Stalling work and the Ch'alla

Something has changed with blogger.com. I can't--Nope, just the internet being slow. It's a slow day, today. For the last two weeks, the weather has been like summer in Utah, hot and dry. But yesterday evening a wind picked-up and today it's been cool, damp and dark gray. When you're used to BRIGHT hot sun at first light and blue blue sky, the lazy glow and cool of cloud cover makes you feel that the day hasn't started and nothing can be asked of you. I like that feeling, no pressure, no rush, makes it easier to get out of bed.

This pic is a meeting above a community called Ahuri, which is my favorite community. Typically, we were scheduled to go out there to work on organic fertilizers, but the men were called to duty repairing the road because there were rumors of a tractor coming through. So we met them half way between their road work and the community, on a high ridge. The meeting was in Quechua, but what I could piece together was that the community was wanting to break away and do stuff on their own, and José was explaining the importance of working with an organization like Amistad instead of trying to do it their way with Government aid. He was saying that Amistad was quick to respond to needs and requests and very generous and reasonable. Also they would have better access to resources and no conditions.

I was expecting to go into Aramasí early this morning, but I never got a call and José's phone is out of service. Tomorrow's the big meeting with all the directors from Bolivia, city-side and country, and the US. So I've been trying to get my documents in order and my strategic plan worked-out. That's been my priority. But today we have to clean-up and pull-up the weeds so Aramasí looks her best for the visitors.

I remember promising to tell about the Ch'alla in my last cursory entry.
The pictures would do a better job, but since Blogger can't even manage to save text changes, uploading photos is out of the question.

A ch'alla is a ritual dedication of something new, in this case, the dam, to the Pachamama (Mother Nature or Mother Earth). Ch'alla is a verb and a noun, by the way. People ch'alla their new cars, stereos, houses for sure, business for sure, we even ch'allaed José's new driver's license so that all would go well and we wouldn't get stopped or bothered by the police at the checkpoints. The idea is that if you deidcate something to the well-being and purposes of the Pachamama, the Pachamama will make sure all goes well for you and your things, you won't crash or get your new car stolen, your house will be protected from disaster and robbery, and your dam will provide plenty of irrigation water without getting filled-in with silt or stopped-up with debris. The Pachamama can and does have control over all of these things.

So, what does one do to ch'alla? The most direct answer is celebrate. Every ch'alla is a celebration, and drinking must be involved. Celebrate connotes splurging and excess, there must be plenty of food, drink, people, coca, decorations, merry-making and speeches. You drink and also spray or pour out the alcohol on whatever is being ch'allaed. So we shook and sprayed beer all over the dam before partaking ourselves. Kind of like breaking a bottle of Champagne on a ship's first voyage. For the dam, a lamb was slaughtered and it's blood spilled on the dam. Then the lamb was cooked in a stew, the whole thing minus the skin, and we ate it for lunch. It was pretty gamy (is there an 'e' in that word?). The dam was also decorated with streamers and flowers and colorful things that blow nicely in the wind. All of the important people involved in the dam were invited to stand in front of everyone and make speeches about the importance of the dam and the community and stuff like that. And then the community leaders went around to everyone wrapping ribbons around our necks and annointing our heads with confetti. All the while, there are at least two guys walking around with buckets of chicha and a tutuma, making everyone drink the traditional, home-made corn-liquor. Chicha is almost always served out of a colorful plastic bucket exactly like our sand buckets for the beach, and served with a half-shell of a round gourde (tutuma). Everyone drinks from the same tutuma, which is repeatedly dipped into the bucket with the hand of the server. Allegedly, or maybe traditionally, chicha is made with spit to help it ferment.
I don't know why, but there was no music at the dam ch'alla, which disappointed me a little. But there were fireworks.
José called and said I should stay and get my Strategic Plan and Questionnaires finished. So that's what I'll do.

Sorry the other picture won't load. Bummer.

Update

I haven't written in a while, but lots has been going on. I am in Cochabamba for our monthly planning meeting. This is the one I'm supposed to present my strategic plan at. We got here late Tuesday night because the roads were washed out and the rivers were high. It is the rainy season still. Our trusty Toyota truck with 4x4 won an extra star Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning I got up ready to brave the hike to Villa Amistad, but there were no public transports and the taxis wouldn't take me. Apparently, there was a transportation strike and the main roads between Cochabamba, Quillacollo and Tikipaya were blocked with burning tires, rocks and serious transportation workers. So the meeting had been canceled, and thanks to my new apt. in the center, I was given two days to regroup, rest, and catch-up with some friends and my God daughter, who hit me up for some money to enroll in Architecture school entrance exams. I am a godfather beaming with pride.
Carnaval has come and gone. I worked alone in Aramasí during the festivities which was harder than I thought it would be, but a good process to go through. I came out the other side more confident and peaceful. I have been out with José several times and Patty a couple times visiting the neighboring communities, which are just as beautiful as Aramasí. I am the only gringo ever to have visited Ahuri, which is a lush community on a wet hillside crossed with high stone terraces.

The internet here is especially slow today. I'll be lucky to get the text posted. The pics are of me in Ahuri (above), and in Chupak'asa (below). Like the hat? The sun is super strong and I got tired of having a red peeling gringo nose. So now I wear a conspicuous gringo hat. I realized this past week that my camera had a huge thumb print on the lens which gave my pics from the previous weeks a fuzzy glow. I have since found and used my special no-scratch lens cloth.

I get to start working on my own soon. José has stuff to get done in town and is putting me in charge of the irrigation system installment and the garden maintenance. I'm pretty excited about that. But I still can't call it much of an agricultural adventure. One day my blog will live up to it's title. Things don't happen quick in the campo.
These are burning sheep bones. It is a burnt offering to the Pachamama (mother earth/mother nature). I'll tel more about the Ch'alla later.
Well, I'll post this for now and hope to do better next time.

Photo Gallery

Here are some miscellaneous photos to give you an idea of what kind of agricultural adventures are going on in Aramasí: José is the rolly-polly one in a lot of the pics, he's my boss/adventure partner. Gary is the little guy who follows us everywhere and is always in front of the camera or hanging on me.

Horsin' Around

Here're some pics of me horsin' around. The kids love it when I try to walk on the goal post. The rest of the staff hates it. heh heh heh.
I'll explain in a little bit what we're actually doing, which is installing an irrigation system and teaching responsible and effective water use. I don't have the time or the internet power to upload the good stuff.

La Danza del Sol y La Luna

1 February

The bus from La Paz arrived early for once, 5:20 am, and now I’ve got an hour or so to kill in Cochabamba before catching the bus to Quillacollo to meet José and Helga (the dentist) at the truck to go to Aramasí. The only place open, Brazilian Coffee, potentially served breakfast and had fast WiFi, no such luck. Breakfast stuffs arrive at 7 and the WiFi is not working.
There is no cheese, either, for the ham and cheese croissant, so I got a double portion of ham. Awesome. Who needs cheese anyway, when you’ve got mustard and mayo?

Unexpectedly, on Wednesday, I rode back to Cochabamba with José because we had to pick-up the dentist chair mechanic early the next morning. I used the opportunity to get some pizza with an old friend in Cocha I hadn’t been able to catch-up with since I arrived. She told me about some friends of hers in La Paz that were doing a dance called La danza del Sol y la Luna (the sun and moon dance).

This just in: José has to stop by the Villa before going to Aramasí and he will pick me up on the way, maybe around 9. Voile, 2 hours.

I was pretty sure there is only one group of people that do that dance, and they were MY friends from Bolivia Mística, my jungle tour agency. It so happened that the dance was this weekend, she was dancing and was supposed to bring someone to help the work crew. Everything happens for a reason, right? I had never been to the dance, but had heard tons about it during my time in jungle, and I thought it would be super fun to see my old friends and surprise them at the same time. So I went.
The Sun and Moon Dance is actually a North American tradition, practiced by the tribes living in the Mesa region, which is now Arizona and New Mexico (I’m pretty sure). This dance was prohibited and persecuted for about 500 years, so that at one point there was only one guy practicing the dance and keeping the tradition alive. He taught his family and some close friends and kept it under the radar long enough that it outlived the persecution. Then there was a tribal leader (I’m ashamed not to remember which tribe) named Beautifully Painted Arrow who trained a young Bolivian medicine man, Miguel Kavlin, and initiated him into many Mesa traditions. Miguel Kavlin brought the dance to Bolivia 10 years ago.

The dance lasts 3 days, Thursday night to Sunday morning, and the dancers fast everything during the duration of the dance. Yeah, not even water. The old practitioners did it for 4 days, and young men on their vision quest fast two weeks! I thought you died after 3 days of no water. Apparently the Mesa tribes had not learned that. The founder of the Sierra Club said something like, I love youth because they do things before learning that they are impossible. For that reason, I love Bolivia. Not to say that it’s young by any means, it just hasn’t been fully trained in Western thinking. But there is a tug-of-war since Evo (President Morales just won his second election) between westernization and indigenous revitalization.
These things are all connected, I promise. The people attending this dance are people with the means and free time to be able to hear about such things and take time to do them; which means the upper class of Bolivia, mostly mestizos and criollos (people of mixed and pure European heritage; white people born in Bolivia), who are most likely Catholic. Also in attendance were numerous foreigners from all over. A guy who rode his motorcycle from Oregon, a Brazilian software designer, an Austrian (not sure what he does, but he comes from a “traditional” background, not Mesa tradition), and two German free-lance something-or-others.
It was touching that at the end of this marathon dance, many of the dancers’ families came to share in the meal and final ceremonies. And many of the foreigners spoke of how they wished their families could experience what they experienced and how they would think of their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and friends while they were dancing and praying and fasting.
The other family-related element to the dance was that there were three mother-daughter pairs dancing and one tri-generational family helping. In this sense, the presence of family support was very strong. And it was powerful.
The theme of what everyone said, with one exception, was this: THANKFULNESS more than anything else, for the others present and the dance, because without the others dancing and supporting the dance they couldn’t have realized the Truth that we are all part of the same life because we all have the ‘universal heart’ inside us from the ‘Great Spirit’ and the essence of that heart is Love. I feel pretty good summarizing this because I was the translator of this 3 hour meeting and had to pay very close attention to what everyone said, and then repeat it.
I haven’t even described what the dance was, have I.
Well, first of all, everyone was nude, no clothes were allowed to contaminate the sacred dance circle. No, not at all, there were special rules as to what clothes should be worn, and what shouldn’t be worn. I’m not sure what those rules were, but I think everyone had to wear some kind of long skirt, (only one guy wore a women’s skirt that he borrowed from an x-girlfriend at the last minute, he was the only pure native Bolivian from El Alto and he was awesome), like traditional vestments worn by most cultures practicing sacred rituals. It was really cold, so everyone was layered up beneath their appropriate attire. I also think that they weren’t allowed to wear any lettering at all and they were encouraged to wear baggy clothes with bright colors, but maybe those trends were just preference. And they all had whistles, not like referee whistles, they had wooden and clay whistles, some with holes to make a twittering noise. It was all very festive and celebratory, and very sacred. A good combo that I don’t see enough of. Also, they wore sunglasses so that they would not be distracted in their neediness of fasting and fatigue to look around at others. They were dancing to celebrate all life given by the Great Spirit, no distractions allowed.

My favorite part of the weekend was Saturday night. I was asked to keep vigil over the fire with Pablo till 3 am. The fire, I was taught, represents something like the soul of the universe, and it must be kept going at all times, and kept pure, burning only Eucalyptus wood and incense, no trash, paper, nothing else. The fire was outside the dance, but used to cleanse everything entering the dance with incense, and put in incense buckets to swing around the dance once in a while, also for cleansing. When you are put in stressful situations like not eating or drinking for three days while dancing constantly, it’s not just the good stuff that comes out of you. Lots of suppressed anger and bitterness, shame, insecurity, doubts, and all the other demons that try to snuff out love in our hearts show their ugly faces. The incense is what washes away all the gross crap that the dancers are shedding while they push through the three days. Otherwise that gross crap will just get everyone dirty. So the fire is the burning soul of cleansing and must be kept constantly. If you’ve ever seen Hal’s Moving Castle, a little known Disney movie in Japanamation, I recommend you do. Califer, played by Billy Crystal, is a little fire with a real attitude and superiority complex that turns out to be justified in his self-importance. You should watch the movie. This fire reminded me of Califer is all.
Anyway, staying up late, processing all the weird stuff I’d see that day, chewing coca with Pablo and talking about the important stuff in life was made all the better because there was a full moon over mount Ilimani looking through the clouds while a low fog and silence isolated us from the rest of the world. It really was magical. And the perfect conditions to have an exciting heart to heart with a fascinating new friend.
It's raining now and I'm in Casablanca, which is closed, but the side door is open and a co-worker is practicing the piano. And the internet is up! I must stink, because a fly will not leave my face alone. Moving on. . .
There're some photos to give you some idea of the place, but none were allowed to be taken of the dance, and actually, I forgot my camera and these are from two years ago. But it's an idea.
Whew. I think José will be by soon and I better get going. Back to Aramasí. ¡Kosapacha!

Off to Aramasí, for GOOD

25 January

This morning was the planning meeting for February in Aramasí, and I got to present my project plan (tentative, but a start). The administration is ready to have me out in Aramasí, doing what I've come to do. So any plan I proposed would have been fine with them, as long as I'm under José's supervision. José is the agronomist and irrigation tecnition who will be my advisor/tutor/boss. I've been out twice now with the intention of staying, but both times I was sent home because José was not around. He just had a son and his wife has been a little frail. Understandable.

In 5 minutes I've gotta get to work here at Casablanca, which is pretty packed for a Monday.

But tomorrow morning I'm taking a few trufis (trufi stands for Transporte RUta FIjada) to Quillacollo, about 12 km. outside of Cochabamba where I'll meet José and drive 2 hours on mountain dirt roads to Aramasí. My schedule, I learned this morning is Monday morning through Friday afternoon, so I'll still be in Cochabamba every weekend, if I want to come back.

Well, that was 5 minutes. To the right is Casablanca's owner and a friend playing chess. Chess happens a lot here.

Spun Out

11 Jan.

Well, I feel like things had got out of control. Sorry for the awkwward rawness of my last blogs. They were originally journal entries, but became blog entries because I felt that I needed to get honest. It was partly because of my vow on my first entry and partly because I had just got lost and confused and needed some grounding.
I've been very busy, though, lately. This is actually an edited email to my mom. But it's straightforward, no worries.

I took the house, Semilla de Amor, out to ice cream yesterday. Claudia joined us and helped reserve a table big enough for us all for when we were arriving. It was a big ordeal, getting the house cleaned after lunch, getting everyone ready and 'presentable' to go into town, walking down to the micro, crossing the streets, it was a lot of fun. Actually, the ice cream part was the most boring, the trip down and the walk around town afterward were the real hi-lights. There was an artesan fair in the plaza Colón, right by the ice cream place, so we walked through and the kids had a great time seeing all the colorful and diverse handmade goods and plants. Viviana bought some flowers with the kid's help. Then we walked through the main plaza and over to catch the bus back up to the villa. But it was a whole day trip packed into 4 short hours. Mario is getting SOOOOO big. He feels twice the weight he was a month ago. I had to carry him for the last stretch from the plaza to the bus. We also watered all the plants around the house while the girls were getting ready, I held Mario and Mario held the hose.
On Thursday I went up to the Villa in the morning and stayed until 5pm, then I had to go to work at Casablanca till 2 am! I played so hard! I met the new volunteers, had lunch at the guy's house in the villa, played cards and hacky-sack with the guys and Chris and the volunteers. Then I went to Semilla de Amor and helped clean-up before we went to the salón and played pelota quemada, which is their version of dodge ball. Holy moly, we had an epic game. The ball was pretty big, a extra large sized red rubber kick-ball like we have in the states. I was soooo tired on friday, my whole body hurt.
I paid for my ID card on friday, I had to go in twice to fill out tons of paperwork and then pay 345 bs. but it was already too late to take my picture by the time I finished, so I go in right now to get my picture taken and then on Thursday I'll have my official Bolivian Foreign Missionary ID card!
I met a couple ladies last night in La Morada who are here visiting from Virginia. One has been highly involved in founding the scholarship fund for the the girl college students, they were interesting to talk to. Big ole' Southern large-and-in-charge political fund-raising ladies.

I finally got to play cacho last night with some new Bolivian friends, they are in the military and offered to take me shooting. Woohoo. We had a good time, I lost, but I was super happy to score some true-blue Bolivian cacho companions.

I have been able to give away a whole bunch of nice European girl's clothes to the girls house. It was fun to waltz up to them with my big laundry bag full of foreign treasures and watch them all take stuff out and try it on and ask each other if they could pull it off and suggest things to one another. I think they will end up sharing all of it anyway, except Cintia got a pair of shoes that I doubt she's taken off yet.

They're digging huge holes in the Villa where my old garden used to be, I guess for the new septic tank. The boys are craving manly companionship. I can't go into the villa without being forced to throw guys around, help dig up heavy rocks, climb around on trees and buildings, wrestle, all kinds of manhood tests for the boys to try out.

So much so much so much. But I've gotta get my picture taken.