Jean and Lee in Bolivia

Todos Santos

2009-11-11T08:13:00.008-05:00

The indigenous people tell us,

“Your dead seem to travel far beyond the stars and never give another thought to those left behind. Our grandfathers never stray far from the valleys and streams and families they love.”

As the feast of All Souls (Dia de Defunctos) approached, women in town were buying large bags of flour and baking breads. Men walked to the cemetery with machetes and shovels to clear the five foot high vegetation.

This man with his hearing-aid over his shoulder is fixing the grave of his wife, Francesca.

In their homes, they built altars with photos of deceased family members. Jean and I made this one for our families.

Students built one for school friends who have died. There are seven names on this list

Then on the night of November 1st, all will wait. The deceased come to spend the night with the family and check that everyone is OK in the house, that they are eating well. Favorite meals and drinks are set on the altar with flowers and party streamers. Always there is a bread ladder to pass between heaven and earth, a dough burro, and bread T’anta-wawas (old babies) with laughing plaster faces. There are pastries like biscochulos with Singani (grape whiskey) in them. All this food is distributed to visitors who come to the house to pray with the family.

The dead will stay in the home until the next afternoon when the family will accompany them to the cemetery. There they all gather with drums and flutes.

Many of the plot sites have little houses built over the graves on which families stack up breads to be given away, bananas and drinks like a tree-bark whiskey called Chuchu-wasi.

In late afternoon they leave the cemetery. They move down the hill to sit on the grass under the shade trees and drink and chew coca leaves and talk – together in a timeless ritual, the toothless old ones, the women in derby hats, the men sharing cigarettes, the children chasing the dogs and chickens.

Cock Fights and a Midnight Sarenade to the Virgin

2009-11-09T09:16:00.022-05:00

The feast of the patroness of Coroico, the Virgin of Candalaria, is a week-long celebration - a parade of flowers, masses, rosaries on the streets, a procession of traditional dances in which almost everyone is involved.

The dancers go on their knees and cross themselves before the Virgin.

The underside of this is the steady drinking (induced ecstasy) of the indefatigable celebrants.

Some are not dancing this day. They have gathered from distant towns for their kind of sport - the cock-fights.

Birds are weighed and matched within grams.

Challengers from distant La Paz and Caranavi are slated to face the roosters of local favorites like Enrique and the Senior Mattas.

"Points" are taped to their legs and the birds are thoroughly watered down to keep them cool.

After the money is placed the pair of cocks is put in the ring.

They fight for a half hour while their trainers urge them “Sube, Niño” (“Up, my boy”) and side bets are called. The birds begin furiously, leaping, feathers flying, gradually slowing until they are circling against each other ...

like boxers in a clinch – bleeding and exhausted.

At the end of the round they are quickly retrieved by their trainers. If no bird has been killed the match is declared a draw and all bets are returned.

The cocks will probably fight again in three months. (Of the three rounds I saw, each ended in a draw.)

And this continues on into the night.

Meanwhile back in the town plaza a mellow trumpet fanfare sounds.

The Mariachi band signals the beginning of the midnight serenade to the Virgin.

Church doors are thrown open and the dancers follow the sombreros up the center aisle for a last round of songs to Mary ...

...

before returning to street dancing and fireworks and drinking and stumbling happily home.

The Camino Inca - Paying for My Sins

2009-04-14T11:19:00.016-05:00

"The vast movement and agitation of human life opens on to a road which leads somewhere. And that road climbs upward towards the peaks, shrouded in mist from our human eyes. The final stages of the ascent to which the cross calls us compel us to pass a thresh hold." - Chardin

" We do this by bearing the burdens of our life with simple fortitude and without ostentation. "- Rahner

I spent holy week paying for my sins. Many people of Bolivia make a pilgrimage during holy week, often walking long distances on the old Inca trails through the mountains. I accompanied a group of 15 young people and two Bolivian priests on a three day “peregrinacion” from the Christo statue on the mountain pass of La Paz (almost three times the altitude of Denver) down to the lush and rainy valleys of Coroico where we live - a journey of 60 miles by the main road.

At 11:00 A.M. the mountain pass was a world of white mist and snow as we began the descent on the steep but wide and stone-paved road of the Inca. I had a sturdy walking stick, a second pair of shoes, dry food,a plastic sheet, small blanket, heavy wool socks and sweater, an assortment of pills and bandages from Jean, and a bag of coca leaves against fatigue.

Snow began to drift down as we came upon the ruins of a Chaski rest stop.

The Chaski were the famous Messengers of the Gods - foot relay-runners who sped messages across the empire pony-express fashion.

We slowly made our way down into treeless valleys where sheep and llamas fed on lichen and moss.

Smiling, kind people emerged from their stone huts ...to speak the Indian language - Aymara.

The sound of running water was everywhere.

Children with sun-wind chapped cheeks asked – not for candy – but for bread.

They silently offered the walking sticks they had carved for sale for 50 centavos (seven cents).

After five hours of steep descent, my knees and hamstring muscles were rubber. A young companion , Marlene, who had blisters and myself with wobbly legs fell well behind the group. About six in the evening we dropped down in to a river valley with trees and flat green areas of sheep-cropped grass where we found our group waiting. Other groups were setting up tents. I hobbled across the cable bridge toward them, knowing I could go no further. But our rested group had other ideas. They wanted to proceed a couple of hours to Choro before camping. Ugh. If I had had a brain in my head…. but no! With Marlene I shouldered my pack and tagged behind.
We continued trudging through the gathering gloom and twilight with my heart sinking along with the sun. The path followed a steep valley along a loud river. It was narrow now and steep and muddy. We stepped from one rock to another up mountainsides then down to the river and up again. In many places streams ran down the middle of the path as we clamored over the rocks by flashlight. There should have been a full moon but it was foggy and now began to rain. After Marlene and I had been moving for three hours, we had not overtaken the group. Occasionally we came upon places in the dark that were flat enough to camp, but I had Marlene in my charge and she wanted to rejoin the group.

As I resigned myself to marching until midnight…a miracle! We saw lights in the distance. We arrived at an adobe house at 9:30 PM and learned that Choro was 15 minutes down the mountain. And it would have been had we not proceeded to lose the path in the rain and dark. When we encountered our group they were already settled in a family’s scattered huts. The girls were in a dug-out stone shelter and the boys in a tin-roofed open shed. I angrily confronted the leaders, calling out, “This walking in the dark was the worst idea yet....!” They agreed it was a very bad idea and apologized saying they had misestimated the distance and the trail. They brought piping hot soup, which even standing in the rain was wonderful.

Then I was lead to a plastic tarp laid over leaning poles where I found Salvador and Juan Carlos already turned in and out of the rain. They called it five star accommodation since the tarp had small holes in it. Though it was good to be out of the rain, most of my things were wet. During the night had some concern about hypothermia, but the heavy wool sweater, though moist, stayed reasonably warm. I took a Tylenol-PM, and put a hand-warmer packet against my chest and slept well enough. By morning I figured I had paid for my last sins and was working on future ones.

The rain had stopped.m

Frs. Eulogio and Alejandro waited by the Chola woman boiling milk in the low shed.

The cost of my lodging plus a tin cup of coffee, and a cup of boiled fresh milk was a dollar.

Other groups had camped with us. An extended Aymara family was packing their cooking gear on mules and traveling to towns further down to obtain Coca-Cola and supplies to sell tourists back in their own pueblo.

So, traveling with them we descended the great humps of mountains into valleys, soft and green and undulant. It was warm and the path became shaded and tropical.

Drinkable water gushed out of the rocks everywhere, churning and leaping and white. Whole cliff walls wept curtains of water supporting exotic moss and plant life. Butterflies of every size and color swarmed the path attracted by mule droppings - butterflies with clear glassine wings fringed in bright yellow-green, and completely transparent wings that glinted in the sun in flight now violet and then yellow, and velvet-black wings with blazing orange swatches. Dragonflies flashed like purple sparks as they flew through the mottled sunlight.

On this day I walked steadily without taking only short breaks and staying well ahead of the group, determined not to march in the dark again. I did stop to dry my things in the sun.

You can see the cut of the path on the distant hillside (center).At dusk, I arrived at our destination and arranged a covered outdoor place to sleep as I waited for the others. But it turned out that all 18 of us slept in a room the priests borrowed. As the rain began again we slept, gratefully dry and warm, with just a tarp between the cement floor and ourselves.

On the third day we did some road walking where modern road overlapped the Inca trail. Then the final ascent from the river valley up to our town of Coroico was a hellish steep, muddy climb of thousands of feet. On slipping, weak legs – I paid for whatever sins I had left those hours. About mid-day our sweat-drenched group emerged from the brush onto the town soccer field. They continued the climb up to the town plaza and the church, and then cemetery for the Stations of the Cross. I stumbled into a café that overlooked the valley and river far below, dropped my pack , leaned my walking stick against the wall and ordered a large, cold Hauri beer …feeling quite purified.

When Jean welcomed me I learned she had not had water at our place for three days - forget the shower. But there was a carrot cake exquisite and a dry bed and loving arms.

Mud-oven Chicken Dinner

2009-03-11T16:43:00.009-05:00

There are easier ways to cook a chicken, but can anything compare with dinner baked in a mud oven?

Recipe:

Catch, kill and clean the chicken. Stack some spare adobe bricks into a small oven.

Stoke it with firewood for several hours.

...And while waiting, prepare mud.

Rake the coals flat when they have heated the adobe walls white hot.

Slide in the tray of potatoes, camote (sweet potatoes), carrots, and bananas.

Then the pan of spiced chicken - covered with newspaper.

Close the oven and seal with mud so not even a wisp of smoke escapes.

In an hour the aroma of the chicken will beckon you to break open the oven

and strip off the yellowed newspaper to reveal the golden chicken dinner.

A dinner made exquisite by pleasant company.

Our muddy - handed hosts were Willie and Fabiola Aliaga, former students of the University

and good friends of Paul since he lived here in 2000.

Willie manages a large pig operation. Together they raise and sell their own pigs and chickens.

Willie is the designated community leader of the pueblo of Carmen Pampa this year.

In that role he has participated in small group meetings at the capitol with Evo Morales, the Bolivian president.

Working Together

2009-03-11T16:41:00.017-05:00

Carnival time in Bolivia is a time of fiesta for most, but not all. Many UAC students cannot afford the long bus trip to their pueblo. Some took advantage of the vacation days to earn money by building the new womens’ dormitory.

For a meal and a good daily wage ($7) they toiled like ants on the hillside to excavate foundation holes and transport the rock and earth down the slope.

The indigenous people of Bolivia have centuries-old traditions of community work.

Students from the countryside here retain the custom of community work.

They labor together naturally, each seeming to know his role with little explanation.
Wheelbarrows and picks are in short supply so each takes his/her turn in quick succession – young women as well as men.

. They call for the wheelbarrows as others are returning them at a trot.

Those who have no tools invent them...

making slings to carry the soil and passing rocks by hand.

The boss, Herman, exhorts and instructs. “When you swing your pick, know who is behind you! We don’t want anyone with a pick in the chest like a vampire.”

In the first day, they excavated 14 holes – 4 ft square by 7 ft deep.

I doubted they could climb out of them without help ...

....but I need not have.

Who are they? ...Students of agronomy, nursing, education, tourism, and veteranary science who struggle for their education. They work together to construct the school that will help them build a better country for their families and pueblos.

Working Your Way Through School

2008-10-22T07:32:00.023-05:00

High school students: Would you be attracted here for college? Every student works 4 hours a week to improve the school. If he or she has a scholarship of any sort - 8 hours a week.

But you never know what your assignment will be on a given day. Maybe demolishing an adobe building,

........ and discovering interesting things.

Could be joining Johnnie to feed the hogs.

The second year nursing students are clearing the drainage ditches in the rain.

Which merits a little hot tea.

Gracia processes pork products.

....and there is always grass to be cut. This is not the only way to cut grass here, of course. The horses, the mule and goats assist.

Luis Angel volunteered to paint the bell tower roof - wearing his leather "Chacarero" hat with the turned-up brim.

And so over the 15 years since Sr. Damon founded the college, much of the building and maintaince has been done by students.

Volunteer's House

2008-10-22T07:21:00.025-05:00

In the picturesque Coroico valley, in the town of Carmen Pampa we volunteers live in more luxurious fashion than the nearby rural Bolivians.

We live in the historic adobe hacienda of the former owner of this entire valley. Local people remember those days before land reform in 1952 when they were indentured servants.

Jose Tintia recalls his father emerging from this house bloody after being whipped.

Here we volunteers live in relative comfort...

Instead of a wood-fired clay oven we use a gas stove.

Instead of an open fire on the ground we use a grill.

We boil all our drinking water
and strain the mud out
with a clay-filter pot.

The only hot water in the house is in the showers. This hot-water-on-demand electric 220 volt shower head is a real comfort.

We wash dishes indoors.....

....and clothes outdoors.

The volunteer's room

might look like this one.

And may have a sunrise view of the pueblo of San Juan de Miel across the valley and the homes and tiny farm plots of the Bolivian campesinos who struggle to make a better day for their children.

Mural Artists

2008-10-22T07:16:00.013-05:00

Lee spent the month of July working with young mural painters Oscar Mendia (right) and Carlos Rosas.

In Franciscan Monastery in Tarata, Oscar painted a group of Franciscans leaving this monastery 100 years ago for six months of travel to teach in distant pueblos. The actual faded photos of departing missionaries are a little different. They depict horse-mounted bands of Franciscans wearing wide-brimmed hats, boots and ponchos - rough riders with bibles.

The long tradition of using painting to educate is still vibrant here. Consider this downtown mural that Oscar did.

Or this painting of the prophet Jeramiah
by another artist - Speaking Truth to Power.

Burn Clinic

2008-10-22T07:06:00.011-05:00

We spent the month of July volunteering in Cochabamba. Jean worked at a new clinic for children with burns. The children are brought from distant pueblos to the hospitals here where, after treatment, they they were released to their hometowns. But they cannot get the therapy they need in the small pueblos leaving them severely restricted in movement.

The Franciscans have remodled one half of the historic San Francisco convent still used by the Carmelites sisters. The sisters donated it for a social center - soup kitchen, medical and dental clinics, AA meeting space - and a burn clinic where these children stay and receive therapy.

Their parents must return home, of course. Often they are 8 hours away by bus, but they visit when they can.

Lee's former workplace, Zink Inc., donated a product that has closed some of the distance between children and papas. Zink has released a small inkless printer which instantly processes digital photos in the field somewhat like the old Polaroids.* (See Lee's hand.)

When parents visited we were able to give them and the child an immediate photo to help bridge the expanse of time between visits.

Somewhat to our surprise the children were eager to have their own photos also. The photos seemed to help them begin to come to terms with the new stranger's face in the mirror.

Jean also worked at a home for street boys. Here she is mending clothes. The kids ran to bring favorite pants and shirts - more in tatters than whole.

*The Zink (Zero-ink) products just coming on the market utilize a new photo paper which contains layers of color crystals. As the paper passes through the heated print-head crystals melt then "freeze" to their characteristic colors. US suppliers like Best Buy sell the Poloroid Pogo for about $150. Prints cost about 20 cents. A camera with built-in printer is about to be released also.

Everyone Danced

2008-10-22T06:46:00.021-05:00

On the feast of St. Francis this year, we held a fiesta to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the University - four days of sports championships, dramas, variety acts.......and dancing.

In the rain and in the mud every student danced. Teachers and administrators danced.

The director, Padre Freddy, danced.

Miss UAC-Carmen Pampa

slipped out of her shoes

to dance.

Different departments chose from the hundreds of different Bolivian folk dances - each with its own history and symbolism.

Below is the Tobas from the hot Amazonian jungles.

The Vet department did the Waca-Waca (cow dance) below.

This dance which Dan and Lee are adroitly performing is called the Morenada. First done by black slaves who worked the mines for Spanish overlords. The 45 pound costumes spoof the courtly dress of the Spanish royalty.

This dance is called a Tinku. It was done in villages that were split into an upper and lower half, or in close neighboring pueblos which were at odds with each other. They dressed in their best clothes to dance a reconciliation in holy week each year. The costume includes leather helmits because the dance ended in a ritual but real and sometimes deadly fight - with stones, fists, iron knuckles, etc. Women fought as bravely as the men. When there are injuries and deaths it served to insure good crops the following year.

The dance in Carmen Pampa included only a symbolic brawl in the mud (above). Traditionally all harm was forgiven immediately - even by the parents who lost a child in the brawl. The two warring towns made up and purged all resentment of the previous year. The dance is still common but much tamer. However, even now in the rural areas, there are occasional deaths.

Then there were some who selflessly gave up the chance to stomp mud and roll in the rain in order to record all this. Jean photographed.

Children's Library

2008-10-22T06:30:00.015-05:00

The children’s library, which some of you contributed to so generously, is keeping us busy these days. We open every evening for a few hours and a few afternoons as well.

Some university students help out during their work-study time.

The 200 plus books are being well circulated. It is really something to see juniors in high school reading and enjoying the illustrations in Where the Wild Things Are (Donde Viven Los Montruos).

They had - and have - little access to books throughout their childhood. The elementary grades have one text , a reading book . The third grade reader, for example, deals with such topics as, the bones, the departments of Bolivia, traffic rules, and the digestive system – so it is a science, social studies, geography, all around text.

Right now we have 70 library users signed up from pueblos as far as an hour’s walk away. A second grader, Kevin, (pronounced K’been) is about to fill his borrowers sheet which means he has borrowed 50 books. He deserves a little reward - maybe a box of crayons or a pencil and a sharpener . . .

During the evening library hours when they stop in to return and pick out another book many will stay to play cards or checkers or Scrabble. Puzzles are also quite popular among all ages. Watching the junior high schoolers doing simple puzzles over and over demonstrates better than words the needs we are trying to fill.

One of the University students in the art room
Lee has set up carved a beautiful sign which we

hang when the library is opened.

Thanks to all for your support! Jean

Chorro Morro - Play the Game

2008-02-04T12:30:00.001-05:00

Last straw.......

Collapse!!

Nurse in the Pueblos

2008-02-01T14:59:00.003-05:00

In the pre-dawn rain, the plaintive call of the patutu drifted down the valley. The cow-horn patutu is blown to call the leaders of the surrounding pueblos to meeting.

The purpose of today’s gathering was a village-by-village evaluation of health services in the valley. It lasted three days. Nurses Paulina Sepeta and Jean Lechtenberg listened to reports from each pueblo. Toward the end of the second day the leader abruptly queried, “Quien es la rubia alli?” – “Who's the blond in the back there?” Jean (Juana) was introduced to the larger community and kindly applauded.

Visiting the pueblos involves leaving early by car or on foot, tramping the dripping jungle lanes and mountain paths. The pueblos are actually scattered clusters of slope-side adobes. Most have a muddy dooryard with a water standpipe, chickens, dogs, maybe a sheep or pig.

The shy, smiling, barefoot children greet the nurses and call their mothers. Their clothes are permanently soiled - not torn but worn-through and threadbare. Many speak only Aymara.

The homes have a dirt floor, and may be partially roofed. The stove is a fire pit in the corner.

Scattered on the floor beside the nurses bags are children’s playthings – a hammer, flattened bottle caps, a piece of pipe.

The nurses weigh the little ones in a sling and measure them. They give polio and other vaccinations, vitamin A and medicine for parasites, lice, and infection.

They talk to mothers who do not realize that new universal health coverage applies to all children up to the age of 21 and to new mothers for 6 months – better universal health coverage than in the US.

For a nurse, the poverty, the dirt, the disorganization weigh heavy on the spirit. She wonders if the bright children that blossom here in the dirt will raise their own children here. Sister Damon began a college in this valley to insure that some of them will have other options.

A little girl embraces her dear faceless teddy.

In the years to come she must find her own countenance. The nurse prays it will reflect a wisdom, confidence, and pride in achievement that health and education will afford her.

How to Make a Cup of Carmen Pampa Tea

2008-02-01T14:29:00.001-05:00

About a month after the tea plants have been cut back by machete the new buds will sprout. This is the time to pick the tea leaves.

Snap off only the top three tender leaves.

Spread the leaves in the air for an hour then crush and tear them.

Squeeze them until the juice drips out

and pack them into balls.

Allow them to ferment

and turn dark overnight.

Then lay them in

the full sun to dry.

Salude!

Local coffee growers make another type of tea called “sultana” from the husks of the coffee bean. After the red shells have been stripped off and the coffee beans sold, the pickers use the dried shells with a little cinnamon and clove to brew their tea.

Christmas Eve - Carmen Pampa

2008-01-04T10:24:00.000-05:00

In the little town of Carmen Pampa,

Mary and Joseph were serious.

The tiny Savior in aguayo blanket, rubber tire sandals and woolen cap was lying in the straw.

The sheep got grass.

The children danced.

Someone from the pueblo of San Cristobal was lucky in the raffle.

But all the children got presents,

...and everyone had bread and chocolate.

The Olde School House

2007-12-01T15:35:00.000-05:00

This is the grade school in Carmen Pampa - a cement courtyard surrounded by classrooms.

Jean teaches the children with very low reading skills

in the courtyard or the cafeteria. Her “desk” is the old

water pipe stand.

In addition to the students assigned, there are usually some extras who wander by to see what is going on.

“My dream is to create a library that would allow the children to read something beyond their one text. Actually, the only students with the text are those whose parents could afford to buy one.

At the present time, I am loaning books to neighborhood children out of the volunteers’ house. They come knocking at the door asking for “libros”.

I hope these few photos will convey an idea of the situation here. How many books might an American child have in his bedroom? These children don't have even one”.

Interested in helping out? Write Jean at lechtel@gmail.com Thank you.

The Jesuit Reductions of Boliva

2007-07-25T10:10:00.000-05:00

Records for the year 1554 show that Portuguese slave hunters near San Paulo, Brazil captured 69 thousand Indian slaves that year. In 1585, twelve thousand Indians under the leadership of Louis Montoya, SJ slipped away into the jungle and began an escape that has been compared to the Exodus. In 600 balsa boats they fled down the Patama River and a thousand miles inland with the slave hunters in pursuit. They encountered the impassable Whitall falls - audible for twenty miles, two times the height of Niagara with nine times the water volume. Here they lost 100 balsas trying to float them over the falls. Finally they had to portage everything 25 miles around the falls and down into the jungles of Paraguay where they finally lost the slavers.

In one generation they built thirteen towns or “reductions” incorporating the local cannibalistic tribes. They doubled that number in the next generation and then doubled it again. The towns might contain as many as ten tribes with different languages. Guarani was chosen as the common language for all including the Jesuits. The first years in the founding of a town were spent working together building longhouses and workshops. Only after five years would the building of the church begin. When a town reached five thousand inhabitants another was founded. Towns were governed by a “cabildo” of 20 native leaders, with a single Jesuit spiritual leader and Jesuit brother directing the building programs. Together they produced the first literate society of the Western Hemisphere, craftsmen, sculptors, violin makers and musicians of Baroque music equal to those of Europe. Native cavalry with light artillery protected the towns and patrolled the roads. They retained the native custom of tilling fields communally – with the accompaniment of music. Each family also had its own plot. The town of St Ignatius had five square miles of stone buildings. In Loretto it is said a person could walk through the whole town without ever stepping out into the rain. By 1700, a hundred thousand natives lived and prospered in these Jesuit Reductions of Paraguay.

This apparently utopian life ceased abruptly when the Jesuit order was suppressed by the Pope. Sealed orders from the Spanish monarch Charles III were transcribed by children for secrecy. “For compelling reasons locked in the Royal Breast” all Jesuits were expelled from the Spanish Empire in 1767. The Jesuits were taken to Corsica in chains and the natives again fell prey to Spanish rapacity and fled into the jungle. The abandoned reductions fell to ruin. This story is well known.

What is not so well known is that the Reductions also spread northward into Bolivia where thirty towns flourished among the Chiquitano people with a total of a hundred thousand inhabitants. Unlike the Paraguay Reductions, these did not all dissolve when the Jesuits departed. The churches and the traditions were preserved by native leaders. In the last thirty years many of the churches and artworks have been restored under the leadership of a German ex-Jesuit. The restoration has respected original building methods which used only local materials - native wood, oil from Cusi nuts for paint, minerals for color, mica for decoration. The resurrected carvings have been described as some of the most sensitive sculpture in the history of art.

The art and music and worship of the Chiquitano continue today in living communities. Chiquitano Baroque choral groups travel to Europe for concert and competition.

Liturgy is a regular and vibrant celebration. If you should ever have the opportunity to visit the Jesuit Reductions in Bolivia, I think it will gladden your heart.

The Etiquette of Chicha

2007-07-25T10:07:00.000-05:00

Chicha is a common social drink in the Cochabamba rural countryside. It is a milky, pleasantly sweet drink made from pre-masticated corn maize which is boiled then fermented a week or two. This is “buena chicha”. Sometimes an impatient vendor will spike the chicha with sugar and grain alcohol. This is “agua sucia” (dirty water) which can be detected by its overly sweet taste. Persons with fresh chicha to sell hang a white handkerchief on a long pole outside the house. The full moon is said to be the white flag over all of Bolivia.

We offer the following rules of etiquette so that when you visit us you can be on your best behaviour. When invited to a home and offered chicha it is impolite to refuse. The common cup is passed - a shell called a tutuma. It is proper to drain the entire cup in one draft after pouring a small amount of Chicha into the earth to honour Pacha Mama (Mother Earth). The offering may even be done indoors. Drink the entire cup and shake it upside down before passing it to the next person. You might shake it over your head for effect. Caution: the cup continues making the rounds through the night! It is acceptable to say that you will have only one cup since you it is not your custom to drink much. Come visit before too many full moons.

Adjusting to Rural Carmen Pampa

2007-07-02T13:07:00.000-05:00

Jean and I have been in rural Carmen Pampa ten days but it seems like much longer. It is a tough adjustment - new language, new living companions, and the school with its own problems.

So many things here confund us - the beauty and the pain. For example, on a cool sunny Saturday morning a student, Moises Chapahani, took Jean and I to meet his family. He led us along a muddy path etched into the steep hillside with vistas through the trees of the distant mountain villages across the valley. The path was shaded by jungle lush with fruit – avocados, grapefruit, coffee beans both red and yellow, raspberries, bananas and limes. Ripe mandarin oranges fell softly onto red-violet Impatience blossoms that cover the forest floor.

Moises showed us iridescent blue moths, different types of wasp and bee hives and vultures that clean the valley. We heard the call of the Uchi – like a drumming on hollow coconuts. Moises pointed to the black birds with yellow beaks and tails as they dove into their yard-long, swaying sack nests.

After a half hour the path crossed a stream and dropped abruptly. We stepped into a small clearing flanked by three huts of adobe block and corrugated tin. In the little dirt yard next to a water spigot that carries water from somewhere up the mountain was Moises’ 80 year old grandfather Celestine. He greeted us in Aymara with a broad, one-toothed smile and hastened to drag a short bench into the sun since there is no power or light inside the house. Moises’ younger brother Renaldo shyly stepped out of the shade. Renaldo is about 18, has epileptic fits and can repeat only a few words. Two years ago he wandered into the jungle and got lost. When they found him days later the dog that had stayed by his side was dead but Renaldo had stayed alive by eating grass. Sr. Damon had driven him to the small hospital.

Now Moises disappeared into the woods and returned shortly with a bag of mandarins. His grandfather clambered up an outdoor ladder to a loft and brought back an old hardcover Reader’s Digest condensation of five books - printed in English. It was inscribed “Ex libris Sr. Mary Catherine” – a gift given to him twenty years ago. So we sat in the sun eating oranges and trying to explain the pictures of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin from another time, another world. When we were ready to depart Moises rose to accompany us - his toes sticking out of his sneakers. He cleared his throat and said softly that he was the only one that could help the family now by succeeding in his nursing training. He asked if we could help or knew anyone who could help him pay his school tuition. Ah, so maybe this whole beautiful, muddy, Dr. Seuss trip was a bid for help. This is painful here. There are so many who genuinely need help and so little we can do. The beauty and the pain.

Easter

2007-04-28T07:10:00.000-05:00

PALM SUNDAY

Every family brought its own decorated palms to church - some fancier than others.

I was given a palm by the woman walking next to me ase walked in procession about a half mile to the church.

The priest sprinkled holy water by the bucket.

And everyone touched his palm to the statue of Jesus on a donkey.

GOOD FRIDAY

The young people enacted

the way of the cross.

HOLY SATURDAY

This procession carrying the sepulcre of Jesus took place at 6:00 in the morning. Thee bands accompanied the marchers as people tossed flower pedals. The women carried the Sorrowful Mother.

The sepulcre with its generator weighed a little over two tons. 28 men carried it walking with a slow swaying gait and alternateing frequently.

By and large people in Bolivia do not seem to go to church weekly but they really celebrate holy days. Easter day however is not a big feast since the emphasis seems to be on the passion.

Fascinating Carnival

2007-03-17T11:15:00.000-05:00

Oruro is a small mining town in the mountains, dusty - and cold at night since it is three times as high as Denver. Chewing coca leaves helps stave off altitude sickness - headache, nausea, and shortness of breath.

Here is the most fascinating Carnival of them all. The small town is swollen with dancers and bands who have practiced for months in extravagant costumes. The folk dances are as varied as the Spanish, indigenous and afro people -each dance with elaborate history and unique music. And the spectators sing along with each one.

The entrada (procession) lasts fourteen hours - from 10:00 AM Saturday until 2:00 AM Sunday. Some groups have up to 300 dancers and band members and may take an hour and a half to pass. It is a spectacle of religious custom, Bolivian culture, and welcoming fun. In the lapse between marching groups giant water and foam fights erupt with only the elderly, infants and vendors exempt. It is a friendly way to get everyone involved and gringos need slightly more involvement.

Sitting street side not far from us was the new president, Evo Morales, shaking hands with any and all. He had only the regular police around him. They seemed mostly concerned with keeping people out of the parade route. Morales comes from a mining town background and sometimes marches in one of the procession bands. One mother handed him her baby for a snapshot. Jean got a good picture.

Oruro Carnival at Sunrise

2007-03-17T10:03:00.000-05:00

[Background: The Oruro carnival begins and ends at the church of the Virgin of Sacavon who once saved the city with her sword. At this church the tens of thousands of carnival dancers dedicate their costumes to the Virgin before the dance and return on their knees at the end of the procession. But the carnival at Oruro predates Christianity and has roots in the ancient Andean planting and fertility rites. It is a pagent acted out in magnificent costumes depicting the struggle for balance between the gods of sky and earth, between drought and rain, sun and freeze, man and woman, and between the Virgin and the devil.

Below the church in the dark of an abandoned mine shaft sits an image of “Tio” (Uncle of the Miners), the devil who controls the underground. With his red lighted eyes and his erect phallus he guards the riches of the earth and receives the miner´s offerings of cigarettes, paper streamers, coca, and liquor .
In the dance of the devils there is no attempt to completely banish the devils but only to bring them into balance. The costumed devils begin the procession wildly dancing and are gradually brought to order by Michael the Archangel who leads them into the church.]

We have heard that something mystical takes place at dawn in the chaos of reveling in front of the church of the Sacavon so we leave the hotel early and make our way up the narrow streets toward the church plaza. Jean has decided to sleep in. The only other person from the tour willing to face the cold is Rumu who combines the grace, warmth and elegance of her native India with the curiosity of a sociology professor. At the altitude of 13,000 feet, the predawn air is a crisp 38 degrees Fahrenheit but the small town of Oruro is still swollen with revelers who have danced without stopping since 10:00 AM yesterday. Our eyes scan the dark walkways ahead for open excavations, but they catch the shoes of a man passed out in a doorway and, in another place, blood splattered on the pavement. Small quiet groups move in the same direction – some couples walk one in front of each other, the male in back with arms wrapped around his companion. Vendors are crouched over their food. Masses of people in wool Andes hats and blankets become more dense as we approach the Center. We shuffle our way into a natural amphitheatre and hear of the sound of the brass bands high on the towering grandstands that flank the plaza. Directly in front of us is a wide plaza filled with milling people, thousands of people dancing with arms raised in the dark and the cold. We push our way slowly through the jostling crowd. There has been no rain but the cobblestones are wet and muddy and littered“Welcome to Bolivia!”, a young girl shouts above the music as she dances joyously. She holds her Paceña beer high, “Where are you from?” "We are from India. And from the United States.” Rumu and I buy some Paceña from a vendor working his way through the crowd clutching a cardboard box of beer to his chest. We toast Oruro and join the dancing. Quickly we meet others - from Argentina and Peru. Someone shouts,” There are many problems in Bolivia but tonight we are all happy.” We make our way cautiously to the edge of the crowd, just in front of the grandstands. There we meet a well dressed young couple from Santa Cruz. The woman slips Bolivianos to her beau for another big bottle of Huari, the beer of Oruro. They urge me to try it. I delicately sample the plastic cup. They laugh good-naturedly and indicate by motion that the custom is to upend the glass, which I do. It has a sharper taste than the Paceña from La Paz. “This is Oruro, the best place in the world for Carnival!,” they exclaim. And we are quite happy to be here all together in the music and dancing and cold and mud.We meet a young man with unruly black hair – quite drunk – who welcomes us in evenly spaced English, “Where are you from? I am Raul. This is Migel and Paco and Juan. We are from La Paz.” They offer us their perch on the first step of the grandstand and help us step off the wet pavement onto the boards. Across the way the five story tall grandstands are filled with people and bands. Everyone is standing, everyone is swaying and dancing and waving their hands over their heads. Raul insists on buying us another beer and will take no money. He shares the pictures of his new niece on his cell phone. A pair of men with arms around each others shoulders stops below us. One looks up and chats with us for a long time as the other relieves himself.I am feeling an uncomfortable sense of shame. We are here without our spouses, having our first drink of the day before the sun is up, swaying in this wild scene of dancing, latent sexuality, and overt expressions of friendship. I am out of my element but I feel a sense of tenderness for the people around me. I am touched by their indomitable sense of joy in the face of difficulties and in their yearning for union and harmony. And in spite of my Northern reserve, I am pulled out of myself.The music picks up now and the crowd becomes enlivened. We look up to see that the sun has tipped the opposite peak in gold and is moving down the swaying people to ignite the red blazers of the musicians and to set their brass instruments glistening. It will be some time before we are in the sun so Raul and Migel and the others want to walk up to the plaza in front of the church and into the sunlight. We follow them up, holding onto each other in a line to avoid getting separated. Once in the plaza we glory in the warmth of the sun - at this altitude it is amazingly intense. No wonder their ancestors worshiped god in the sun. Our new friends sweep their hands across the panorama of dawn sky and mountains and church and crowds and ask if the air of Bolivia is not wonderful.Eventually we suggest a visit into the church to the Virgin of Sacavon, but they say, “No barrachos (drunks) en el Sacavon!” Raul says he is a follower of the ancient god Veracocha. Rumu and I decide we will return to the hotel after a visit to the church and they wish to descend to the center again and continue dancing. Raul is barely standing. Rumu says to him, “Basta, no mas cervasa (no more beer). He looks sheepish. She extends her hand and lays it on the side of his cheek. In primitive Spanish she tells him, “I am old enough to be your mother. No more. Promise?” And so we say our good-byes knowing we will not see them again.As we walk home we are left to wonder what happened inside of us. Whatever mixture of faiths they profess and by whatever language we spoke to each other it was clear that they reached out to us and lifted us out of the wet and cold. They allowed themselves to be vulnerable. They embraced us, - and we allowed ourselves to be embraced. When our friends swept their hands across the horizon, we opened our arms and somehow took into ourselves the whole scene of joyous people and sky and mountain and sun. In a very messy and sensual and human way we let ourselves fall in love with the Bolivian people. And for a minute we saw a vision of the world as it should be - as it will be. We were exhilarated and saddened because the glimpse is brief. We wished that Raul and his friends may have a happy life – as happy as might be.

Two City Girls and the Uncle´s Tale

2007-03-17T08:43:00.000-05:00

There is a common scam here called the “Cuento del Tio” or uncle’s tale. It is simpler than the pigeon drop but just as predictable. A well dressed stranger approaches the tourist and asks assistance in finding a nearby location. As they talk, a “policeman” approaches, shows his “credentials” and informs them he is checking credit card fraud. He will require all of them to accompany him. A taxi pulls up and he orders them into it. They are driven to an alley where the lost stranger helps rob them. Or they may be taken to an ATM and forced to make a withdrawal.

Jean and Lee were approached in La Paz by a trim woman in heels and a business suit who explained she was from Peru and lost. She needed help finding an address. While Lee cleared his throat and marshaled his Spanish skills, Jean -who can smell a shill a Boston mile away - directed the woman to a nearby traffic cop. But the Peruvian woman scuttled in the opposite direction.

In Cochabamba Jean and another volunteer named Ginny were leaving a hotel after lunch. Ginny has been a court recorder in the New York criminal system for 30 years. After walking about a block from the hotel they were approached by a stocky, middle aged man in pressed shirt and slacks. He inquired whether they were tourists. “No, we live here!” they responded in their newly adopted language. He explained he was from Argentina and could not find the hotel. Ginny noticed another man across the street in military green with an official looking cap in his right hand. By now Jean was walking away. The stranger from Argentina pulled out his police ID. Ginny later said it looked like an index card to which he had affixed has name and picture. She regretted not bringing her own N.Y. shield so she could say, “This is what it is supposed to look like, buddy.” They walked quickly away from him, Jean wagging her wrist and saying, “Va! Va!”

Solomon Klein Orphanage

2007-03-17T08:24:00.000-05:00

Jean found it easy to coax a smile from this little girl at an orphanage. It is one of 80 in the city. Solomon Klein Orphanage is larger than most and has about 125 infants and toddlers. Many are the babies of the kids who are addicted to glue sniffing. They are known as "Cleferos" after the glue brand Clefa. Unfortunately legal agreements are not in place which would allow North Americans to adopt Bolivian babies.

With a Little Help from Our Friends

2007-03-17T07:58:00.000-05:00

With the help of friends Jean and I have recovered from our self inflicted injuries.

We live with a Bolivian family who run a small store out of what was their garage.

In the store one evening they helped nurse Jean free me from the formitable blue fiberglass cast. It took three hours with vine clippers, hack saw and horseshoe-nail pliers which shows that it pays to have the proper tools.

City of Peril and Promise

2007-03-17T07:24:00.000-05:00

Jean and I are now settled in Cochabamba among warm and friendly people. We will be her e for five months of language training before going to the countryside.

We were delayed in arriving in January because of demonstrations in Cochabamba. Campesinos (country people) from the outlying areas marched into town to protest Governor “Manfred” who is unresponsive to their needs. He fled; they burned his office. Then white youths from the prosperous side of town took to the streets with bats and swords. For the first time the two sides in this city confronted each other with weapons. One man on each side was killed and the city was stunned. In the end the Campesinos refused to be associated with their more radical leadership and simply went home. An uneasy tranquility has returned to a city that can no longer deny the powerful currents of racism just below its surface.

Cochabamba is a lens on the whole of Bolivia. Seventy percent of the population is indigenous (Indian) and, for the first time, they have an indigenous president. The powerful descendents of the Spaniards don’t want to be backed against a wall and are ready to fight.

Every house in Cochabamba seems to be fronted by a nine foot wall which is topped with graceful wrought-iron spikes, or barbed wire, or simple broken bottles. But it is a city of flowers too! Exotic blossoms surmount the fences spilling color on all sides. They are a more hopeful symbol for Cochabamba and all Bolivia.