This is a Kidz' World

If you go to the Isla Del Sol, not only will you encounter beautiful stars, dazzling sun and a dozen donkeys, but you’ll also see the cutest puppies and babies EVER. Before you scroll onto the next post, I promise there’s no soppy ranting here, my weekend trip to Copacabana and the island was just the jolt I needed to write about the abundant amount of child labour in Bolivia.

Morales’ government has just passed a new law legalizing the employment of children. On the one hand, this doesn’t seem to be working towards a future where kids are in full-time education and people employing them are penalized by the state, but on the other hand now those children who have no option but to work can be protected by legal rights and take pride in their work, instead of being ashamed or vilified.

My belated blog entry about such an important topic highlights how second-nature it is to see a six-year-old selling sweets and cigarettes, or an eight-year-old shining shoes.

I watched a film about two young boys working in the mines in Potosi. This type of work is really dangerous in case of collapsing mines or gunpowder miss-explosions, not to mention the lack of oxygen, and the dust which infiltrates and irritates lungs. These kids had to work there because their father had died, and their mamá’s income was not enough to sustain them. In a Spanish language class, we watched a video produced by Save the Children in which many children said they opted to work with their parents to minimize the risk of being mistreated elsewhere, and to boost profit for the family company. Why do so many children work? Because their parents are employed in precarious work, and they have little other choice to help or to go hungry.

Lots of the children work in the morning and go to school in the afternoon. One little girl I met whilst walking around the Isla del Sol was towing along her llama, Ivan, and started telling me that she’s on commission for the local hotels to take newly arrived tourists straight to their door, and after all the boats have docked, she goes to school. Her brothers came rushing up to us a little later, and demanded Bs. 5 to keep walking. You have to pay Bs. 15 at the start of the hike, but anything after that and the young entrepreneurs are having you on. These kids work and study, but when do they have time to play?

Two elements could be addressed to reduce the number of kids working: firstly, children need resources to be able to go to school. Schools have strict regulations about clothes and haircuts. If the state provided uniforms, paper and pens, children wouldn’t need to save up to go to school. Listening Morales? Secondly, the nature of the work can be really damaging for the children. Working in the mine is of terrible detriment to health even if you’re a healthy adult, children’s lungs suffer, and they have vitamin deficiencies and can be poisoned from the chemicals in the metal. Elsewhere, children are paid to carry heavy sacks for shoppers in the market, which is really bad for their backs and can stunt growth. Perhaps an amendment to the law could stop children injuring themselves and impacting on their future. Judging by the number of children parading around Plaza Avaroa playing instruments and singing on Independence Day, it’s a future which remains bright and hopeful.

Bolivia, glorious Bolivia!

Viva America Del Sur! The Llama Diaries are resurrected! This time, however, I’m staying put in Bolivia. I’m doing a four week course at the La Paz-based Bolivian Express magazine. It’s an English language publication promoting cultural exchange between Bolivia and the rest of the world. Most Bolivians are materially poor and cannot afford to travel very far abroad (on my flight from Miami to La Paz there were only a handful of Bolivianos) so bringing us lot over means Bolivians can encounter foreigners and foreigners can learn about, and from, the organized chaos of La Paz.

*************************** The magazine’s issues are distinguished thematically, and I’d like to take a leaf from their magazine and do the same for my blog. I start, as life must, with food! When I arrived at the Bolivian Express house (in great time from the airport, after all, why would my taxi driver go to the effort of circumnavigating the whole roundabout when he can just cut across and take the last exit?) the first thing I recognised from my short stay two years before was the smell. Street food is abundant in La Paz, and its aroma is an integral feature of the city. Cholitas bake empanadas to sell on street corners, kids exchange small nuggets of frankly delicious chocolate for Bs. 1 (10p) on the city busses, and heladeros sell ice cream in las plazas. Aside from these stand-out examples, it is the reign of fast-food joints endlessly frying meat that really makes the stray dogs’ ears prick, and my nose tell me I’m back for more South American vida linda. ************************************* - I'm sorry for dropping all the Spanish phrases like a pretentious student, but Bolivia seems better described in Spanish than in English -

********************************************* Street food is found at its best in La Paz’s markets, and it’s a necessary feature if you’re going to get round the whole thing. We went to El Alto market last weekend which is perhaps the largest of its kind.It sells everything from bed sheets to silk ties, and cutlery dividers to glittery dog collars (watch out Echo!). El Alto is considered a different city to La Paz because it was constructed by a working class community whose representative architect designed the houses in a neo-indigenous urban style to play host to both family life, and factory life so people can work primary materials from their homes. To the untrained eye, La Paz and El Alto have merged into one, and a newly built funicular now takes shoppers directly from the centre of La Paz to the vertiginous peaks to which the vendedors cling. We were going to take the funicular back home, but given the very cheap fare, the novelty, and the incredible views, the end of the queue was nowhere to be seen as locals are keen to enjoy their city’s new attraction. So instead, we bought some homemade crisps (not in short supply thanks to the country’s prolific potato cultivation) and nursed our sunburn on the bus. Seriously, the altitude is so immense I felt like I’d grabbed the sun with both hands and given it an Eskimo kiss.

******************************* Over 4,000 different types of potato are grown in the Andes alone. Thanks to my stay at the Hare Krishna Finca in Coroico, I can say with confidence that I’ve encountered a fair few of the notorious spuds. First, let me explain the whole Hare Krishna thing. The Finca is part of an Eco Yoga Park network spanning South America. Hare Krishna is a popular faith not only amongst people living on the continent, but also travellers because they offer food, board and spiritual activities for a reasonable price (£3.50 a day in Coroico). Your average gringo is hungry for these three things. The Finca itself consisted of a temple, a kitchen, three bedrooms and some eco compost toilets. Life revolved around the inextricable link between the kitchen and the temple. Every item eaten must first be prepared with love, for Krishna. That the food is vegetarian (except for eggs and garlic) requires a lot of preparation like chopping, washing, peeling and grinding. To complete my required voluntary service, I peeled potatoes every day. Hence my close acquaintance with them! Following the preparation, the food is be blessed and offered to Krishna. I was lucky enough to attend a fire ceremony on my second day. This involved building a fire in Coroico's cloud forest which is unsurprisingly quite hard, and then throwing a lot of rice about. Finally, a prayer is said before the food is consumed, and Krishna pop is listened to during the meal. You can check out George Harrison’s interpretation of this genre on YouTube.

*************************************** I have never witnessed such devotion before. The Brazilian monk, Rada, and the Colombian madre (unfortunately I couldn’t pronounce or hence learn her name), and their little boy, spent every second of their day chanting, reading sacred texts, talking about Krishna, or cooking in the name of Krishna. Food, singing, discussion, and reading were all conduits to enunciate his influence in their lives. It was certainly food for thought: both inspiring in terms of their discipline of mind, and, ironically, unbelievable: How can anyone believe in something that much to renounce all other forms of life? Thankfully, I was joined by two other travelling comrades, Leyla from Chile and Wim from the Netherlands, whose discussions over Uno definitely helped me digest the whole experience. It’s amazing how travelling by yourself is never really that lonely – there’s always someone going your way and doing what you’re doing.

************************************* I draw to a close this blog post with two questions for my readers revolving around my chosen binding agent for today: food. First of all, whilst Leyla and I were walking in Coroico’s spectacular cloud forest, a kid ran up and offered to sell as a Toucan. Was it to eat? And second, I want to know why we don’t eat spiders. A spider the size of my hand was found hanging ominously from the wall of us voluntarios’ bedroom one evening... I would have felt much better to know it was in a cooking pot than lurking outside my door, or in my shoe, all night. And I’m a vegetarian.

La Paz

La Paz is the highest populated city in the world! It’s really polluted, built on a mountain and has a local witches market where you can buy Alpaca skeletons and dried frogs. I would love to bring one home (they have put sequins where the eyes are, and coated them in glitter spray!) but I don’t think I could get it through US customs…

Our favorite herbal concoction is the Coca Mate tea which tastes as though it has some Fennel, Green tea and Mint in. The coca leaves reduce altitude sickness, weariness, cold and pain. The Inca love goddess is depicted holding them aloof, and they used to be used in trading (weird having a currency you can actually eat). All the locals chew them (especially bus drivers), and we’ve been getting better and better at spotting those telling hamster cheeks! The British Queen was even given them when she visited South America.

Mate is the Argentinean drink which adds the Fennel flavor to the tea. The locals drink it from clay pots, using straws that have filters at the bottom of them (definitely bringing one for Sarah for drinking loose leaf Green tea! Such a clever idea! ). They carry them around EVERYWHERE, along with thermal flasks of hot water to keep it topped up. Mate had to be banned from public busses, because people would not stop drinking the brew for more than a minute to get their change out!


Yesterday was our first day in La Paz, but Sophia and I needed a day of recovery so didn’t explore much further than the local Moroccan restaurant for our first hummus in a whole month!

We were very sad to leave Sucre, it was a pretty, chilled town and we made lots of friends who accompanied us to the local Karaoke bar, and who we could feed the local PiscoSour to for the first time (reminiscent, I imagine, of watching babies drink something fizzy!).


We will be in La Paz for the next two days...lots of fun things planned!

Unboliviable Places

Current destination: Uyuni, Bolivia. Current activity: coming up with ingenious punns and jokes on our long bus journeys across the Siloli desert.

After crossing the Bolivian boarder, we went on a 3 day tour (just getting back this afternoon) around the highest desert in the world (5000m above sea level), seeing flamingos, red, green, black, yellow and white lagoons and amazing mountains. Yesterday, we were reclining in a 35degree hot spring, looking over the flamingos mooching around in the basin and the surrounding snow peaked mountains. If you'd have told someone where you were they wouldn't have Boliviad'ya.


One of the most striking things upon leaving Chile is the way that the locals dress, and the difference in prices. Bolivia is a lot less developed than Chile - one night in a hostal is roughly three pounds, and whilst this doesn't always include a hot shower, Chile was more around ten pounds. Secondly, the locals all wear the traditional uniform of Latin America. The women have metre long plaits which are half brown and half grey, revealing their age in the same way as the rings on a tree stump. They wear bowler hats, wide puffy skirts, shirts and crochet jumpers. They carry around kids on their back in big blankets, and wear stockings and black leather shoes. This is all in a rainbow spectram of colours and materials. The llamas (seen LOADS now!) even have colourful socks attached to their ears so each owner knows which llamas belgon to who. The colourful, Pachamama woolen blanket that mum knitted for me has been greatly admired!

This is in stark contrast to the women of Buenos Aires. They wore jeans, a nice top, fancy bag and shoes with a minimum of a two inch heel. Sophia and I regretted not bringing a luxury item of wedges to try to fit in more with the buzzing, well presented community.

Apologies that I don't have any photos to upload but this internet cafe doesn't let you use USB :(. Shame, given that the photos of the lagoons I've just taken are the best so far - the red lagoon was nominated as one of the 7 wonders of the world! Not sure why it didn't win, and neither was our cool tour guide, Al.


Tomorrow we are taking the bus to Potosi, a mining town, and then on to Sucre to stay for a few days and finally wash our clothes (can't wait!).

Pictures to follow xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Update on clothes and costumes: I lost some of my clothes on an overnight bus, and have had to stock up on a llama and alpaca mix sweater (so. soft) and some green hareems. The travellers try to look indigenous and the locals look how we noramlly do!