Ive been in Sucre for almost two weeks now. Stopping for a while allows you to get to know a country better. You can also get your washing done.
My days are spent taking Spanish classes and volunteering in an orhpanage. I love it. I would add, though, that if you are thinking of starting a family, try not to have eleven girls. I can get the bus home from the orphanage.
My days are spent taking Spanish classes and volunteering in an orhpanage. I love it. I would add, though, that if you are thinking of starting a family, try not to have eleven girls. I can get the bus home from the orphanage.
Ive joined a gym. It´s cheap (8p a visit or 47p for half a month), but more expensive than a free pass at David Lloyd, and the music´s not as good. The woman hadn´t heard of trial visits, which got to me. (I didn´t push it because she looked like Angelica Houston in the Adams Family, only with worse teeth and weightlifting gloves)
The set-up is seriously old-school, with machines like older versions of what you get in Argos. The amount of oil needed to maintain them means I often leave covered in grease.
The walls are plastered with huge posters of equally highly lubricated weightlifting champs from the 70s and 80s. It´s funny - you want to look at their bodies like you want to look at a car crash. (My favourite - Dave Dearth, an American with the same hairdresser as Cheryl Baker. Google him)
I´ve never worked out at altitude before, and, as the guidebooks warn, it takes a bit of getting used to. Mortitia was quite alarmed when after my first set of 8 on the shoulder press I collapsed doubled-over in a heap gasping for air that patently wasn´t there. We´ve agreed to let me carry on though.
Taking classes and working helps you learn about both the language and the culture. Apparently, for example, uni students in Bolivia are seriously lazy, and spend their parents money on booze and women when they should be working to support their family later in life. A drain on economies the world over, it seems.
I went to football. Watching a match is completely different from in Argentina. The fans actually concentrate on the game, much to the detriment of the atmosphere.
On the walls around the terraces, painted in huge letters were the words "Abortion shames two lives - yours and your baby´s" and "Sex can wait, your future can´t" (Conservative middle-class 1, Indigenous, no access to sex-education 0). In Britain it would say "come on you Addics" or "Axa Insurance",
For this top of the table clash between Universitario de Sucre and the curiously named The Strongest (there´s also team called Blooming, though my personal favourite is the recently relegated Always Ready), there was a total of 0 songs sung in 90 minutes. The silence was only broken by the man behind me asking me to sit down. Even worse, he called me ´mister´. I thought of responding with "I´ll bottle you round the face you cunt" but couldn´t remember the word for face, so left it.
From my investigations, it seems that people are very aware of Americans meddling in their society and politics. The ´Yankees´ had Che Guevara shot here in the 60s and continue to invest great effort pretending to tackle the scourge of Class-A drugs whilst actually targeting the real threat - left-wing governments.
Perhaps not even Bush would actually invade Bolivia, but what he can do is send nice things so that poor people think capitalism is good. The chaotic peasant´s market in Sucre is full of stalls boasting huge piles of second hand American clothes - kind of like Uncle Sam´s without the coat-hangers.
I spent an afternoon digging through the Converse, New Balance and Reeboks looking for sneakers to send home. There were no shoes in my size, but I did pick up a Washington Wizards shirt previously owned by one Troy Benson. Only in America would someone young enough to have their mum sow name patches in their clothes be large enough to wear a T-shirt that fits me.
Bolivia is sexist. When I cook, women find it odd. When I wash-up, they find it really odd.
There´s a shop outside my house that sells pig´s cheese. That´s odd. (Can any mammal produce cheese? Is eating human cheese legal, or is it cannibalism?)
For this top of the table clash between Universitario de Sucre and the curiously named The Strongest (there´s also team called Blooming, though my personal favourite is the recently relegated Always Ready), there was a total of 0 songs sung in 90 minutes. The silence was only broken by the man behind me asking me to sit down. Even worse, he called me ´mister´. I thought of responding with "I´ll bottle you round the face you cunt" but couldn´t remember the word for face, so left it.
From my investigations, it seems that people are very aware of Americans meddling in their society and politics. The ´Yankees´ had Che Guevara shot here in the 60s and continue to invest great effort pretending to tackle the scourge of Class-A drugs whilst actually targeting the real threat - left-wing governments.
Perhaps not even Bush would actually invade Bolivia, but what he can do is send nice things so that poor people think capitalism is good. The chaotic peasant´s market in Sucre is full of stalls boasting huge piles of second hand American clothes - kind of like Uncle Sam´s without the coat-hangers.
I spent an afternoon digging through the Converse, New Balance and Reeboks looking for sneakers to send home. There were no shoes in my size, but I did pick up a Washington Wizards shirt previously owned by one Troy Benson. Only in America would someone young enough to have their mum sow name patches in their clothes be large enough to wear a T-shirt that fits me.
Bolivia is sexist. When I cook, women find it odd. When I wash-up, they find it really odd.
There´s a shop outside my house that sells pig´s cheese. That´s odd. (Can any mammal produce cheese? Is eating human cheese legal, or is it cannibalism?)
If you own a bus here, you pimp it up. Today my bus had the words ´Christiano Ronaldo´ emblazoned on a sliver sunstrip over the windscreen. Yesterday I hopped aboard the hazardously low-riding, completely blacked-out ´Fast Yet Furious´ and took my place amongst the coca-chewing grannies for a trip to the hairdressers.
Curtains is by far the most popular haircut amongst the male 14-25 segment.
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