The Amazon with the Burson-Ryans!

Last week, my co-intern/partner in crime Annie and her awesome parents invited me to go to Villa Tunari in Bolivia's portion of the Amazon with them for a few days. We had an awesome trip, chalk full of amazon-esque adventures in addition to my overall happiness to spend time with a family that resembles my own!

We left from Cochabamba Tuesday morning on a large bus headed to Chapare, which is about 4.5 hours via bus (and not that many KM, but everything moves slow in Bolivia). Annie and I watched episodes of friends on her tiny ipod nano and ate enough peanuts to make at least 3 jars of peanut butter.

Our hotel was a few KMs from Villa Tunari and was pretty much the cutest thing ever. Each room is a little cottage, in the middle of the forrest, a ten minute walk from the river. The hotel even had an open-air hammock lounge above the restaurant. The first afternoon, we went down to the river and exclaimed over the size of the ants that were marching down the path as well, carrying leaves to, presumably, build some sort of missile or military base considering how much material they had.

Ant inspections

Just LOOK at how big they are!

We got down to the river in search of the Pozas (hot springs) advertised at the hotel, but soon came to realize that "hot springs" and "river" are pretty much the same thing as far as the local Amazon-dwellers go. We went down the river a bit until we found a deep enough part to swim and Annie rapidly transformed into olympic swimmer mode while I doggy paddled with the fishes. 

A nice swimming hole 

On the first night we ate at the restaurant at the hotel, which had delicious chicken and played cards with the parents. I officially learned Gin-Rumy (no idea how to spell that) which is exciting. After dinner, Annie and I took a taxi into town hoping to meet some locals and get more information about the TIPNIS dispute, but alas, Villa Tunari is pretty dead at 9:30pm on a Tuesday. 

The second day we went to Parque Carrasco, a giant national park with all sorts of endangered flora and fauna. We took a really sketch tram across the river and got a tour of the rain forests, including but not limited to: butterflies, coca plantations (not sure if the one we saw was actually legal), and penis shaped trees. 

Make-shift tram across the river

Literally a penis tree

The coca harvest

We didn't have any signal on our Bolivian phones in the park so we couldn't call for a cab back to the city once our tour was done. Strangely, Bolivia is not really equipped to handle tourists, so they dont have things like shuttle buses or pre-organized tours of the big national parks in the Amazon. It seems like the country could so easily capitalize on tourism since they have such beautiful places... but apparently the amount of cocaine production near the amazon is pretty dangerous and it keeps tourists out. We ended up walking pretty far on the main road until we found a bus stop for locals. A taxi came by and we piled a ton of people in a station wagon and got back to Villa Tunari without a problem!

Kickin' it in the back of the wagon

On the third day, we went to a different national park. There were monkeys in this one and we were warned not to bring any valuables on our hike since the monkeys are known to steal things. Sure enough, about 15 minutes into the hike, we came across a monkey who promptly climbed on Annie's shoulders. After lounging for awhile, he jumped off and ran towards Annie's mom, snatching her water bottle before she could even grab for it. He hid up in a tree for awhile playing with the bottle, getting frustrated when he couldn't get it to pour into his mouth. After he got bored with the bottle he came back to us, climbing back on Annie. Then came the deadly mistake. I turned away from Annie, and my iPhone in my back pocket became visible to the monkey. He lunged for it and got his little monkey hands on the phone, but luckily I reached back and grabbed it as well. Annie used her super human strength to pull the monkey off me and I ran away. The monkey then followed us at a stalker-esque distance for the next 15 minutes. 

The little thief with the water bottle

View from the top of the park

Monkeys in the Amazon

I traveled to the Amazon Rain Forest with the beautiful Burson-Ryan family this week. A thorough blog to be posted in the next few days, but for now-- here is a short little video of the monkey that stole our water bottle.

Las Peliculas Mejores del Verano

This summer I have watched a lot of really excellent films. Some of which with my host family and others with my friends or in the FSD office.

La Mala Educación

This a classic Almodóvar film, with a host of complexities of identity and really wonderful character development. The film follows a boy who is sexually abused in his youth and grapples with this abuse as he transitions to female later in life. His brother and his ex-lover play intricate roles in his development, as a film about the little boy's life is produced within film.

Ciudad de Dios 

 This is a Brazilian film about a specific flavella in Rio (called City of God). The film is really beautifully shot, although it is extremely violent. Somehow intermixed with the violence, the film manages to pretty fully develop its characters. I finished the film with a lot of questions and some confusion, but overall the it's a really powerful piece.

El Piel Que Habito

Another Almodóvar film that is absolutely stunning. The acting is fantastic. The film follows a man who we find out via flashbacks has lost both his wife and child to suicide related to traumatic life experiences. The man is a surgeon and a chemist and starts to experiment with the re-creation of skin. He manages to transform an unlikely person into a mirror image of his wife and then... dun dun dun. Watch it!

Home

With every adventure that life brings us (or the adventure of life itself) there is a time when the adventure must come to end. For my summer in Bolivia, this time is imminent. I am leaving my host family and Cochabamba in less than two weeks, and in three weeks I will be sleeping in my own bed in the States.

Although I have missed San Francisco during my time in Bolivia, I haven't felt an aching or a longing for familiarity that I half expected might occur during my time abroad. I feel like I have lived really fully here. But I think today I hit a little bit of a turning point, and I am ready to come back. I am ready to return to the completely different life that I have set aside for the last 2 months.

I think this feeling of completion was influenced by a lot of factors. The first being that there are people in the States who I care about a lot who are going through very difficult times and it pains me to not be there with them in a time when they really need support.

I was going to go to my host-cousin's birthday party tonight at a fancy club in the north of the city, but I got to the club and there was a huge line out the front door of girls dressed in six inch heels, with three layers of make-up on, and big burly boyfriends hanging all over their waists and I thought about the last time I was at a club where my friend Manuela pointed out all of the guys at the club who were standing around the edges watching and waiting for the next girl they were going to hit on.... and then I though about the 30 BS cover to get in if you are a guy (less if you are a girl-- sexism?). And I looked down at myself and my clothing that doesn't really fit my body right because I can't fit my female-bodied self into clothes I feel comfortable with. And I can't get into clubs without someone at the door giving me a hard time because I look like a 12 year old boy, and once I am inside, what bathroom am I going to use because the highest percentage of hate crimes happen in male bathrooms, but I also can't really use the female one...

So, I just got out of my cab, hailed a different cab, and left.

And then I opened the letter a kid from my program had written me (he wrote everyone a goodbye letter) because he is leaving Bolivia tomorrow since his program is over. In the letter he wrote about his experiences with Christ and his christian faith and how he believes that "homosexuality is a sin" but he is a sinner, too so he won't "point his fingers at me." Give me a fucking break. Not only am I not a homosexual, and thus comments about homosexuality are not relevant to my identity, I also have gone so far out of my way to use only male pronouns to describe myself, introduced myself only as Lucas, had the support of all the USF girls in making sure that they never used female pronouns around me... Why do people have to assume that trans people are all homosexual? Not that I don't love all the homos in my life (because I DO love them), but I wish the non-queer community could figure out that gender identity and sexual orientation function independently of each other.

So, I am ready to get back to the States, start testosterone, and move closer to the point in my life where I will not have to defend my identity every day. I am also really missing those SF dive bars.

Documentary: "La Identidad de Justicia: Mujeres Trans en Cochabamba"

"The Identity of Justice: Trans Women in Cochabamba"

The accumulation of my work in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The documentary below is 14 minutes and investigates the experiences of transexual women in Cochabamba, Bolivia. It focuses on discrimination, HIV, and Sex Work

La Identidad de Justicia: Mujeres Trans en Cochabamba (English Subtitles) from Lucas Waldron on Vimeo.

Political Graffiti - Null Votes and Cocaine Roads

The walls of Cochabamba are covered in graffiti. Some of it illegible, some of it statements of teenage adoration, but most is rooted in political adversity.

As displayed in the picture above, the walls of Cochabamba are often canvases for political messages, such as the frequent "nulo = nulo" messages spread across the city. This particular statement references several different elections in Bolivia's history when large percentages of the population chose to cast "null votes" instead of voting for candidates or reforms that were viewed as biased. For example, in 2011 there were elections to choose 56 new judiciary officials in Bolivia. The candidates, however, were chosen by Evo Morales' administration, the MAS party (socialist party), that many Bolivians view as extremely corrupt. Since the opposition was not represented in the election, about 48% of voters cast null votes, and 20% of eligible voters abstained from voting, even though it is compulsory. The ballots, however, were counted only including legitimate votes, thus only representing about 30% of the population. Graffiti around the city expresses discontent over elections like this, where null votes sometimes account for a higher percentage than any of the candidates.

Tipnis is another political topic that frequents the walls of Cochabamba, normally in the form of statements like "Defiende Tipnis" -- "Defend Tipnis." Tipnis is a region of Bolivia between the departments of Beni and Cochabamba, bordering the Amazon rain forest. The region is a protected land, home to many species of flora and fauna in danger of extinction, and home to several very rural indigenous communities. The MAS government of Evo Morales wants to build a road through the Tipnis. The reasons for this road are heavily debated. The government's political line is that the road will bring more resources to poor and rural communities and connect Bolivian communities in a manner that will improve the economy. Pretty much every Bolivian I have talked to about this matter, however, calls bullshit on the government's argument.

According to the Cochabambinos that I have spoken with, the road is a manifestation of the political control the Cocaleros (Coca growers) have on the government. The Coca Leaf is a plant grown in Bolivia (and other Latin American countries) with varying uses. Certain kinds of coca leaf are used for chewing, tea, and human consumption. Other kinds of coca leaf are used to create cocaine. And Bolivia is the third largest coca producer in the world. In the region surrounding Tipnis, the Cocaleros control nearly everything. They also do not produce the kind of coca that can be used for human consumption, and where their crop goes after it is harvested is a mystery to everyone... The argument of most Cochabambinos (and environmental organizations) is this: Evo Morales is a cocalero (this is not an argument so much as a fact since he self-identifies as such) and his administration is run based on the support of cocaleros. The cocaleros want a road that will make it easier to transport their coca crops, most of which is made into cocaine. Additionally, the cocaleros need to move off of their current land because the coca crop destroys the soil. You can only grow coca for 4-5 years (or harvests) before the soil is completely lifeless and unusable. Thus, coca plantations are constantly migrating, leaving a trail of destruction behind. If a road were to be built through Tipnis, the cocaleros could easily settle in this region and start new coca plantations. The weather and soil are ripe for coca growing and coca is an incredibly lucrative crop because of how much money the production of cocaine can produce. Environmentalist foresee this migration, and know that the Tipnis region will be destroyed if the cocaleros move in. Additionally, the indigenous communities in Tipnis don't want to the cocaleros in their communities because they do not want more drugs moving through the region. With drugs comes severe environmental impacts, not to mention violence and political corruption.

As of now, the indigenous communities have marched to La Paz (on FOOT) to protest the creation of this road. In return, the cocaleros have also marched. Construction has not started, but may be imminent. Thus, heavy political activity exists in Cochabamba in opposition to both the construction of the road and the corruption in the government based on the control of the cocaleros.

Ode to Julio

Our wonderful professor Julio Moreno is arriving in Cochabamba in a week! All of us are a little bit too excited about it. We decided to spell out his name using our arms in Toro Toro just to express how stoked we are.

Bitmaps

Somtimes when I am at work I play around in illustrator using bitmaps. I made these today. They are vectors, so potentially I could blow them up and actually print posters for my sweet SF apartment. It was an Albert Camus kind of today. 

Dinosaurs, Water Falls, and Tiny Bolivian Men

This past weekend I went on an adventure with my program to Toro Toro, which is both a Bolivian National Park and a small rural town. The weekend was amazing-- My first real outdoorsy trek in South America!

Day 1 started at the FSD office at 6am where we boarded our bus for our 5 hour journey to Toro Toro. The bus was pretty nice, but the roads were ghetto-fabulous (=bad roads). The drive is almost entirely weaving through mountain passes on dirt roads that drop off into steep cliffs. Our drive is a wizard, though-- he even managed to put our bus in reverse and back us up all the way along the cliff road for about 1/2 a Kilometer in order to let a truck pass by going the other way (these are one way roads).

We got to the little town of Toro Toro at about noon and ate lunch at the one (solitary) restaurant in the town. My favorite part of the town is the signs on the trash cans that say in English: "Please do not be friends with the trash." Our hostel was adorable and even came equipped with puppies:

Please ignore gross sweats and focus only on cute puppy.

We met our guide who was the cutest and tiniest Bolivian man ever. I'm not sure how old he was, but I know he has been a guide for 43 years. He is more spry than the swiftest mountain goat and very passionate about his work. Our adventure for Friday afternoon was hiking out to a Cave. When we arrived, we realized we were in for way more than just a Cave. The "caves" of Toro Toro are actually huge, nature-made tunnels that stretch for 32 Kilometers underground. The original river that formed the caverns still exists and runs through parts of the underground labyrinth. We all got headlamps and submerged into the darkness. We traversed for about 2 kilometers in total over about 4 hours. Sometimes we were on our stomachs, pulling ourselves through tiny crevices, other times the passages would open up into big, open spaces. We even saw fish in one of the underground pools. After we left the caverns we ran into some other American backpackers, masters students who were researching a series of underground tunnels across Latin America that they hypothesize are actually connected.

The first set of Dinosaur feet! Time stamped foreva.

Entrance to the caverns.

 Day 1 ended with a delicious dinner and a walk around the town. As it turns out, the few little tiny shops that do exist in the town close well before 9pm. We were tired and went to sleep pretty early. Day 2 started with breakfast: Api (a special Bolivian corn-based hot breakfast drink), egg sandwiches, and pastel (in this case, the Pastel was essentially funnel cake). Our guide led us to a hiking trail next to a huge canyon (not Grand Canyon status but still impressive). He showed us more Dinosaur footprints which really blew my mind... I can't believe such things exist in the world. We hiked out to a look-out spot first to get a sense of the depth of the canyon. After, we hiked down to the river below. We even went swimming! It was freezing, but still a lot of fun. The waterfalls in the canyon were beautiful and the hike was pretty invigorating. We got back to the town at about 3pm and ate lunch --rice, potatoes, and chicken-- the Bolivian way! We napped for a bit, had some reflection time with our program coordinators, and after dark walked down to the river and gathered under a bridge for an impromptu rap battle. The stars were... unbelievable. I don't know if I have ever seen so many stars in my whole life.

On our last day we woke up early early early and rode in the bus for about an hour up mountain after mountain, passing tiny little farm houses, herds of goats, and stretches of nature void of all humans. We got to the top of one of the peaks and hiked down into a new set of caverns. These caverns are not underground, but formed by huge boulders that create cathedral-style spaces. We hiked through several rock formations. The our guide managed to rig a rope/belt contraption so that all 13 of us could climb up the side of a sheer cliff to get to the very top of the mountain. I'm pretty shocked that nobody died, but please none the less. This hike was shorter and only lasted for about three hours. After returning to the town, we gathered our things from the hotel, and headed back across the windy, mountainous road en route to Cochabamba.

Above the clouds.

Queer.

It is astounding how connected the queer community is across the globe. The solidarity that exists amongst queer people consistently blows my mind. Last night, I attended the pride celebration in Cochabamba– the one day a year that gay, transgender, lesbian, bisexual, androgynous, queer, etc. people take the to the streets without fear or shame based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. The festival was amazing, inspiring, and empowering. I never expected to see so many people in the streets supporting the movement.

What’s more, however, is the sense of solidarity I feel with the queer people I meet in Cochabamba. This isn’t an isolated experience– anytime I have traveled and met other queer people, it’s the same feeling. Queers across the globe are one, interwoven community. No matter where you go, if there is a queer community and you are queer, you will be accepted. This is my experience, at least.

It’s hard to describe the experience of a transnational queer community to people who are not queer; because I can’t imagine anything quite the same exists. It’s this intrinsic understanding of respect when you meet people. No matter how alone I have felt at times this summer, or out of place I feel at straight, glamorous clubs (the type of place that checks my ID three times because my gender expression, age, and sex don't match), I know that if I can find that one queer bar, everything will be ok. Because people who are queer just get each other.

Every day in Cochabamba, somebody exclaims over my gender identity. “Lucas… why do you have a boys’ name?” or “You can’t be older than 14…” or “Are you male or female? I don’t understand.” Well, sir, I have a boy’s name because I chose that name. I’m 21 years old despite your disbelief. I am not really male or female and I would prefer not to educate you on the complexities of gender at this point in time.

But when you are in a queer place (a bar, a café, a street corner) nobody asks those questions. There is a sense of intrinsic respect for other human beings that goes so far beyond the consciousness of much of the non-queer community. No matter how ablaze in consternation your brain might be, it really just doesn’t matter if I am a boy or a girl and, yes, I do get asked that every day. But in the queer community there is this sentiment that it just doesn’t matter because we are human and we are all fighting for both internal and external acceptance because we are all different, and weird, and abnormal. And we all make people who are not like us just a little bit uncomfortable. And because we all experience this, we are close. Surrounded by a crowd of queer people last night –drag queens, transsexual women, young gay couples, and old gay couples, single lesbian mothers– I felt more connected to complete strangers who speak different languages, believe in different religions, and experience different realities, than I feel on a street corner in the United States surrounded by other English-speaking, white, middle-class Americans.

There’s something beautiful in our struggle. There’s something beautiful in the knowledge that no matter how despised, stupid, or wrong you feel, if you can just get to that place– that place in every city where a community of people who are different and yet all so the same gather– if you can get there, you will be OK. Somebody will understand you. Somebody won’t make a face when you introduce yourself or ask you why you are who you are or, better yet, what the hell you are.

I think one of the biggest gifts I have been given in my life is to be able to experience this sense of community from some of the people who are most marginalized in this world. Although all of our struggles are different, the queer community at its core is one accumulative struggle, rooted in solidarity.

Gender Identity Awareness Project

Phase one of the Gender Identity Awareness Project is almost complete! I just submitted the final draft of my trans info packet. The packet is displayed below. I designed the whole thing. It will be distributed with my documentary and separetely in high schools.

A Night of Pride

On Saturday, the LGBT community (emphasis on the T) took to the streets of Cochabamba for the annual pride march. The festivities centered around the transsexual female community and drag community. Thousands of people came out to watch the march and support the movement. It was an incredibly moving experience and accumlated in the best night I have had so far in Cochabamba.

The irony of it all is that so many Transsexual women took the streets and were supported by the community, when any other night, many of these women would be on streets in a very different context. On those nights, the discrimination against transsexual women runs rampant. In a society where Trans women have no employment options other than sex work, it is deeply upsetting to see the Cochabambino community support their neighbors for only one night a year. I couldn't help but think, "Tomorrow, these women will be out on the streets again, but there will not be a crowd cheering them on." 

Start of the march.

Glamorous.

The outfits were incredible.

Fierce!

Dancing to Gaga.