Paragliding teacher and car
mechanic, 33-year-old Guillermo tells me he also teaches Quechan and has
offered to exchange Quechan lessons for English when I return to Cochabamba for
the art residency in October. Brilliant!
Walking with a slight limp from a
knee injury that happened whilst paragliding, Guillermo is currently off work
and so happened to be in the central square, Plaza del 14 de Septiembre on the
Monday afternoon, where he approached me as I was reading the articles and
posters at Red Tinku’s information panel.
Many of the newspaper articles posted up were
about Bolivia’s struggle to reclaim a stretch of sea lost over a hundred years
ago during the War of the Pacific. Apparently this is right at the forefront of
Bolivian consciousness this week with it being an anniversary of the war, and
Morales demanding that just 10km is returned the country. Lucy told me the next day this struggle has
existed ever since the war and she doubts the sea will ever be returned. The
tone of the articles was very anti-Chilean (and anti-British) as you can see
from the wording of the poster below, an indication that perhaps the hostility
between the neighbouring countries is actually still strong.
The world has to know of the
shame of the Chilean oligarchy with the complicity of the English – they have
to return; the Bolivian sea; Arica (Peru) and the Argentinian Malvinas [Falkland Islands]. Advance yes, never resign!
Another topic covering a large
part of the boards were posters reporting the commemoration the previous Thursday
Jesuit and socialist Luis Espinal Camps., assassinated 33 years ago. In his lifetime Espinal campaigned for
democracy in Bolivia, freedom of expression and social justice and was kidnapped,
violently tortured, shot with about 20 bullets and his body dumped as though
rubbish, by agents of the then-government of Lidia Gueiler Tejada. It seems the Bolivian people have a lot of
love for Espinal and that his fight for democracy and social freedom for all
lives on through them, with posters such as the one below shouting out messages
of remembrance:
Compadre Espinal, you have not
died. Your presence lives in the
consciousness of the people.
Guillermo’s question as he
approached me in reading these boards was what I thought of Bolivia’s current
situation. I explained that I had really
just arrived and so know very little, but was interested to know of the issues
affecting the country. I told him I was
struck by the sea-issue, and the apparent anger towards Chile, particularly as
I had just come from Chile so had it fresh in my mind that the sea for them is
also a serious issue. The Chilean sea is
in fact owned mainly by foreigners and in the north one mining company is
removing sea water in huge volumes to desalinate it for use in their mining
processes, which contaminates it meaning that it is removed from the natural
water-cycle. Bearing in mind that Chile
in the large part does not own its own sea it seems futile, perhaps even
out-of-date, that the Bolivian anger is targeted at Chileans rather than the
foreign investors.
Guillermo was very open in
sharing his opinions and local knowledge with me, and when we quickly got into
talking intensely about Bolivian issues he invited me for a coffee. We continued our conversation over European
style cappuccinos in a Parisian coffee shop on the corner of the square, and
when I shared my idea for the ONE postcards and portrait-patchwork project he
seemed delighted to be invited to join in (unfortunately I didn’t have the
postcard templates on me, so am inviting him online). He told me he too had the idea to travel
around the whole of Bolivia, taking documentary photographs that he would print
in black and white and fill all the walls, top to bottom, of an entire room with,
to show the diversity of Bolivia.
Guillermo was hugely informative
and in the space of that one coffee he managed to give me a swift introduction
to the mains issues facing Bolivia right now:
1. As
above, the fight to reclaim even just 10km of the sea that was lost during the
War of the Pacific.
2. Drug
problems: the natural coca leaf has been used for centuries as a medicinal
plant chewed to alleviate affects of altitude and reduce tiredness and hunger. However the plant’s reputation has been
marred and it’s traditional uses threatened since it’s derivate cocaine became
popular in the USA and Europe.
3.
Violence against women. In a culture that has traditionally been very
machistic, there are apparently still today huge incidents of violence against
women (and also children and the elderly).
Earlier in the day I had noticed furious graffiti screaming, “Machismo kills”
and bought a magazine "Temas' whose cover article was "Femicide the daughter of Machismo"which reported that the death of journalist Hanalí Huaycho at the hands of her husband in mid February had re-opened discussion about violence towards women. This article on the issue reports that 70 to 80% of Bolivian women have been victims of violence and that, shockingly, the murder of a woman because of her gender, femicide, is on the rise. In the aftermath of Huayacho's murder Bolivian law has changed to make femicide punishable by 30 years in jail. 'Temas' praises the Cochabamban council for banning both the publication of sexist material and costumes of women and pregnant women, which have traditionally been used at carnival time but which are associated with a general disrespect for the female figure in a country which is apparently very patriarchal.
It seems there is a lot of movement in the Bolivian art world towards empowering women. One poetry group, "Mujeres Poetas International" (International Women Poets) hosted a day festival of culture and poetry in Santa Cruz on 14th March "Grito de Mujer" (Woman's Cry) to promote a life without violence in Bolivia. As 'Temas' writes, art, in whatever form it takes, saves us. It may not imprison the perpetrators, but it gives voice and strength to the women's fight.
(left: strong screams on the walls:)
"We will castrate rapists / Machismo kills"
(right) Temas: Feminicido es hija del machismo.
Muera el machismo! Ejecer el arte significa para una mujer romper las ataduras creados por el hombre. Mujeres, únanse al arte, a la lectura, prepáranse para vencer con ideas, no con la fuerza! Lean!
[Temas: Femicide is the daughter of machismo. Death to Machismo! For a woman to practice art means to break the ties created by man. Women, unite yourselves with art and reading, prepare yourselves to overcome with ideas, not force! Read!]
4. The
death of Chavez: this has left Bolivians
shocked and concerned, particularly because the financial support his
government supplied has been suspended in the weeks since his death. According to Guillermo this has left Bolivia vulnerable and Evo Morales isolated as the only socialist
political figurehead in Latin America. (See more here.)
5. The
airport in Oruro. Apparently in the past
6 days the re-naming of this airport from Juan Mendoza Aeropuerto after the first Bolivian to take flight, to Evo Morales, has triggered such fiery
disagreement, including hunger stirkes by locals, that Guillermo was surprised our border-crossing-bus had got
through the region without being held up by blockades and protests.
6. Mines. When I asked were there problems of
contamination from the mining industry here as in Chile, Guillermo wagged his
head and let out a ‘aiii’ with a wry smile, communicating the enormity of the
issue, but oddly didn’t go on to talk about it at all. An area to look into in more depth at another
opportunity perhaps.
When I
expressed an interest in learning more about the Bolivian weaving tradition
Guillermo offered to take me to the local ‘la Cancha’ market, and so began an
afternoon of what felt like a personal guided tour of Cochambamba!
We
started in Plaza 14 de Septiembre, which Guillermo tells me is the only Latin
American plaza lined on all four sides
by columns, indicating extreme wealth of the Spanish who brought the construction
stone all the way from Europe, as they did the wooden furnishings of the
cathedral. Local saints are all
currently ‘on holiday’ for Semana Santa, (Easter Holy Week), their statues in
the cathedral covered head-to-toe in purple cloth, which means there’s a
temporary suspension on lighting candles at their feet in prayer.
We passed
a large white palatial building on one corner with checkboard marble-floor
entrance which turns out to be the previous home of the late Bolivian
mutli-millionaire Simón Isidoro Patiño, whose fortune, according to Guillermo, Butch Cassidy the Great Train Robber came all the way to South America on horseback to rob! (Looking this up online I discovered Cassidy came to Bolivia to settle as a rancher, but then, so the story goes, having robbed a courier from the Amarayo mine, was killed in a gunfight with police.) As for multi-millionaire Patiño's story, it is perhaps a lesson in money not buying love because it seems Patiño died heirless,
meaning his fortune and homes were left to the state, this one in Cochabamba
now functioning as a bank, and another an hour out into the countryside whose
vast library and botanical gardens are now open to the public.
Arriving
in la Cancha, I was fascinating by the sprawling streets filled with endless
clusters of stalls, and mobile vendors with baskets, trolleys and baskets
selling everything you could imagine. More food and drinks, piles of colourful
fruit, pirate DVDs and CDs, clothes, toys, radios, electronics, shoes
(apparently mostly black-market brand imitations from China that had me
wondering if the huge cargo ships that load up with copper in northern Chile
arrive with hulls full of these products).
Guillermo proudly told me that la Cancha is the largest open air market
of all Latin America, and seemed as excited by its raw hectic vibrancy as much
as me, pointing out the different moods on the faces of the bustling crowds as
we made our way through to the weavings that had triggered our trip. Narrow rows of stalls were draped in
traditional hand woven belts, hats, jumpers and blankets, alongside more
commercial looking tourist-aimed products.
Wooden musical instruments dangled above our heads, guitars, pipes,
mandolins, some carved with indigenous faces, some sadly made from the shell of
armadillos (this is an illegal product as the animal is in danger of
extinction).
On our
way out of the market we passed through the old rail station which is pretty
much out of action apart from a single carriage train that runs out to the
rural lakeside community where Guillermo is originally from and where his
parents still live and he has a a second home.
A German-made steam engine from 1905 is fixed in position on display,
and I was reminded of the old steam engine in Victoria Park in Leamington where
me and Daniel and the cousins used to play for hours, clambering all over...
happy family memories! (Thinking of
family this also has me wondering again about Fish, this Sunday 24th
being her due date for little Bazza-bump to arrive.. but no news from home
yet!)
Phew,
what a packed afternoon. Thank you
Guillermo for all the information, for the impromptu personalised tour and of
course the felt hat! I hope your leg
heals quickly and look forward to hopefully learning some more Quechan words
later in the year. :-)
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