The White City

This is Sucre. Very quaint, very colonial. ALL the buildings are white, no kidding. It was an awesome city and we got to do a lot of really cool things including the Museum of Indigenous Art. There were incredible weavings and clothing, so complex and detailed and colorful. The musuem is also run by an organization that trys to help weaving communities sell their products in the market. I also went the CasaDel Libertad, which has original constitution and a lot of other really cool artifacts from the independence in1825. Our guide was really nice and it was nice to "be reminded" of everything we learned in history class in early February. One of the big things is that one of the reasons the "revolutionaries" won is because a bunch of upperclass sons of the Spanish decided to switch sides and support Bolivar so when they won independence, nothing really changed anybody who wasn´t wealthy colonist because the new people in charge were pretty much the same Spanish elite, only their sons. Oh colonialism.

We also had a sort of private concert with Las Misas, a pretty famous Andean folk band in Bolivia. One of the men also has a music school in Sucre. It was awesome. We got to hear music from the school, which was little kids to mothers, and then a concert from the band. (we also had really good steak.) One reason I love Andean folk music is because the dancing is so fun. There are definite moves and steps so to speak but really nobody cares what you do so everyone is just moving around yelling periodically.

One afternoon we ventured to Pisili, a Quechua weaving community about 2 hours outside of Sucre. They have hadSIT students beforeand knew we would enjoy helping them cook the lunch and the women let us where their traditional hats ( i will try to put a picture up soon). Something else I hae really enjoyed about the campo and meeting different indigenous communities is that their traditional clothing is all so distinct and different to their region, the colors, the patterns, the styles, everything. We were just starting to play fútbol witihsome of the boys when it started to rain. Not really a big deal except that our bus driver didn´t think we would be able to make it up the road if it was a little muddy. Ahhh, and we were just getting started and we had even scored.

Of course, the mud wasn´t the problem, but the slope and narrowness of one part of the road. It is hard to describe, but we had to turn a corner and go up hill at the same time. It wasn´t a problem on the way there because dip wasn´t a durastic from the other direction. Basically, we had to widen the left side of the road with rocks so wewouln´t fall into the ditch/small ravine and on the right side we had to make a small ramp with rocks because the front of the bus kept dipping too low into the slope of the road. With a little patience and a crow bar, we were back on the road.

I have been back in Cochabamba this week and it has gone incredibly incredibly fast. It began by going to mybrother´s ballet on Sunday night and since then I have pretty much consumed by a group project about the special education system in Bolivia. We leave Saturday for hot and humid Santa Cruz, which I have heard is "un otro país" (another country).