We are taking our new-to-us 2001 Ford Windstar minivan on a two-week road trip from Oxford, Mississippi, to the Great Lakes region to see family & friends. This means about a week through the great state of Michigan (various points of interest) & a week in Chicago—with some stints in South Bend. Not sure how much blogging time I’ll have, but we’ll try to post some snapshots via Flickr.

After we return, I’ll tackle wrapping up two conference papers & prepping my fall courses. Expect to see something about those projects here.

And, don’t worry, I planned our travel itinerary around the World Cup matches. I may have to miss one quarterfinal (though I’m recording it to watch later). But we will watch the final match at Small Bar in Chicago (where I watched nearly all post-group matches four years ago).

The two weeks since I’ve returned from Bolivia have seen a dramatic development: the country’s largest indigenous organizations are directly challenging Evo’s government. In response, the government has chosen to attack USAID, blaming it for fomenting dissension & division w/in the social movements that have traditionally backed MAS. The logic is fairly simple: No legitimate indigenous group/leader would ever challenge Evo unless he/she/they was/were manipulated by foreign interests. But this argument has several problems.

The first round of the World Cup is over. I always like this round best, even though it means struggling to watch three (or more!) matches in a single day—knowing that some will be lackluster. But it’s my favorite part of the event because each match can surprise. Here’s a short list of my favorites:

I’ve been back in the home for a few days now. Despite the jet lag from a 23 hour door-to-door trip (I got to watch the last 20 mins of the Slovenia v. Algeria Group C match at VVI; but missed Germany’s scorefest), I managed to drag myself out of bed in time to catch yesterday’s Holland v. Denmark Group E opener. This was the first World Cup match I watched w/ Javi (he got to stay home from school & spend the day w/ his papi).

Today was Brazil’s debut against North Korea in Group F. Brazil won—and showed a breathtaking display of individual skill & bravura—but it showed its rough edges against a tough & determined Hermit Kingdom side (they managed to frustrate Brazil for most of the match & even scored a goal to go down a respectable 2-1). Earlier, Portugal tied the Ivory Coast, which means the “group of death” could get very interesting, indeed. Portugal and/or Ivory Coast might have a very tough time getting past North Korea.

Spain—¡España!—debuts tomorrow. I’m hoping Fernando Torres, David Villa, Xavi Hernandez, and co. do a better job out the gate than their Brazilian counterparts do.

Today is my last day of serious work in Bolivia—and likely for the next month. Why? The World Cup begins tomorrow morning. Other than missing three games on Sunday (I’m flying back from Bolivia that day), I hope to catch most of the matches. But since it’s prediction time, let me be clear. Spain better win the Cup this year. I picked them last time, and was frustrated by their performance. So: ¡Vamos España!

Earlier I commented on the politics of development aid & suggested that Bolivia’s government is politicizing development aid. So far, the government is heavily attacking both USAID & the UN (particularly the various UNDP programs in the country), accusing them of fomenting anti-government activity. Today, that line of attack continues, but is taking interesting twists that international environmental & indigenous rights activists should take note.

What do USAID & the UN have in common? Apparently, they’re both financing anti-government activities in efforts to destabilize Evo’s government. Fidel Soruco, a MAS senator, accused the UN of fomenting the recent protests in Caranavi, which left two dead & scores injured.

A few years ago, Evo’s government passed a decree banning the sale of used clothes in Bolivia. The rationale was to give incentives for local clothing producers (Bolivia has a relatively small, struggling textile industry). Used clothing—mostly from the US—was cheaper than imported clothes, but undercut nationally produced clothing. The rule is not strictly enforced, but there are no longer large “American used clothing” markets like before. But it seems used clothing speakeasies are popping up.

Not many papers in La Paz covered this (I only saw it in Página Siete, but it doesn’t have a website), so I almost missed it yesterday. But an odd piece of news from Cochabamba yesterday: the new governor of Cochabamba dismissed the sub-prefects & corregidores in all 16 provinces. The sub-prefects & corregidores have already complained, though they’ve been promised new positions somewhere w/in the administrative structure.

It’s Saturday, so I’m heading off to spend time w/ my relatives in La Paz. But I thought I’d post a brief Bolivia news roundup:

• The bodies of four police officers killed in Uncía were recovered. Turns out one of the four died only recently, while negotiations w/ the governments were ongoing. During negotiations, family members were made to sign a document agreeing not to prosecute the perpetrators, which is causing quite a stir.
• A surprise announcement last night: the Council of Social Control was created & its 40 members sworn in. A law regulating their activities will be presented to the legislature shortly; the Council will oversee all government (national, regional, municipal) entities to check for corruption.
• The price of public transport in La Paz will go up (by 50 centavos), for the first time in 11 years.
• The controversial Juan Ramón Quintana is back officially in the executive branch. He’ll be in charge of development in frontier regions.
• The Comité Cívico de Chuquisaca is mobilizing to demand a referendum on whether to move the electoral court to Sucre.

Even though Savina Cuéllar is no longer prefect/governor of Chuquisaca, and even though MAS won the April 2010 regional elections there, the question of Sucre’s status remains. The most recent conflict is over the location of the electoral court, which is currently being renamed & redesigned as a “fourth branch” of power.

I arrived yesterday, very early in the morning, in La Paz. Coming down from the airport, I did what I frequently do: sound out taxi drivers for the political scuttle but. It’s not “scientific” certainly, but cabbies tend to have a pretty good knowledge of the political goings on (they are organized in very active sindicatos & they spend a lot of time listening to the radio). So I decided to ask, as innocently & naively as I could, if he could explain to me why El Alto didn’t vote for MAS in April the way they did in December (in December Evo won 90% of the vote in El Alto, but his party’s mayoral candidate managed less than 40% only four months later). The answer floored me.

According to the online program, I’m presenting the same paper (“¡Autonomía Ya! Non-Indigenous Ethnic Popular Mobilization in Santa Cruz, Bolivia”) in two separate panels at the APSA 2010 conference in Washington, DC. Once on the panel Todd Eisenstadt invited me to join on multiculturalism in Latin America (part of his on-going project on that theme); another time on a hodgepodge panel on comparative democratization. Um, ok? I didn’t think I submitted a separate paper proposal. At least the multiculturalism panel is on the much-better-for-me Thursday slot (the other is on Friday).

That means that I could give the same paper twice. Although I’m pretty sure that would be bad form. Of course, I still have to write the thing. So there’s that, too.

I’m trying to continue a family tradition: the World Cup sticker album. My abuelito (grandfather) was an avid soccer/fútbol fan his entire life—and fervently devoted to his hometown team, San José de Oruro. But that passion extended to the World Cup. As far back as 1978 (one of my cousins still has his original collection), he completed the collectible sticker albums, well in advance of the tournament. Sometimes he made multiple albums, to give out to each set of grandkids.

This year I’m starting my own, for the first time. Partly in his memory & partly for my son (who’s middle name is Enrique). I bought this year’s official FIFA World Cup sticker album in La Paz, along w/ enough stickers to fill half the album of 638 stickers. Now I’m trying to systematically finish before I return to the US.

Fortunately, even World Cup sticker albums have become commodified in Bolivia. You don’t have to necessarily spend a small fortune buying packs of stickers in hopes of filling an album. At least not in Bolivia. Here, you can find merchants who sell specific, individual stickers. They’ll also trade or buy individual stickers (one of my cousins bought his last sticker, a group portrait of the Serbian national team, just two days ago). Of course, there’s a small fee. I just bought another pack of 250 stickers (for 140 Bs = $20) w/ hopes of filling most of my existing gaps. After that, it’s off to the market for individual stickers—after I trade in as many as my duplicates as possible, of course.