piet van oostrum.com

Gasoline prices in Bolivia

piet — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 18:23:01 +0000

Last Sunday the government of President Evo Morales suddenly announced that the fuel prices (gasoline and diesel) would increase with immediate effect. Until then, the fuel was subsidised because of the low wages in Bolivia. This meant that in many border areas fuel was being smuggled into neighboring countries (even on donkeys [...]

Birthday party in summer

piet — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 00:44:48 +0000

On december 22 we had my birthday party with a barbequeue in restaurant ‘Los Jardines’ (The Gardens) in Cochabamba. This is the same restaurant where we had the MEMI Christmas dinner a week before. It was the first time that I had my birthday in the summer. I have made a photo page of the [...]

Christmas dinner MEMI

piet — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 00:26:17 +0000

MEMI, the institute in the university where I am working, every year has a Christmas dinner. This time it was in the restaurant ‘Los Jardines’ (The Gardens). It’s actually a garden a part of which is covered so you can sit dry when it rains. But you’re still outside. I have [...]

Danzas in Cochabamba

piet — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 18:33:47 +0000

Saturday, November 6, 2010 there was a big flokloric dance festival in Cochabamba with a great number of student dance groups from various universities. It lasted almost the whole day, but we watched it from about 12:00 to 17:00. I made a series of photos and some movies. The movies still have to be joined [...]

The Chaco War

piet — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 16:10:07 +0000

Yesterday we went to an exhibition in Cochabamba about the Chaco war. This war lasted from 1932-1935 and was the largest and bloodiest war of the twentieth century in South America. The war was a conflict about the Chaco, a large, wild and empty region between Bolivia and Paraguay (and in Argentina and Brazil, but [...]

Tango

piet — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 03:25:45 +0000

Last Friday night we went to a tango night at the mARTadero. The mARTadero is an old slaughterhouse (matadero) which is no longer used as such but is used now for all kinds of ART forms. Regularly there are music performances, lectures, workshops on photography and web design, theater, etc. Friday [...]

Talent Night

piet — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 18:39:07 +0000

Tonight we went to a ‘talent night’ in our church (Palabra de Fe). This was the second time such a night was organized. The first one we have not seen, so we were very curious what would be done. There were a number of other churches present (4 I believe) that [...]

Water in Cochabamba and Bolivia

piet — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 03:41:51 +0000

Change.org|Start Petition

This post is my contribution for Blog Action Day 2010 (October 15, 2010), a day in which many people around the world blog about the same subject. The subject this year is water. As I already wanted to write something about the water(supply) in Cochabamba this is an excellent opportunity to do it now.

We [...]

Ebooks in South America

piet — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 02:03:46 +0000

My wife and I are staying in Bolivia for a year, in the city of Cochabamba. In order not to have to drag along suitcases full of books we both have an ereader. But for the rest the theme of ‘ebooks’ is something that isn’t alive here in Bolivia. On the Mobileread forum I have [...]

DRM frustration stories

piet — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 12:02:15 +0000

DRM (Digital Rights Management or Digital Restrictions Management) is a system to restrict the use of digital media (DVD’s, music, ebooks etc.), usually using encryption technology. This is mainly used by publishers of these media to prevent unauthorized copying and printing of these media. Its purpose is to restrict usage of the media to those [...]