I don{t even know where to begin! So much has changed in the last day. For starters, the biggest thing is that my counterpart has been fired and so now I{m stuck with some new guy I just met yesterday for about 2 minutes. The reason for the firing is super complicated and political. I guess yesterday 28 people from the alcaldia (mayor{s office thing), including my counterpart, were let go because they supported the autonomia for santa cruz. A couple weeks ago there was a board meeting with the mayor (mostly all guarani people and therefore MASistas and supporters of the president Morales), and they decided that they wanted to kick out anyone who was against the president. Apparantly the mayor himself was against this idea, since he was friends with everyone, but he was apparantly the odd man out at the board meeting, so he got over ruled. So, just like that, all those people are gone (and 28 is a large percentage of the people who work there), and by the end of the week new (probably mostly guarani people) are going to come and fill those positions. I was talking to my counterpart yesterday and this other guy that was let go as well, and they say that most of the new guys don{t even know a thing about their new position, but that they were assigned it anyway. I don{t know if that{s true, but i guess i{ll find out!! So, now i have to start from the beginning because the new guy doesn{t know anything about what i{m working on and i need to get to know him in general, too. He seems like a good guy, I just don{t know him at all. I don{t know how this huge change is going to go over in Charagua. A lot of ganaderores live here, and they{re mostly all pro-autonomia, anti-president and they{ve got a lot of money and say over what goes on. I wonder how they{ll take this. That party I went to with my boss the other week, those were all pro-autonomia people. Ay ay ay!! I hate politics and now i have to deal with it front-row. This sucks!Can{t everyone just get along? The guy i might work with from CIPCA didn{t want me to work with the organization directly because they are MASistas- pro-president, and they said that might get me in trouble with the ganaderos if i was seen working with them, but now it seems like all the MAS people are in charge for a while!! I{m so confused. Plus, there{s an election for a new mayor at the end of the year (every 5 years they pick a new one), so this might all change within a couple of months when they pick the new guy! Federico, my old counterpart, is hopeful that he{ll get to come back into the alcaldia pretty soon, but we{ll see. I hope so, but we{ll just have to wait and see.
So, that{s it for the political situation. It{s crazy, but it{s also changing rapidly, maybe tomorrow something completely different will happen. Who knows? But oh yeah, it{s war time with Ben{s old family. Today I was walking to the market with Oso, and this dude (ben{s old host-dad{s nephew) runs up to me saying that he and his family moved into that house, and so now they can take care of Oso. I didn{t put up a fight then because I was too shocked, and before I knew it Oso was gone!!! I{m so sad and mad right now!! But don{t worry, the fight isn{t over. I love Oso and I{m getting him back!! Plus, they don{t even feed him over there! I was planning on making him nice and fat and happy!! I{ll let you know how this Oso war turns out. I{m not giving up hope yet!
Well, for some good news I{ve got work to do. I{m looking up characteristics of different tree species that grow in Charagua for a different, bigger, and better vivero. Yep, I might be scrapping the old one and joining with a different organization to make a bigger one a little ways from town that would help more people (including the mendonites, if they{ll accept it). It would still serve the same purpose, it would just be bigger and a more involved process. And since I{m supposed to be the tree expert (even though I haven{t even seen most of the trees here in my whole life until now!), I{m getting on the research right now! I{m actually really excited. I even have my own little table to go do work in this building close to my house. and i like the guys who work there, so all is looking good.
So that{s the news for now. I{ll let you know how the dog-war, political-war, and work stuff go as the week progresses!! Yikes! Oh yeah, there{s also a transportation strike in all of Bolivia! But being here in little charagua without a car and only a couple streets to walk down, i{m doing just fine.