I was on the radio the other day!

We’ve been learning about El Alto this past week and so we spent last Saturday exploring the city with Marco Quispe ( one of the coolest guys ever!) who also happens to have his own radio show.  El Alto is the city directly above La Paz.  The cities growth has exploded in the last 30 years or so, and now it’s bigger than La Paz and officially the second largest city in Bolivia.  A large majority of the population are migrants, generally either people leaving the mines or leaving the country with the hope of finding a “better life” in the city.  Consequently, El Alto has become a very interesting place as the different cultures have mixed and responded to modernity.  One of the dominant characteristics of the city is its practice of organization.  There is a union for everything! And these unions have power.  The strength of the city’s ability to organize was demonstrated in the Gas War of 2003 when the city protested and ultimately caused the president to flee the country. (Fun fact: the ex-president now lives in the US)  That was a very very vague summation, and by no means did it do the city justice.  I would definitely recommend looking up the city or at least Wikipedia-ing it because it is such a cool place!!

Anyways, to get back to the part about me becoming a radio star in Bolivia, Marco, who was giving us the city tour, has a radio show every Saturday morning on Radio Pachamama.  Each show Marco interviews different people in El Alto and of course also plays folkloric Bolivian music.  So… this weekend, while we were driving around in a minibus, we were also being interviewed live!  He asked us question about what we thought of Bolivia, of El Alto, of Evo, of Obama… and he pressured one of the kids to sing a song!  I was soooo relieved it wasn’t me!

Marco is very involved in his barrio and we ended up at a cultural center in his community that has been sponsored by Banco Sol to develop sport, dance, and music programs.  When we walked in the orchestra was rehearsing a piece by Beethoven.  It was really impressive!