Monday

Last week I started writing a blog entry called “What Monday Will Bring.” At the time I thought September 10th would be significant for at least three reasons: first, its my big brother’s birthday; second, General Petraeus was scheduled to testify before the House regarding the surge in Iraq; and finally, here in Bolivia, the Vice President had called upon the majority party’s base support to march to Sucre on Monday, 100,000 strong, in order to defend the resumption of Bolivia’s constituent assembly. The assembly, Bolivia’s attempt to rewrite its constitution, has taken a break amongst heavy harassment of its participants by the opposition.

What I did not expect to wake up to at 6:30am on Monday morning was a strange Bolivian nurse wanting to bathe me in my hospital bed, because I couldn’t take a shower due to the IV pumping antibiotics and fluids into my left arm. But life in Bolivia is full of surprises, in fact that’s the national motto: “…where the unexpected is normal.”

I woke up at 12am on Sunday violently ill and within the hour was taken to the hospital. The doctor thinks I had both an “infection” from food poisoning and some “vague parasites,” probably contracted before the food poisoning. And he may be on to something because my friend Dave was also ill and we had eaten at the same “upscale” restaurant on Saturday night. But I have another theory…

I think my thrashing intestines were really sympathy pains for all the day’s events; an ailment of compassion for all I anticipated the world to bare on Monday. Allow me to explain.

First of all, my beloved brother, three years my senior, born on this day has always had a fear of heights. Yet, as a member of the armed services, he spent his birthday at Army Jump School, and though he’d been there a week or so prior, Monday was the first day he actually jumped out of an aircraft. When he told me he was heading to Jump School, I did ask about his phobia, but he said he was “over it.” All the same I bet his stomach was turning some tricks of its own Monday.

One plus to being in the hospital was that I had cable, including CNN in English, and was able to watch Petraeus’ testimony (though I admit I got bored during the ambassador’s extensive remarks afterwards and flipped to HBO). Since it wasn’t published in any La Paz newspapers, I particularly appreciated that the senators noted MoveOn.org’s campaign against Petraeus’ credibility which included the NYT ad: “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?”– very catchy. Center for American Progress argues that his testimony, albeit a “political whisper” "opened a new phase" in the debate over Bush's strategy -- "from this point on, the argument will no longer be about whether to withdraw U.S. troops but about how many to pull out and how quickly." To me it didn’t seem to have any surprises…but all the same it was an intense moment…all eyes being on the general…so again, I argue my nausea was merely compassion for the Hearing.

Bolivia of course tops them all, as it is a haven of social protest and civil unrest, which unfortunately escalated to some violence this past week. As part of the president’s “democratic revolution”, the country is engaged in a constituent assembly to rewrite its constitution. The president’s party has majority control over the assembly, and would seemingly be able to drive the agenda, thus the opposition has taken to other means in order to prevent measures it contests such as land reform. In my opinion, this is how the current capital debate came about. Though the city Sucre was the colonial capital it lost its preeminent position to La Paz in a 19th century civil war and no longer holds the legislative or executive branches of govt. The opposition tried to address relocating the full capital back to Sucre in the assembly but it was voted off the agenda, so they responded with hunger strikes and civil unrest. “But give me a break…the capital has been in La Paz over a hundred years, this is not an injustice over which to starve yourself,” you say. Exactly. There aren’t even buildings there to hold the govt. offices or for which to relocate all the embassies…its ridiculous. It was completely political and rallied the people enough that the assembly (located in Sucre) was forced to close for safety reasons. Initially the march was supposed to help re-open the assembly on Monday, but on Friday it was announced that another month recess would be taken, due to some violent protests mainly by university students setting tires on fire and trying to take the national theater. But the president’s supporters: indigenous campesinos (from rural highlands, cocaleros, unions etc) marched anyway. And resolved to ask for the immediate reopening of the assembly, promising they themselves would defend the delegates from the opposition, they remain in Sucre today.

It was said that women in the streets were selling vinegar, bicarbonate of soda and facemasks, to protect from the tear gas….does tear gas make you nauseas? I bet it does and I bet that contributed to my illness…

Oh and to make the story complete…the electricity went out at the hospital, it was classic... I had to use the light from my cell phone to eat my Jello!