Culture

Voices from the fairground
28 Feb, 2012 | Patrick Dowling
A selection of interviews documenting the Alasita fair as lived by pacenos. Name: Teresa Ticona de PizarroAge: 52Occupation: Artisan selling toy cars I have been an artisan at Alasita for 20...

Nomadic Healing
28 Feb, 2012 | Camilla Swift
Every one of us lives bound by nature. Modern medicine may seem to heal quicker, but natural medicine is still the most pure. It heals slowly but lasts forever! Travellers only usually encounter Bol...

Ekeko
28 Feb, 2012 | Mathew Grace
Cast a look into many Bolivian homes, and you'll likely spot a small, moustachioed ceramic figurine called an Ekeko. These jolly-looking statuettes resemble small men in Andean attire with enormous sm...

Scattering seeds: Catholicism and the pachamama
28 Feb, 2012 | Patrick Dowling
Pachamama has provided fertile ground for the growth of Catholicism in Bolivia. Coming from a Catholic high-school background, I thought I'd find plenty of common ground with the people of Bolivia....

Nazareth Flores Cabao: A marcher’s story
28 Feb, 2012 | Sharoll Fernadez and Xenia Elsaesser
Nazareth Flores Cabao is the Vice president of CEPIB, Central de pueblos indigenas de Beni. She is of Italoma heritage and comes from Magdalena, a town in Beni near the Brazilian border. She recently...

Wiphala-Relic or re-invention?
01 Nov, 2011 | Daniel Caplin
Daniel Caplin investigates the historical and political texture of Bolivia's iconic indigenous flag. In its Constitution, Bolivia is described as a plurinational state. This is an apt description se...

Turning the pages - Bolivian history in books
01 Nov, 2011 | Joanna Kozlowska
By all accounts, Franz Tamayo lives on. Where the founding father of Bolivian letters used to contemplate the snow-capped Illimani ('Two giants gaze upon each other', an anecdote would have him say),...

Gran Poder
20 Jul, 2011 | Georgia Wolff
In La Paz the fiesta never stops: paceños never miss an opportunity for a celebration and they know how to party hard. Rarely a day goes by when one of the city’s streets isn’t closed to host a festi...

Living the death road - Part 2
19 Jul, 2011 | Ivan Rodriguez P.
The rough earth track is beginning to make itself felt, and the Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking team makes a stop to instruct us on how to proceed from here. The road from La Cumbre had been tarmac,...
Ch’alla
19 Jul, 2011 | Nina Triado
It took me a while to find the location, but after asking many people I made my way up to El Alto where I was told I could find a ch’alla. However, not knowing exactly what I was looking for, or what...

Aymara New Year
19 Jul, 2011 | Seneca Garrison
June 21st marked the 5,519th annual celebration of Aymara New Year, and an estimated 50,000 participants migrated to the Tiwanaku ruins for a freezing all-nighter of fun and timeless tradition. People...

Night at the museums
19 Jul, 2011 | Seneca Garrison
Saturday May the 21st marked the fifth annual ‘Noches de Museos’ in La Paz. Every year, the doors of museums and galleries are left open from the evening, through the wee hours of the morning, and unt...

Ser Cholita
18 Jul, 2011 | Seneca Garrison
What makes a cholita a cholita. There’s no need to go looking for cholitas around La Paz. It would be unusual and even noteworthy not to bump into one while walking around town or glancing down a bu...

Back to Aymara
18 Jul, 2011 | Maryam Patwa
It is dispiriting (though perhaps inevitable) that Aymara, once the dominant language of large sections of Bolivia and neighbouring Andean regions, has become relegated to the backstage of everyday li...