Well, here I am in Sucre. It's been a busy last month, and it's only going to get better. My parents came and left (My mother has been writing up a summary, which I will send along as soon as she's done). After their trip, I got quickly sucked into planning our trip to Sucre for work. What's happening in Sucre? Well, a Constituent Assembly has been meeting here for the last year to rewrite Bolivia's Constitution. The idea is, Bolivia, being majority indigenous, should respect various ways of life and various ways of decision-making, not just the Western-style ways of decision-making. The original Constitution-writers included no representation from Bolivia's indigenous groups, so they're rewriting it to be more inclusive. It's a really incredible process. The representatives (asambleistas) hail from all over the country, and from many of the 36 "pueblos originarios", as the indigenous ethnicities often call themselves. So it's not just old white men in suits, though there's a couple of them in there too. Of course, there is conflict, what with the range of perspectives. But one of the neatest things about what's going on here is something that a representative from the Chiquitano people in the Amazon lowlands told me this morning, "Here you have business owners sitting down next to domestic workers, writing a constitution together," referring to her own life - how she left her community for several years and worked as a maid in Santa Cruz in order to put herself through school. She is now a leader among her people in working to secure and protect their right to practice internal community decision-making.
Asamblea Constituyente - Constituent Assembly, the congress elected to rewrite Bolivia's Constitution
asambleista - representative to the Assembly
Cuidad Blanca - White City, Sucre's nickname - the walls and buildings are painted white to preserve Sucre's colonial history (originally the capital of Bolivia, now only the sede judicial - the Congress and President are in La Paz.) Also the name of our hostel.
sede - headquarters, seat (governmental)
sede judicial (seh-deh who-dih-cee-ahl) - Judicial Seat?
Teatro Gran Mariscal - literally, Great Marshall Theater, where the full congress of the Assembly meets
mariscal - marshall (as a military term)
mariscos - seafood
mordisco - bite, like a bite of a sandwich (I think).
mordida - bite, like a dog bite (I think). apparently also 'bribe'
soborno - bribe
chantajear - to blackmail. Not to be confused with...
charlar - to chat
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