Still in smelly La Paz
Although if people would stop peeing in the streets and maybe change their fuel filters once in a while, it would go a long ways towards ameliorating the smell.
The last time I went to Canal 7 for video footage, they said it would only take a day, but it was going to cost $200 dollars. I was only asking for maybe 15 minutes worth of stuff, so I decided to wait - surely the next day I would think of more footage I would want. So over the next week or so I tripled the amount of footage I was asking for, including everything I could think of that I might want (but for some reason they don't have footage of Evo's campaign. It's a state-run television channel, so maybe they don't want to have evidence of what Evo promised during his election bid? Hmmm...). Unfortunately, when I went back with my new letter last Wednesday, the people who do the video archiving were in Potosi for an indeterminate amount of time (quite typical for no one in the office to know when they might get back). So I dropped my letter of request on Wednesday; on Monday my request had still not been approved by the station director (I guess they just sat on it for the rest of the week), although I was told that would "probably" happen in the afternoon; I went in today to discuss costs and what exactly I wanted; and it is supposed to be ready tomorrow at the end of the day. I was hoping to leave for Santa Cruz last Thursday or Friday, but, se la vie, especialmente en Bolivia! I'm also waiting for information I requested last week from the Ministry of Development and Economy (statistics on gas income and contract changes and stuff), which I *hopefully* can get tomorrow. I went in yesterday, when the secretary could only tell me "the minister isn't here and I don't know when he's coming back." Then she started to tell me what we had done so far, as in "you dropped your request on Thursday, and he wasn't here, and then you came back on Friday..." I have no idea why she felt like telling me that. As I left the office contemplating Bolivia's bureaucratic inefficiency, it occurred to me that in some ways it's probably really beneficial for places like this to have multinationals locate here, because local managers that work at those places can learn how to run a business more efficiently (nothing has given me the impression that private companies are run any better here - in fact, my friend Dave told me about how his "overnight" Fed-Ex took 10 days to get here - a few hours from Miami to La Paz, and then several days in the hands of the local subcontractor to get to where it was supposed to go).
Actually, I don't imagine that Bolivia is an especially frustrating place to do business or conduct research; if I had been doing this kind of thing in India I imagine it would have been just as bad (or worse). But that's little comfort. I feel like it takes forever to get anything done here! I've been in Bolivia for almost 6 months now, and there's a lot more continent to see... really, it makes American bureaucracy seem fast and friendly.
On the plus side, the guys running the archives were helpful and seemed to want to make sure they understood what I was doing and what I wanted from them. So that was nice. Mostly I'm just asking for background-type footage for voiceovers: exterior shots of the congress building, YPFB, and the big private gas companies; Evo's speeches; protests; etc.
speaking of protests, there was one blocking off the street near my apartment building today. I think it had something to do with neighborhood politics (it wasn't really big or anything); in Bolivia there is a Block President, a Neighborhood President, and officers at the same levels. The protesters had signs saying something like "We know that the public opinion is that the election of Mr. Alojandro Orellano was totally illegal." As far as I can tell, Bolivians can do stuff like this whenever they feel like it, without "parade permits" or crap like that (wow, almost like they actually have 1st Amendment rights). Like I mentioned, there was a big parade/protest in the streets while I was trying to interview Andres Soliz Rada. In fact, parades and protests are so common here that I hardly take notice of them anymore.
I tried to talk to campesinos in the street today, but it didn't go well. No one would talk to me... one guy said "Evo might see it!" (I guess he's not a fan). I'm going tomorrow with my friend Sonia (who's Bolivian), so hopefully that will elicit a better response. And hopefully, I'll be heading to Santa Cruz for real tomorrow night.
The last time I went to Canal 7 for video footage, they said it would only take a day, but it was going to cost $200 dollars. I was only asking for maybe 15 minutes worth of stuff, so I decided to wait - surely the next day I would think of more footage I would want. So over the next week or so I tripled the amount of footage I was asking for, including everything I could think of that I might want (but for some reason they don't have footage of Evo's campaign. It's a state-run television channel, so maybe they don't want to have evidence of what Evo promised during his election bid? Hmmm...). Unfortunately, when I went back with my new letter last Wednesday, the people who do the video archiving were in Potosi for an indeterminate amount of time (quite typical for no one in the office to know when they might get back). So I dropped my letter of request on Wednesday; on Monday my request had still not been approved by the station director (I guess they just sat on it for the rest of the week), although I was told that would "probably" happen in the afternoon; I went in today to discuss costs and what exactly I wanted; and it is supposed to be ready tomorrow at the end of the day. I was hoping to leave for Santa Cruz last Thursday or Friday, but, se la vie, especialmente en Bolivia! I'm also waiting for information I requested last week from the Ministry of Development and Economy (statistics on gas income and contract changes and stuff), which I *hopefully* can get tomorrow. I went in yesterday, when the secretary could only tell me "the minister isn't here and I don't know when he's coming back." Then she started to tell me what we had done so far, as in "you dropped your request on Thursday, and he wasn't here, and then you came back on Friday..." I have no idea why she felt like telling me that. As I left the office contemplating Bolivia's bureaucratic inefficiency, it occurred to me that in some ways it's probably really beneficial for places like this to have multinationals locate here, because local managers that work at those places can learn how to run a business more efficiently (nothing has given me the impression that private companies are run any better here - in fact, my friend Dave told me about how his "overnight" Fed-Ex took 10 days to get here - a few hours from Miami to La Paz, and then several days in the hands of the local subcontractor to get to where it was supposed to go).
Actually, I don't imagine that Bolivia is an especially frustrating place to do business or conduct research; if I had been doing this kind of thing in India I imagine it would have been just as bad (or worse). But that's little comfort. I feel like it takes forever to get anything done here! I've been in Bolivia for almost 6 months now, and there's a lot more continent to see... really, it makes American bureaucracy seem fast and friendly.
On the plus side, the guys running the archives were helpful and seemed to want to make sure they understood what I was doing and what I wanted from them. So that was nice. Mostly I'm just asking for background-type footage for voiceovers: exterior shots of the congress building, YPFB, and the big private gas companies; Evo's speeches; protests; etc.
speaking of protests, there was one blocking off the street near my apartment building today. I think it had something to do with neighborhood politics (it wasn't really big or anything); in Bolivia there is a Block President, a Neighborhood President, and officers at the same levels. The protesters had signs saying something like "We know that the public opinion is that the election of Mr. Alojandro Orellano was totally illegal." As far as I can tell, Bolivians can do stuff like this whenever they feel like it, without "parade permits" or crap like that (wow, almost like they actually have 1st Amendment rights). Like I mentioned, there was a big parade/protest in the streets while I was trying to interview Andres Soliz Rada. In fact, parades and protests are so common here that I hardly take notice of them anymore.
I tried to talk to campesinos in the street today, but it didn't go well. No one would talk to me... one guy said "Evo might see it!" (I guess he's not a fan). I'm going tomorrow with my friend Sonia (who's Bolivian), so hopefully that will elicit a better response. And hopefully, I'll be heading to Santa Cruz for real tomorrow night.
posted by Devin Malone at 3:07 PM
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