Thinking about moving on

After a very successful first day of interviews here in Sorata (got in
four interviews--a personal record, I think), I felt like I had pretty
much gotten the story--corrupt government gets very little done, and
particularly, very little done in terms of forestry policy. After not
getting any further interviews in yesterday, I've been thinking about
moving on--not sure how much more I'm going to learn about what makes
forestry policy work in this town (where not much at all seems to be
working when it comes to government). The story seems simple here,
where, according to one source, municipal politicians have stolen more
than half the municipal budget for each of the last three years, the
municipality pays for two offices in La Paz, and where the mayor is
rarely in town.

Even so, it's been a very pleasant visit--this is a pretty little town
with friendly residents, and I hope I can come back here someday to do
some hiking--there are some really good hiking routes out of here, and
it might even be justified as a research activity to hike out to some of
the outlying areas in order to learn more about community governance way
out there.

I've also had a couple of interesting interviews, including meeting with
an agronomist working for an NGO today, and meeting with a politically
involved radio station manager in the offices of "Radio Maya," one of
two local radio stations (the other one is run by the Catholic church
and rarely appears to be in operation).

And I got in two more interviews today, and might have a lead or two
further.

Even so, as Emily reminds me, I have too little time to be fiddling
around doing things like hiking. So, with about six interviews here in
town, I'm going to head back to La Paz (probably tomorrow), get some
laundry done, and get moving on to my next case study, further down in
the lowlands. I'll probably head to Cochabamba, where I should meet
with Krister's colleagues at Bolivian research institute CERES.

Then on.