Words from Wik

Sharing my Experiences

Friday, March 28, 2008

What is happening in Bolivia?

Hey everyone, long time since I posted. Somehow just haven’t found the time or the topic to write since I’ve come to Bolivia. What I have been meaning to do is let people know what Bolivia is like as a county. There’s a lot of things going on right now here, and I wanted to write about some of them, but didn’t really know how.

Anyways, I found someone else’s blog entry that explained the current situation so well, I had to pass it along. So if you have any interest in Bolivia or South America in general, give it a read.

Before you do, some background (so that you better understand what you read):

– Santa Cruz is the rich province in the east; all the government is in the west.
– Most people from Santa Cruz dislike people in the west in general (similar to Canada’s western alienation, Scotland’s dislike for being ruled from London, etc., but more severe and slightly racial), and the president specifically.
– The majority of the people in Bolivia are native Americans (aka Indians; Bolivia and Peru are two countries in America that didn’t completely wipe out their indigenous populations with settlers); most of the rich people here are what they call “whites” (what I would call people of Latino descent, Hispanics). The indigenous have a distinctly darker skin tone, and are usually poorer. The current President, Evo Morales, is of indigenous origin.
– The currency here is Bs (short for Boliviano’s). 1 B = 15 cents.
– MAS is the current governments political party name.
– When you get to the line in Spanish, use Google Translate or Altavista Babelfish to find out what they are saying (viewer discretion advised if you use Google).

Alright, here is the link!

posted by Wiktor at 18:36  

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