A new semester, a new home

The small village of Carmen Pampa has increased its population exponentially now that university students have all settled into their dorms to begin their second semester of the academic year. Close to 600 students are back in town, where many will live in dormitories that most likely dont compare to your typical concept of dorms in the states. Here, rows of bunkbeds line both sides of a cement rooms about the size of a long classroom. Veterinary and Nursing students are located on the Manning, or lower campus. For me, the mostly unfamiliar but smiling faces in and out of the facilities have all made me quickly feel at home on the lower at the UAC. In Paul´s case, he is greeted and waved at as if he were running for mayor of the town. Having been here in 2000 for almost a year, he has been welcomed back with warmth and paparrazi-like interest that can only come from truly having lived in comminity with the students. He will surely not care for the mention of the love he has here, but without it we would surely be living and filming from the periphery of this tighly-knit community as opposed to recieving invitations to student´s homes, daily futsal or basketball games, late night (10pm) conversations and anything else the students do when not in class or studying.

We are currently living in a cozy volunteer house with a tainted past. Ironically, in this large 7 bedroom house used live the wealthy padrón (owner) of the hacienda (similar to a plantation) along with his criollo (Spanish-blooded Bolivian) family and his slaves. Outside of his large ranch labored Aymaran or Afro-Bolivian campesinos as indentured servants who until only 52 years ago were freed and given their own plots of land. "Freed" may not be the opportune word, since these campesinos remained entrenched in miserable poverty with little to no opportunity of improving their quality of life besides immigrating to the city or depending on the cultivation of coca to put food on the table. Many of the descendants of these indentured slaves are sleeping right now in the communal dorms nearby while I sit in a relic of a colonial inequality and oligarchic dominance so marked and status quo in the history of Latin America (and in the US for that matter). The impromptu history lessons is telling of why we are slightly uncomfortable with the idea that we call this house "home" and not the dorms where our friends live now. For obvious reasons, the house doesn´t exactly fit where we want to be in order to learn about the intimate reality of the students here, to see the "True Life: I am a poor indigenous Bolivian college student"(it pains me to use an MTV reference, I have lost all of my values and sold my soul). Although we have great company, a great collection of books and plenty of space to set up shop for the camera equipment, the comfort and coziness will have to be partially shelved for some weeks (still gonna use it for Internet, film headquarters and maybe dinner). It´s our hope in the very near future to move in with the guys of "Vete" and "Enfe" and build strong friendships in a hypercommunal setting while soaking all we can about these students just as Paul did on the upper campus five years ago.

Festivities

This semester, already over three weeks old, has been full of festivities so emblematic of the indigenous tradition of celebration. Graced almost wherever we travel with always colorful folkloric dances or desfiles (parades) and their accompanying brass + percussion bands, August in Bolivia is a perennial celebration. Take for example, August 6, the day of Bolivia´s national independence from the Spanish crown and the even more celebrated day in the rural areas of the Día del Campesino, marking the aforementioned day of the liberation of the peasant farmers from the bondage of indentured servitude. Unlike the degrading and scornful attitude of the lighter skinned folk toward their darker skinned indigenous, mestizo (mixed Spanish and indigenous blood) or Afro-Bolivian countrymen (yet another remnant of colonialism), the campesino is honored in places like the Yungas for his extrordinary work ethic, his indigenous roots and pride in enduring and surviving such a grizzled lifestyle. More than just a celebration, these days are of deep cultural significance to both the native Bolivian and the outsider that learns of the important traditions that are still alive in this mostly indigenous country.

Students of the U have already jokingly warned us of the amount of holidays and festivities this semester, and already we see one of the joy of life that imbues the rich Bolivian culture. Upcoming celebrations are inter-carreras in late September, anniversaries of the foundations of both villages and carreras (majors) of the UAC and God willing a favorable presidential election.