La Paz

Now that we are safely down from our late night adventure in El Alto, we are in a different hostal than the usual Hotel Torino. The Torino is in an old building near the Plaza Murillo, where the Presidential and Legislature Palacios are located. This plaza is where all the political action takes place and ther are always some group protesting (this includes blasting caps). This week it is the doctors (this is true). This was also close to the good ice cream.
We are now in Sopacachi, an up-scale area just down the road from the Canadian Consulate. The IMIF has a planned schedule for us, but the first day is spent doing laundry and finding where things are. Tuesday was our first visit to CATI, a sort of drop-in place for children and families ät risk¨. Joy taught art for a few hours. That evening we had a wonderful visit with Javier Fernandez, a great Bolivian water-colourist and a thoroughly charming gentleman. Artists just love comparing notes and , fortunately, for those of us that don´t understand them in either language, there was wine and munchies. By the time we left Joy and Javier were planning a joint show and Joy was re-thinking dry brush technique (whatever that is). On Wednesday Joy went back to CATI for another class. Thursday we met with Mario Conde Cruz, another water colourist and a teacher at the Academia Nationale de Bellas Artes. We had Mario four years ago and Joy was asked to teach his water colour course that evening. She did and it was a resounding success. She gave each student a large sheet and asked them to fill it in one hour. This is one of her favorite exercises and really stretches students.
Today Joy took Ivonne (a dentist who works with the Foundation) and Lucy out to paint in the plaza, while Ernesto and I went shopping for shoes for Anahi of Aucapata. We also visited the Witches Market, a tourist must.
Jim