Early morning interview +

03.29.2004

Finally got my interview w/ Carlos Toranzo. We've met a few times, and he's been helpful since I met him 4-5 years ago. But he likes morning meetings (he's not usually even in his office in the afternoons). We met a while back just to catch up. Then, over a month ago, when he gave me the phone numbers & names of people I should interview. Now we finally sat down to his interview.

I arrived at the ILDIS (Latin American Social Science Institute) office minutes before 8:30am. My interview questions in hand, we sat down in his office for one of the better interviews I've yet had. I've to thank Don Carlos (he seems to get a kick out of that and calls me Don Miguel) for all his support over the years, even offering to publish some of my work (which reminds me to send him another piece for Tiempo Político).

Also, I managed an invite to this weekend's FES-ILDIS conference on decentralization ("Broadening Spaces for a Constitutional Debate"). Good for two reasons: A) I want to attend the conference and B) it'll be a good place to meet some potential interview subjects I've not yet reached, possibly even scheduling a session or two.

That done, I've now the entire morning to myself. So. Went to another lavanderia (not the one that lost my shirt), dropped off laundry. Drank some hot quinoa milk on the corner of Guachalla & Ecuador. And the only thing worth waking up before noon in La Paz: Tucumanas del Prado.

Tucumanas are like salteñas — which probably means nothing to you. OK. It's a type of bread pasty w/ meat, egg, potatoes, and spices inside. Whereas salteñas are quite juicy & include olives, tucumanas are less juicy, have more meat, and a crunchier bread shell. The best are sold from carts up a flight of steps on the Prado. You order your tucumana, then line up w/ the other patrons facing the jars of sauces (peanut, avocado, escavechi, llajwa, etc.) and go at it. You take a small bite, then lather a layer of sauce, then another bite. They also sell sodas, if you get thirsty.

From there, off to La Terraza for wi-fi internet. On the way, I got to see the famous traffic zebras. The municipal government of La Paz started a project to teach pedestrians & motorists the importance of crosswalks. The campaign involves young street performers in zebra costumes who do brief little "skits" on crosswalks. These include walking from opposite ends, meeting up in the middle, hugging. Or walking w/ umbrellas like crutches, huddled over like old people. Stuff like that. It's quite clever. I just happened to have my camera on me — so here's a picture.

Posted by Miguel at 10:29 AM

Comments

Ooohhh, tengo hambre ahora! We ate tucumanas almost every day, since we stayed at the Hotel Copacabana and the little stand that sold them was just around the corner and up the stairs. Que rico!! I've been trying to make salteñas, but can't get them to be a juicy as they are in Bolivia (but the flavor's pretty close, close enough to tide me over to my next trip to Bolivia), so maybe making tucumanas would work better since it's less juicy. The zebras were interesting to watch, but didn't seem to be that effective at keeping traffic from stopping past the crosswalk, at least from what I saw.

Posted by: Grant Generaux at March 29, 2004 06:58 PM

Yeah, the effectiveness of the zebras is minimal. But they're slowly gaining some attention. And at least it's a clever strategy: municipally employed street performers.

Posted by: Miguel at March 30, 2004 04:49 PM