Living in La Paz
La Paz is a city, unique and beautiful and full of suprises. This week Jojo and I moved out of our apartment and into Ceprosi´s community center. This move was insipired by many factors including money, security, convienience, and location. This is the same building where our capoeira classes are, where we gather to watch the World Cup, and where we end up some nights to play games and enjoy the local brew Pacena.
We have a room up on the roof patio with fiberglass ceiling that admits the strong morning light and windows all around. It is cold up there at night, but where isn´t it cold at night in La Paz? Now where. That´s where.
I opened the door this morning onto the patio saying as I did so ¨I love our room because when you leave, you are on a roof.¨ This is true. I have always wanted to live on a roof terrace and now that dream has come true! The morning light is strong and bright. The sky a pure even clear blue, and the tile or metal rooftops shine brightly, contrasting against the blue of thin and clear atmosphere.
In the distance the hill that surrounds La Paz, really the inside of a crater, is clustered with adobe or painted stucco cubes and rectangles. The dominant color is the pale brown adobe, the same color as the clay and stone rich soil from which these houses are hewed.
There is a small bathroom and an outdoor sink which gushes forth icy cold water with aplomb. I wetted my hair this morning under the glacial stream and shook out my lengthing curls like the shaggy dog i´ve become. The sun sparkled off the droplets as I experienced the sting of morning awakening and a ritual i´ve come to use as the mark to begin my day.
____
Jojo and I walked out the front door of Ceprosi and down the hill to the right. Everything in La Paz is either up or down. It´s like a cartesian coordinate system tilted on it´s side and wrapped around a wash basin. There´s the centro, down in the drain, and all around, up from there, or out the pipe and south towards the ritzy neighborhood of Zona Sur. We walked down down down five blocks to the Prado, which runds north south, and up to the north through the centro. A small cafe embreced our breakfast desires on the sunny western side of the Prado, with large windows and a subsequent warmth that toasted the day´s opportunities.
Unfortunately not all opportunites are without their challenges. After breakfast we discovered that the process of moving out of our apartment has been delayed yet another day. This saga begins last week when we hired Don Hugo to paint the walls of our house. This is a tradition here and makes sense. Since all the buildings are made of concrete, brick, and sutcco paint is a standard solution to the starkness of buildings interiors. It is almost universally applied here and the colors are based on a simple scheme. An off white or cream color for walls, with white on ceilings and most wood trim or doors.
Don Hugo did most of the painting last week, but needed to come back to do some touch up... I´ll not bore you with all the details of how his NOT showing up when he said he would, or at all, has delayed our hand over of the keys to our Landlady (Dueña) but suffice to say, it is now Thursday and we were supposed to be out of there Monday. But don´t worry my friends and family, Don Hugo´s misbehaviour will not go unpunished. He will not be paid for his work, and we will be reimbursed for our exteneded and unwanted stay. Ahh, retribution is sweet when flavored with justice.
So the ups and downs of living in La Paz expound and expand. My feet feel the street and the nibble of cold. My lungs heave and breathe, the ups increase their pace and downs sooth their constant desire for more of this thin Andean air. Do you feel my roller coaster ride through the days and nights of living abroad? I wonder, do the ups and downs of La Paz make their way through the internet and my bouncy words to your own lungs and legs?
These waves and rythems of life and land, the days and nights, the passing of time-now growing short as our return grows immenent on the horizon. Up and down, my desire for home, my grwoing feeling of loss when I leave, these oscilations of emotion, of body, of time and place begin to form in my mind a picture of this trip. What does it mean to live in another place, another culture, or another time? There are lessons learned that are different and unknowable from the lessons at home. Lessons that are valuable and transmittable, and lessons that will forever be accesible only by living in La Paz.
We have a room up on the roof patio with fiberglass ceiling that admits the strong morning light and windows all around. It is cold up there at night, but where isn´t it cold at night in La Paz? Now where. That´s where.
I opened the door this morning onto the patio saying as I did so ¨I love our room because when you leave, you are on a roof.¨ This is true. I have always wanted to live on a roof terrace and now that dream has come true! The morning light is strong and bright. The sky a pure even clear blue, and the tile or metal rooftops shine brightly, contrasting against the blue of thin and clear atmosphere.
In the distance the hill that surrounds La Paz, really the inside of a crater, is clustered with adobe or painted stucco cubes and rectangles. The dominant color is the pale brown adobe, the same color as the clay and stone rich soil from which these houses are hewed.
There is a small bathroom and an outdoor sink which gushes forth icy cold water with aplomb. I wetted my hair this morning under the glacial stream and shook out my lengthing curls like the shaggy dog i´ve become. The sun sparkled off the droplets as I experienced the sting of morning awakening and a ritual i´ve come to use as the mark to begin my day.
____
Jojo and I walked out the front door of Ceprosi and down the hill to the right. Everything in La Paz is either up or down. It´s like a cartesian coordinate system tilted on it´s side and wrapped around a wash basin. There´s the centro, down in the drain, and all around, up from there, or out the pipe and south towards the ritzy neighborhood of Zona Sur. We walked down down down five blocks to the Prado, which runds north south, and up to the north through the centro. A small cafe embreced our breakfast desires on the sunny western side of the Prado, with large windows and a subsequent warmth that toasted the day´s opportunities.
Unfortunately not all opportunites are without their challenges. After breakfast we discovered that the process of moving out of our apartment has been delayed yet another day. This saga begins last week when we hired Don Hugo to paint the walls of our house. This is a tradition here and makes sense. Since all the buildings are made of concrete, brick, and sutcco paint is a standard solution to the starkness of buildings interiors. It is almost universally applied here and the colors are based on a simple scheme. An off white or cream color for walls, with white on ceilings and most wood trim or doors.
Don Hugo did most of the painting last week, but needed to come back to do some touch up... I´ll not bore you with all the details of how his NOT showing up when he said he would, or at all, has delayed our hand over of the keys to our Landlady (Dueña) but suffice to say, it is now Thursday and we were supposed to be out of there Monday. But don´t worry my friends and family, Don Hugo´s misbehaviour will not go unpunished. He will not be paid for his work, and we will be reimbursed for our exteneded and unwanted stay. Ahh, retribution is sweet when flavored with justice.
So the ups and downs of living in La Paz expound and expand. My feet feel the street and the nibble of cold. My lungs heave and breathe, the ups increase their pace and downs sooth their constant desire for more of this thin Andean air. Do you feel my roller coaster ride through the days and nights of living abroad? I wonder, do the ups and downs of La Paz make their way through the internet and my bouncy words to your own lungs and legs?
These waves and rythems of life and land, the days and nights, the passing of time-now growing short as our return grows immenent on the horizon. Up and down, my desire for home, my grwoing feeling of loss when I leave, these oscilations of emotion, of body, of time and place begin to form in my mind a picture of this trip. What does it mean to live in another place, another culture, or another time? There are lessons learned that are different and unknowable from the lessons at home. Lessons that are valuable and transmittable, and lessons that will forever be accesible only by living in La Paz.
posted by Greenstigator at 10:18 AM
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