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Saturday, June 11th, 2005
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2:32 pm - You liar you!
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 Not long ago I was chatting with Tilman Mager my german friend, and he told me about his dissapointment with a guy which rarely honored their words: the guy said to Tilman "okay, see you then, tomorrow at 6 PM" and the next day nothing happens, "well, today at noon without fail" and again nothing. Tilman claimed how often people here in Arica say "A" and then do "B", he feel that as a disrespect, even an insult, which make loss time and money and difficult to make any kind of deal here.
Otherwise we are always a little shocked about the excesive literally from gringos, their lack of understanding on the understatement, which sometimes appears to us like a sort of rudeness, they seems unable to catch those ironic jokes, so popular between us, when we say the opposite that we meant.
I remembered many years ago when I used to work with Casio Computer and my japanese counteparts drove us mad with their flagrant "lies", when I finally was in Tokio and meet face to face to the japanesse executives I ask them directly "why you guys tell "yes" to all my askings and then you made the more convenience for yourself, doesn´t have you honor? ¿why do you speak so much about honor and loyalty and then shamelessy lie us?" and one of my japanese friends ask me "the problem my friend is that you, chileans are too uneducated; as long as you are my friend, when you ask me for something I never been so rude to say you "no", I always ask "yes" but this doesn´t mean "yes, I will do all your wishes", but "yes, I understand what you are asking me and I will take into account your point". At a first sigth this appeared insane and even rampant hipocresy to me, well, as time goes on this served me a lot to understand and negotiate with such people, it was simply their way to understand the courtesy.
Now many years has passed and I realize that we are similary liers and hypocrital to the eyes of gringos: we barely express our desagree openly, and many times prefer say "yes" and then simply do the most convenient for us as. Incredible but until I chat with Tilman I never realized before that we behave same like my japs friends.
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| Friday, June 10th, 2005
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3:59 pm - Strays (quiltros callejeros)
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 Stray dogs are everywere in Arica, same as in the most of latin american small to middle cities and tourists watch them with mixed feelings of pity, curiosity and fear. I simpathize with them, like most of people here wich feed and take some casual care on them. Unlike their well-feed-and-stressed home counterparts (domestic pets) they are free and independent like cats, go around with other colleages (union makes strong) and usually ingnore to people as people ignores them.
Some stray belong to specific places, in the beach where my trailer is parked, there are 3 strays, all of them mixed: one sort of siberyan (called "lobo"), other undefined mixed and the last is so weird that barely looks like a dog, has strange spots in their backs like a hyena. In the neighbor beach "El Laucho" used to live a stray whose passion was follow cars barking loudly to weels, first it loose one leg but never learn and up the last summer continues running and barking with their 3 legs, surely was cerashed because I have not see it since long time.
Other strays make strategic alliance with their human counterparts, beggers, wich sometimes are followed with an escort of 4 or 5 stray dogs, once again applies "union makes strong" and they share amicabily the fruits of public charity. From time to time public healt authorities start campaign of erradication trowing poisoned bait, obviously those campaigns are very unpopular and people wich work on this is usually received with stones in the poorest neigborhoods.
I feel sympatetic about strays and their love for freedom, they are oblied to develop sophisticated social skills to survive, the agressive or anthipatic ones tend to die young, and they seldom mess anybody, just want to live their life in peace, just like me.
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| Thursday, June 9th, 2005
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8:12 pm - Just someone to blame...
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 Here in Arica we are from the first row looking to the bolivian crisis. I see amazed the tons of rampant ignorance, demagogy and cheap rethoric used by politician and journalists to explain it. I think that one of the worst errors from the analysis is the racistic approach or their equivalent, the fight of classes approach.
The canonic explanation about Bolivia is that the country has an high percentage of quechua and aimara population, they are uneducated, easily cheated by populist leaders and -opposite to the "white" majority in the oriente they are living in starving during centuries, so, the riots and social unrest are just an expression of ancestral revindications which exploded since the Hugo Banzer rule.
This view is absolutly untrue; the quechua and aimara population tends to be underestimated due racist perjudices but they are in general extremely clever and hard workers, those cultures has a milenary background and extraordinary plasticity wich has allowed survived well and healty up to this modern times. Indeed in Bolivia those "coyas" (generic name to meant indians) are taking the economic power, specially in commerce and industry, since a long time, which provokes the long rivality with "cambas" (name of the wither people from orient provinces such as Santqa Cruz and Cochabamba). The big economic differences between La Paz and other altiplanic departments and the orientals as Santa Cruz and Cochabamba lies principally in the exceptional richness on natural resources of the oriente several orders of magnitude bigger than the famelic resources in the high plateau. However in the oriental provinces the big money is in hand of collas (indians) except for ancient aristocracies and new riches due drug traffic.
The traditional explanation is a fake told not only abroad, but also in the own Bolivia where the white upper classes are fiercing racists and full of anger against collas, and it is very useful also to cover the real reason of the actual crisis, which is pollitically incorrect to mention: the erradication of the coca crops during Banzers rule.
Bolivia is a big country with few people, about 8 million souls so any economic shock on some hundred of thousands people can be desvastating for the entire country. The former president Victor Paz Estenssoro, whose legacy of prosperity and stability lasted a record of over 15 years, which is a long time for bolivian standards, was rigth when not consent to the ask of USA goverment to eliminate the coca crops, he knows their people good enough to foreseen the social debacle which would follow this action. So, during those prosperity years the coca crops was absolutly legal and gives to farmers an estimate of US$ 600 million a year, free of taxes wich feed a long chain of industries and commerce not only in Bolivia but beyond, the free zone in Iquique (Chile) boomed based in those millions and also another millions bucks from Peru.
Not only the farmers but also a huge chain of people in many other activities made their living around the coca dollars; salesmen, transportists, importers, and industries of all kind was running with those money. I was in Bolivia several times in late 80s, when I run an import export in the free zone and the country was growing, prosperous and socially ordered. Never heard any claim against chileans or transnationals, people was busy earning his living and the country was steadily improving.
Just imagine if any of you folks was running during many years a profitable and legal crop in your farm, then, overnigth goverment declared that your cultive is illegal and fill your farm with poison wich makes impossible any other cultive in a soil wich per see only grows coca. ¿What all those people does?, ¿and their families and all the chain of people which used to earn their with related business?. At first they react with stupor, frozed, then they begun to leave their farms going to La Paz in search of a new starting. ¿Where they settle down? in El Alto which booming with hundred of thousands of people with nothing to do. Those people raise Evo Morales and Mamani to the power, those are decided to anything because they loose all, those are blocking roads and ask for "go out all the politicians"
It is not strange that those people was cheated by populist leaders, it is not the ignorance the reason they are mad against chileans, transnationals and they demand for gas expropiation despite this will surely bring more poverty. It is simply the stored anger for people who has lost their way of life overnigth, they uded to be prosperous and now they had nothing at all, they need someone to blame, that´s all.
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12:02 pm - Facts and fictions
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 Well, you will surely note that english is not my mother tongue and as long as I write this just to train my skills, you probably will find absurd sintax, words mispelled, and lot of things not easy to understand. My regrets in advance.
The place where I live (Arica, in the north border of Chile) is cheap, sunny all over the year and bored, I guess that there are similar places all over the world but I haven´t seen any yet and, in practrical terms, I consider it one of the best place in the world to live. I mention my hometown because It seem to me true that the town model the people ¿haven´t you ever seen a typical newyorker, so different from a guy from San Diego, a person from London different to other from Liverpool? people from Arica are also different from someone from -lets say- Santiago, we are lazy, slow, bon vivants and easy, certainly there are some few renegades, hard workers and so, but they usually don´t stand to live here for long and after a time they leave. So a sort of natural selection decants the laziness and the love for far niente in the city.
As long as I earn my life writing (not literature, sad to say, but investment projets; sort of bastard child of fiction) I spend main part of each day seated in front of my laptop, loosely surfing google (where I obtain 90% of my material for work) and writing trivia in some of my websites or in Usenet, which helps me to improve my redaction skills in spanish. This is of course the perfect excuse to disguise the lot of fun which I obtain doing almost nothing every day.
Well, well, well, I was able to write 3 complete parragraphs in english, not bad to be the first time, now I think I may take a rest, see you soon!
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