Thoughts on Cochabamba and Sta. Cruz

All right, so I get why Krister likes Cochabamba so much.

Really, when it comes down to it, it's kind of a cool city--big city, but with a pretty small-town feel. Nice place. Lots of bootleg DVDs for sale. Pretty good fast food. Reasonable architecture.

I don't think those are the things on his list, but I'm okay with Cochabamba. For those of you who don't know, it's on the edge of the Bolivian highlands, and supposedly has the best climate in the world. Climate's not so good for skiing, but actually, it's pretty comfortable. And it's a prosperous city, but not so far away from the Bolivian working-class reality that you can forget about it.

And Santa Cruz is also a beautiful city which, despite being the biggest city in the country, doesn't feel much bigger than some of the small towns I've been in, except it's got better food and trendier people. It's supposed to be hot as Hades in the summertime, but it's pretty comfortable at the moment.

But that's my primary objection to Sta. Cruz. This town is too cool for me. Figuratively. Also, a little too fascist.

The prosperity you see around Sta. Cruz somehow seems more obscene when you know that so many people around the country are hungry and suffering. Not that it's a crime to be prosperous (or a sin, for that matter), but the kind of extravagance that's on display here tees me off in Boulder. Here, it's even worse.

And the political tension about Evo Morales is palpable--even more so than in La Paz. I can just imagine what it would have been like a couple of months ago!

But maybe I'll feel better about the place once I'm over this cold I've got.

More on Guatemala

Although it makes me nervous to rely on a single popular press to pronounce that something striking is happening, this article in the LA Times suggests that the Mexican cartels are moving south into Guatemala, or maybe Guatemalans are moving into the gap left by the Mexican narco-traffickers.

Although I didn't predict it, this is predictable, at least under the economic theory of illicit drug trafficking.

When supply goes down and demand doesn't, prices go up. This creates new incentives for drug production and shipment (you can make more money that way, because prices are higher) and the end shot is the kind of violent conflict that makes Al Capone look like a syphilis-infected teddy bear.

Given that we have no evidence that we can reduce consumption through interdiction, legalization, and punitive action (and that's it's so damn costly, both in human lives and in economic terms), is it time to think about legalizing some (or all) illicit drugs?

More on alcoholism in rural Peru

Denise asks a good question--whether I witnessed more alcoholism in males in rural populations in Peru, as she suspects.

The answer is yes--or at least, people seem to be convinced that alcoholism is a more prevalent in the male part of the population. Although there does seem to be some alcoholism amongst females in some places. Not surprisingly, perhaps.

Two interesting things about this:

First, this seems to be a problem throughout Latin America, if not around the world. Alcoholism and alcohol abuse was a serious problem amongst the male sex in Guatemala as well. This is apparently one of the appeals of evangelical Christianity for women--they feel that evangelical men tend to make more reliable partners. Evangelicals here in South America expressed their frustration with the Catholic religion's tendency to demand (or encourage, perhaps) high expenditures at frequent festivals and celebrations, which made it difficult for the rural poor to break the cycles of poverty they've been bound to.

I think there was just an article in CPS that discussed the relationship between protestantism and democracy. Interesting. You can find it here.

I've got a copy of Weber in my backpack that I probably won't get to before the ISNIE conference in two weeks, but I will get to it eventually--it's been on top of my list for a long time. Weber's idea of the growth of the protestant work ethic as the key element in development seems to find some echoes nowadays in Latin America--especially up in Guate.

The other interesting thing about the male/female alcoholism gap is a story about former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo. First indigenous president in Latin America (although when you say that, it really seems to drive people batty. Apparently, for a lot of people, "Harvard Trained Economist" and "Native Guy" are not compatible. Whatever.)

Toledo is a moderate right-winger (as you would expect an economist coming from the age of the Washington Consensus to be), who was a big advocate of small government and, among other things, market-based solutions to poverty in Peru. He pushed a micro-credit program for women in Peru. At the time, one of the big concerns was that money lent to women might be taken to finance the purchase of alcohol or gambling and wasted. To combat this problem, women were given a whistle at the same time as their loan. The idea was that if a man came around to take their money, the woman could blow her whistle, and all the other women in the village could come running to chase him off.

According to Toledo, the system worked, though I've never heard a confirmation from a less biased source. Still, it's nice to think that a whistle is all that lies between the success and failure of such a program.

European Parliament stuff

I'm really hoping that Gellman's comments about the Euro Parliament election here are tongue-in-cheek. If not, it's an unfortunate sign of how closed-minded some individuals are in every field of Political Science.

I can't say that I find the kind of work most Americanists do as interesting as, say, Comparative or IR, but I recognize the value of the study of American politics, and (perhaps more importantly), I realize that Americans and other people around the world might have something to gain by learning about European politics (another area that I don't study).

Strange that the brilliant and talented Gellman wouldn't instinctively agree with this.

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.

Sorata politics

As I mentioned in the last post, Sorata is right on the regression line
in most forestry-related outcomes. This is a little disconcerting,
because it's quite clear, at the end of my first day of interviews, that
the municipal government is incompetent, corrupt, or (most likely) both.

That said, there do seem to be some good things happening in the
municipality, although most seems to be happening as a result of a
Norwegian Evangelical missionary organization. I'm no NGO
scholar--there are other people that have more experience to pass
judgment on these types of things, but I generally have been much more
impressed with religious organizations down here than secular ones.
While secular aid workers primarily seem motivated to keep their jobs
(makes sense, really), religious workers are trying to save souls and
convert others to their faith, which means they may have a stronger
incentive to help the people on the ground.

Another bright spot came out in one of my interviews in which a young
guy recommended to me by a local ex-pat as politically involved and
honest warned me that he was a biased source, since he was planning on
running for office in the near future. He has a pretty strong vision of
how he would like to see Sorata, and it sounds to me like he would make
a good mayor (or at least wouldn't make a worse one).

The role of the "political entrepreneur" in promoting accountability and
good governance through democratic means.

My apologies...

...dear reader, for the crazy order of the last couple of posts. I accumulated a number of blog postings when I was in Sorata, and rather than dump them on y'all all at once, I post-dated a couple of them, to put them up one day at a time.

I messed up, though, in that my first entry went up last. So if you were confused, it's my fault.

In other news, the Sorata posts will be going up for another couple of days (check out the pictures, by the way), but I'm in Cochabamba. A nice city, although I don't quite get why Krister likes it so much.

Think I may be here for another day or so, but I can't stay too long--need to head on to Santa Cruz and my next case study site.

For the moment, I think I'm going to head out and get something to eat. Maybe some of Eli's famous New York style pizza?

Thoughts on Sorata

I arrived last night in my first Bolivian case study site, the Yungas
town of Sorata, which is about four hours from La Paz, to the north.
"Yunga" is a Quechua word that means "jungle," although the region is
actually the Eastern slope of the Andes--not quite Jungle yet (although
someone who knows more about the definition of jungle might disagree
with me).

The trip to Sorata (as with all third-world travel) was a little
nerve-wracking, but everything went off without a hitch.

The bus leaves from the Cemetery district in La Paz, site of the (you
guessed it) La Paz General Cemetery. I had walked up to that part of
town the day before, just to make sure I knew where I was going, though
in the end, I took a taxi--just too far to walk in the midst of the
crowds of the La Paz "Black Market" district, which isn't quite as shady
as it sounds, but is nevertheless a pretty good place to go if you're
looking for the experience of getting pickpocketed.

The "bus" turned out to be a van--a combi--and the trip turned out to be
pretty close to the four hours the Lonely Planet says. The price was 15
Bolivianos, which is about two dollars at the current exchange rate.
Sorata is, incidentally, a minor tourist center with reasonable
facilities (which makes me feel guilty), but it's right on the
regression line, which makes it a good place to see.

The truth is, though, that "reasonable facilities" still means I need to
use my screw-in electric socket plug adapter to use my computer in my
room, so maybe I shouldn't feel so bad?

The trip out first goes through urban La Paz and the city of El Alto.
El Alto, which means "The High One" or something like that, bills itself
as "The Aymara Capital of the World," and also a pretty good place to
get ripped off if you don't keep your eyes open. Not that being
predominantly Aymara has anything to do with the shadiness of the
place. It's a very poor industrial city with a very high rate of
unemployment. And frankly, the people who would rip you off could
probably really use the $45 they could get for your camera. Not that
I've ever actually spent any time there (so take everything I say here
with a grain or two of salt).

One thing I can vouch for from personal experience, however, is the
beauty of the Altiplano from both El Alto and beyond. The road out to
Sorata runs Death Valley straight, passing by picturesque (though dusty)
villages and beautiful glaciated peaks that pop up a couple thousand
meters above already ridiculously-high La Paz. After about two and a
half hours, the road, drops precipitously down into the Yungas,
switchbacking down a narrow road that is, at least, mostly paved.
Perhaps the most disconcerting part of the trip is not the steepness of
the descent, but the propensity of other drivers to pass on blind
corners on a road that probably should only have one lane in the first
place, and where a miscalculation of a foot or two could send you a
couple hundred feet (at least) down. Our driver was good, but I
wondered what the passengers in the other vehicles thought.

Sorata itself is perched on a steep hillside, and the route to my hostel
from town takes me down an eroding path at about 50 degrees and across a
footbridge at the bottom of a narrow ravine. The town seems to have as
many stairways (named as streets) as paved roads.

It's very beautiful, although also very muddy, because it rained most of
the day.

The view from the hostel, and the views from town, are really quite
breathtaking, and remind me a lot of Guatemala, with partially wooded
hillsides and tiny villages and tiny agricultural plots stretching down
the valley, to the mining zone further down, on the edge of the jungle.

There is some tourism here, and it's a well-known area for backpacking
and hiking, but the biggest part of the economy (and the biggest source
of municipal revenue) comes from mining, and most of the population is
still engaged in agriculture, somewhere near the subsistence level.

The place where I'm staying has no internet, and in fact, has no phone,
so it will be a couple of days before this gets posted. In the
meantime, I will be doing interviews and writing two papers for the
ISNIE conference in about three weeks.

New pictures up

Put up (finally) some new pictures of Bolivia (especially La Paz) and an album of pictures of Sorata, my first Bolivian case study. Click on the links in the sidebar to view.

Things I don't like about Sorata

1. Getting ripped off to the tune of Bs. 120 (about $20US) my first
night here.
2. How difficult it is to get on the internet here.
3. The absence of Inka Kola.
4. Does anybody sell razors for shaving in this town?