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: