Land of the grey

Sorry I haven't written in so long, but I've really felt I had nothing to report... Like my title suggests, everything's been kinda grey - but that's not all bad. Case in point, look at that picture from last night!

That's kinda how my life feels right now. A bit on the boring side, I do school work all day, grocery shop, pay the bills. But then again, I do all of that in Bolivia and there's always something interesting popping up (whenever I leave my pretty dungeon) in all the grey, like that pretty rainbow. Look! I'm a poet!

The last few weeks have been really quiet on all fronts. Politically, there seems to be nothing happening. La Paz is still quiet, there are still negotiations that one day are good, the other day bad. It's politics. In Spanish. I can't understand most of it, so I just stay on the look out for huge protests and so far that's been quiet. So, it's been grey. Can't rejoice in finally having peace, but can't really be worried about war. I have been chatting some with local people here who give me their opinion. One lady doing my nails was going on and on about how awesome Vladimir Putin is and how Bolivia and Evo should court him because he's a man of the people and he "looks so good"... I decided not to mention the whole case of Georgia, among others. Anyways, she was mentionning him because of the whole "kicking the US ambassador out" situation. She was quite happy with that. She wants a revolution, but I can't say she really knows what that would entail. On the other hand, the lady at the photocopy place was telling me all about how people in Santa Cruz are so much nicer and warmer than here... She was telling me about how lots of people, particularly business owners, think the referendum was rigged in La Paz because there's no way Evo would have gotten that high of a percentage, especially not in Zona Sur, the rich area of La Paz. I chatted for about 20 minutes with her, and I don't want to repeat everything she said, but it was the first time I met someone opposed to Evo here and it was definitely enlightening. Other than the "people being nicer in Santa Cruz" - she really meant like they say hi to you, not in any overtly racist way - she had good reasons to be against Evo that didn't sound like "we just want to keep our riches".

My daily life is really the most grey of it all, accompanied by the beginning of the rainy season. Looking at bones all day is just dull. I know it's my job, but can all of you say you love every morning waking up and working? So, this is how I feel too. I wish I could go out everyday and walk around and chat with people and buy stuff. But I can't. I have bones to look at. And it's not easy.

I do have social occasions once in a while. Last weekend I went to my friend Dennise's wedding. I was really excited to go to my first Bolivian wedding, but guess what? It's just like a North American wedding. The bride was beautiful and wore white, they got married in church (a catholic wedding which means I could "almost" remember what to say when but it was in spanish so that was an added difficulty), and then we went to the reception in a beautiful social club type of place. I didn't bring my bulky camera so I have no photos for now but my friends should send me theirs soon. One difference is that the food happen after the dancing. Or anyways, the reception was: waiting for bride and groom, montage of their life together (with fake pictures of Leo with the Dalai Lama and Dennise with George Clooney - I'm ashamed to say I was all impressed Leo had met the Dalai Lama...), their arrival followed immediately with their first dance (on Lady in Red), a huge number of toasts, then dancing. THEN, at 10:30pm they started serving the food. Then more dancing. Then cake. And... dancing. People here dance a lot. Everyone. It's quite pleasant actually. So that was one of the rainbow.

Another one will have to go in a next post, but basically, I found out Doña Delia (whose house we rent in Tiwanaku) has a knitting machine. Then found a place where they sell alpaca wool for cheap (comparatively to Canadian prices) in tons of beautiful colors. I got her to make me a shawl, hat, and cut gloves. I'll take pictures soon to show you.

Well, that saved me from looking at bones for about an hour. I should go look at them now...