las luces de La Paz

The lights of La Paz


lunes 13.6.2011

On our way to Zona Sur.

Yesterday was a great, relaxing day.  We went to a BBQ in Zona Sur.  Zona Sur is the wealthy area.  Monique and Danilo hosted the BBQ for us.  Monique runs Creative Corners, the program that helped us come here and Danilo is a professional musician.  The food was absolutely amazing.  We had chicken, steak, and chorizo as well as fresh vegetables that we could actually eat for once.  After the feast we had chocolate mousse and cake for dessert to celebrate 3 birthdays.  Then we had the "itis", which means after eating you are so tired you just want to sleep.  

The "itis".

Their new grand piano straight from Hollywood.

Danilo played his grand piano for us and Monique sang, and then we did sing-a-longs.  It was really a great time at their house.  They run a music school, which is under their house and so that is where the hangout was.  

They live across the street from a huge park with swan paddle boats, bike rentals, and a huge playground.  A bunch of us went to the park to watch as 2 girls with us, Danielle and Emily, went on the boats.  

The long bridge.

The "honeymooners" Danielle and Emily.

Sarah, Lisa and I on the bridge.

The best time of all was the tire swing where I thought I was going to throw up everything from the BBQ.  After the BBQ my friends from La Paz picked me up and showed me around Zona Sur.  I saw the main streets that are most popular on Friday and Saturday nights and then we went up to the top of a mountain to see the lights of La Paz.  I don't think I have ever seen a view more astounding and beautiful view than that.  It was endless lights and as similar to "the death road", I could have fallen to my death very easily.  The drive to the top was a little scary but the view was well worth it.

Me on top of the mountain.  A bit blurry!

La Paz from the top.  Most amazing view I've ever seen!  This picture doesn't do it justice.

torres defectuosas

Faulty Towers


Domingo 12.6.2011


Thursday out on the streets I took the Faulty Towers.

These are the faulty towers, which the guys built to grow music.  It is basically a drum tower and the drum tops are made using packaging and duct tape.  Two of us, along with the other 2 people of the group, would carry the towers.  We started the day in one of the plazas.  It did not take long for the children to be interested.  We not only had children but adults too along with a lot of stares.  We had 5 sets of drumsticks and that was not enough.  As soon as we got to the plaza, which is when the children were on lunch from school, we had a whole group of kids come to us.  This was also the same group we had the day before.  They started banging on the drums and they loved it.  The kids would try to hit as hard as they could or to try and reach the top drum.  Their love killed the faulty tower in about 15 minutes and I had to repair it, which only consisted of adding more packaging tape.  It was really great seeing all the kids take to the towers.  We also had separate drums and many llama toenail bracelets.  Llama toenails are sewn on to a cloth and we would have the children wear them around their wrists and then dance around in a circle.  We danced around in a line around the plaza with the toenails shaking them up high (arriba), down low (debajo), to the left (a la izquierda) and to the right (a la derecha).  Eventually all these games somehow turned into a little boy trying to hit my legs with the drumsticks but it was a great time.  After spending 2 hours in this plaza we went to the middle of a street.  On this street we had a lot more kids that would stop as they passed by with their families.  It was great to see the parents' faces as the kids played many of our instruments.  We even had some older folks come and play.  At our last stop in the government plaza, Plaza Murillo, we got kicked out because they don't like people to cause a commotion there.  Although it was a pain trying to carry the towers especially crossing streets when the cars don't particularly stop for pedestrians, it was a great day with the most people yet to come and play some music.  

La Paz

My mom is the best!  She usually puts a note and a beanie baby in my bag when I leave for travels but I wasn't packed yet.  I borrowed her camera for the trip and this is what I found.  I love you!

This is how all the markets are and the fruit is very fresh!

Dried llama fetus are placed in the ground before a house is built for good luck.

The interior courtyard of the museum.  The door behind me is where we will have our exhibit of our work next Wednesday.

At the hostel where we ate lunch one of the first days here.

Dumbo is amazing.  Adult Chuck E. Cheese where you can have ice cream with alcohol.  Mint ice cream with creme de menthe.  Yes please!

My friend at the Ludateca.  We played drums and talked about our families.  He asked me if I was married because the people here get married and have children around 18 or 19 years old. 

My other friend who did not want to leave the musical instruments tarp.  This was the first Ludateca we had our 4th day here on Sunday.

The girl, Angeles, remembers when the group I'm with came last year.  Angeles and I chased down this llama that ran away from its owner.

BOLIVAR! We went to the championship soccer game Bolivar vs La Paz.  Bolivar won!

The view from the streets of Laz Paz, the snow-capped mountains.  

Scott and I went to ECC, Espacio Cultural Creativo, to meet with the workers to figure out our routes when walking our boxes around town.

The hardware district.

Cholitas are the traditionally dressed women.  They carry their children on their backs in the colored bags.

We had a workshop at ECC.  One team had to form a pose and the other team had to come in blind and try to get the pose.

Mercado Camacho.  There are band competitions on the weekends here.

Playing with the Bolivians during one of our music routes.

This kid was awesome.  Very fly playing whatever this flute-like instrument is called.

More of the kids playing the drums we created.

Coroico

That is a bus that fell over the cliff.

The view from one of our bike pit stops.

Danielle, me, Lisa in our provided biking gear.

Lisa and my room at the hotel in Coroico.

View from the hotel, in the back are snow-capped mountains.

Lisa, Danielle, and I on our way to walk into town before heading back to La Paz.

Typical guys can't wait until we reach a proper bathroom.

Una encuentro con la muerte

A meeting with death.

Miercoles 8.6.2011

This past week has certainly been a lot of ups and downs.  The project started off shaky for me in terms of music on the streets.  Each one of us from International Design Clinic are partnered up with one of the Espacio Cultural Creativo volunteers to take us around the city.  Depending upon your knowledge of Spanish determines which volunteer we walk around with.  My partner, Veronica, only speaks Spanish, which is tough but rewarding at the same time.  Our first two days out in La Paz were very upsetting for me.  We had a box with musical instruments, flute-type things, and drums only about 4 or so instruments from the start.  Not many kids were interested at all.  We had a 3 more drums the second day but still not a very big interest, I mean no more than around 12 kids all day.  After 2 not so uplifting days, I got sick with bad stomach pains.  I think it was all the fried food that caught up to me. I finally started to feel better in time for “Death Road”.  


The Death Road, the most dangerous road in the world also known as Yungas Road, starts in the mountains of La Paz at roughly 15,000 feet and ended for us in Coroico at about 5000 feet.  At anytime you can fall to your death because there are no railings and at some places the road is only 2 meters wide.  There are lots of crosses throughout the road and a Chinese woman died 2 days before we rode.  She lost control of her bike and went over the edge.   The bike ride for me was okay.  The 2^nd half was extremely bumpy and just not my cup of tea although we did get to ride through a few rainfalls.  At the end of the ride we went to some hotel to eat lunch and relax for a couple hours before we were on our way to our hotel.  Hotels here are nothing like the US.  We stayed at Hotel Esmeralda.  Everyone had suites, which consisted of our own showers with surprisingly hot and strong showers and doors that opened up with a hammock to the amazing, mountainous view on the balcony.  The hotel had great food, an outdoor pool, a sauna, and great sitting areas to take in the views.  We met a bunch of guys from La Paz there and go figure; there was a kid from New Jersey there too.  Just can’t get away from that breed!  Just kidding….  On Saturday we took a microbus, which are like our minivans, back to La Paz.  My stomach started hurting again and it was the worst 3-hour ride ever, especially because the drivers drive too fast for my liking on the cliff mountain roads.  So here goes round 2 of my stomach sickness.  


This week I went out with Veronica again and the music box with a few other volunteers.  We were on a new route and it has been the best route yet.  I finally am having fun with my box.  We bought 5 sets of drumsticks so the kids can really play on the drums.  Any instrument that we had that isn’t a drum has been turn into a drum.  We played in one plaza with 4 drunken men and they sang for us as well.  We have been getting a lot more people to play the flute and sing these past 2 days, which has been rewarding.  At our last stop yesterday in the indoor market, we had almost ten kids at one point playing a game, playing the drums and singing.  After our end of the day meeting at our favorite café, which we are facebook friends with the owner oh, technology, we went to an art exhibition.  Leah, one of our ECC volunteer guides is a friend with the artist.  Her works were amazing and mostly in shades of pinks, reds, and yellows.  I wanted to buy the one painting that would only end of being $50 (350 Bolivianos) but someone got to it first.  At the end of the exhibit the artist and some guy started doing a performance and stripped down to their underwear with the music.  We weren’t really sure what that was about.  Must be an artist thing.  On our way back from the art gallery to stopped on the street to see from break-dancers.  There was one little kid maybe 4^th grade and he was the “coolest kid” hanging out with the big kids.  Some of the dancers, you could tell did capoeira, but their spins moves were crazy.  Emily, one of the girls with us wanted to start a riot to make us yet again typical Americans.  We continued our walk back and stopped at Dumbo, the adult Chuck E Cheese.  It was awesome for dessert.  I got chocolate cake, which wasn’t too good, but 2 of the other girls got alcoholic ice cream desserts.  Mint ice cream with crème de menthe was one and the other was vodka soaked cherries in strawberry ice cream.  Finally we took a cab home and that ended the night.  Last night was definitely one of the best nights being here.  Just walking along the street we experienced a lot of the street culture, which is exactly what we were looking for.