Bolivia Adventure? Accomplished!

It has been nearly a week since I returned from my Bolivian adventure. It has taken me some effort assimilating to the normalcy of my real job back at the sewer plant, catching up on the local news from around my home town while I was gone and simply trying to return to my American way of life.  I hope you will provide me this one blog entry to ramble a bit before I dive into the adventures I found myself entangled in while traveling through the highlands of the Bolivian Uyuni Salt Flats.  I have many things I do not understand about the affluent country I was fortunate enough to be born in.  I am hoping by writing down some of my own thoughts and feelings it will help me understand them more and you will be able to understand more about me...

I am not proud of our United States anymore as I have gotten older.  The U.S. being a supposed leader in the free world that does not have it's own financial house in order.  The United States is $15,000,000,000,000 in debt.  There is nobody who reads my blog that thinks this indebtedness is the right thing for our proud country but we don't put our foot down and tell our leaders to "ALTO", stop. A large majority of us no longer even vote because we have become complacent.  We don't feel like our vote counts.  The guy or gal we vote into public office turns out to be no better or smarter then the one we just voted out and so on.

I am no more proud of my own home state, Oregon.  After the timber revenues were lost from the extreme environmental ruse and over logging of our forests our state leaders still beg the Federal government for the O.N.C. subsidies once used to fund our local communities public entities.  Oregon legislators please "learn to live within the budget and programs we Oregonians can afford".  Much like we do with our own budgets at home. I am sorry many of the special programs we now pay for will have to fall by the wayside.  Families will have to take care of their own kin because overly expensive governmental lead programs can no longer be afforded by the local taxpayers.

What hurts me the most to say is I am no longer proud of my own local community, Grants Pass.  The city that gainfully employees me.  Just before I left for Bolivia the city council decided it was the right thing to build covered bus stop waiting areas that cost $85,000 each to build, this was scaled down from the $106,000 ones they wanted to build. Understand that this is a bus service provided by taxpayer dollars that does not break even in it's yearly operation by the tolls it's riders pay, but let's add insult to injury and pay an additional $85,000 for a simple bus shelter that most likely would not keep you dry if a mild wind was blowing.  Furthermore it was decided that these shelters needed some artistic flare so $15,000 was awarded to a company out of Portland not even using the talents of our more then able local artisans.  In fact any motivated third grade class could have come up with the chosen art work if promised a pizza and ice cream party for the winning art work competition.

I am thankful for my family, the few friends I have and people I have never met who helped me accomplish this medical mission to Bolivia.  Of the mission itself by far the most arduous part of it was just getting too and from Bolivia, passing through the airports in both Bolivia and the U.S.  Entering Bolivia costs you $165 U.S. dollars to get in the country so you can help their less fortunate under the watchful eye of the armed military.  Like the U.S., Bolivia has many corruptions like confiscating some of our medical gear we were transporting in too help their countrymen.  Not stolen because anything was illegal in the bags but simply because a young military man is in charge of confiscating bags, so he does periodically.  We lost four medical bags to this common practice, 200 pounds of gear.  Most likely sold later on the black market to help subsidize their low incomes.    

If you think that the overzealous security in the U.S. airports has made us any safer from terrorists after 911, your nuts.  911 occurred in my opinion because men in America have become pussies.  A few crazy guys on a big airplane welding box cutters order everyone to stay seated while they crashed the plane into the Twin Towers.  Your telling me their are no men left among us anymore who would have wrapped their coat around their own arm, put their shoe over their own hand, unbuckled themselves from the safety of their own seat, stood up and went and kicked these guys asses. Thank you  Todd Beamer for uttering those now famous words "You ready? Okay!", Lets roll! while trying  to regain control of their own plane before it smashed into the Pennsylvania countryside rather then into the side of the Washington Capital building.  Now because of 911 we are herded through our airports like cattle headed to slaughter by another inept government ran organization called TSA.

I hope we will someday find the courage to turn this once productive proud nation of ours around before it too fades into oblivion like so many ancient civilizations like the Roman Empire and the Incas have gone before us.