The woman in question bemoans the loss of her microwave, her bread maker, her coffee maker, her electric scales… and even her food processor. Apparently she’s reliving the very early ’70s, since they were certainly available later in the decade. But, then, this was pre-Thatcher Britain, and people still ate twigs.

I’ve lived in Bolivia for two years. I cook two meals a day in a world without the benefit of a microwave or prepared goods. Macaroni and Cheese in boxes is considered a serious splurge in our Bolivian household (it does, after all, cost more than making a beef roast stew).

She babbles on about how dreadfully difficult, how mindnumbingly time-consuming, it all is. To listen to her, cooking from scratch would seem to be a miserable all-day task.

She’s right, in a sense. Everything does take longer. The way she whines, however, sounds as if she spent hours slaving away each day for a week only to collapse at the table in exhaustion. Comparing her tales with reality, I can only conclude that she’s just lousy at it.

Bolivia lacks easy fast food, and what exists is just as expensive as it is in the United States. How can one casually go to the one Burger King in town when it costs just as much as going to El Porton, the nicest steakhouse in the city? Processed greasy fast hamburger or Argentine steak? Dilemma.

We do have a microwave and it has worked for a collective six months of the twenty-six months I’ve been here. The microwave has one teensy problem: plug it into the wall and it burns out.

In fairness, we do also have a food processor and a Kitchenaid stand mixer. Each appliance saves at least fifteen minutes off each major project. This is necessary when one has to cook two separate entrees at each meal to cover the needs of eight people, three of whom have violent allergies to the key elements which make food Taste Good.

We do not, though, have a bread maker or an ice cream maker… and I fail to see the use for electric scales in day to day cooking. Or Thanksgivings, for that matter.

We buy sandwich bread, but we bake regularly regardless. Then we’ve the cookies. Why would we buy cookies from the store when we can bake them for half the price? Our Bolivian grocery bills are already the equal of our American grocery bills, thanks to Bolivia’s political mis-leadership.

And yet… unlike the Daily Fail’s frazzled idiot-cook, I still manage to get around town, take grad courses, and, in the case of this past Tuesday, watch seven episodes of Buffy.

I’d like to see the article’s author dropped into my great-grandmother’s world of 1930s-40s coal mining West Virginia. A special room meant for keeping hand-salted meats stored away for the winter, endless days spent canning vegetables in glass jars…

… but, then the universe would collapse in one great big collective whine.

Here’s the problem.

I will lose the Katherine Card.

The Katherine Card works all manner of magic. Observe:

Convincing Teenage Sister to Accept Medicine

Lorien: “Staton, you have to take this medicine.”
Staton: “Um, no. It does nothing for me.”
Lorien: “It doesn’t matter if you think it does nothing for your symptoms, because it’ll stop you from being contagious.”
Staton: “So?”
Lorien: “Katherine will be here Friday. If we get her sick, her first two Bolivian Weeks will be miserable.”
Staton: “Oh. Okay. Can I have the pills?”

Convincing Eleven Year Old Brother to Bathe

Lorien: “David, take a bath.”
David: “Nope.”
Lorien: “You stink.”
David: “Yup!”
Lorien: “No, seriously, you smell really bad.”
David: “[snicker] Yeah, I know!”
Lorien: “Katherine will be here in three days! You don’t want her to smell you like this.”
David: “Oh. Yeah.”
Lorien: “You’ll need to bathe more than once a month, you know.”
David: “True. Like, every day. Oh man, I need to go do my laundry, too!”
Lorien: “Um, okay, yeah, definitely.”
David: “GOTTA RUN, I SMELL BAD.”

Admittedly, the Katherine Card is less effective on the elder of the younger siblings, Thomas and Nicholas. They’re very much, “eh, whatever, I’m doing my own oh-so-cool-and-suave thing.” I suspect this will change when they stumble out of their rooms, like any other grumpy early morning, and realize, “POPE’S POOP! THERE’S A GIRL IN THE HOUSE. WE HAVE TO BE NICE!”

On second thought, Katherine should still come to Bolivia. That reaction will be worth the loss of the Katherine Card.

Update! Jeff McMorrough made his own version of the Katherine Card:

Right, so, yesterday I went with a Monkey Bread. Sweet, gooey, etc. The monkey bread turned out reasonably in that the flavor was there but, going right back to the temperature issue, the middle was too doughy. Still, the sugary doughy results were sufficient to send the household into a carbohydrate-induced foggy haze.

I’ve had to alter the water measurements significantly… about double that of all of the recipes I’ve found online. I don’t know if this is due to the flour available here, the lack of humidity, the altitude, or a combination thereof. I just mix the lot until it looks how it’s supposed to look.

This may have something to do with my exceedingly irregular results.

Ingredients:
(note: this was to feed 7 people plus possibly a few tea-guests.)

Dough:
7 cups Flour
2 Tbsp Yeast
1 Tbsp Salt
6.5 cups Water

Cinnamon Sugar:
5 cups Sugar
4 Tbsp Cinnamon

Glazey Stuff:
1 cup Butter
Arbitrary amount of Honey

Tools:
Monster-Sized Baking Dish to hold it all (greased)
Small baking dish
1 big mixing bowl
1 medium mixing bowl

I mixed the dry dough ingredients – flour, yeast, and salt – together in the big mixing bowl. and, um, I do mean big. Thanksgiving Turkey Big. Texas Big.

I then mixed in the water 1 cup at a time until the dough was sufficiently fluid. Very sticky and gooey. Mine is much clumpier than the recipes I’ve found for this dough mix tend to indicate online. It’d be smoother if I were using a mixer, but that would involve tracking down a transformer to ensure I don’t burn out my mother’s American current KitchenAid.

The dough was then left to rise for an hour. I covered it with a well-floured cloth (handful of flour on the cloth, rubbed the flour in, lightly shook off the flour) during that time.

After an hour, the dough had risen significantly. Bubbles were evident on top. Incidentally, this dough works as any general extra-yeasty bread dough. I’ve added more flour to make it bake like a normal bread, kept it flat and baked it in olive oil for a crispy rich bread, etc.

Meanwhile, the sugar and cinnamon were mixed in the medium sized bowl. Very cinnamon heavy. The monster-sized (still thinking Texas Big) baking dish was thoroughly greased with shortening and then floured.

I took fist-sized dollops of the dough and rolled/tossed/shook it in the cinnasugar mix until thoroughly coated. Those dollops were laid out comfortably in the baking dish until the dish bottom was covered. Poured butter and drizzled honey on top. I then layered more dollops on top, added butter and honey. I kept layering until I ran out of feasible space in the dish. Extra butter and honey on top with the remaining cinnasugar.

The monkey bread went on the top rack in the oven. Again, I live in crazy-high Cochabamba, Bolivia, South America, so I filled a small baking dish with water and put it on the bottom rack. That helps keep the oven humid. Or it would, were the air not so dry that it sucks every bit of moisture out of everything. Y’know.

Baked it for 30-45 minutes-ish at I-Haven’t-the-Foggiest temperature. It just looked right. With the unevenness of our oven, I should have turned it at least halfway through the process.

and, of course, the finished Monkey Bread of sugary foggy brains.

Prior to the Ambush in the Pando, Evo expelled almost all of the press. That is a significantly contributing factor as to why we have so little visible evidence and sound accounts of what really happened.

Earlier today on a radio station in Cochabamba it was announced that evidence had been found and confirmed that all individuals who fired weapons at the violent clash were Venezuelan troops. This is believable, because it is well known that the Bolivian military is fiercely uncomfortable with attacking other Bolivians. (This matches an article I saw yesterday. I’ll add a link to that here soon. Need to track it down again.)

Legal Consequences of the Pando Conflict:

After the attack in the Pando, the Pando government was disbanded and Martial Law was instigated in that department. Martial Law is limited by the current Constitution of Bolivia to last no more than 90 days. Under Martial Law, no arrests or charges can be made.

Also under the current Bolivian Constitution, no official can be arrested under any circumstances. Let’s backtrack and define this. Until relatively recently, the Constitution defined Prefects of Departments as being members of the President’s cabinet, government officials, whom the President personally selected. Under President Mesa, however, the Constitution was legally amended so that the Prefects are elected by the people of the departments. The definition of a Prefect remained the same: Prefects are government officials and members of the President’s cabinet.

Current context:

The Prefect of Pando has been detained by the national authorities under Evo’s leadership. He has not been arrested or charged. He is informally accused, but legally he is only under armed/guarded confinement. He is not at liberty to leave. When a Bolivian citizen is under confinement, the normal response is a writ of habeas corpus. He has not been arrested or charged, however, so habeas corpus does not apply. But! In situations in which a confinement has been initiated but no arrests/charges have been made, the Bolivian Constitution offers a protection: an automatic visa to leave the country.

The legal Constitution of Bolivia promises the Prefect of Pando an automatic visa to leave Bolivia. That’s Latin American legal systems at work if I’ve ever seen it. His family have today filed the case to have that visa processed.

Evo’s team is arguing that because the Prefect was in rebellion, he cannot be considered an “official of the government”. However, this doesn’t hold up legally:

• The Constitution has no provisions for situations of rebellion. That status does not legally exist.
• The Prefect was elected by the people of the Pando. Therefore, he is an official of the government of Bolivia as designated by the people of his department.
• The Prefect is legally a member of the President’s cabinet, but is not subject to the President’s selection or preference (reserved by the department, as shown in point 2). The Prefect is as much of an official of the Bolivian government as every other member of the President’s cabinet.

Unfortunately for Evo, by placing the Prefect of Pando under confinement he has given him a free exit from the country and from possible prosecution. This is what happens when people do not respect their own laws enough to know their own laws. If you make a law and/or if you claim the authority of a law, then you need to know that law and follow that law. Evo’s team does not, and that’s a significant weakness for his leadership and his factions.

Evo can continue this fight against the Prefect. Attempting to keep the Prefect in the country by denying his constitutional claim to an exit visa forces a case into constitutional courts. In Bolivia, cases can take months and sometimes years. Consitutional cases will get heard much faster than civil cases, but they can take just as long… and that’s a long time. IF this case goes before the constitutional courts, then due to its high profile the new Constitution proposed by Evo, which has not yet been approved and put into place by the people of Bolivia, cannot be approved. Evo can fight to keep the Prefect, but his Constitution will be delayed inevitably, and with it his political ideals.

Ouch.

International Support and the Limits thereof:

We keep hearing about the overwhelming solidarity of the continent, represented now by UNASUR and the OAS, for Evo Morales. That may well be an exagerration, and the inclusion of international authorities may prove to be Evo’s political downfall.

Evo set the schedule for negotiating with the opposition leaders in Bolivia. He picked the dates. At the last minute, Evo attempted to change the negotiations for one day earlier than planned. This would have caused the opposition leaders to be unprepared. UNASUR and OAS said, emphatically, “No.” The schedule had been set, it was not appropriate to change it.

August Referendum – Bogus?

In addition, the international agencies are going through the election results from August with a fine-tooth comb. They are being extremely strict. Under these strict counting procedures, Evo’s “mandate” is adding up to be approximately 32% – that is 35% lower than the 67% claimed by the Bolivian government. A more moderate counting which allows for a reasonable amount of casual error suggests that Evo would have earned the necessary 52% to stay in office, but only just, and certainly not a 2/3 mandate.

A more obvious limitation to the security of the election, especially valuable for those of us who are distrustful of even third-party agencies counting votes (it’s scary, when you think about how easily shaded our counting systems are, regardless of nation!), is that in a normal election every polling location is monitored by a representative of every single party in the election. In those situations, if any of those representatives point out a possible problem, then the whole polling table in question is shut down! In August, however, the referendum did not involve specific parties and a selection between candidates – it was a simple Yes / No vote. Representatives from multiple parties were not present at the polling places, thus eliminating one of the more significant protections of the electoral system in Bolivia.

The international agencies are going through the records and finding thousands upon thousands of voters listed as “Mama AAA”, “Papa BBB”, and so on – clearly fraudulent names. Reports are also being submitted of citizens who appeared at their polling location to vote but were informed that someone had already voted that day in their name! Awkward. Now, be rational, guys. In the United States of America wwe have elections upon which the entire world looks because our elections affect the entire world… and yet, we still have dead guys voting in Chicago. Election fraud in Bolivia? Believable.

The Compromise:

UNASUR and the OAS, however, are not demanding that the August election be thrown out. They’re going much deeper than that. Now that they’ve been invited in, they’re staying. Evo’s “mandate” will stand, but on their conditions. UNASUR and the OAS are demanding that all voters re-register. From now all, every voter must present their carnet (ID) and give their thumbprint in order to vote. That data will correspond with the data in the brand new voter registration database.

The rest of the continent really doesn’t want to deal with a country firing its legally and constitutionally elected President – and Evo’s presidential election was legal and valid. But forcing a just and accountable system of voter registration? That could solve a ton of future headaches.

The Bolivian Economy:

Bolivia’s national bank has been deliberately suppressing the U.S. Dollar. We’ve all seen this. When the dollar was going down, so did the exchange rate – obviously! When the dollar went back up, however, the exchange rate did not rise in turn… it even went down further. The Bolivian economy is still too tied to the dollar to play these games, and games they are. The economy is in a mess!

Worse still is that Evo was depending on high oil prices, circa $140/barrel, to pay for several of his major projects. He banked on being able to sell Bolivian oil for those prices. Unfortunately for him, oil has dropped back down to circa $100/barrel.

People aren’t exactly thrilled about all of this.

Evo’s Path to Success:

Please note: the following is not my idea! This, too, is coming from the brilliant legal advisor. He’s thought of two very simple and, shockingly, obvious answers to almost all of Evo’s problems.

First, regardless of which option he selects, he needs to give the opposition what they want. All of it. Halt the new Constitution. Give them “autonomy”. Stop interfering with revenues. All of it.

Then, he has two strategic options:

• One month prior to the next election, Evo could resign as president of Bolivia. His vice president would become president. Evo would be legally free to run for re-election.
• Alternatively, he could have made all of his concessions to the opposition conditional on an amendment to the current Constitution which would allow him to run for re-election. That’s it.

Why would these work? Because people are dead tired of the conflict. The opposition will not ever be thrilled with Evo, MAS, or any other socialist regime. They will be content, however, if they are given what they want – and that’s a return to normal without the demands of the new Constitution, the stolen revenues, etc. The moderates within Bolivia (who likely outnumber either faction) and the international community will praise Evo for his compassion, his wisdom, and his commitment to peace. His popularity will skyrocket. Due to the new voter registration systems, there would be no reasonable question of the validity of his election and democratic mandate. He would be elected by a huge majority, and he would have the political backing in his second term to force through the new Constitution (or at the very least a slightly milder version) without significant problem.

The strategy is brilliant. Appease the opposition. Get legally re-elected under the current legal system. Earn the love and respect of millions. THEN drive in the nails of reforms. The problem with all of this, though, is that it interferes with pride. Evo is far too proud to make the temporary, and frankly superficial, concessions. He’ll never do it.

So what will happen instead? Evo cannot take Sant Cruz and cause it to fall as it did Pando. The new Constitution will probably fail. Evo will stay in office, but he won’t be re-elected. He’ll be done, nothing foundational will be solved, and both sides – the indigenous people who experience discrimination and cultural abuse, and the property-owners who have to battle to keep their rights – will continue to suffer. A very boring, but very predictable, stalemate.

I ask the following question in a genuine manner: what in this video indicates that a) the prefect began the attack and that b) the campesino group was peaceful? The video is extremely incomplete. The footage has been cut and/or blurred in vital moments. Overlaying the video are biased questions and assumptions of the prefect’s guilt. My Spanish is limited (I’m still trying and learning!) – is there important speech in the actual footage which provides clues? Also, I don’t know enough about the terrain, people, etc. – is there something visible which provides solid evidence?

Thanks to mgrace who posted the link to the video on his blog.

Meanwhile, although the Media Luna has complied and ceased all blockades, the MASistas have constructed blockades of their own. Classy.

Pando, the northernmost department of Bolivia of the Media Luna, has fallen miltarily and politically. A major attack (by Bolivian standards) occurred last week which resulted in a few dozen dead, more injured, and over one hundred missing. The news outlets here offer two polar accounts of what happened:

Pando Ambush Version #1:

The prefect/governor of Pando hired men to ambush a group of peacefully marching/traveling campesinos and MASistas. The group was attacked and slaughtered in a massacre.

Pando Ambush Version #2:

Members of the prefect’s staff (plural?) were traveling when a group of armed MASistas and disguised Venezuelans ambushed and killed them. They then entered a non-MAS area and killed one of the leaders of the political opposition. The town gathered its resources and went on the offensive against the invaders. The MASistas, et al., fled into the terrain and escaped.

Elements for Analysis:

• Naval military credentials were found on one of the bodies of the “campesinos”.
• Venezuelans were in the group campesinos and MASistas.
• Why would the prefect of Pando order an attack on a peaceful group of protesters? What could he possibly gain by that when he had everything to lose?
• Earlier in the year a cable television public building was stormed and attacked by a group under the banner of the Autonomy forces. The truth was soon revealed and hushed up – the “opposition” attackers were actually members of Evo’s private guard, inciting violence and attempting to make the opposition look unruly and actively violent.

Edited for clarity and source provision. Two of the sources which I can track down several days later are: La Razon and El Deber. The problem with trusting any of the papers, mind you, is that they’re biased. The chief source for version #1, for example, is Red Erbol. Everything else I have is either from TV I can’t properly cite from membory or hearsay from sources I mostly trust but on whom I couldn’t state their words as fact. What does seem clear is that both sides were involved, but we don’t really know who “started” it. Joy.

At the very least, individuals and organizations who value truth – regardless of who turns out to be on top – should be presenting and thoroughly investigating both sides of this incident.

The Results of the Ambush Incident:

The prefect of Pando has been arrested and charged with genocide. The announcement has been made that he “will be given a trial in thirty years.” The international scene is only hearing Version #1. One of the theoretical advantages of the blogosphere and independent media is that a broader set of possibly truths can be presented. The English-speaking bloggers in Bolivia whose words are monitored by international news agencies, plus the A.P./Reuters set of reporters, apparently have no interest in objective truth-seeking.

This week I’ve seen words like “racist”, “fascist”, “democracy”, and “genocide” tossed around to no end. Over the next couple of days I will attempt to analyze those words as they apply to this situation.

People need a reality check.

Steampunk Desktop

Originally uploaded by vonslatt

Jake Von Slatt, of the Steampunk Workshop (a new find for me), has posted a photo of his gorgeous desktop mods to his Flickr. The bulk of it is far too… gilded… for my tastes, but check out this keyboard. It’s stunning!

A bit of googling was sufficient to show his project reports for his own creation, and even a fellow who is custom building (likely very expensive!) keyboards of a similar theme.

I wants it.

This map shows the nine departments of Bolivia. Each deparment has a prefect. This is superficially comparable to the American States and their governors.

Four of the departments, those marked with a blue half moon, are referred to jointly as the Media Luna, or Half Moon. The Media Luna are currently in strong opposition to the current president, Evo Morales, and his political party, MAS – Movimiento al Socialismo, or Movement towards Socialism. Evo and the administrative capital of Bolivia are located in La Paz.

Chuquisaca is the seat of Sucre, the constitutional capital of Bolivia. Chuquisaca is a bit of a toss-up in its political leanings; not traditionally part of the Media Luna, but unwilling to lose its constitutional and historical position as having the primary capital in its capital city of Sucre, which is what MAS would prefer.

Cochabamba is traditionally a neutral location. Little violence hits Cochabamba, and usually the elections are extremely close. Neither MAS nor the opposition have a strong foothold here. Cochabambinos tend to be rather like Texans; Cochabambinos care mostly about the condition of Cochabamba.

We’re located in the city of Cochabamba, which is the capital of the department of Cochabamba. We’re approximately 8500ft above sea level. Although we are very high up, the city is located in a valley bowl surrounded by mountains. Three solid “highway” passes exist which lead outside of the valley towards the Chapare (countryside, essentially) and the other departments.

The Media Luna departments border Argentina and Brazil. Unfortunately, in blowing the natural gas pipelines to those countries which imported Bolivian natural gas, the Media Luna has made political enemies of them. No foreign support there.

Evo / MAS have the strong support of Chavez in Venezuela. Chavez has committed his support politically and militarily to Evo. Venezuelan military are currently in parts of Bolivia.

The Media Luna have more or less closed the domestic borders to the other departments. Exports from those departments have been ceased. Gasoline and beef are those which chiefly affect Cochabamba.

Active violence is occurring in the Media Luna departments. The violence is incited by both MAS and Media Luna.

Now then. Let’s evaluate our position. We’re in the center of Cochabamba. The Bolivian military is currently in the Pando. In order to defeat the Media Luna, the military needs to stay a fairly intact force. They will probably opt to enter the Beni, followed by Santa Cruz, and then down through Tarija if they deem it necessary. They could cut through Cochabamba from La Paz in order to get to Santa Cruz, but, a) nothing really seems to be gained by this, b) it would split the strength of the attack, and c) it would alienate the people of Cochabamba who have heretofor been pretty neutral.

That’s why we’re staying for now. The physical danger is out on the street, and that’s reasonably handled by additional safety measures like only leaving our gates in groups and remaining armed with police nightsticks when we close and open the gate for entering students. For us the largest interference is on the political level more than anything else.