Some of these things are so cool I thought I would share this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63lgyeJnRJI

Stray dogs are depressing

A friend I used to have once said that he couldnt believe this smart American girl had gone to La Paz to work with stray dogs. She was designing a system to try to get them off the streets. In the middle of the all the poverty, he thought this was a waste of a wonderful mind.  I have mixed feelings about this; I dont really have an argument as to why work with street dogs rather than street kids except that that would be true of everything we do. Its evidence of our deep routed developmental mind set that you have to work on things that are clearly related to poverty and development. One thing I now have my mind set on is that stray dogs are really depressing. Its terrible to see all these dogs, so faithful, so still looking for an owner, living on the streets abandonned for doing nothing. Its so mean! (I sound like my niece)

Seeing like state of confusion

Really, why would you do this to people? Santiago has always rebelled against my excellent sense of direction (Im not kidding about my sense of direction). I finally realized why. It has nothing to do with some unconscious rebellion on my part, a deep and invisible rejection of the city. That may still be true but disorientation seems to be active state policy. The title of this blog entry, in reference to James Scott's book, is exactly what I'm driving at in my thesis. Take this as a visual summary! (hint: look at the cardinal points on each subway map). If you've seen this in other places please let me know!

One month

Little more than one month left away from San Francisco. My niece Sofia is here and Im playing mom, taking her to school early each day. Its very nice because she is amazing. Next week we are going together to Buenos Aires, wish us luck, the last visit with my mom was difficult.

Work is going great. My last case, Pascua Lama, is super interesting. This week Ive visited four different cities collecting information from a nice range of fanatics- a nun, an environmental activist, a german biologist, a stubborn environmental scientist, a 28 year-old who authored the most well put together book on glaciers in Chile so far. 

See most of you soon, here are some pictures from life here and some little insights I've reached.

Making ravioli at my cousin's house!

Last picture I took before my camera died. You can see the sand grains. Luckily its been fixed!!

This is a real statue, in a real boardwalk, in a real city, in Chile. Have you seen anything more ugly and in bad taste ever in your life?

In fact it is sooo bad taste the guy even sitting properly. He has one leg up behind the woman.  You get a sense here of the local flair for subtlety.