Rock & Republic and Globalization?

Here is a little guy who is sporting a Rock & Rebublic sweatshirt in a very small village outside of Cochabamba, Bolivia. He is attending an afterschool tutoring center sponsored by the local Methodist church where a friend of mine works. Andrea, my sister's sister-in-law, is president of the Rock & Republic company so this caught our eye. Do you think R&R is doing business in Bolivia? I doubt it. Logos of all kinds are ripped off here as the copyright laws are quite different than what we are used to in the states. This dude was definately lookin cool.

Pat and Marilyn in Cochabamba

Mom and Dad have been real troopers down here. They survived customs and the 14,000 ft elevation in La Paz and now are comfortable enough to head out for lunch on their own! They went about a block from our apt. for a typical meal, the "set lunch" or almuerzo. We wrote a few key words down for them in spanish and off they went. They were happy with the large home cooked meal that is typical for lunch here. Soup followed by meat and potaoes for the second course, a beer and small dessert. All for about $1.70 each. We've been keeping them busy and they are game for most of it. Today we will go see Maggies school.

Mom and Dad Maloney come for a Visit

Mom and Dad came with us on Sunday to help in the orphanage and to deliver the electric baby swings they so generously brought down along with a bunch of baby stuff from Liz and the twins. Here they are with the 4-5 year olds. The babies all had chicken pox so there were some cranky ones that really appreciated being held by a couple of gringo grandparents!

Fish of the Ichilo River

Heres a little fisherman we met on our trip to Puerto Villorroel. (explanation below). These catfish are the major predator on the Amazon river system. Besides a few otters and porpoise, these guys get to be up to 6 feet long and keep things in check in the murky channels of these large rivers. They are good to eat and caught at this size with gillnets and the larger ones are caught using set and baited hooks. There are many species of catfish and they rule underwater. There have even been parts of monkeys found in the stomachs of some of the large fish.

Efficient Outboards

So if you are a small operator in the fishing fleet here, you have a canoe, a paddle, a cooler, a buddy, a pair of flip-flops, shorts and a t-shirt and one of these outboards. They are small Honda engines like we use to run our hydraulics with a large shaft and a small propeller at the end. You can use a cast net, set hooks or a drift gillnet. Usually they fish at night and deliver in the morning. Oh, they also have a market and ice. Two things we are having trouble getting in Alaska. We are so far ahead of these third world countries aren't we?

Mother ship with canoes. Gillnetting and shortlining.

(For explanation of this trip, read next blog down) These boats go out for about 2 weeks and gill net and also use hooks. They have two large styrofoam lined wooden ice boxes for a hold above deck and clean the fish and ice them until they deliver. They cook and sleep onboard in hammocks, about 4 guys or a family and some crew. The hieght of the river changes a lot over the seasons of rainey and dry and the fish they target changes as many large predatory catfish and others migrate through thier area to spawn up in the headwaters. Some come as far as 4,000 kilometers from the estuary and mouth of the Amazon.

Fishing in Big Rivers

We went down off the foothills of the Andes to the closest fishing river that can be reached by road from Cochabamba. Puerto Villorreol on the Ichilo River. Here is a skipper of a fishing boat holding a piranha they caught, most likely with a gillnet. We think we have problems with seals...how would you like to mend a net piranhas have been working on for a while. They come in to eat the fish in the net and shred the mesh.
I have been working with the conservation organization, Faunagua, on a book they would like to publish on the commercially important fish of Bolivia. Most of which are caught on the big rivers which are the headwaters of the Amazon. They needed more photos for the book in addition to the illustrations I've done for them, so we headed down to Puerto Villorroel to take photos. We wanted to be there on the day before Good Friday because everybody eats fish on the Easter weekend here and the price of fish doubles. So any good fisherman is going to schedule his trip to end on thursday or friday to take advantage of the increased market and price. So the number of boat deliveries promised to be high. Tom, Maggie and I had fun. Franny was on the beach in Chile with a friend at the time. It took a little courage to approach the fishermen and ask for photos, but after we showed them photos of fishing in Alaska they usually warmed up and were willing to show us thier gear and talk a bit. We hired the guy with the prianha to take us out in his "skiff" or canoe for an hour, which was great. We went swimming in the very murky but warm river. Trying not to think about pirahnas.