Motorcycle Babe

This week we were lucky to be visited by our newly-Holden departed friend Rachel Carter, who is about to become a biker-babe extaordinaire when she sets off across the country on her newly-purchased BMW motorcycle. This week it was parked outside our palace in Ballard on a large trailer. She looks good on it no?



Tonight was another Holden reunion ... several of us met at a local resuraunt for Beers and Pizza. It was great to be back in the presence of so many who know what many of us have been through. Here we all are, including Michael and Jack who we have been looking forward to reconnecting with for a while now.


This weekend is memorial day weekend, and I'm playing more soccer (which is what I like to do almost every weekend!) Wish me luck, maybe I'll post some photos.

Time Warps

Tonight we were transported back in time ... to a couple of different eras. First, we were lucky enough to hear a concert by Seattle Pro Musica of Rachmaninov's choral work, the All Night Vigil. This was a stunning concert, and it felt like I was listening to the revival of ancient Russian chant in one of the cathedrals of the late Tsars. In fact, it was St. James Cathedral in Seattle, not a shabby stand-in. The choir is that of our Holden friend Liz Langeland.



After the concert we visited the anachronistic lobby of Seattle's Sorento hotel. A fabulous 1920s band was playing and the warm wood of the turn of the century lobby made me feel like a gangster. Here's Matt, looking like a member of la cosa nostra.



The whole evening was very pleasant ... and we thought of Daniel, the other half of Holden's staff coordination team, and how he would have liked the Sorento.

Home Sweet Ballard

We are back in Seattle now, doing things like getting cars repaired, going to job interviews and business meetings. Life has changed yet again. This summer we will be house-sitting/renting in a couple of different places in Seattle. Matt P (me) will be working from home. Matt L will be starting back working in the hospital, probably Harborview, before long. We like the place we are living in Ballard.

Speaking just for myself, this is not going to be easy. In the past two years, we've had a series of amazing adventures ... from the year and a half at Holden to South America to ... it's been one thing after another. My life has been connected to the seasons of the year and to the seasons of the spiritual year. I have been surrounded by amazing friends and blessed with the time to make new friends all of the time. This kind of intensity is not easily recreatable in a large city, nor do I want it to be. But it is still such a change, and I am only beginning to feel it.

If you want to know what I'm working on this summer, you can visit the Holden Audio Archives website.

-MP

Holden Again

Well, I (MattP) am back at Holden, enjoying a great reunion with so many friends here. Getting off the van in the village yesterday was great. So many friends and dear people ... it was like a wall of familiar faces when I got out and greeted people.

So far I've been relaxing, playing bridge with friends and just generally easing into the slowness of this place, which was home for us for one and a half years.

People come and go from Holden with such regularity. A few of those familiar to us are now gone, and even more will leave in the coming months. Marv and Nancy (below) are in their last weeks. Another friend is getting ready to buy a motorcycle and tour around the country.

There's been a little bit of sadness being here too. I've been going nonstop for the last few months, as has Matt L, and little regrets creep in which can only be felt fully when there's time to stop. But overall it is great to be back here for a week.



Matt L joins me here on Tuesday, and then we have a few more days of visiting. The general plan is then that I start a contracting job for Holden over the summer, working on their digital audio project.

Matt L is in Indiana still, visiting family for a little longer. So if you are reading this, hi Matt!

MP

Planting Time

We are back! Well, most of the way anyway. We have been spending time in the midwest with friends and family. Our first stop after leaving Lima was the home of Larry and Gundula, dear friends from Holden Village. They were our gracious hosts for four days after our return in their home on Lake Erie. We shared so much laughter (right Gundula) during those evenings, and went on walks on the shore and through local parks during the day. You learn new things about people all the time ... this time we learned how interested those two are in wildflowers.

Now we are back outside of Berne, Indiana at Matt's folks farm. It is planting season, and Gregg is out in the fields all day from early in the morning until after dark. I'm feeling planted too.

Photo: Matt and Betty (his Mom) down the road from their farm. Amish buggy in background.

Vamos a Lima

Well the last few days of our time in South America are here. Today we fly from the altiplano down to Lima, on the coast. We did some thinking the other day and figured out that we´ve been at over 8,000 feet in elevation for 2/3 of this trip, and at over 12,000 ft for almost half of it. We are sort of wondering how we will react when we land this evening down at sea level Lima. Maybe we will be able to run for long distances without rest or something. However, given our general lack of exercise during this trip, that is unlikely.

Please keep reading this blog. We intend to update it even after we get back.

The beach in Lima:

Uyuni

We are back in La Paz now, after an amazing, if somewhat tiring trip through the Salar de Uyuni, and the national volcanic reserve. Our adventures were numerous ... we left from the cold, desolate town of Uyuni on Saturday morning in a 4WD vehicle containing us, a nice British guy named David and a delightful Norwegian family. We headed out into the salt flats ... an amazing expanse (over 100km wide in some places) of salt desert. At its edge the salar is only about 30 cm thick, but in the middle there can be over 100 meters of salt underfoot. There are islands of cactus and rock in this salt sea. We visited one on our way.

That night we stayed in a hostel composed completely of salt blocks, with a salt floor! Early the next morning we watched the sun rise over the desert and headed up into the very high mountains to see volcanos, rare endangered animals like the vacuña and the andean fox, and stranger things still. Such as a flocks of wild flamingos feeding in mineral lakes that slowly trun bright red or green during the course of the day due to the presence of micro-organisms in their water. Also ... Borax mines, bubbling hot springs and mud gysers, desolate volcanos, and the desert and rock formations that inpsired many of Salvador Dali´s paintings. At the extreme, we went all the way down into the desolate corner of the world where Argentina, Chile and Bolivia all meet (we even walked over the Chilean border a few yards!) ....

I´ll put some pictures of this part of our journey up, as words simply do not do the place justice. By the way, we almost didn´t make it out of Uyuni due to a confluence of events, including a power outage through the whole town, a mysteriously cancelled train, and a broken tourist bus. Thanks to strings pulled by the friendly Norwegians, we eventually got one of the few remaining bus tickets out of town that night, leaving behind an army of angry Israeli backpackers. Frozen Uyuni is not the place you really want to get stranded. Thankfully we were not, although the overnight bus trip was far from comfortable.

Tomorrow we go back to Peru and within a week we will be in Miami! We´ll see many of you soon.

MP

Potosi Underworld

I wish I could post photos right now, but like I posted last time, our beautiful card reader is MIA. In any case, we spent a couple of days in the historic city of Potosì, the source of most of the Spanish empire´s wealth in the new world. From the mountain named Cerro Rico which towers over the chilly city (it´s located at 4100 meters, that´s about 13,000 feet) the spanish, and now the Bolivians have extracted millions of tonnes of silver, lead, tin and zinc ore, which is processed in small local smelters and shipped all over the world.

In the old days, the silver in partuclar was fairly pure and relatively near the surface, and thus easy to extract and process. Since the 1800s, however, it has been necessary to delve deeper into the mountain to find anything of value. Now the mines are so spent and the work so hard that large companies have abandoned the mines altogether, and they are operated only by small cooperatives of miners. Matt and I went on a tour of one of these cooperative mines.

The first stop was the mercado minero, where we bought items to give to the miners as gifts (this is customary when visiting the mines.) The usual gifts are bags of coca leaves, cigarettes, bottles of pop and (I kid you not!) sticks of dynamite. All of these things (along with puro, a kind of everclear drink consisting of 96% pure alcohol) were available from various shops for a minimal cost (a stick of dynamite with detonator and bag of amonium nitrate costs $2.50.) Off to the mines we went. The tunnels were very small to begin with ... I had to duck my head and then crawl for the entire 2 hours we were underground. We did have helmets and protective suits. Deeper in the mine, the temperature increased to about 90 degrees and the air was thick with a fine dust consisting of fine silicate particles. Occasionally we would have to move to the side of the shaft to make way for a hand operated railcar full of ore on its way out of the mine. Soon we were deeper in the mine, and had to crawl for lack of space.

We met several miners. One man had been working down in the mine for over 24 years. He had 4 kids, and made about 50 bolivianos a day (about $6.70) Matt L talked to a 17 year old miner deep down in the mine who had been working all day at hand-hammering a dynamite shaft in the rock. He had to lay down on his stomach to fit in the small space in which he was working. We left the mine sort of stunned and shocked. On our way out we met 2 other miners who couldn`t have been more than 15 years old. Then there was a dynamite demonstration, and we were done.

The conditions under which these miners work are unbelievable. Many can only work for a few years before they are sickened by silicosis or cancer. I`ve never seen anything like it. Since the days of slavery and Spanish rule, it is estimated that over 8,000,000 people have died working the mines at Potosi.

Sweet Sucre

Hello all ... here we are in the beautiful city of Sucre, city of amorous young couples, city of whilewashed colonial palacios, chocolate capital of the upper Andes, home of the best tapas in South America, and place where Simon Bolivar, libertador of libertadores, told to Spanish where to get off. It´s also the city in which we lost or cheap but long serving little card reader (we didn´t lose any photos, just the reader) so for now, I will have to supply a canned photo of this superlative Bolivian capital.

For indeed, though La Paz may have unjustly stolen the title of ¨capital¨ in some absurd civil war or other, any sureño will quickly tell you that Sucre is indeed the seat of all legitimate authority in Bolivia, as evidenced by the fact that the supreme court still sits here. Lately, Sucre has made headlines by being the city in which Bolivia´s new constitution is being negotiated. This political drama has in recent months intensified into somewhat of a war between president Evo Morales and his shrinking cadre of supporters, and the rest of the country who live outside of La Paz. So ours is not the only nation with an unpopular president. The main issues surround autonomy for Bolivia´s regions, such as the one containing this fairest of cities.

Today Matt and I were in the town of Tarabuco (about 60 km and somewhat higher than apline Sucre.) On Sunday, the little town explodes into activity with a market, at which you can buy very distinctive hand woven shawls, blankets and ponchos that are only found in this little region. Matt and I now own some. We also saw many fellows who looked kind of like this gentleman (in fact this gentleman may have tried to sell us artisania several times, he looks rather familiar.) The market wasn´t exactly tranquil, as tourists are generally attacked by vendors like sharks to bloody fishmeal, but it was an exciting day.

We are getting more and more toward the end of this awesome journey, but we still have some hilights left. In particular, we are looking forward to seeing the city fo Potosì (we will be the Wednesday and Thursday of this week) and then to heading to this place:

The great Salar de Uyuni, the world´s largest salt desert and home of many dead buses, aparently. Hopefully our mode of transport will not end up like this. The Salar is on the Bolivia/Chile border, at over 11,500 feet. It´s home to some of the strangest landscapes on earth, inlcuding lakes that are bright green and bright red and huge flocks of flamingos. Wish us luck. Much love.

MP

Down the Road

Well late last week we left our temporary home in Montero, saying goodbye to kids and housemates, and headed for the hills. Our first stop was the cool (in every sense of the word) town of Samaipata, where we spent Holy week. Samaipata is up in the mountains a ways, and is consequently free of the horrible heat and many, if not all, of the mosquitoes, that we had been fighting in recent weeks.

We were in Samaipata for Holy Week, which was very cool indeed. On good friday a procession of several thousand people took Jesus out of his chapel in the town church (which, incidentally had an amazing gold sanctum) and took him on a funeral procession around the town, stopping at each of 13 houses which had been prepared as stations of the cross. At each, the priest said a prayer over the loud speaker and there was singing as the walk continued. There must have been an army base near Samaipata, beacuase there were always young soldiers lolling around the plaza with nothing to do. On good friday, however, they were pressed into action as Jesus´ body guards.

We left Samaipata on an overnight bus that traversed a mostly dirt road for about 12 hours up into the mountains, finally arriving at Bolivia´s judicial capital, the lovely city of Sucre. Somewhere in there I (MattP) started feeling kind of sick, a condition from which I am still recovering. Matt L has started some spanish lessions, and I will too when I get my voice back. Until then, I will rest and enjoy the inexpensive fresh juice which friendly women sell all over this city. More on Sucre soon. It really is a cool place.

MP

Grandma

Dear friends, family and loved ones who read this blog:
I just learned a few hours ago about the death of my Grandma Liechty. From what little I've gathered up to now, she died peacefully Wednesday evening. Her viewing is happening even as I write this. I wish I could be there.

This is not unexpected. I spoke with my mom and dad this past weekend and knew that she was not doing well. She was 96 and had been in declining health for a quite awhile. I'm grateful for the end of her suffering. And I'm grateful for her long and, until the last few years, very healthy life. She drove until she was 90 and lived independently until 5 years ago. And I'm grateful that she lived a life full of love, both given and received. And I'm grateful to have had a grandma that I (and the rest of my family) at times got such a kick out of!!!

It is a good, good life.
ML

Super Photographers

This week the kids of the Comedors demonstrated their super photography skills. Many were given a disposable camera and 24 hours to take up to 13 photos. It's part of a program run by Kurt, one of the engineers who was recently here, though his non profit group, kidsview. Here are just a few of the great photos taken:

Kids getting ready to go to the circus:



Enrique's little cousin:



A horse on the corner:



Happy mom:



MP ML

Pampa de la Madre

One of the two comedors supported and administered by Etta Projects is located on the outskirts of Montero, in an area know as the Pampa de la Madre. The full grand name of the place is the `Mother Theresa Kid`s Dining Room in the pampa of the Mother of God` ... here is one of the main roads in that area:

The area is very troubled. The roads are poor, sanitation worse. During the rainy season the place is a fragrant swamp. During the summer it becomes very dusty due to the poor sandy soil. It is home to many large families, mostly immigrants from the altiplano. The most needy ones qualify for the comedor´s plan, kids coming in each day for lunch and before/after school programs (school is only 1/2 day in Bolivia) and the mothers learning some kind of trade.

The area is plagued by serious health problems. During this, the wet season, Dengue fever is common, sometimes knocking out a good portion of the students all at once. There are also many problems with parasites, worms and skin problems. Drinking water, which comes from wells, is also usually contaminated, so that 2/3 of the kids at the comedor report problems with diarria. One of the enigineers working on the water problem told me that some of the wells have the highest e coli count he´s ever seen in a water source. Dank pools like this one are everywhere ... as a result of playing in and around them, kids come in all the time with foot and skin problems, including fungi and worms.

Matt L spent some time yesterday treating kids feet who had bad fungus problems. Here`s a photo:

The problem is that there`s almost no point in doing anything about this particular problem, because kids go right back home and play in the wet and mud, and are likely to come back the next week with the same problem. There are other problems here too ... sort of too many to mention. One is that there is not really much in the way of infrastructure, although the city did extend water mains to the area, they did not connect them to anyone´s house, and since most people here squat or rent, they don`t have running water even though there may be a pipe 20 yards away. The other is the seeming lack of grabage collection. Garbage is burned, or it ends up on the side of the road like this:

The most pressing issue, and the most shocking one to me, is the unsustainable large size of the families. A good example: there is a young woman facing her first (and unwanted) pregnancy. She is 22. This woman`s mother, which whom she lives, has just had her 9th child. We also met a woman, who, due to deaths in her family, has almost 20 children living with her. The level of burden on these women is completely unimaginable to me ... and it´s probably the biggest contributor to continued poverty and misery in this neighborhood ... too many unwanted pregnancies.

I know I´m painting a pretty bleak picture of life in this particular area, but I`m not really sure what else to say about it. Kids are kids everywhere of course. And these kids just want people to play with them, pay attention to them, and stuff like that. To be honest, both Matt and I have found it hard at times to be at the Pampa. The level of need is very great, greater than any person or community itself could hope to satisfy. I think that there is this myth of the `happy poor person` who has nothing, but is really happy anyway, and in some sort of sanctified state. But the kind of lack we´ve seen here at the pampa has not only been a material poverty ... what`s struck me most has been the intense emotional need of these kids, many of whom will come up to random friendly people and throw themselves into their arms or onto their backs and have to be removed somewhat forcibly. These are kids who are not getting their very basic emotional needs met, and while we and people like us can swoop in for a week or four and fill tiny holes of need, the greater change in this time will be in us. It's a different world.

MP

Photo Day

Some of the kids took photos today, and here are some of the results:

Here´s one of the girls jumping rope in the park across from the comedor:

Here´s Matt L with Manuel and Samuel, two twins. That makes 3 twins in all!

And finally, here´s a great photo that one of the girls took in the kitchen with la Señora Ramona dishing out the soup for lunch:

Camera Project ... Futbol Weekend

This weekend we were joined by several engineering students and a professor from Michigan Tech who are here to do a project on clean water. Their goal is to build a device or process that will allow people who live on well water to purify their supply. It is not an easy challenge in purely technical terms, but it is even more difficult socially ... they have to design something that people will actually use ... eg something culturally appropriate. In any case, the sutdents are very nice, as is their professor Kurt. Kurt, it turns out, is also the founder of an organization that gives cameras to kids in developing countries, and uses the resulting photographs to raise money necessary to improve their lives. Matt and I were planning to do a week of digital photography with the kids at the comedor de niños, so we decided to team up with Kurt and do a larger camera project this week. We have 10 disposable cameras, and tomorrow we will begin by destributing them to 10 kids, who will then taken them home and take 12 photographs each. We will repeat this process on wednesday at the pampa location, so that in all 20 kids get the chance to do this. On friday, all of the film will be developed digitally and the kids will get the chance to pick one or two of their favorites which will then become part of an art gallery that we all will put up on the comedor wall. There is even talk of an art openning for the kids and their moms. We shall see.

On sunday, we were able to go to a futból match at Montero´s small stadium. It was packed to the rafters with fans of the local team, Guabirá. The team´s colors were red and blue, as was the smoke issuing from the less expensive, more wild sections of the stands. Before the game began, a person dressed as the devil and carying a small cauldron belching purple smoke made a quick lap of the stadium. As in the other game we´ve been to, there were numerous rockets and other explosives detonated during the game. But this game was more controversial than the last one. To begin with, the pitch was in a sorry state .. after some recent rains it resembled a swamp more than anything else, which meant that the players were covered in mud within the first few minutes. There was a considerable amount of misconduct by the players as well, resulting in several yellow and then a red card. There was also a missed call by the referee which cuased the Montero public to pelt the field with shopping bags full of water and plastic bottles. The displeasure continued and increased so that by the second half otherwise proper looking women in aprons were standing up and screaming oaths at the referee, calling him a ´cabron´ and saying his eyesight could be profitably compared to that of a pile of shit. At the end, the refs had to be escorted off of the field by a phalanx of riot police, under a hail of plastic bottles (glass was not sold at the stadium, thank god) ... But in the end, the fans of Guabirá had nothing to complain about ... they had just been out classed by a superior team (one curiously called The Strongest, from La Paz) ... but it is always more fun to complain, no?

Here are some players from Guabirá in happier days:

Stripping Things Away

Today while we were eating a chicken sandwitch, Matt said something about how things here in Montero and in the community we are entering are sort of "stripped away." I mean, in many ways, Montero is sort of a barebones place. There really isn't anything to really do ... the greatest entertainments come from walking around the Plaza at night with all of the teenagers or buying a delicious popsicle made out of chocolate and coconut or eating a platefull of fries and salted fried chicken strips (a local delicacy)

And what really do we do here during the day even? We are really in someone else's show here, just trying to fit in wherever we can. Today we were out at the pampa de la Madre comedor (one of the two) to help with dishes and cleanup. Later I "taught" a few computer classes to some kids who didn't want to stop when it was time to go. (I have only very very basic spanish, so there was much sign language.) Both episodes were pleasurable and humbling for their own reasons. They were humbling because in each case it was clear that we are just here to be with to be in solidarity, to accompany ... our talents/gifts whatever are not what will really benefit people here. It is just our simple presence that will make a very very modest difference to a few people. The problems are so huge and the solutions so elusive that to hope for anything more than that out of a few weeks would be foolish. The pleasures of the day came once again from the people. Playing with kids on the playground at the pampa. Laughing while the twins Samuel and Manuel clung to me, each one on an arm. Lauhing with Pura, the woman in charge of the kitchen at the Pampa. Such graciousness all around.

So, no ... I would never say that Montero is much "fun" ... not much of a destination really. But for my part, I am looking at these three or so weeks as a chance to let most things just fall away amid all of the randomness, frustration and joy of this place.

MP

Comedor de Niños ´Etta Turner´

Greetings from Montero, Boilivia, where we have now been for four days. We've been lucky to be the guests of six wonderful women, the director and staff of Etta Projects. Etta Projects is a nonprofit that helps to operate two Comedors (literally, dining rooms) for kids at risk for malnutrition and their families. During the week, kids come in either before or after school for a nutritious meal. Meanwile their mothers can receive vocational training and a chance to start a home business. There is also school assistance and health programs for the kids. Here's Jenny, one of the wonderful kitchen staff, preparing the noon meal today:



There is fun and energy everywhere. Today as lunch was being made, it was time for baseball class. Fabi, the teacher, asked me if I could tell them the rules "mas o menos". I don't think my elementary spanish was up to the task, but it was fun. Here's the baseball class in the park across the road from the Comedor.



After a while, when lunch is ready, everyone lines up to go into the dining room. (It's kind of like Holden Village in the olden days!) Fabi (in pink) is stationed at the front door checking off names (kids have to apply to enrol in the program) and handing out the daily vitamins, making sure that each one takes the pill.



Finally when everyone is seated, there are a series of prayers and spirit-raising chants, and then the eating begins. Both of us feel really honored to be even a small part of this program for the few weeks we will be here. Today Matt L did the rounds in the neighborhood in an effort to try to screen peoples' houses for lead contamination. Matt P helped with some computer stuff around the Comedor. But we have surely received much much more than the little we've given, in fact, being here for these days the one thing we've probably already learned is that we will leave this place very much the way we found it. But it's us that will be changed -- we've already received the hospitality of our housemates, the trust of so many in the community and the overwhelming warmth and love of over 100 kids, who like to ride on our backs, call our names, play soccer with us and generally just be alive. We will try to add more regularly here during the next 3 weeks or so .... until next time peace!



-MP ML

Santa Cruz de la Sierra

We are in Santa Cruz, eastern Bolivia. this is in the lowland jungle region of the country, most of the way towards Brasil. Things are steamy, hot, and wet (it´s the rainy season) and we are mostly expending our energy just keeping cool and dry. Yesterday we undertook an epic 12 hour bus ride from Cochabamba, in the central highlands, down down down to this region. Tomorrow we head up to our volunteer assignment at Etta Projects in the town of Montero, some 30 miles north of here. Wish us luck, and more soon!!!!

The Most Dangerous Road in the World

Hi --

Please don´t get mad, those of you who know us and/or worry (which I guess come to think of it is everyone who reads this probably) but on Tuesday we set out on another adventure -- this time to mountain bike down the ´most dangerous road in the world` .... also known as the `death road`. In truth it´s probably not the most dangerous road in the world anymore (at one time it was) ... they built a new safe paved road on the opposite side of the canyon from it, so now all of the busses and trucks go on that other road, and it´s only crazy white people on bikes who go down this road anymore. Ok ... backtracking ... the road connects the top of the pass outside of La Paz (altitude 14,000 feet) with the jungle valley containing the town of Coroico, altitude (3600 feet) ... So the vertical drop is OVER 10,000 feet in just 40 miles. Over that distance, the landscape changes from snowy altiplano to humid jungle, with cloud forests in between. It´s absolutely stunning. The downside is that there are some places where the cliffs are 3000 ft straight down and the road is about 10 feet wide. Huge busses and trucks used to ply this route, and would have to honk loudly as they came around blind corners. An average of 26 people per year died on the road.

So that is the scary part ... the nice part is that now it´s relatively safe .. we went with great equipment (Rocky Mountain Bikes made in BC and big helmets) and good guides who ride the road every day. We did not feel afraid, really, just totally amazed at the scope and beauty of what we saw.

Like I said, at the top it was frozen. Here´s the start:

By lunch time we were lower, and finally got to the exciting bit of the road. The vegetation was lush, the humidity started to close in, and there were butterflies and flowering trees everywhere. Plus there was this cliff (imagine large busses going along here!):

As we continued to descend, the heat got more intense and we started to find ourselves in a real jungle. Finally, after crossing two rivers (that was fun) we ended up in the sleepy little town way down at the bottom. Here we are at the bottom with our group:

To our moms: we decided to not tell you about this in advance so that you wouldn´t worry. Please know that it´s really not as dangerous as it sounds, and that we are not taking lots of crazy risks. In fact, Britt and Betty, we kind of think you´d have tried it too if you were down here!

- ML MP

La Paz -- Updated

Well here we are in the beautiful city of La Paz. La paz is one of the most dramatic places either of us has ever been. It sits in a massive bowl at about 12,000 feet above sea level, surrounded by the high peaks of the Andes. Over the last few days we have been exploring the city and preparing to do a little side trip to the Yungas, a nearby area that is the transition zone between the high Andes and the Amazon jungle. It is supposed to be very beautiful too.

La Paz is a city of contrasts, with many people still living and dressing traditionally, but also with a sense of progress and modernity not found in many other cities we´ve been in so far. As soon as we can find a computer that will cooperate, we have many cool photos of this city ... including some from the Witches` market, where you can by ingredients for Aymarà ceremonies, including things like llama foetuses.

(Later ... Ok here are some photos of La Paz ... enjoy!)

View from our window:

Ceremonial guards outside of president Morales` palace:

A girl runs up an old colonial street (calle Jeán) in central La Paz:

Dried Llama Foetus for sale:

Graffiti in support of the president:






Love to all! - MP

Bolivia!

Yesterday we arried in Bolivia, which really just meant we took a bus to the other side of Lake Titicaca, crossed at a very beaurocratic border post and then made our way into Copacabana - which is a lakeside tourist town in Bolivia, and not the famous beach in Rio (there is a beach, but it´s not the kind you´d want to lay around on.)

Copacabana is a holy site for both the Catholic church and traditional Aymará religion. There is a very famous virgin (image of Mary) here -- one of the most famous in all of Peru and Bolivia. There is also the equally famous virgin negra, or black virigin, which was carved in ancient days by a decendent of one of the Inca kings. Here is Matt L after lighting a candle in her sanctuary:

We climbed up a small mountain next to the town and found another set of holy sites, along with a series of soft drink/ritual materials stands. This woman is selling soft drinks at 12,500 feet:

There were other retail outlets as well, including one at which you could by a huge assortment of miniature cars, truck, busses, houses and animals. Having the miniatures blessed at this holy spot is supposed to cuase you to acquire them in the upcoming year. The family in the photo below is performing an Aymará blessing of some sort. We watched as they arranged flowers, jewelry, holy water and images of the virgin mary on the ground. They then sprinkled water, wine and corn beer on the assembled ritual stuff. The view from their ritual site pointed directly toward the Isla del Sol (island of the sun) which the Incas belived to be the birthplace of the sun and moon, which are symbolic of male and female energy respectively, and so the island is the source of all life. This is why sacrifices have always been made at this point. It was cool to watch this family because they were having an incredible amount of fun preforming their ritual duty -- laughing, smiling and embracing eachother the whole time. They also drank all of the leftover corn beer.

We are doing well! We had thought of going over to the Isla del Sol ourselves today, but it has clouded over and looks stormy so we are jumping on a bus to La Paz, Bolivia´s capital. More from there.

-MP

Joan is Known

Ok brief note ... we are here on the high Peruvian altiplano, drinking a coffee when in walks a gringo-looking couple. They turn out to be from Ellensburg, which is odd enough. Then we ask them if they know our dear friend Joan Neslund. Of course they do. Either this is a very small planet, or Joan is an excedingly famous woman. Or perhaps both.

La Fiesta Video

Here`s some more stuff from our time here in Puno. The video shows the kind of dancing and parades that have been going on here lately. There are many different dancing troops, all of whom roam the streets during the day and into the night. There are also competitions etc. Most of the imagery of the costume has to do with indiginous beliefs and gods. Many processions are lead by an imag of the virgin. The dragon figures in the video are common, and are supposed to represent both the christian devil and the native underworld god. It is funny to see a whole troop of devils cross themselves when they pass one of the many churches.

-MP ML

Party Time!

Well we arrived in Puno, Peru today, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The dive over from Arequipa was nothing less than spectacular. The skies were clear and blue and the high planes (in places over 14,000 feet) spread around us, with distant snowcapped volcanos towering over everything. It was absolutely amazing. For me, so far, the most amazing sight was of this city of Puno, spread out below us on the shores of the giant lake. When we got to the center, it was immediately clear that a party was on.

The streets near our hostel were crowded with people, dancers, vendors and marching bands. The Andean marching band is not the kind that marches around a football stadium at half time. Rather it´s a sort of party machine, complete with huge percussion section and an army of dancers. A numer roamed the streets today:

It was like a 4ht of July parade. These women had staked our their ground to view the procedings:

We also discovered the carnival custom of spraying random strangers with detergent foam. Little armies of kids wait on every street corner to spray anyone who looks like they have a sense of humor. Here´s Matt L after a particularly vigorous attack (note Peruvians in the background laughing at him) :

-MP

Our Family in Arequipa

As we leave Arequipa, we owe a big thank you to our dear host family, la familia Collantes. La señora Gladys was our host mother, and took very good care of us with many excellent breakfasts and general warm hospitality. Here we are with her:

The family also includes two wonderful young people, Fernando and his sister Francesca, who were both very hospitible as well, and didn´t seem to mind too much our invasion of their house. Fernando is an excellent fútbol player, and Francesca is an aspiring model (we even went to one of her student fashion show, in which she wore a beautiful pink gown. Ever since I have been calling her `superstar`.)

So ... what else have we done this week? Well I think it is safe to say that we´ve kept it relatively low-key after our big adventure last weekend (see previous post), but we have managed to have some fun. Our friends Giovanna and Rosa took us to an outlying plaza for a meal of fried beef heart, potatoes and these delicious sort of donut things covered in caramelized sugar. Not the best for the colestorol count, but delicious. Aslo, we visited the amazing museum at the monestario de al Ricoleta, a ancient franciscan monestary with a wonderful ancient library. Among the precious colonial books there was a very early edition (1st or second printing) of Don Quixote. It must have been worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, but it was just sort of sitting there in an unlocked glass case.

The museum was lovely, with lots of beautifully preserved cells and rooms ... in this picture you can see the monk`s scourge hanging conveniently over his bed, just in case mortification of the flesh is needed pronto.

As in all of Peru, pure enigma is never far around the corner, and indeed here in the monestary as we rounded one of the next corners, we were presented with a display concerning the history of Peruvian dolls. We were not sure what to make of this. Maybe you can help us:

We are off to Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. More soon from there.

- MP