Another morning in Rurrenabaque

It's quite a challenge to find b-roll that encapsulates economic growth, sustainable development, land-use planning and much of the the other theoreticaly rhetoric of which my films consist.

So I found myself roaming around "downtown" Rurrenabaque filming random market scenes. All of the sudden a boy is in my camera screen, but with his hands over his face. I look up and see Wilder, one of the kids I met working with the Ecoclubes here. (He refuses to be filmed or photographed, but is quite good-natured about it.)

When he asks what I'm doing I realize I'm not really doing much, and say so. He decides to take me on a tour. I ask why he isn't in school, and he says it is too cold for school. This is a total farce, but I'm not a teacher anymore, so I join in playing hookey.

We hike outside of town and he shows me several trails I hadn't found yet. He is quite the little tour guide and points out various birds and fruits which I probably walk past daily but never noticed. He tells me about pumas and jaguars and takes me to their watering holes. I confirm that they probably wouldn't be out in the morning, right?

We climb up a steep cliff and are looking at these tojo birds when Wilder gets super still.

"We should turn back-- hay chancha de selva."

I aks him to repeat, but I still don't know these words. He turns and starts to book it down the mountain. Confused, I follow.

After some questioning it turns out that he heard wild boars snorting. He explains how they have fierce tusks and chase people and gore them.

Sweet, I hike back in this part of the jungle all the time by myself. Good going Masterson.

Girls Gone Wild

We were supposed to travel into the jungle with German, one of the leaders of an indigenous community reserve on the eastern side of the river. But after showing up at his office and house for over a week trying to pin down a date, we tired of this process.

Our last attempt to make travel plans with German was something of a disaster. We went to the office around 3pm and found German lying on the brick walkway in the courtyard. His small daughter was jumping around playing, and his wife was standing next to her husband, not seeming to mind that he was curled in the fetal position in front of five other employees. While we were chatting with some guardaparques German woke up and grinned widely at us.

“Chicas! Te amo,” he pointed enthusiastically at myself and Julie, repeating in both Spanish and Mosetene (indigenous language) that he loved us. Then he called over his older daughter and insisted on taking a photo of myself, Julie, his wife, his 3 month-old child and two other daughters. Still lying on the ground, propped up on his elbow now, he is barely able to hold the camera upright, and initially had the lens aimed at himself. We are standing waiting, our arms around each other as if we were best of friends. Ultimately German points the camera at us and manages to depress the button enough for a shaky flash to go off.

“Un otro, un otro,” he insists, unsteadily waving the camera in our direction.

When his daughter manages to regain control of the camera she shows us the pictures. As I am the tallest person in most of Bolivia, it is my head that is cut off in the first picture. In the second one, his wife and baby are squeezed out of the frame.

I find the whole situation both annoying and funny. We were supposed to be leaving for a trip to visit indigenous communities today, but clearly he is in no position to take us. With independence day falling on a Monday, everyone began drinking on Friday, and even today the plaza is littered with remaining make-shift tarp booths, and a handful of karaoke die-hards.

So instead we walk back home, and decide that we will join our friends who are hiking to the ridge behind the ridge outside of town. We throw some water and a camera in our bags, and hop on motorcycles up to the mirador.

The hike starts out rather tamely, we trek through a field and then into the leafy and more shaded jungle, roughly following a creek which we hope leads to the ridge. After less than an hour we are deep in the jungle and having to send scouting missions to attempt to find passage through the undergrowth.

We take turns slicing a narrow trail through the tangle of vines, ferns, serrated leaves which draw blood, and plants that grab your flesh like vicious Velcro.

Hacking with the machete is oddly satisfying, though slow work. Whilst I am slashing away trying to get us out of a particularly dense patch, Roger pulls out his camera and films the destruction, telling me he is going to sell the footage to “Girls Gone Wild.” To each his own fantasy.

After several hours alternating between hacking and passing the dogs up the steep cliffs we are up on a ridge, a saddle really. We climb a tree and can see that this saddle does indeed connect to the rocky ridge we are attempting to summit, but between here and there is thick with undergrowth.

We break for a lunch of chocolate bars, grapefruit and bananas, and then we clear probably another kilometer of trail. Some of the group are tiring, so we decide to head back.

It only takes a few minutes to slide down the dirt/rock slopes that took so long to climb up. Hilda is the first to fall, and skis down the slope on her bum, clawing in the air to grab a root to break her fall. Ultimately we all decide this is the safest method, and squat down so we are sliding on our boots and bums.

A few hours later, back at the house, we call up the motorcycle taxi to bring us up some beers. Some quick showers and we retire to watch the sunset from the balcony, drinking cerveza and chewing coca leaves.

On sugar daddy NGOs

I came to Bolivia with a preconceived notion of what “development” would look like on the ground. I assumed that anyone associated with an NGO, a conservation organization, or a religious mission would be met with an attitude ranging from curiosity to indifference to angry resistance to “white people’s charity.”

Though the “white man’s burden” attitude is no longer politically correct, now we simply “teach” developing countries our neoclassic economic model, how to “develop” their resources, and what things they should want from life.

Before arriving, I assumed I would encounter a fair amount of people who would take one look at me, learn who I’m working for, and think/say “fuck off gringa, we don’t need your damn help.”

Honestly, I think I would prefer this response.

Instead I’ve found that mayors, community leaders, artisans, logger cooperatives, etc are all begging for “apoyo” [support]. Maybe instead of begging I should say waiting. Passively waiting.

In the variety of interviews that I’ve conducted for the documentaries, no one has failed to mention an amazing list of things they would have done if they had the funds. This, in of itself, I can understand. But it is the passiveness with which it is said that seems so sickening. Everyone points to land disputes or destruction of the environment with resignation, saying that they would do something about it if only the NGOs would stop giving money to the El Tigre community and start giving some money to them.

When I accompanied an NGO in our consortium to some of their “tallers” [workshops] to educate the people about the new land-use planning tool, I was rather shocked to watch the workshops conducted. Rather than asking the people what their priorities were for their land, the NGO workers simply told them: here is where the school will go, here is where you are allowed to farm, here is where you will eat, shit, etc.

But crazier still is that many people are accepting this relationship without questioning.

When I was in Ixiamas a few weeks ago there was a bread strike. Some community leaders had gotten everyone all riled up because the price of bread went up from 4 pieces for 15 cents to 3 pieces for 15 cents. A sizeable crowd followed several angry leaders to the mayor’s office where they filled the large entryway and still more spilled outside into the hot sun.

Bread prices were rising because of some other factors in La Paz, some 400 kilometers away, that are beyond the control of anyone here. I asked some people why they don’t grow wheat, etc here, because the soil is fertile. I didn’t get any good answers, but finally one man explained to me that this region used to grow all its own food, but when the logging fever began they abandoned these practices for quick money. Though the mahogany is now depleted, logging still goes on, but even with that income people still struggle to feed their families. One logger told me he was paid 36 dollars to cut down ONE THOUSAND trees. It took him a month.

* * * * *

Bolivia is a land of contradictions. It is at once a peaceful, harmonious place with kind people, lush nature and simultaneously a poor country, pervaded by duplicitous capitalistic methods and people desperate to better their lives, often according to a Western standard of values.

And who the hell am I to tell them what they should want? I take a strange comfort in knowing that my role here is a journalistic one, and that I am here to listen, rather than to “educate.”

But I’m pissed off. So many people I talk to are purely interested in the chance that I can get them funds from my NGO. Obviously, I have little to no power to influence how USAID or others in the consortium spend their money. So I pity the people who don’t realize this; I pity their childlike dependency on help from the outside. And yet pity is so damn insulting and patronizing.

And that’s the trouble with sugar-daddies. Soon you lose respect for both the pimped-out cash-dispenser and the sycophant receiver. I mean not every john/prostitute relationship can end like “Pretty Woman,” but one would hope that some kind of freedom would be the ultimate goal.

Sunset ride

Rurrenabaque is a small town. Everyone knows everybody's business as well as the color of their underwear. I can't walk anywhere without running into someone that I know. There is no supermarket, only plaza with stalls of veggies, hanging dead animals, and giants bags of grains and rice. They do have their own grass landing strip complete with a one-room open air building that is the "airport." Thus, so far everywhere I have needed to go I either walk or take a boat.

However, yesterday I went to visit a friend who is house-sitting up on the ridge outside of town. As it was less than an hour to sunset I decided to take a taxi (70 cents) rather than do the 30-minute walk. Hardly anyone owns a car here, and all the taxis are motorcycles. Etiquette dictates that you sit on the back of the motorcycle, not touching the driver, and you hold on to the bars on either side of the seat. Frequently, the women ride side-saddle, often with their arms full of groceries; I have no idea how they stay on, it really defies the laws of physics. The roads here are rocky dirt or cobblestone (well, literally, stones lined up in the dirt) and the ride is not that smooth. Yet I have seen motorcycles carrying up to four people.

So, these things I knew. I walked down the main street looking around for a dude on a bike. About 20 seconds later a guy turned round the corner and I sort of lifted my hand in the air a bit. He pulled over and I asked to be taken to the "mirador" which is the viewpoint outside of town.

I climbed on the bike and we took off for the mirador. We chat a bit: where are you from? what are you doing in Rurre? where are you staying? I tell him about my boyfriend back in the United States, you know, the usual conversation between local and extranjera. I practice my core strengthening when we turn the corners, seeing if I can stay on and centered without holding on.

We get to the top of the ridge and go to the last house. A man comes out, curious about the arriving gringa. Apparently this is not my friend's house. I explain the directions I was given again: it is the last house at the end of the road and there are two very mean dogs who live there.

"Ah, yes that house," he says when he hears about the mean dogs. He points down the hill to the "highway," which is a rocky, half-eroded dirt road snaking down the backside of the ridge.

We take off again, weaving down the grassy edge of the road where there are the fewest rocks, but also the highest possibility of loosing traction and falling off the hill. I envision a variety of jumping-escape strategies and shift my weight to the left.

Soon two large, aggressive dogs come bolting out and bark ferocisouly at our motorcycle. Teresa, a woman I met here working on her doctoral thesis, comes out and tames the hounds. I thank my driver and pay him the standard fee. He says that it was enchanting to meet me (a common phrase) and that I am very beautiful (also commonly said to foreigners).

Thinking nothing of it, I go inside. A bit later I mentioned that the road was a bit scary, and Teresa starts explaining that certain of the moto-taxis vehicles are better than others.

"Wait, there are specific motorcycles that are taxis?" I ask.

"Yeah, of course, they have taxi license plates," Teresa explains,"how did you get here?"

Oops. It turns out that I just flagged down some random guy riding around town and asked for a ride. Good thing I was super-vague about where I was living when he asked three times.

By the time I leave the sun has set and I decide to walk home, rather than attempt to distinguish which motorcycles are taxis as they go whizzing by in the dark. After about ten minutes of walking I've descended from the ridge and am back on the main road. Some kid that looks about 15 years old pulls up and says he'll take me to town.

I do a quick mental debate: stay on darkened road in unknown part of town or ride with some kid who is going to tell all his buddies about his gringa girlfriend.

I climb on the back and soon we are buzzing through the cool night air. We have the same conversation, except this time I don't understand the question: "Tiene un chico?" Eventually I realize he is asking if I have a boyfriend.

So I tell him that I live near the plaza and direct him to my friend's bar. He won't take any money for the ride, so I go into the bar to chat with the owners until he leaves.

Today, in the light, I have examined the motorcycles. I don't know what this taxi license plate business is about, they all look the same to me. I think I'll stick to walking.

Out, out damn spot!

Back to Ixiamas, the last capitalistic outpost 120 kilometers down a long dirt road going nowhere. We are here to conduct another taller (workshop) to inform people about the land-use planning documents blah blah blah. My role is to film the event, and, with the magic of movie-making, turn it into a thrilling, informative film documentation.

As Fabiana is in a meeting with the mayor, I’m given the car and the driver for the afternoon. I remember passing a logging and cutting station a ways down the road to El Tigre so I request to be taken there.

Clemente pulls the truck to a stop outside the gate to the giant sawmill whose front yard is littered with piles of tree trunks some 3-4 feet in diameter. There is a driveway entering into the fenced-off premise with a giant sign reading “Entrance Prohibited.” Parked outside, I climb onto the roof of the truck and set up the camera tripod. I film some shots of the piles of logs, some giant piles being burned, men sending logs shooting through some giant buzzing machine.

Then I take the camera and tripod, climb down from the roof, and tell Clemente to wait for me, I’ll be right back. Clemente tries to tell me that the sign says entrance prohibited, but I tell him not to worry.

At the gate a man wearing a Yankees baseball cap stands up from his rocking chair when I approach. I attempt to smile charmingly and innocently, but I’m really not good at it. Fortunately this turns out to be unnecessary. I bust out my classic intro speech:

“Hi, I’m a graduate student and I’m working on a documentary. I was wondering if I could speak to someone who works here to ask some questions about logging.”

NEVER mention the words “ENVIRONMENT” OR “CONSERVATION” when trying to interview loggers. Atleast not in the first ten minutes.

He lets me into the complex and points to the “office,” a tiny shack behind machinery. Inside, two men are seated behind desks, the only other item in the room being a poster of a bikini-clad blonde purring at the camera. There must be a shortage of pin-ups in the country because the mayor of El Tigre has the same calendar in his office.

So I give my little speech again, hamming it up a bit by adding that I’m really interested in learning how a sawmill works. He agrees to an interview in fifteen minutes and lets me loose on the premise to film.

I wander over to the giant buzzing machinery and film the destruction of 200+ year-old trees. Then it appears for the first time: the “clean heads” message, flashing insistently in red on the camera screen. Damn you camera. Why do you fail me?!

Later I return to the office to interview the manager. He talks the party line. Everyone blames the illegal wood-cutters for killing the forest and not cutting sustainably. But strangely, no one will admit to buying these illegal logs.

I exit the asadero to the chorus of workmen’s whistles (I’m sure I look very sexy in a giant red raincoat). Once in the truck I mess with the camera but it is fucked. The image is totally streaked and un-usable. Clemente, who was napping behind the wheel, wakes up and asks enthusiastically in his puppy-dog chirping mannerism: “Salio?”

I explain resignedly how the camera isn’t working. Damn dust. Damn humidity. Now I am stuck in Ixiamas for three days with a taller to film and no working camera. After I explain three times that we can’t go to the next community because the camera is working Clemente changes his tack of questioning.

After a pensive moment Clemente shrieks: “Aire!” and gestures at the camera. He decides that we should clean out the dust by using air. I reflect on this and agree that it is worth a shot. He wants to go to a mechanic’s shop and use a tire pump, but I suggest a peluqueria to find a hairdryer.

Talking with Clemente at times is like trying to reason with a deaf-child. He zooms off down the road and back into town. Then he pulls up to a guy on the street fixing his motorbike and asks him for air. I try to explain that we can’t use this air, it is too harsh, but he is on a mission. Anyway, there is no electricity in town during the day (to conserve the town’s one generator) so nothing would work anyway.

I receive a lot of strange looks when I ask around for a hair-dryer, and feel obligated to explain that it isn’t for my materialistic desires to beautify myself (I am proudly sporting jungle-fro) but for my camera. Finally I find a small house that cuts hair. The man inside indeed has a hairdryer, but tells me that the electricity won’t be on until 6pm.

The story only gets longer from here. It evolves to involve: a bicycle-tire pump, a bread protest which shuts down the mayor’s office, a small man who claims to work with cameras, drinkable rubbing alcohol and a pig.

But the end result is that the camera still has dust in it.

And this was a week ago. Now I am back in the office in Rurrenabaque. I went to the local TV stations (they show the WORST telenovelas I have ever seen) begging for a head cleaning-tape but not only do they not have any, there is nowhere in town that does. Pancho (boss-man in La Paz) said he would buy me a tape when the civil strike ended and stores re-opened.

Tape was purchased and sent to the airline Amazonas to be shipped. However, due to intensive rain storms which show no signs of letting up, no flights are arriving in Rurrenabaque for the foreseeable future. The runways are grass. When grass gets soggy planes cannot land.

Thus I wait.

Fighting or foreplay?

So this past weekend was a holiday in the La Paz province (just across the river from us). Though in reality this past "weekend" turned into town partying beginning last Friday and stretching until Weds of this week.

Point being, on Sunday we decided to cross the river and check out the local doings. We traveled with our neighbors, the owners of the Pachamama bar, with the intention of seeing the rodeo bull-riding event. Upon arriving at the arena we learned that the bull-riding was cancelled because they couldn't find any bulls. Which is ridiculous as they are roaming around everywhere. Welcome to Bolivia.

Anyhow, we were informed there was a cockfight going on in some guy's backyard. And since we had come seeking blood, we figured this could be a decent substitute. We found the house and about half the town gathered around a circular patch of dirt, ringed off with sticks and a tarp. People were seated stadium-style on planks propped on stumps of varying heights. Nailed to a tree was a sign reading "Se sirve pollo" [we serve chicken], which we could only assume meant the losers served up on a plate.

Despite getting some wierd looks for being the only gringos present, we bought some cheap beer from a lady's cooler and joined the crowd.

About an hour later they brought out two roosters from individual chicken-wire cages. They wear knife-like spurs taped to their heels to better stab their competitors. The one with green tape was shaking nervously and his feathers looked drenched in sweat. The betting began. Money was thrown around and collected.

Finally they put the two competitors in the ring. They strutted around a bit and started pecking at each other with their beaks. Both of them already looked pretty haggled, their heads plucked clean of feathers. The fighting continued, but really, to an outsider, it was something of a toss-up whether it was fighting or foreplay. They spent half the time locked in a full body frontal chicken embrace.

This went on for some time without either chicken seeming to waiver too much. At one point people began betting on the green chicken, who had pinned the one with white tape for a few moments.

Eventually we decided to leave. It seemed a very slow way to get dinner. [Did I mention that I've become vegetarian?]

Just as we were leaving there were racous cheers from the crowd. The green one had won. BUT, we were shocked to see both roosters emerge from the ring in their owners' arms.

It turns out that all the rooster has to do to win is knock the other rooster out flat OR make the other rooster scream. So, apparently that squawk that we heard meant victory for old green-heels.

Scenes from Rurrenabaque and beyond

Dusk in our neighborhood in Rurre.











Our truck ride from Tahua to Ixiamas.













El Rio Beni in the morning, and the barge we crossed on.








Boats on the river.