Hello All!!! I hope this extreeeeeeemely late blog post finds you all well. I thought that instead of trying to keep you all up-to-date on my life for the last four months, I thought I would just give you a picture and video version of my life so that you could see it yourself.
I’ll start with Carnaval 2009, which takes place at the end of February. While the really famous Carnaval in Rio de Janiero is all about getting really drunk and naked for a weekend and dancing like crazy (which I am not denying that we would all thoroughly enjoy as well), Bolivia is known for its cultural celebration (OK, and its drunkenness, but drinking here is a very cultural activity). Its most famous celebration is in Oruro, where the city transforms from sagebrush-blown ghost town to party-till-you-drop town as the celebration begins Friday night with live bands all night long, from folkloric music to rock bands. Then, at 7 AM, the parade begins, where traditional dance groups from all over Bolivia (and one from Chile, which is mostly there just for all of the Bolivians in the audience that are still bitter over Chile stealing their ocean access to throw water balloons and to spray foam at them) come dancing in beautiful, extremely ornate costumes, and dance through the town for three or four hours. This lasts until sunrise the next day, which I’ll describe in a moment, and then a second wave of dancers comes in and dances all day Sunday.
Here are some photos of some of the costumes:
Here are a few videos of what we saw throughout the first day. Prepare yourself for the wonderful filming skills of Sarah!!! (I am not responsible for any vomiting that occurs while watching these.)
True to Bolivia’s machista culture, many of the women’s costumes were designed to show off their legs and their wonderful skills of moving their hips, and many of their dances (in my humble but feminist opinion) are more to show off their bodies than to dance some sweet moves. There were a few exceptions to the rule; one of them included a dance and costume that seemed to want to portray women more as scary ogres than as beautiful showpieces. Here is a video of both worlds: a simple women’s dance in beautiful costuming, as well as some women’s costumes that really should have given me nightmares at night.
Bolivians have an obsession with fireworks, and it definitely came out at Carnaval. I watched dancers dance among exploding bottle rockets and men gathering to collect up the fireworks while they were still shooting into the air. Here is a traditional dance of the tinkus (I think) dancing like gazelles (with bulging calves of steel, I’m sure, to be able to do this for so many hours) through some fireworks.
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Around 3 AM, the best group in Bolivia, proudly from the university in my own hometown Cochabamba, started to dance a dance called Caporales. While the women normally have very simple steps in this dance (though not easy – they move their hips for three or four hours straight in five-inch heels), several women in this group chose to dance de macho – that is to say, they danced the men’s dance steps instead, which are much more energetic and lively, which I just loved, so here is a video of them. This is another one of the exceptions to Bolivia’s machismo. Keep in mind that they do this for three or four hours. This group also came the next day to parade again:
At the end of the night, around 5 AM, all of the Bolivians and foreigners that had not yet passed out in a corner in the street climbed a hill together to the church of the Virgin Maria of Socavón, who is the saint of this whole holy weekend, and bands played traditional Bolivian songs while a crowd of thousands of people sang, danced, drank some more, and watched the sunrise together. It was so holy to be surrounded by such a happy crowd of people, everyone barely with enough room to dance but still dancing, and then, as the first rays of the new morning came, every person raised their arms into the air with their palms facing the sun to soak in the warmth and new light. I didn’t have camera batteries at this point, but I don’t think that it was something that I would want to capture on film, just because it was such a personal (and interpersonal) experience.
Oh, and one more thing about Carnaval: it’s a complete crazyhouse for the audience members. During the short spaces between these beautiful costumes and dances, the stands would turn into a war zone of water balloons and foam spray. I’ve been accustomed to dodging water balloons - or we can be honest about my reflexes and say I’ve been accustomed to being hit by them – since December, because Cochabamba is even more determined to waste this country’s precious and scarce water resource than the rest of the country, but I have to say, Carnaval was a completely different story. You cannot take more than two steps without being sprayed by a water gun, by espuma (foamed soap), or pummeled by water balloon after water balloon. Here is a picture of the beautiful girls I went with after we got a little too involved in a war with a bunch of ten-year-olds:
And here is a video when we decided to do an experiment. Basically, my blond hair has gotten me way too much attention since I’ve been here (not in a bad way – people just notice me very, very easily), a huge white flag in a crowd of brown people, and seeing how much Bolivians got pummeled when they went down to the street in the breaks between dances, my friends and I wanted to see what would happen if me and my blond hair went down there:
Well, that’s about all. Sorry I’ve been so busy lately to update this! It just means that your donated funds are going to a good but very time-consuming cause down here. My next blog will be about the work I’ve been doing, followed up by a Salar de Uyuni blog.
P.S. My plans for the summer are more or less officially decided now, so I thought I would give you all a quick update:
April 30 – My FSD program ends, my parents come to visit and we run wary-nary around Bolivia and Peru like chickens with our heads cut off for ten days but manage to see EVERYTHING.
May 10-12 – I come home and spend Mother’s Day weekend with the feminine side (or I guess less masculine side) of my family in the mountains of Southern California.
May 17 – I fly down to Phoenix! Hopefully there I can experience the salsa dancing and clubbing there and make a very scientific comparison to the dancing down in Bolivia. I’ll also be spending my birthday there and joining my Camp Sparky friends for Big Camp!!
May 24 – run off to Seattle to visit the siblings and amigos!
Shortly after that – Run up to Juneau to hopefully get some nice backcountry skiing in with the sister-poo!
June 1 – my research internship up in Juneau begins. It’s a paid research position where I will basically be helping to survey the alpine and subalpine ecosystems in southeast Alaska, because it is one of the least studied ecosystems but a great indicator for climate change. We will be spending extending stays in the backcountry skiing and hiking our lives away and lamenting our difficult lives. I will also be creating my own research project up there.
August 15th – my program ends, I run home, dump my stuff off in my room, and run off to Arizona to start my semester and see if I can handle an academic lifestyle again after a year of feeling like I’m working in the real world (and then find that I can’t, and drop out of school. Just kidding, Mom ;) )
Much love to you all from Bolivia!!! Keep in touch and let me know what you have been up to!!!
