Don't even think you can go to the library in La Paz without your passport...

Because they won't let you in. Man, that was frustrating, because I walked all the way there just for the library. Although it's not as frustrating as the experience my friend Dave had: he took a trufi (share taxi) to his house, but just moved to La Paz, so he accidently overshot his stop, and when he got out he was lost. So he went into a tienda (store) and asked where he was, to which the woman working there said "I don't know." He asked "you don't know where your store is?" to which she replied "no, I don't." So he asked the guy she was talking to, who also said he didn't know. So Dave went outside to just catch a taxi. Outside, two taxis with two waiting drivers were in the street, but for some reason neither were available for hire. The kind of bizarre thing that just happens here.

The project update is that Nelson emailed me yesterday to say that the following people have agreed to interview with me:

Senador Oscar Ortiz Podemos
Senador Luis Vasquez Podemos
Presidente del Senado Luis Villavicencio Unidad Nacional
Senador Antonio Peredo MAS
Senador Santos Ramirez MAS
Diputado Gustavo Torrico MAS Urbano
Diputado José Pimentel MAS Minero
Dioutado René Choque MAS Campesino
Dirigente Dionicio Nunez Intelectual, Cocalero

Here's a quick key: MAS, Podemos, Unidad Nacional=political parties; senador=senator; diputado=deputy; the words after MAS for the deputies are the committees they're on (urban, minerals, farmers/peasants); dirigente=director; and the other words are names. And I think Dionicio Nunez is a labor leader. OK, so probably the only part that was very confusing was the party names (pretty much all of these words are cognates). Oh well.

So they've agreed to interview, we just have to set up times. If that will even happen (I have my doubts). I'm pretty much relying on Nelson at this point, which I guess is fine becaue my methods were getting me absolutely nowhere (unless you count getting stood up twice by Leonilda Zurita Vargas). I was hoping to go to Cochabamba next week, so I'm really crossing my fingers that something will fall in place this week, but probably I'll be here until next weekend when I head to Santa Cruz to get the business side of the story (although more good news there: Sonia's uncle is the Bolivian head of Petrobras, the Brazilian state energy company, and was the one who signed the new contracts in La Paz. So good bet I get to talk to him).