Sucre Hotels
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Dancemoves, Broken Sandels and Ferris Wheels
Entry 19 of 24 | show all | print this entry |
Well it has certainly been a while since the last entry I posted on the Internet, I say Internet because I have made an entry recently but due to the reliability of Internet and computers out here a humongous blog entry was completely lost and I have been to frustrated since to bring myself to writing it!
I am still in Sucre and this morning notched up my 19th hour of Spanish tutorage, it has been very strange to settled down in a city for this long but it has been interesting. Every other city I have stayed in I have only been able to observe how each city works, it has only been here in Sucre that I have been able to appreciate what makes this city in particular work and (as is often also the case) what makes it not work!
Sucre is an interesting city, interesting because Bolivia the country itself is a little confused. Sucre is technically the capital (constitutional and judicial capital) city but every book will tell you that La Paz (my next destination) is and the people of Sucre don´t like that. They especially don´t like it when the President is reforming the constitution and is trying to end Sucre´s multi-century reign as the capital. As a consequence demonstrations are rife although nothing (at least during my stay here) will replicate the scenes that took place just before Christmas in the city which I have neither the time or tact to explain.
Anyway this is all stuff I have learnt from all these hours of Spanish lessons which I finally got round to taking. It is always amusing trying to explain English concepts to foreigners, even funnier when you have to do them in their foreign language. For example Bolivia isn´t akin to the trade union movement so my Dad´s job title is -when translated across and back into English- is ´defender of the workers´. In one conversation I also learnt how to say that "Stephen Hawking cannot have children because he is disabled and his wife beats him", don´t ask but I promise you it was wholly appropriate. So what have I been up to since.
Since Uruyuni I regrettably said farewell to my Cambridge travel buddies, it has been weird reverting back to normal, appropriate and sensical conversation that wasn´t after having one more great night out which amusing led to the introduction of another great character who I can´t wait to see the back of nonetheless. Enter Pedro, I feel he deserves a paragraph to do him justicte.
Pedro is not Pedro´s real name, in fact it is Peter. However Peter-from California- has spent four months in Sucre, apparently four months in Sucre is enough time to decide that you are in fact Bolivian and as a consequence worth of a Bolivian name such as Pedro. Pedro is so adamant of his Bolivian-ness that he drinks the rancid Bolivian tap water. Pedro, surprisingly has proved to be a very appropriate name for the fella, this will only become clear when you see him in a dancing establishment. We were in the bar/club/restaurant Locots one night and the dancefloor was bare and the booze was flowing, that was until the holy dancefloor of Locots was graced by the amazing feet of Pedro. Pedro using the 4 months of Spanish he had learnt had manage to lure an unsuspecting Boliviarna (Bolivian woman) onto the dance floor before he began to engage in a performance of dance that can only be described as Napoleon Dynamite (get the Pedro link now?) doing an African mating ritual. He skipped, leaped, jockeyed and star-jumped his way around the poor girl and wowed every drinker in the bar with such a mesmerising array of tacky dance moves and this was before Jamiroquai came on. Unsuprisingly, the African mating ritual was an unsuccessful one.
When I have found spare time when I´m not learning Spanish, eating, drinking or laughing at those (such as Pedro) less fortunate I have been helping out at a couple of institutions through an Irish guy I met in Buenos Aires.
For the past 2 Saturdays I have visited an all-boys orphanage in the hills and taken them to see their sisters or to the park. It has been good fun just mucking around with the younger ones who mostly crave the sort of physical contact that being parent-less they are deprived but make no mistake they can be michievious buggers! Last week one of them was pouring my mineral water discreetly down the path towards my shorts, it was far too late before I realised. The weekend culminates in a Sunday night fixture between us volunteers (FC gringo and yes we are getting shirts) and the older orphans (those ranging from 14-18) which was a great laugh until I managed to break my sandel and then play for an hour on a gravel, stone-laden pitch in bare feet. Nonetheless we have so far amassed an unbeaten record against the lads which I suspect will to come to an end this coming weekend when they must surely suss out our route one tactics.
The tragic thing about Sucre is that these lads are the lucky ones. Poverty is unavoidable here and you find yourself constantly having to refuse beggars (unless you have left overs from dinner and the God-awfully repetitive ´contintental breakfasts´endured over here) and young kids selling chewing gum. Children here are economic commodities to their parents here and often find themselves being the breadwinners for their families either by using them to sell goods or by relying on the horrible sight of their dirtied, poorly clothed children sleeping on the hard stone pavings of Sucre City Central to command cash. The most tragic example I have heard of, is there are two young boys whose parents have died and they live in a car (donating to them by a traveller) on their Aunt´s front garden, from the hour they finish school to the hour they go to bed they trawl the central plaza boot cleaning and selling chewing gum in order to muster together enough cash to eat.
The other highlight of the weekend is the Sunday visit to El Parke. For the duration of our stays we use hostel conversations and bar/restaurant chats to recruit other travellers to come with us to the hospital for disabled children and take them to the Park De Bolivar, a park of fairground proportions. The idea is that the more people we muster the more of the kids we can take out but it is a harrowing sight at first, especially when (like me before last week) you have never even pushed a wheelchair before. Upon entering the hospital it becomes clear that this is the highlight of their week with chants of El Parke a constant theme until we finally get them there. From then on it´s a great excuse to pretend your 6 again and go on the ferris wheel etc although I have had to deal with a few tantrums but nothing that a steady stream of young cousins can´t prepare you for! The only thing that concerns me is that within two months we will all be gone and at the moment we are all racking our brains as to a way in which we can maintain this tradition. Suggestions on a postcard please!
Latest Comments (1)
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Blog-tastic (reply)
Apr 2, 2008 11:43 EST by ratnob
Tom
Just catching up with the blog and it's brilliant - so informative and evocative. Makes me think I must have taught you English once! Keep doing the great work.
Hope Ben B told you he was our number one speaker in Durham - he's told everyone else.
Stay in touch.
Geoff Barton
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