#001: Dizzy and lovely
[photos coming soon...still trying to figure that out]
6/07/06
Arrived in La Paz yesterday morning, 6:30 am or so. The trip was kind of terrifying. Upon meeting my group - two grad students and a professor all from Vanderbilt - it hit me that I had no idea what I was getting into, where we were staying, what to be prepared for, how to do ethnography. Boarding the plane seemed so final, and yet so uncertain. I wasn't sure if we would ever land, and I wasn't sure I wanted to. Talking to Professor J. on the plane calmed my nerves quite a bit; he explained our schedule to me, a fairly loose one involving a week-or-so stay in La Paz with his old and eccentric friend W., a German ex-pat and photographer, and then a trip out to the country, to Qhunqhu, whenever archaeology permits came through and we had all our stuff together, etc. I didn't have to know exactly what was going on - everything would work itself out, including my project.
Landing was interesting - that familiar coming-back-to-Earth feeling didn't really happen, it felt like landing in the clouds, but my body felt underwater somehow, blood bubbly and light. La Paz was freezing as hell, -4 degrees F. we were told, and we stood in the customs line shaking our sweaters stowed away in backpacks. The airport was very nice, with televisions showing Eurotrashy music videos, and porters and policemen everywhere - the latter wearing metallic green, military-looking uniforms. After baggage claim you go through a big black doorframe device, on the right side of which is a red button. The guard asks you to push the button, and a light on the top flashes green or red, indicating whether you have been randomly chosen for a luggage search. It's your own luck, I guess. Two of us got red and I got green, so they only searched the top of my bags and let me go.
Outside there were tons of taxi drivers, and about fifteen guys helped us into three cabs. R., one of the grad students, rode with me and talked to the driver the whole way. He was so cheery and unbelievably friendly, speaking to her in slow, clear Spanish about La Paz, the weather, and all the places to explore in Bolivia. He seemed very happy to be talking, telling things. I sat in the backseat and tried to follow along with their conversation, but devoted most of my attention to the window, and this amazing place: mountains, enormous mountains and cool still air. Small streets with boarded up windows and hundreds of stray dogs, some led by women in wide skirts and heavy shawls. Lone figures walking on the sidewalks, starting their days, some in very fine traditional clothes. Lots of graffiti, not the decadent, show-off kind found in American cities, but more anonymous, urgent statements. I couldn't understand them all, but some were about Evo (Morales, the president), some about the future, some about God, all written in simple, blocky capitals.
After winding around circles and down narrow streets (very fast, nearly hitting a few pedestrians) we came to the edge of a valley, the sight of which literally stopped my breath for a second or two. Thousands of peach-colored buildings folded into this basin, surrounded on all sides by the sharpest, prettiest mountain crests. We wound around and around down narrow cobbled streets, angled almost straight down making our taxi’s breaks wheeze. We arrived at W.’s at around 7:30 am, thanked and shook hands with our cab drivers, smiles all around. One stayed to help us heave our bags through the gate, up a walkway to a balcony where there was one apartment. You walk around and behind to find the two flights of stairs up to W.’s apartment. Alongside the staircases are backyards, driveways –truly multi-level living, not a space wasted. W. wasn’t awake yet so we went to the tiny grocery store down the street to buy fresh, sweet-smelling rolls, coca tea bags and individual cigarettes. You can do that here, three for a boliviano (it’s about seven bolivianos to a dollar right now). I couldn’t smoke – I didn’t think my lungs could handle it, too tight and fragile. The dizziness made my head heavy, made me move slow, but the coca helped. When W. awoke, there were robust greetings and café and breakfast beer offered all around. W.’s girlfriend G. emerged a few hours later, a vibrant, thirty-something Colombian woman who smiled and embraced me upon our introduction as if we were long-lost friends finally reunited. She declared me to be Casimíra, and the name has stuck. She is trying to learn English, and I Spanish, so we promised to help each other out. Speaking with her, in Spanish, is the first time since arriving here that I’ve felt confident, or hopeful, at least, that I can learn the language and do this ethnography thing. Of course, that may be just be a result of her slowing down and gesticulating to make sure I catch everything. Wonderful lady. Everyone here is SO nice, all I’ve met so far. The ladies in the apartment downstairs, Doña E. and Doña B., the landladies and housekeepers of the building, have kindly let R. and I stay with them in one of the rooms in their small duplex. Our conversations are limited due to my small vocabulary, but we smile a lot and giggle when we see each other, and I just say “gracias” over and over again.
After a relaxing day - all of us slept through the afternoon and chatted over coca tea at the apartment – W. threw a dinner reception for us, and invited his American and Bolivian friends to greet us over hors d’euvres and cervezas. I helped Doña B. make the potato salad. The party was full of teachers, diplomats, ex-pats, old friends of W.’s. I talked to one older woman from Reno, Nevada who moved out here with her missionary husband in the sixties or seventies and worked as an ESL teacher and school principal. Others spoke little English, so my conversations with them were stilted and awkward, to say the least. Some are more forgiving than others, I suppose. I talked with A., one of the grad students, about Qhunqhu and what to expect… he liked my idea of taking a demographic census of the community, after talking to the mallku, or community leader, about it first. I could ask them about family members, genaeological information, and maybe have them walk around their property (well, it’s the community’s property) with a GPS device and put a map together. After six years, the Project still doesn’t have that kind of data, or even a complete understanding of Qhunqhu’s complicated organization – how the different quarters are laid out. R. pointed out, though, that land and property may be a real touchy subject for some people, tied up with political or community tensions, so we may want to just talk them about toponyms, or general land names, or ask them about nearby huacas, or sacred places and landmarks on the landscape. We’ll have to talk to J., the prof, to see what he thinks.
Now it’s time for bed… 10pm and I am so tired. The altitude, I think.
6/07/06
Arrived in La Paz yesterday morning, 6:30 am or so. The trip was kind of terrifying. Upon meeting my group - two grad students and a professor all from Vanderbilt - it hit me that I had no idea what I was getting into, where we were staying, what to be prepared for, how to do ethnography. Boarding the plane seemed so final, and yet so uncertain. I wasn't sure if we would ever land, and I wasn't sure I wanted to. Talking to Professor J. on the plane calmed my nerves quite a bit; he explained our schedule to me, a fairly loose one involving a week-or-so stay in La Paz with his old and eccentric friend W., a German ex-pat and photographer, and then a trip out to the country, to Qhunqhu, whenever archaeology permits came through and we had all our stuff together, etc. I didn't have to know exactly what was going on - everything would work itself out, including my project.
Landing was interesting - that familiar coming-back-to-Earth feeling didn't really happen, it felt like landing in the clouds, but my body felt underwater somehow, blood bubbly and light. La Paz was freezing as hell, -4 degrees F. we were told, and we stood in the customs line shaking our sweaters stowed away in backpacks. The airport was very nice, with televisions showing Eurotrashy music videos, and porters and policemen everywhere - the latter wearing metallic green, military-looking uniforms. After baggage claim you go through a big black doorframe device, on the right side of which is a red button. The guard asks you to push the button, and a light on the top flashes green or red, indicating whether you have been randomly chosen for a luggage search. It's your own luck, I guess. Two of us got red and I got green, so they only searched the top of my bags and let me go.
Outside there were tons of taxi drivers, and about fifteen guys helped us into three cabs. R., one of the grad students, rode with me and talked to the driver the whole way. He was so cheery and unbelievably friendly, speaking to her in slow, clear Spanish about La Paz, the weather, and all the places to explore in Bolivia. He seemed very happy to be talking, telling things. I sat in the backseat and tried to follow along with their conversation, but devoted most of my attention to the window, and this amazing place: mountains, enormous mountains and cool still air. Small streets with boarded up windows and hundreds of stray dogs, some led by women in wide skirts and heavy shawls. Lone figures walking on the sidewalks, starting their days, some in very fine traditional clothes. Lots of graffiti, not the decadent, show-off kind found in American cities, but more anonymous, urgent statements. I couldn't understand them all, but some were about Evo (Morales, the president), some about the future, some about God, all written in simple, blocky capitals.
After winding around circles and down narrow streets (very fast, nearly hitting a few pedestrians) we came to the edge of a valley, the sight of which literally stopped my breath for a second or two. Thousands of peach-colored buildings folded into this basin, surrounded on all sides by the sharpest, prettiest mountain crests. We wound around and around down narrow cobbled streets, angled almost straight down making our taxi’s breaks wheeze. We arrived at W.’s at around 7:30 am, thanked and shook hands with our cab drivers, smiles all around. One stayed to help us heave our bags through the gate, up a walkway to a balcony where there was one apartment. You walk around and behind to find the two flights of stairs up to W.’s apartment. Alongside the staircases are backyards, driveways –truly multi-level living, not a space wasted. W. wasn’t awake yet so we went to the tiny grocery store down the street to buy fresh, sweet-smelling rolls, coca tea bags and individual cigarettes. You can do that here, three for a boliviano (it’s about seven bolivianos to a dollar right now). I couldn’t smoke – I didn’t think my lungs could handle it, too tight and fragile. The dizziness made my head heavy, made me move slow, but the coca helped. When W. awoke, there were robust greetings and café and breakfast beer offered all around. W.’s girlfriend G. emerged a few hours later, a vibrant, thirty-something Colombian woman who smiled and embraced me upon our introduction as if we were long-lost friends finally reunited. She declared me to be Casimíra, and the name has stuck. She is trying to learn English, and I Spanish, so we promised to help each other out. Speaking with her, in Spanish, is the first time since arriving here that I’ve felt confident, or hopeful, at least, that I can learn the language and do this ethnography thing. Of course, that may be just be a result of her slowing down and gesticulating to make sure I catch everything. Wonderful lady. Everyone here is SO nice, all I’ve met so far. The ladies in the apartment downstairs, Doña E. and Doña B., the landladies and housekeepers of the building, have kindly let R. and I stay with them in one of the rooms in their small duplex. Our conversations are limited due to my small vocabulary, but we smile a lot and giggle when we see each other, and I just say “gracias” over and over again.
After a relaxing day - all of us slept through the afternoon and chatted over coca tea at the apartment – W. threw a dinner reception for us, and invited his American and Bolivian friends to greet us over hors d’euvres and cervezas. I helped Doña B. make the potato salad. The party was full of teachers, diplomats, ex-pats, old friends of W.’s. I talked to one older woman from Reno, Nevada who moved out here with her missionary husband in the sixties or seventies and worked as an ESL teacher and school principal. Others spoke little English, so my conversations with them were stilted and awkward, to say the least. Some are more forgiving than others, I suppose. I talked with A., one of the grad students, about Qhunqhu and what to expect… he liked my idea of taking a demographic census of the community, after talking to the mallku, or community leader, about it first. I could ask them about family members, genaeological information, and maybe have them walk around their property (well, it’s the community’s property) with a GPS device and put a map together. After six years, the Project still doesn’t have that kind of data, or even a complete understanding of Qhunqhu’s complicated organization – how the different quarters are laid out. R. pointed out, though, that land and property may be a real touchy subject for some people, tied up with political or community tensions, so we may want to just talk them about toponyms, or general land names, or ask them about nearby huacas, or sacred places and landmarks on the landscape. We’ll have to talk to J., the prof, to see what he thinks.
Now it’s time for bed… 10pm and I am so tired. The altitude, I think.
posted by kazmira at 11:48 PM
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