My first days here.
Sorry this first post is so long. Everything was in Spanish for the blog site and I was not up to figuring it out until now.
First I'll explain what I'm doing in Bolivia. For my final year of college I took a community service class and decided to work with International Design Clinic. I worked on a project with the potential of going to La Paz, Bolivia. This is our project:
This summer, a team of artists, designers, and architects will travel to Bolivia, where they will partner with children working on the streets of La Paz and the non-profits that serve them to generate versions of education that are custom tailored to the rigors of life on the street. These efforts will result in the design and construction of an integrated system of micro-schools based upon the vending architectures of Bolivia:
Vending+school_XS will use postcards to introduce key concepts and skills
Vending+school_S will distill education into components that can fit within the small boxes carried by the Shoe-Shine Boys of La Paz
Vending+school_M will adjust to the handcart
Vending+school_L will use the vending booth.
Overtime, these elements will evolve, culminating in the construction of Vending+school_XL a Center for the Creative and Performing Arts specifically designed to the lives of children working on the streets of La Paz.
Jueves 26.5.2011
Today was very tiring but amazing! We arrived to Bolivia at 5:06am and it took about an hour to unload the plane, get a visa, and get through customs and passport checks. Then we met Marta our house mom and took taxis to the house. We arrived and had coca (cocaine) tea and breakfast. Apparently if I have to take a drug test, I will fail. After checking out the amazing views because we are on the top floor, we all took a much needed 3 hour nap. Then we met Monique, who works for with our partner here, at a restaurant for some snacks and drinks and to discuss our arrival. After we went around the tourist “witch” areas, walking up and down the streets. You have to bargain with the storeowners and that is always fun. I got some little charms that I will but on a necklace. Mine is an eagle totem looking charm and it means “good travels”. After walking around a lot more we went to an amazing café that was part of the San Francisco museum and the interior courtyard was gorgeous. There was a foutain although I’m not quit sure there was water in it. On our travels back to Marta’s house we stopped in a cathedral and it was huge, just like the churches I had visited in Europe. The cathedral had huge vaults and eye openings in the top and they hold services there every day of the week. Finally we arrived home to relax for a couple minutes and head out onto our next adventure, finding dinner. Scott, Emily, Danielle, and I walked a long time but it was worth it for the amazing silpanchos, a flat, fried piece of meat with potatoes, rice, an egg and raw vegetables. It was authentic and that was what we were looking for. We were all satisfied! Seems like all we did was eat haha. The microbuses are what we have been using for transportation. We hop on any of the many that are going to Cruce. Riding the buses is an experience as is walking along the streets. We played frogger all night long! Stop signs don’t exist at intersections and the stop lights that exist are merely there for decoration. Our microbus ran right through one today. Luckily we made it back alive, past the “shit creek”, literally at least 20 times dirtier and smellier than the Schuylkill river. Believe it! It is nighttime now and that means it is very chilly in the 30s but the daytime is in the 50’s and feels warmer because of the 13,000 foot altitude. That’s about it for our first day here.
Viernes 27.5.2011
Today I woke up to the light shining through the windows in my room. I finished the book I bought in the airport “Heaven is for real” and then went downstairs for breakfast. Bread with butter and jam, tea and a fruit milkshake is the typical breakfast we have, which takes me back to my days in Taghazout, Morocco. After breakfast we took off to find a cart to be made for our “medium” project but no such luck so we went down to the café again to meet Scott and more of the gang. We met Miguel, Veronica, and another guy from espacio cultural creativo, our non-profit that we are working with here, as well as Sara, who is a part of our team, and her boyfriend Ben. It was great getting to meet more people and hear more Spanish. Once we parted ways with the ECC people, our group headed to the museum to meet the director Jose R. We are having 2 exhibits there, one next Friday to showcase our plans here and one at the end of our trip to showcase what we accomplished and hopefully get more people interested. Jose was very pleasant to talk to. Of course after talking to him it was time for what else… food. We went up the street to a hostel to eat. The restaurant was the top floor and everything inside was antique. Just hand me a bottle of Coca-Cola and it would make a great commercial. On our travels I noticed 3 boys walking with models of buildings that they made. I asked them if they studied architecture (of course talking in Spanish) and they did and asked me if I knew Frank Gehry when I told them I studied architecture too. We talked about his fish in Barcelona, which is on the beach, that I saw when I was there. It was really great to see some architecture students that made my day! Today was also mother’s day here so Scott, Danielle, Emily, Saleem, who arrived this morning, and I chipped in to buy Marta a big bouquet of flowers. Marta loved them when we arrived home. After some downtime at the apartment we all got ready and headed in cabs to meet Monique and her family for an Italian dinner. Dinner was chaos and of course we were probably known as the obnoxious Americans. Gemma was also with us, she is from the UK and is staying at Marta’s also. She has been painting a wall in a local orphanage. After our crazy dinner, Jemma, Sara and I took a cab home. I had the opportunity to use the local telephone café to make an international call. Can you believe that 15 minutes was only about $1.20. And our 15-20 minute cab ride was about $1.30. I love this exchange rate! A lot better than going to Europe or the UK. Oh another fun fact… the reason La Paz does not have stop signs is because they have zebras. The zebras are middle school aged girls dressed up in costume with red flags that help people cross the streets. This sums of day 2 and it just keeps getting better and better!
Sabado 28.5.2011
Today was a working day. We started off the morning with breakfast as usual and Marta made fresh squeezed orange juice. Doesn’t get any better than that! Then we got to work. I cut out square after square and punched circles with a hole punch on some of our postcards for the children. We still have a lot more to do and it is mainly holes that the hole punch cannot reach so I am not looking forward to that. We are trying to prepare the cards and the boxes to carry our supplies ready for next week. After cutting and punching roughly 100 postcards we took a break for lunch and went locally to get lunch. We had a 4 course meal for 9 Bolivianos, which is about $1.50. We started off with fresh sliced vegetables and some bread, then on to a soup of noodles and chicken. For my main course I had fried chicken and rice and the dessert was a juice, which we didn’t drink because it was water-based. Not one of us are ready for the runs quit yet. After lunch we returned to our hole for more cutting and preparing the boxes. A few hours later we went to the cinema to see “Que paso ayer? Parte 2. The Hangover 2. It was yet again the funniest movie and I cannot wait to see it again. Their Multicinema is way better than our movie theaters. It was a huge, 3 floor complex with many places to purchase snacks, a band playing on the top floor, and an arcade. I went back to the apartment with Emily and Danielle after the movie because we were exhausted. We accomplished a lot or work but there is still a lot more to do before we can get out on to the streets.
Domingo 29.5.2011
Today was the best day yet and most rewarding although we haven’t really started our project. Saleem, Scott, and Gemma, went with Marta to Alto to get a cart for our medium project. While they did that the rest of us headed down to the Ludateca. The Ludateca is put on by the the ECC, Espacio Cultural Creativo. They set out large tarps with arts-based activities on each. Some of the activities were musical instruments, materials to construct, building blocks, painting, bracelet making, and jumping rope. On the walk down there, the Prado, the street the Ludateca was on, was filled with food vendors and many people setting up for the day. Every Sunday along with the Ludateca there are musical performances and displays, food vendors and people selling items. I can’t believe the Bolivians do this every Sunday because it was much larger than most of the festivals I’ve been to before. Along the Prado there was a Burger King! That is just about the only American chains I have seen so far besides Subway and Pizza Frak, their version of Pizza Hut. When the Ludateca started I began at the musical station playing with the children on the drums. The drums are old tins or 5gallon buckets with plastic packaging tape. I instantly made a friend. I would play a beat and then he would repeat it. We played together for about 30 minutes while also talking about Barcelona futbol and our families. Many other children came and left playing the other drums and at one point I was surrounded by 4 boys playing the drums. Later I played the drums with a little girl and she didn’t want to leave the musical area. After playing with the drums, flutes and llama toenail instruments, I headed to the jump roping area. I spun the rope while children jumped from 1 child to 5 children at a time. One little girl in a red sweater jumped for over an hour! She was great and so were all the other children because they never wanted to stop. Being in the sun all day was exhausting so I got an ice cream of course! After the Ludateca was over we headed to the ECC’s building to have a meeting about our project. I got to meet most of the volunteers that we will be working with in the next couple weeks. When the meeting was over we rushed to the stadium to see Bolivar play La Paz FC. The game was such a great experience! I bought a shirt and my ticket for less than $10. Bolivar is the main team so I got their jersey and their fans are crazy! They jump up and down for most of the game chanting and setting off colored smoke and fireworks. Bolivar was losing most of the game and rallied at the end to win 2-1. This was the championship game and so the team did a victory lap with the humongous trophy making sure to stop in front of their fans, which was really awesome to see. They appreciated their fans so much. The game was a lot of fun and our seats weren’t bad either so I had a good view the entire time. By the end of the game we were all exhausted from being out in the sun all day. We headed back to the apartment to order Chinese food and watch movies. Today was so amazing to interact with the children and I cannot wait to get more into our project.
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