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May, 2009 Monthly archive
We’ve been given Inca Cola,
Coca-Cola, strawberry yogurt.
Friendly stray dogs and incredibly old people
acknowledge us warmly on the street.
I realize now I love dry climates
and people in general.
And flowers. And vacas..
And displacement.
I really want to play dice, circa 2004 when N. taught me the game 10,000 during a long night in Brooklyn. (Let’s heave a collective sigh for things past and gone, shall we? 1, 2, 3: SIGH.)
We interviewed some rural internet owners today, after waking up at 5a and taking a taxi to a bus to a motorbike to another taxi to another bus to third taxi, many of which went speeding through the Andes. Here’s the surprise we got: the internet hasn’t worked for months in one place, and is problemmatic and oddly slow in the other place. The problem isn’t lack of adoption/need/acceptance within the community; conversely, there is such a high demand that as soon as cheaper, more reliable internet services open up in schools and cafes, these local business owners lose all their business, but still must pay a fee to the telecom, even when their internet connection is broken and no one comes to fix it, despite calls for service. Needless to say, we put a camera in front of some people and they complain a lot, assuming we’re from the company. Very frustrating/interesting/unexpected. Five more villages tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I still feel like I am in a life vortex. Like this is Life #2, and I don’t know what happened to Life #1. It’s not a bad thing; it just feels different. Sometimes, oddly, estrangement is comforting.
T-Mobile
T-Mobile
T-Mobile
My spanish is crap. Horrible! I was pretty sure of this when I got to Lima and could barely remember basic vocabulary, let alone grammar, but today M. confirmed it. I take forever to form a sentence because I think too long about each word. It didn’t used to be like this. In 1989, in 2001, in 2003, I was actually rather decent. But 6+ years with no practise can really mess you up. The worst thing is, I recognize about 80% of the words people use, but can only about remember 35% of their meaning. Pinche memoria.
Today we filmed a boring training session with some government people lecturing, then took a nap, then returned for more filming & a big group lunch with the rural entrepreneurs and politicos & telecom reps & NGO partners. And then we shot some brief but important interviews with the Minister of Technology and the guy under her, a dude who’s basically been doing all the implementation and disbursement of subsidies to Rural Telecom. I asked about national goals, challenges of rural ICT implementation & assessment, sustainability, trying to get them to touch on broad issues. I’m 35% sure both interviews went well. They’re very nice people.
But I’ll tell you, editing this thing is gonna be a huge challenge.
Meanwhile, tonight we still have to come up with our schedule for visiting rural villages in the next 8 days. It involves coordinating with a company rep we’ve never met or talked to. We’re also trying to rent motorcycles for the week to take on the 1-2 hour journey per village, all on really bumpy dirt roads in the mountains. But if that doesn’t happen, and signs looks bleak, M. met a congenial taxi driver who’s agreed to negotiate a price to be our wheels for the week. Good things continue to happen.
Cajamarca’s pretty nice. It reminds me a little of Northern Cali in that it’s warm & dry during the day, cool at night, and it lies in a valley. And everyone’s speaking Spanish. Tomorrow if we have the day off, we might take a bus tour and go to the famous Inca baths, about an hour away. I am starting to have a lot of fun on this trip, half because everyone’s so nice & it’s lovely hanging out with P. again after not seeing him for five years, half because M. is great great great & I thank God he agreed to go with me and didn’t turn out to be a sociopath. (Kidding, M., I know there’s still time for that discovery).
The only complaint I have so far: I can’t sleep. At least not in Cajamarca. I was able to take a half successful 45-minute nap this morning, but the whole nighttime sleeping thing has been a bust so far. Maybe tonight, after we RAGE.
Muah.