Road to .......

Bolivia’s future is probably about to change, and that road may be a difficult and long one.

First and foremost we are as safe as can be and have no concerns about our security and wellbeing, Peace Corps is doing a fantastic job keeping us informed, daily, of the happenings around Bolivia.

Alright, so the situation, politically and civically speaking, is not as peaceful as it could be. There are groups, some indigenous and some not, that want specific changes made to the constitution, which is now being revised under a constitutional referendum. I could talk about this all day but I’ll spare you the joy of the intricacies of the constitutional assembly and how they are rewriting the constitution. The main gist of it is that some people do not agree with the constitutional reforms and others do, so what you have is opposing groups who do not like each other. That is as basically what is going on.

I’d love to delve into this more but I feel I should take a ‘middle of the road’ and objective approach, mainly because I’m an employee of the United States government and shouldn’t be making political and or opinionated statements about the country I live in.
Because of the opposing viewpoints of specific groups here in Bolivia there have been strikes, protests and sometimes violence. The situation here is tense to say the least and let me reiterate; we are completely safe and in no jeopardy. I have emailed some of you in the past couple of weeks talking about the situation here and I’m sure that there will be some stories in the newspapers in the next couple of weeks regarding Bolivia and the constitutional referendum. Next week is when the reformed constitution will be voted on and approved by the assembly. I think next week will be a critical time for this country and its mainy different ethnic groups.

On the lighter side of things, Anna and I have been in Cochabamba for two weeks in a hostal with free internet and reasonable rates and I’m not looking forward to returning to the tropical heat of our site, Cochabamba’s weather is amazing. Next week Anna and I will be headed to a town called Aiquile, about four hours south of here, for a water testing workshop. Should be loads of fun, I’ll take tons of pictures on how to test for bacteria and levels of chlorine and all the cool water testing equipment, wow. We miss you all, especially with the holidays passing by. Merry kwanmasunkah! and we’ll write again soon.