CON--TIN--U--A--TION Blues*

some folks say the Blues is just a slave song
but, I say that's just a lie
'cause even we where free, babe
lord knows, we still got to die

lovers still lie
babies still cry


las' time I saw my mama she said
son, take care of yourself
meaning, when it gets down/ to the nitty gritty
there ain't nobody else

ain't nobody else



ain't
nobody
else
babe/ sometimes I find I'm thinking
our troubles will never end
but when I wake up in the morning
I start out all over again

'cause I got to/ keep on pushing
got to/ keep on with the keeping on
God I/ hope someday were free
to sing our troubles with a different song





*This poem is the bastard child of an Emmanuel Knight admirer's foggy memory and a way cooler poem by (perhaps) the same name.

onwards and upwards

Okay, so I changed my mind again. We should give Adam this website. Did you read his comment? It's completely true! And by 'completely true' I mean only the common sense usage of the words, ie he made a cursory mention of Sorata and left the details at arms length—there can be no argument.


Illi Says . . . IS a barren hell hole trapped in Creed's own prison with arms wide open and the backwards, undeveloped, indigenous memories of the 4guys' Bolivian shadows need a sure footed, neo-colonizational power to instill a driven, future oriented, death-or-advancement, foreign government that can properly transform the long ignored (out of ignorance) resources into the foundation for an industrious economy of hope and, with time, perhaps a benevolent e-empire.


This is how the stories of the world we've been thrown into work. Scott, you argued that some Native Americans somewhere still wished they owned Manhattan so we shouldn't give up our cyber domain gratuitously. But Adam mentioned Sorata, come on! Lets not forget that somewhere sometime some Native Americans got 26—count them t-w-e-n-t-y—s-i-x--shiny turquoise beads! Moreover, centuries later, the whole world got something in return for that deal: hip-hop music and the perfect setting for all the GhostBuster films.


Free trade=Win Win and Win Win!

Zero sums are for bums!


Adam as your personality in now an enigma, if you're ever bored, please feel free to take this online personality quiz.


1. T or F Sorata is located at the base of Illampu.

2. You're lost in the Andes at three in the morning, and wet from forging a river, so you lay down on some campensino's cement porch to sleep and Andy Baker tells you you got to keep moving because the owner will get angry and the situation might turn dangerous? What do you do?

A. fall asleep anyway, knowing full well that Andy only said those things because he thinks you're weak sauce for wanting a breather during a 30 hour hike and dream about what you'll order at Planet Pizza once your back in town

B. vomit (more like dry heave, really) from exhaustion, thus proving Baker's weak sauce theory to be true

3. Every time you eat soup you get more of it in you beard than in your mouth. What do you do?

A. shave

B. What do you mean what do I do? I don't see a problem.

C. clean it up with bread

D. mix some llajua in with it

E. put a magazine with pictures of naked women all through it on the top of the Baker's trash can

F. buy a monkey and shove it in a box

4. If you were on a team, would it be green, or better than green?

Gold Star

I believe the beer of legend was called Weisbier, which in German means "Almost Jagermeister but Not Quite". It was either that or it was just an El Inca bottle with a Pacena label conveniently plastered over it, but maybe Jon remembers better then I do?

What I do know for certain is that it makes for a fun bus ride back to El Alto as the local drunks insist on speaking English while the out of town drunks insist on speaking German and occasionally Condor.

I also recall that at some point in that ride it got really hot, so hot that people needed to take their shirts off...

There is no reason to assign blame or penance for the a fore mentioned actions. While the current blog may not be used as regularly as some in society may demand, it does not devalue it's importance. A treasured photo album or journal is not worth more or less by the number of times other people look at it, while at the same time I may watch a Chillies commercial signing "Baby-back Ribs" a thousands times but still not consider it a precious commodity (If that commercial reference is no longer up to date please feel free to inset what ever annoying commercial is now being played).

And Adam's failure to participate or "co-opt" the blog is not due to our selfishness (although we are likely selfish or at least self indulgent) but rather to his inability to engage the material presented to him in a meaningful and insightful manner, or at the very least make enough jokes to reassure us that Illimani says' integrity will be maintained if even under new leadership. Failing to do such it is our duty to reject any offer of co-optation (which seems less and less like an offer and more like a demand...like when Germany co-opted France a while back) and to once again begin the inane task of writing our opinions for all the world to share in.

With that in mind I think we should all just start using this blog like one big mass email only with no set number of the people we have to individually respond to. Or at the very least spend the next two weeks making enjoyable references to a number of inside jokes and funny moments that have to do with Bolivia.

Either way I am happy to see you again Illimani...I wonder what secrets you hold inside you right now?

up to our words

So, I went and promised to give this website to someone. And then, when two of the other original 4guys contested, rather promptly, that that might not be the best idea, I was stunned--only because these two individuals never ever agree about anything thing unless the matter at hand is unquestionable.

e.g.
Motorcycles are sweet (metaphorically).

El Inca is sweet (literally).

So it appears that the transfer of Illimani Says . . . is unquestionably out of the question.

For purposes of near-full disclosure, I will post the near-entirety of the offer I'm now rescinding.

hi

you asked for our web address here on blog spot

I'd be more than happy to speak for the other 3 blog slackers that haven't posted in over 3 years and give it to you

but you have to explain how I do that; and please understand your dealing with a technological numb-skull, I know more expressions in Aymara than computer terms.

if you haven't left the states yet, and your mid-west location is anywhere near central Kentucky (or you have any connections with that part of the world--be they friendly or belligerent) you must, absolutely MUST, purchase (or have connections purchase) a six pack of Ale-8-One (bottles) for Baker--it's a mystical carbonated beverage known only by the chosen

I already know your outrage at this brainless suggestion made by a stranger and the firm tone used to make it:

"bottled liquids on a plane!?!?! that's precious weight! and bulk! I could use for Wende!l Berry books and therma! underwear!!! and it'll have to go with the hold luggage, so won't it get all shaken up and ruined anyway!!!! look here, you weird person on the internet!!! I have to prepare for starting a new life in a foreign country and you want be make a trip to Kentucky!!!!!"

reasons to take my terrible, unsolicited advice anyway:

1. all bottled beverages fizz uncontrollably in El Alto even if they haven't been tossed around by baggage handlers

2. the best gifts have mountains of thought and effort behind them and minimal if any usefulness in front of them

3. no one ever regrets bringing a house warming gift, and nothing warms a chilly apartment floor like the sticky fizzy runoff of fresh a Ale8one

4. all people before you (myself included) ended up bringing things they didn't need to Bolivia

5. ya pues

6. there is no reason number six

7. anyone who knows Uncle Lee knows there is no better reason for a road trip to KY



but, if you can find no way to purchase this luxury item, go ahead and take any tiny, pliable, light weight, shatterproof gift you want, EXCEPT a water balloon launcher!!! (they only lead to trouble)

The blogastratusphere will be my confessor. You now know the words I've broken, what is a suitable penance?

- spending the night is a cave with millions of spiders
- hand sewing a five person hammock
- tying myself to a tree and tangling myself to the point I can't move
- trying to use rational arguments to convince Mike from New York that he is just as close minded as those he accuses of being closed minded
- six weeks of sleeping on sacks of chunyos in the Altiplano
- signing a statement of faith/ community contract
- become an out of work ESL teacher
- blogging about my personal opinions
- or what have you

medicated

The head pounding set in Saturday evening. I knew something was coming, my whole body felt warm with a slight ache. Sunday and Monday are a complete blur. I didn't leave the apartment, I didn't eat, and my thoughts quickly became sporadic and non-sensical. I cursed the juice company Tampico for profiting off my illness. Eventually, it was only slipping and sliding: slipping in and out of consiousness and sliding blanket-wrapped across the floor trying keep myself in the slanted rectangles of the sun's afternoon window-rays.

The sun set and I was irrationally concerned that I would be unable to warm myself through the night. I needed to call someone! tell them that I wasn't thinking straight, that I was vomiting, and that I felt like crying. After maybe thirty minutes I managed to located the keys and proper change. But then I thought about having to walk all the way outside and around the corner to the phone, would anything be worth that! I chose to stay inside and mumble. "I can't breathe" "I can't go to the campo" "My eye's will turn yellow" "I won't have health to go to France" "I'll never see Africa again."



restless night


This morning Wes was home and I was awake for the first time. I told him about this headache.



He gave me a green pill.




With my glasses off I sat and watched the clear-day, bright-brick colors of El Alto jump in and out of the window. I watched Wes play legos with the Baker's trilingual child: english, spanish, and three-year-old speech (a language that is rarely directed toward any one person, completely devoid of vocabulary and syntax but amazingly expressive by means of intonation alone).

Within the hour my brain felt no pain.

I posited a scientific theory. The green pill probably made my heart beat a little faster than it needed, sending excess oxygen to my head, numbing and buzzing the pain centers of my brain . . . or somesuch tumbling of physiologic dominos. But I quickly rejected it. The remedy must have been those thoughts of loved ones induced by child's play and sun colors.

The always consistant arc of Dave Weber's smile.

The broad stance and non-self-confidence confidence of Ethan Van Drunen giving smiles in exchange for life promotions.

Doug Harbin's genuine enthusiasm and child-like fascination with the bassoon.

My sister with bones loose in their skin, swept up in the current, sharing time and washing dishes.

uummm...

Bush in India: Just Not Welcome
by Arundhati Roy

On his triumphalist tour of India and Pakistan, where he hopes to wave imperiously at people he considers potential subjects, President Bush has an itinerary that's getting curiouser and curiouser.

For Bush's March 2 pit stop in New Delhi, the Indian government tried very hard to have him address our parliament. A not inconsequential number of MPs threatened to heckle him, so Plan One was hastily shelved. Plan Two was to have Bush address the masses from the ramparts of the magnificent Red Fort, where the Indian prime minister traditionally delivers his Independence Day address. But the Red Fort, surrounded as it is by the predominantly Muslim population of Old Delhi, was considered a security nightmare. So now we're into Plan Three: President George Bush speaks from Purana Qila, the Old Fort.

Ironic, isn't it, that the only safe public space for a man who has recently been so enthusiastic about India's modernity should be a crumbling medieval fort?

Since the Purana Qila also houses the Delhi zoo, George Bush's audience will be a few hundred caged animals and an approved list of caged human beings, who in India go under the category of "eminent persons." They're mostly rich folk who live in our poor country like captive animals, incarcerated by their own wealth, locked and barred in their gilded cages, protecting themselves from the threat of the vulgar and unruly multitudes whom they have systematically dispossessed over the centuries.

So what's going to happen to George W. Bush? Will the gorillas cheer him on? Will the gibbons curl their lips? Will the brow-antlered deer sneer? Will the chimps make rude noises? Will the owls hoot? Will the lions yawn and the giraffes bat their beautiful eyelashes? Will the crocs recognize a kindred soul? Will the quails give thanks that Bush isn't traveling with Dick Cheney, his hunting partner with the notoriously bad aim? Will the CEOs agree?

Oh, and on March 2, Bush will be taken to visit Gandhi's memorial in Rajghat. He's by no means the only war criminal who has been invited by the Indian government to lay flowers at Rajghat. (Only recently we had the Burmese dictator General Than Shwe, no shrinking violet himself.) But when Bush places flowers on that famous slab of highly polished stone, millions of Indians will wince. It will be as though he has poured a pint of blood on the memory of Gandhi.

We really would prefer that he didn't.

It is not in our power to stop Bush's visit. It is in our power to protest it, and we will. The government, the police and the corporate press will do everything they can to minimize the extent of our outrage. Nothing the happy newspapers say can change the fact that all over India, from the biggest cities to the smallest villages, in public places and private homes, George W. Bush, the President of the United States of America, world nightmare incarnate, is just not welcome.

[Arundhati Roy, the Booker Prize-winning author of 'The God of Small Things' and 'The Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire', lives in New Delhi, India.]