Land Writes

Over the year, many of you have asked to learn more about what exactly ILS does in the world of international development. There's more too it than just "helping people around the world gain title to their land". Well, I figured this would be a good venue to put a plug in for our quarterly E-Newsletter Land Writes that just came out. For those of you who are interested, you can read the most recent issue of Land Writes or subscribe here.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

And Here We Test Our Powers of Observation

Instead of writing an all-inclusive, trite final blog post drawing grandiose conclusions and generalizations on my time here, I decided I'd compile a list of things that may have struck me as curious before arriving in Cochabamba. To be sure, I'm by no means jaded by Bolivia. Rather, I intend to identify items that in Washinton, DC may have surprised me. Now, they are so deeply rooted in me that they've come to feel normal and routine. I've grown as a person and my experience here has no doubt deeply changed me. The following things, situations, people, foods, and events are why:

1. Seeing an indigenous woman in complete getup.

2. Hearing fireworks at all hours of the day.

3. Parades for no apparent reason.

4. Being called Papito (Daddy) by complete strangers.

5. Having a public bus slow down for a red light and then drive right on through. For that matter, the absolute lack of stop signs.

6. Eating under less than sanitary conditions and not worrying about getting sick.

7. 5-year old children going cafe to cafe selling gum, tissues, chocolate, etc.

8. A four-course lunch costing USD $2. Yes, sticker shock will be an integral part of my reintroduction to the United States.

9. Driving 10-hours overnight for a weekend getaway. This being the equivalent of driving from Cleveland to Boston for a couple days.

10. Eating cow-heart as a late night snack. 

11. Buying exotic fruits locally like mangoes, tomatoes, avocados and pineapple. 

12.Going to la cancha for a one-stop shop. I can buy a juicer, a dentist chair, shoelaces, a coffee maker, bootlegged DVDs, a tuxedo, a refrigerator, and even a few live chickens. 

13. Having an airline change the departure time of a flight with no notification whatsoever.

14. Bartering for a taxi ride.

15. Public breast feeding.

16. Living at 8,000 feet above sea level and seeing 17,000 foot peaks as a backdrop.

17. Signing into Skype on a daily basis.

18. Living in a city nicknamed "the city of eternal spring" and the weather that comes with such a name.

19. Hearing a man on the street with a wheelbarrow yell "Papaya! Papaya! Papaya! Papaya!" from a bullhorn and going out to buy one.

20. Living three blocks away from professional soccer.

21. Seeing 1980 Volkswagen beetles everywhere.

22. Kissing strangers upon meeting -- even for something as traditionally formal as interviewing someone for a job.

23. Seeing gringos in La Paz sporting ridiculous sweaters -- the more llamas in the pattern the better.

My dear friend Peter

24. Hearing Quechua, Portuguese and Spanish everyday.
25. Posing for billboards.

26. Eating llama.

Thank you everyone for reading and keeping in touch throughout the year!

What's in a Name?

More often than not, tourists visiting Bolivia know only one dimension of this country. The standard gringo trail enters from the south (either via Chile or Argentina), hits the 3-day Salar de Uyuni tour, catches a glimpse of the Potosí mines, then checks out “the big city” La Paz before finally stopping over at Lake Titicaca and exiting to Peru. These people leave with a perception of Bolivia that, in my opinion is askew -- or at the least fails to recognize the full picture. There’s nothing wrong with this and I too have marveled at these sites. There’s a reason these places are so popular with travelers – they’re great places. Yet Bolivia is not only a llama-covered territory where indigenous groups continue to live as their ancestors did under the harsh altiplano of the Andes. There’s more to it:

The food, dance, music, and people in the Tarija department reflect that of their Argentine neighbors some 100 km to the south. This variance is the result of a tradition of dissent from the central government and a demand for regional autonomy. This mountain valley looks like Napa Valley California and is also Bolivia’s wine-growing region. Unexceptional vino tinto abounds. 

In the Yungas region north of La Paz exists an enclave community of the descendents of slaves brought to South America from Angola to work in the mineral-rich mines. To be sure, these Afro-Bolivians dance to the beat of a different drummer.

Trendy 20-somethings in Santa Cruz who look like they could be models for Vogue hop from club to club in their supped up Range Rovers. 

In Bolivia’s Amazon Basin, which comprises at least half of the country’s area, local shamans know everything there is to know about each plant and animal in the seemingly endless dense jungle. 

Cattle graze openly in the vast plains of the eastern lowlands.

In the Chapare region, cocaleros continue to grow the controversial coca crop – revered throughout
South America yet despised by the Yankees to the north. 

With over 1,500 meters of elevation change within the city limits, La Paz, top to bottom couldn’t be more distinct. At nearly 14,000 feet, the sub-city of El Alto has become the nominal capital of the Aymara indigenous group while just below sits the buzzing city center filled with government agencies, museums, galleries, and soccer stadiums. Descend even further and you hit Zona Sur, a neighborhood that has more in common with Los Angeles than the rest of La Paz. 

To the extreme east, along the Paraguayan border lies the Gran Chaco, a wasteland with lots of desert shrubs and not much else. I’ve always thought this would make a great Man vs. Wild episode.

The heart of the matter is not that Bolivia is a fantastically diverse place, though it is. Rather, I’m suggesting that often, we see a place for a week and think we know it; have a drink with a stranger and think we have them figured out; essentially judge a book by its cover without having fully read it. There’s more to these things than meets the eye. 

K'oa

Yesterday, October 1, I smelled something burning. Panic-stricken, I nervously asked my Bolvian colleagues if they smelled it too. They just laughed. It was only then that I learned of the K’oa a Quechua word for the ritual performed on the first Friday of every month. How I’ve gone nearly 10-months without noticing or experiencing this ceremony, I don’t know.

As I understand it, the K’oa is an act of reciprocity to Pachamama, analogous to our mother earth. Bolivians, in general, are extremely devotional to traditional indigenous beliefs. Even the most secular, modernized Bolivians will pour a sip of their beer on the ground to give thanks to Pachamama. I’ve often wondered if she discriminates among the offerings – does she prefer a local microbrew to the ubiquitous Taquiña? But I digress.

Anyway, the K’oa can be performed just about anywhere; a home, car, office, closet. A portable stand with hot coals, symbolic adornments, aromatic herbs, sugar, and even dried llama (!) is burned until a cloud of smoke forms. The ceremony can last for several hours. The main purpose is to express gratitude and honor Pachamama. No doubt, there’s more to it than meets the eye but this is my superficial explanation. 

That the building administrators were performing this ritual in the stairwell of our contemporary office building demonstrates the importance of the K’oa in the Andean region.

Beauty Queen Turns Politician...Sigh

Something does not sound quite right about this: British-born Jessica Jordan, Miss Bolivia 2006, is now responsible for development in Beni, north-east Bolivia, including the allocation of $700m in development funds.

Bolivian President Evo Morales met Jordan while she held the Miss Bolivia crown, and was apparently impressed by the political skill she had demonstrated by parading around in a nude body-stocking, draped in plastic vines. Mr. Morales "encouraged her" to stand for governor in Beni, and then appointed her Director of Development for the region after she lost the election.

In response to critics who claim she lacks the proper experience and background for the position, Jordan said "Sometimes there is discrimination only because you're young and you're a woman. The President is a huge example of this." Right, because misogyny and age discrimination are really what's holding Evo Morales back. 

Full article here

Hat tip Wronging Rights

Orange Juice

During my first week here, I wrote about buying orange juice street-side.

Standing on the street outside my office one afternoon was a woman towing a cart full of oranges. I approached her, ordered a cup, and watched her swiftly cut and squeeze four oranges into a small plastic cup. It was easily the best and, at 30 US cents, likely the cheapest orange juice I've ever had. Quite a bit different from the gallon jugs of Tropicana I've grown to love over the years. 

I should mention that there are thousands of woman all over Bolivia selling fresh orange and grapefruit juice from street carts. One cannot walk more than a couple blocks without seeing a juice cart, making them an entirely ubiquitous sight. Each woman, makes the initial investment in the hardware (cart, peeler, knife, cups, etc.) and then each morning, she'll go to a local market to purchase oranges and grapefruit. The process is as follows: peeling, cutting in half, forcefully squeezing the fruit in the old-fashioned press, repeat, pour into glass. 

Since that first experience in January, I've managed to buy orange juice on a near daily basis from the same woman in my neighborhood. That said, I figured I'd try to capture this ritual as insight into my daily life. (It's a fairly boring video.) Unfortunately, after procrastinating by peeling oranges for several minutes, her bashfulness in front of the camera took over and she yelled at me to stop filming!

Día del Peatón Continued

Founded in San Francisco in 1992, The Democracy Center works globally to advance social justice through a combination of investigation and reporting, training citizens in the art of public advocacy, and organizing international citizen campaigns. Through all of these efforts the Center is working to help build a global citizenry that understands the public issues before it and is able to take effective public action. A special emphasis of our work is economic globalization and the movement for global democracy and justice.

As explained above, local think tank, The Democracy Center, had an interesting writeup on yesterday's activities. A Day Without Cars

Día del Peatón

Today was declared Día del Peatón, or Pedestiran Day. Intended as a day to reduce pollution and promote alternative forms of transportation, all cars, buses and motorcycles were forbidden. Instead, the streets were full of bicyclists, walkers, scooterists (?), and rollerbladers. The clear and quiet air, albeit an ephemeral affairs, was a really nice change from the near constant sound of car horns that normally fill the city.

In addition, we stumbled upon an arts fair promoting crafts made entirely of recycled material. For those Spanish speakers, here's a link to an article in the local newspaper on the special day. 

I imagine days like this exist in Chicago or New York though I've never participated. Anyone have any experience with such events?

Tá Bom!

I've just returned from seeing Mom, Dad, Ben and Rachel in Brazil for a South American rendezvous. Two-thirds way through my assignment in Bolivia, being with family again was an experience to be cherished – a major juncture in my year. I was overjoyed to be able to share time and space with family and friends. Here's a brief rundown of highlights.  

Sarah and I arrived in Salvador, the third largest city in Brazil, and we were whisked away to Hotel Redfish, a laid back, brightly painted pousada in the heart of the Pelourinho district. Although we made a fashionably late arrival at 2:00 AM, we all managed to shoot the breeze until the wee hours of the morning. I relished the familiarity – it felt like home. 

Awaking to the chorus of birds and the smell of great Brazilian coffee, we walked the historic neighborhoods of Salvador. I marveled at everything. In fact, throughout the entire trip, I could not quite put my finger on what made Brazil so unique: the people were happy and overwhelmingly proud of their country, the food was creative, and there was a stunning energy in the air. After enjoying some street side acarajé, a bean and shrimp fritter, Ben and I tried out our rhythm in a private samba lesson. We came away not being able to stop tapping our feet or beating our hands the rest of the night. On top of it all, we later stumbled into a late-night samba concert hall and were able to gawk at the real thing.

The next morning, we headed to the port to embark on our "two-hour comfortable sail" to the island of Morro de Sao Paulo. Half an hour later, the six of us lapsed into an uneasy silence as we simultaneously starred out at the horizon, trying our best to keep it together. To an outside observer, I suppose it looked like we were in deep existential contemplation. Yet this attempt to stabilize our equilibrium unfortunately took a turn for the worse. We quickly realized why the crew had tied plastic bags to each seat. As my father put it, "I couldn't have gone dancing after that boat ride!" Grateful to be back on land, the rest of our time on Morro was spent doing absolutely nothing. We read, napped, went on walks, and reminisced. In the village, which had no roads or cars, we enjoyed the quintessential caipirinhas sold from drink carts overflowing with stunning tropical fruit, many of which we were unable to identify. On multiple occasions, we savored the typical Bahian fare moqueca baiana, a curry consisting of coconut milk, shrimp, and plantain. By the end of our three days on the island, I had ranked different types of the dish and settled on a favorite. 

We popped some Dramamine that we had picked up at a pharmacy in town and reluctantly headed back on the boat to the mainland. Our next destination was Chapada Diamantina, a national park set five hours inland from Salvador. A vibrant diamond boom town throughout the 1800s, Lencois, the main town in the region made for a great base for a great many hikes to picturesque waterfalls and tranquil swimming holes in the national park. Our quirky Brazilian guide Levi (who we jokingly suspected had been given the name by the Israeli owner of the tour company) knew the lay of the land and was to tell us the purpose every plant in the vast forest.  Our nights were spent people watching in the small town square. 

I cherished spending time with everyone, simply being in each other’s company. By the last morning, I woke up at dawn, anxious yet grateful. To be able to see family after much time alone was just what the doctor ordered.

Floods in Pakistan

A comprehensive reference on the DOs and DON’Ts of disaster donations can be found here.

Also, see my earlier post on gifts in kind.

Climbing Cerro Tunari

Beep! beep! beep! I grumbled and reached over to turn off the screaming alarm clock. It was 5:30 AM Saturday morning – still pitch black outside. I made a quick pot of French press coffee and then Sarah and I tiptoed out of our apartment to begin our day trip to climb Cerro Tunari, the mighty peak looming over the Cochabamba valley. 

Although Cerro Tunari is a constant to the city skyline, the trailhead lay some two hours from downtown. We met our guide and driver, our friend Clara, and two of her new friends that would be joining us on the hike. 

The trailhead was surprisingly a good portion of the way up the peak. After starting to think we had accidently signed up for a Pikes Peak or Mount Washington drive to the summit, we finally arrived at our starting point -- i.e deep snow covered the road thus preventing us from driving any further. (See “Sky Holds the Sun” but in snow) A bit confused, we geared up as if we were headed deep into the Arctic, chewed some coca leaves, and began our five-hour ascent.

At 16,600 feet, Cerro Tunari is central Bolivia’s highest peak (as well as the second peak from the left on the local Taquiña beer label). It is also the highest elevation this lowlander has ever ventured. While I expected to be lightheaded, nauseous, and have a headache, all typical high-altitude symptoms, I made it to the wind swept summit without issue. I didn’t say it was a walk in the park but I suppose my 7 months living at a relatively high elevation did help my lungs. The entire hike was above tree line and quite exposed to the wind. Huffing and puffing upon reaching the summit, we savored a Tennessee whiskey over snow directly from the mountain we had just scaled. We could see far into the Cordillera Real including 21,000 foot Mount Illimani. 

On the way back, we stopped in the town of Quillacollo for chicha, a typical home brew made of fermented corn. A white flag flying outside any building in the area is the seemingly clandestine trademark that a chichería is open for business. It’s produced mainly around Cochabamba and is meant to be drunk communally amongst close friends. By the end of the first pitcher, which put us back a whopping 5 Bolivianos (72 US cents), our guide and driver had given me the name Jefe, or boss. I figured it was then apropos to tell them the story of my infamous Bolivian modeling days. 

The Wonders of Working With an NGO

This morning I participated in a conference call with a couple of colleagues also stationed overseas. I in Bolivia, another in China, and the third in Ghana. Pretty amazing.

In other global community news, Sarah and I went to La Paz this weekend. The surprising highlight was a curry house that came highly recommended by a British-Indian friend. Quite the site to see dozens of British travelers boldly  chowing down on the world's highest vindaloo.

Strengthening Property Rights in Ghana

The more research that’s done on poverty alleviation, the more we understand how intrinsically formal property rights are tied to wealth. The poor are at a huge disadvantage in economies with an extralegal or informal system of land records, largely because they cannot access capital using a considerable asset such as their land.

“Capital is a dormant value hidden in the assets we own and which legal property brings to life,” according to the renowned economist Hernando de Soto. In other words, the result of having formal rights to property is the unlocking of “trapped” capital that can be used as collateral for a mortgage, for example. When de Soto’s highly-praised book The Mystery of Capital was written more than a decade ago, 80 percent of the world was “undercapitalized.” In short, poor individuals could not extract economic opportunity from their property in order to generate capital – an obvious hindrance for any nation struggling to escape poverty.

ILS works around the world implementing effective systems for land titling. What we see when looking at international land rights is that many developing countries lack systems to assure its citizens legal titles to property. Instead, de facto ownership systems operate and land rights are transferred informally. Aid agencies like USAID or the World Bank or national governments contract with ILS to establish secure ownership systems. At its core, we’re helping people secure legal ownership to their land.

ILS is currently implementing a project in Ghana funded by the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) called the Housing Finance and Land Titling for Ghana’s Poor Project (aid workers typically love acronyms, but this one is a mouthful). Essentially, the project aims to improve property rights for poor Ghanaians by providing a sustainable approach to formalizing land rights.

Spearheading the land-titling component of the project is ILS’s latest system that I’ll call “Land Mark”. Its a complete approach to identifying, collecting, storing and maintaining the documentary and geographic information related to land rights. Essentially, Land Mark will help emerging economies, such as Ghana’s, with antiquated or non-existent land tenure mechanisms in creating a complete land administration.

During the pilot project in Ghana, local personnel visited those in the region who wanted to obtain legal land titles and gathered copies of documents that would provide evidence of ownership to their land. People are often skeptical of the process because it also means their land will begin to be taxed by the government. Field workers used mobile GIS (global information system) devices to collect data related to the physical location of the parcel.

Information collected in the field was entered into Land Mark, which then organized and archived all records into a central database. A piece of land, its owner, their rights to the land, any associated documents can be linked to one another to create, in essence, a searchable database of the country’s land management system. The Government of Ghana is then able to find pertinent information for an individual and his or her land – its location, how long he or she has owned it, nearby natural resources, its value, etc.

To guarantee the sustainability of the system, ILS and its project partners created a local affiliate called Medeem, or “in my name” in Twi, one of the 47 languages spoken in Ghana. They will maintain the country’s land records using techniques used in the pilot project.

Although many of Ghanaian properties registered using Land Mark have unofficially been in individuals’ names for hundreds of years, the owners had never held proper land title. In addition to providing the government with an organized database to document nearly everything about the nation’s land, Ghanaians can now use their land titles to take out loans, for example, to buy fertilizer or build additions to their stores. That’s the power of land titling.

Birthday Getaway

This past weekend, Sarah and I headed to Bolivia's infamous War on Drugs front -- the Chapare. In 2008, after being accused of conspiring against the government, U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg as well as the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) were expelled from Bolivia. In the years since, the people of Villa Tunari -- the region's largest town-- have made a concerted attempt at tourism as a viable economic alternative.

Although the region's instability has abated to a certain degree in recent years, during the 1980's and 1990's, the Chapare was a hotbed of militaristic confrontation between the DEA, the Bolivian military, and coca farmers. But Mom, seriously, its completely safe now.

The excursion that started high in the barren mountains of Cochabamba all of a sudden changed into a lush, tropical jungle. This change in ecosystem literally happened over the course of two minutes of driving. I thought this was great because the Bolivia I had known was one of llamas, snow, and pan flutes.

Upon arrival in Villa Tunari, we had a birthday beer, checked into our utopian hotel and lulled the evening away dozing in hammocks -- a welcome change of pace from city life.

I awoke to a cacophony of birds singing outside our cabana. We filled up on coffee and fresh starfruit juice and hiked through the thick jungle to the idyllic pozos or swimming holes. Dozens of secluded, natural pools dot the San Mateo river as it winds through the wilderness. Hidden away from, well, just about everything, I spent the morning in awe at the pure beauty of the forest. A place to remember.

All Advice Leads to Cochabamba

The lesson: when a random German, a friend-of-a-friend and a group of church girls tell you to visit a city, you visit.

From yesterday's New York Times.

For full story
http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/all-advice-leads-to-cochabamba-bolivia/

The Joy of Street Food

“There’s a stand selling Italian-sausage sandwiches, of course, and a stand selling Vietanmese banh mi sandwiches. The Mayor has persuaded the dosa man of Washington Square to come into the operation and leave the Washington Square cart in the hand of a trusted cousin. There are stands run by the venders from the Red Hook ball fields—one selling papusas and one selling ceviche and one selling Honduran tacos. A couple of Belgian French-fry venders are there…The Mayor’s people have persuaded the legendary Arepa Lady of Jackson Heights…There’s a jerk-chicken stand and two competing falafel stands.”

Calvin Trillin in his New Yorker piece, “Three Chopsticks” envisages a New York that welcomes street food with open arms. Given the breadth of nationalities represented, imagine the possibilities in the US for a massive overhaul in street food infrastructure! I took these photos Friday night at a popular group of hawker stands in my neighborhood. Got me thinking...

Are You Happy?

 

Hat tip to Peter @ The Road to the Horizon

Sky Holds the Sun

Today marks the Aymara New Year, so Sarah and I took advantage of the long weekend, and headed to Bolivia’s largest city, Santa Cruz de la Sierra. An influential autonomy movement that has typified the region in recent decades coupled with its distinct tropical, almost Caribbean feel (in spite of being landlocked of course) made Santa Cruz an intriguing place that I had yet to visit.

Dreary-eyed and cranky from the 10-hour bus ride from Cochabamba, I was somewhat dumbfounded at how depressed and gloomy the country’s so-called “economic capital” was. Sure enough, by 10:00 AM, the sun came out in full force and I opened up to my new surroundings. With the increase in humidity also came my curly hair – something of a distant memory in the dry Cochabamba climate. I was uncomfortable but ready to explore downtown Santa Cruz.

The following afternoon, we decided to check out the elusive sand dunes or lomas de arena located about 30 minutes outside of town. What’s interesting about these dunes is that they are entirely out of place, situated in the middle of sweeping tropical wetlands. Something of a geological enigma, no one really knows how they came to be.

We hailed a cab, agreed on a price and were off. I won’t be able to recount what happened next nor aptly describe the character that was our taxi driver Alfredo.

The next thing we knew, Alfredo was pointing every which way and magically transformed from a regular taxi driver to an erudite impersonator of a tour guide with vast knowledge of the history, politics, economics, and culture of Santa Cruz. The man loved to talk and he also mysteriously looked like an indigenous version of my grandfather Zaida!

On the way to the sand dunes, he drove us directly by the regional prison (!) that looked like an antiquated 1940s jailhouse out of The Shawshank Redeption. I was giddy as we drove by (Sarah shaking with nerves) thinking, “There’s no way this would be in a guide book.”

As we entered the state park, the road and landscape quickly turned wild. I chuckled to myself at the fortuitous situation.

Alfedo, a man we met through pure chance, would not stop chatting. Jovial yet wise, Alfedo trudged his 1997 Toyota Carolla through the increasingly sandy road, nearing the still distant dunes. All of a sudden, we came to a halt and were stuck. A shovel was miraculously in his trunk and we began digging our way out (Don’t worry, I got in there and helped out). Again, as I watched the 60 something year-old man burrow, I couldn't stop puzzling over who the hell this guy was!

Once the car was dug out, we plowed forward. When we couldn’t go any further because we'd surely get stuck again, this time for good, we were still some 3 kilometers from the dunes. Having come all this way, Alfedo insisted, like a fearless boy leading the neighborhood crew on an escapade, that the three of us bushwhack through the thick brush until we arrived at our destination. Conversation topics along the way included the history of German Mennonites, beginner English lessons, international economics, and his long-lost British lover. Indeed, the beauty of the dunes was well worth the trek.

While downtown Santa Cruz was great fun to explore, it seems that often times, the potentially dicey experiences that one does on whim end up being the best of memories.

Community Soccer

In what I thought was a courageous display meant to appease Bolivians for not having qualified for the World Cup, the local government in Santa Cruz is showing all the soccer matches in the central plaza. I thought it was a great way to bring community together and create that “third space”.

World Cup Fever in the USA?

As always, but particularly in the weeks leading up to the World Cup, I’ve grown sick and tired of having to respond to the question, “Football (soccer) isn’t a big deal at all in the United States, right?”

My retort is delicate yet determined. Having had to respond so regularly to the unpopularity of soccer back home, my reply is almost rehearsed. The argument starts off that almost everyone in the U.S. does play soccer growing up and there are in fact loads of people who do follow the great leagues of Europe and South America. It inevitably descends into an almost apologetic explanation that our society simply lacks the overwhelming fanaticism that has the rest of the world on fire. I can never quite describe why though.  

Are bars in New York packed with chanting enthusiasts? Is there a soccer-obsessed energy running through the air? I’m curious what everyone’s thoughts are on this! Why do you think the U.S. isn’t soccer-crazy like the rest of the world? Or, if we are, what is the atmosphere like where you are right now? 

Leave an observation, theory, story, etc. in the comments section. 

In spite of some accusations, the above photo is not me by the way. 

 

Island Time

One of my favorite radio programs on National Public Radio (NPR) is This American Life. Each week, they choose a theme and present different kinds of stories on that theme. This week’s topic:

Unprecedented amounts of money have been pledged to Haitian relief in the last few months. American households have given over $1 billion and in March, 120 countries pledged over $9 billion (!) to rebuild. The only problem is that - historically - blanketing a country in aid and money has never really worked so well. Is there a chance this time things could be different.

The first of three “acts” follows the progression of one of Haiti’s most economically promising crops – mangoes. Before coming to Bolivia, I was working for CNFA, an agricultural development NGO in Washington, DC. One of my responsibilities was to help backstop our Haiti MarChE project, a $24 million program funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) that aims to “increase broad-based participation by Haitians in the economy by promoting the competitiveness of Haitian enterprises.”  I was speechless when I heard the correspondent start interviewing my former boss, Pierre Brunache on the opportunities and challenges of mango production. (Also, the importance of formal land ownership i.e. ILS’ focus comes into play!) 

Not only was I ecstatic to suddenly hear Pierre’s voice come through my headphones, but also, it was fascinating to hear a different perspective on a project we’d worked on together. Maybe I’m gushing a bit here.

More importantly, the piece attempts to explain how despite having received billions in aid, the average Haitian remains utterly destitute. The episode (and weekly program for that matter) is well worth a listen.
You can download the free mp3 or live stream here.
 

This is Bolivia

A good friend of mine recently came to visit. Per requests for more photos, I’ll skip the routine commentary and follow the adage, (however hackneyed it may be) that, “a picture’s worth a thousand words”. A great time was had by all and I was deeply grateful for the company.

Tucumanas in Tarija

Bolivia wine country

Fresh-water crab

Lake Titicaca as seen from Isla del Sol

La Paz

Also a few photos from a trip last month to Potosí and Sucre. Hat tip to Siegesmund.

Gearing up to head into the Potosí mines. Trust me, this was no Disneyland tourist gimmick. I can't begin to describe the working conditions in the mines.  

Inside the mines

The ubiquitous juice cart

Know-it-All

"I am trying to convince people that rigorous skepticism is a creative force because most of the damage is done by overconfident people who thought they knew the answer when they didn't."

This insight comes from the distinguished NYU development economist Bill Easterly. Encouraging every idea is not only boring, it can be downright detrimental. To be sure, this belief does not relate exclusively to foreign aid. In general, I think being wary without being malevolent is indeed a valuable quality.

Get Out the Map

Barring any last minute immigration travails, I'm looking forward to a special someone coming in a few weeks. She and her mother, two very "curious gringas" just started their own travel blog. Well worth a read!

http://www.sarahboyerscott.blogspot.com/

The 1 Million Shirts Campaign and the Development Community

While I intended for this blog to be a forum for keeping in touch with family and friends, I simply cannot pass up the opportunity to reflect on some very worthy news from the past week. On a personal and professional level, I’m invested in this subject and consider it of great import.

The 1 Million Shirts Campaign intends to collect 1,000,000 used t-shirts and ship them to target countries in Africa, namely, Kenya, Uganda, DR Congo, Ghana, Liberia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Swaziland and South Africa to help people who lack clothes. Sounds like a decent idea, you say? However well-intentioned it may seem, there are countless flaws with such an initiative. I’ll raise just two of the campaign’s shortcomings in this post.

The aid blogosphere became enraged this week as a torrent of posts were published rebuking the nascent t-shirt campaign as well as raising awareness to the potential dangers that would come as a result of the project. You can find them here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. (Please read at least couple as they make a far more eloquent argument against futile gifts in kind).

Perhaps the most rudimentary component of the project that was overlooked by its designers is that most people in Africa already have shirts. All too often aid is sent without a clear understanding of what is actually needed on the ground. As Matt Collin of the highly-regarded blog Aid Thoughts explains, “If someone doesn’t have a shirt, there are probably a lot of other things that they don’t have, and we have no good reason to give the shirt priority.”

Moreover, it’s utterly inefficient to ship millions of shirts overseas. It’s simply illogical to send goods that can be produced locally and create jobs. Not to mention, sending such goods can be detrimental to local textile industries.

I bring this up because it’s rather pertinent these days. In the past 4 months alone, we’ve seen natural disasters beleaguer Haiti and Chile. According to the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, “Over the past 30 years, the number of reported natural disasters has increased steadily, from slightly fewer than 100 in 1975 to a little more than 300 in 2003, an almost four-fold increase." In post-disaster relief efforts, we tend to become an overtly generous society. I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing. But when the next calamity inevitably occurs, please do not go rummaging through your attic and bring old shoes to the afflicted country’s embassy as it may be entirely inappropriate under the circumstances. It makes much more sense to donate you’re $50 to a reputable charity that has had a proven track record in the region. A gift in kind (GIK) is a great idea so long as it’s deemed necessary and appropriate. Aid workers condemned the 1 Million Shirts Campaign because it is neither. Its simply bad aid.

A comprehensive reference on the DOs and DON’Ts of disaster donations can be found here.

¿Eating Chicken Makes You Gay?

Although I'm just a visitor, I'm somewhat embarrassed by Bolivian President, Evo Morales' comment this week during his opening statement at the World People's Conference on Climate Change. Turns out, eating chicken makes you gay! To boot, a European diet stimulates hair loss! Morales claims that both homosexuality and baldness can be caused by eating chicken. Who'd thunk it? 

When Bolivian President Evo Morales took the stage to inaugurate the World People's Summit on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth on Tuesday, April 20, in Cochabamba, he gave his thousands of politically correct attendees a surprise. Somewhere between appealing for an international climate-change court and questioning why the U.N. still uses plastic cups, Morales went after genetically modified foods — by making a comment that some think meant that hormones cause homosexuality.

"When we talk about chicken, it's pumped full of female hormones," Morales said, "and so when men eat this chicken, they stray from being men"

To read the full story, click here and here.

Professor of Latin American Politics, Júan Jiménez asserts that, "Morales' most recent proclamation that eating poultry directly correlates to homosexuality will surely liken him to political rogues Mahmud Ahmadineyad and Robert Mugabe."

Also, a bonus link of an entirely scientifically based thesis here.

Top Model Continued

I apologize if this is over the top but in the name of Johnny Drama from the hit television series Entourage, I couldn’t resist. (If you don't know what I'm referring to, just enjoy this rather undemocratic photo)

 

Street Food Heaven

Upon asking for advice of what I should do in La Paz for my weekend jaunt, my boss Marcelo, himself a paceño (native of La Paz, the world's highest capital city) told me there was one thing I absolutely had to do. “Find the old, indigenous woman on the southeast corner of plaza San Francisco and eat what she's selling.”

Cochabambinos pride themselves on being foodies and everyone claims that Boilvia's best food is to be found in Cochabamba. Having nearly exhausted all that the garden city ostensibly had to offer, I was intrigued by Marcelo's suggeston.

When my overnight bus arrived at La Paz's central bus station, the sun was just coming up above the canyon rim of which the city is nestled. Having heard that this woman sells out by 9:00 AM, I headed directly to the plaza and discovered llauchas – a pizza dough-type empanada filled with a gooey cheese sauce. Sounds simple, and it was. Perhaps it was the altitude. Perhps it was the lack of sleep from the bus ride. Perhaps it was experiencing the early morning clamor in unfamiliar surroudings. Whatever it was, that llaucha was damn good – and so was round two.

Top Model

Caveat: While you may find this story amusing, I assure you, it actually happened...

About a month ago, I was leaving the office and heard a woman desperately trying to get my attention. “Amigo! Amigo!” she shouted. As soon as I turned to see what she wanted, she went into a rant about a political party and saying something about taking photos posing as an extranjero, or foreigner to demonstrate the city's drive to attract more tourists. She spoke so quickly that I didn’t catch it all, but I understood enough to suspect that it was part of a scam. Still, I reluctantly agreed to show up at their communications office (which happened to be in the same office building as ILS) the following afternoon. I figured I’d check out their office, chat with the people working on the project, and from there, take a calculated risk and run with it.

On one hand, I was flattered to be chosen Bolivia’s Next Top Model. On the other, I was irked that the woman apparently thought, “There’s no possible way that guy’s Bolivian”.

When I arrived the following day, everything seemed kosher. Pleasant office, high-tech Macs, genteel staff. I asked again for the specifics of the peculiar circumstances I found myself in and discovered that the photos for which they wanted me as a model would be plastered on the sides of taxis, buses, and maybe even, on a giant billboard downtown. As they applied my make-up -- I kid you not, I could only sit back and laugh at the absurd situation. I think the following photo explains it all.

Here I thought I'd come to Bolivia to work as a writer for an NGO. Little did I know I would be converted into a household name. Or at least an iconic footnote during this political election season. 

The Importance of Land Management

I’ve somehow managed to evade writing about my job on Curious Gringo –unwittingly, I promise. This position was, after all, the impetus for my move down here. Since I arrived in mid-January, I’ve been working for International Land Systems, or ILS, as it’s called. ILS deals extensively with issues related to land rights, an issue we rarely consider in the United States. Yet in much of the developing world, people’s access to land is an integral source of their livelihood. The below excerpt, taken from an ILS mapping system being implemented in Dominica, Bahamas, Nigeria, and Qatar, echoes this sentiment.

Good governance and effective public administration recognize land as the principal source of wealth and indeed wealth generation in a society. Land rights that provide secure tenure and facilitate broad private ownership enable society to develop dynamic land trading practices and formation of land markets. No country can develop or sustain a civil society or promote economic development within its boundaries without internal confidence and public acceptance in its land rights and system of land administration.

In my first two months at ILS, I’ve been forced to mull over these issues. It seems to me to be something we (or at least I) took for granted until now.

I began to think about the importance of land organization during my internship last fall at CNFA, an international development organization focused on agriculture. Yet it was in a simplified and rather desultory fashion; a Ghanaian farmer has a plot of land and he brings the yields to market. In essence, a farmers’ land is his source of income. 

What I am now beginning to understand is that in an astounding amount of the world, a farmer may not actually own that plot of land even if his family has lived on it for two-hundred years. Neighbors may slowly encroach and cut away at the size of the farm or a corporation may seize possession entirely. ILS strives, among other aims, to give that Ghanaian farmer a legal right to his plot through restructuring antiquated land records and establishing dependable deeds, cadastre, and title registration systems.

I’m told that land rights, given their importance in reducing poverty, represent a disproportionately small piece of the international development community. Clearly, these are multifaceted and complex issues that I've just barely introduced. But it’s a piece of work I’m engaged in daily here in Bolivia. Much to the chagrin of a select few friends, I’m really not working for the CIA.

Something to Think About

Many areas of Bolivia are highly stressed environments. Bolivians are tired of hearing that they live in South America’s poorest nation. The oft-stated statistic that 60 percent of Bolivia’s population lives below the poverty line is an apt indicator of the widespread destitution of the region. Many families live on an average of $1.00 per day. Yet to only acknowledge these cursory though grave statements provides but a superficial understanding of the socio-economic context of Bolivia.

My brother Ben, also a student of Cultural Anthropology, recently had a conversation with a Political Science professor at Colorado College that I think is a fitting, thought-provoking subject for this blog.

In Latin America, when you travel across space, you travel through time. In explaining himself he referred to "Belindia". The inequality in Latin America would be the equivalent of placing the country of Belgium inside India. This inequality manifests itself as you travel across space. One can travel from a capital city, where business men sit on fancy laptops drinking coffee imported from a neighboring country, to the "campo", or country, where many people have never seen a cell phone and still produce their own food with ox and hoe as they did 200 years ago. Much of the metropolitan areas live in the first world, Belgium, while the rural areas live a different time. Make no mistake, however, no one is "stuck" in the past, as people like to think about campesinos building houses of mud or Cubans driving 1950's Fords. Instead, these people living in the metaphorical India of Belindia don't see the telos of development to be limitless growth and assimilation to the dominant western culture. Thus the inequality is not just economic, it becomes technological, political, and social. Traveling through Latin America is traveling through time.

 Two worlds exist here just as they do throughout Latin America. The rich and the poor. The core and the periphery. The modern and the traditional. Neither should be romanticized nor thought of as “better”. I don’t have any answers to these complex questions nor do I think any conclusions need be drawn. But I think it’s a theme worth thinking about. Leave a comment on the post, let me know what you think.

Salar de Uyuni

Squeezed into our antiquated public bus, we (a few gringo friends and I looking for adventure) headed out of Cochabamba valley and quickly began climbing the tortuous road to Bolivia's altiplano or high plains. Four hours later, we arrived in Oruro, home to perhaps the most prominent Carnaval celebration outside of Brazil. Each year, thousands of visitors journey to this small city for the several-day revelry leading up to Lent. In the weeks preceding Carnaval, Bolivians almost daily asked me if i had plans to go to Oruro for Carnaval. We were only in town for a few hours but saw enough globos thrown and beer drunk to feel the distinct energy of the festivities. 

We then took an overnight bus to Uyuni, the fronteir town just east of the Salar de Uyuni. At 4,086 square miles, the Salar de Uyuni is the world's largest salt flat. It's really hard to portray the shear size of the expanse. I hope these photos give you some sense of the beauty of this area. (Note: click on the photo for a larger image)

Our southwest circuit then continued through the unbelievably stunning countryside. To an indifferent observer, I suppose it would all look the same. Yet with nothing else to do but stare out my window, it seemed to be changing every few minutes. Each night we took refuge from the harsh mountain conditions at a hostel made entirely of what else but salt. One night, I found myself in the hostel's common room with people from Germany, France, Brazil, and Canada chatting in Spanish. We were speaking in Bolivia’s native tongue because it was the common language between the five of us – the lingua franca in an unusual international encounter. Somehow it felt natural even when I made a defective effort at political humor with the Frenchwoman!

Typical altiplano scene

The illustrious Laguna Colorada 

 

Quinoa fields -- this increasingly trendy health food in the States has been a staple crop of indigenous people of the altiplano for millennia. Interesting how those food crazes work.    

On the Chilean border in front of Licancabur Volcano (19,423 feet)