Cpt_Yossarian's Xanga

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Wed, 28 May 2008 14:30:08 GMT

I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war. -Albert Einstein

This reminded of when our school was consolidating with Bradshaw and we were looking for a new mascot. The Fighting Mennonites with a slightly deformed Fighting Irish mascot was my personal favorite. Black coat and pants with a white shirt, a black hat and suspenders and the beard. It'd a been great.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Wed, 14 May 2008 12:39:04 GMT

It's time once again for my monthly entries that include not much of interest. It's like those free writes you had to do in high school. I always thought the teacher was either fruity or lazy. "You want me to write about anything i want to? But I don't want to write about anything." The duller teachers would say, "there must be something blah, blah, blah." The better teachers said, "then write about that." I used to be a real sucker for a challenge and i'd fill the front and the back of a steno page with a description of my not wanting to write and the reasons for my attitude and then maybe a couple jabs at the teacher and the whole free write idea. Genius.

Truth is though that things have been happening. Baker is getting the poder. which i won't bother explaining b/c it sounds better in spanish. We may get a landline (telephone) at the dropin center (whoo dee doo). And we paid our corporate earnings tax (non-profits do that in bolivia) and paid nothing. Big surprise, ministries ought to be pretty miserably operating businesses. They should be the model for a business going bankrupt. "Should" is the key word and why we still have to register with the government. Apparently, political parties start foundations for fund raising purposes and even (do i even need that) Christian ministries often operated quite nicely as businesses. The gov wants its cut. We paid nothing. I guess that makes us legit.

I just got over 3 days of stomach issues. Since i didn't take medicine, I'll mark the calendar to see if my friends come back to bother me in 6 weeks. John claims that's what they do. It was pretty bothersome because, well my stomach hurt,etc, i couldn't eat stuff, i didn't drink coffee, and it was cold (45 in side one morning). My internal temperture seems really connected to my consumption of food. Obviously.

Finally, i get requests for more pictures from time to time here and on Facebook (i have 48 friends...i don't know if i could even name 48 people!). My camera has a 16mb chip in it right now so thtat like 5 pics at a time which is worse than film. The camera i have thanks to Heather's (and mine) friend Amanda. THanks. The new mem chip will come to us thanks to Cara and Mark. The ensuing flood of pictures will come to you thanks to Wes. Thaaaaaanks Weeeees. (grade school inflection) Don't hold your breath.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:36:30 GMT

I'm not exactly the most optimistic person in the world but i've gotten a couple (even a few) encouraging responses to my private search for better definition of community and other things. Things could definitely get better as they couldn't get a ton worse.

on the administrative front. I hate it. But we have some rather brilliant and nice people (not the govt people-not universally nice or brilliant or helpful) telling us all the things we've done wrong. It's amazing how you can keep track of all your money, treat employees fairly, do a decent job of serving people, pay taxes and be honest and still do a ton of things wrong from a legal and accounting standpoint. That makes me a libertarian?

May 4th is the date that Santa Cruz has set for their vote on autonomy. Being from El Alto puts me rather on the leftist side and against this measure but the new constitution could very well be injust towards the weathly and i guess justice is justice. Injustice met with injustice doesn't not create justice. The american revolution, french revolution, and russian revolution demonstrated this. We pretty much eliminated the original peoples from what we now call Amurica. The revolutionaries in france ended up chopping the heads of thousands and well, most amuricans don't need me to point out the injustice of the communist scandal (though i think the usual critique is mostly fear based and rather selfish.) I hope we're not a target here of any frustration the arises from the vote. We may sit it out at a friends house playing Wii. Who knows.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:42:56 GMT

vacation in Arica, Chile was pretty great. I only had to get my feet wet in the ocean once (i don't like the beach that much) but i read about 3 chapters of "Exclusion and Embrace".

i'm not at all excited to be back, but such are vacations, i guess.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 14:09:24 GMT

i just figured out that the program that i was trying to install for our accounting was the wrong one. I'd spent various hours over a couple days trying to get the thing to work. It was a bootleg disc (serves me right) but in my defense i went to no less than 3 (doing any three things--much less going to 3 places--is quite an accomplishment here) computer stores looking for a real copy. Each place i was scoffed at: huh, you can't buy real copies of that! And if you could it'd be really expensive to import. Go buy it on the street for (the equivalent of) $2. I gave up and did that. And then proceeded to try to install the wrong program (4.3). 4.5 was right there on the same cd and it was the one i actually needed.

I even went so far as to enlist the help of multiple people to get this program up and running. Then i noticed version 4.5 and it installed on the 2nd try without a hitch (relatively speaking). this admin thing just isn't going to smoothly.

The next step in this saga is to get an accountant here in the next 5 days to finish up sept, oct, nov, and dec of '07 in a manner that is legal and pleasing to the Bolivian govt so we can pay a 25% tax on our profits. We're a non-profit so with a bit of luck (and devine intervention) we won't have to pay. (We really don't make a profit, we're a black hole in economic terms really. A very, very small black hole.) All the red tape really makes me understand why there isn't a business here that has only one set of books. Well, we do. And i don't know that it really pays!

A self observation: I have a real phobia of talking on the phone about anything business related--in english or spanish. I put off the phone conversations and sweat when i actually have to make them. I really, really hate them. I wonder if they have VR google programs to deal with this phobia. I'm squimish just htinking about it.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:00:33 GMT

alot of things have happened.
I did got riding a few weeks back. this time instead of launching my bike over a cliff (really happened and i have a scar on my palm to prove it) I only went down once really. We finished the same circuit as last time in about the same amount of time. I think we drove a bit slower on the fast parts, faster on the slow parts and slower at night because the quad lost its lights and my bike's lights were junk. so that was fun. but i don't think i'll be buying a bike soon. i guess xr400s (really good condition) run about $5500 while 600s actually run a bit less but still over $4K. hmmm.

in other news, we got up really early for an easter morning march. it was an experience, like last years. Bolivia's such a funny place and its evangelical Christians are even stranger.

i've been rather down lately.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:09:58 GMT

now i'm really tired of rainy season. officially.

but i'm ride a motorcycle again tomorrow so that makes me marginally happier today. I'm not sure if that not worrying biblical concept works too for hoping and excitement. I usually treat it as if it does. I guess that's bad.

tomorrow, however, I'll be very happily riding a 2004 XR-400. I'm really kinda happy thinking about it.

I'm really, really tired of doing administration and that just got worse when my friend brent announced he too is tired of doing administration (to oversimplify) and so will stop doing it. hmmmm.

Friday, March 07, 2008

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:27:29 GMT

rainy season got old. That's not to say that its gone because it surely is not. I just got really tired of it suddenly.

We bought a new mattress. I hope its nice because the other one was horrible. Short with a big hole in the middle. I either had to be rolling out of the bed or rolling into the bed, no such thing as neutral territory. Maybe my back will feel better with this addition. The other problem is that since stuff isn't standardized here, i think our mattress (made to US standards?) will not fit the bed made to 16 de Julio standards. it'll be a matter of a few centimeters. Hmmmm.

In other news, i went looking for a certain software and was met straight faced by many managers of office supply/computer stores with a "you can't get a legal version, buy it in the street. It'll be cheaper." I guess the only (according to one guy) legal software available is Windows. Of course, there are always downloadable softwares but i haven't had luck with what i'm looking for. I'm not sure if it was a lesson in my succumbing to the culture's, uh quirky, version of integrity but the copy that i bought on the street while being virus free did not work.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:40:24 GMT

we're organizing the office...so i'm kicked out at the moment. Not really very productive for me. I wish i'd worn warmer clothes today. It was muggy this morning (if thats possible at 13Kft) but its just cold now. Rainy season gets old.

In other news, they tried to rob me the other day in the market by spitting on my nose. Kinda gross. I was thinking though because i had nothing in my pockets. It works like this: someone spits on you then alot of people close in on you pointing every which way making noise to distract you. So this lady is in my face trying to tell me where it came from, i take her by the arm and shove her into the stall and keep walking. Not exactly the non-violent method, but i didn't get robbed. I guess that's that.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:56:07 GMT

no worries friend. If you get sick in Quito, you'll get sick here. Its not really fun from what i gather.

It's sunny today. and Carnival is finally over. Throwing water balloons at people is fun but being tall and blond makes us rather conspicuous targets. Also the loads of drunk people eventually gets old. Really old.