New York and Santa Cruz

I spent several days in the US. As usual during my periodic visits, most of my time was taken up by various appointments, buying things, catching up with mail and administrative matters, and maintaining contact with friends and family.

The highlight of the trip was the two nights Jim and I spent on the Hudson River Valley. We stayed at the River Hill Bed and Breakfast, a beautiful Victorian home located on a bluff with a prime view of the river. We could see it both from the settee in our bedroom as well as from the wraparound porch, where we sipped English tea and juice.

We headed into New Paltz, a small college town, to try some Thai food and to see Knocked Up (a very funny film). We twice visited the local dairy barn. And best of all, we spent an afternoon hiking at Minnewaska State Park. The entire area is full of cliffs, which provide a beautiful backdrop, as well as heaven for avid climbers. We followed a path without much elevation, but which took us into isolated, brilliantly green woods for several hours. Eventually, we reached a remote lake, a lonely mirror of blue amidst the wilderness. We were treated to beautiful views from cliffside perches, enjoyed the carpet of fluorescent green ferns that lined parts of the trail, and were treated to sightings of birds, rabbit, and even a close-up of a cottontail deer.

When I returned to Santa Cruz, it was freezing and I had to adjust to the reality of it being winter here. Returning home after the all night flight, I changed into sweats and a sweater and climbed into bed under my comforter. My alarm clock thermometer said it was 16 degrees Celsius in the room.

Warmer weather had since returned with a comfortable sunshine and periodic breezes. Everyone is waiting for the next cold spell, which can arrive any day and last anywhere from a few days to a week. It makes it hard to figure out how to dress here and I’ve gotten better at layering.

I can’t say I’ve done too much exciting since I’ve been back, mainly focusing on my work. I did attend a jazz concert at the French-German cultural center one evening. The band was led by an American from Missouri, who has been living in Bolivia since 1991. During that time, he has held a variety of arts-related positions. It seemed a bit out of place, to see Bolivians playing jazz. In the same way it’s strange to see the local Indian youth playing violins, cellos and operatic music in the Chiquitano churches. But it’s as beautiful as it is strange and I enjoyed it.

I’ll share a couple of things from the local paper, El Deber, that I find interesting:

60-70% (it’s either 60 or 70, but I threw out the paper before cutting out the article) of all Bolivians girls aged 13 to 16 have been victims of sexual abuse or assault. And in this in a country where they don’t have a right to get an abortion.

Since January of this year, in the city of Santa Cruz alone, there have been 1,593 registered auto accidents, of which 512 were caused by drunk drivers. Just last weekend (from Friday through Sunday) there were 81 accidents and at least 6 deaths, with 51 (63%) of the accidents caused by drunk drivers.

Santa Cruz now has at least 1,5 million residents.

Santa Cruz has the highest average salaries in Bolivia, followed by Cochabamba, Sucre and La Paz. The average salary in Santa Cruz is 2,406 bolivianos, or $306. I think this may be inflated by the high income disparities though. I’d like to know what the median is.

I just finished an interesting and well-written book, Whispering in the Giant’s Ear by William Powers, which recounts his two years working on an environmental project in this region. He gives a good overview of the events that led to Evo Morales becoming the first Indian President in South America. I also learned how important road blockages were to his eventual victory and I can now see that the current government would not actively prevent people from blocking the roads, given their own use of that method. The book speaks of the distinction between the camba (eastern, more Europeanized) and collya (native Indian, from inland areas of Bolivia) cultures. I appreciated the insights he gave into the collyas. Santa Cruz is the camba center and I think the opinions I hear come predominantly from the camba perspective.

Overall, I’m feeling more comfortable in Santa Cruz. I was without a cell phone for a week and had to take taxis off street. After almost three months, nothing terrible has happened, besides the street robbery by children. This is allowing me to lower my guard a little, to feel a little more comfortable.

Mark is coming to visit for the first time next weekend. I have only three days to introduce him to Bolivia, but I’m excited nonetheless.

Arrival in Bolivia

On my American Airlines flight from Miami, most of the passengers looked Hispanic, but well-off. I don’t think I saw any Indians, who are said to make up 80% of the Bolivian population.

After flying through the night, the plane first landed in La Paz, then continued on to Santa Cruz. Taking off from La Paz, I saw basic adobe or brick houses, much simpler and more poor than in Quito. Then I looked out over desolate, sparsely populated mountain peaks, snowcapped in the highest areas. Clouds settled among them, the peaks rising like islands and peninsulas in an ocean.

The most beautiful flight I’ve ever taken was from Bishkek to Osh, Kyrgyzstan. In a country with 90% mountains, the view of the peaks from the sky was spectacular. Bolivia is similarly impressive.

While moving from Kyrgyzstan to Bolivia is truly jumping across the world, I realized that the two countries do have their similarities. Both are land-locked, poor, highly mountainous, and hold a similar number of inhabitants.

For the first time I became excited. It was hard to leave my new husband after three weeks of marriage, my friends and my family. But looking out over the harsh scenery reminded me that travel to the remote and exotic, coming to know foreign lands, is my passion.

Forty minutes later, I looked out over a flat, green terrain with many agricultural plots, brown rivers snaking through the land. I saw a city along a river. It spread out in a large flat mass, like a stain, then dribbled out into villages.

Memories of my short visit to La Paz, five years earlier, caused me stress. I recall extreme altitude sickness, a lack of roads, and my rental car catching fire in an isolated neighborhood. But thoughts of Santa Cruz inspired ideas of romance. Santa Cruz de la Sierra rolled nicely off my tongue. The airport code, VVI, stood for Viru Viru International. That also sounded exotic to me. The greenness, from the air, looked clean, the roads appeared well-tended, the trees thick and bushy. I looked out over banana trees with uplifted fronds and saw sheep or cattle being led across a field, like a small colony of lice. Unlike La Paz, from the air Santa Cruz seemed calm, clean and prosperous.

We landed near a flat field, from where I could see a few billboards, street signs, and buses. The airport staff were friendly. Women, dressed in civilian clothing, served as the passport stampers.

A man named Eduardo picked me up and drove me the 15 minutes into town. He told me Santa Cruz is an important agricultural center. I could see the influence in the number of farm machinery shops we passed along the way – as well as Nissan, Toyota and Suzuki dealerships. Quite a lot of pickups and SUVs drove along the main road – a sign not only off driving country roads, but of wealth.

Eduardo tells me that Santa Cruz is different from anywhere else in Bolivia, that most of the population is descended from Europeans and other foreigners. He himself comes from German ancestors, who came to Bolivia to escape World War I. And it’s green. “I don’t like La Paz,” he said, “because it’s so barren. They don’t have any of this vegetation,” he said, pointing at the green around us, even as we entered the city.

Eduardo told me that drugs made the fortunes in this city. He said the height was in the 1980s and most of the drugs were grown to the U.S. “But now, due to US help, it has been reduced,” he said. “People used to carry around drugs like anything else. Not any more.”

He took me to a fast-food fried chicken joint for lunch (fast food seems prevalent here, as it was in Nicaragua), then to my hotel. At first I thought I was in for luxury when we came to the Royal Lodge Hotel and I saw four stars in the comfortable lobby. But once one leaves the lobby, it becomes dim and shabby. I had to leave my first room due to water dripping constantly from the air conditioner. The second was more comfortable, but 1970s comforters in bright red, orange and yellow covered the beds and the other furniture seems similarly aged. Yet, the stain-glassed window of a fish on the bathroom door, and the balcony step looking out over a small pool are both pleasant.

I looked through one of the two local newspapers, the El Deber, to see what makes up the news. A color photo of Miss Bolivia, Jessica Jordan, covered the first page of the society section. And she had another whole page to herself inside the insert. The beauty pageant news included the information of who won the Miss USA contest, a young woman born in Panama. I doubt I’d come across that easily in a US newspaper. But here, it appeared in color and took up a quarter page.

The obituaries announced “The person who was Luis Mario Roman Justinario,” a baby boy, or other names, “has stopped existing.” The baby’s father’s employer, Weitnauer Bolivia printed their condolences on a subsequent page.

I saw lots of medical ads, promoting assistance with impotence, rheumatism, plastic surgery, and dermatology, among other medical specialties.

In my brief car journeys across town, the city appeared to be flat, open, and relatively safe. I entertained thoughts of buying a bicycle and biking to work. But when I relayed my experience of being attacked in a taxi to Eduardo, he told me that two years ago he was mugged in mid-day. One attacker put a gun to his stomach, the other a knife to his side and they threatened to kill him. Other people on the street could see what was happening, but they didn’t do anything for fear of being attacked next themselves. He gave up his wallet and cell phone.

“But still, compared to Nicaragua or El Salvador, where they went through civil wars, it’s better here. The violence is more randomized, rather than being institutionalized.”

I hope so, because Santa Cruz is my new home and I’d like to be able to feel safe here.