The Price of a Life

There were two notable deaths in the province in the last week or so. The first was as a result of torrential rain throughout the region, which caused several landslides and (somewhat ironically) cut off water for a few days in Charazani and other nearby communities. One landslide led to a rock falling on a house and crushing a man inside, which apparently made the national news and led the Governor of La Paz to drop by (hopefully to pledge that at his level of government they would be giving as much aid as possible to help clear the roads and suchlike). Almost a week later, when I walked along the road that leads up to the community where this had occurred, to meet a Kallawaya I know in his community, I saw another landslide that had deprived someone of their kitchen and was blocking a good portion of the road. My friend told me that their problem was that they were lacking a wheelbarrow to clear away the rocks and didn´t have the 350Bs (about £35) that one would cost in Charazani. I wanted to help, but felt that it should really be the job of the local authorities to provide them with a wheelbarrow in their hour of need, and in any case didn´t have anything like that amount on me at the time.

The other death was somewhat more shocking when I heard about it, and was in no way caused by natural phenomena. An old man in a community several hour`s walk away from Charazani had fallen asleep in the street after drinking too much. Two boys aged ten and eleven set alight to some part of him, apparently thinking that they were playing a trick or a joke on him, and that he would wake up, not realising that because he was already drenched in alcohol he would become a human fireball. The whole ayllu (collection of communities) was naturally in shock at these events and a few days later meetings were held to determine what sanction the boys would face for their actions. I was able to observe community justice in action at close quarters, when men and a few women from the four communities that make up the ayllu gathered in the square to debate the fate of the boys. After several hours of discussion, involving back and forth between community leaders, relatives of the deceased, and the boys´ fathers, it was decided that the boys (or their families) should pay reparations of 8,000Bs (around £715 at time of writing) each. The cost had originally been set at 10,000, but after pleading from the boys´ fathers, that they weren´t millionaires and simply wouldn´t be able to repay such a sum, the amount was reduced.

Although the amount seemed small to me considering what they were being made to pay for, when recounting the events to a friend in a nearby community afterwards, she wondered how the boys or their families were going to manage to scrape together the money to pay it back.

The World is Full of Magic

A couple of weeks ago, walking up to the top of a hill where I would be visiting a mine, a sacred lake was pointed out to me on the way. This lake, I was told, was where people from several different communities in the province came to sing and dance in order to ask for rain when there was a a particularly pronounced dry spell. The men I was with suggested that I take a photo of said lake, however, when I went to take the photo my camera lens wouldn´t open. I had been having some problems with the camera ever since I made the foolish mistake a few weeks back of lending it to someone for a few hours and when they gave me it back it was clear as day that they had dropped it on the ground. Once at the mine, by persistently switching the camera on and off again eventually I got it working, and took a few photos of the miners at work. However on the way back down, when again I attempted to take a photo of the lake, with the men accompanying me in the foreground, the lens once more refused to open. The men joked that the lake didn´t want to be photographed.

When the next day I went to visit a Kallawaya in another community and told him of what had happened, he thought it unlikely that my camera had malfunctioned because of the possible displeasure of the lake itself at being photographed. He did though tell me that many of the local lakes were enchanted. For example, he told me, in the lake in the mountain above his community, a man who had gone out fishing one day was driven raving mad after a mermaid appeared to him. He had afterwards tried local remedies to return him to sanity, but according to my Kallawaya friend, these were given to him by quacks, and the only reason he had gone to them were because they were cheap. The man had never found all his marbles again. What he should have done, apparently, and what any right-thinking Kallawaya would have helped him to do, so he told me, was to have been lowered into the lake, with the carcases of five different anmals attached to him (I forget which). The demon spirit within the lake would have taken the animals as offerings and left him alone.

Before leaving my friend`s house, he pointed out to me that the river which I had walked through on my way there had a demon in it. I tried, with great difficulty, to keep this thought out of my mind while crossing on the way back.

My camera still isn´t working, by the way. 

My Little House

Last Saturday I accompanied my friend Valerio (from the Alpaca-herder community of Qullpani in the highlands of Bautista Saavedra) to the town of Laja, almost an hour´s drive away from El Alto in La Paz, where a curious event was taking place.

Saturday was the fiesta for the patron saint of Laja, the Virgin de la Concepcion. Apparently we had already missed the parade by the time we arrived, but in any case all of the action seemed to be taking place on a hill overlooking Laja, where probably around a thousand people had gone to sit and make little houses out of stones and grass. Each of the architects of the houses was putting the building blocks in place in the hope that this time next year they would have a life-size house.

On the basis that the houses being constructed represented the what would supposedly be reality in a year´s time, I like to think that when someone strode over my plot that a giant would be marauding over my land this time next year, rather in the manner of the BFG.

Each of those making their model houses supposedly has to return for the next two years in order to thank the virgin for helping them to construct their (life-size) house.

As you can appreciate from my construction below, I rather hope that if my some quirk of fate I do end up with a house this time next year (whether constructed by my own two hands or not), it looks nothing like the one I built last weekend.

Questions I am most often asked during fieldwork

What size shoes do you have?

Can you buy me some boots like yours?

Where are you from?

What is the climate like in England?

What is England like?

What altitude is England at?

Do your parents send you money?

How long have you been in Bolivia?

Do you like Bolivia / Charazani / Amarete /etc?

Will you be godfather to my child?

Are you married? (You`re not?! You should marry someone here!)

When are you going to La Paz? (I always have the feeling when I am asked this that people can`t wait to see the back of me.)

What time is it in England?

Will you take me to England?

What language do they speak in England?

Pig in a bag

The other day I got on the bus in Amarete in the high altitude part of the province to take a trip down to a village in the tropical part, and got a bit of a shock due my travelling companion.

A deaf/mute sat down in the seat next to me, and not long had he done so than a woman unceremoniously dumped a bag at his feet, before taking her seat a couple of rows in front. It was only when the bag began to sqeel and wriggle about that I realised there was an animal struggling to get out. The deaf/mute gave it a whack every now and then every time it became a bit too lively. I realised why the women had dumped the pig at his feet when the lady who took money for the tickets chastised him for bringing it on board and he was unable to defend himself.

The Bolivian secret of looking youthful

WARNING: Do not read this post if you don´t like reading about bodily fuids.

The main street in Cochabamba is Avenida Heroinas, so-named after the women who fought to defend the city from Spanish forces in the war of independence. Where Heroinas meets the second main street Avenida Ayacucho on one corner there sits the city post office, and next to it on Heroinas there are a variety of fast food stalls selling burgers, chinese food, and anticuchos (meat on sticks). On the other side of the street on the corner there is usually someone selling DVDs and CDs. One night while accompanying a female friend to her bus on the corner of Heroinas and Ayacucho we passed a little stall I hadn't noticed before, at which a man was selling second-hand American clothes. My friend H was interested in one of the dresses which was hanging up and got into a conversation with him about where and how he got the clothes. When he said that he got them from the port at Iquique (in Chile) H asked if he would be affected by the new law to bring in stricter regulation on bootlegged goods. He was dismissive of the idea, saying that he would only have to bribe the relevant official and he'd be fine. At this I told him about the time I'd had bribed an official at the Bolivian-Peruvian border in order to get a 90-day tourist stamp in my passport when he only wanted to give me 30 days. He told us about how he´d lived in Italy and had travelled throughout the whole of Europe. “Where are you from?”, he asked me. “From England”, I told him, “Oh, I haven´t been there”, he replied. Suddenly the man asked us how old we thought he was. I made a stab at 40, being suitably generous, but not excessively so. Looking very pleased with himself, he told us that he was actually 63, and asked us what we thought his secret must be. “Staying out of the sun?,” I ventured. He dismissed my guess with a grin that indicated he thought that his secret was too good for us to guess. “Semen,” he told us. “Semen?”, I queried. “Yes”, he said, “you have to spread it on nice and thick, every fifteen days”, motioning spreading it on his cheeks. I wondered whether the man was being serious. I asked him the question that occurred most readily to mind: “this is probably a silly question,” I said, “but is it your semen or someone else's?”. H laughed. “My own semen,” he replied, “though you can use someone else's semen, but you mustn't mix the two together”.

H needed to catch her bus so we said our goodbyes, and were about to leave, but before doing so H asked him his name. “A. Hitler”, he said; “Adolf Hitler”. “I'm very rascist”.

He told us that he was there regularly and that we should come back another day. With that we were on our way, not sure what we could possibly add to the conversation.

Later I told a couple of friends about what the man had said and they told me that spreading semen on one´s face, as far as they had heard, was a surprisingly common ageing solution. I was told that it was not uncommon for women to do the same with their results of their menstruation.

The Ex-Mallku

The ex-mallku* was listless. I don't think I'd ever seen anyone with less list. I could tell he was listless because one moment he was laying horizontally across three chairs, and the next he was making paper aeroplanes and flying them across the room at me. I didn't know what to do with the paper aeroplane that had aerodynamically flown straight at me. We were after all in a community meeting, and I naturally felt it disrespectful to fly paper aeroplanes across the room when the community leaders were speaking.

I folded the aeroplane several times, waiting my moment. The moment didn't come. I folded and re-folded. This sure was going to be one aerodynamic plane when it got the opportunity to spread its wings.  Eventually I could wait no longer. I made aim, and like a dart I hit my target: bullseye; right on the ex-mallku's head. There were giggles from the rank and file community members. The ex-mallku had been in the act of launching another plane in their direction. He continued in the act, unabashed.

The next day the ex-mallku would ask me: “I was powerful, wasn't I?” I had to agree that he had been. Two weeks previously, he had been the leader; the figurehead of the province's highland communities. Now what was he? Retired from office at 32; a simple alpaca farmer.

In the meeting there was no doubt of his potency. He knew it was no longer his place to direct the meeting; and yet... there was an air of expectancy when he spoke. All awaited his sage advice.

What is the next step for an ex-mallku? I'm happy with the simple life now, he told me; looking after my alpacas; taking produce to market. This is the life for me. 

* A mallku in the Aymara world is a leader of a groups of communities (ayllus) known collectively as a marka. A mallku is also the Aymara word for "condor".   

Football Tournaments

 

The communities in Bautista Saavedra are, on the whole, fairly autonomous units. People may barter with people from other communities, usually by travelling to a community at a different altitude where different produce is grown as a result of a different climate, but there are very few occasions where people from different communities get-together to socialise. One of the very few of such occasions is when a football tournaments is held. These always take place over two days and  generally (though not always) occur just before a fiesta. They are often entertaining affairs where local pride is at stake and are the venues for scores to be settled from previous competitions.

The most entertaining football tournament I have been witness to was in June in a small community at about 2,500m of altitude. About 10 teams from the surrounding communities had come to compete, with the prize for the winning team being a bull (the prize is always a bull). Although I took with me kit to play in, as I had walked about 6 hours to get to the community where the tournament was being held, I didn't have the energy to play once I arrived. The team that I put my support behind got knocked out in the semi-finals, but their nearest neighbours (let's call them team C) got to the final and played the team fielded by the alcaldia (the mayor's office). Team C are apparently notorious throughout the region for being bad losers and so it proved on this occasion. The game was going well, with all being square at 1-1 until Team C's goalkeeper seemed to handle the ball outside the area. The referee had little choice but to show the red-card. Team C weren't happy about it, but they got on with the game with only a little fuss. Shortly afterwards, their numbers were further reduced when another player from Team C received his marching orders (I didn't see the offence, but Team C complained bitterly about it). At this point things got very heated, with verbal abuse of one of Team C's players towards the referee turning to physical violence; he started by pushing the referee and then from somewhere grabbed a stick and proceeded to pound the referee with it. The ref, rather sensibly, fled across the pitch (while being chased) to take cover under the protection of the organizers of the event, with Team C's player threatening to kill the referee if ever he came across him again. The match was inevitably abandoned, and awarded to the alcaldia, who received the bull as a prize. By the time the prizes were given out, Team C had already left in disgust. I had great fun travelling back in the back of the truck with the bull, all the while doing my best not to be trodden on by said bovine. I asked someone from the alcaldia a couple of weeks later where they were keeping the bull. They told me with a grin that they hadn't had anywhere to keep it, and so had eaten it.

The Kallawayas: A hospitable bunch

I never cease to be surprised by how hospitable the people in my fieldsite are towards me. Very rarely do I visit someone and not receive a meal almost immediately. This can be quite annoying if I pay a visit shortly after lunch, and am consequently already pretty full and in no need of extra sustenance. Quite regularly I have to turn down food offered to me, telling my host that three bowls of soup and a plate full of potatoes is about sufficient for me, because as soon  as one finishes a bowl, a refill is immediately on the agenda. 

At a Kallawaya wedding I`ve been to, the most popular presents to give to the bride and groom were bags of blankets and sets of plates. I took this as further evidence for the hospitality of the Kallawayas, with such presents helping the couple of cater for the many guests they would presumably welcome into their home. 

Earlier in the year, I and a Dutch girl (who along with three friends from Sweden was staying in the community for a couple of days) cooked breakfast for our host and her family. This amounted to ten plates of scrambled egg with onions, potatoes and bread (this was my idea of breakfast from what was available). There was exactly enough for each person who was there, which I thought was a job well done and I metaphorically patted myself on the back.

I was chastised by our host, who told me that I would not make a good father, because there wasn't anything left over in case visitors came. About 10 minutes later a visitor did arrive and there was nothing to offer them. Next time I cook breakfast I shall imagine myself to be feeding the five thousand.

You know you´ve become a local dignitary when...

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to judge a children´s talent show. It was the night before "dia del estudiante" and the school in the town where I have been staying was having a talent show and competition to find the "Ñusta 2012" (something like the princess of the school for that year). I went along just to watch out of a general sense of curiosity, but sitting towards the back of the hall where the event was about to take place, I kept hearing one of the teachers call out plaintively for the town´s judge to make an appearance. However, his absence continued to be pronounced, and when a couple of teachers started to look in my direction and mutter to each other, I had a feeling what might be coming next. I was asked to join the two secondary school teachers who were already sat on the judging panel, and the show was ready to begin.

Now I don´t know if you´ve ever had to judge a ñusta competition in a Bolivian primary school but it´s trickier than you might think. The girls trot out one by one dressed very nicely in a costume traditional in one of Bolivia´s nine departments, and dancing a dance typical of the region. You have to score the girls in such categories as their personality, their costume, and their dancing. The fact that you have to compare girls aged between about 5 and 11 makes it rather taxing comparing the merits of each girl, because of course a girl aged 5 cannot possibly be expected to dance as well as one twice her age. In fact it was hardly surprising that she barely looked like she know what was expected of her.

For the record, we chose a girl aged about 9 who was dressed in the costume typical of Chuquisaca and was dancing pujllay. I think we made a wise choice. Surprisingly, I thought, none of the rest of the girls seemed to be too upset about losing out.

After the competition there was dancing from individual students and groups. The strangest act of the night was a girl doing Indian style dancing, complete with full comstume (she was quite good), but certainly the most innappropriate was a girl of about 9 years old dancing reggaeton.

At the end all the teachers came on to do an act based on the Mexican TV programme "El Chavo del 8". Though many of the adults probably enjoyed it (i did), the kids merely seemed rather bemused.

Bolivian Road Safety

I took this photo last year in La Paz. It either shows the most dangerous hopscotch in the world or the most fun way of crossing the road. Probably both.

Being able to cross the road at zebra crossings at all in Bolivia is a rarity, and being able to hopscotch across, a luxury. In Bolivia, drivers generally interpret the zebra crossing as being the place where they should place their car while they wait for the lights to change, rather than stopping just behind it to allow pedestrians to walk across.

A novel approach to combatting such laxityon the part of drivers is for men and women dressed in zebra costumes (who have presumably been employed to do so by the local government) to stand at zebra crossings when the lights turn red, blocking the traffic until the light turns green and the drivers are free to proceed. This is most prevalent in La Paz, but I have also seen the people in zebra costumes in Cochabamba.

Here there is a video of the zebras in action:

Another thing that has caught my eye recently concerning road safety has been an advert on Bolivian TV in which women dressed up as air hostesses stop traffic in one Bolivian street to show driver how to do up their seat belts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZJTpWkj1GE. The camera then pans to the drivers, who after being instructed, are all doing up their seatbelts. People don´t seem to get the idea that the belts are there for their own safetly. The advert ends with statistics comparing the number of deaths in planes last year in Bolivia (0) to the number in road traffic accidents (5523).

How I became an ambassador

The whole ambassadorial thing was thrust on me really. I had just been sitting there, observing a political meeting of the Kallawaya Indigenous people as they discussed obtaining autonomy from the Bolivian state (the topic of my PhD thesis), when the President of the Kallawaya autonomy assembly rose to his feet to give a speech, in the middle of which I was introduced as “the first English ambassador to the Kallawaya Nation”. I didn’t think it worthwhile pointing out to him or anyone else that England would have to go through some constitutional changes of its own before it goes sending novice ambassadors to incipient nations.

Now I don’t know if you’ve ever been suddenly and unexpectedly made ambassador to a nation whose very existence you had only recently became aware of, but it rather knocks you for six. I wasn’t sure what to do or say in response to such an honour. Naturally the next thing I was asked to do was to give a speech. I looked around me at what was an audience composed mainly of schoolchildren. The kids had been singing Bolivia’s national anthem to us, while their parents, sat to one side, looked on, no doubt proudly, in awe at the warbling abilities of their offspring. In the long-standing tradition of ambassadors past, present and future, I had attempted to mouth the words to the anthem myself, but with let’s just say limited success. “It is an incredible honour,” I began in my rickety Spanish, “to have the opportunity to be with you at the start of a historic process for the Kallawaya people”. I became aware that my audience, to whom Spanish was a second language, were paying me little attention. I continued on regardless for another minute, whilst the adults handed one another coca leaves to chew, and then sat down awkwardly. The schoolchildren looked rather bemused by my appearance. But then I was rather bemused by my appearance myself. As I had been sitting there a garland of fruit had been bestowed upon me. I didn’t know whether to wear it or eat it. I never took a bite of it in the end, unfortunately. I think one of the fellow dignitaries must have nabbed my bananas later in the day when I put them in their car for safe keeping. Such behaviour showed a lack of understanding of the proper respect due to ambassadors, I thought to myself. I tried to imagine how the Queen treated ambassadors at her garden parties, and decided that she probably didn’t tantalise them with edible garments which were then pilfered when the ambassador’s back was turned.

I didn’t go wanting for food though. After the initial introductory speeches we naturally took a break for lunch before we got down to the nitty-gritty. Lunch was served outside by the womenfolk of the community who brought forth pots of soup which they had cooked during the morning. I sat on a bench outside the community hall, and was pleased to be given one, two, and then three bowls of soup. My delight gradually turned to horror as this became four, five, six and seven bowls. Naturally, I didn’t want to offend anyone and so did my level-best to consume the contents of each receptacle, worrying that if I ate some but not others then I might be run out of town, the contents of the remaining bowls flying after me and my ambassadorship revoked. Luckily, by the time I had got through five bowls they were calling for the meeting to begin again, and although I was gently admonished for not dispensing with all of the refreshment on offer, I was simply told to return the untouched bowls to their owners, which I did, sheepishly, before entering the hall unsteadily, feeling like a human soup container about to explode.

During the course of two weeks I accompanied the autonomy assembly leaders to meetings in nine Kallawaya communities. At one point I was given ten bowls of soup to eat. Ten! Have you ever eaten ten bowls of soup? No? Well, me neither obviously. I followed the men in eating as many as I could (I believe the most I ever managed was six) and then handing them back to their wives who had provided them.

Although there was generally a surfeit of soup, this was contrasted with marked lack of cutlery. After the second or third meeting at which I had had to drink the liquid contents of the soups by holding the bowls to my lips and then pick the remaining solid content out with my hands, I thought I would be clever and buy a spoon at the local town. At the following meeting, when we were being served lunch, feeling very pleased with my ingenuity, I plucked out the recent purchase from my bag. My friend Luis was outraged by this. “Where’s my spoon?” he asked as I enjoyed the implement’s pleasant utility. “If you bring one spoon, you have to bring spoons for everyone”. I looked around the room at the forty or so poncho-clad men who until then were almost all unknown to me and decided to just put the spoon back in my bag. I never brought it with me to the meetings again.

It was on the morning of that meeting that my own culinary exploits led to the questioning of my potential parenting abilities. I had stayed the night in the house of a local Kallawaya family and in the morning, wanting to repay them for their hospitality, offered to cook them breakfast. They were sceptical, but curious, and eventually relented to my exotic offering of scrambled egg with potato and onion on some bread. Having overcome their initial reluctance to eat a non-liquid-based meal, all ten of the family seemed to be enjoying my cuisine, such as it was. I had served those present and had just enough left over to feed myself. I was content. I asked the mother of the family what she thought of the breakfast. “You will make a bad father” she told me. “What?” I queried. I didn’t comprehend. “You will make a bad father. Look! There is nothing left over in case we receive guests. What happens if someone else arrives? What will you give them?” I just laughed it off. The ungrateful so-and-so! Five minutes later a hungry looking visitor arrived at the door and there was nothing to offer them. My parenting lesson was learned.

At each of the meetings I attended, the President of the assembly continued to introduce me as their “ambassador”. I always expected people to laugh, though nobody ever did. Some months after the initial series of assemblies, I heard about a meeting in a community I had never been to before, and out of curiosity to see another part of the province I decided to make my way there to observe. It was a five hour walk from the town where I was staying and by the time I arrived I was sweaty and exhausted. Not a befitting condition for an ambassador. Although it was my first time in this locality, and I believed that I knew nobody, when I stuck my head around the door, I was greeted from afar by a man I recognised from the autonomy assembly meetings named Tomas. He ushered me to come in and sit down.

I spent much of the following five hours wondering what on earth it was they were talking about as the meeting was entirely in Quechua and I had not been practising what little I knew of the language. After sitting for some time chewing the coca leaves which I was given periodically, I noticed the sun going down outside and realised that as I had nowhere to stay in this particular village I would have to make my way to the neighbouring one where I had friends who would give me a bed for the night. I would have loved to have left surreptitiously, but having seen others who had departed shake the hand of all in the room one by one before making their exit I reflected that I would have to do the same. Self-consciously, I towered over each seated man, and gave them a warm handshake. “Nearly there”, I thought to myself. When I came to shake the hand of the man leading the meeting, he looked at me very quizzically, as if to ask me who I was and what I was doing there. Tomas, who was sitting next to the man, turned to him, cupped his hand to his mouth and told him in a reassuring tone “he’s the ambassador”. The authority seemed satisfied with this explanation, and so I made my way to the exit, reflecting on the legitimacy this status had given me, and hitting my ambassadorial head on the doorway on the way out. 

You wanna go where everybody knows your name...

A couple of weeks ago I went to a fiesta in a small community named Khazu. I arrived the day before the fiesta, which was the second day of a two-day football tournament between teams from local communities. As soon as I got off the bus in Khazu, men from one of the local communities told me that I would be playing for them. I was given a shirt, and told to play in centre-midfield.

I hovered around the centre-circle and hoped that the ball would make it's way in my direction. I was so bad  that I was replaced at half-time. I touched the ball a maximum of once. The whole time I was playing though, I all I could here was my name being shouted constantly from all directions, exhorting me to score a goal, tackle, or just to run. It was incredibly distracting.

Although the fiesta was officially the next day, in reality it began that evening, (the vispera), at the house of the sponsors of the fiesta, with eating, drinking, and music provided by two local bands. Once darkness had fallen, the sponsors of the fiesta, brought of from a room in their house torches in the shape of various objects: stars, houses, aeroplanes, cups, for example.

There were 20-30 torches brought out in all, which were given to each of the guests, the guests then being led out of the house to dance around the square of the Khazu, with their partner.

Geography

A number of times when I've been in the countryside in Bolivia, I've quite naturally been asked where I'm from. I'm very often completely bemused by people's responses when I tell them that I am from England.

When asked the question by a teenager in the village of Amarete once, the conversation went something like this:

Teenager: Where are you from?
Me: I'm from England
Teenager: But which country are you from?
Me (bemused): I'm from England
Teenager: Yes, but which country are you from?
Me (becoming more bemused): I'm from Europe.

At a wedding party, again in Amarete, a middle-aged man got talking to me. The exchange was more or less as follows:

Middle-aged man: Where are you from?
Me: England
Middle-aged man (in all seriousness): England? That must be another planet, right?
Me (slightly shocked): No... not another planet, just a different continent

The man next to him clearly had more geographical awareness and explained to him more or less where England was.

More recently another conversation (between me and a Kallawaya - a traditional doctor) went something like this:

Kallawaya: Where are you from?
Me: I'm from England
Kallawaya: So you're American
Me: No, I'm from England.

In this case the Kallawaya seemed more bemused than me (I've become used to the fact that people don't know where England is), because he clearly thought that England was located in North America.

Favourite quotes

"I was busy finding answers while you just got on with real life"
- Badly Drawn Boy: "You were Right"

""La ciencia ha eliminado las distancias", pregonaba Mequíades. "Dentro de poco, el hombre podrá ver lo que ocurre en cualquier lugar de la tierra, sin moverse de su casa"."
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Cien Años de Soledad

"In Bolivia, only the impossible is possible, and only the possible is impossible"
- My friend, Jose Luis

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." - Anais Nin

"No, I don't like work. I had rather laze about and think about all the fine things that can be done. I don't like work, - no man does - but I like what is in the work, - the chance to find yourself. Your own reality - for yourself, not for others - what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and can never tell what it really means." - Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness.

"Droll thing life is - that mysterious logic of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself - that comes too late - a crop of unextinguishable regrets." - Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness.

"If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for." - Thomas Merton