Conclusions: Nutritionally valuable high-protein meals can be
produced from whole spent hens using conventional rendering
procedures. Such meals may be safely used at levels up to 10%
in diets for laying hens provided good analytical procedures are
followed to determine nutritional content. Due to the high level
of residual fat and the highly unsaturated nature of this fat, it will
be necessary to insure that adequate amounts of a suitable
antioxidant is used during manufacturing to prevent rancidity
development.

No more chicken for me, thanks.

MS: BUSH
Is it Bush?
BTW, i just sent that BUSH IM to WF.
Accidentally
Is it Bush?
Come on i think it’s kind of a problem if it is Bush
Sara?

Me: It’s not Bush
So you just IMed WF with nothing but “BUSH”?

MS: Yes!

Me: Did you explain it?

MS: Nope
I said “that was supposed to go to Sara”

Me: “I had a great mojito, so maybe that explains it.”

I picked it up on the ground outside an archeological mound and handed it to Dr. David Periera. Oh, this is from the Foundation period, he  said. It´s probably 1,500 years old. Good eye!

How about that.

The Cordillera Oriental and two rebuilt Inca grain silos. They have doorways in them because the first four that the archaeologists rebuilt were vandalized by people who tore down the walls to see if anything was inside.

Not very  spectacular, but these are original Inca foundations, all in a row.

And this is a black figure of Christ on the cross, wearing a rainbow sash, being carried down the street in Quillacolla, followed by a brass band.

A health exhibit in the public square, complete with hand drawn informational posters, put on by the military police. Other posters included communicable diseases and vaccinations.

And apparently the story here is that unions of taxis and suchlike will decide on a saint who should protect their vehicles, and then they perform a ritual to that saint. That ritual being to decorate your car with baby dolls, llamas and cutlery and drive it around the public square.

I sneeze. At the next table there is a rotating crowd of men, anchored by two guys who are playing with gadgets–a phone, a watch, a camera.

One says “Salud,” when I sneeze and then in Spanish asks if I like his spandex sleeve that is printed like a tattoo sleeve. I can’t remember the word, so I say in English that it’s weird and they laugh and forget about me. They leave.

I’m writing about the morning’s trip to see Inca ruins and reconstructed grain silos. Because the site is out in the country and the tourist center is under construction, I have go to the bathroom behind some scrub, which is treacherous because it all seems to have thorns.

Then two return and my friend with the fake tattoo sleeves says something, and the only part I understand is “novio.”

“A letter to your boyfriend?” his friend translates. They move from their table to the couches and the first produces a stack of more spandex tattoo sleeves to show to someone else. They’re drinking Jack and diet cokes.

I wish I hadn’t quit studying Spanish when I was 16.

We´ve nearly finished the first two pieces of our mission–the digging of the garden and the painting of one previously very orange, very ugly set of shelves. Although we did break the mirror, which we´re replacing, and I ran out of paint before giving one of the doors a second coat. Today we also helped Claire, another foreign vounteer there, drown a mouse and set traps.

Last night, John, Thomás and I went to a wine bar around the corner to have Bolvian wine and chew coca, which Thomás carried in a green plastic bag in his vest pocket. You take a small wad, maneuver it into your cheek, add a little baking soda and just let it be there.

Almost instantly my mind felt clearer and the baking soda made my tongue go numb. The only other documentable effect was that we drank three bottles in a few hours and walked out like it was nothing.

Llama fetuses in the withcraft section of La Cancha, one of the world´s largest open air markets. These are apparently part of offerings made to Pachamama–buried at the site of a new house, for example. But the arrangement all depends on what sort of protection or good fortune you are after. And it´s a gruesome corridor to walk down.

There are also little packets of good fortune–tiny dollar bills and other things made of gold colored foil mounted on a piece of cardboard–that are made to be carried in wallets or in your car.

I had fingered a little  owl figurine back in the handicraft section and asked Jean Carla if she could find out what it meant. Wisdom, said the seller–tyical. And for 5 bolivianos, I bought it.  Something you can always use.

Most of the graffiti here is people signing there names or occasionally putting penises on people´s security walls.

Cochabamba may not have the most spectacular scenery, and I may be forgoing some of Bolivia´s more exciting sites–Lago Titicaca, the Amazon basin, the salt flats–but it´s spring and it is full of flowers.

All of the kids here are 5 or younger and are, as she puts it, “affected by AIDS.” They have it, or their parents have it and are unable to care for them, or their parents had it and passed away.

There´s a psychologist and a social worker and the kids are getting regular medical care. The orphanage is small: only 12 kids that live on site and as many as 6 that come for day care. The idea is to give quality over quantity and for it to feel like a home, though Caroline says it doesn´t yet. There´s been some staff turnover, maybe it´s the AIDS thing, maybe it´s the late shifts, she´s not sure.

And there are two projects they have had on their list but haven´t had time for. One is to start a garden in the yard where they would grow fruits, vegetables and herbs, and the other is to repaint some furniture inside.

¨So you came from America to paint a bookshelf?¨ This was Thomás, the proprietor of the Casa de International where we´re staying and John and I are having Chilean wine with him over cheese empanadas and fruit salad.

We laugh, because it´s true and a little absurd, but I like it. Rather than me coming in to do poorly what they are already doing well–caring for these kids–I´m able to work on  something they haven´t been able to do and wouldn´t spend money on.

Whether or not we´ll finish is another matter. Between siestas (which I love), the fact that there are only two of us, one of whom is 85, and the short time we have, I´m not sure we can pull it all off.

But dammit, I´ll try, because the people here have made the kind of committment to this cause that I´m not willing to. So if I can do something that makes their work better in some way, then it´s worth it.

Though in a country where labor is cheeper than powertools, this means sanding off paint by hand and digging holes with pick axes. At least the weather is great for working outside.

In other news: the doxycycline no longer makes me want to throw up every morning, but it´s probably a waste to be on it at all because I haven´t seen a mosquito since I got here.

My first view of La Paz out the window of my taxi from the airport. Mount Illimani in the background. This road is the most spectacular view of the city, clinging to the walls of the canyon and filling it in.

A lovely square in La Paz that I stumbled upon while trying to get somewhere else. That is the Legislative building across the way, and the president´s house is next door, I think.

Coca tea from the cafe at the coca museum. Maybe it is my imagination, but I do think I got less winded walking back up the hill to the hostel, so I´m inclined to believe the hype.

First meal in Cochabamba, the local dish pique macho. A carnivore´s delight: Beef, chorizo, sausage, a chicken drumstick, thick slabs of grilled cheese and cow udder mixed with some peppers and sauces and such. Cow udder: unremarkable.

Cristo de la Concordia: Actually taller than the statue in Rio. Also, the jacaranda tree is my new favorite.

This is me peering out one of those holes. You can go all the way to Jesus´ shoulders, but you´re now allowd in his head.

More Jacaranda tree. It´s too misty to see, but the Cordillera Occidental is over there.

Later in the day, less misty, here´s the Cordillera Occidental as seen from the window in my room. ¿With a view like that who can complain?

Now off to eat my leftovers from lunch: a kebab of chicken, beef and bacon. I foresee eating a lot of meat the next two weeks. But Bolivia is too poor to afford hormones for livestock, so I´m pretty ok with it. Also, there´s the deliciousness to make it go down easy.

I plan to try guinea pig at some point. Probably tongue also.

Someone outside the post office thought I would be interested in this party. I think because I am white? 10pm to 6am, baby–and Mario will be there?

Also there seemed to be a memorial service happening inside the post office, which threw me at first. I was like ‘my high school Spanish teacher would be ashamed I didn’t remember, but I looked up the word for post office in the Rough Guide, and I know correo is it.’

Have been shopping because I just can’t help myself: pens from a stall on the Prado, travel Kleenex from an old man standing on the sidewalk selling nothing else, and llama shaped bottle openers and a silver ring on “gringo alley.”

I fly to Cochabamba in just a few hours. The adventure continues.

I shall give you a gift for your brothers.
Climb up that mountain
Where you shall find a small plant
One with much strength.Guard the leaves with much love
And when you feel the sting of painIn your heart, hunger in your body
And darkness in your mind
Take rhem to your mouth
And softly draw up its spirit
Which is a part of mine.
You will find love for your pain

Food for your body
And light for your mind

Furthermor, watch the leaves dance with the wind and you will find answers to your queries.

But if you torturer, who comes from the north
The white conqueror, the gold seeker
Should touch it, he will find in it only poison for his body
Madness for his mindfor his heart is so callous and his steel and iron garment.
And when the COCA which is how you will call it
Attempts to soften his feelings
It will only shatter him
As the icy crystals born in the clouds
Crack the rocks
Demolish mountains.