At my first legal seminar, a pair of harried-looking lawyers explained that the Bolivian judicial system was swamped and that up to 80% of prisoners were held for as long as 3 or 4 years without trial. They went on to say that the largest jails were so overcrowded that they had evolved into walled cities where poor people were working for the rich, and rich people were doing everything from trafficking drugs to giving guided tours of the prison to tourists.

I felt that I had landed in a particularly strange corner of the world, and at times found myself either not believing what I heard, or else berating myself for being skeptical. After all, I was in another country and should be open to the possibility that sometimes things operate very differently in other parts of the world. Dubiously, I checked with my guidebook, which described the main prison in La Paz as:

"…a truly surreal, if slightly disturbing experience. Many of the 1,500 mostly violent criminals will talk freely and openly about the bizarre goings-on in an open complex where new inmates buy their accommodation from paroled prisoners. These range from luxury penthouse apartments complete with jacuzzi costing US$5,000, to a more modest US$20 for a cramped space under the stairs...Visits can be made on Thursday and Sunday, 0800-1500... Ask the police for Freddy who'll show you around for US$4."

Despite efforts, I was never allowed to enter the prisons. However, my second-hand introduction to the macabre nature of Bolivia's penal system didn't do much to ease my culture shock. Other workshops given by my Bolivian counterparts were a little less dramatic, albeit still quite unique.

Visiting a women's organization was one of the highlights of my stay. Composed mainly of indigenous descendents of the Incas, Bolivia's native women have kept alive the tradition of wearing many-layered skirts and bowler hats (bombíns). They are for the most part reticent people, and one rarely hears them speak the ancient, quiet murmur of their Quechua or Aymara languages; so I was intrigued to see some of these women at a workshop on 'Marital status' given by local law students. The legal students discussed the process of courtship, marriage, the marriage certificate, and the rights and obligations of the husband and wife. The native women listened intently to what was being said, and when it came their turn to speak, they spoke of the problems they had when their husbands drank too much and when the men could no longer provide for their children. One woman wanted to know more about the divorce procedure, since her husband was prone to leaving for months at a time. She felt that it would be much easier for her if she could marry someone else who would be more responsible about providing for her children.

After attending workshops such as these, my friends and I would usually head back to the CECI offices in La Paz where we would ponder over what we had just learned. Here, we usually met with Carl, the CECI coordinator for Bolivia. One day someone remarked that these workshops were really an excellent example of awareness education at the grassroots level, but Carl explained that, in fact, the workshops were actually vital as an instrument for gathering and sharing information that could at times be difficult to obtain through other media. According to him, the lower one found oneself on the social ladder, the less likely it was that one had access to pertinent information about many issues. At the time, I wasn't at all sure that I agreed with Carl's analysis; one of my most vivid first impressions upon arrival to the capital of La Paz, was of being bombarded with billboard ads for everything from soap to cars. I was also struck by the vast array of newspapers, vociferously sold along almost every street, displayed alongside novels by Michael Ondaatje and poetry by Pablo Neruda. In fact, in terms of news publications per capita, Bolivia ranks as one of the top countries in the world; it is literally flooded with newspapers of all kinds. At the time, it seemed to me that a place that enjoys free speech and a vibrant media is a place that is transmitting pertinent information to its people.

The 'media' theme arose again a short time later when in talking with a Bolivian lawyer, the topic of print media came up. This lawyer was angered by two new tabloids that had recently come out. They featured large colour pictures of naked women and stories about vengeful former lovers and gruesome murders. The tabloids were an instant hit with much of La Paz's population and were becoming increasingly visible on the newsstands. This lawyer wanted to bar both publications because he believed that they were negatively affecting readers by promoting aggressive behaviour and domestic disputes. This interested me because it indicated that there was a vigorous market for what could perhaps be termed "awareness education at its worst."