Work & Work
03.04.2004O Mundo Café was rather busy last night, which is a good thing. Tourism's starting to make a comeback. Also, we've an all-female Andean band (Arawimanta) playing Saturday night. I think we still need to do something more for publicity, but we haven't had an owners' meeting in ages — and there's much to talk about.
I managed to schedule three different interviews for today & tomorrow, which is more than I'd expected. And it's w/ at least two "heavy hitters" on my list. As part of the second phase of my fieldwork, I'm interviewing "public intellectuals" — academics & pundits who regularly publish opinion columns in newspapers or news & analysis magazines (like PULSO).
I've also decided to publish locally as well. So I translated & sent my piece "Referendum democracy?" to the editor of La Razon's Thursday political analysis section ("Tiempo Político"). It should run next week.
In economic news, the exchange rate just took a sharp jump. After staying steady at 7.84 for quite some time, it went up to 7.85 last week. Today it jumped up to $1=Bs.7.87. That makes the change a full 0.10 since I arrived (a 1.3% change in six months).
Posted by Miguel at 03:03 PM
Comments
glad the cafe is getting busy. that is good. man that sucks about the change rate. hopefully things will start to turn around for Bolivia soon!
Posted by: sam at March 4, 2004 07:50 PM
Is your article going to be published next thursday??, that's great!. I talked with Sergio (couldn't reach José Mario) but hopefully we will meet at Omundo Sunday at 19:00.
Posted by: Daniel at March 5, 2004 02:57 PM
There's been a bank run of sorts over the past month. Tio Eduardo (who works at the Central Bank) was afraid of that. Before Mesa's plan was announced, we were talking over a Sunday parrillada that a half-measure like a tax on bank transactions would damage (or kill) the weak banking sector after October. Looks to be the case.
Posted by: Miguel at March 5, 2004 02:57 PM