THE SANTA CRUZ DOG S

THE SANTA CRUZ DOG SHOW

11.05.94

The weekend after the blockade ended we went to Santa Cruz.  This was my first trip to the "city" since I came to the Chapare in February.  The reason why we went at all was that there was to be a dog show there and Simon was registered to take part, so off we went.  We stayed at the Hotel Asturias which Robert had found when he went on business.  It was founded by a man from Asturias and now belongs to his three daughters.  We got permission to have the dogs in the room and there is a nice garden all around the hotel with a swimming-pool too.  Filippo and Monica also came because Robert was going direct to La Paz by plane on Sunday evening and I didn't think it was a good idea to make the long journey back by myself.

On Saturday afternoon we went to a huge street market where you can buy virtually anything under the sun.  It all comes in as contraband from Brazil, so the prices are not too bad.  The dogs were exhausted after traipsing around there in the heat all afternoon.  So were we.

The feeling you get is that Santa Cruz belongs to a different country.  You feel you are not in Bolivia at all.  It looks towards Brazil and is quite different.  The majority of the population are immigrants, from Brazil, Argentina, Korea, Japan, China, Germany, Yugoslavia - you name it, they're here - even Indians and Pakistanis, as well as migrants from other parts of Bolivia.  This makes for a very dynamic society and all the commercial activity of Bolivia is centred here.  That is why Robert has now reoriented the project to look towards Santa Cruz rather than Cochabamba.  It is also cheaper

After that I went to get my hair cut because it was over three months since I had had it cut and it was all long and straggly.  Monica had found a place called "Pippo's - Peinador de Reinas", so we went along there.  Of course, it wasn't royalty whose hair he cut and combed but beauty queens and carnival queens.  What an amazing place!  Great carved wood rococo mirrors at each place, photographs of carnival and beauty queens all over the walls and Pippo himself combing away!  They asked me if I wanted Pippo to cut my hair himself.  When I asked how long I would have to wait for that, I was told that he had two brides to do and three fifteen year-old birthday girls as well.  Here when (middle-class) kids reach the age of 15 they have a big party.  I suppose it is reminiscent of the rights of passage at puberty. I decided that too long a wait was out of the question so I said anyone could cut it but they had to know what they were about, and we sat down to wait.

The amazing thing about the women in Santa Cruz is that they are all coquette in the extreme. Watching them preening is an education.  Every move the hairdresser made when she was applying the dye to one woman's head was carefully scrutinized in a hand-held mirror.  Then when the dye was on and she had to wait for a while she went around all the hairdressers asking them what they thought about it.  While their hair is getting cut, combed or whatever, they all have their nails done too.  A lot of back-combing was going on, and when each layer had been back-combed a great waft of Aquanet lacquer was applied liberally before the next layer was done.  Then the whole affair is combed into place and more Aquanet tops it off.  I think it mustn't move in about a month after all that.


I kept thinking about the hairdresser that went to Eileen's and cut all our hair in her kitchen.  I was wishing I could conjure him up out of a hat!  

Then a manicurist asked me if my hair was clean or did I want it washed, I replied that it was clean but that I wanted it washed all the same. While she was washing it she asked if I wanted it "armado".  A bit of quick thinking was required here.  I want it cut and blown dry - just simple, great stress on the simple.  Total disinterest after that.  I realized that "armar" was what they said when they meant having it set on rollers rather than blown dry.  The prospect of a backcombed "armature" was just too much.  Luckily in the end a girl called Sara cut my hair and she did a pretty good job of it.  After that we went for a pizza.

We also went to a new Chilean owned supermarket called HIPERMAXI.  It isn't anywhere near the size of the Spanish hypermarkets but after being in the Chapare for so long where the choice of everything is extremely limited it was like landing on the moon.  There were all kinds of things that I had almost forgotten existed at all - like marmalade and whole meal bread and other such things.  We had a wander around there and did a fair bit of shopping.  There was hardly room to move in the car by the time we had finished.

On Sunday afternoon it was the dog show.  There was supposed to be a monographic German Shepherd class at midday and then at 2p.m. the other classes would begin.  However, at 12 o´clock everyone upped and left.  At 2p.m. the judges and organizers began to reappear but, since nobody had done any of the organizing in the meantime, everything had to start from scratch with the result that the German Shepherd class began about an hour and a half after the programmed 2p.m. start.  The judge was a lady called Mrs. Blum from Brazil.  There are lots of people of German extraction in Brazil.  She certainly seemed to know her stuff.  However, after a few dogs had paraded to and fro, she began to shake her head, grabbed the steward and took him to the judging desk.  They had mixed up the various classes so she had to start all over again.  This happened twice.  I thought the poor woman was going to kill one of them.  However, this is Bolivia and nobody knows how to do anything right.  That's just the crux of the matter.

Then came the Old English Sheepdogs.  Poor things, particularly one which had been on its grooming table for hours being backcombed and lacquered (shades of Pippo here) and chalked and God knows what.  Even as it was waiting to go into the ring the stupid guy was teasing out its moustache and fluffing its head and the poor animal stood in patient resignation.  I wouldn't have blamed it if it had bitten his hand off.  I think he used to dog to show himself off!

Then it was our turn.  In we went.  Great rounds of applause.  Simon trotted around looking bemused.  Then the judge examined first his eyes and then his teeth (not so amusing) and then checked to see whether he had "two fully descended testicles" as it says in the rules.  This was the final indignity.  He looked at her in shocked amazement and then looked at me.  Another circuit.  This time he caught sight of Paddy and Robert, Filippo and Monica and  did the full circuit with his head twisted around looking at them and wagging his tail.  More applause.  


By this time it was after 4p.m.  Robert had to catch a plane and I had to get going to get past the unsurfaced part of the road before night fell, so we could not wait till the end.  A shame really, because I think he would have won a prize.  This suspicion was confirmed some months later when I took the dogs to the vet´s to have their vaccinations.  He lamented the fact that Simon could not wait because the judge was very impressed with him!

I got a bit of faryngitis so I had to go along to the health post.  I must say that they attended to me very well - took my temperature, blood pressure, sounded me, peered down my throat, asked me innumerable questions and finally packed me off with a prescription for a cough mixture and some antibiotics after paying the equivalent of 50p. For us that is cheap, but for many people it is quite a lot of money.  At the chemist, the man tots up the cost of the prescription and asks you if you are prepared or can afford to pay that amount before he doles it out to you - 2 pounds 50, so a fortune for most people.  How you can get faryngitis with a temperature of 30ºC beats me, but there you are.  I suppose it is because at night it gets cool because we are in winter, of course. Yesterday was northern hemisphere’s longest day of the year and our shortest.  From now on days north of the equator will start to get shorter and ours will get a little longer.