Tuesday, May 17, 2005


Bruja tienda, dancing and corn and amaranth

1 comment:

choclosteve said...

I bought some insence from that woman, some palo santo wood and some nice yellow copal. She and a couple of neighbers were uphill in the market area above the San Francisco cathedral in La Paz. Those are dried lama fetises, quite popular. So Bolivia brings to mind something not so corny. Demenstrations violent and non violent. I was in Bolivia during this year's blockades. They shut down all the intercity roads for almost 2 weeks with no deaths or serious injuries. Neither the police nor the military showed up at the blockades and there wasn't even any shouting at the 3 blockades I got stuck in. At the 2d blockade I encountered between Santa Cruz and Sucre there were 8 Isreali's on my bus. We talked about how demonstrations are handled differently in Isreal. So this was the 1st day that the blockades went national. I had been caught in the 1st one 2 days before between Cochabamba and Santa Cruz, another amazingly peaceful blockade. Well we hit that blockade on the way to Sucre at 6:00 am and our bus was the second vehicle, so we had almost made it past this one. In addition to the Isrealis' there were some nuns on our bus, which may help explain why they let the whole line through after 12 hours to the second blockade from where we abandoned the bus and took taxis into nearby Sucre, where a lot of folks were stuck until the blockades were lifted over a week later. During this time food began to run out in the mercados. Bananas and avocados doubled in price. The country negotiated away the blockades. What a contrast to the more usual violent demonstrations, particularly those we are witnessing now over the supposed treatment of some books. A lot of questions here. Can we lower the violence and still empower the folk? Are there cultures that are more violent? How do we measure violence internationally and locally? Institutional or non institutional violenc?