Back on the Road - Again

May 22, Guayaquil


Many of my impressions of Guayaquil come from the considerable amount of time I spend in city buses or cars, watching them from the sidewalks, or dodging them in intersections.
There’s a vast bus system, run by different cooperatives, that operates early am until late at night. Except for a new Metrovia with only 4 lines, there are no fixed stops: you just flag down the bus and hop aboard, hoping the driver really stops for you rather than slowing enough to make you think you can jump on. Raquel tells me that numerous “little old ladies” like me fall in the streets as a result of too-fast bus driving, so I try to enter and exit in the middle of group of people. One cause of this may be a system of bus watchers who time the bus runs; drivers who don’t keep up with the schedule are in trouble.


Informal vendors hop onto buses regularly, jumping over the entrance gate so as not to trigger the automatic count. They’re selling candies, pens, cookies, water, ice cream – at cheaper prices than in stores. Occasionally a mother will come on board announcing a collection to buy clothing and food for the baby she’s carrying. Last night my bus experienced a “control:” waved over by a file of 15 soldiers, who requested that all men exit. They came back to make sure the 1 cross-dresser on board also exited. As best I could tell, the military didn’t search the men but looked them over and inspected the bus as well. Then the men all came back on board, and we continued.


Guayaquil has a big variety of cars on the road: from Ladas (there's even a Hotel Lada) to the latest SUV. Why the Lada? 30 years they were cheap, and they still run. Leaded gas is still used, which is a scary thought given that the roadsides are heavily used for crops, drying cocoa, and transport by foot and bike. I’m told the government has a program to pay owners to take old cars off the road, but it will take time and unleaded gasoline to really change automobile pollution, which the heavy air and humidity in Guayaquil holds close to city streets.


This week I rode in a VW bus with tremendous character: one of the original models repainted bright blue in and out, side door tied open for ventilation, no working gauges, and a very tired engine. On the plus side, Leonard is a skilled driver who knows his car and doesn’t mind traveling a top speed of 20 mph or getting the horn from drivers zipping around us with less than a foot to spare. The only startling moments were on uphill curves, when he gunned the engine to get a running start. At that point, I looked for some part of the frame to hold onto but soon decided that was pointless. However, Blue Betsy got us through Flor de Bastion, a hilly barrio of 500,000 people with no paved roads, piped water, or sewer, and back to the City Center without incident. Confession: I was really glad to be back in the city center and under my own power.


Tricimotos powered by bike or scooter – we’d call them pedicabs – are also common in the barrios and country towns. Many buses and taxis have names: Emily, Nino Divino (Holy Child), El Mafia, Matador - the last two ones to avoid if the name indicates the driver’s attitude.

Claire

Thursday May 20

In each of the governmental agencies with whom we’ve met, the women present a united front in the form of a blue or grey pants suit with a contrasting shirt: purple/maroon in one office, yellow in another, and white in a third. Who is on the committee to choose the style? Does the shirt color change day to day? Do they accommodate for pregnant women? And what if you forget and wear the wrong color some day? Raquel, my guide to all things Ecuadorian, doesn’t know.

Time is another cultural straddle complicated by my difficulty in following spoken Spanish. Meetings are typically set for a particular time. But except for a meeting that we organized at our office (which started an hour after its appointed time), our 3-person team has never gotten to a meeting at the appointed time. If 2 of us are close to on time, the 3rd one is not, or vice versa. Often, we then wait for the official or group we’re scheduled to see – perhaps that evens the score, if there is one. The only person who mentioned anything about our timing (arrival at 4:30 for what I thought was a 2:30 meeting) said mildly “I thought you’d be here earlier.”
“20 minutes” is the standard comment for when you’re on the way and will be there sometime. It could be 20, 40 or 1 hr 20 minutes. My comments are not a put down of the system, just a comment on how differently time runs. I wonder how Latin Americans would react if they were in the US for a series of on-time meetings? Probably cheerfully, but mystified by our focus on the clock. In the case of our 2:30pm meeting, perhaps the arrangement was something like “we’d like to stop by after lunch, sometime after 2:30.” On the other hand, there is a National Commission on Punctuality with the slogan “Finish on Time.” And I read in a travel book about a maker of Panama hats (actually made in Ecuador) that one factory used a time clock for everyone including the manager and paid the workers who came on time a higher wage.
Something else that transfixes me is that everyone I’m in meetings with takes calls on their cell phones during meetings. Once in a while there’s a chorus of them during a conversation, and we all take a phone break.

My Spanish gets in the way when I don’t understand the plan and don’t have my stuff ready to go when everyone else jumps up to leave. Raquel and I now agree to talk each night about the next day’s plan, and I'm braver about making sure I understand her rapid-fire Spanish.

Only a few days remain in my time here, and I’ve put down some ideas on how to use it: more meetings, writing up notes from meetings, thinking about an overall strategy, etc. My own thought has been that getting a record of what we’ve done so far is more important than new meetings, but it’s not the priority for the Observatory. It has been really helpful to have my presence as a calling card with ministries and as of Friday afternoon, we’re still hoping for more meetings Monday and Tuesday. Ben is absolutely right to remind that the Observatory probably knows best how to use my time, and they’re better able to write up meeting notes than I am. I have a PowerPoint on the Boston Harbor cleanup which most people find interesting, especially the point that 40 years ago we had really serious problems in the Harbor, and we have a series of questions about the availability of data on contamination in the estuary. Again, there’s a general comment from ministries that “the other ones” won’t share information unless some higher authority such as the World Bank forces it. Whenever I get fussy about this, I remind myself of the problems the state of Massachusetts has had in getting data from a UMass institute, data which the state actually paid for. As in most public agencies, where employees have little authority or financial reward, information becomes a source of power, and sharing it is tough.

Our most engaging meeting has been with a young professor of aquaculture at the U of Guayaquil who is mounting a 2 year monitoring of water quality and changes in fish species. He invited our participation via information on applicable treatment technologies, which I’m hoping to work on from the US. So far, I’ve heard back from only 1 of my colleagues on this topic. The others may think the heat has addled my brains for thinking we can be of assistance.

Claire

Guayaquil, Saturday May 16

Raquel has a weekend gathering with a women's democracy group in Santa Elena, a small tourist city on the coast. I'm invited, and although I'm interested in seeing more of the country and learning about women's rights, the thought of leaving at 5am and listening to more Spanish, on top of 2 nights of poor sleeping, makes the decision obvious: I'm going to stay in Guayaquil and play tourist.

It's 9:30 before I leave, already getting very hot. Senor R asks a neighbor to drive me to the Malecon and gives me all kinds of warnings about safety and a fair price for a taxi home. No more than 3 dollars! I'd planned to get the #44 bus into town, but it seems rude to turn down this offer, and the neighbor and I have a good chat and I get started sooner on the hike up Santa Anna Hill. This is an old part of town with winding streets leading up to a lighthouse, church, and remains of an old fort. As part of the cleanup of downtown, it was rebuilt starting in about 2000, and how has cafes, bars, brightly painted houses with plantings, art galleries, and boutique hotels, all watched over by security police who look you over while offering a polite greeting. The other visitors include some young adolescent boys jumping into a fountain at the base, a few Ecuadoran families, several young Ecuadoran couples looking for privacy, and a redfaced European couple, probably in transit to the Galapogos.

The climb via a series of steps and ramps has good shade most of the way, and a breeze at the top. The lighthouse is an extra climb worth the trouble, as it gives a panoramic view of the river, the uninhabited Santay Island and other towns across the river, airport and new skyscrapers, older Colonial buildings and neighborhoods, and the hills not far off. Looking down Samta Anna Hill across the tops of the reconstructed houses, you can see that although the walls below are rebuilt and repainted, the roofs are not: sheets of rusting tin patched together. Hot in the day, but probably they cool pretty quickly in the evening.

Here's where I start to see the downtown recycling bins, as well as soda bottles left in the light house windows. Young men in overall uniforms are trimming and watering the plantings; probably a good job. Guayaquil had big problems with pirates in the 18th century, and a popular tourist hangout uses this theme; a wooden pirate with spyglass perches in a tree at eyelevel with the tourists visiting the church.

Coffee and snack on the way down, then to the Museum of History and COntemporary Art, suported by the Bank of Ecuador: top rated and interesting in all aspects. It's a modern building built of wood, stone and metal that mimics a ship drawn up to shore. Inside, large windows frame the river. The main exhibit is about Ecuador's 10,000 years of history, built around thousands of artifacts from early periods. The ceramic work is particularly interesting;you can track development over time from simpler to more sophisticated. The later work around 100CE has very detailed and finely worked features on animals and human figures. It seems that earlier ceremonial figures were mostly feminine and the later ones are masculine: more threatening visages and domineering poses. Does that mean that early civilizations draw on the female strengths of caretaking and community? then once established, the men take over with the urge to dominate and spread?

US museums could learn a lot on how to capture and keep visitor's interests with videos, hangings, and not overemphasizing the date and provenance of every item. Very well done here, and it's amazing to come across stone vases, metates, anchors, knives and pedestals on display without being tied down. Granted, one would be heavy to carry out, but perfectly possible. Maybe they sort through the visitors and decide who's worth tracking through the museum. if so, I'm not considered a threat.

The other display of interest is oil painting by a Columbian artist Dario Ortiz: classic themes such as Three Graces, Oedipus and family, The Golden Age, but set in modern times. His nudes are well done and provocative. There's also a fun room of art by Guayaquilenos who otherwise wouldn't have space for their work to be displayed. Nice idea!
Outside again into the heat, and looking for shady ways to get down the Malecon. Closer to the street are areas with native plantings and shade. The part next to the water is breezier, but brutally hot in the sun. At the Restaca, I get crab soup (in season now) and grilled conch, with a beer and long rest.

It's interesting that there are so few entries into the Malecon along its 1 1/2 mile length. A tall decorative iron fence separates it from Simon Bolivar Ave, with perhaps 4 opening at a few major intersections. Why? Maybe to make it a special, separate place; or to thwart thieves who would otherwise have easy entrance and exit? From 1-3pm, it's pretty empty, since most locals know the challenges of being out in the heat. Later, families come out for ice cream and play time. No street vendors here: Raquel tells me that they are closely regulated in the city center, and often arrested for operating without a license.

Throughout the city are various monuments to early leaders, starting with Simon Bolivar and San Martin (only Bolivar is remembered now, as San Martin left the independence battlefield for reasons probably forever obscure).I depart the Malecon at August 10th Avenue to find the Nahim Isais Museum for its pre-Columbian work, but instead find a century by century description of Guayaquil, from Indians through conquistadores, pirates, Spaniards and slavery, to independence led by criollos - the term for Spaniards who settled here and eventually broke away from Spain. Borders were inclear in the early days, and Ecuador must have be part of Colombia at some point: 2 18th c drawings of the city are marked as Guayaquil, Peru, with Peru crossed out and replaced with Columbia. As at the other museum, the displays are focused, short, and well done, with videos of actors playing the part of key historical figures. My guide in English is a direct translation from the Spanish, and sometimes it's more confusing than the Spanish. It's nice to be able to use both languuages.

A quick stop at the Seminary Park for ice cream and to shiver at the hundreds of iguanas who live an easy life there, strolling the grounds and fed by visitors. Young kids and I are terrorized at the thought of holding out a sugar cane stick for them to grab. Unfortunately, the young kids sometimes don't get a choice of standing back, as their parents really want them to have this experience.

Along the main avenue across the city, I come across a late afternoon parade by youth groups from all the military schools and organizations in the city, marking the life of Rocafuerte, an important colonial military figure. Dozens of marching bands, drum and flag corps, and kids with practice rifles. The glockenspiel is everywhere, often more than 6 to a band. I could have kept it up, moved to Ecuador, joined the army, and had a career in a marching band.

And finally, home on the #44. Early on, a middle aged guy jumps aboard and tries out his routine in English with me. He may really have been Jewish with family in New York, but he sat too close by and clearly wanted a connection. It was heartening to see other Ecudoran men looking over with concern as I navigated my bag between me and Oscar. He jumped off soon after.

Home about 7pm with Senor R looking a bit anxious outside the house. I had thought I'd be back by 6, and they had no way of knowing if I was OK. Soon to bed after an exhausting day!

Clarita

Friday May 17

Guayaquil is Ecuador’s biggest city, its port and commercial center, and a bustling place. In this way, it’s similar to Santa Cruz Bolivia, but the differences are significant: Ecuador is wealthier than Bolivia, so you see a bigger variety of cars on the street, better housing, more shops and fancy hotels, and lots more commercial activity. G-quil’s location on the country’s biggest river also provides a focus of riverside activity, mostly since 2000: museums, parks, cafes, strolling. The climate is hot year round, varying between wet season and dry. Just now it’s the end of the wet, so there’s still a lot of green and lots of heat and humidity: over 90 today in both temperature and humidity. The city is at 2o below the ecuator, and the sun is dangerous all year long. Ecuador uses the US dollar. Hence, gringos/as don’t struggle with the conversion, but poorer Ecuadorians have suffered the higher prices and loss of equity that resulted from the changeover in 2000.

Downtown Guayaquil is modern and recently refurbished. Guide books from 10 years ago talk about how dirty and dangerous a place it is, but that changed with a new mayor in 2000. The Malecon, a promenade along the River Guayas, is full of plantings, benches, historical markers and statues, playgrounds and ice cream stands (Pinguin (Penguin) is the quality brand and very good), bars and restaurants, a wonderful art and culture museums, a shopping center, and above all, people. At all hours I've been there, many teenage couples are necking and the specially-trained (and armed) tourism police are always within site. After 3 pm on a Saturday, families come out for ice cream and play time with their children. The evening we walked through, adults were strolling in the breezes off the river. Just as in Nicaragua, I find that families are very concerned about my safety, cautioning me against walking to the corner in the evening to make a phone call, and warning me to take off my watch before I go downtown for the day. In both cases, I presist, and never feel a concern about my safety.

The major downtown streets sport recycling stations for cardboard, glass and plastic, with detailed instructions about cleaning and drying the glass and plastic before recycling them. Hard to comply with this requirement if you've just finished a soda, and perhaps that's why cleanup people are also a big presence, with brooms, dustbins, and hoses. Unfortunately, the trash services don't extend much beyond a half-dozen downtown streets. As you travel by bus toward the neighborhood where I live, there's more and more trash in the gutters or piled in the streets, and fewer trash barrels. Raquel tells me that they have trash pickup 3 days a week, but lots of people just leave it out at any time or in the wrong place, in which case the city never picks it up. I'm particularly aware of this problem because of its impact on water quality in the river and estuaries: lots of trash is thrown there and with the rain, trash in the gutters and streets will eventually get washed into the water.

Even on the Malecon and along the estuary-side parks in fancy neighborhoods, the smell of untreated wastewater is noticeable. About half the city's sewage gets primary treatment, and half gets none at all. The land is very low and tides are strong, which means that the contaminated water gets pushed back and forth throughout the estuary.

Getting around the city involves city buses @ 25 cents, official taxis, or informal ones. We've used a number of the latter from home to various places. Seatbelts are infrequent, and drivers are loose with the definition of lanes. Passing on the right and left is common. Downtown, parking spaces are at a premium, and doled out by informal guardians of spaces, who use plastic lawn chairs to make sure a driver doesn't take a spot without a tip to the guardian. Makes me think of Boston after our snow storms, when residents are allowed 24-48 hours' use of a chair to guard their spot; imagine if we did this all year long!

Slot machine casinos are common throughout the downtown, and cyber and phone call centers are ubiquitous everywhere. It's hard to imagine that all these vendors can make a profit, although the rate of 50 cents per minute to call the US certainly helps the bottom line. Ecuadorans also use cell phones heavily in preference to a land line which is much more expensive. The city has a lively press, including several newspapers ranging from right wing to center to the red press which reports only about murders, robberies, and other bloody stories. There's good television news, and we are following the first case of Swine Flu in Guayaquil, from a student who arrived here from Miami. The 4 children in the family are closely following the Simpsons and Disney cartoons.


Claire

On the Ecuator

Tuesday May 12, Guayaquil Ecuador

I arrived here late last night, met by Raquel and Marlon of El Observatorio Cuidadano de Servicios Publicos (Citizen Observers of Public Services), the group that is hosting my visit. El Observatorio is a 5 year old organization affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee that provides a voice to citizens of the poorest neighborhoods in Guayaquil. To get their points across, they have used citizen interviews, marches, letters in the press, and meetings with local officials. El Observatorio is headed by Cesar Ramiriz, a dynamic young leader whose success so far has brought him national recognition and a role in national environmental policy work.

Over the past few years, El Observatorio has focused public attention on the poor quality of water and sewer services in the barrios, particularly in the 8 years since a Bechtel subsidiary won the concession (pushed by the World Bank and InterAmerican Development Bank) to privatize the services. El Observatorio and other progressive groups in Ecuador won a big victory in the passage of the 2008 constitution, which essentially forbids the privatization of water and sanitation. The return of responsibility for these services to the City of Guayaquil is underway, but for now the quality of services remains unchanged. It remains to be seen if the City can solve its own difficulties (padded payrolls, corruption, and inattention to poor neighborhoods) in providing water and sewer services.

Our project in these 2 weeks focuses on the quality of waters in the Rio Guayas and adjacent estuaries. El Observatorio wants to begin a remediation program, and my first days here are “fact-finding” through meetings with officials of various ministries and private organizations: the Navy, Provincial Health Ministry, regional development agency, and trash collection agencies are on the schedule so far. Many other ministries have responsibility for some aspect of this work, but El Observatorio staff don’t have contacts there or in some cases such as the mayor’s office, wouldn’t be welcome.

An important benefit of my presence is that it opens the door of many of these offices, and it may encourage officials to be more open with information and cooperation that by rights ought to be available to all Ecuadorian with or without a foreigner in tow. It’s possible that this kind of meeting is needed in order to establish personal relationships and mutual confidence. My presence also raises a personal challenge: how to provide lessons from my experience without being seen as the outside expert with answers to all questions. I’m having to resist my hosts on this point as well as the officials with whom we meet. I’m also trying to resist the urge of my linear personality to drive forward on what I thought would be the project goal: developing a proposal for funding for watershed restoration. So far, there’s been no discussion of that. Ben reminds me that American work in other countries often founders on our need to meet our own goals, not fit into how things work here.

In meetings so far, there’s agreement that plenty is known about the major problems – domestic sewage, industrial and agricultural wastewater, solid waste, and uncontrolled stormwater – but less agreement on how technical people and citizens can access and use this information to take action. We’ve talked about joint projects with El Observatorio bringing its constituency to table, for example a pilot project in one of the barrio to provide environmental education and document the impact of resulting changes. For a group like the Observatorio, which played a role in bringing down Bechtel, a pilot project like this must seem like a step backwards.
Although all parties express enthusiasm about small steps, I sense a deep frustration over the lack of political will and attention brought to these issues. The political differences between the national, provincial and local officials, overlapping areas of authority, and the compulsion to hoard the power that comes from having information that others don’t have are not unique to Ecuador. What does seem different is the inability of citizen groups to get information and the disconnect between environmental laws (plenty) and their enforcement (not much).
Ultimately, my task is to stayed focused on what I can provide with integrity and resist what is beyond my ability.

Claire

Getting there is half the adventure

It's impossible not to be captivated/terrified by the driving in Bolivia. Our daylong trip to Samaipata showed us the good, bad and ugly of it.



It's 2 1/2 hours to drive 120 kilometers, and for good reason. Once you pass the main divided highways out of Santa Cruz, sleeping policeman are the main way to slow traffic. In the towns lining the road, they come every 300 meters or so, and are really big ones. Then, there's the road itself, which progressively narrows and twists as you reach the canyons and hills. Also, we're traveling on a Saturday - market day in many places, and the road is clogged with vendors and buyers. Finally, there's the extensive road damage from use and washouts in the rainy season just past. At least 6 bridges are under reconstruction in the mountains; they seem to to have just disappeared during the rains. In the canyons, there are numerous landslide areas where the road is being recaptured from nature. In a few, there are freshly-dropped boulders half blocking the road. Our driver Victor tells us that this is a normal state of affairs each year.



Tires and brakes take a beating: 2 months for a set of tires, and 1 month for brakes. I asked Victor how long drivers last, and with a laugh he acknowledged that it's not a job for an old man. The eyes are the first to go - and one doesn' He's been at it 4 years and his main problem now is tired legs from the braking and shifting his Toyota Corolla wagon. The predominant driving technique is heavy acceleration and high speed whereever possible, including around curves and on the berm, followed by heavy braking. Despite lots of near misses by US standards, I haven't seen a single accident this past week and the cars, although old, are in good shape. Probably they are valuable enough that drivers pay close attention. We're also fortunate that this is Victor's main driving route and he knows it like the palm of his hand.



The nice part about our slow progress is that there's plenty of time to see the roadside: many gomerias (tire repair places), phone centers, tiendas of every sort, and roadside sellers of oranges in particular. Bolivia has a beautiful tree in bloom just now: a tall dark green umbrella covered with bright pink flowers and yellow centers. Roadside farmhouses here seem more prosperous than those near San Pedro: white stucco and tile roofs rather than dusty wood and thatch. The wet season is barely past, and the bouganvilla, poinsettias and other blooming vines are glorious.

On our way home in late afternoon, dozens of trucks are coming from the city, overloaded with people and empty baskets from produce sales at market. But the evening market in El Torno seems just as busy as the morning one when we came up from Santa Cruz. Saturday is selling and socializing day, and probably Sunday is for resting and preparing for the week to come. At least that's true for me: I leave tomorrow - Monday May 11 - for 2 weeks in Guayaquil Ecuador.

!A luego!
Claire

A Day in the Country

Saturday May 8, Samaipata Bolivia

Plans went astray today, but with good results. Senor Globetrotter called early morning to ask if I wanted a day long taxi trip with 2 other senoras – a grandmother and granddaughter from Calgary, who had just finished a medical mission in Santa Cruz. We spent a delightful day getting to (a big part of the adventure) and seeing the mountains to the southwest of Santa Cruz.

An hour outside the city brings you abruptly to steep canyons of tan sedimentary rock dropping to narrow winding river; the topography is reminiscent of the high wooded canyons western Colorado, the Blue Mountains in Australia, or some of the canyons of the South Island of New Zealand. Higher up, ie at 2000 meters in Samaipata, a harder red sandstone caps the mountains with dramatic cones and escarpments. Most of the scenery at that altitude is green, covered in pines, deciduous trees, cropland or gray-green grass meadows. Victor, our young driver from Samaipata, answers my question about deforestation by saying that the bare mountain tops are the natural state. I doubt this, since we see forests covering some of the mountains while others are totally denuded. Corn, cane and citrus trees dot some of the lower slopes, and I also see grapes and vegetables in a few places. This is said to be the center of organic truck gardening in Bolivia, probably developed by foreigners who settled recently in this cool remote set of valleys not far from a decent market in Santa Cruz.

Our first stop is the Volcano in the Lake, which turns out to be nothing like what the name suggests. The natural scene is a small, lovely lake across which, at a mile or so, is a flat topped, clearly sedimentary butte. The human addition to this misnamed but lovely scene is a golf eco-resort, also lovely but out of place in my mind’s eye view of Bolivia. It includes grass thatched cabana strung along the lake shore, swimming and soaking pools with a glorious view of the “volcano” and not too far from the open air bar, and a golf course complete with emus. Maybe they help trim the grass? We didn’t stay long enough to ask why it’s an eco-resort. Victor tells us that many Bolivians do play golf and that foreigners also come here.

The farthest point in our trip is Samaipata, an old hilltop town of a few thousand, with a considerable foreign population, mostly German and American, and a growing contingent of wealthy weekenders from Santa Cruz. For a Saturday afternoon, it’s surprisingly quiet; we are the only ones eating in the restaurant, and we see no other foreigners in the street. This may be because last weekend was a busy one with the May 1 holiday for Workers Day, and because winter and the cool season are now starting and hence there’s not so much of a pull to escape the heat in Santa Cruz (30o C now compared with 38o in the summer).

In the town center, bright turquoise, yellow and blue stucco houses line the narrow streets. The plaza is shady and tidy, and there are lots of signs for inns, restaurants, and opportunities for volunteering, adventuring in the nearby national park, and buying properties. We lunch at Café Latina, which Lonely Planet says has the best food: French fries and brownies for Eleanor and Sarah from Canada, and piche macho for me, a native dish of meat , chorizo, tomatoes and onions served over French fries (the latter CAN’T be native). Definitely good food, eaten on a terrace overlooking a hillside with new white stucco vacation homes. The owners have attitude: Coca Cola products are not served, in deference to a Bolivian product, and the Thought of the Day on the blackboard over the bar is by Aldous Huxley, approximately: “ in this small corner of the universe where we exist, we can improve only one thing – ourselves”. Samaipata is a lovely small town, but its discovery by the outside world, while it makes it comfortable, also makes it much less of a typical Bolivian hill town.

The trip’s highlight is El Fuerte, a UNESCO world heritage site, one of the earliest sites excavated in the Andes, and very much worth the trip. Human evidence there dates from 1000 BC, and includes additions by various native and foreign peoples. The Inca in the 16th century were late-comers, and the Spanish came even later. El Fuerte means The Fort, but this name comes from the Spanish conquistadors. The original name probably is closer to Samaipata, an older Indian name meaning “Taking Rest at the Heights.”

Today, El Fuerte is remarkable for the very large, carved sandstone rock at its center: a horizontal slab the size of 4 football fields which caps the tallest hill around. Starting 22 centuries ago, humans have used it as a ceremonial center, evidenced by elaborate carving. The first people seem to have carved the jaguars and serpents and steps; the Inca added stone walls and trapezoid-shaped niches, and the Spaniards added mud brick buildings. The earliest carvings, including 2 long parallel channels, are precisely lined east-west, and other carvings are exactly oriented north-south.

Getting to El Fuerte is half the adventure of the trip. It’s 9 kilometers off the main road, and up, down and around canyons and hills along a narrow, rutted dirt road. Halfway there, you need to cross the Rio El Fuerte, which at this season is a foot or less of water flowing across a sandstone slab. In the wet season recently ended, it’s often too deep to cross, and the site is closed until the water recedes. In the US, we’d deal with this “problem “ by building a proper road and bridge, but it’s nice that, for whatever reason, Bolivia has kept the El Fuerte hard to get to.

More dust and latrines

Tuesday May 4 – Wednesday May 5: El Carmen and Hardeman, Bolivia

Two days of interviewing women about their bano ecologico (composting toilet). Tuesday involves a 30 minute bump up the road to El Carmen, a very small dust-choked village strung along the road. The school has 40 students, all of whom we saw in a presentation for our benefit. A large group of 5-8 year olds, standing upon command in military poses, and singing the Bolivian and Cruceno anthems. Then poetry by older boys, an ode to good health, a guitar song by El Profesor, and a dance by the older boys and girls. Entertaining for us, and they seemed to enjoy it too. Most of the students wear a uniform of white shirt and blue pants or trousers; most seem well cared for, but a few are noticeably thin, grubby and inattentive – hard not to think it’s malnutrition, which is very common here.

Our inspections begin with the school, which has a bano in addition to 4 toilets. It gets good marks based on our 5 page list of questions for the Professor who is in charge of it, and a page of observations. The questions are long, and sometimes obscure; by day 2 we’re shortening some and skipping others. What we don’t realize until the 4th and last day is that the final page of observations and questions has to be totally filled in for a valid evaluation. We had left some of those questions blank (particularly if no one was home to answer them), but in the data entry phase we find ourselves having to remember or create answers ourselves. Not a good way to obtain valid information, which nevertheless is going to be used Friday for a big public presentation on the program’s success. In addition, there’s considerable qualitative judgment involved in marking the observations (is there sufficient, or only a little, of the drying material available? Are there a few flies present , or not?) and each group no doubt develops its own standards of evaluation. I have a feeling our group errs on the side of giving higher marks than warranted.

Many women speak mostly Quechua or a mix of that and Castellano. Luckily Mariel speaks Quechua, and Abraham understands some so that they can pair up on these interviews. The dress for women seems very standardized: short sleeved rather fancy blouses that fit over short, voluminous skirts which often are a velvet (perhaps these start out as best clothes and then become everyday ones with wear?). It’s hard to guess ages: every woman looks aged with work, poor diet and dental care, but very few have gray hair or many wrinkles. Some women I take to be young are in their fifties, and others with 4-5 children are in their mid twenties. Probably living to 70 is very unusual. All women so far have long black hair, usually in two braids down the back or stuffed under a baseball cap.

The status of the banos ranges from excellent to terrible. As much as a gringa is accustomed to a flush toilet, it’s easy to see the advantages of these: they don’t take water, which is costly, sometimes not available, and also would increase the high water levels during the wet periods. They also produce a valuable fertilizer. However, the banos take a certain amount of care to keep them clean and to manage the composting material . It takes a really committed and somewhat educated woman to keep it up over time, even with the encouragement of the local network of health promoters, usually other women, who work with 10 families on this and other health issues. Most women we talk with have only a very general notion that the banos have improved their family health, but the doctor reports a much smaller caseload of diarrhea since the banos came into use.

Eating dust and inspecting latrines

May 3 and 4, Montero, San Silvestre, and Hardeman Bolivia

Sunday May 3: John Rodriguez fetches me in the afternoon and we're off to the airport to pick up Kate Fogelberg, the LA director of Water for People. The hour long drive is a good chance for me to listen to Spanish and realize how much of it I've lost in the past year. An American's Spanish is vastly easier to understand, since it tends to be slower. Kate alone I can follow, but in a group, it's still very difficult.

Monday May 4: we head to the INCADE offices to meet the rest of the APP (Agua para el Pueblo – Water for People) group, who took the overnight bus from their Cochabamba headquarters, and several staff of INCADE (a local development agency and local partner of APP in this project). They are a cheerful, young group; in total, we’re about 25 people. Abraham, the country wide head, is quiet, well spoken, married to a New Zealander. Fabiola has lived and worked in the US (without papers) and speaks good English. Heidi with the San Pedro Mayor’s office, is quiet and seem to dislike being in her job compared with Potosi where she comes from. Claudia from INCADE is very cute, vivacious, and wears an amazingly lowcut bra and shirt. The standard introduction between us includes a handshake, first name introduction, and cheek peck. The informal Tu is used by all, according to my guide John.

A breakfast of rolls, cheese and lunch meat, and coffee, with introductions by a few key people always followed by applause, and then we’re off in taxis to San Silvestre, one of the sub communities of the town of San Pedro, where INCADE and APP have the composting latrine project. We follow a well-maintained but narrow highway filled with large open, often tandem trucks bringing harvest to market. This is a key agricultural district of Bolivia, producing the largest part of its soybeans, and also lots of rice and sugar cane. The global farm industry is in evidence, with trucks, city welcome signs, roadside food stands and about anything with empty space proclaiming the value of ADM and other GMO seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides. Claudia says of course Bolivia uses them, it’s how they can have so much production. Most of the soy goes to animal feed.

The gasolinera (person who dispenses the gasoline) at our stop was a knockout: Sparkling white short shorts and T shirt, lots of eye makeup, and 3” slings on her feet. Natural gas is the most common auto fuel in Bolivia, and tank fillers are located under the hood. It seems to take a while to tank up, but in that time we get to enjoy our gasolinera's efficiency and elegance.

Shortly before San Silvestre, the road turns to dirt, and the journey changes dramatically. Traffic is just as heavy, but now dust chokes the view and lungs. Our taxi has air conditioning, but that doesn't help with the bumps and ruts that slow traffic to 10-20 Kilometers per hour. Especially as it gets dark later, we often can’t see the front of the taxi for the dust, much less the lights of oncoming traffic. Fortunately we have an experienced driver who knows the road and does well at blind driving. I can’t help but think of the social costs of terrible roads: the loss of topsoil as dirt is ground to dust and as trucks take up more land as they widen the road in order to find fresh surfaces without ruts; the time lost in transporting crops to market; the cost of replacing parts and trucks more often; and perhaps worst, the impact on the pulmonary health of the drivers, riders, and people in the communities strung along the road. In the hillier parts of Bolivia, there is plenty of gravel, I’m told, but apparently it not worth the costs to bring it this distance.

At the San Silvestre school, we’re treated to a presentation by young children about bathroom health. It’s a clever play, with families learning to clean up their trash, sweep the floor, and above all keep a clean bathroom. 6 year olds play the parents, children, health workers, and the flies (complete with wings and antennae fashioned from black plastic bags). The children know how to say they wash their hands, and clearly it's here where hygiene changes need to start. But when the play is over and they’re snacking on the stage, the “mother” in the show tosses the plasitic snack bag over her shoulder without a glance, and no one has really washed his or her hands before digging into the food.

After the play, we get a walkthrough of the questionnaire, our team assignments, and then lunch: chiche, soup with soya greens and meat, then chicken, rice and potatoes. Huge meal! at the end of which we head off into the heat for 6 interviews per team.

The 20 minutes per interview proves to be very unrealistic, at least for us. Our first is 40 minutes, and we manage to get it to 30, before straggling back to the school for debriefing. The reaction is the same from most of us: impossible to really ask the questions in a rigorous way in the amount of time, especially with families new to the idea of questionnaires and thinking about their experiences. But John insists that it’s possible, so the interview questions remain pretty
much unchanged.

We see a great variety of "banos:" all are up a few steps to avoid the water that can be 1-2 feet deep in the wet season, but beyond that they range from ones with curtains for doors and bamboo siding to a few with ceramic fixtures, tile, and paint. Our job is to inspect them based on a list of items, interview the owner, and then rank them green, yellow, or red - from good to bad.

Our final stage, starting in the near dark at 6 pm, is a 2 ½ hour drive of 30 kilometers, through the dustlands of San Pedro townships. I have some sense of what it must have been like in the Dust Bowl days, and feel lucky that this is an experience of a few days.

The Residencial Merida in Hardeman is rough: through a metal door, along a dark, open air broken brick paved corridor, to 6 rooms facing a farmyard through a fence. Each has 1-2 beds and maybe a fan and straight chair. The cold shower, sink and toilet are shared. The roosters start at first light here, just as in Nicaragua – no surprise there. Meals are down the road (at the home of the mayor), reasonably tasty,and generous: rice, potatoes, chicken, tomatoes and onions, eggs, salsa, and lots of sauces made with soy. We had locally caught piranha our first night – delicious, but I was glad not to face those sharp teeth in the wild. So far the food has more spice and variety than in Cuba or Nicaragua. Coffee for breakfast one morning is an unusual treat. It’s expensive here, and usually comes as Nescafe (even more expensive, as it’s a foreign product).

Hardeman has more shops than you see at first drive-through: all are fronts of homes specializing in 1 type of item: gas and oil; baby goods; pharmacy (advertisement reads “Experiments with chemicals;” snacks and fruits; beer. At the same time, this town of 3000 has an impressive new hospital funded in large part by a Brazilian female entrepreneur who sells lots of seeds grown here. The local high school is very impressive, and there are two sessions of classes to manage all the students. The new community offices are very impressive; there’s a hint that the new mayor gets to have them built to his specifications, in this case, around the corner from where he lives.

Saturday night in Santa Cruz Bolivia

Saturday evening May 2
Points of happy traveling that quickly returned today:
* Look for the shady side of the street; it’s worth crossing back and forth to stay out of the sun.
* Toilet paper goes in the trash, in order to not overload tenuous sewage treatment facilities
* Paper goods are expensive and trash disposal is a challenge; handkerchiefs are the way to go.
* The normal US walking pace seems frantic here and others must wonder where you could possibly be going in such a rush. Getting behind a family on the sidewalk gets you in touch with the normal walking pace in the tropics.
* Darkness falls very shortly after sunset; know where you’re going by that time.
Saturday evening starts early in Santa Cruz, and continues late. At 7pm, the central plaza is filling with strollers (mostly people and a few pushing baby carriers). Cars circle the plaza and surrounding streets, slowly parading and seldom stopping. Women street vendors begin selling a different type of goods: the fresh fruits of morning and afternoon are replaced by ices, roasted nuts, and soft drinks (the most interesting of which is a large orange globe pushed around in a baby’s stroller). Women sit patiently on curbs or the feet of columns waiting for customers, of whom I don’t see many.


The coffee vendors are in greater demand: two elderly men wearing dark pants and what could be tuxedo or waiter jackets trundle small carts stacked with metal containers similar to small milking cans containing coffee. In my walk through the plaza, it wasn’t clear if each of them has his own half of the plaza or if they rotate one after the other. It appears to be a job with some status and pride; they are the best dressed men in the crowd. Ice cream shops around the plaza are also very popular. Dumbo – one the big Bolivian chains – blares music onto the street and has Wonder Woman, Spiderman, and Mr. Palm Tree or Mr. Jungle Animal -hard to tell- handing out coupons and encouraging strollers to come try “helados.”


The crowd downtown is mixed: middle aged couples, pairs of older men or women strolling arm in arm, lots of young people in couples or groups, and many families. Dress is mostly dark and except for young women, quite conservative. sIt appears to be a middle-class and lower crowd rather than the extremely wealthy Bolivianos that you read about as profiting from oil, land, and drugs. The only American cars around are a few Ford SUVs. Two young men stand out as likely Americans with their red short shorts, T shirts, cowboy hats, and cross-chest camera kits. Even more noticeable is how they stand together and look around, rather than sit down or stroll as is everyone else.


A balcony table at the Lorca is a great place for watching people without being watched too much, and I can understand how women in Muslim societies were able to stay abreast of street life from their covered perches above the streets. In my case, I get to come down when I want

and head back to the GlobeTrotter to get ready for the next day.

Saturday in Santa Cruz

It´s a straight shot south from Boston to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, and the mostly empty plane arrived on time the evening of May 1. The visa process for US citizens , put in place last fall when US-Bolivia relationships were continuing to sour, is a nuisance for both travelers and local officials: travelers must fill out a long application and bring photo, hotel reservation or letter of invitation, evidence of financial independence, return reservation, and $135 cash. Last night 8 or so of us waited while everyone else was checked, then passed our papers in for review. In fact, the official gave mine only a cursory look, asked for the cash, and I was on my way. A part of me had wished he would push me harder on some point of the form so I could prove that in fact I had covered every point.

The taxi ride brought to mind several other Latin American cities that seem much like Santa Cruz late at night: dusty and not well lit; road edges crowded with walkers, carts, and stands; high speed driving by all the drivers. The prevailing attitude toward traffic lights is to treat them as a yield sign when red. The other driver has the right of way, but if there´s no one there, why not save gas and time and just go? There´s some environmental sense to it, but only at low speeds in the city. As a pedestrian, you learn to watch for a car going in your direction and cross with it, quickly. Micro buses are very common: hot, crowded, and cheap. Most carry a name, like the El Miserable that I saw today.

Santa Cruz is in the tropics, and although this is the dry season, it´s still very hot. At mid-day, the swarms of shoppers clear the city square for 2 hours for good reason , and a hotel room with AC is a blessing. The real attractions are in the surrounding hills, where I hope to go next Sunday, after the work on the evaluation and before leaving for Ecuador.

I´m struck by the large number of internet places, all crowded with Crucenos of all ages: playing games, calling, sending email. I imagine at least some of them are staying in touch with family members who have emigrated in search of a living. Another common streetside shop is Western Union or banks where you can receive money from abroad. International chains are less common in the city center where I am, but ubiquitous in the outer residential and commercial rings where the new wealth from gas and cocaine is centered. This side of Bolivia is far richer than the highlands of La Paz, and there has been discord between the two as Evo Morales tries to distribute mining and gas wealth more evenly. To counter this plan, Santa Cruz has been the center of a movement for more regional independence. Grafitti on a wall here reads: Evo chola de Chavez (loosely, Evo is an Indian (terrible slur) in service of Hugo Chavez).

On Sunday, I meet up with the group from Water for People and head northeast to San Pedro for 5 days of interviews with local families now using composting latrines. Questions such as ¨why are they better?¨ ¨does everyone in the family use them?¨ Stuff like that - perhaps more than lots of people would want to know.

Claire