Before I left for my Rotary exchange to Bolivia, Joanna Miller interviewed me and told me that the Prior Lake American website has blog-hosting capabilities should I feel the need to update folks back home. I´ve been in Bolivia for a little over a month now, and I´ve been dutifully keeping my own private blog (www.boliviablog.braveblog.com), but I didn´t see the need to start a Prior Lake American blog until now. If you´ve been watching CNN, reading the world news section in the paper, or just glancing at Google News every once in a while, you´ll know that Bolivia has gotten a whole lot more interesting in this last week. To put it simply, the country is trying to rip itself in half. Below is the latest entry on my blog, www.boliviablog.braveblog.com. For the preceding entries, you can go to that address, where I have been posting since early August. If this Prior Lake American blog is successful, I will keep posting my recent entries here as well as on my previous blog.

Right now, talks are continuing between the prefect of Tarija and the central government. In order to have a peaceful resolution to this problem, several things must happen: the prefect of Tarija and the vice president must reach some form of temporary agreement (which is an extremely difficult task, considering just how polarized and uncompromising each side has become), the other four separatist provinces must follow the Tarijan prefect and agree to the compromise, and the citizens of each province must break out of the prejudiced mob mentality that currently has hold over them and agree to follow the law. This is going to be difficult for everyone involved, but it looks like the only way to avoid violence. This past week has seen three phases of political discord. First, beginning on Tuesday, was the reign of Unionista mobs. They ran through the city burning, smashing, and looting around half a hundred government held or supported buildings, and blocked roads, gas pipelines, and other necessary infrastructure. Then, around Thursday or Friday, the government forces quelled the resistance in the center of town and started trying to save the airports and gas pipelines, while setting up roadblocks of their own. Now, order still hasn´t been reestablished, but angry mobs of highlanders, Massistas, and Red Ponchos have started roving the city outskirts, holding machete and pitchfork-waving rallies, and setting up roadblocks of their own, including several surrounding Viru-Viru International Airport. Classes have been resuspended indefinitely. Everyone is hoping that Bolivians can unite enough to walk the narrow road to peace. Right now, we are waiting to hear the results of the UNASUL meeting in Santiago (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/15/bolivia.usa). I spoke with my mom via Skype last night, and I still have no intention of aborting this exchange. But, in light of the new State Department warning (http://www.travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_4358.html), I am currently in the process of making emergency backup plans in case things spin out of control – as they tend to do so very quickly. Right now, I am 100% safe with the best host family I could ever have imagined. We are all trying not to let the stress get to us. On Friday, I was able to tag along with my host father at one of his recent projects. It was interesting walking through the half-finished apartment complex because there were very few power tools and nothing was done to code like it is in the US. On Sunday, I went with Maria and about 120 other people to Cotoca, where we had a kind of Catholic confirmation seminar. Afterward, we walked around the compound for a few hours and just enjoyed the countryside. We climbed the trees and rounded up a small feast of green mangoes, tamarinds, and mandarin oranges to eat. We skinned the mangoes and dipped them in sugar, which made them taste delicious, and ate the tamarinds and oranges as they were. I´ve had candied tamarinds in Mexico before, but they are definitely best right off the tree. I´m still amazed by the biodiversity here. I saw my first giant tarantula and, as we were walking along through the compound, everyone was teasing each other about Jichi, this area´s own version of the Loch Ness monster which, unlike its Scottish counterpart, is based on a series of very real, swamp-dwelling, man-eating anacondas. We then played some soccer, and gathered for a debriefing before returning home in our respective microbuses. Maria told me about a pilgrimage in December from Santa Cruz to Cotoca that she was planning to walk, and invited me to participate. It sounds interesting, and I´ve never been on a religious pilgrimage before, so I agreed to do it. Other than that, I´ve been laying low, waiting to see how the situation develops. I´ll keep posting as new information arrives. Chau with love!