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