February 12, 2009

La Paz: the buildings rise up from the steep streets in sepias, umbers and siennas. The crumbling walls are textured with spawling stucco that exposes brick, stone and adobe. A jumble of wires runs higgeldy piggeldy over the surface. In the shadows, on the ground level (as in life) are the beggars outside the basic shops of shoe repairs, photocopy places, contact lens shops. Some of the shops are covered in rolled sheet metal and some in painted wooden shutters. Above the shops, there is an uncertain area of round windows, ventilation holes and holes from the rotted out wood beams that once upon a time supported floors. The buildings starts to be more and more ornate and atherial the higher they rise. They end in steeples and towers that gleam against the blue sky.

The traffic in the street is noicy and solid. Little cars reve engines and blare horns. Hundreds of mini buses (collectivos) are the public transport. They have a driver who swerves, and races and stops suddenly and honks madly and a helper that hangs out the open side door doing a singing holloring chant about the destinations.

On one street, rows of men sit at tiny tables with old portable typewriters that have paper and carbon paper at the ready. Every street has kiosks on the sidewalks; for the news, for goat cheese, for salenas, or watches. Men in ski masks shine shoes.

In La Paz, pedestrians pack the streets. They wear modern clothing, lots of dark suits, with pink shirts and dark ties (Latino men look great in pink) Lots of sharply dressed shapely women in narrow pointy shoes with high high heels. Lots of students. Everyone with a cell phone. Among this rushing cosmopolitan throng are some indegenous people, short, plump in full full skirts and carrying bags and infants.

Many police are milling about, far more than last year.
Some with tear gas,
Some with rifles,
Some with small guns,
Some with shields and face protection,
Some with motorcycles or clubs.
So far no tanks.
At the entrance to every bank and most shops are armed security;
Even the small upscale coffee shop we had lunch in.

Groups of beggars hunker on the sidewalks.
Pitiful old women crouched on the street
With knarled old hands grasping at us for money.
Young mothers, with one, two three or four dirty ragged children.
The two year olds make the best beggars.
Even when it is dark, some of the families are still on the sidewalk
sharing a communal bowl of supper or sleeping.
Some beggars, like the tiny serious girl,
Who was singing and dancing her heart out
have to be supported.
I´m not sure how to handle the rest.
Does it help for me to give money or asurbate the problem.
I feel so guilty,
I want to help but how.

And when the overstimulation of the La Paz streets
threatens to overwelm me,
I step inside a quiet old church.
Gone is the jostling, the cacaphony of sound and the confusion.
For the moment I stop clutching my purse and camera,
And I sit and breathe