17-01-09
Cochabamba is a beautiful city nestled in a mountain-ringed valley with a local climate much like coastal California where I grew up. My wife and daughter and I spent our sabbatical here in 2012-2013, and it’s been nice to revisit some of our favorite haunts. We’ve had one day of sightseeing, and one day of learning from local authorities, all the while battling the dreaded traveler’s diarrhea. Pretty much every one of us has taken our turn with it, starting with Maria (who now is happy to have gotten it over with early!) and currently including Ben D and me. Maddie has been a walking medicine cabinet; I came across her in the hall of this hotel doling out Imodium to a line of other students. This, too, shall pass!
Most of the students made the taxi journey to El Christo, taking the gondola back down, but I didn’t accompany them so don’t have pictures to share. Our shopping ambitions were stymied a bit by the free day being a Sunday, when many of the shops (and coffee shops) were closed. Now, Monday afternoon, many have gone out again to visit the artisan shops downtown.
This morning Teresa Hosse, the coordinator for the platform of climate change in Bolivia, spoke with us and took questions about the impact of climate change here. The Evo Morales government originally spoke big about climate change, even holding an alternative “People’s Summit on Climate Change and the rights of Mother Earth” during the time of the Copenhagen talks in 2010. In a story we’re hearing repeatedly, Teresa told us now that the Morales government has turned its back on caring for the earth and the changing climate, and has instead embraced petroleum extraction (even in National Parks), mining, and road-building through indigenous lands as the future. Lacking any support at the government level, her group has been organizing communities and other NGOs to promote climate-friendly policies. Probably as a way of silencing groups like hers, the government has required that all Non-Governmental Organizations re-register, and their registration can be turned down if the govt doesn’t like what they’re doing. Also from her: Bolivia is the first country to give legal protection for Mother Earth (Pachamama), but it disregards these protections. Bolivia is the 7th most biodiverse country in the world, but is losing species to climate change and extractive industries. La Paz (where we’ll be in a week) is for the first time in its history having water shortages, due to lack of rainfall and the disappearance of its glaciers, a historical source of water.
John Sembrana, the president of the Cochabamba environmental group FOCOMADE, told us this afternoon of the impacts of climate change and poor management on the big lake in Cochabamba, Laguna Alalay. Last March, due to persistent drought and terrible pollution (sewage, industrial waste, and fertilizer from sports fields), the level of the lake dropped from 3.5 meters to less than one. All the fish in the lake died and washed up on shore, most of the birds disappeared, and the lake, once a source of water for agriculture and the people around it, became completely toxic. He outlined what they’d like to do to rejuvenate it, but as with our prior speaker has found little support from either national or local governments. He, too, blamed climate change for the drought and the heat, saying Cochabamba no longer deserved its “eternal spring” moniker.
Ben R is finally reunited with his luggage!
Night on the prado, Cochabamba
Christmas decorations still very much up, even after the day of the wise men (Jan 6)