Camiri

I've spent the last months traveling, working in the countryside, coming back occasionally to the city to rest on some weekends, which is why I've had little time and even less desire to update the blog, but I've decided to update it today, posting some pictures. Perhaps I'll start writing mini-post so as not to abandon the blog.

This pictures were taken a couple months ago in Camiri, a town to the Southwest of Santa Cruz, about 4 hours away by car, where we were working, alongside with another colleague in the automation of the water network.

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Me he pasado viajando los últimos meses, trabajando en el campo, volviendo ocasionalmente a descansar algún fin de semana a la ciudad, por lo que he tenido poco tiempo y aún menos ganas de actualizar el blog, pero he decidido actualizarlo hoy, poniendo algunas fotos. Quizás comience a escribir mini-posts para no abandonar el blog.

Estas fotos fueron tomadas hace un par de meses en Camiri, un pueblo al suroeste de Santa Cruz, como a 4 horas de viaje, donde estuvimos trabajando, junto con un colega más en la automatización de la red de agua.

Music!

I added an assorted mix of songs to the "music!" section of the blog.
I'll be adding more songs in time, as I've been listening to my own blog's music during work hours, now that I can't use Last.fm for free anymore since I'm not in the U.S. or Germany (damn you Last.fm!).

Añadí una mezcla variada de canciones a la sección "music!" del blog.
Estaré agregando más canciones con el tiempo, ya que he estado escuchando la música de mi propio blog durante las horas de trabajo, ahora que ya no puedo usar Last.fm gratis ya que no estoy en los EE. UU. ni en Alemania (maldito Last.fm!).

James, Jaime, Jacobo ...He-Man

I was reflecting on whether to add a Facebook badge or not to my blog, thus allowing people to contact me, but also revealing other information like my real name and who my friends are.
I never meant for my blog to be “secret”, but anonymity sort of gives you more “freedom” to write pretty much anything.

In the end I decided that I'd take the chance of exposing myself publicly. Probably not much of a threat.

Then I started thinking about people looking at my Facebook Profile and reading my name: “Jaime”.
First of all I must tell you that I was named after my father (which is or at least was rather common for a firstborn child over here) and I always saw it as a lack of creativity or perhaps just a way of trying to make your child more like yourself.

I must confess I never liked my name all that much, but being used to people calling me like that, I never tried to make people call me differently, like demanding that they use my middle name instead or something (for us Latins it’s not at all uncommon to have a middle name and since we use both parents last names, names are rather long).

The real problem with my name is that it doesn’t get along very well with globalization, in the sense that people who don’t speak Spanish tend to get very confused by it and I’ve had a hard time trying to get people to get it right when I travel abroad.

For English-speaking people it’s natural to read my name as in “Jaime Sommers” (The Bionic Woman) so I’m guessing it sounds kind of girly to them, but whenever I’ve tried to explain them that it is supposed to be pronounced like “Hi-Meh” is when things have gotten worse. I’ve been called “Hi-may”, “Hi-mee”, “Hymen” and my personal favorite: “He-Man” (this was during a dissertation at Rotary Club meeting in India).

And it’s even strange for French-Speaking people, since “J’aime” means “I like” in French. I had this Belgian friend who laughed after writing what she thought was a confusing e-mail to her parents, where she said “she was going somewhere with I like”.

Fortunately my friends nicknamed me “James” some time ago, not on my request but rather because one of them started calling me like that and it stuck, so now if any non-Spanish-speaker asks my name I just say “James” and it doesn’t feel odd.

To put an end to my ramblings for today, I’ll explain briefly the origin of the name “Jaime”:
It comes from the Hebrew name Ya’aqov, which derived then in the greek name Iakobos and later Iacobus (from which the name Jacob came) in late latin and a dialect variant, Iacomus. In eastern Spain this became Jacome and then Jaime, while the English name James came from the French variation of the Latin name.

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Estaba reflexionando acerca de si agregaba o no una insignia (badge) de Facebook a mi blog, permitiendo así a la gente contactarme, pero también revelando otra información como mi nombre real y quién son mis amigos.

Nunca tuve la intención de que mi blog sea “secreto”, pero el anonimato te da cierta “libertad” de escribir casi cualquier cosa.

Al final decidí que correr el riesgo de exponerme públicamente. Probablemente no es una gran amenaza.

Luego me puse a pensar en la gente mirando mi perfil del Facebook y leyendo mi nombre: “Jaime”.
Primero que nada debo decirles que me pusieron el nombre de mi padre (lo cual es o por lo menos era más bien común para un primogénito por estos lares) y siempre lo vi como una falta de creatividad o quizás solo como una manera intentar hacer que tu hijo se te parezca más.

Debo confesar que nunca me gustó demasiado mi nombre, pero estando acostumbrado a que la gente me llame así, nunca intenté que me llamen diferente, como pedirles que usen mi segundo nombre en su lugar o algo así.

El verdadero problema con mi nombre es que no se lleva muy bien con la globalización, en el sentido de que la gente que no habla español tiende a confundirse mucho con él y yo he tenido dificultades tratando de que la gente lo diga bien cuando viajo al extranjero.

Para la gente que habla inglés es natural leer mi nombre como en “Jaime Sommers” (La Mujer Biónica) así que me imagino que debe sonarles medio femenino, pero cuando he tratado de explicarles que debería pronunciarse como “Hi-Meh” (leído en inglés) es cuando las cosas han salido peor. Me han llamado “Jaimei”, “Jaimi”, “Jaimen” (pronunciado como ‘Hymen’ en inglés, que significa ‘Hímen’) y personalmente mi favorito: “He-Man” (esto fue durante una disertación en una reunión del Rotary Club en India).

Inclusive es extraño para la gente que habla francés, ya que “J’aime” siginifica “me gusta” en francés. Tuve una amiga Belga que se rió después de haber escrito lo que a ella le pareció un e-mail confuso a sus padres, donde decía que “estaba yendo a algún lugar con me gusta”.

Afortunadamente mis amigos me apodaron “James” hace algun tiempo, no a pedido mío, sino más bien porque uno de ellos me comenzó a decir así y pegó, así que ahora si algún no-hispano-parlante me pregunta mi nombre simplemente digo “James” y no me suena raro.

Para poner fin a mis divagaciones por hoy, explicaré brevemente el origen del nombre “Jaime”:
Viene del nombre hebreo Ya’aqov, que derivó luego en el nombre griego Iakobos y luego Iacobus (de donde viene el nombre Jacobo) en latín vulgar y una variación en dialecto, Iacomus. En el este de España, ésta se convirtió en Jacome y luego Jaime, mientras el nombre inglés James vino de una variación francesa del nombre en latín.

Crops near the City

I just wanted to share this pictures I took during a trip to a gas plant a couple of hours away from the city. They were taken with a cellphone from a moving vehicle, so they are kinda crappy, but I loved the view.
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Solo quería compartir estas fotos que tomé durante un viaje a una planta de gas a un par de horas de la ciudad. Fueron tomadas con un celular desde un vehículo en movimiento, así que son más bien malas, pero me encantó la vista.

Fabulosos Cadillacs

It’s been a couple pretty hectic days, with my cousin graduating this last Thursday, so there was enough reason to celebrate (we have yet another lawyer in the family).

That very same day “Los Fabulosos Cadillacs” were playing and neither I or my cousin wanted to miss it, so we went to the show and then got back to his place for the “after-party”. Then, yesterday, the “real” celebration took place, with the family and my cousin’s friends and all, and it went on till early in the morning today so I slept through most of the day until some friends called to organize a “churrasco” (barbecue party kind of thing) here at our place, so it seems my liver won’t be resting today, as I had originally planned.

About the concert, I had a good time and I enjoyed the show very much. I think though, that the band wasn’t trying very hard to connect with the audience. Even the atmosphere turned political at one point with the public chanting in unison stuff like “Evo, sos un hijo de puta” ("Evo, you are a son of a bitch" -Evo, the president, is not very popular in Santa Cruz, as you can imagine-). Still, the music was good and people got crazy when listening to some of their most popular songs.

Here is a short bit of one of the songs …I never understood what’s the deal with the “skulls and little devils” (calaveras y diablitos), but I like the song:

Las tumbas son para los muertos / (tombs are for the dead)
Las flores para sentirse bien / (flowers are to feel better)
La vida es para gozarla / (life is to be enjoyed)
La vida es para vivirla mejor / (life is to live it better)

Calaveras y diablitos… / (skulls and little devils…)
Invaden mi corazón / (invade my heart)

No quiero morir sin antes haber amado, / ( I don’t want to die without having loved,)
pero tampoco quiero morir de amor / (but I don’t want to die of love either)


Han sido un par de días bastante agitados, con mi primo graduándose este jueves pasado, así que hubo suficiente razón para celebrar (ya tenemos a otro abogado más en la familia).
Ese mismo día tocaban “Los Fabulosos Cadillacs” y ni yo ni mi primo queríamos perdérnoslo, así que fuimos al show y después volvimos a su casa para el “after-party”. Después, ayer, tuvo lugar la “verdadera” celebración, con la familia y los amigos de mi primo y demás, y continuó hasta temprano en la mañana de hoy, así que dormí la mayor parte del día hasta que me llamaron unos amigos para organizar un "churrasco" aquí en nuestra casa, así que al parecer mi hígado no va a descansar hoy, como lo había planeado originalmente.

Sobre el concierto, la pasé bien y disfruté bastante el show. Creo, sin embargo, que la banda no estaba tratando demasiado de conectarse con la audiencia. Incluso el ambiente se puso político en algún momento con el público coreando al unísono cosas como “Evo, sos un hijo de puta” (Evo, el presidente, no es muy popular en Santa Cruz, como se imaginarán). Aún así, la música estuvo buena y la gente enloqueció al escuchar algunas de sus canciones más populares.

Aquí hay un fragmento de una de sus canciones ...nunca entendí que tienen que ver las "calaveras y diablitos", pero me gusta la canción:

Las tumbas son para los muertos
Las flores para sentirse bien
La vida es para gozarla
La vida es para vivirla mejor

Calaveras y diablitos…
Invaden mi corazón

No quiero morir sin antes haber amado,
pero tampoco quiero morir de amor

Great Times ...memories of India

I think it's time to post something new, so, inspired by the photos in “India Daily Photo”, which I check… well… almost daily, I started to recall the great time I had in India, back in 2002 (yeah… it's hard to believe it's been that long!) when I lived there for a year as an exchange student. The good friends I made, the good people I met, the quiet afternoons exchanging thoughts in the German Bakery, the 'chapatis' with 'aloo gobhi' for lunch, the evenings at Prem's with the ever-present 'butter chicken', watching the buffalos in the morning as I left the apartment in my bicycle headed towards Koregaon Park, the beautiful sights, the rooftop-parties, the trips around India, the 'masala chai' on the trains, listening to Bob Marley by the beach under a full moon with the sound of the waves in the background while laughing at dumb jokes and so many other good memories …sometimes I wish I could go back in time and do it all over again, but life goes on. New adventures lie ahead.

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Creo que es momento de postear algo nuevo, así que, inspirado por las fotos de “India Daily Photo”, que chequeo… bueno… casi a diario, comencé a recordar los increíbles momentos que pasé en la India, allá en el 2002 (sí… es difícil creer que ha pasado tanto tiempo!) cuando viví allí por un año como estudiante de intercambio. Los buenos amigos que hice, la buena gente que conocí, las tardes tranquilas intercambiando pensamientos en la German Bakery, los chapatis con 'aloo gobhi' para el almuerzo, las noches en Prems con el infaltable 'butter chicken', el mirar los búfalos en la mañana al salir del apartamento en mi bicicleta de ida a Koregaon Park, las hermosas vistas, las fiestas en los techos, los viajes alrededor de la India, el 'masala chai' en los trenes, el escuchar a Bob Marley en la playa bajo una luna llena con el sonido de las olas de fondo, riendo chistes tontos y muchos otros buenos recuerdos …a veces quisiera poder volver en el tiempo y hacerlo todo de nuevo, pero la vida continúa. Nuevas aventuras quedan por delante.

Easter Blasphemy

After a couple fun party days and after having taken the decision of making a new attempt to organize my life and schedule, I couldn’t think of anything better to do on an Easter Sunday than to blaspheme a little bit through the blog.

Having attended a catholic school, I was always intrigued by the idea of blind faith being a virtue. I always rather thought that (quoting Einstein) “the important thing is not to stop questioning”.

It’s interesting to me, the fact that people have the capacity to “doublethink” (as in George Orwell’s “1984”) so well developed and thus accept without question two contradictory ideas; holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind at once.
I never fully understood why God (which is a very abstract concept I will deal with some other time), who is love (as in “God is love”) and is merciful, also inflicts eternal punishment in hell to those who have rejected Jesus. Or why, even though He is infallible and sinless, decides put an end to every living being on earth by means of a flood only to promise not to do it again afterwards, as if He acted on a whim.
Why humanizing or “anthropomorphyzing” a perfect and infallible being and portraying God as one who changes his mind and repents, like anyone else?

In the particular case of the Great Flood, this is the explanation that a Christian (in this case, a Mennonite preacher) gives about God’s duality in this story:
Basically, he tells us (as I see it) that we should ignore the fact that He exterminated everything and focus on the fact that we are important to God (enough at least, I suppose, for Him to take the effort to drown us if necessary) and that He promised us not to harm us again (and thus, he loves us?).

As I see it, there are contradictions in the Bible, translation and interpretation errors, it is often ambiguous and it’s content is the result of a more or less arbitrary selection process of various books (perhaps that’s the subject of another post).

In the end, as the saying goes, “none so blind as those who refuse to see”, whoever wants to believe will always find a way to interpret the biblical texts and to hold contradictory ideas at the same time, and I, on the other hand, will probably keep thinking that it is curious that they think that way.

(Here are some exapmles of seemingly contradictory passages in the Bible: "Is God merciful?" - the Skeptic's Annotated Bible)
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Tras un par de días de divertidos festejos y luego de haber tomado la decisión de hacer un nuevo intento de organizar mi vida y mi tiempo, no se me ocurrió nada mejor que hacer en un día domingo de pascuas que blasfemar un poco a través del blog.

Habiendo asistido a una escuela católica, siempre me intrigó la idea de que la fe ciega fuera una virtud. Más bien siempre me pareció que (citando a Einstein) “lo importante es nunca dejar de cuestionarnos”.
Es interesante para mí el hecho de que la gente tenga tan bien desarrollada la capacidad del “doblepensar” (como en “1984” de George Orwell) y acepte sin problema dos ideas contradictorias; albergue dos creencias contrarias a la vez en la mente.

Nunca acabé de entender por que Dios (que es un concepto muy abstracto y lo trataré en otra oportunidad), que es amor (como en “Dios es amor”) y es misericordioso, también inflinge castigo eterno en el infierno a aquellos que han rechazado a Jesús. O por qué a pesar de ser un ser infalible y libre de pecado decide acabar con todo ser viviente sobre la tierra por medio de un diluvio para después prometer no volver a hacerlo como si actuara por capricho.
¿Por qué humanizar o “antropomorfizar” a un ser perfecto e infalible y mostrar a Dios como un ser que cambia de parecer y se arrepiente como cualquier persona?

En el caso particular del gran diluvio, esta es la explicación que da un cristiano (en este caso un predicador Menonita) acerca de la dualidad de Dios en esta historia: Básicamente nos dice (a mi entender) que deberíamos ignorar el hecho de que exterminó todo y concentrarnos en el hecho de que somos importantes para Dios (lo suficiente, supongo, para que se tome el trabajo de ahogarnos si es necesario) y que nos prometió no volver a hacernos daño (¿y por ende, nos ama?).

Como yo lo veo, en la Biblia existen contradicciones, errores de traducción e interpretación, es a menudo ambigua y su contenido es resultado de una selección más o menos arbitraria de varios libros (quizás sea tema de alguna otra entrada).

Al final, como reza el dicho “no hay peor ciego que el que no quiere ver”, los que quieren creer siempre hallarán una manera de interpretar los textos bíblicos y de sostener ideas (a mi parecer) contradictorias al mismo tiempo y yo, por otro lado, probablemente siga pensando que es curioso que piensen así.

Birthday

It's my birthday today, and this year it coincided with Good Friday, so I got to sleep a long siesta since it’s a holiday. On the other hand most of the pubs are closed today (there are fines for selling alcohol today), so there will probably be little celebration. Luckily I diligently stocked beer in my fridge, so I might as well call some friends over or something. I don’t like planning big parties and having to tend to my guests. I rather chill with few friends. I didn’t bother planning ahead, so I’ll improvise.

I'll leave you with a thought that comes to me in my birthday for the last two years:
"I am too young to write my own biography and too old to stay young for ever"
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Hoy es mi cumpleaños, y este año coincidió con Viernes Santo, así que pude dormir una siesta larga ya que es feriado. Por otro lado la mayoría de los pubs están cerrados hoy (hay multas por vender alcohol hoy), así que probablemente va a haber poco festejo. Afortunadamente diligentemente almacené cerveza en mi refrigerador, así que podría estar llamando a algunos amigos o algo. No me gusta planificar grandes fiestas y tener que atender a mis invitados. Prefiero pasarla tranquilo con pocos amigos. No me molesté en planificar anticipadamente, así que voy a improvisar.

Los dejo con un pensamiento que me viene en mi cumpleaños desde hace dos años:
"Soy muy jóven para escribir mi biografía y muy viejo para seguir siendo jóven eternamente"

Field Work

So, I’ve been working a lot these last few weeks. I’ve spent most of my time visiting different gas plants around Santa Cruz while doing a survey of their field instrumentation and safety systems.

The job wasn’t really much fun, having to walk around entire plants while checking the outdated P&IDs (piping and instrumentation diagrams) and taking notes and pictures, sometimes under a scorching sun only shadowed by clouds of mosquitoes, sometimes traveling for hours to get there and come back on the same day and sometimes being stuck in one of those plants for a couple of weeks with not much to do except working over 12 hours a day and eating like a pig (which, I must confess, I did).

Anyway, since I’ve lately become more and more interested in photography, a hobby I still have much to learn about, I wanted to share a couple of pictures I took during these trips.

Carnival in Santa Cruz

Carnival is one of those times of the year (around the end of February or the beginning of March) that I (and plenty other people too) eagerly await.
Some people take this long holiday as an opportunity to go relax in a small cabin in the country with friends (like in that movie “The Evil Dead”), to travel, spend some time with the family or just unbend at home and sleep through the entire holiday.
Even if the aforementioned options are pretty appealing, the four days of wild fun that carnival in Santa Cruz (Bolivia) represent to me, I wouldn’t trade them for the world.

The key to having an awesome time is, as pretty much always, to be in good company and to know where the fun is.

I still remember several years ago, when Carnival used to take place in the streets in the city center (it still does, but only to some extent) and everyone wandered in large groups of friends (“comparsas”), stopping from time to time while the band that followed the group (small brass bands playing traditional music) played a couple of tunes and everyone enjoyed a couple of beers.
In those days you pretty much just had to head downtown and there, set yourself up with a couple of beers (there were stands selling it all over the place) and then bump into everyone else.

Nowadays things have changed a little bit and mostly for security reasons the best part of carnival takes place in somewhat “private” parties… well, at least private for men, because women can usually go in and out on their own will, while men have to pay a rather large sum of money some weeks in advance in order to get inside, so men don’t have the freedom to move around and check out different parties, like girls do.
Yeah… it’s not the best example of gender equality, but I guess it works somehow.

Anyway, carnival in Santa Cruz starts on Saturday night with the “corso” which is (these days) like an endless parade of dancing beautiful girls and drunken people (well, I’m guessing it’s much more fun to take part of it than to watch it). You basically follow the hot dancing girl appointed by your comparsa and dance along or jump/walk along if you can’t dance (probably because of the enormous amounts of CH3-CH2-OH you consumed already) until you are completely worn out.
If you are still on your feet by the end of the “parade”, you can usually hit an after-party before you call it a night.

Then for the rest of the holiday, from Sunday to Tuesday, you can crash all morning and hit the parties that go on from 1 to 8 p.m. usually inside a parking lot, where a stage has been set, so there is popular music to dance to, plenty of beer and some food, all for free, or more accurately said, already paid for. After 8 p.m. the fun doesn't stop if you look hard enough, but then again you are probably better off saving your strength for the next day.

Carnival here involves playing with water and paint so by the end of the day you look like a rainbow or maybe a zombie and, as you must have already deducted, it also involves some heavy drinking, so people go wild after a while and everyone stops worrying and focuses on having a great time.
If you picked a good party/parking lot and are surrounded by friends and pretty girls (make that boys if you prefer), everyone with their minds set on having wicked good time, then you are all set.

These are some pictures I took during carnival. Not many since my cell phone died on me after it got soaking wet. Fortunately it came back to life after I left it to dry for a couple of days.

To sum it all up in one word: "Fun!".

Driving on the Edge: Trip to Tarija

A couple of pictures I took on the way to Tarija (south of Bolivia). The road kept me glued to the steering wheel the whole time. Finally you can see the joy I felt after it was over.
Crazy little road... you could actually bump into a truck or something at a random curve and would have to back up until you found a spot where the truck could pass you by.
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Un par de fotos que tomé en el camino a Tarija (al sur de Bolivia). El camino me mantuvo pegado al volante todo el tiempo. Finalmente pueden ver la alegría que sentí cuando se terminó. Qué caminito más loco... realmente te podías topar con un camión o algo en una curva cualquiera y haber tenido que retroceder hasta encontrar un punto donde el camión pudiera pasarte.

Harnessing the power

Just a random picture I took while idling at the job.
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Solo una foto cualquiera que tomé mientras vagaba en el trabajo.