RU Service Learning in Bolivia

Goodbye yet again

2011-08-07T16:23:00.001-07:00

Another season in Bolivia comes to an end, with a despedida in Loma Pampa as we said goodbye to our cherished friends. It has been an amazing year. We have accomplished so much, with a great group of smart, energetic and enthusiastic students. Will we be back again next year? That is not a question I can answer as of yet. But it has been a great four years.

More pictures can be found on my Facebook page. Vayan con Dios!

Despedida in San Ysidro

2011-08-05T10:30:00.001-07:00

It is the final week of the program, and as is the case every year, we are all busy with the ritualized goodbye celebrations known as despedidas. In each of the communities where we have been working, the people express their thanks for our presence and contributions by making speeches, exchanging hugs and handshakes, and most of all, by inviting us to consume large amounts of food.

Yesterday we celebrated the conclusion of the baking project in the barrio of San Ysidro. Over the last six weeks, our students have worked alongside the women of that community as they learned to bake cakes, pastries, empanadas and salteñas, all of which they shared with us at the despedida. The women positively glowed with pride as they showed off their products, insisting that each of us eat at least one of each of the items on display. I have high hopes that this project will continue after our departure, especially once the kitchen that we have helped to finance is completed and the women have a dedicated space in which to do their baking.

For much of the summer, it must be said, our students were unsure of their contributions to this community. Though they organized sports and English classes for children and worked together with the women as they learned to bake, the students often felt as though they weren't actually "doing" anything. But at the despedida last night, all of us were blown away by the extent of the women's achievement and their deep gratitude for what we had provided them. Women praised our students, and the kids with whom they have been working gave them enormous hugs and begged them not to leave. The students, I think, realized for the first time the nature of their contribution - that just being present in this community, getting to know people and providing the resources through which these women could improve their lives and the lives of their families, they had accomplished a great deal.

16 de julio

2011-08-03T18:23:00.001-07:00

I just found some pictures on my other camera from the 16 de julio celebration from three weeks ago. "16 de julio" means July 16th, which is the anniversary of the founding of the city of La Paz. "16 de julio" is also the name of one of the barrios where our students are working, a barrio that was settled by migrants from the city of La Paz, and so they celebrate their hometown anniversary with a big parade on July 16. Our group attended, and somehow got drafted to parade alongside the costumed dancers, performing the morenada (a traditional dance that is, fortunately, quite easy to learn). For two hours we danced through the streets of the barrio, adding a foreign accent to a decidedly local celebration.

Anniversary!

2011-08-02T09:40:00.000-07:00

My mom has been complaining that the blog this year is both boring and infrequently updated. To try and address these critiques, I have included an exclamation point in the title of today's posting.

This weekend we celebrated the 12th (I think) anniversary of Loma Pampa with our barrio friends. The highlights of the event this year were the performances by our students, who sang and danced and put on a show unlike anything ever seen in the barrio. Against the backdrop of the mural painted by last year's group, Aman sang an original version of "Gringa Bonita," the best line of which went "we can't help it if we're gringos," which brought big laughs from the crowd (who apparently thought we could help it). This was followed by a big dance performance that featured such classic tunes as "YMCA," "Thriller," and, unexpectedly, "Cotton-Eyed Joe." After the big number, some of the students led a group of children in a dance activity, and then Joyelle and Carmen, a friend from Cochabamba, performed an improvisational modern dance number. The whole thing was quite spectacular.

Another exciting moment came in the big dance competition that followed these performances. Several pairs of students participated, along with a few barrio residents, performing traditional and not-so-traditional Bolivian dances. Though the pair of Hayden and Blondeen made it to the final round, the prize was won by our own Pamela and Guery, who then turned their prizes over to the people in the crowd, who eagerly accepted the bags of pasta, bars of soap, and bottles of cooking oil that they distributed.

The efforts of our students, both today and over the past month, have not gone unrecognized by the residents of Loma Pampa. As part of the anniversary event, the barrio leaders called each student by name to approach the microphone, and presented them with certificates of appreciation for their work.

Torotoro

2011-07-28T15:56:00.000-07:00

The students are traveling, and I get a few days off. Most of them went to Torotoro, where they will hike across stark plateaus and through dramatic valleys; swim beneath waterfalls; wriggle on their bellies through dark, sandy caves; and examine the fossilized turds of ancient dinosaurs. A smaller group has gone to Lake Titicaca, to visit the lakeside town of Copacabana, and the Isla del Sol. Everyone will be back Saturday night, in time for our regular visit to Loma Pampa on Sunday.

Appreciating Cocha

2011-07-26T14:25:00.000-07:00

After three days in La Paz, I am remembering why I like Cochabamba so much. To most people it probably seems like a dry, boring town, but to me it is peace and tranquility. Yes the traffic is bad, and I get sick way too often; but the light has a quality that fills up spaces, making them glow from the inside. The air is too polluted, but it is always warm and gentle, and holds you without letting you drop. Not like the air in La Paz - at 12,000 feet the air is so thin and insubstantial, it barely offers enough to breathe, and does nothing to buffer you from the harsher elements. And it is cold! In Cochabamba, even in winter, the cold does not penetrate your bones as it does in La Paz. Here it is mostly warm, the people are mostly warm, the sidewalks are mostly warm, the sunsets and sunrises. There is room here to breathe.

On the road

2011-07-20T13:28:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we leave bright and early (4:30 AM!) for the trip to La Paz. We will be visiting the pre-Incan archaeological site of Tiahuanacu before heading into the city itself. There we will meet with some researchers from the Observatorio Sobre Racismo, and the next day with some young Aymara rappers in the nearby city of El Alto. Home to Cochabamba on Saturday night. Feliz viaje!

At play

2011-07-18T05:56:00.001-07:00

The weeks are going by quickly. We have been working the students hard, with extra trips and projects in addition to their usual load, but they have responded brilliantly. This is a great group, fun and friendly and really committed to the projects they have undertaken. This coming week will be a shorter one, as we are leaving on Thursday for a three-day excursion to the altiplano and La Paz.

Yesterday was our third Sunday in Loma Pampa. After working on the construction project and finishing the painting of the playground, the gringo team played its second match of fulbito (5 on 5 soccer played on a basketball court) against the Loma Pampa team. Whereas in the first game we were soundly defeated 4-1, this time the gringos triumphed, scoring three quick goals and then hanging on for a 3-2 victory. The Bolivians seemed rather stunned by their loss, and insisted that we play the tie breaker next Sunday.

After lunch, the students again ran various classes for children in the barrio. Some older boys learned basketball, while younger kids did arts and crafts, making string bracelets under the students' tutelage in the community center. Meanwhile, other kids played games and sports on the patio out back, including "lobo lobo" (duck duck goose), "hielo y sol" (freeze tag), and learning to jump rope (including double dutch, which even our students seemed to find challenging). The enthusiasm for all these activities was tremendous - students and kids even were engaged in the litter collection that Pamela organized, receiving prizes of plastic toy dinosaurs for their participation.

The man who taught me how to write

2011-07-15T14:07:00.000-07:00

When I published my first book a few years ago, I sent a copy to my tenth grade English teacher, James Todd King. Mr. King - Todd, or JTK as I came to know him later on - was perhaps the most influential teacher I ever had. Cool and funny and tough, he loved literature and gave that love away freely to his students, many of whom maintained contact with him long after his early retirement, brought on by illness. Mr. King could tear apart an essay and help you to build it back up again. From him I learned argumentation, analysis, grammar and style, skills that have benefitted me throughout my life.

So after I published that book - an ethnographic account of my research in an urban neighborhood of Cochabamba, Bolivia - I sent him a copy, which I inscribed as follows:

"For JTK, who taught me how to write. With best wishes," etc.

Shortly after sending him the book, I received the following email:

"Thumbnail review from last night's scan and plunge approach: This is no dry academic text whatsoever. Full of colorful anecdotes, both the macabre and joyous terror of these Latino 'outliers' is fully felt…It is a good book, Dan, that I read for an hour too long last night. I'm proud of you. JTK"

It was not long afterwards that word came that JTK had passed away, far too young and too soon. I think about him often.

It is a year later and I am again in Bolivia, now running a study abroad/service learning program for undergraduates. Students are reading and discussing my book. As I circulate around the classroom, eavesdropping on their small-group conversations, I notice that one student's copy of the book is swollen and frayed from water damage that her luggage experienced courtesy of American Airlines. The book also bears a large yellow "USED" sticker, indicating that she bought it secondhand, perhaps through Amazon or some other online dealer. Drawn to the oddly misshapen text, I pick it up and open it to the first page. And there I see it, my very own inscription:

"For JTK, who taught me how to write."

I stare at the page in dumb disbelief. The floor seems to tilt beneath my feet and I gasp for breath, struggling to make sense of what I hold in my hands. Across thousands of miles and a million strands of possibility, the very text that I had given to my friend and teacher has somehow found its way back to me. Why did I even pick up that copy and flip through the pages? Had the book itself somehow sought out the pool of water in the plane's cargo hold, just to warp itself and so call itself to my attention? Had it left JTK's library after he no longer had need of it, to bring him so strongly to my mind, so far from and yet so near to its origins?

I cannot, of course, answer these questions, and don't know what to make of this phenomenon. But holding this inscription again, this gift that has returned to me across unfathomable time and space, I feel joy, sadness, and deep gratitude.

Painting the playground

2011-07-11T06:22:00.000-07:00

Our work this Sunday focused on renovating the playground in Loma Pampa. Students, working alongside a bunch of children from the barrio, worked to sand and then paint the swings, see saws, slide and other apparatus on the hillside park. Though we are not finished the results are already evident, as the once drab playground has come to life in a riot of primary colors.

Students also worked with some adults from the community to plant wooden posts around the playground, so that the local transportation line can no longer use it as their parking lot. The only snag came after the work had been completed, and we discovered that one of the workers' cars was still parked inside the ring of posts. I don't know how he will get it out, but Don M. joked that he might need a helicopter.

At work in Loma Pampa

2011-07-08T14:18:00.000-07:00

We began our community service work last Sunday in the barrio of Loma Pampa, where we have worked the last three years on various projects, in collaboration with local barrio residents and leaders. Since our last visit, the residents finished construction on the new bathrooms for the community center that we have helped to finance and build. They are now the finest bathrooms in the entire southern zone of Cochabamba, with running water and nice little wastebaskets and liquid soap dispensers.

This year we are working to level the ground in front of the community center, to turn it into a small park for the barrio. Students threw themselves into the work on Sunday, shifting dirt and rocks around and helping to dig a ditch for a retaining wall. Next Sunday the work will continue, and students will be starting sports classes and other activities for kids in the neighborhood.

A brief stay in the Bahamas

2011-07-03T15:14:00.000-07:00

Finally, a moment to breathe. This has been a whirlwind, since I left home three days ago.

I wrote that sentence on Sunday, and didn't get any further. It's now Tuesday night, and I'm trying again. It has been crazy busy, but things are finally settling down here in Cochabamba. Our journey to Bolivia was disrupted by bad weather in Miami, which caused a number of flights to be delayed or canceled (or in my case, briefly diverted to the Bahamas for refueling before continuing on to land in Miami). So about half the students missed their connections in Miami. In addition, most of us who did arrive on time found that our luggage had not made the connection. Gotta love American Airlines - charged me $200 for excess weight and then couldn't manage to deliver it on time.

But now, on Tuesday, our group is finally all here, and the last suitcase is supposed to arrive tonight. We have a great group of students, and all the projects (in six different sites!) are now underway. I am super busy visiting all the sites, rearranging schedules, managing individual situations, and making sure everything gets off the ground (unlike, ahem, American Airlines). It has been exhausting, but I think I may get a break on Saturday :)

Too tired to upload photos. More to come.

Here I am, here we go

2011-06-29T11:41:00.000-07:00

On the eve of departure - we leave tomorrow for Bolivia. I approach this year as a great adventure: Heading off into the unknown with a new group of students, ready to take on a new bunch of projects, not knowing what the outcomes will be, but determined to be fully engaged with every moment of the experience. That goes for the trip itself. So often with traveling, I am anxious about all the things that could go wrong - missed flights, lost luggage, sick students, visa problems - the list is endless. So often it feels like all of these are obstacles that get in the way of my experience, that interrupt what the program is supposed to be. But from another perspective, these mishaps - which inevitably will happen, airlines being what they are, human beings being what they are - are part of the experience, they are the experience itself. My mantra this year: Here I am. Here I am missing my flight. Here I am losing my luggage. Whatever life throws at me, I will meet head on. That is the adventure of this trip.

Sleep well, boys and girls. The adventure begins!

MIA

2011-06-27T11:45:00.000-07:00

We leave for Bolivia on Thursday, for the overnight flight through Miami that gets us into Cochabamba on Friday. It is a long trip, but a fun one. I love going through the Miami airport, which is like a great international festival. Walking through the now-updated American Airlines terminal, you feel like you have already arrived in Latin America. People from every Latin country pass through that terminal, speaking Spanish, Portuguese, French, Creole, and a million other languages from around the hemisphere. There is even some decent food to be had (aside from the Chili's, which, as I confessed in a previous blog posting somewhere, I habitually visit on my way home from Bolivia). The Miami airport is a big crowded mess, but it gets you ready for Latin America.

Coca issues

2011-06-23T10:40:00.000-07:00

The question of the coca leaf remains a major issue in Bolivian - and international - politics. While the complexities of this matter are too involved for one blog posting to cover, one of the most basic facts is that while many Bolivians and other Andean peoples consume coca as a basic staple of daily life and a key element of much ritual and religious practice, the leaf itself remains labeled a narcotic by the international community. This is the case even though the leaf itself is not a drug, but only becomes one after it is chemically processed into cocaine. Although Bolivia has lobbied to have this changed, the United Nations refuses to remove coca from its list of narcotic drugs, under pressure from the United States, which has long held the stance that, because "we abuse it, you can't use it."

In response to this refusal, the Bolivian government is now moving to withdraw from the international narcotics convention in protest (thanks to our friends at the Andean Information Network for providing information on the coca question). Anyone interested in Bolivia should follow this ever-developing issue with close attention.

What lies ahead

2011-06-17T04:03:00.000-07:00

With less than two weeks to go till our departure, it is natural to be feeling a bit apprehensive. We are about to head off to a place and an experience that to most of us is completely alien, forcing us to question our most basic assumptions about life and the way the world works. It is therefore not surprising to feel, what? Scared, exhilarated, nauseous, edgy, confused. Your confusion may manifest as anxiety - a dread about what the future might hold - or as excitement, a positive anticipation that is in many ways anxiety's flip side. Both emotions are about uncertainty in the face of change, a sense of possibility that may be wonderful or terrible. I alternate between these feelings myself, though maintaining an overall positive view of the prospects ahead.

What are you feeling right now? Program alumni, what do you remember feeling two weeks pre-departure? Post a comment to this blog and share it with the rest of us.

Required reading

2011-06-15T05:24:00.000-07:00

An old teacher of mine used to say, you have to become historical so you don't become hysterical.

On that note, I remind all of our students traveling to Bolivia this summer to read "Impasse in Bolivia" by Ben Kohl and Linda Farthing, prior to their arrival. It is vital that you have an understanding of the political and economic background to recent Bolivian history, so that you can have an informed perspective on contemporary Bolivian reality. Remember, you are traveling as an anthropologist, not as a tourist.

We will have a quiz on this book at our first class meeting, so come prepared!

Amanecer

2011-06-09T08:43:00.001-07:00

A third project site this year will be in a local orphanage, run by an organization called Amanecer. Spanish for "dawn," Amanacer is supported by the Catholic church, and does a great job providing a home and family enivronment for children who either don't have families, or whose families are unable to care for them due to a variety of social and personal problems. The place where we work - and where our students have worked during the last two years - is home to about 25 boys, ages 8 to 13. They are rough kids, having spent time on the street before coming to Amanacer, but warm up quickly and love working with our volunteers. In the past we have donated computers and sports equipment, and offered classes in a range of areas, including English, athletics, and math tutoring. What will our students do this year? That will be for them to determine.

Señoras

2011-06-05T14:45:00.001-07:00

Another one of our groups of students will be working this summer with women in a local community. In the past, our students have organized various classes, workshops and activities for women's groups in different neighborhoods. Usually these activities have have been productive in nature, aiming to help women learn new skills that could hopefully lead to new income-generating opportunities. Some of these classes have focused on knitting and other handicrafts; using what they learn, women have made items of clothing for their families, and produced things to sell locally in the city. Other classes taught women how to bake, and their activities quickly became self-sustaining as they sold the produce of their work.

What these activities will be this year remains to be seen. In all of our projects we aim to identify local people's own desires and match them with our students' interests and talents. In this way, everybody benefits.

Water Rights

2011-06-01T12:52:00.001-07:00

Water has long been an issue in Cochabamba, and this summer some of our students will have a chance to get involved directly in the struggle for what in Bolivia are known as water rights. Cochabamba is internationally famous for the "Water War" of 2000, when residents of Cochabamba's various neighborhoods took to the streets to protest the government's plan to privatize water service by selling the rights to water to a transnational corporation. After days of protest, the government backed out of this agreement and returned administration of water to the municipal utility company. This event has been hailed as a defeat of the forces of globalization and the assertion of local rights to natural resources.

However, in the poor barrios of Cochabamba, people continue to live without access to water through a public delivery system. Instead, they have to buy their water from trucks that deliver it to their homes, and store it in barrels until they are ready to use it. To try and improve this situation, many communities formed local water committees, which work to bring water services into their neighborhoods.

This year, for the first time, two groups of our students will be working with water committees in two different barrios, to help them in these efforts. We are lucky enough to be working with Marcela Olivera, a Cochabamba-based activist who has been collaborating with the water committees for many years, and who was involved herself in the original Water War. Marcela will also be a visiting scholar next fall at Rutgers' Center for Women's Global Leadership. This will be an amazing opportunity to learn about the struggle for water rights while contributing to the ongoing campaigns to improve access to water for local residents.

For more information about the Water War and Marcela, watch this video clip from the program "Democracy NOW!":

Countdown

2011-05-27T05:39:00.001-07:00

I have put a countdown to our June 30 departure day on the blog. It is a little geeky, I guess, but I enjoy playing around with this blog, finding new ways to decorate it. I need to learn more about html, so that I can really refine things. For instance, there are many counters on the internet that one can freely download, but I went with this one because I couldn't get the others to fit in the space available. Apologies if the numbers are too small.

A pat on the back

2011-05-24T10:54:00.001-07:00

Today I sent the manuscript of my new book off to the publisher. I have been working on it all year, and finishing up this first draft is a big accomplishment. Now I can get busy writing my next book! And start making plans in earnest for going to Bolivia.

I'm not so good at celebrating. When I finish one thing I tend to just move on to the next. That is something I have to work on.

Home Away from Home

2011-05-21T04:06:00.001-07:00

Whenever I'm in Cochabamba, I stay at the Hotel Anteus, and over the years it has become the place I rely on to welcome me back to Bolivia. It is not the fanciest hotel in Cochabamba, but it is comfortable and relaxed, and the people there treat me like the King of America.

The Anteus has a good little restaurant and a peaceful garden walled in from the world, with plastic tables and chairs and canvas umbrellas to block the sun. I have spent many a morning in that garden, reading, preparing, doing whatever I do to run the ISL program and try to squeeze some research in around the edges. I always get the same room at the Anteus - number 11 - and going back there time and time again eases the transition and helps me to feel at home.

The Price of Gas

2011-05-16T13:20:00.001-07:00

While the price of gas may not seem to have a lot to do with studying abroad in Bolivia, in fact it impacts us directly in the most obvious of ways. The price of a plane ticket to Bolivia is now about 40% higher than what it was this time last year, and the airlines blame it on gas prices. It is a terrible shock to go online to hunt for plane tickets and find that their costs significantly exceeds the amount you budgeted.

High gas prices have had less of an impact in Bolivia itself. The country gets a good price on Venezuelan fuel oil, and also produces a fair amount of oil and gas for its own consumption. In Cochabamba, the majority of cars have now been converted to burn natural gas instead of gasoline, significantly reducing the price at the pump (and the environmental impact). The state also subsidizes the cost of gas, something that the government tried to reverse last December, only to face a major uprising by outraged citizens. These protests, internationally known as the "gasolinazo," were a surprise to the president, Evo Morales, and his party, though why they should have been is not clear - Evo's predecessors were ejected from office precisely over such neoliberal moves (are you reading your Kohl and Farthing, students?).

In any case, I hope our students are buying their plane tickets now - the prices likely will only continue to increase as our departure date approaches.

Gift Giving

2011-05-15T15:19:00.000-07:00

Andean societies value reciprocity. People engage in frequent, non-quantified exchanges, in which I give you something today, and though I keep no kind of record, I know that sometime in the future you will give something back to me. This form of give and take keeps people connected through ongoing ties of obligation and friendship. It is a foundation of community in Andean society.

As we go and immerse ourselves in this kind of society, we would do well to remember that we are immediately entering into a relationship in which we are, and probably always will remain, indebted. The people in Bolivia who welcome us into their homes and their lives may be compensated for their efforts, but what we take away from the experience far outstrips the money we pay for our homestays and language classes. Going in with this awareness can inspire in us a sense of humility, which can ground us and help us appreciate what we are giving and what we are gaining from this exchange.

As you enter your homestay, remember that you are under no obligation to offer a gift to your homestay family. People will certainly not expect anything from you, asking only that you respect house rules and comport yourself as would a member of the family. Still, giving a gift is a nice way to thank people in advance for their generosity in taking you into their home, a way of immediately trying to address that balance sheet on which you are always in the role of debtor. While I am not necessarily the best judge of what homestay families might like to receive, the following is a list of gifts that have worked for others in the past. Readers of this blog, please add to this list based on your own experience:

• hand towels or bath towels (the soft fluffy kind)

• small kitchen items

• books and magazines, in English or Spanish

• small hand tools

• toys for children

• scarves, jewelry, clothing

• baby clothes

• small household items

• something from your university - a t-shirt or sweatshirt, perhaps

• electronics

Whatever you offer will be accepted with gratitude and appreciation.

Pseudonyms

2011-05-13T12:24:00.001-07:00

Having decided to begin the blog again, I also decided I had to go back to old posts and do some housekeeping. Specifically, I decided to remove all real names and images of Bolivians from the blog. Not all - there are still a few pictures of people whom I don't know, who randomly showed up in the backgrounds of some photos. But people who appeared regularly I had to remove, so that they could not be identified from this material.

Though it is not strictly a rule in the case of a blog, it is nevertheless a good idea to protect people's anonymity by always using pseudonyms - fake names - to disguise real identities. It is highly unlikely that any harm could come to anyone from their association with this program, but one never knows and it is best to play it safe. It is also a rule in ethnographic research, that real names should nearly always be replaced by pseudonyms. It is a standard technique in data collection, and one that I urge all students to practice.

So, if you are a frequent reader of this blog, don't be surprised to see mention of people whom you've never heard of – "don David," for example, or the guy I just refer to as "G." – either in new posts or in older ones. And if you post a comment to the blog, please refrain from using people's real names as well, or I will have to delete your comment.

By the way, I have not changed the name of the actual place where we work. Loma Pampa is still Loma Pampa, because people in that barrio specifically asked me to maintain the real name of the place. For some people in marginal communities, this project and the blog are ways of calling attention to their small barrio, of which they are justifiably proud, even while they may prefer to have their own identities kept private.

A New Beginning

2011-05-11T12:37:00.000-07:00

Each year around this time, I debate whether or not to begin this blog again. I have maintained it each of the last three years, to document the activities of our study abroad program in Bolivia, and people seem to have read and enjoyed it. But each year I wonder if I really want to take on the work of keeping the blog again.

That is perhaps not surprising, seeing as how each year I also debate whether or not to return to Bolivia with another group of students. It is, after all, a lot of work. But, like the blog, each year I determine it to be worth the effort.

So here I am again, writing once more, anticipating another return to Bolivia, my home away from home. The past three years leading this program have been wonderful and inspiring, and I hope to continue the success this year. We have more students participating than ever before (17), and have drawn students from seven different universities, including Rutgers, our home institution. The program, in other words, is growing, and word of it is spreading. I am excited and energized for another go.

And of course, I am excited to return to Bolivia. When I left last August, I thought I would not be back this year, or perhaps only for a brief visit. But by about February, I was longing to return. I missed the people, the food, the weather, the whole experience of living in Cochabamba.

Now it is May, and it still feels like the right decision to return. I will keep this blog as faithfully as I can, but I make no promises. Unlike past years, my plan this year is to take things slowly, to absorb the experience each step of the way. That is my plan, anyway. We'll see how it goes.

Goodbye Again

2010-08-09T06:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we celebrated the 12th anniversary of the barrio with our friends in Loma Pampa. The day included various speeches and words of thanks, followed by games and performances. Some of our students sang and played guitar, others danced, and some competed in the races, highlighted by Carolyn's big win in the spoon-and-egg relay. It was a proud day for New Jersey.

The events of the day were all set against the backdrop of the community center, now beautifully painted inside and out, and the incredible mural that our students created over the course of the last ten days. This mural represents hours of work by students, program faculty and staff, and members of the Loma Pampa community, all of whom devoted their time, energy, and creativity to this project. The result is a truly unique work of art, unlike anything to be found anywhere in Cochabamba's impoverished southern zone.

Watching the events of the anniversary celebration unfold, with hundreds of people gathered in the space of the community center, all talking, laughing, eating and playing, I was powerfully struck by the fact that all of this was made possible by the generosity and hard work of so many people, both in the US and Bolivia. In the space of three short years, we turned a barren patch of ground into a thriving social space, where people can gather and a host of social services can be provided. This project stands as proof that international collaboration need not happen only at the level of governments. Individuals and communities (and universities!) have the ability to make powerful contributions, improving people's quality of life, producing new kinds of friendships, and promoting cross-cultural understanding. Maybe no one of us can change the world, but we can make positive change. This project is proof of that.

After the anniversary celebration we adjourned to don David and doña Celia's, where we ate an incredible meal (lapping, with Celia's famous camotes) and celebrated Ben's birthday with a giant cake that just barely fed the assembled crowd. At the end people made more speeches. Tears were shed, but I think we all left with a very warm feeling, glad of our friendships and proud of our accomplishments in the barrio.

This marks the end of another year of the Rutgers University Study Abroad in Bolivia program. Many thanks to all the people who have supported this program over the years. You share in our accomplishments. Hasta la vista!

Almost Done

2010-08-06T12:51:00.001-07:00

Our time in Bolivia is almost through, and we are putting the final touches on our work. First among these tasks is the mural, which a few dedicated volunteers finished this morning. It is a wonderful thing, and we are very excited about it. The mural will be inaugurated on Sunday at the Loma Pampa 12th Anniversary Celebration/Despedida (goodbye party) for Rutgers. This event will feature, among other things, dance performances organized by our students, an eating competition, relay races, singing (also by our students), and a trash collecting competition, organized by Pamela, who is somewhat obsessed with garbage :-)

Photos to follow...

Mural

2010-08-01T13:24:00.000-07:00

Today we began work on the mural that will grace the rear wall of the community center in Loma Pampa. With the help of a professional artist to guide us, we spent the day transforming a blank wall into a work of art, which will stand as lasting tribute to our work in the barrio. The photos tell the story - we will return on Friday morning to finish the work, in time for the anniversary celebration, and our big goodbye, in Loma Pampa next Sunday.

TIB

2010-07-31T15:30:00.000-07:00

I went to La Paz for the day yesterday, to speak at a conference on racism in Bolivia, and on my way back to Cochabamba I had a TIB moment. The students coined this acronym (TIB = This Is Bolivia) to refer to a range of circumstances that are best explained by the fact that, well, this is Bolivia, and anything that can happen, will happen.

The event I was attending ended much earlier than I had anticipated, so I called my travel agent in Cochabamba to try to book an earlier departure than my scheduled 8:50 PM flight on BOA airlines. She was able to get me a flight leaving at 7:30 on TAM airlines, for only $40 (airfares being relatively cheap in Bolivia). Being a savvy Bolivian traveler, I asked the travel agent to leave my original BOA ticket open: If something were to go wrong with the TAM flight (TIB), I wanted to have the backup option of my original 8:50 flight. So I headed to the airport a good two hours in advance, as the traffic is really bad out of La Paz to the airport in suburban El Alto, got my ticket, paid the airport departure tax at a separate window, and went to the boarding gate.

At about 7:15, the gate attendant announced the boarding of a flight, but it was not my flight - for some reason (TIB), another TAM flight was slated to leave at 7:45 from the same gate as my 7:30 flight. There then began a great chaos, as Bolivians on two different flights clashed and intermingled, one group (the 7:45 flight) clamoring to board (Bolivians are always extremely anxious to board flights, buses, you name it, reserved seats be damned) and the other group (my 7:30 flight) trying to find out what the hell was going on. Of course (TIB), no explanation was given, though the TAM gate attendant had an extremely annoying smirk on her face that seemed to imply some secret knowledge. This was revealed at about 7:40, when the 7:45 flight was entirely boarded, at which time the gate attendant announced that our plane had not yet arrived, and that our 7:30 flight would be leaving about 45 minutes late. People in the boarding gate actually hooted and whistled, like at a villain in an old-time silent movie. I approached the still smirking gate attendant and asked her if the flight was actually en route, and she ensured me that it was and would certainly arrive by 8:15.

This is when my own Bolivia craziness kicked in (TIB can also describe one's own state of mind when contending with these kinds of situations). Deciding that the gate attendant was lying about the plane being en route, and noting that my original 8:50 BOA flight was scheduled to depart from an adjoining gate, I opted to check in to the BOA flight, so that I would have two options ready to go. So, I headed back out to the terminal (I had to persuade the security attendant to let me go back in the wrong direction through the checkpoint, there being no other exit back to the terminal, which for some reason he allowed me to do, TIB) and checked in to the 8:50 flight. (BOA, it turns out, also had an 8:10 departure to Cochabamba, and one woman waiting to check in to the 8:50 flight was getting ugly in line, trying to pressure the counter people to allow her to board the earlier flight. I tried the same thing, but to no avail.) I paid my airport tax for the second time, passed through security again (no need to remove your shoes, TIB), and again stood at the departure gate.

Now armed with two tickets on two separate flights, I determined to leave on the first one that seemed likely to depart. This, it turned out, was the TAM flight: The gate attendant was not lying, the plane arrived at 8:15, and by 8:40 we were winging to Cochabamba. So for $40 and a whole lot of hassle, I managed to leave La Paz ten minutes earlier than I would have if I had simply waited for my original 8:50 BOA flight.

Sigh. TIB.

Charque

2010-07-28T04:31:00.000-07:00

Last night I went with don David and his family to eat charque. This was a special occasion - don David's daughter was celebrating her 13th birthday - and so they chose something special to eat. (In Cochabamba, every event is marked by eating, usually in large quantities).

Charque is dried llama meat, shredded and fried to a fatty crisp. I don't know if they eat it elsewhere in the Andes, but it is a specialty in Bolivia. My son Ben loves it, and had been asking for it since we arrived in Bolivia, so he and his friend Pete enjoyed the evening immensely.

Torotoro

2010-07-22T13:50:00.001-07:00

The students are off for a three-day trip to Torotoro, a lovely pueblo in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by some of the most astonishing natural wonders in Bolivia. Students will hike through steep-walled canyons, scramble through tunnels both dry and wet, splash under waterfalls, and step in the footprints of ancient dinosaurs. In addition, this weekend Torotoro is celebrating its annual fiesta, highlighted by parades, dances, and bull fighting (in which the bulls, unfortunately, are required to fight each other). The students will come back to Cochabamba on Saturday night, exhausted but, I hope, invigorated, and ready for the human rights fair that we are running in Loma Pampa on Sunday.

Defensoría del Pueblo

2010-07-20T15:24:00.000-07:00

Today I gave a public talk at the Defensoría del Pueblo, the office of the Bolivian Human Rights Ombudsperson. I spoke for an hour on problems of justice and rights in the periurban communities where I work, and then my colleague spoke about our ongoing project to bring legal and psychological services into these communities. The talk was well received.

What do we have in the United States that is equivalent to this office? If a citizen has a complaint against an entity of the government, to whom can they turn? It strikes me as remarkable that we don't have a similar office in the U.S. But then again, we don't really think of ourselves as having human rights in the U.S. Sure we have civil rights, but we seem to think that human rights only belong to people in faraway lands. How is it that Americans have excluded themselves from possessing something that is meant to be the universal property of all humankind?

Midterm

2010-07-19T15:10:00.000-07:00

We have reached the halfway point of the program. Three weeks lie behind us, three weeks lie ahead. This is always a good time for reflection.

The students have shown themselves to be a really great group. They all work hard - in service, in their classwork, in the optional activities we make available for them. They don't complain, even when rain spoils their plans, or when I put more on their plates than they can handle. They have dealt admirably with the trials they have so far faced, including tragedy, and have emerged as a strong, tight-knit community. I am proud of them.

The work on the project goes well, though I am having to put in extra work to try to bring it to a conclusion before our departure. We are painting the community center (in hues of yellow and electric green, which I did not choose but which the people of Loma Pampa seem pleased with), which is an elaborate process. We had to sand the walls to remove irregularities in the plaster, and then seal them by brushing on a liquid made from boiled cow's hooves. Then three coats of paint (walls and ceiling), using paint excessively thinned in order to stretch it (don David, like any good Bolivian, is always economical in his use of resources). We also want to paint the doors of the new bathrooms to match the ones we painted last year. All of this work is more than we can accomplish in a month of Sundays (well, six weeks), so I and a few diligent helpers have been making midweek visits to the barrio to get ahead in the work. My hope is that this year, for the first time, our students will actually be able to see the fruits of their labors before they leave. With only three weeks to go, time is already pressing.

Rhythms

2010-07-16T15:39:00.001-07:00

After a difficult few days, things have stabilized in Cochabamba for the Rutgers contingent. The first couple of weeks are always challenging, as students find their way in a new culture, adjust to host families, communicate in new languages, and discover the difficulties of doing anthropology and providing service to others. I have been especially swamped with coordinating the details of 12 people's experiences, and smoothing over the rough edges of cross-cultural contact. This year, things were infinitely complicated by the tragedy in Loma Pampa, which propelled us deeply and unexpectedly into the harsh realities of Bolivian life.

But now things are finally on a more even keel. The students are well-ensconced in their service projects and language classes. Their work seems to be going well, and all of them seem to be thriving. Things have found their rhythm, as I knew they would. If this paragraph can bear another metaphor, it is this: after running through the rapids, we are now in calmer waters.

Tonight the "kids" left for an overnight in the lowland Chapare region, where they will hang with monkeys, swing through the jungle, and enjoy the humidity of the Bolivian tropics. Dad has the night off. 'Bout time.

A prayer for Wilmer

2010-07-14T16:10:00.001-07:00

Lauren posted this on her blog; I think it bears reproducing here:

Dear Wilmer,

You finally escaped the barrio but not in the way i had wished for you. You sprouted wings and flew off into oblivion and i didn’t get to say bye. I had wished that you were going to come to class on tuesday morning so that we could teach you arts and crafts but instead of making origami stars, you were touching the stars. I wish the world wasn’t so cruel to you Wilmer, but I hope where you do go that you are able to have clean clothes and running water. I hope that they have food for miles for that empty stomach of yours. Dear Wilmer, it’s not fair that you’re gone but that’s how life is in Bolivia. At your funeral there was no silence like i had wished and the whole day i felt so lost..how is it possible such a little innocent being as yourself can be taken so easily? I just tell myself it was for the better, your suffering is now over Wilmer.

Rest in Peace

The funeral

2010-07-14T06:51:00.001-07:00

I got the call notifying me of Wilmer's death early yesterday morning, from some students who had just arrived in Loma Pampa for their service work. I immediately notified the rest of the students, and as a group we headed to the barrio. We viewed the body, strangely doll-like in its wooden box, surrounded by candles and sobbing relatives, laid out in the same one-room adobe house where Wilmer spent his days. Eventually a hearse arrived - no small feat, there on the far fringes of the city - and a group of men carried the small white casket from the house to the

street. People piled into vehicles for the long, slow procession to the cemetery. There we gathered around the grave, as prayers were said, coca leaves were chewed, and alcohol was sprinkled on the ground. The casket was lowered in. People threw flowers into the grave as men shoveled dirt into the hole. It thudded heavily on the lid of the box. Important people made speeches. We watched as the day gradually faded away, and then retired to our vehicles to return home.

It is difficult to write in standard blog-speak about Wilmer's passing. The linearity of the narrative, reflecting the linear nature of the day, does not capture the experience. My mind was all over the place. I thought of Wilmer, two years ago and just five years old, making a nuisance of himself during the construction work in Loma Pampa. I thought of the future he would not have, and what it means for people to live in this kind of a situation. Most of all, I thought of the structural conditions that precipitated this tragedy. How alcoholism destroys families. How Wilmer's father would toss him out of the house at 5 AM to go sell popsicles. How Wilmer, cold and lonely in the darkness of the morning, would sleep on the street corner until the day brightened and he could head out to work. How a family of seven could share one room with no furniture. No furniture! And how Wilmer would always show up at the community center whenever our Rutgers students came around, finding there the friendship and affection he couldn't get elsewhere.

Should we cry over such things? I don't know whether to be sad or angry - probably both. Our students certainly were impacted by these events, beyond anything a book or a classroom might teach them. Going forward, I don't imagine any of them will ever forget the events of this day.

A passing

2010-07-13T08:27:00.001-07:00

Yesterday afternoon, Wilmer Vargas, a 7 year-old resident of Loma Pampa, was trying to cross a busy highway with his older brother when he was struck by a speeding taxi. He died instantly.

Wilmer was a constant presence in the community center in Loma Pampa. All our students knew him, in 2008, 2009, and 2010. He was a regular participant in all of our activities in the barrio, joining our classes and trying to help out in the construction projects in his own small way. On our first Sunday in the barrio this year, he participated in group games with other children and a few of our students. One student remembered fondly how Wilmer just couldn't grasp the subtleties of duck duck goose - he would just keep running around the circle, unaware that he was supposed to sit down once he returned to his spot. Eventually someone had to grab him and force him to sit so that the game could proceed.

Wilmer came from one of the poorest families in Loma Pampa. He lived in a single adobe room, bare of furniture, sleeping on the dirt floor with his four brothers and sisters. His mother speaks only Quechua, his father is prone to drink, and they struggled to provide him with the kind of care that a young kid needs. But things seemed to be improving. The first year we came to Loma Pampa, Wilmer was covered in warts - on his face, but especially his hands, which were thick with them. I had never seen anything like it, and would hesitate when he would beg to use my camera. By this year, though, he seemed to be improving. The warts were mostly gone, and he seemed happy and cleaner than in the past.

But Wilmer was from a poor family, and like so many other poor kids was encouraged, even at a young age, to go out and try to make some money to support his family. When he was killed, Wilmer was down on the main road with his brother selling frozen popsicles from a small styrofoam container that hung from a strap across his chest. It is not uncommon to see young boys doing this and other kinds of work, to be able to bring a few pesos home to their families.

It is the poorest, here and elsewhere, that are the most vulnerable. Poor children like Wilmer stand very little chance of making it out of poverty. More likely they wind up like him, with nothing but a blog posting for an obituary. It is a tragedy beyond measure.

Another Day at the Office

2010-07-11T14:51:00.000-07:00

Some photos from another hard day's labor in Loma Pampa. Some students dug and moved dirt to fill in holes around the underground water tank we are installing for the community center, while others sanded and prepped for painting. Next Sunday I expect we will devote all of our energy to painting two rooms in the center, and prepping the third. I hope to have the place entirely painted in time for the barrio anniversary on August 8th - our last day in Loma Pampa.

Reflections

2010-07-10T14:04:00.000-07:00

Last night was our first "reflections," when we gather to share our thoughts and emotions as recorded in our daily journals. Reflections is an important component of the service-learning process, requiring participants to think carefully about what they are feeling and experiencing even as they are living through it. Their insights as a result are deeper than they might be otherwise, and through sharing they come to realize the commonalties and divergences in their collective experience.

An interesting theme to emerge last night was the question of whether the Bolivia program could "change your life." Some thought it would, or had, while others were skeptical. I am not a big believer in the idea of "life changing," as it implies that our lives are stable and constant, and can change suddenly from one particular state or condition to another, rather than being more of a continuum that is always in flux. But I think that living here in Bolivia for six weeks, doing the kind of work we do with women and children in poor communities, can change one's perspective. Students reflect on their own privilege and the lack thereof of their barrio friends. They recognize how difficult it is to create lasting and meaningful change in the lives of others, despite our best intentions, but also how even the smallest efforts are significant and

appreciated. And through this kind of awareness, they begin to understand their own positions relative to others in entirely new ways. They begin to relativize their own problems through juxtaposition with those of others, and they start to think differently about what role they might be able to play in building a new kind of society. So while their "lives" may not necessarily change by being in Bolivia, students do, I think, come to see the world, and their place in it, through a different set of lenses.

(Photo credits: Natasha Bennett; Lauren Giannetti)

Sunday in Loma Pampa

2010-07-05T08:17:00.000-07:00

Things have gone incredibly well since our arrival a few days ago. Our friends welcomed us with open arms, and everything was in place for our students to begin their work. The students have settled into their homestays, and seem content with those situations. I am very impressed with this group of students - they are upbeat, enthusiastic, and seem ready to meet the challenges that they will confront in Bolivia. This was demonstrated most clearly in the way they threw themselves into their work yesterday in Loma Pampa, the barrio where we have been working the last three years on various projects.

The community center which our first two groups of students helped to build looks fantastic, and the huge metal awning out back of it that our students helped erect last year adds a big outdoor space for activities. Under that awning, don David and members of the community welcomed us with flowers and kind words, followed by salteñas and Coca Cola. Then our students went to work, laboring alongside barrio residents to move a huge pile of rocks and dirt from one side of the community center to the other, to try and level out a piece of ground to be used for a patio. It took some persuading for the barrio directorate to allow us to work - aware that it was July 4th, they felt uncomfortable that we should be laboring on our national holiday. But our students were not to be denied, and they worked in the hot sun for almost two hours moving rocks. Starting next week we will begin constructing retaining walls around the awning area, as well as doing painting and other work in the center itself.

In the afternoon, students split into two groups. One group helped to run the jiu jitsu class that are offered on Sundays under the awning, expanding the curriculum to include dodge ball, tag, and other group games. The rest of the students worked with children inside the community center to make music, banging away on drums and other instruments they had brought for the occasion. They also taught the kids to play "Pato, Pato, Ganso" (Duck, Duck, Goose) and musical chairs, which they couldn't get enough of.

When classes ended, we went as a group to Viva Vinto, a restaurant outside of town, where we ate phampaku and lit off fireworks in honor of our national day.

Phampaku

Arrival

2010-07-03T08:29:00.000-07:00

We are all safe and sound in Bolivia, following a long but uneventful series of flights. Pamela's suitcase did not arrive till yesterday, but otherwise we made it through customs and two flight changes without too many hassles. The students are now all settled with their homestay families, and all seem to be doing very well. Yesterday was spent in marathon orientation sessions, as the group learned about the program, their service projects, and the basic rules of life in Bolivia. Today they have free, but tomorrow we begin in earnest, celebrating the Fourth of July with a day of service in Loma Pampa, followed by a group dinner.

Coincidentally, the day before we left the States, the New York Times' Frugal Traveler published an article exalting the many wonders of Cochabamba - check it out here.

Tomorrow

2010-06-29T10:24:00.000-07:00

Departure day looms. The familiar last minute scramble, trying to get everything organized, final errands completed. Unexpected crises suddenly popping up, needing to be managed before I can leave. The feeling of mounting pressure, like a kettle heating to a boil on the stove top. Any minute the steam will come shooting out my ears, like in an old-time cartoon.

Tomorrow will be even crazier - getting to the airport, the check-in, the security check...and then the endless waiting. But I know that once I am in the airport, on that plane, the pressure will begin to drop. I am on my way, and even if the plane doesn't leave on time, or a student misses the flight, or I end up in Paraguay (as has happened, on occasion), at least I am on my way. No more time for additional errands, no more planning, now just the doing, which I find infinitely preferable.

Next blog entry - from Cochabamba!

Blog explosion

2010-06-28T10:30:00.001-07:00

Suddenly there are four (count-em, four) Bolivia blogs. Including my own, three students - Lauren, Natasha, and Ayesha - are also keeping blogs. Links are to the right.

This is unprecedented. There will be so much coverage of this program, I may have to write a book...

Saying goodbye

2010-06-25T06:03:00.000-07:00

It is never easy to say goodbye to our loved ones when we go away from home. I've been leaving home for years - I do it several times a year, some years - and it doesn't get easier with practice, though I keep hoping it will. But it is not just about saying goodbye when leaving home - it can be just as hard, I have recently learned, when people say goodbye to you.

Yesterday we drove Eli, 11 years old, to Laguardia airport, where he would be catching a flight to summer camp in Maine. It is his first year going to camp, his first time leaving home. When we made these plans, I was relieved. Every year when I go off to Bolivia, I have to say goodbye to Eli, which is incredibly sad. This year, I thought, it would be so much easier, since he would be going away and I would be staying home - at least for a few days.

Not so. Saying goodbye is just as hard, whether you are the one leaving or the one staying behind. The one leaving has to face all the uncertainties of life in an unfamiliar place. But the one staying has to confront the defamiliarization of the familiar, the sense that this house seems the same, but is profoundly different, because some of the liveliness and joy has left it. For me, this is a much harder thing to face.

Missing summer

2010-06-20T07:26:00.000-07:00

One of the hardest things about going to Bolivia every year is that I end up missing a good chunk of summer. Bolivia, of course, being in the southern hemisphere, has winter while we in the north have summer.

Missing summer has its positives and negatives. On the plus side, I miss the intense, wet heat of July. The taste of it I get in June is enough to remind me how much I hate humidity, the way it makes my shirt stick to my back, and makes me glad that I get to escape it on June 30. Winter weather in Cochabamba is crisp and dry, with a nice cool tang to the evening air, even as the days are warm and temperate. Give me cool and dry over hot and humid any day.

The down side is that I miss the best of summer. I miss the swimming, the lazy days, the ice cream and the bike rides. I miss my kids as they do summery things. Summer brings back the sense of my own childhood, spent by the lake in upstate New York, and not being part of summer on an annual basis makes me ache for lost youth.

In the end, though, it all works out. Missing the heart of summer means I appreciate all the more the time I have to enjoy it in June and late August. Welcome the time we are given, make the most of the time we have got.

Things to think about

2010-06-17T14:43:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of a great adventure, it is important to ask yourself a few questions. Why am I doing this? What are my expectations? What do I hope to get from this experience? You may not know the answers to these questions, but thinking about them can help prepare you for what lies ahead. The important thing is to be alert to the new things you are about to discover, many of which will be entirely unanticipated.

Over the years I have been amazed by the many students who have told me that the Bolivian program was a life-changing experience. They describe discovering aspects of themselves that they had not previously imagined, dimensions of who they are that somehow being far from home, in a strange and different place, brought into consciousness. It's like walking into your house, a place you think you know perfectly well, and finding that there are whole new rooms there that you didn't even know existed, and are there for you to explore. Others describe the thrill of meeting new challenges, and how this led them to discover previous unknown capacities in themselves. These experiences range from the dramatic to the mundane - from hiking up incredibly steep hills and squeezing through tiny spaces in underground caverns, to simply speaking a foreign language in daily encounters.

The point is that there are so many things we don't know about ourselves, which we can discover when we put ourselves in new and challenging situations. It is easier to stay at home, in comfort and safety, where our assumptions will go unquestioned and our worldviews will remain unchanged. This is a comfortable way to live, and it is not surprising that most people choose to live this way. But for those of you willing to put yourselves out there and challenge yourselves, the potential for growth and discovery is limitless.

It is sometimes said that, "wherever you go, there you are." And indeed, we can't escape ourselves by traveling to faraway places, for we inevitably take our baggage, emotional and otherwise, with us wherever we go. But there is also the possibility that the "you" you find in that other place may be different from the one you thought you knew. And that can make all the difference.

Packing List

2010-06-13T09:45:00.000-07:00

"Pack light" is my mantra for going to Bolivia. Try to keep it to one bag, under 50 lbs. to avoid the overweight fees that the airlines will charge you. Here are some tips to help you along.

For those of you who have never been to Bolivia before, you may be surprised by the number of things you can buy there that are familiar from shopping in North American stores. You can get your Old Spice deoderant, for example, your Head and Shoulders and Crest Super Whitening. So when packing for Bolivia, don't feel you have to bring jumbo sizes of every product you might need.

It's also very easy, and cheap, to buy clothes. If you've ever donated anything to Goodwill, maybe dropped your old jeans in one of those big metal boxes in the supermarket parking lot, thinking they would be given to some poor homeless person, think agin. Your jeans were bundled with thousands of other pieces of donated clothing and sold in bulk to international clothing vendors, who in turn sold them to distributors in various countries around the world. They were then bought by local dealers who, in Bolivia, sell them in stores and market stalls. So if you find yourself in need of clothing, you may be able to buy back your old jeans while you're there.

You will also see people wearing t-shirts with English-language logos, having no idea what their shirts say. I once stopped a guy in the street who was wearing a Rutgers t-shirt, but he had no affiliation to Rutgers and thought I was kind of crazy for stopping him.

Here are the top five items that you should buy, which may be harder to find in Bolivia. Some of these things may indeed be available there, but they are things you want to have immediately upon arrival.

5. Hat - It is extremely sunny in Bolivia, and you should bring a broad-brimmed hat to protect yourself from the sun's rays. You can of course buy hats in Bolivia (see image), but some of these are less useful than others for sun protection. Along these same lines, get yourself some...

4. Sunscreen - You will want to slather yourself with this whenever you go out.

3. Reading material - Finding good books in English is almost impossible in Bolivia. Bring along a few good novels, to while away an evening, time spent in travel, and so on. If you are not in the habit of reading for pleasure, this is a good time to start.

2. Shoes - Of course you can buy shoes in Bolivia. But Bolivian shoes are stiff, uncomfortable, and tend to be kind of dressy. Bring comfortable, sturdy walking shoes. You will need them.

1. Imodium - I don't really need to explain this one, do I? Remember, don't drink the water. And don't eat the lettuce.

2010-06-05T17:25:00.000-07:00

This year for the first time, our students will be doing service work directly through a project run by a non-governmental organization that I helped to found in 2007, and which has helped to run the summer program each of the past two years. The group is now operating two human rights and access-to-justice centers in two Cochabamba neighborhoods. The project aims to teach barrio residents about human rights, provides counseling and legal services, offers training in non-violent conflict resolution, and helps to create new understanding and opportunities in the barrios.

The project will be the site of our students' community service and anthropological research this summer. Students will be assigned to one of the two barrio sites, and will work with groups of men, women and children to design activities, prepare materials, and help lead workshops and trainings. At the same, the students themselves will learn alongside barrio residents about the nature of human rights and HR defense. Some students may work to develop curricula for teaching about HR in schools; others will help the trainers work with kids to discover the importance of non-violence through, somewhat paradoxically, martial arts; others will work with women's groups to help develop new income-generating opportunities.

Unlike past years, the students this year will work directly through an established an ongoing project. Whereas previously we developed stand-alone projects in which students engaged, this year the students will work with an established and ongoing project, which will give their work more lasting value and provide a framework within which they can learn about Bolivia, human rights, and so on. I expect it to be a very productive collaboration.

The Blog is Back

2010-06-04T11:12:00.001-07:00

Welcome back to the Bolivia blog! As I have each summer since 2008, I will be keeping this blog so that those of you who can't come with us to Bolivia can keep track of what we are doing there. Please post your feedback to this site and share with us your responses.

It is June, and once again I am preparing to return to Bolivia with a group of Rutgers students. This will be the third consecutive year for the Bolivia-RU summer study abroad program, and I am again very excited about the program. We have 12 students again this summer, from a range of backgrounds, majors, and levels of international experience. It is a diverse group of men and women, all of whom seem excited to learn about Bolivian reality while contributing their knowledge and energy to helping transform the difficult situations that the people with whom we work regularly encounter.

Keep watching this space for updates. Departure day is June 30!

Saying goodbye

2009-08-10T04:19:00.000-07:00

The last few days have been marked by several tearful farewells - at the orphanage, and with the women's and girls' groups with which our students have been working. Yesterday was our last day in Loma Pampa, which was also the anniversary of the barrio. We participated in the celebrations and activities of the day - our students participated in several relay races and events, and took home the prize in the egg toss and dance competitions. They also served cake to the entire community, and received certificates of recognition from the local leadership. The appreciation that everyone expressed for the work we have done in the community was very strong and moving.

Today, students begin the process of packing up and returning home. The program is officially over, with just a few loose ends to tie up. Everyone will be taking home incredible, lasting memories of what they have experienced here; no one, it is safe to say, will ever be the same as when they left home six weeks ago.

This will be my last blog entry of the season. Below are some photos of the last few days. See you again in June, 2010!

First despedida

2009-08-05T11:18:00.000-07:00

The process of leaving Bolivia is marked by despedidas – goodbye parties. For us, these began yesterday, as the group that has been working with the women of Loma Pampa said goodbye to their friends in the barrio. The students had spent the morning preparing a meal of charque - dried llama meat - which they brought to Loma Pampa in the afternoon and served to the women assembled. The food was great, and the women so appreciative - our students and the leaders of the women's group all spoke movingly of their time together, and the women expressed their hope that the students would return some day. Our students should be extremely proud of themselves - they helped to found this women's group (and the girls' group, which has its despedida on Saturday), a space for women to get together, share their thoughts and feelings with one another, and learn to do crafts and other activities.

In the evening, another group of students attended a community meeting in Alto Cochabamba, another barrio where they have similarly been working with a group of women, helping them to learn how to bake bread and pastries. At this meeting, the students and our colleagues donated an oven to the community, which will be used by the women in their future activities. This was received by the women there with much joy and appreciation, as indicated by the confetti which they rubbed in everyone's hair. This group has its despedida tomorrow.

Learning to Cueca

2009-08-03T18:09:00.000-07:00

Sunday in Loma Pampa was busy, as usual. This week we were accompanied by two British students, whom our group met up with during their trip to Torotoro, and whom they invited along to share the fun. They did their share, digging in the dirt to help level the ground for the metal awning (which hopefully will be installed this week), and hacking through dense rock to make the post holes to support the structure. I wondered why two people, backpacking through South America, would want to give up a perfectly good Sunday to sweat in the dirt of Loma Pampa. Aida thinks it's because we have such an amazing program, which offers opportunities unlike any other. People - young people, especially - from all over the world have the desire to help out, to do good for others, even for people they have never met before and will never meet again. Surprisingly, perhaps, the chance to do meaningful work of this kind can be hard to come by. Our program offers this opportunity, in a way that students feel the immediate impact of their contributions.

After classes with the children, don David's daughter-in-law invited our students to learn to dance the cueca, Cochabamba's traditional dance, and somehow convinced them to perform it at the anniversary celebration in Loma Pampa next Sunday.

Time

2009-07-31T15:39:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day of July, which means we have been in Bolivia for a month now. It always amazes me how time passes here. It feels like we've been gone forever, but at the same time, like we just left yesterday. Each day goes by so quickly, but the overall passage of weeks seems to drag. In any event, we head for home in less than two weeks, which seems very strange. Many of the students are already sad about leaving, wondering why the program can't go for eight weeks, or a semester.

The group comes back from Torotoro tomorrow evening, and Sunday morning we're back in Loma Pampa, finishing up the work we've been doing on the community center - painting the woodwork inside, and helping to level the field out back for the giant metal awning we hope to see installed before we leave.

What's wrong with the Red Sox?

2009-07-29T16:28:00.000-07:00

I know this is irrelevant to you Bolivia watchers, but the students are on their way to Torotoro (where they will spend three days hiking, caving, and splashing beneath waterfalls), and I am following the Red Sox via MLB radio on my computer. The Sox have dropped 7 of the last 10 games and now trail the Yankees by 2.5 games in the AL East, after leading by 3 at the All Star break. And after blowing a seven run lead last night against the A's (one of the worst teams in the AL), they trail 5-0 after one inning in Boston. What is the deal?

Being far away and unable to watch the games, I feel disconnected from my team, and somehow partly responsible for this train wreck. I've got to get home so I can start watching again, and things can return to normal. Yes, I am that powerful.

Public speaking

2009-07-27T09:19:00.001-07:00

Recently a former student (hi Alana!) posted a comment to this blog, asking incred-

ulously if the building in which we are holding classes in Loma Pampa is in fact the same building that students helped to construct last summer. Indeed it is. Not only classes, but many other functions are held there as well, including the regular end-of-the-month meeting, which we attended yesterday.

Our purpose at the meeting was to speak to the community about our various activities there. Several of our students had a chance to practice their public speaking skills. We were warmly received, with much applause and expressions of gratitude from barrio leaders and residents. We also made several donations, including a soccer ball, a bag of used clothing, and some gifts in support of the barrio anniversary on August 9. That will be the last day of our program, a good day for a despedida.

Palmitos

2009-07-25T15:23:00.000-07:00

Another visit we made during our trip to the Chapare was to a local factory where they pack palmitos: hearts of palm. These are grown in fields out back (which we also toured), and then brought into the factory where they are processed and canned for export, mostly to other Latin American nations. This is one of the few successful cases of alternative development in the Chapare - local farmers were convinced to give up growing coca about 8 years ago, and in return got a stake in this enterprise, which has since flourished (though the global economic crisis is impacting its income at present). I suppose it is a sign of the deindustrialization of the North that this was my first-ever visit to a factory. It was the cleanest, nicest-smelling place in Bolivia that I had ever visited.

Before entering the facility, we were all made to dress up in protective gear, though whether to protect us or the palmitos was unclear (probably the latter, given that everyone in Bolivia seems to think that gringos are invariably carrying swine flu). So we all dressed up like doctors and headed in for our tour.

Fun fact: The name "Chapare" comes from "ancha para," or mucha lluvia (lots of rain) in Quechua.

The Chapare

2009-07-23T07:41:00.000-07:00

We've just returned from three days in the Chapare, the lowland tropical region of Cochabamba department. It was an exhausting but enjoyable few days, and students had the chance to see another part of Bolivia, while learning about the war on drugs, alternative development, tropical agriculture, and jungle ecosystems.

The trip was exhausting mostly because of the bus which was our mode of transportation for this adventure. Though we had arranged for a long-distance bus (a flota) to take us to the Chapare, the driver showed up on Sunday with a local city bus (a micro), not designed for long trips or passenger comfort. It was a classic bait-and-switch, and we had no time to arrange an alternative. So off we went.

The bus had trouble climbing the hills out of the Cochabamba valley, but even more trouble with the long descent into the Chapare. The two-lane highway winds for miles down from the heights of Cochabamba (about 7500 meters) to the town of Villa Tunari (290 meters above sea level), and our driver did not seem to understand the use of the lower gears to slow the vehicle. Instead he rode the brakes, which soon overheated. We spent upwards of a half hour standing on the side of the road waiting for the brakes to cool down, and then set off in first gear all the way down the mountain. A trip that should have taken three to four hours took nearly seven,

and we arrived tired, bruised, and extremely hungry - Ivan repeatedly yelling "Carne!" from the back of the bus during the final two hours of the trip, and several students plotting to eat Ayesha, the vegetarian of the group, before we finally pulled into Villa Tunari at about 10 pm.

Our students from last year will remember some of the activities from the Chapare, including a visit to UMOPAR, the Bolivian anti-drug police, who described to us their efforts in trying to fight narcotics trafficking in Bolivia. We also got a tour of the UMOPAR cocaine museum, where we all received a lesson in how to process coca leaves into cocaine paste for easy transport to foreign markets. Very educational!

New this year was a visit to La Jungla, a theme park consisting of rope bridges, tree forts, and

zip lines stretched between jungle trees. There were also rope swings hanging from sequentially higher starting points - our students and the braver among our faculty (yours truly not included) climbed to the top of the wooden platforms and leapt off, swinging out into space and screaming their lungs out.

We also finally made it into Parque Machia, the wildlife park in Villa Tunari. Students from last year's trip will surely remember our many failed attempts to access this park, ending with me screaming "Fascists!" and "Nazis!" at the intransigent park employees who refused to allow us entrance. But this year, after one failed attempt (the park is not open on Mondays, who knew?), we gained admission on our final day, and it was worth the wait. We saw all kinds of wildlife, particularly monkeys and birds, and hiked up a huge mountain to a waterfall.

On returning from the hike, I sat on the steps of the park office drinking from a bottle of water, and was approached by what appeared to be a monkey family: a mom with a baby riding on her back, and another adult whom I assumed anthropocentrically to be the dad. These three sat beside me and appropriated my water bottle, drinking casually till the water was gone and then ambling off in search of more goodies. The "dad" eventually found his way onto our bus, where he stole G's ham and cheese sandwich before escaping through an open window.

There were other events (including a failed attempt to find some Inca ruins) which I will relate at another time. For now, I am glad to be back in Cochabamba - the humidity and the insects of the Chapare, while a nice diversion, get tiresome after a few days. Glad to be back in the llajta.

Classwork

2009-07-17T08:28:00.001-07:00

Just in case anyone thinks it's all fun and games down here in Bolivia, let me assure you that we are also hard at work. Not only throwing rocks around and shoveling in the dirt, as the previous posts suggested, but also engaging our brains in academic work. Of course, being Bolivia, we have class outdoors in a lovely garden, our chairs in a circle under an awning, interrupting our studies with traditional pastries and Coca Cola, the national beverage.

This is all part of the service-learning philosophy: To be truly meaningful, community service has to be combined with study and scholarly understanding. Through our readings and discussions, our students learn about the larger historical and political-economic context in which Bolivia is situated, and how a variety of forces have conspired to produce the conditions of extreme poverty and social inequality in which Bolivians today find themselves.

Our students also study the techniques and practices of cultural anthropology, learning, in effect, how to learn about the world around them. Each week, the students have to complete an ethnographic research project, using a particular technique of anthropological data gathering. This week is it kin diagrams: Students have to interview field "consultants" who will share with them the details of their familial backgrounds, which the students will diagram using formal techniques of genealogical mapping. In this way, they learn not only about the histories of their consultants, but also about family patterns in Bolivia, migration trajectories, naming practices, and so on. We will share the results of our work at our next class meeting.

Videos from Loma Pampa

2009-07-16T07:37:00.000-07:00

Here are two videos, filmed and narrated by Jovanna, of our work in Loma Pampa last Sunday.

Hard at work

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Teaching class

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Soccer balls and cuñapes

2009-07-15T16:02:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday we presented a donation of three soccer balls, plus a pump, to the children and teachers at Casa Nazareth, the orphanage where we are volunteering. The balls were provided by the Global Futbol Initiative, whose work I described in an earlier post. The boys weredelighted to receive the balls, which we delivered along with two computers donated by ourproject. All of these materials will be used by our students in their teaching and activities with the kids at the home.

Another group of students is working with a group of women in the barrio of Alto Cochabamba, where they are helping to organize a club de madres while working alongside the women as they learn to bake different kinds of breads and pastries. The idea is to offer women training in this skill, which they can then use to increase their income, while also gathering with other women to form bonds of community. Most of the residents of Alto Cochabamba are ambulantes, street vendors who work in the Cancha and other markets around the city and the valley region. While they do this work the students also do ethnographic research with the women, learning about their lives and community through mapping exercises, charting kin relations, observation and interviewing. This combination of research and service-learning is the hallmark of our program.

More photos from Loma Pampa

2009-07-14T10:33:00.001-07:00

A good day in Loma Pampa

2009-07-13T10:02:00.000-07:00

Another Sunday spent in Loma Pampa doing community service. The students and the rest of us were at it from 8:00 AM, when the bus picked us up from my hotel, until 5:00 PM, when it finally brought us home. The day was hot and sunny, and dusty as always in Loma Pampa, but incredibly rewarding.

We began with construction work on the community center (the sede), which our group began last year and which has progressed to a remarkable extent. Half the students worked alongside community residents, moving rocks and shoveling dirt to level the ground for a large concrete floor and aluminum awning that will be erected outside of the sede, for public meetings and events. The other half painted inside, sanding the wooden doors and frames before applying the reddish-brown paint that I had helped don David to select the day before. After a while the groups switched, so that everyone had the opportunity to get blisters on their hands and paint on their clothes. After three hours of hard work, the students were treated to an ice cream by members of the neighborhood directorio.

After lunch in the shade, some students went up to watch the women's futbol league tournament, before returning to the sede to teach classes to the barrio children. Fewer showed up than the previous week, probably due to the futbol tournament, but there were still plenty on hand. We divided into three groups - one for English classes, one for drawing classes, and one for photography lessons. Though the sede is still incomplete, it was wonderful to see it already in use, buzzing with activity as the children and students worked on their various lessons.

On their way down to the sede, four students were stopped by a woman who came running out of her house, yelling excitedly and waving her arms. At first the students were unsure of what she wanted - was there some sort of emergency? But no, she just wanted them to come inside her house, which they obligingly did. Inside, the woman and her husband invited them to eat birthday cake and drink soda with them. The man explained how grateful he was that we were here working in the community, that in all his years he has never seen outsiders come into a community for the purposes of doing work for and with the people who live there. He was very moved, as were the students by this encounter.

It is stories like this that make all of the effort, the energy, the sacrifice worthwhile. I am amazed to stand there and survey this work, and to realize that all of it exists because of the efforts we have made to bring this into being.

2009-07-11T18:19:00.000-07:00

One of the more disturbing things to emerge from reflections last night was that our students seem to be consistently mistaking mannequins for real people.

One student described being downtown, a bit confused as to his whereabouts, when with relief he turned to someone who seemed to be an American - white skin, blue eyes, modern looking clothes. As the student began to ask this person for directions, he realized that it was not a real person at all. Another student observed an American woman in a clothing shop who seemed to be spending a long time examining the merchandise on a particular rack, before realizing that she, too, was a mannequin.

Mannequins are meant to embody ideals of beauty, often in exaggerated ways. In Bolivia, the mannequins are usually made to resemble white people. Our students, out of the corners of their eyes, perceive these "people" to be their fellow countrymen.

Reflections

2009-07-10T09:13:00.000-07:00

Tonight we will have our first meeting for "reflections," an integral part of the service-learning experience. (I wish I could say that I had taken the above photo, but unfortunately I can't.) Every day, our students write in their personal journals, commenting not only on their experiences and observations, but on their thoughts and feelings in response to these experiences. During reflections, we gather to share some of these insights. I share my own thoughts from my journal, which is less robust this year given that I spend a fair amount of time writing this blog instead. But there are some personal things that I choose not to share with the world, but which I do share with my students during reflections. Last year, this was a very important part of our students' experience in Cochabamba. Reflections allows them a space to freely share their reactions to the unprecedented experiences they are having here in Bolivia, to express the often profound emotions that their encounters here raise for them, and to have those validated by their peers.

Leading such a process (as is the case with leading this entire program) is really beyond my training as an academic, but I find myself to be surprisingly good at it.

At the orphanage

2009-07-08T10:30:00.000-07:00

Some of our students have started doing service work in an orphanage here in Cochabamba. Perhaps because this is in some ways a "classic" service environment, it has sparked a great deal of interest among our students, so that several who are assigned to other service projects have also been visiting the orphanage. After only one day, I can tell that it is going to be a very successful project.

The orphanage, housed in what was once home to an upper class Bolivian family, is home to some 25 boys between the ages of 6 and 12. It is run by Amanecer, a Catholic organization that administers many homes throughout Cochabamba. Casa Nazareth, where our students are working, is a second stage home - kids coming directly from the streets first go to another home, and after a while are moved to Nazareth. Our students will be doing a variety of activities with the boys, including providing help with their homework, instruction in computers and English, and games designed to foster group dynamics, self-esteem, and interpersonal communication skills.

One of the surprising things about this orphanage is that the definition of "orphan" is a bit different, and in many ways even sadder, than our typical, Oliver Twist conception. That is because in many if not most cases, these boys actually have families. But their families are so dysfunctional - torn by alcoholism, violence, and neglect - that the boys end up on the streets, where they quickly fall into lives of crime and drug abuse (glue sniffing in particular). If they are on the streets longer than a couple of months it may already be too late, as they quickly become hooked on glue and have no desire to change their lives. So Amanacer rescues those it can, and works to reunite boys with whatever family they might possess, reinforcing that family with employment, economic and other support, in the hopes of building or rebuilding families.

This is the environment in which our students will be working and learning. Given the eagerness of the boys to work with them, their warm welcome and openness to these strange foreigners, and the enthusiasm of our students, I think it will be a rewarding experience for all concerned.

4th of July

2009-07-05T09:57:00.000-07:00

Last night we gathered at the restaurant El Olivo to celebrate the Fourth of July. As I noted in my last post, the food was not typical of the day, but one of the dishes did have hot dogs in it. Despite the unorthodox setting and menu, no one seemed particularly sorry to be here rather than in the US celebrating the Fourth in more conventional ways.

The students seem to be doing well adjusting to life in Cocha- bamba. For the most part, students are happy with their homestay assignments, speaking lots of Spanish (and in some cases, Quechua), and getting used to the Bolivian routine. After getting adjusted to Bolivian middle class life, our students will not confront urban poverty, as we head today to two of our field sites in barrios of Cochabamba's southern zone.

Arrival

2009-07-04T14:27:00.000-07:00

We are safe and sound in Cochabamba. The journey was long, and for most of us it began at about 3:30 in the morning on Wednesday July 1. The taxi picked me and Ben up at our house at 4:00, and we were at the airport by 4:30, where a number of students were already checking in. American Airlines, typically, made things unnecessarily difficult - one student was denied permission to board because she lacked her yellow vaccine card, though she already had the Bolivian visa. Instead, she had to go home, find her card, and fly standby that night, arriving in time for the orientation the next day.

The orientation in Santa Cruz went well, as we covered all the bases

of the program. New this year, we met in small groups with the individuals who will be leading our service activities. The students all seemed very engaged with their projects, and were fast coming up with lots of ideas for how to develop the projects to which they have been assigned.

Friday at noon we headed to the Santa Cruz airport, and flew the short hop to Cocha- bamba. Our students are now with their host families, and today (Saturday) enjoyed a day of rest. Tonight we are gathering to celebrate the 4th of July over pique macho (see photo - not exactly classic American fare, but it does have hot dogs on it) and picante de pollo. Tomorrow will be our first day in Loma Pampa, site of many of our ongoing service projects.

2009-06-29T14:58:00.000-07:00

We are poised to depart. Bags are packed, documents assembled, goodbyes said. One more day to get things organized and then we're off. Next post will be from Bolivia. Feliz viaje!

The wisdom of packing light

2009-06-27T08:34:00.000-07:00

As I prepare to travel, I struggle with what and how much to take along. I can imagine any number of scenarios in which I can use the things I own. Especially problematic are books - I always take too many books wherever I go, and books of course are especially heavy.

We pack, I think, in much the same way that we live - anticipating possible eventualities, and feeling that if we are only well prepared, we will be able to deal with whatever we encounter in a way that will not cause us too much discomfort. We project our anxiety about the future onto things - if I have my wool socks my feet will never be cold, if I have enough books I'll never be bored, and so on. Our things become fetishes, magical objects that can ward off the malignant spirits that seek to do us harm and cause us to suffer.

But there is a wisdom to be found in not overpacking for a trip. By traveling light, we show an acceptance of the reality that we are destined to suffer. Despite all our preparations, our planning and packing, we inevitably will find ourselves in difficult and unpleasant situations. We cannot reasonably hope to guard ourselves from all that might befall us. When we realize this, we may come to see our things as burdens rather than guardians, weights that drag on us and limit our mobility. Walled in by mountains of stuff, we are cut off from the thrilling challenges of life.

Having made the incredibly daring decision to go to Bolivia, push it one step further and truly open yourself to the possibilities.

The Waiting Game

2009-06-26T07:18:00.000-07:00

It is Friday morning and we leave for Bolivia on Wednesday, July 1. I am busily putting things in readiness. At home, this means buying gifts for a range of people, getting shots and haircuts and new shoes, cleaning equipment and making sure I have the right batteries and cables for all my little electronic gadgets, putting together a syllabus and arranging for the readings to be available. On the receiving end, it means lots of emails to Bolivia, squaring away the funding, setting up various projects, figuring out what I owe people and trying to have everything I need to bring them.

My main goals for this summer: to have a successful program; to do some research and writing; to have fun, see friends, make good on promises; to maintain my equanimity.

The Sun

2009-06-24T06:39:00.000-07:00

The sun in Bolivia is incredibly strong. I've often wondered if the high altitude has something to do with it - at 8000 feet, are we really that much closer to the sun that it burns more fiercely? In any event, I have learned to be prepared when going outdoors. Though it is winter now in South America, it is still easy to get sunburned and dehydrated.

Be sure to bring a hat and sunscreen with you to Bolivia. Use them when you go outside. Drink lots of bottled water. Simple precautions will keep you healthy and happy.

House gifts

2009-06-22T07:09:00.000-07:00

Natasha asked me today about what to bring as gifts for the families with which we will be staying. Good question. It is not obligatory to bring a gift, but it is a nice way to thank people in advance for their generosity in taking you into their home, and to start things off on the right foot. I don't know the details about your homestays, so I don't know, for example, if there will be children in the family. If you are really eager to know, you can contact Lee Cridland (info@volunteerbolivia.org) at Bolivia Cultura for more information.

Some appropriate gifts might include:

• hand towels or bath towels

• kitchen items

• books and magazines in English

• small hand tools

• toys for children (even if none live in the house, they will know people who can use them)

• baby clothes

• clothes for adults

• other small items for use around the house

Generally speaking, I am not the best person to give advice on being nice. Your mom might have additional insights into this topic.

What to expect

2009-06-17T11:52:00.000-07:00

When you first arrive in Santa Cruz, expect to be really tired but excited. You'll pass through customs, and be surprised at how easy it is (unless, of course, you're surprised by how difficult it is - one never knows). Everything will be different - the food, the money, the styles, the smells and sounds. You'll miss home but wouldn't want to miss a thing in Bolivia.

Someone will get sick on the first day in Bolivia. Don't let it be you. Wash your hands a lot. Don't drink the tap water. Don't brush your teeth with the tap water. Don't eat food that you buy on the street. Eat only in restaurants that you know are safe. Don't eat fruit or vegetables that have been washed in tap water.

When we arrive in Cochabamba, you may feel funny at first from the high altitude. It may be hard to sleep the first few nights. You may feel nauseous, especially if you drink alcohol.

You will feel uncomfortable speaking Spanish at first, if it is not your native language. Don't be shy - people have low expectations and will be happy with your attempts. Be polite to people and they will think the world of you. Shake hands with everyone upon joining or leaving a group of people. Say "provecho" or "gracias" when finishing a meal. Little things go a long way.

2009-06-16T18:51:00.000-07:00

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

---- Walt Whitman

"Song of Myself"

Prepare for your trip!

2009-06-15T07:46:00.000-07:00

Students traveling to Bolivia this summer are reminded to read "Impasse in Bolivia" by Ben Kohl and Linda Farthing, prior to their arrival. It is vital that you have an understanding of the political and economic background to recent Bolivian history, so that you can have an informed perspective on contemporary Bolivian reality. Remember, you are traveling as an anthropologist, not as a tourist.

We will have a quiz on this book at our first class meeting, so come prepared!

Bad dog

2009-06-14T11:51:00.001-07:00

Today I learned something very important:

Never leave Ozzie alone in a room with a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. Right, Ozzie?

"Think of your dog as having come into your life for a reason – to make you a stronger, confident, more assertive person."

- Cesar Millan

Rutgers Anthro

2009-06-12T13:57:00.000-07:00

The study abroad in Bolivia program is getting a lot of press around Rutgers these days, as is our program in Cultural Anthropology. Check out this discussion of my work on the University's Research Highlights page.

Making progress

2009-06-10T16:38:00.000-07:00

Things are shaping up. Last year the details involved in running this program made me ill - literally (see my old blog posts). Too much coordination, too many changes, too much uncertainty. To avoid that, I am trying to lay as much of the ground work now as possible, knowing, of course, that in Bolivia everything is constantly in flux. Nevertheless, through the good work of my friends at Bolivia Cultura (see the photo, above), I am making good progress. We now have schedules for our language classes and service work - a big advance over last year, when coordinating these things was the bane of my existence. We also have defined three clear projects for our students to be involved in, offering a much stronger, more focused service plan that last year. Overall, I am very encouraged.

So many details

2009-06-08T14:10:00.000-07:00

There are so many little things to take care of, before this train can leave the station. Each of the 12 charges in my care has her or his own needs and requirements and difficulties. This one has no passport. That one can't get a plane ticket. Another is worried about vaccines. And then there are the folks in Bolivia, who have their own requirements as well. One man with whom we work has a lot of complaints, I am told, and can't wait till I arrive so he can express them. Wonderful. Here's how I feel about it at this exact moment:

But I know that this feeling will pass, as all feelings pass. Better not to spend too much time on it. Tomorrow's weather may be different.

Primer Viernes

2009-06-05T15:16:00.000-07:00

Today is the first Friday of the month of June, which means it is time for the q'owa. On the first Friday of every month, Bolivians burn ritual offerings to the Pachamama, purifying their homes of any bad spirits that may be inhabiting the premises and ensuring themselves prosperity in the weeks ahead. Walking down the streets of Cochabamba on a night like this, one strolls through clouds of sweet fragrant smoke billowing out of every house and shop. I can smell it even now.

Community center

2009-06-04T07:53:00.001-07:00

Last year in Cochabamba, our students worked collaboratively with local residents of an urban barrio to begin construction on a community center. They worked in the dirt every Sunday for six weeks, digging the trenches and laying the foundation for what they hoped would some day be a functional building where community residents could hold meetings, activities and events. The idea of a finished project, though, seemed like a distant dream.

Yesterday, my colleague Ruth sent me this picture of the community center, which now is an actual building! Following our departure, community members used the remainder of project funds to continue construction. Now the building has walls, a floor and a roof. It still lacks doors, windows, finishing work and landscaping - all projects that our students will undertake this summer. By the time we leave in August, we hope to be able to inaugurate the completed community center.

A student's perspective

2009-06-03T05:40:00.001-07:00

Last summer, Nicole was one of the 13 students from Rutgers who participated in the international service-learning program in Bolivia. Here is what she has to say about her experience:

"Traveling to Bolivia through the RU Study Abroad program was the most amazing thing I could have possibly done with my summer. It was 7 weeks of traveling in one of the most beautiful countries in Latin America, meeting the most interesting people, speaking the most beautiful language, contributing substantially to a community through service work, and studying the most interesting subjects: cultural anthropology and Latin American studies through the lens of human rights, justice, and law. This trip was actually my first experience with cultural anthropology, and my first time traveling to South America, and I ended up falling in love with both! The trip even made me ready to finally declare my major and hone my interests for future studies, travels, and work experience! The service-learning aspect of the project was incredibly significant, as we were able to learn about rights and justice in Bolivia while accomplishing sustainable projects and building long-term support for a community in Cochabamba .

"One of my favorite parts of the trip was traveling to el Chapare, a region of dense rainforest and indigenous communities. While we got to explore this magical place with such a wide variety of plant and animal species, we also learned about the political history of the indigenous communities there in which many injustices had been and still are happening. The trip overall had a great balance of travel, learning, service, and fun. I highly recommend this trip to anyone who likes to travel, experience a culture very different from their own, learn or speak another language, and understand how the history of an ancient place can shape the future of its modern citizens."

Writing is hard work

2009-06-02T13:39:00.000-07:00

Part of an academic's work - one of the best parts, the part that got most of us into this gig in the first place - is research and writing. Yet many of us struggle with it, especially the writing. The research is fun: Go off to Bolivia, hang out with people, jot down lots of notes and so on, eat out on the NSF's dime. But then you've got to sit down and write it up. And though I love to write, I find it to be a very challenging task.

Summer time is the academic's time for writing, and for me that time is particularly compressed, as I tend not to get too much writing done while I'm leading the study abroad program. But this summer started out really well. In the first two weeks after classes ended, I revised an article for resubmission to a journal, and wrote and submitted another one. But now it is time to sit down and start writing my new book. A book! How does one begin such a task? Before I can even begin, I have to wade through thousands of pages of fieldnotes, interview transcripts, secondary documents, and published texts, all to figure out what I want to say. Only then can I decide how to say it. A truly daunting prospect.

I will admit, though, that I have written the first five pages of the introduction. So maybe its not as bad as it feels at this moment. The enormity of the project has to be understood as a series of small steps, each day adding a little more to the cumulative result. It is easier to write a couple of pages than to write a book.

Water

2009-05-31T06:45:00.000-07:00

Water has long been an issue in Cochabamba. The town is naturally dry, and population growth over the last several decades has far outstripped the local water supply. Most interesting, as Olivera's book details, are the conflicts over water in Cochabamba. Water is seen not only as a natural resource but also as a basic right, something that the urban poor in Cochabamba believe is part of the nation's property, not a commodity to sell or profit from.

In local communities throughout the southern zone of the city, cooperatives have formed to manage water for local residents. These cooperatives preceded the Water War in Cochabamba. They enable community residents to participate directly in the decision-making around how this valuable resources will be distributed in their neighborhoods. This can mean, at times, that some benefit from it while others don't - a topic I explored in my book on Villa Sebastián Pagador. Another perspective on water cooperatives and their operation in Cochabamba today can be found in this recent article, which is also about Villa Pagador.

2009-05-30T13:26:00.000-07:00

One of the more disturbing and disappointing bits of news to come out recently has been the accusation, made by Israeli intelligence sources, that Bolivia and Venezuela are selling uranium to Iran. The alliance between Bolivia and Iran is well known and quite public - building ties with governments antagonistic to the United States is part of Evo's (and Chavez's) effort to develop ties to other nations, and so create new possibilities for trade and diplomacy that don't include the colossus of the north. But the relationship with Iran is troubling in many ways. Ahmedinijad, of course, is an idiot, a Holocaust denier, and a wild card who does not contribute in any positive way toward peace or stability in the Middle East. He may also be on his way out, with an election in Iran upcoming. If Bolivia is supplying uranium to what might be an Iranian nuclear program, it is positioning itself as a facilitator of further conflict and uncertainty worldwide, which certainly doesn't benefit Bolivia or Evo's other initiatives there.

Bolivia, for its part, vehemently denies producing or selling uranium to anyone, including Iran. Let's hope this is true.

Global Futbol Initiative

2009-05-27T09:20:00.000-07:00

This summer, Rutgers in Bolivia is partnering with the Global Futbol Initiative, an organization that provides free soccer gear to kids in Latin America and elsewhere around the world. They will be providing us with soccer balls, which we will take to Bolivia and donate to children in the orphanage, and in the barrio in which we will be working.

The Global Futbol Initiative belives in the power of futbol "to impact change, promote peace, and improve the quality of life.

"The power and beauty of futbol is a truly global phenomena and there is a tremendous opportunity for much of the world to use their resources to aid less privileged areas. Global Futbol Initiative was enacted on the basis of a very ambitious goal to allow every single child on earth to have access to balls, boots, and other gear.

"We believe in our motto 'Futbol 4 Everyone' and intend on doing as much as we possibly can to help people all around the world enjoy the beautiful game with the proper equipment. The task is tough, but we believe we can accomplish all of our goals."

RU-Bolivia, the Fundación Pro Justicia, and the Global Futbol Initiative look forward to a long and fruitful collaboration.

Staying connected

2009-05-26T15:34:00.000-07:00

When I first went to Bolivia in 1993, the internet did not exist. No such thing as email. No Facebook. No Twitter. No cyberspace at all. To stay in touch with folks back home, I had to write letters (imagine! Prehistoric). I would take my handwritten pieces to the post office and mail them off, hoping they would reach their destination. To receive mail I rented a postal box and would periodically check it, unlocking it with my tiny little key, hoping to get a letter from home.

How different things are now, in such a short period of time. Today I can remain in instant contact with my friends in Bolivia, and when there, with my family and friends at home. Many places have wireless connections, and there is an internet café on every corner. Cochabamba is fully of the technologically modern world.

Which makes the isolation of the marginal barrios so telling. No internet, of course, but not even land lines for the telephones. There are cell phones, and everyone has one, but no public utilities to link people to the rest of the city, the country, the world. To be connected, like so much else in people's lives, is an individual responsibility.

On not drinking coffee

2009-05-24T08:02:00.000-07:00

Of all the drugs to claim our addiction, caffeine is one of the hardest to break. It's not because the drug itself is so powerful - we tend to think, with our pharmaceutically determinist view, that the substance itself is the key factor in creating our dependency. The caffeine is certainly part of what drives our addiction to coffee, but not the whole of it. It is also the circumstantial dimension, what an anthropologist might call the context of coffee drinking, that gives it such a powerful hook. The ritual of brewing and then consuming the coffee, the rich smell and warmth of it on a cold morning, the routine of having that cup upon getting out of bed - these are the elements of addiction that seem so benign and yet hold such power over us, controlling our lives and decisions, orienting our daily routines, exerting influence on our physiology and emotions.

I have been coffee free for years now, and yet I still, on occasion, long for a cup. I certainly drank coffee in Bolivia, back in the day, but always Nescafé. People think, oh, South America, they must have really good coffee there. But no - Bolivia doesn't really produce coffee, and what is produced elsewhere on the continent is reserved for export to foreign markets and gourmet coffee bars. People in coffee-producing countries drink crap: freeze-dried, the worst of the worst. The kind of coffee made from "flavor crystals," that upon dissolving in hot water leaves a white foam floating on the surface, like effluent. "No es café,"people call it, a play on Nescafé, which dominates the Bolivian coffee market. I used to drink the stuff every day. I even came to like it, testament to the addictive power of the drug and its seductive delivery system.

Ozzie

2009-05-23T07:08:00.000-07:00

It is Memorial Day weekend and I am at the shore. But Ozzie, poor guy, has to stay with the dog sitters. Actually, he loves it at the dog sitters, as he gets to play with other dogs and has none of his usual responsibilities (namely, trying to figure out what I want him to do). But I, for one, miss him. This separation is a kind of trial run for when I go to Bolivia. I have no idea how he will do without me, or I without him. We have been constant companions for the last six months. It will probably be difficult for both of us, though I may feel it more than he will.

For reflection

2009-05-22T09:12:00.000-07:00

Part of our service-learning experience in Bolivia involves reflection: active thinking and writing about what we are seeing, feeling, experiencing while in this foreign place. There will be many new and strange things in Bolivia - new ways of doing things, different sets of expectations that people have, new tastes and smells (not all of them pleasant) - and the best way to face these is to be open to them, to be aware of them, and to think and write about your reactions to them. These are our reflections, and we will be writing them on a daily basis and sharing them once a week.

As a guide to reflecting, I present the following questions. Go buy yourself a notebook (any one will do, nothing too fancy) and start keeping a journal now, as I am keeping this blog. Get in the habit of writing every day. Think about things like:

- What are you most hoping to get from your Bolivia experience?

- What scares you the most?

- How do you think/hope this experience will change you?

- What don't you know now that you hope to know by the time you get home?

I will post other suggestions for reflection as our departure date nears.

Extradite Goni

2009-05-21T13:32:00.000-07:00

In October 2003, poor Bolivians in the city of El Alto took to the streets to protest the Bolivian government's plan, authored by president Gonzalo ("Goni") Sanchez de Lozada, to export natural gas at bargain prices to foreign markets. Goni called out the military to confront the protestors, an encounter that left 67 people dead and over 400 wounded. In the aftermath, Goni was forced to resign the presidency and flee the country. He has been living in the United States ever since, given protection first by the Bush administration, and now by that of Obama.

This week, the Bolivian Supreme Court is holding a "Trial of Responsibility," trying Goni in absentia for human rights violations committed against his own people. But whatever the outcome, this trial will be in vain if the United States continues to refuse to extradite Goni back to Bolivia to face the charges against him.

Why is our government protecting this man? Ask President Obama - see the report from the Democracy Center to find out what you can do.

Donate a camera

2009-05-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

One of the great things about this project is that it brings out individual creativity in so many ways. This year Tina, one of our students, came up with the idea of donating digital cameras to kids in Cochabamba and teaching them how to use them. Her plan is to help the kids to document their own lives through photography, and then to display their work so that others can appreciate it and learn from it. One of our service-learning sites this summer will be in a local orphanage in Cochabamba, home to 25 boys ages 6-12. Tina and some of our other students will be working in the orphanage, doing recreational and educational activities, and Tina will be doing her photo project there. But she needs more cameras.

So, if you would like to donate a digital camera of any vintage to this project, please post a comment to this blog indicating how to get in touch, and Tina will contact you directly. An old PC laptop might be useful as well. You can also just send your camera to the Rutgers Center for Latin American Studies, 106 Nichol Ave, Corwin B, New Brunswick, NJ 08901.

What we take with us, what we leave behind

2009-05-19T10:30:00.000-07:00

It is more than exciting to go off to visit a new country for the first time, or to return to a country that one has come to know and love from years of experience. But why do we travel, and what do we hope to find when we get there? Sometimes we hope to "find ourselves" by changing our surroundings, that in a new place, freed from the constraints that define us at home, we can really emerge as our true selves. This is perhaps possible - it is true that by changing our external environment we can sometimes open up new possibilities for changing our internal one as well. On the other hand, "wherever you go, there you are" - wherever you might travel, no matter how the externals might change, you bring your baggage with you. So how to reflect on that baggage, to be fully aware of that baggage and experience it as the reality of the moment, and not just hope (to keep with the metaphor) that the airline loses it along the way?

When I travel, especially lately, I think about both what I might discover and what I am leaving behind. Usually and most significantly this means my family. This year, my older son, Ben (13) will be accompanying me to Bolivia, but my younger son, Eli (9), will be staying at home with mom and Ozzie (more on him later). The excitement of departure is tempered by the difficulty of the leaving. This is something that has gotten easier over time - it used to tear me apart, almost literally, to have to leave. But now I recognize that a necessary part of myself is in that other country, and I have to return, even if it is difficult. Not that my true self lies there, but an essential part of myself nonetheless.

Los Ambulantes

2009-05-17T10:50:00.000-07:00

Last post I mentioned the ambulantes, one of the groups with which we work in Bolivia. The ambulantes (or, more properly, the Asociación de Comerciantes Minoristas "Los Angeles") are a group of some 1500 illegal street vendors, who sell on the streets of Cochabamba because it is the only way to support their families. Many of the vendors are women and single mothers, have very little in the way of investments, and make the equivalent of about $2 a day selling juice, fruit, fried meat, shoelaces, or other small items. The government considers them to be illegal because they lack work permits and compete with more established vendors, but the ambulantes claim they have no other option, and deserve to have their right to work respected. In 2008, our students worked with this group to try and establish a daycare center, so mothers would have someplace to leave their children while they are out selling in the streets. Two of our students created a website and video to document the situation; these can be viewed at www.losambulantes.com.

This summer, the ambulantes have expressed a desire for a health clinic, and we are going to try and help them to establish one. They have arranged for some Cuban doctors to staff the clinic (the Cuban government has sent doctors throughout the world to work in poor communities, often free of charge), but they need a space in which to set them up. Finding and creating this space will be one of our students' tasks in Bolivia.

Seasons

2009-05-16T04:31:00.000-07:00

This morning in New Jersey is gray and wet, with a low-slung sky overhead. It is deep spring now: the azaleas and rhododendrons are popping out their flowers, the smell of mulch is in the air, and all sorts of tree junk is falling like rain over the porch furniture, coating everything in a pale green dust. Daily now, the temperature creeps steadily upward and soon, suddenly, we will find ourselves in the midst of summer, running the AC and fantasizing about winter. At least, I will.

In the global south, of course, they are just entering the fall and winter months. While we are contem- plating heat and humidity, people in Bolivia are watching the temperatures drop. For those of us traveling there, it means we lose a big chunk of summer, exchanging the Jersey heat for the crisp, cool air of a Bolivian winter.

In Cochabamba it never gets particularly cold, nor does the weather vary a great deal from one day to the next. But, like people everywhere, Bolivians talk constantly about the weather. Every day people will remark to one another "Que frio!", hugging themselves with a mock shiver to indicate how cold it is. I always laugh, and tease people that they don't know what cold is, having never lived through a winter in the Northeast. It hasn't snowed in Cochabamba in years, but sometimes it does in the mountains that ring the city. On waking in the morning, I throw open the curtains and look toward the north, at the white-crested peaks enclosing the town in their frosty grip.

Getting ready for summer '09

2009-05-15T14:16:00.001-07:00

The semester has just ended, and I am preparing to lead a second group of students to Bolivia. It comes as a surprise to me that this blog was read rather widely last summer - the first thing people say to me when I tell them I'm returning with students to Bolivia is, "Will you be doing the blog again?" I am happy to oblige.

This blog serves as an informal means of communication between myself and the wider world - mostly parents and friends of my students, myself, Rutgers University, and Study Abroad. It provides a window on what goes on in Bolivia during our travels, and helps to spread the word about the many things we are experiencing and learning during our time away.

What to expect in Bolivia? Some things this summer will be the same as last year. We will still be working with La Fundación Pro Justicia, a Bolivian NGO that works to improve access to justice for marginalized urban peoples. The members of Pro Justicia - Guery, Eric, Ethel, and Ruth - will be our companions and guides, helping us to learn about Bolivia and its various challenges. We will still be doing homestays and language classes run through Bolivia Cultura and Volunteer Bolivia (www.volunteerbolivia.org), where Lee Cridland and Javier Molina do a fantastic job making sure all the details go smoothly. We will still be doing service-learning with the people of Loma Pampa and the ambulantes of the Cancha, the ambulant vendors in Cochabamba's giant outdoor marketplace - but more on them later.

What's new this summer will be our efforts to create a health clinic for the ambulantes group. We will be doing construction work in Loma Pampa, putting the finishing touches on the community center that our students began work on last summer. And we will be working with the children in the local orphanage, helping them in their studies and recreation. There is a lot to look forward to.

Please follow this blog for regular updates, both prior to departure and after we have arrived. Departure date is July 1!

The End

2008-07-08T18:39:00.000-07:00

We ended our time in Bolivia tonight with a party with the ambulantes, the market vendors with whom several of our students have been working closely to prepare a website and documentary film. There were a lot of speeches, including several by the students themselves, followed by food and dancing, and lots of hugs and teary eyes. Most of the students head for the airport tomorrow; some are traveling overland to Santa Cruz, while others are taking a bus tonight to La Paz, for a visit to Lake Titicaca before returning home.

This marks my final blog entry of the season. It has been a singular pleasure for me to lead this program, and to work with these students on their various projects. I look forward to doing it again next summer.

Jayaya Bolivia!

Despedidas

2008-07-07T15:01:00.000-07:00

Our program is in its final days, which in Bolivia means despedidas. The despedida, or goodbye party, is an institution here, and as an anthropologist who has come and gone many times, I have participated in many of them. For our students, these despedidas are wonderful, heart-wrenching experiences. People here are so grateful for the contributions our students have made to their lives and communities, and our students have established so many close personal relationships in the short time that we have been here, that saying goodbye is very difficult. There have been a lot of tears ("Bring on the waterworks," as Alana puts it), hugs, and, this being Bolivia, food and speeches. Personally, I find it very touching and rewarding to see how deeply attached our students have become to people here, and to see how much they have learned and accomplished during our time in Cochabamba. The students' tears, to me, are not a bad thing at all, but rather an indication of the success of our program, and the depth of their feeling and the intensity of their experience. I doubt any of them will ever forget their time here, and expect that many of them will return and continue to work with the Bolivian people and communities they have come to know.