Thursday, October 26, 2006


5. This is from my balcony during Cochabamba Day a while ago. (This doesn't happen on a daily basis). I was surprised that this posse of miltary posturing passed down my back street. I think some part of each section of the countless participants managed to marched down most of the streets in Cbba. Silly hats.

4. And I'll never tire of the constant curiosity exhibited by plaza-passers-by at the Red Tinku information/propaganda panels in the Plaza 14 Septiembre. Calls for volunteers, job offers, event listings but most of all the daily news articles that Red Tinku deem worthy of promotion. The panels are usually chock full of information, the picture here doesn't show Ramiro below sorting the new news.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Orange Juice, Naked Truths, and fancy troops.


3. Orange Juice. This woman's orange juice was fantastic. But then most street vendors' orange juice is fantastic. I particularly like the curls of rind there. That's all about that.

Bowlers and AWOLers.



A few dailies...

1. Coming home from La Cancha, the biggest and craziest market in the world (well, Bolivia) I never fail to be struck by the grand height of the bowler hats on the most-of-the-time stoic cholas.

2. This is pure, shameless self congratulation - The classroom of my favourite class ever, which I was unceremoniously transferred from a couple of weeks ago. I snuck up during my new class to take this photo. Could it be that the empty chairs are indicative of the apathy now I'm gone? I like to think so...

Instant schlock, just add shock.


I thought I hadn't a chance in hell (get it?) of getting a prize at the Halloween party at my favourite (but fast losing favour, not through lack of flavour) cafe last Saturday night. Entry was scary enough, not just for the $25B cover charge - ghouls and gremlins throughout the entry maze, and everyone dressed for duress!

My doubts about my fame and fortunes (dinner for twos, bottles of wine - sound familiar anybody?) came when people weren't quite sure what I was. Well, I was the IMF (the International Monetary Fund), the scariest thing I could think of for anybody in South America. I had a big fat IMF label on my pocket, with "Fondo Monetario Internaciónal" written on it, but still a need for explanation at times. So I even wrote on a second bit of paper IMF - International Moth... nevermind (It's true though!). And still the only response of "That's BRILLiant!" or some such came from an Irish chickadee I'd met months ago who just happened to be there and the thought struck me - "doesn't ANYbody in South America know what's happening to them?" Which was a grand overstatement of condescension that I spent time punishing myself over later. Regardless, there was much dancing and prancing and necromancing to the standard strains of techno-dance music. And much stalking, squawking and gawking at the plethora of clever costumes and sexy ensembles...

The photo here was taken at my house at pre-party drinks. From left: Luke as the "thing" that began to freak me out at times - Ariane would have NOT been in her element; Anny, Luke's fiance; Emily, the other, irrepressible Yanky housemate; me - my scythe reading "Anaquilador de Servicios Sociales" (Annihilator (or "slasher" as I would have preferred) of Social Services), and Romana the German second cousin of Luke's visiting for a couple of days.

As it turns out, I did win. Not sure what or whether I forfeited for not being there (even though ECLA screwed up the prize draw the first time, and we left with half of us in a huff about the poor running of the night). So there you go.

And as for other events of the days, nup. Nothin.

Michael.

Friday, October 20, 2006

Rights at Work

Will the only-dreamed-of happen in Melbourne?

So many times, I'm sure my friends can attest, I've grumbled about the distractions of the masses. Macchiavelli said it first and best with his bread and circuses analogy (even though I fundamentally disagree with his fundamental idea of wickedness in people, only diverted by another compulsion), but I always mourned that the MCG couldn't be filled to the brim for a cause that not only didn't involve watching grown men kicking leather around for "competition" (not that I'm opposed to fun per se), but for a collective reason that could really change the world. I'd even dream up scenarios where these people would fill the MCG every week for their desired collective goals; end to poverty, workers rights, indigenous rights...

Well, http://www.rightsatwork.com.au/campaigns/nov30rally!!!

Scroll down at the site, to Victoria's rally at the MCG and make my dreams come true! At least for one weekend...

Your FNBC.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Passerines101

Now, I don't know for sure, but I think I've figured out the meaning of the call of the common vendor de naranja. Every day, and for much of the day, one can hear the strains of this ever present fowl, who seems to lay the best oranges in town in his/her large basket that has cleverly been fashioned with big old wheels. The amplification available to this strange bird is enhanced by what looks like a megaphone of sorts... The other day I caught the sound again, very close and before I could whip out my binoculars, there was the vendor with his oranges (looking freshly laid) using the speaker for his until now unrecognisable task. It was only a second later that I heard, in the distance, what sounded like a reply. Sure enough, far down the road, there was another vendor de naranja showing off the wares of the day. Could this be...? Could this undecipherable and oft-called annoying squwark be the mating call of the vendor de naranja?

(Which reminds me of a joke: A baby bird arrived back at it's nest to find a squashed orange nestled at the edge. The bird sqwarked "WOW! Look at the orange mama-laid." Yep...)

Damn the non-existance (in Bolivia at any rate) of a Latin American bird guide.

Of course it could be the orange sellers that make their living roaming the streets calling out their message that there are oranges available (which I have on good local, indigenous authority cannot be understood by ANYbody - which always prompts me to long for the muffled and hilarious strains of Melbourne train drivers who say something about changing at Dandenong if you want to get to Bacchus Marsh, or something).

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Rock on!!


Sunday. It's Sunday afternoon. Michael is experiencing a late Sunday afternoon and he's all reflective, so reflective that his third person diatribe, always suggestive of a reflective mood, implodes into regular, non-head-up-his-arse first person mode, and with a little less vitriol.


Last night I experienced less reflective-related times at Kefren, the coolest (that non-cool coolest - in fact I'm changing that to "grooviest"... no, hang on... that's kind of dumb too. Hmm... well whatever, it's a great place) rock venue in Cochabamba. Some people may snigger or possibly even laugh without restraint when I say that something is the apex of Cochabamba, because they may know that Cbba isn't really up there with Santiago, or Buenas Aires, or even La Paz in terms of attractive attractions but some places here are really fun and unpretentious, possibly - and I can't comment with full authority here - but possibly difficult to find in other cities. Anyway we (three Bolivians, two Australians, two Septic Tanks, and a Pom (just to express cultural diversity) enjoyed the two fastest guitar players in Latin America. The first fellow, Marcos de Ros is a heavy set Brazilian who mixed his own music with various classical composers transforming Villa Lobos, Paganini and Bach's masterpieces into rock gems. And the next fellow, whose name I can't remember (because he didn't have an enormous 8 foot picture of his face on a poster with his name down the side next to the stage like de Ros...) was a long haired throwback to the seventies. Faster than de Ros, and who, after a dizzying array of loco antics, in one of his encores, doused his guitar with fuel and set it alight!

So, last night was a feast for the eyes and the ear (only one because the loud rock music prematurely killed the battery in my hearing aid...) Then our Bolivian fellow got the DJ to play Beds Are Burning, which when in a club and with an audience, after a 1 litre glass of beer is even more intoxicating than jumping around my bedroom with my MP3...

My blog was commented on recently from a fellow round these parts who suggested that I needn't worry about supporting the growth away from traditional culture here in Cbba, given that the city has been fully, irrepairably westernised. It might be true but I had fun last night, and the crowd certainly weren't advocates of mainstream North America. I dunno.

I had finishing up drinks at ECLA (to further bolster to that fellow's comments) on Friday after class with some of my students (pictured). The fellow in the rear is the wild-card Andrew, the Englishman taking over my class. I was surprised that so many came in... it IS just next door to the Institute, but still...

I particularly like the woman's excitement on the right, at the other table. She's cool!

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Things change, things stay the same...


Six and a bit months in, and what else is there to complain about?

I have to inform everyone of the very important news that the blackened, flattened, commercially unidentifiable spray can that I thought was cleaned up off the street, or used as some sort of missile, has been found, near the same spot I usually found my solace. For how long this tentative symbol of my content will last there I can't guess.

What is probably bigger news for me is that I finally have to say goodbye to my 7 to 9pm class at the Pan American English Centre. I am being transferred across the hall to another 7-9. I have long thought, and crowed at times, that the only reason I was still at the institute (and not taking more of the lucrative private classes) was for that class. I had so much fun and experienced so much growth (through them and me) in that class. It was the fun mostly - we never missed a good chuckle or two during the evening.

The reasoning is rational. Too long with one teacher isn't good for students independence or variety of English language accents. I'm still sad though even though they'll just be across the hall. I'm sure my new students will ... be just as fun.

I find myself struggling to exercise as much now that I have the fear of the road I never had back home, and therefore resist the idea of riding a bike anywhere. I'm going to start scaling the Cristo (de la Concordia) of which I've spoken at times (the largest statue of Christ in the world.. yep). It's a hell of a cardiovascular trip, unless you take the cable car. The photo shows one sunset from the top of the hill, the highest peak there is my beloved Mt. Tunari - of which I'm yet to climb. In time... in time...

Wonder what's for almuerzo today at La Villa, the friendlist little tucked-away courtyard restaurant this side of the Andes...

No photos from the K'oa festival last Friday (my favourite monthly outing), because I didn't go. Nobody wanted to come with. I refute the idea that it's too dangerous, while at the same time refuse to go by myself for my own safety.

LUNCHTIME!

Your FNBC.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Six months in.



The spray can is gone. The flattened blackened can that was one piece of garbage that hadn't moved from its ever-increasingly familiar spot at the end of his street since the day he arrived. The can that he looked for and found each of the days since (as if a salve for his emotional wounds, even though he couldn't for the retched life of him think of why that can, of all things, represented his daily salvation) was now no longer part of his life. It panicked him at first, one rare constant in his life unexpectedly scooped up and vanished. Then it saddened him. But he got over it.

The spray can, having long lost it's shiny visage (it was black with rusty, muddy, aged shit) was simply rubbish, a daily struggle for people here, or maybe just for him. He walked past a well dressed gentleman in a Hummer sucking out the hardboiled lolly from it's wrapper and he noted that the man didn't seem to be struggling for the window as he also didn't struggle to let the wrapper go and ignore it falling to the street. The number 35 bus passes and two people from either end of its cabin, one skinny young school boy, one old Chola woman, respectively toss out a Chicolac chocolate milk package and a number of very large, perhaps chicken-soaked napkins. He swears quite audibly in English, feeling the swirl of ethical issues violently masticate and swallow his staunch judgement toward ignorant litterbugs, again. And then realises that this judgement is familiar to many of his friends he left back in the land where lightning cracks over canefields and figures, in total self-absorbment, if his damnation is good enough for Australians then it's good enough for Bolivians.

Sitting in the Plaza Catorce de Septiembre, the spirit of revolt filtering through his bent nostrils (feeling more bent in this altitude after returning from the lowland jungles of the Chapare), he gleefully waits for something. He's not sure what. The last time he sat on one of the wooden benches getting his kicks from the Michael Jackson impersonator, he was accosted by a god-fearin' converter. Of course he couldn't be converted, but they enjoyed themselves, he practicing his religious Spanish (it dawns on him that "they" all have exactly the same vocabulary size, with exactly the same words), the converter walking away feeling that perhaps he'd planted a seed. He had, but on fallow ground. That's not true: his mind, body and soul had been fertile since he began his involvement with Red Tinku, an international voice of the Bolivian indigenous. Among other things he teaches Revolutionary English to the willing, of which there are many, keen to broaden their circles of rebellion. He first came across the group when he saw the inspirational information placades six months ago in the plaza where he now sits. The placades are usually crowded by readers of the days events; newspapers, public notices, promotion for Red Tinku Tours (the alternative city tour). He looks at the placades now and is proud to see his name there, but feels the pressure of having to teach both English and Quechuan (see first pic)!

So then, he's been here for 6 months now. A worthy effort, and realises it's a little more than six months since he left the bloodwoods and the desert oak (o.k. he's never seen either) and it's a month where the first Friday of the month lands late. Normally he celebrates his achievement at the K'oa ritual, silently acknowledging his own special presence along with the hundreds of revellers dancing the traditional dance, playing the traditional instruments, sucking on the traditional coca leaves and drinking the traditional Chicha (his favourite tradition, as it turns out). His reverie is disrupted when he pops down a narrow side street from Calle Ayacucho and is caught face-to-face with another show of military might as rifle-clad performers stomp more or less in unison toward his ever thinning, weakening body. He survives, laughing nervously, reminded that there is a protest to happen at lunchtime today - it started by just involving teachers and engineers perhaps, he can't remember who, city people. So there shouldn't be much disruption. Perhaps half an hour. But then he hears that farmers are coming in from the country. Not so easy for the car-less. And from much further afield than the local school. It might be pretty big afterall. He doesn't know why they're protesting and he should hang around to find out, but he's got English classes and those $10B almuerzo meals won't pay for themselves. He reflects on the fact that at least with military street performances you always get either marching girls or Caporales (see second pic).

Six months has flown by for him and he finds himself having changed. He now:

a) can communicate his desires to the masses
b) falls into regular patterns where somedays he'll even glance past the glorious surrounding hills, the towering Cristo or the determined and inspiriational woman in black on the bridge, all now devoid of the spray-can shiny visage of touristy exoticicm, and looking for other, more mundane but specific landmarks
c) can eat, walk through, touch and hardly smell the things that used to want to make him puke
d) feels like he'll be crying like a baby when he leaves, the way he was six months earlier in Melbourne