Excerpts from the Peanut Gallery

Buenos Aires, Argentina

posted by Kiki @ 7:46 PM 1 Comments

My Gaucho Initiation

Good grief mother, if you only knew what your daughter was doing some times.

Tonight I shared a yerba mate (pronounced "mah-teh") made by our wonderful hostel guy, Javier,** out of a communal cup (Oh yes, I prayed over it before drinking- I would appreciate your continual prayer for my protection against swine flu and mono though).

Before I can talk about tonight, allow me to take us back to grade 11, a good nine years. I first heard of and saw yerba mate then at the precious age of 16 when it was a big fad with the Ekkerts, the Fasts and the Seels (also known as the 'Menno Mafia' at Richmond Christian Secondary - three families of minimum 6-8 children that all, funnily enough, happened to be cousins. One wing of the clan, (the Ekkert wing, I believe) had grown up in Paraguay so they brought the mate ritual over to Canada and the tradition was rapidly incorporated by the rest as if they too had been gauchos in the pampas all their young lives.

The mennos all did mate, along with a strange dice game that never made any sense to any of us other kids (and by the others I mean myself, my brother, my fellow tsawwassenite Rachel, a few of Rob's carpool buddies and the 40 Asian kids who made up the rest of the student population - a motley crew indeed). They did mate and to me it always looked like some sort of drug. It was what I assumed all the cool kids at the public schools did after finishing their cigarettes and red bull. Cool kids did red bull - I still don't like red bull, but that is beside the point.

Anyways, so that is what I thought of yerba mate. That and I knew that you were supposed to drink it with all the flakes still floating in it - from a cow's horn. It did not look tantalizing. But somehow, nine or ten years down the road, whilst held under Argentina's dazzling spell, I was gripped by the desire to try it. Apparently it is a social thing, so very few places actually sell it, you are just supposed to buy your cow horn cuppy-thingy from the hippies selling in the middle of calle Florida and have a cuppa "whenever you feel like it" (so sayeth Javier). I think everyone just packs it around instead of asking for a venti at Starbucks. I suppose it saves on paper cups.

Jessi and I discussed it and decided to ask Javier, who has quickly become a favourite with us. A funny thing about him - our first couple meetings one or both of us (Jessi and I) were either breaking hostel rules or hostel hardware. We brought home a bottle of that famous Argentinian wine one night and realized as we walked in the door there were fairly conspicuous posters everywhere clearly informing us that alcoholic beverages from outside the hostel were not permitted. But what could we do? We couldn't return the wine, so we decided we should at least plead stupid. I walked up to the desk and there sat our friend. I kind of danced around, wine bottle clearly in hand and tried to explain the situation. His response: "Entonces....? (So then...?) one eyebrow raised. He let me bite my lip nervously for a minute and shift my weight a couple of times until he felt the moment was just right and then softened and informed me it was alright - this time - eyebrow still raised, with a twinkle.

The next time I had an interview with Javier it was to inform him that the toilet was broken and that the face plate that held the flush button on the wall above the toilet had fallen down while Jessi and I were in bed and broken into two pieces. Javier responded with a politely alarmed "OH my Got!" to my spanglish explanation. Needless to say, we needed an experience to repair the friendship. So we asked Javi for the mate hookup. He obliged and gave me a thorough lesson in the guarani tradition.

I was a bit - a LOT - grossed out when he pulled a mate cup off the counter in the hostel kitchen, shook out the mate tea leaves from the last person and rinsed with water and then started preparing my cup. I asked if it needed soap and he looked horrified. If you use soap it gets into the wood that lines the cup. I still thought the silver straw could be disinfected, but he seemed convinced that it was just right, and I didn't want to be rude - story of my life these last 4 months working in the campo - so I took it. It has not been my downfall yet. I informed him that in Canada we are very concerned about mono. He looked askance until I remembered that 'mono' in spanish means monkey, not a terrible flu that lasts for 6 months. I tried to explain the difference. He assured me he didn't have mono (still not sure he was only referring to the monkey type) - and he continued that in fact, one had to get some germs inside in order to be resistant to them.

So i took the cup and drank and hoped for good germs. And, you know, it was quite nice, it is more bitter than regular tea - which I am accustomed to having with milk and sugar. But it seems like it would be a nice half way mark between tea and coffee. Not so strong, but not so mild as tea.

Now, a few interesting tidbits - there is quite the process involved in preparing it, including slanting the mate and pouring the water into the resulting gap, multiple times, allowing it to simmer in each time. Also, if someone offers you mate, you must drink all of it in the cup and not hand it back until you have, or else it is a signal that the mate is bad and could result in hurt feelings on the part of the maker. You know you can pass the cup back when you hear the sound, Javier informed me. The "sound" is that gurgling that a straw in an empty cup makes. I thought it would be something more adventurous but I guess some things are the same in every language, including "all done, that was yummy. Thanks."



** Here is where things become truly strange: When I asked Javier his name I could not help laugh as I walked away. On the last trip I had with Jessi, in Ometepe, Nicaragua, we befriended the guy at the front desk there. Over our four days, we often sat, enjoying the shade by the desk, asking for advice or just chatting to wile away the time. He became an instant friend on the day of our arrival we broke his polite reception exterior with a shocked look of delight that resulted from hearing us foreign girls using Nica slang. He quickly regained his composure when the boss came around the corner, but from then on we had a special bond with him. He looked out for us and we were delighted with him. He was- also named Javier. Coincidence? We think not.

posted by Kiki @ 6:08 PM 1 Comments

El Tegelberg Glare-o

I present to you a cautionary tale for all who may fall under the Tegelberg Glare and a difference of readings in body language. We all get confused by it sometimes; unfortunately, we seem to have a deeper misunderstanding between Canada and Bolivia. No one ever says this in Canada:

Morning, the office. R is sitting at one of the desks. Enter K.
K: Buenos días
R: Hola Kiki… (looks up) oh Kiki! Why are you so sad?

And there you have it. Unless you work with your therapist or your granny (if your grandmother is the cuddly, emotional type that talks in an insidiously high voice and over analyzes your every movement for emotion and passion. I mean, mine wasn’t, but yours might be), you are unlikely to hear those words out of your coworker’s mouth before you even sit down at your desk. Ah yes, in Canada you are blissfully unmoved by another's facial expression. And it is not because you don’t care. Perhaps you don’t care much for that girl who is slightly smarter, definitely thinner and just that little bit nicer than you are, but if she came in bleary eyed with tears from a disastrous breakup or other woebegone tales, you’d offer her a sympathetic look and some scratchy brown paper towel from the office bathroom. Of course, unless anyone, including that girl, came in with anything less than tears you would know that the proper decorum of allowing one to sit down, arrange their papers uselessly and get one – more likely two – cups of coffee, are in order before ever approaching a subject that might relate to one’s emotional state.

But that is only in the case where it is evident she is indeed sad. There are traces of tears, giant bags under her eyes. Her mouth is in a permanent puppy pout. And a great deal of pausing and gripping the desk while her back is turned to everyone else are indicators that something is amiss. Without a multiplicity of these indicators though, you have no case. The fact of the matter is that Canadians know that unless several minutes, if not the entire morning, are taken for keen observation, then such a question is over-zealous and clearly out of place.

But here in Latin America, it is a flippant greeting – thrown out to accuse you covertly of being anything less than passionately and ardently happy with life in that moment. It is said with a thin veil of care and concern, but really it means “How could you not love waking up on this glorious morning that you brings you here to this tiled space of generic office-ware? You – you do not want to dance? I do not understand” and a hurt look of a smacked puppy ensues.

But how, oh how, do you say in Spanish: “I’m not sad, this is just how I look at 9am when entering my place of work and beginning my concentration for the day. Leave me alone you bloody fool.” It is my dilemma probably twice, maybe thrice a week. How do you explain across that great cultural divide the Tegelberg Glare? In English it is simple so allow me and maybe google translator will do the work for me.

I inherited it from my father, Eric Tegelberg – or as he is known by the “peeps” in the “hood,” ‘Eazy E.” The Tegelberg Glare though is something that most of the Tegelbergs share. We don’t flaunt it, but perhaps there is something of a quiet satisfaction in partaking in it. It is our musing face: our pondering and wandering face.

Unfortunately, it is the glare that, once it settles on you, may well strike the fear of God into you more than anything else you’ve ever experienced from another human body. And now I should clarify something – it is a glare when perceived from an outsider, but a stare when given. Inwardly, the Tegelberg may be thinking about a golf game or what type of coffee they are going to order at Starbucks or maybe pondering which day to make laundry day. Unfortunately, the poor schmuck on whom our gaze has settled perceives that the Tegelberg is thinking “I want to rip your arm off and beat you with the bloody end.” Eric maintains that occasionally that is his thought, but that is such a rare occurrence that I believe he says it only to maintain fear in any potential gentlemen callers. I am fairly certain it hasn’t actually been thought since the boyfriend of 2002 – a good seven years, so you are likely clear.

Simply put, it is our concentration face. I guarantee that 99% of the time we are not concentrating on you – you should be so lucky. And yet… these people just don’t get it. They don’t get that I am not sad, and I am not mad.
I just look like this.

posted by Kiki @ 9:05 PM 2 Comments

Escapades of the Gallery's Members Part 1

posted by Kiki @ 9:00 AM 1 Comments

Escapades in the Gallery Members Part 2

posted by Kiki @ 8:58 AM 2 Comments

A Day in the Life of Someone Who Generally Fakes Knowing What She's Doing

Let’s just re-cap the events of the last 24 hrs shall we?

Tuesday:
3:30: leave house, take taxi to “Ex terminal” – the city broke up with it in a nasty event last February. Most people still go there, but they don’t mention it in front of the city, in case it looks like they are choosing sides.

3:48: arrive at Ex, wander down side walk along the road next to the terminal to where trufis are waiting (a trufi is a taxi with a set route that will pick up and drop off passengers along the way – generally a station wagon or a Japanese minivan). See, now where would be the sense in having the trufis waiting IN the terminal? Like I said, we still gotta keep up appearances.

4:02: leave Ex in the dust and head out to Yapacani (or as I ‘affectionately’ call it, Armpit – erm, that would be the literal translation).

6:30: arrive in Yapacani. Find moto-taxi (yes, that is a motorcycle taxi) to take me to office. With one bulging backpack on my back and a smaller-yet-similarly-crammed one nearly choking me around the front, I saddle up behind a nice man who takes me to the office.

7:08: multiple repetitions of that time I shot down one of the guys I work with when he whistled at me. The line “in your dreams” has since become the stuff of legends. I am not kidding. They are way too easily amused.

8:14: We decide that 7 am is unnecessarily early to begin work, and settle on 8. I also pretend to be working while really skyping mom and friends. Handily, my male coworkers mistake my guy friend I am chatting with for my long-distance lover. He obligingly agrees to take the heat and the boyfriend ruse continues. Local attentions are somewhat on the wane. We are grateful for the repose – although I regularly have to defend my non-boyfriend’s fidelity.

9:22: make tuna sandwich in dorm room. Our office is sort of out in the boonies, and while I know that I don’t have to go to Santa Cruz to get dinner – I still feel like I do, because there is no way into town if someone isn’t willing to drive me – other than my feet, but that isn’t much of an option if you ask me.

10:28: glorious bedtime.

5:00(ish): awake to sounds of rustling leaves, light patter of rain and –what’s that? Oh yes, the high school band practicing – or at least, the drum corps. It’s only slightly creepy to hear drums emerging from the nearby jungle.

7:09: awake for real.

8:14: on the road again – Willy Nelson not included. I think to myself as I walk out of the office, ‘time to go for a motorcycle ride, you LIKE this Kiki” in order to psych myself up for what I am expecting to be a long, bathroomless day in the campo (field) doing interviews in Spanish-which-turns-out-to-be-more-Quechua.

8:35: Am pelted with either a stone or a bug kicked up from the tailwind of a semi-trailer. “You LIKE this, Kiki!” I am also regretting the choice of footwear (flip-flops) as the dust kicked up from passing trucks and cars feels like sandpaper. But the sandals will come in handy later, just you wait. The scandalous truth though is that I DO like motorcycles and the palm trees they pass.

9:02: Begin interviews “Frank,” my compañero from work speaks to many of the interviewees only in Quechua. Sweet. Turns out that some speak in Spanish though, so interview carries on, without too much double translation for my head. I am now becoming quite accustomed to the blank stare and then the drift in gaze when they don’t understand me. That look kills me. I know what I said! I know it’s grammatically correct! I just don’t know why it doesn’t make sense to you! However, when things are translated into Quechua a funny thing happens. A look of understanding and then a nod and then they launch into a nice long story in response. The lights are all on and all of us are home. It is a brilliant moment when it happens. It also makes you marvel at language – how they can be so different, and how impressed I am when someone is fluent in something else, but also – how comfortable it is to hear your own familiar words. We are all fluent in at least one!

9:49- 12:00: More interviews are conducted. A river is portaged with the moto (2 times of course – Frank does the portaging) and I pray against piranhas and leg worms (which I am CONVINCED I will soon get on my next micro ride or by crossing rivers in flip-flops. There was a woman on the bus the other week that had a worm in a tight squiggle in her leg. Not kidding you. I know they are not contagious – certainly not by just looking at them down the aisle five rows back and with multiple bags of oranges and other market products in the way. But part of me still wonders and checks the backs of my calves daily).

12:37: We are back on the road. Dirt road. A road Willy would fear to tread. Actually, that’s a lie - I’ve seen worse. But I hear that Willy is a bit of a diva anyway.

1:21: arrive back in Armp- I mean, Yapacani for lunch. Discussion centres around bottled Starbucks frappuccinos and the Korean Hogwan educational system. Best not to ask.

2:19: return to office, spring my computer from the dorm and head back for the city.

4:41: arrive in Santa Cruz, in time to purchase flag (Independence Day is only one week away) and bottled Starbucks Frappuccino. Make friends with FOB American school teachers in line ahead of me in the supermarket, feel solidarity as one of them is a redhead.

6:36: arrive home. Sigh of relief. Tomorrow we do it all over again, but for tonight I am home.

Epilogue: The devastating events of the next morning are worth noting. I had planned to return for noon the next day to do interviews with a large group. This would have been an interview goldmine. I would have been able to get many more than I can get in a day of trying to go farm to farm (it’s a lot of distance and by mid-morning they are generally out working in their fields that could be far away). So I went back to the Ex and squish into the front seat of a trufi and wait patiently for our driver to sally forth out of the city.

Only to be informed that there was a blockade in Warnes, about half an hour out of the city. Now, blockades are not uncommon. Once already this summer I have had to cancel work because of a blocked highway. I was told that it is a very bad idea to cross alone (which apparently you can try to do on foot sometimes). The issue is this: often “they” are just protesting illegal taxis or some sort of regulation that they don’t like. But if the protest is political, it can be a pretty big deal. So I made the call to ditch the wonderful, beautiful few-and-far-between opportunity to get ahead in my interviews and stayed in the city. On the one hand – I was so frustrated to miss them because I didn't stay the night but on the other, can’t really change that decision now and coming home was a sweet rest. So I was set back, but not completely defeated: I had a blessed encounter with a doctor which leads me to our next post. Stay tuned.

posted by Kiki @ 4:21 PM 2 Comments

Intentions and Attentions

I was once told that I was not allowed to make cultural judgements until "I had been here six months" ('here' being Nicaragua, but I heartily concur that the rule applies pretty much anywhere that you move). The following isn't so much a story about making a cultural 'judgement' so much as being able to maneouvre adeptly within a culture that at times baffles and/or confounds and other times works EXACTLY as you would wish.

posted by Kiki @ 11:44 AM 0 Comments

Here's a saturday story for you entited "We Ate Steak and It Was Fabulous"

A few posts ago I promised stories soon to come. If I recall correctly, the insinuation was that they would be stories about my trip to Argentina. I can tell you without hesitation that was a fabulous adventure full of wonderful stories, such as "The Time Steve eats Three Steaks in the Meal to End All Meals" or a little ditty I like to call "Tango with Dulce de Leche" (That one is more of an ode, put to music it becomes quite romantic). These and other tales that will confirm - heed ye well - that what you've heard about Argentina being the magical land flowing with steak and wine is. all. true.

posted by Kiki @ 10:37 AM 3 Comments

As promised, the Sucre images

posted by Kiki @ 6:09 PM 1 Comments

Because I miss writing papers THIS MUCH.

I miss writing papers apparently, because I was compelled to write this monster this afternoon. It MAY or may not, have something to do with the fact that I was avoiding doing transcripts of last week's interviews, which incidentally is about as exciting as listening to public service announcements on mute. So, for your reading pleasure (or for something only a notch above a muted public service announcement...) I give you my thoughts on Climate Change, Skepticism and Development.

This morning, my old friend Paul Krugman writes in the New York Times about the opposition from Climate Change skeptics in the US Congress. Reminds me of the time that I got the response "What if I don't have kids, what if I don't even like kids??" from a professor when I used the 'protect future generations' line of argument in a paper on Climate Change and Development initiatives. He actually wrote that in the margin. There truly are all sorts of objections out there.

Now, nota bena, I am about as Canadian as they come in my feelings toward Climate Change: yep! We should do something! But – of course – in a calm, peaceful and orderly way. I am skittish of doomsday extremes; I am most comfortable smack in the middle. Let's not get carried away here, oh and while we're at it, allow me to apologize for that over which I have no control (such as, the weather). I am terribly sorry for all the inconvenience caused by melting ice caps both for the economic disadvantages caused by extreme weather patterns in the last few years and also for the personal discomfort you may feel during a particularly hot summer or wicked wind next winter. Mea culpa. Moreover, I know that there are extremes in the responses to tackling climate change, which also don’t sit quite right with me. For example, completely destroying today's opportunities for the poor with burdensome regulation that retards any chance of success in developing countries all in the name of climate change is also not an optimal response. But then, just ignoring it, denying it or dancing around the issue will also be an unlikely method for making it all go away.

This morning, though, I also came across this document on migration caused by climate change from CIESIN. I haven't read more than the synopsis - so a careful disclaimer that I don't actually know the details of it! The introduction is indeed a letter from Debbie Downer (most CC documents are – when I was doing my major lit review on the subject in January I seriously had nightmares from reading the Stern Review and got to the point that I had to change the subject of my readings within an hour before bedtime just so as to be able to sleep. Seriously). However, my intuition is that it is similar to what I am witnessing on a small scale here in Bolivia and what I experienced in Nicaragua. Climate Change predictions always sound so dire: millions displaced by flooding and fires and earthquakes and lack of water. We are not experiencing the disaster that some climate change predictions appear to insinuate. The popular conception of Climate Change warnings would make one think that we are just waiting for a levy to break and 6 billion people will all drown, with a few renegade survivors left to fend off aliens and robots and to perpetuate the human race from a hitherto unknown island off the coast of New Zealand. But that's not how climate change works. And in the very least, I am sure the Kiwis would be very cordial to aliens and not stupid enough to create self-promoting robots that destroy human life. The kiwis always seem very even-keel about these things...

I truly see a need to wrap our minds around this (Climate change, not aliens). Here's the way I see it: One year the rains are a bit more scant that usual. And, if you are a farmer in oh... let's say Bolivia, you think, "well, we're hooped, the crop is gone." (Only it sounds more like "puuuchica! ahi se va la cosecha!" but I digress) But then the next year, or maybe even later in that year (like this one in Bolivia) the rains come when it is normally dry (June, for example) and roads get washed out because they were only dirt and sand to begin with and what is left of the crop that wasn't destroyed by the abnormal monsoon rots on the patio because there is no way to get into the city for two weeks to sell it. That is the climate change I see – some physical effects that are compounded by political and economic factors (i.e. not having quality roads). There is enough environmental and economic discomfort to cause sincere problems of livelihood.

In both Nicaragua and Bolivia I have witnessed what it means to be dependent on rains that are by no means a farmer's friend. When those rains become less and less dependable, as they seem to have been in the last decade, then it is harder and harder for those who have less make a go of it with what they have. Just because Climate Change is not going to melt our skin off in a bath of acid rain tomorrow, doesn’t mean that Climate Change is a hoax. We are noting that the environment and the economy are rarely in sync these days. (Of course, the economy is not in sync with much). And granted, humans have always been at the mercy of nature when it comes to food production. But the scale of the amount of people who are at the mercy of it now does make our era peculiar.

In light of that, I make a case for paying attention to these sorts of documents – read them carefully and critically. Moreover, I think we need to put aside our dislike for children and children's children and take ourselves calmly, peacefully and with intelligence to a place where we are willing to steward the earth rather than squeezing out the last drops since our time is short (‘we all have to die someday’) and it might not last (‘we'll create technology in the next few years to replace it anyways’).

Moreover, I am compelled to remember that just because it does not affect me visibly (I can go buy my food easily from Safeway if the IGA market runs out!), this is not the case the world over. First, the chance of birth – that is, being born in a country and to a socio-economic circumstance that leads me out of subsistence living – does not excuse me from the dues I must pay to a global public good (the environment), which incidentally are far more valuable to those with another circumstance of birth.

Secondly, many people make do on much less nutritional variety, say nothing of material goods, than what I do. If there is a particularly nasty winter in Vancouver as we had this year, I am inconvenienced, but my livelihood is not jeopardized. I did not move to Bolivia from Vancouver in search of income. I know though that many Bolivians may move to Argentina or Spain because they can't afford to stay here any more. True, there are many factors involved there - not just poor crops. Urban and rural people are moving. Nevertheless, there is a collusion of so many factors, to which I often contribute blissfully unaware. And it is this contribution of mine which behoves me to examine my lifestyle and how I can take part in a larger picture of curbing the excess of western environmental and economic damage. What is going on when I drive to the store in my 4runner and purchase subsidized or undervalued food products and which have been produced using damaging environmental practices because of the grandiose scale of production – soy interestingly enough is one of the most environmentally damaging crops here in Bolivia because the industrialization of slash-and-burn production. (Now all the vegetarians feel bad – sorry bout that guys).

So hear what I am saying, please. I am NOT saying we should stop eating soy – or bread or bananas and for heaven’s sake not drink coffee! I am NOT saying we should stop driving all cars. I am NOT saying we should never go to the supermarket, and all revert to growing veggies and become hunter-gatherers. Nor am I advocating wallowing in our collective guilt.

I am advocating though a bit of a sackcloth-and-ashes moment for the western world. Back in the day, the Biblical day that is, people would wear sackcloth and put ashes on their head as a public sign of mourning, remorse and a changing of the ways. I think we too do right to come out with public signs of remorse for the extremes of carelessness we have for those more vulnerable to precarious climates, both economic and physical. Moreover, it is late, but better than never to take some time to "sit in the ashes:" examine the damage as it truly is, with vigorous science – both physical and social – and ponder where to go from here so that we do the best we can by our neighbour and ourselves with the resources we have.

posted by Kiki @ 5:55 PM 4 Comments