urge travelers to stay away from public places. It fell short of a formal travel warning, which could have had broader implications including a stronger likelihood of canceled airline and hotel bookings and the suspension of many U.S. college and university study-abroad programs."

Apparently, the top concern is what implications this may have for Americans considering travel to Europe. Travel experts say that those who already have plans in place are not likely to change their plans, but more realistically it will be those who are still in the planning phases who may hold off on finalizing anything until the situation is made more clear.

Germany, France, and the U.K. have not changed their internal threat levels. According to an article in today's New York Times (online) France is taking intelligence information from the U.S. seriously- French officials arrested 12 people in the south of France today. The government may be taking the threats seriously, but the Associated Press article seemed to imply- from their interviews with Americans currently in Europe- that Americans aren't going to let themselves be scared into hiding.

"At Paris' spring-summer 2011 ready-to-wear fashion shows, W magazine fashion market director Karla Martinez said she gets 'worried for five minutes, but then I forget about it and get back to the job that I'm here to do.' [..] 'It's a little scary when you're staying in a big hotel with lots of tourists, because we hear that could be a target, but I try not to get too worked up about it,' she said. 'At the end of the day all you can do is keep your eyes and ears open and try not to be naive.'"

Three NBA teams are still going ahead with travels to the U.K. and Spain.

"Lakers center Pau Gasol said he had no intention of spending his time in London sitting in a hotel room. 'It's a great city to be out and walk around in, and experience things. It would be a crime to stay at the hotel,' Gasol said."

Most of us have been following the news and we are being careful not to put ourselves at extra risk. I've tried to design this post to accurately reflect the mood in Paris. I hope I helped to ease your mind or at least give you a few helpful hard facts.

Expect a post from me soon about my Lazy Sunday spent at the Bastille market and a new Parisian discovery!

P.S. I saw a picture online today of Keira Knightley at Paris Fashion Week- how can I be in the same city as all of these celebrities and not have seen any of them!? Sigh.

Love,

Hillary

Information in this post was gathered from the following sources:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5isVrwHYielnHBYr4EvvWIzuJ8I0gD9IKEKAG0?docId=D9IKEKAG0

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/world/europe/06france.html?ref=global-home

http://www.internationalsos.com/en/

La Nuit Blanche

Hi everyone!

I hope you are all beginning to embrace fall! Some of us are already missing carmel apples, apple cider, pumpkins, and storefront autumn and halloween decorations. It just occurred to us that we wouldn't be having any of that, so now I think we miss it even more. I'm having apple cider withdrawal. Even if I had the powdered packets of apple cider it wouldn't do any good because I'd have to descend 3 flights of stairs, walk to the microwave, microwave water, then walk back up 3 flights of stairs to get to my room. I would also have to invest in a mug. Oh, and buy dish soap so that I could wash the cup and reuse it. Anyway, the trees are starting to turn in Paris- autumn has arrived!

Saturday night was "La Nuit Blanche." Literally translated it means the white night, but it actually refers to a sleepless night. La Nuit Blanche is a free arts appreciation night that starts at 7pm and doesn't end until 7am Sunday morning. For those who stay up all night, city hall (Hôtel de Ville) serves breakfast at dawn. The Minister of Culture created the event in 2002. There are art events scattered around 3 areas of the city. Around 8:30pm we left and headed for Le Marais (informally the Jewish Quarter). We weren't exactly sure what we'd be seeing, but we consulted a temporary La Nuit Blanche map by the St. Paul metro stop and then just followed the crowds. After 10 minutes of walking we came to a large line of people. So naturally, we joined. This was our first stop of the night:

From the looks of it, I think it was a dinosaur graveyard. In the second picture I'm pretty sure you're looking at the missing legs, vertebrae, and ear of the dinosaur bodies captured in the first picture. You were allowed to touch the "art" so there were a few little kids (one in a superman cape) running around playing and walking over the tail of one of the dinosaurs.

After leaving this exhibit, we walked around the block and found another line. This one was much more a "social commentary" than the first one. (Unless the dead dinosaurs represent something I'm unaware of).

There were about 40 bowls on the long table and each of them had a different label. I remember seeing "It-girl," "Socialist," "Geek," "President," "Employée," "Communist," and "Tourist." There was a loud voice-track of a man reciting the french alphabet being played over the speakers. Images of people were being displayed on the white thing in the middle of the table via a projector, but the images only appeared for a split second and only every minute or two.

The next line we joined brought us to what I'm calling the Time Room:

This room was pitch black and displayed rows and rows of digital clocks. All of them were programmed to the exact same time. Most were in military time but some were not. It was a really cool effect, but after your eyes adjusted to the dark and you could make out the racks holding all the clocks, I have to admit it was a tad less cool.

At the Time exhibit we found a table with event info and maps for where to find each exhibit in your respective areas. Using this map we walked to the next exhibit:

In this exhibit there was a grid of people projected on a screen above everyone's heads in the courtyard of an old looking building. Each person's individual video was frozen and they played one video at a time. Each person was from a different culture, and although I couldn't understand what they were saying, it seemed like they were all teaching the crowd one thing about where they were from. We watched a woman cook something, a man cook some kind of sauce, one woman showed us how brooms are used, and another guy showed us how to do a floral arrangement with flowers, an orange, and cigar smoke (I may have missed something with that last one..). The videos were light-hearted, each person was cracking jokes and the crowd was laughing. I have no idea what the jokes were.

We decided to make our way down to Rue de Rivoli and head over to the exhibit at Hôtel de Ville. On the way we passed this cool spice store that was hosting a music performance:

See that guy? He's playing flute! Last night I had a dream that I was in band and hadn't played flute for way too long and I felt out of place. Thanks a lot for that flute-dude! Geez.

We had been used to following the crowd and magically finding an art exhibit, so we followed a bunch of people down this random alley. Everyone just kept following everyone else into the alley but there wasn't anything to see except some graffiti:

We quickly left the alley trying not to feel foolish. Out on the street we passed a moving image projected on a wall. This was a video of a running man, and after a minute of watching it, the man turned into a candle. We left before I could see if the candle was going to turn into something else:

In a small plaza we spotted a broken-down looking car painted purple. On the hood of that car sat a very old speaker playing a casette tape of The Beatles and The Eagles. A few women sang along to "All We Need Is Love," and a meat shop was giving out free samples of cubed mystery meat and cubed mystery mini-sandwiches on toothpicks.

Eventually we made it to Hôtel de Ville. The city hall was decorated with tons of neon signs, each in a different language, each saying "Love the Differences."

A message like this from a municipal building directly contrasts what we're learning in class about French identity. After World War II Charles de Gaulle wanted to unify the citizens of France and create a stronger national identity, so he made it illegal to classify any French citizen using ethnic or national background, or religious affiliation. This meant that questions on any one of these topics would never be used in a national census or any other governmental document. The purpose was well intentioned and meant to show that a French citizen is French no matter his or her background. Its effect was to homogenize the population. Seeing a celebration of diversity, albeit at an art show, was a sign that France may be changing.

Uh..I don't know...(yay diversity!!)

After standing around at city hall we walked up towards the Pompidou. On our way we ran into about 10 other people from our program who had just come from the Pompidou. A few of them joined us and we all set off towards the Louvre.

It was a long-ish walk but it was beautiful walking along the Seine at night. We passed Île de la Cité (the island Notre Dame is on) and several bridges. There were tons of people out for the special night. Cars sitting in traffic were blasting music and people of all ages were walking in hoards in every direction. We reached the Louvre and walked through the Arc de Carrousel towards Jardin des Tuileries to sit down. In the gardens there were groups of young people and couples seated all over the place. We sat down and after 10 minutes we were joined by about 7 other people from our program. Because there are so few boys on our program, this group of about 15 of us seated on the grass happened to be all girls. We quickly started talking about boys, couples, and french PDA. One of the French students was with us and she said it's worse in the summer because there are couples all over the place holding hands or kissing and it stinks if you're single and you don't want to be. At one point a guy about our age came up and asked in French if anyone had a lighter. No one in our entire large group had a lighter, because none of us smoke. I bet in a group of 15 french people there would be several people with lighters able to help this guy out.

While we were sitting down I realized I'd lost my bracelet at some point during the evening. It was big on my wrist and had fallen off in class once before, but I thought that was because I hadn't clasped it well enough. I tried not to feel too upset about it; if it was too big for me already then it was going to fall off of my wrist at some point. I looked at the time on my phone and it was already 1am. Time flew by! I was starting to get cold..and I hadn't gone to the bathroom since before we left the dorm. We all got up and headed back to our dorm/home-stays. On the way I saw this poster:

It's funny because in french class on Thursday (after our test) our teacher Anita showed us a few youtube videos to help us practice our french. One of them was an ad for "Nespresso," some coffee brand. George Clooney was in the commercial and the entire thing was in english with french subtitles. I raised my hand.

"Anita? Was this a French ad, aired only in France?"

"Yes!"

"So..but it was in english? And it was meant to have subtitles?"

"Yep!"

"Oh..right..mk.."

Can you imagine if it was normal to have commercials in the U.S. in french with english subtitles? I mean, I'm down..but..I feel like a lot of people would be all, "wtf!?"

Thus ends my Saturday evening. It was a ton of fun, the city was vibrant and pulsing. We were amazed at how many people came out for the art festival. I think Paris is at its most beautiful at night. A few of us are planning to take a nighttime boat ride before it gets too cold.

Peace out! Love,

Hillary

My Teacher is Famous!!

Hey everyone!

Lately I'm finding out more and more about my school, Sciences Po. I learned in class yesterday that they have an acceptance rate of 5%. To give you a comparison, Northwestern is currently trying to lower it's acceptance rate from 23% to 20% in order to rise in the rankings. It is the most highly regarded of political science schools in all of France! I guess this means that the teachers are top notch as well, because I just found out that the teacher I had today (who is also the director of the public health side of our France program from the French administrative side) wrote an article in Le Monde, a famous french newspaper.

It is in french but in case you want to take a look, here is the link!

http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2010/09/06/ne-sacrifiez-pas-la-jeunesse_1407360_3232.html

Au revoir!

Hillary

Where's Waldo? Also: Strike!

Hey guys!

So at my job I work with a man named Waldo. He's middle aged and is really awesome. He likes to talk about politics and is always joking around with us. He is a huge Evo Morales supporter. He's the guy who I work with directly in the morning. He's really patient and I love working with him. He is also the best dressed Bolivian man I have met. He always wears dress slacks and rotates through a few beautifully made knit sweaters and a few different pairs of leather moccasins. I've never seen clothes made this well in Bolivia, so one day I asked him where he got all his sweaters and shoes. "Spain!" he said. Apparently he has a sister in Spain who sends him these things for Christmas. He gave me her card so that I have a contact when we're there in December. Last friday he told me to bring my laptop in to show him pictures of my family and pictures from my Chapare/ Villa Tunari trip. The entire week he'd been asking us when our last days at work were and asking us what we wanted him to get for food for our going away "parties."

Matt (the other volunteer) and I got to work on Monday (me with laptop in tow) and after 30 minutes with no Waldo, we asked where he was. Kati, the less patient but friendly lady in the office told us that he'd gone on his vacation and wouldn't be back for a month! Well, we said,...bye Waldo? It was really weird because we have a really strong relationship with him and he hadn't even said goodbye. Around 9 o'clock on Wednesday morning Waldo strolled into the clinic.

"Waldo!" I said. "I thought you were on vacation!?"

"I am!" he said. "I have something for you and Matteo!"

Waldo then pulled out a cloth placemat from his briefcase and handed it to me. It was really pretty but I was really confused and had to stifle giggles. Also, aren't you supposed to have 4 placemats? Maybe it isn't a placemat..I don't know. I'll bring it home and use it as a cloth to put a vase on or something cool. Then Waldo pulled something else out of his bag that he was about to give to Matt. He showed me what it was and it was a sort of small cylindrical purse with tassles. It looks like something you'd carry a glass of wine in because it doesn't shut. I told Waldo I thought it was very pretty and wished I was able to see Matt's reaction when he received it. If I didn't know what it was I was sure he wouldn't. After chatting to the doctor for a quarter of an hour, Waldo was out the door again. He assured us that he'd come back again before we left to say goodbye. I'm going to start bringing my camera every day so I can take a picture of him.

Let's switch gears.

So I've been reading this book called Dignity and Defiance that I borrowed from one of my airport friends. I think I am going to buy it when I get home because it is all about Bolivia's entrance and resistance to globalization. I'm still on the first chapter but already I feel like I've learned so much that I wish I knew all of this much earlier in my trip. Right now I'm reading about Cochabamba's water revolt in 2001. Apparently a U.S. mega-corporation Bechtel bought the rights to Cochabamba's water system in the late 1990's during a time when Cochabamba was having serious problems getting enough water from mountain run-off to serve its growing population. Bechtel raised prices by over 50% in most cases, even before they'd fixed the water problem. It's really interesting but in the end the citizens were able to chase Bechtel out of the country and cancel the contract. The way residents get their way in Cochabamba is to blockade all main roads and essentially shut down the city. Shop owners, taxi and trufi drivers, and many others simply stopped working and refused to pay their bills. They held off police who were armed with tear-gas cannons by using slingshots and other devices. This brings me to today.

So last night was fun, I made brownies and had some friends over and we watched Shutter Island and ordered Pizza. I didn't get to bed until a little after midnight. I got up at 6:30 to go with a friend at 7 am to the bus terminal to buy tickets for a bus to Sucre for tonight. (We tried to go Wednesday to get tickets but the bus companies told us they didn't plan that far ahead so we had to come back Friday morning). After buying tickets for our group, we went outside to catch taxis to our jobs. I was waiting for Trufi #131 and he was trying to catch a cab.

Definition: A trufi is a cab with a 3rd row of seats that has a set route and takes several people instead of just one person. You can stop anywhere along the route it follows.

After several minutes of waiting, a woman selling things on the street told us that the trufis and the micros were on strike; something about the feuding labor unions. At this point it was a bit after 8 am. I usually get to work at 8 and finish my job around 9:30. From the bus terminal it was going to take 30 minutes in traffic to get to my job, but the kicker was that I had no idea how to tell a cab where I work! If the trufis weren't running then a cab was my only option. At this point I decided it wasn't worth it, and if I couldn't get to work Matt wasn't going to be able to either. I didn't know the name of the road I worked on but I knew the trufi route by heart. So now I'm back in my room at 9:00 am writing this post.

This weekend I'm going to Sucre, "The White City." It's called this because all of the buildings in the city center are white (I think..). There are a lot of museums and I'm hoping to make it to the textile museum to buy a tapestry. Someone just told me that the textile museum is boring so we'll see what happens. She also said she was really ill when she visited it and wasn't in the mood to admire textiles.

Have a great weekend and I'll update again with details of my trip to Sucre early next week! I can't forget to wish a happy early birthday to Harry Potter! (Harry's birthday is the 31st of July- technically I believe he is 30 this year, but I'm going to pretend he's turning 21).

Love,

Hillary