Bolivian Goth-Rock, Ye-uh

Well, I had my first experience with all-out food poisoning here, which was lovely. I spent some time curled up on the floor wanting to die, but all seems to be well now (fingers crossed).

My good friend Karim, a La Paz native, has a rock band named Libellula that is going to going to be putting on a show tonight at a club in Miraflores. It's pretty hilarious (I mean that it an endearing and admiring sort of way) - it's a group of middle-aged women who all love classic rock bands like Guns N' Roses, Led Zeppelin, The Cure, etc., and they play covers of hard-core, goth-rock music. I think many of them are involved in video productions in La Paz, so they made a music video (complete with a "Making of" documentary). It was filmed in the Valley de La Luna, and all of them are wearing dark red lipstick, heavy black eye-makeup, corsets, and black leather boot. Amazing.

During my first week here, Karim invited me to a dinner at the drummer's house, where I had a Bolivian version of Lasagna and was introduced to the chicas of the band. They sat around in her living room, chain-smoking, eating, and singing along to Matchbox 20. The word to describe it here is "chistoso", which roughly means funny but has more of an endearing, joking connotation.

I was originally going to play violin with them for one or two songs, but that sort of fell through when I sat in on one of their rehearsals (in a tiny, tiny room with the amps blaring and the drums blasting), and realized that my poor little violin would be completely overwhelmed by their sound. So I guess I'll have to put my dreams of being a goth-rock violinist on hold for the time being, and settle for watching their show. More to come later...