| Sunday, May 28, 2006 |
| Markets galore... |
Hey hey everyone! I'm in Sucré right now, the judicial capital of Bolivia. Spent all last night on a bus out of Santa Cruz, and needless to say I'm pretty tired right now. Was glad to get out of Santa Cruz, though on my last day there I found the town market place, which was pretty cool, because it seemed to be where the "average" people shopped, rather than the very posh looking stores in the town center. Went to a market in Tarabuco today, a town 2 hours away from here. It was really cool, people were walking around in traditional dress. Ate in the street today, I'm paying for it now. I picked up some white short/pant things that the indigenous men wear at festivals as part of their cultural dress...the guy thought I was crazy for buying them. I'll miss the days when I won't be able to buy coca leaves right off the street! Though I tell you, I certainly prefer jasmine tea...lord do I miss it. The Czech dudes and I had to part ways, but I met a really cool scottish girl in Santa Cruz, who I'm going to meet up with when I get to Cochabamba in a few days. Havn't seen much of Sucre yet, but it's said to be Bolivia's most beautiful city. So far I think that's a load of shite, it's hard to imagine a city here that could be cooler than La Paz. Off to Potosi next, and then to Cochabamba. Rachel, the scot, is teaching english at the university in Cochabamba, so hopefully I'll be able to meet some of the people she's been hanging out with and stay in Cochabamba for a while. How long I stay there will depend on if I spend much or any time in Peru. I might like to go back to the Yungas area here, it's freaking beautiful there. That's right, FREAKING beautiful. It's nice being back on the Antiplano, it's much more of the Bolivia I know, the culture and people. And it's easier to understand what they say too, as spanish is often a second language for people here. I met a guy in the market today who told me that he speaks Quecha more then he speaks spanish!!! It's so neat that even after so many years of repression the indigenous culture here is alive and well. Chavéz and Evo both spoke in Vienna recently, and my friend from Norway, who has recently returned home, tells me that there has been a lot more press coverage of Latin America as a result. Nice one! Good coverage, though, I hope, and not like what we read in North America. "CHAVÉZ IS AN EVIL DICTATOR WHO STEALS OIL MONEY!!!" Maybe you should come down here and see South America for yourselves, you silly journalist wankers. Oh! Spanish lesson. Wanker in spanish is "pajero", also the name of a truck/SUV that some company has tried (and obviously failed) to market in South America. Not many people want to be driving around with the word "wanker" written on their vehicle. On that note, I am going to buy an empanada and sleep soundly. CIAO!
ps: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=41&ItemID=10329 |
posted by Ben @ 5:09 PM  |
|
|
|
| Tuesday, May 23, 2006 |
| JEEEESUITS!!! |
Hey hey everyone! Just a quick note to let you know where I am. I met up with some rockin travelers from the Czech Republic and after a long bus ride in the pouring rain with a very leaky roof and a 7 hour train ride listening to annoying teenage girls record themselves singing latin pop songs and playing them back on an awful tape recorder and laughing at them, we got to the Jesuit Mission circuit; a series of villages that were set up in the 18th century to convert and indoctrinate the indigenous peoples to christianity. To this day nothing is known of the customs or traditions of the native people here; Thanks, Europe!
The places here are kind of interesting, with very ornate old churches that have been rebuilt to look as they did origionally. There's also a big Brazilian influence, with many people speaking portugese, and Brazilian music and food more commonly seen than those from Bolivia (which I don't mind at all...Brazilian food isn't actually that bad!)
So we're off to go to another mission village and then it's off to Santa Cruz, the lowland capital!
So, best of luck to my traveling friends, just under two months left for me!
ps: Good article that the Bolivia Solidarity Group sent me:
When two poor countries reclaimed oilfields, why did just one spark uproar? The outcry over Bolivia's renationalisation and the silence over Chad's betrays the hypocrisy of the critics George MonbiotTuesday May 16, 2006The Guardian
Civilisation has a new enemy. He is a former coca grower called Evo Morales, who is currently the president of Bolivia. Yesterday he stood before the European parliament to explain why he had sent troops to regain control of his country's gas and oil fields. Bolivia's resources, he says, have been "looted by foreign companies", and he is reclaiming them for the benefit of his people. Last week, he told the summit of Latin American and European leaders in Vienna that the corporations which have been extracting the country's fossil fuels would not be compensated for these seizures.
You can probably guess how this has gone down. Tony Blair urged him to use his power responsibly, which is like Mark Oaten lecturing the Pope on sexual continence. Condoleezza Rice accused him of "demagoguery". The Economist announced that Bolivia was "moving backwards". The Times, in a marvellously haughty leader, called Morales "petulant", "xenophobic" and "capricious", and labelled his seizure of the gas fields "a gesture as childish as it is eye-catching".
Never mind that the privatisation of Bolivia's gas and oil in the 1990s was almost certainly illegal, as it took place without the consent of congress. Never mind that - until now - its natural wealth has only impoverished its people. Never mind that Morales had promised to regain national control of Bolivia's natural resources before he became president, and that the policy has massive support among Bolivians. It can't be long before Donald Rumsfeld calls him the new Hitler and Bush makes another speech about freedom and democracy being threatened by freedom and democracy.
This huffing and puffing is dressed up as concern for the people of Bolivia. The Financial Times fretted about the potential for "mismanagement and corruption". The Economist warned that while the government "may get richer, its people are likely to grow even poorer". The Times lamented that Morales had "set back Bolivia's development by 10 years or so ... the most vulnerable groups will find that an economic lifeline is soon removed from their reach". All this is humbug.
Four days before Morales seized the gas fields - on May 1 - an even bigger expropriation took place in an even poorer country: the African republic of Chad. When the Chadian government reasserted control over its oil revenues, not only did it ensure that an intended lifeline for the poor really was removed from their reach, but it also brought the World Bank's claims to be using oil as a social welfare programme crashing down in flames. So how did all those bold critics of Morales respond? They didn't. The whole hypocritical horde of them looked the other way.
The World Bank decided to fund Chad's massive oil scheme in 2000, after extracting a promise from the government of Idriss Deby - which has a terrible human rights record - that the profits would be used for the benefit of the country's people. Deby's administration passed a law allocating 85% of the government's oil revenues to education, health and development, and placing 10% "in trust for future generations". This, the bank said, amounted to "an unprecedented system of safeguards to ensure that these revenues would be used to finance development in Chad".
Without the World Bank, the project could not have gone ahead. It was asked to participate by Exxon, the leading partner in the project, to provide insurance against political risk. The bank's different lending arms stumped up a total of $333m, and the European Investment Bank threw in another $120m. The oil companies (Exxon, Petronas and Chevron) started drilling 300 wells in the south of the country, and building a pipeline to a port in Cameroon, which opened in 2003.
Environmentalists predicted that the pipeline would damage the rainforests of Cameroon and displace the indigenous people who lived there; that the oil companies would consume much of Chad's scarce water and that an influx of oil workers would be accompanied by an influx of Aids. They also argued that subsidising oil companies in the name of social welfare was a radical reinterpretation of the bank's mandate. As long ago as 1997, the Environmental Defence Fund warned that the government of Chad would not keep its promises to use the money for alleviating poverty. In 1999, researchers from Harvard Law School examined the law the government had passed, and predicted that the authorities "have little intention of allowing it to affect local practice".
In 2000, the oil companies gave the government of Chad a "signing bonus" of $4.5m, which it immediately spent on arms. Then, at the beginning of 2006, it simply tore up the law it had passed in 1998. It redefined the development budget to include security, seized the fund set aside for future generations, and diverted 30% of the total revenues into "general spending", which, in Chad, is another term for guns. The World Bank, embarrassed by the fulfilment of all the predictions its critics had made, froze the revenues the government had deposited in London and suspended the remainder of its loans. The Chadian government responded by warning that it would simply shut down the oil wells. The corporations ran to daddy (the US government) and, on April 27, the bank caved in. Its new agreement with Chad entitles Deby to pretty well everything he has already taken.
The World Bank's attempts to save face are almost funny. Last year, it said that the scheme was "a pioneering and collaborative effort ... to demonstrate that large-scale crude oil projects can significantly improve prospects for sustainable long-term development". In other words, it was a model for oil-producing countries to follow. Now it tells us that the project in Chad was "less a model for all oil-producing countries than a unique solution to a unique challenge". But, however much it wriggles, it cannot disguise the fact that the government's reassertion of control is a disaster both for the bank and for the impoverished people it claimed to be helping. Since the project began, Chad has fallen from 167th to 173rd on the UN's human development index, and life expectancy there has dropped from 44.7 to 43.6 years. If, by contrast, Morales does as he has promised and uses the extra revenues from Bolivia's gas fields in the same way as Hugo Chávez has used the money from Venezuela's oil, the result is likely to be a major improvement in his people's welfare.
So, on the one hand, you have a man who has kept his promises by regaining control over the money from the hydrocarbon industry, in order to use it to help the poor. On the other, you have a man who has broken his promises by regaining control over the money from the hydrocarbon industry, in order to buy guns. The first man is vilified as irresponsible, childish and capricious. The second man is left to get on with it. Why? Well, Deby's actions don't hurt the oil companies. Morales's do. When Blair and Rice and the Times and all the other apologists for undemocratic power say "the people", they mean the corporations. The reason they hate Morales is that when he says "the people", he means the people.
· The references for this and all George Monbiot's recent columns can be found at www.monbiot.com |
| posted by Ben @ 7:37 AM |
|
|
|
| Tuesday, May 16, 2006 |
| The Holy Trinity |
I have never seen so many cute girls in my entire life. I love Trinidad. But not just for that, it's a neat city too. But my god...
My stay in Rurre was pretty neat, it's a cool little place right on the Rio Beni. I met up with some rockin' Irish "lads" and we did a couple trips together. From Rurre you can do trips to the pampas and the jungle to see wildlife and the rainforest, and we did both of them. Between pirannah fishing, petting alligators, catching anacondas, and swinging on vines like tarzan (no, really) they were pretty fun trips! And I've discovered that the Irish are damn awesome folk.
I took a fairly crappy bus ride here to Trinidad...I left Rurre at 10:00 at night and drove via minibus until 4:00 in the morning to a place called San Borja. We all slept (or tried to) in the van for 4 hours, when we switched busses and drove until about 4 this afternoon along the dustiest road I have ever seen in my life. Apparantly the road is really awful in the rainy season, but in the dry season (as it is now) it's just a big dust bowl. Everything was covered in dust all inside the bus. And we had to ferry across 3 rivers to get here...and the ferries aren't quite as high tech as they are in Canada. They consist of a shottily built wooded float that the bus and all the people go on, and it's pushed by a single motorized canoe. Brilliant.
Trinidad is really nice...it's like a different country on this side of Bolivia. There are far less indigenous people and much more spanish looking people...and way more rediculously good looking girls. There's a lot more money here, too. I don't know how much longer I'll be here for, probably 2 days or so depending, and then I'm off on a boat, probably down south, and then off to Santa Cruz.
Andrew: Don't think I can play the concert, but I'll come and watch. We'll talk later. Don't hold your breath for any more pictures.
Ellie: Thanks again for the okanagan pictures. I have been fortunate enough to not have had any run ins with large insects, but I know that they do exist down here.
Anne: I wasn't going to tell them that story, Anne.
Take care guys, smell ya later! |
| posted by Ben @ 4:54 PM |
|
|
|
| Tuesday, May 09, 2006 |
| Into the Amazon |
| Hey guys, sorry for the delay in the update. I just got back from a trip down the River Beni (i think) to a place called Rurrenebaque! After traveling on the world's most dangerous road from La Paz to Coroico (at night in the fog...again...) for a second time, I caught a bus to some town and then a taxi stuffed with 9 people to Guanay, where I found a guy that was doing a 3 day boat trip to Rurre. So I hopped aboard! We slept outside under tarps and mosquito nets, walked through the rainforest, stayed with a tiny local community (only 50 people live there!) and learned a few things about their lifestyle (they use plants from the rainforest as medicine...it's a huge wealth of knowledge that they have) Here in Rurre everybody rides motorcycles, it's neat. And you can get fish here! The group of travelers that I went with was less then inspiring, so I have to find some more people to travel with...I'm probably going to go on another 3 day trip to the jungle, so that should be interesting, and then off to Trindad. My first parcel arrived home safely, thank god, and my other one should be arriving sometime soon...I'm a little sick, my throat hurts, so I'm off to the Pharmacy. Take care everyone, see you all in a couple months! |
| posted by Ben @ 11:14 AM |
|
|
|
|
| Ben Martin's log of his 6-month journey to the South American Andean nation of Bolivia. |
| About Me |
|
Name: Ben
Home:
About Me:
See my complete profile
|
| Previous Post |
|
| Archives |
|
|
| Shoutbox |
"Courage, my friends; 'tis not too late to build a better world." -Tommy Douglas, the Greatest Canadian |
| Other things |
| Feel free to use my logs for whatever purpose, just make sure to credit me! |
| Links |
|
| Powered by |
Isnaini Dot Com
 |
|
