Home Planet

Raised Fields near Lake Titicaca

2011-04-11T21:47:00.003-04:00

I won't go into an explanation of what raised fields are; other folks have studied them longer and taken much more time to understand them than I have. I'll just put in this link.

I was, however, lucky enough to see them in person recently and was pretty blown away. Not just by the raised fields, but by the landscape in general. So windswept and intense. And the people were absolutely incredible. There is still some truly amazing innovation going on at the household level in this part of the world, as I expect there is everywhere else as well. It was a joy to see. Hope you like the pics.

Community Maps from the Benson

2009-03-09T12:48:00.006-04:00

Last friday we went to the Benson Latin American Collection with Dr. Butzer for his Indigenous Maps and Architecture seminar. I was able to snap a few shot with my iPhone and thought I would share them here.

These maps are part of a collection that were produced in response to a questionnaire sent out by Spain in the late 1570's designed to assess its own holdings in the New World. The map-makers were indigenous and offer a fascinating glimpse into their communities as they saw them in the first half-century of the Spanish presence.

These two are from the map of Cenpoballa. This map is much more detailed and interesting than the first. You can see some interesting allusions to the town's heritage, represented by its former leaders around the plaza.

This is the hill represented in the map of Cenpoballa. You can the Nopal, Maguey, deer, and owl all represented. All in bright detail and color, juxtaposed with the plain white church below it. The map is dotted with Christian elements but all of them are simple sketches and all of them are left white. How does this represent what these people thought about the Spanish? Were they seen as transient elements in their otherwise established and vibrant landscape?

The Spanish never felt authorized, as it were, to displace indigenous communities in the areas around Mexico City. They never felt that they had ownership over the land, only users' rights. They did seek to establish a presence but by superimposing elements of the Church and Spanish civil rule on top of traditional institutions. I think this is fascinating because it requires that we think about the "conquest" differently than we typically do. How much agency did the indigenous people in central Mexico have during the beginning of the Spanish colonial period? It seems to me that, if they were representing their communities like this, they had quite a lot.

Fascinating stuff. Very cool maps.

2009-03-08T17:47:00.004-04:00

What does "basic essence" mean? Is this what they're talking about? Or is this what they're talking about? Sigh.....

This is sweet and weird. The flyer is so funny that I have a hard time believing they're really upset.

Weekend at the Farm

2009-02-09T00:06:00.006-04:00

I went to the farm this weekend in an effort to be more productive, escape distractions, etc. It worked only kinda sorta.

What I did or did not get done is not really what is important here. What is important here, and what I want to talk about, are rat/mouse traps. I'm not talking about the Tom & Jerry-metal bar-slamming down over the neck mouse traps. I'm talking about sticky pads as seen above. "Last Step". First of all, there's a rattlesnake stuck in it. I cannot even imagine how terrifying it would be to deal with that. Luckily, we don't have rattlesnakes in Hubbard. We do have tons of field and door mice.

The problem with these traps is that they don't really kill the mice. They just stick them to the pad. If you are unlucky, you end up stumbling upon a mouse with a dislocated shoulder, half a second away from chewing his arm off in an attempt to escape. Unfortunately, his or her entire body is also stuck the pad, so they end up starving to death (or bleeding to death, internally, from their broken shoulder?)

Now, I've been one of the unlucky ones who has come across a still alive mouse on the pad, more than a few times. It is BRUTAL. You have to kill them, obviously. They're in excruciating pain. But I mean, come on!

What if giants set these things all over the place to trap us? Wouldn't you much rather just get stepped on? Or poisoned?

Surfrider's Condom Filets

2009-01-30T13:39:00.005-04:00

I read Boing Boing the other morning, like most every morning, you know...for the NEWZ, and I came across an entry for Surfrider Foundation's collaborative ad-campaign with SAATCHI & SAATCHI LA. It is both disgusting and hilarious, so I thought I would link to the post: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/01/29/surfriders-catch-of.html

Best of 2008, looking forward to 2009

2009-01-06T16:50:00.002-04:00

First, I'd like to say that I am going to start posting this year (for realz) on this blog. It looks like fun, I enjoy reading other people's blogs, so it is high-time I write a little bit myself.

To kick of the new year, let's talk about the old year! Here is very scattered-in-no-particular-order list of my favorite things this year. Also included are just important things this year.

1. January 2008: month of the reality-check

2. Coming home to "home"/Leaving Bolivia

3. Getting accepted to college and then decided on what kind of college to accept.

4. Big Brother Patrick got married! We have another girl in the family now!

5. May: return visit to Bolivia. Not nearly long enough, but sooo important. Seeing Teodolinda one more time and saying a proper goodbye was huge. Helped to screw my head on properly.

6. Getting punched in the eye at Melody in Yacuiba and then battling it out against a bunch of Chaquenos with Phil. Reminded me just how much I hate fights. Also reminded me just how much it hurts to get punched in the eye.

7. La Paz with Mike McCaffrey.

8. Working at the Park Cities Y for my summer job. I have never felt so old, but I did have a lot of fun with those kids.

9. Slightly disappointing first semester at UT Geography? Not very challenging and as a result, a little boring. Is it weird that I think that? No. I just know that I have to make it more challenging from now on.

10. The Dark Knight

11. Apollo Sunshine- Shall Noise Upon

12. Seeing Nathan, Ellena, Dave, and Steve for New Year's. It was like a mini pep-rally for me.

13. Getting coca sent to me in the States.

14. Jonathan Hemingway marries Amanda in Michigan. Best 4th of July in a long time. Wonderful wedding.

15. Return to Austin, hanging with the Bros.

All in all, 2008 was kind of a bummer of a year. I'm by no means a bummer of a guy, but there was something kind of poopy about the year in general. I think it is probably because I started the year so out of character.

2009 seems pretty cool, though. I am not going to drink any booze until February 6th. I'm presenting a paper at the AAG in Las Vegas this March. And I'll be spending my summer in Paraguay working on my master's thesis! It's definitely time to start kicking a lot of ass. Too much thinking about it. Not enough DOING.

It's our world, after all.

Paracti, Cochabamba: Latitude (DMS): 17° 13' 0 S, Longitude (DMS): 65° 49' 0 W

2007-12-27T10:20:00.000-04:00

Paracti is located in the Department of Cochabamba, la Provincia Chapare, Bolivia, approximately 80 km from Cochabamba on the highway to Santa Cruz.

The name Paracti is Quechua for "rainy place" (para being "rain"). The town is located at an elevation that allows it to receive considerable rainfall ("la ceja del monte"). As hot, humid air rises and moves west from the eastern tropical lowlands of Bolivia and Brasil, it condenses and dumps its water on this eastern facing slope of the mountains. It rains virtually every day, creating a lush, insanely green landscape.

Last week I visited Paracti and a small working farm there with a colleague and friend, Christopher Salvagio. The farm is owned by a man named Rafael Musch, a Cochabambino of German descent. On 3 hectares (7.5 acres) he has seven greenhouses dedicated to flower and plant production--lillies, ferns, etc.--which he sells to vendors in Cochabamba. He has another 3 hectares that he has left recovering from previous use. It is wild and absolutely gorgeous.

In the high valleys of Bolivia and even in this hotter and more humid part of Cochabamba, trout farming is common among local producers. Trout is a fish that requires clear, cold water. The water must be moved constantly in order to oxigenate it adequately. As a result, it is a comparatively costly species to produce. The work required to provide for a regular flow of water either means having a pump on hand or constructing a system to take advantage of the natural flow of the water from higher elevation (as in this case). Still, the complicated nature of the water monitoring and treatment and the delicate nature of the fish are worth it because trout typically receives somewhere between 30 and 35 bolivianos per kilo ($3.80 to $4.50, approx.).

Don Rafael has four small ponds and one large laguna for the production of his trout. Three of the ponds are constructed side by side and house trout of different sizes. Water moves down from the higher parts of the mountain and constantly flows through the system of tanks. His desire to increase production of trout on his property and to start producing freshwater shrimp and crab. Yes, that's right. Freshwater shrimp and crab. Just awesome.

That Cow Just Hit Our Car

2007-05-30T10:11:00.000-04:00

Last week my boss, el Dr. Pepe Salinas, came to El Palmar for a site visit. He came with two of my favorites, Dave-bones and Mark. They arrived wednesday afternoon and brought with them our long-waited for fish nets for the tanks in Salital-Campo Verde. Needless to say, I was excited. Since it has been so cold down here recently, we have been unable to receive our fish from Santa Cruz. Too dangerous to ship them. They´ll get sick and die we are told. So, turning in the nets at least gave us some small victory in this very drawn out project that is now almost completely out of our hands. Anyways, we cruised around and turned in a number of nets, checked out our now totally ready tanks and were happy.
That night we went left for Yacuiba to eat a good steak and head to Agua Blanca and the Chaco Humedo for some other site visits. Early Thursday morning we were on the road. We had to make the highway to Carapari by 730 am before it closed and we got a latish start.
At around 650 something in the am, we were hauling ass down the road when, whoops! here comes a herd of cows! They very suddenly decided to make their way across the road. What to do? Coming in the opposite direction was another car so that escape was closed to us. To the right, the cow herder was standing on the shoulder. So, unless we wanted to kill the man, that route was not an option. Pepe slammed on the breaks, but it was of no use. It was apparent that we were going to hit these cows. Everyone in the Land Cruiser was quiet. We just sort of sat there, numb, apparently not phased by what was sure to be a nasty impact. Pepe, however, saved the day. He swung the car and tried to split in between two cows of the herd, and ended up only clipping one of them with the left side of the grill guard. The cow flipped and spun around in what probably looked like something out of a Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote chase scene and ended up on his side in the middle of the road, collapsed in a cartoonish heap. We kept driving, wanting to avoid all potential conflict with the owner or the cops, but the hood of the car was all bent in and we had to pull over.
We were able to drive the car back to Yacuiba for some basic repairs and on the way back we noticed that the cow we hit was standing on the side of the road with a bloody hip, the owner and the rest of the herd were nowhere in sight.
It did not die. We hit it going probably 50 miles per hour and it did not die. Still, I am sure that he was put down later that day in what was probably a fantastic cookout.
I wish I had a picture to share with ya´ll, but oh well.
We hit a cow. Or, a cow hit us. The most shocking part of this was how little reaction it got out of us. I feel like I have been completely Boliviafied if something like this didn´t even make my stomach flutter. Good? Bad? I don´t know.

El día es oro y no nos espera

2007-05-20T13:46:00.000-04:00

Yesterday morning I woke up and walked out to Campo Verde to begin work on the repairs of on Don Gregorio´s pond. With the heavy rains this past year, we lost an entire side of the tank and most of our water. Now, the pond is a mess. There are weeds growing everywhere and the remaining walls are being eroded away by the goats who drink from the pond. I still do not really understand how this happened. How is it that his tank is the only tank with problems? It makes me feel terrible because I really do not have a good explanation. Anyways, we have to fix it.

When I got to his house, I found Gregorio working with the goats and hanging out with some other guy who I did not know, but who certainly knew me. They had been pre-gaming from the looks of it and were, as a result, ready for a good conversation. We sat down at a table and started talking, a bottle of puro and creek water was passed around, and I started to wonder if any work was actually going to get done. Turns out it did not.

After talking for an hour or so about whether or not I was going to stay and live in Palmar after my service was up, if I had kids back in the states, and if I had a girlfriend in town, we finally made our way down to the tank.

As I said before, this tank is a total disaster and is going to require a good week or two of work to clean it up. Our plan was to begin pulling the plant life out, but since we were unable to get our hands on the water pump we could not get much done. We ended up piddling around with the shovels for about 2 hours and then sitting down. It was a good morning´s work we decided. I am not sure why. All we really did was confirm that we had a whole lot to do and then put it off until Monday. Still, they were happy with it.

On my way back to town I passed a retarded kid that I always talk with on the road. He was kind of far from his house and was playing with a sling shot. Right before I got to him, before he had seen me, he turned and just nailed this dog with a rock. Direct hit, right in the ribs with the sling shot. The dog yelped something furious and took off into the woods. The boy stood there smiling and laughing a not too comforting laugh. He sounded crazy. I passed him, waved and said hello and he just kept smiling, staring at me. After a few steps I turned around to look at him. He was still just standing in the middle of the road with his sling shot. I started to get a little freaked out. I kept wondering if maybe he was going to shoot me too. I know that is a terrible thing to think, but I just couldn´t shake the thought. I kept walking and looking back over my shoulder. He just stood there. I started a fast walk to get out of range as quickly as possible without seeming like a jerk.

Later on, safely out of range of his sling shot, I felt terrible. Sort of the same sensation you get when you lock the door of your car when a homeless person approaches. A general shitty feeling that, for better or worse, colors the rest of the day.

To begin at the beginning

2007-05-18T18:14:00.000-04:00

In an effort to get as much of this wild non-sense down as possible I am restarting my blog for probably the 3rd or 4th time. But not tonight! Tomorrow! To be included: photos, fun and scary stories, boring stories, detailed accounts of me staring at my wall at night, being too bored to read, reading too much, being too nervous to sleep, being too tired to do anything but sleep, chasing roosters out of trees in the middle of the night, killing snakes, teaching myself calligraphy, try to write my name with my foot, my dog throwing up under my bed at night, moldy and cold sheets, Esquire magazine, toe fungus, crotch rot, malnutrition, really good steak, not such good beer, O.K. beer, Budweiser, fish ponds that work, fish ponds that don´t work, bad weather, great weather, and straw mattresses.
Heart.