funtobealive

believe it or not but funtobe is in bolivia. this is the real 3rd world country on our tour. apparently the world biggest baroque festival is taking place here ( at least that is what they claim). we arrived in Santa Cruz in an airport taken from poland in 1960. we were put in a 5 star hotel, unfortunately the stars were bolivian stars. the weather kind of reminds the most horrible summer days in Tel Aviv or NYC- as humid as it can possibly be-100%. it sounds as if I’m complaining but really it is an amazing place. our first concert was in a mission village 300 kilometer’s away from santa cruz. the driving there was on a “pot way”, or in other words there where more potholes than road. imagine 7 hours of trembling in a non air-conditioned “bus” thru a Bolivian forest. the funniest part is a bridge crossing a big river. the bridge can cary only one side of the traffic so if you are not lucky you can wait for your sides turn for more than an hour. near the waiting line a village of poor people selling stuff emerged- i think that is the first time i have seen real poverty. in the village were the concert took place there are no roads or pavements or lights at night. truly the end of the world. the concerts are intended for the indian local population so there is no admission. and i tell you the church ( a beautiful building ), was completely full. the indians are really interesting looking, the gave the exact same beautiful red color of the ground. and by far the smallest people i have seen. they kept the baroque music traditions from the time of the spaniards ( the baroque time ) until this very day. so they are really in touch with classical music. funtobe had the honor of teaching one of the local kids a cello lesson. the amazing thing was that the initiative came from the kid himself. he was a talented 15 years old indian kid who played the cello for only 3 years. man- was he eager to learn, he was really like a sponge thirsty for information. the only music teacher they have is a guitarist and he teaches everybody in the village.
the only less positive thing about this festival is the tourist from other places that are all so surprised that the indians can play classical music. quite condescending indeed. the general population of those remote areas is very interesting. except the indians you can find some weird Mennonite originating from germany. they are like the amish people only the do use electricity. the problem is that in the last 150 years they only fucked among themselves so they are completely retarded. they still speak plat deutsche that was spoken in europe 150 years ago.
tonight the concert is in santa cruz that in comparison with the village where we where is like Manhattan…

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 27th, 2008 at 2:40 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.