On Blogs, Bolivian Elections, and Dogs and Kids in Rivers

First, a special greeting to all the recent newcomers to this Blog. Saludos de Cochabamba!

Over the weekend I checked the little tracker we use to see how many people are visiting our Web site and the graph just about flew off the page. Normally (meaning Bolivia is not in turmoil and driving visitors to our site for information) we have about 1,000 visits per day. Over the weekend that average leapt to 4,000, which is really a lot of people.

I couldn’t figure it out. My last Blog entry on Wednesday morning was one I wrote in a semi-coherent state in the La Paz airport after a sleepless night of flying American Air flight #922 from the US. Could it be that people like Blogs better if written by people suffering from serious sleep deprivation? It is a bit of an odd theory, no?

Then someone sent me a note that the Blog from Bolivia had just been listed as a "Blog of Note" on Blogger.com. My guess is that this is how so many of you have come to check us out. So, again, greetings from Cochabamba and keep on coming.


Polling Tales -- We Told You So

On August 28th we offered a Blog entry noting that the Cochabamba daily, Los Tiempos, had run a huge front page article showing that former President and current candidate Jorge Quiroga has leapt to a commanding first place lead in the coming Presidential elections (December 4th). We noted that the poll was a pretty lame measure of the candidates' support since it expressly limited itself to voters in the cities and excluded rural voters who are the major base of support for MAS candidate Evo Morales. We wrote:

What happens in October when someone actually produces a poll that includes both the cities and the rural areas (where Morales’ base and support is much, much stronger)? Suddenly the numbers are going to look wildly different and, like it or not, Los Tiempos is going to get stuck with a story showing a Morales surge, when in fact all that really happened is they used a representative sampling.

Well, we were off by two weeks. The "Morales surge" articles started today. The Swiss-based Center for Security Studies published an article today – one likely to be a precursor for many to come in the next few days:

Bolivian Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) presidential candidate Evo Morales has surged to a lead of 28 per cent of potential votes ahead of December elections, according to a recent poll conducted by an independent research firm.

Morales now enjoys a six percent lead over Quiroga, says the poll. What's behind the "surge"? The new poll included rural voters in the sampling.

But to be clear, it is a long, long way to December 4th and the Bolivian election road will be windy and ever-changing. We'll be back with a more in-depth analysis for those interested in the next few days.


Rivers, Rocks, Dogs and Kids – The Joys of Being Home

Ahhh, the joy of being home in Bolivia.

Yesterday my wife, my two-year-old daughter, our two dogs, and I took off early for a hike into the hills behind our house. Back beyond the end of the bus lines. Back beyond the mammoth cooking pot full of greasy fried pork being prepared for a whole neighborhood. Back beyond the adobe houses and flower farms. There we found the small river where our two dogs find their bliss in chasing rocks.

Really! They chase and bring back rocks, the way other dogs do with rubber balls. This is fortunate because Cochabamba is blessed with many, many rocks. At the orphanage where we were volunteers for many years the kids thought the dogs were actually eating rocks. To my knowledge neither Simone nor Little Bear has ever swallowed.

Equally joyous was my soon-to-turn-three daughter who spent the morning walking around barefoot in cold mountain water. She is also working on her rock-throwing skills and shows great promise.

Cochabamba at the start of spring.