MIKO Studio during an exhibition. Photo: Salvador Saavedra 

The transmutation of a space to create more art and culture 

In the centre of La Paz are iconic museums, monuments and architecture, such as the San Francisco Church, which was built in a mestizo-baroque style built between the 16th and 18th centuries; Plaza Murillo, the city’s central square that is surrounded by government buildings and the Cathedral of La Paz; the colonial buildings along Calle Jaén; and the nearby National Museum of Ethnography and Folklore, which has one of the largest folk-art collections in the country.

This neighbourhood is called the Casco Viejo, and in the middle of this cultural epicentre is MIKO Art Gallery, a space that promotes upcoming and established Bolivian artists. But the activities at MIKO go beyond just exhibiting art; the gallery also provides artists with a shared work space in which they can exchange knowledge and ideas with each other, learn and refine techniques, and develop synergies that help them grow individually and as a collective.

The MIKO Art Gallery is located in the Pasaje Kuljis, a corridor inside a heritage house and part of an old convent. MIKO (for Movimiento Independiente Kontemporáneo, or Contemporary Independent Movement) was founded in 2017 by its general director, Andrés Kuljis, an architect and artist who wanted to ‘transmute’ the building using emerging Bolivian art (and whose family the pasaje is named after). Artists Leonardo Calisaya and Tizi Jiménez also joined the project and helped transform the space.

Together, the team decorated the space with murals and urban art to prepare the gallery for exhibitions. Additionally, they restored another space in the house by installing contemporary art in the former convent of Conceptionist nuns that dates back to 1670.

Since its opening, the gallery has hosted more than 100 exhibitions. ‘Most of the exhibitions are joint,’ says Salvador Saavedra, MIKO’s curator of photography. ‘They break the teacher-and-apprentice scheme, since the idea is to share and learn from each other.’ MIKO has also represented Bolivia at international exhibitions in the United States, Mexico and China, displaying artwork by the MIKO team and other Bolivian artists and generating a cultural exchange with other artists around the world. The MIKO Art Gallery now has two other locations, one in the United States, on Dupont Circle in Washington, DC, and another in Mexico City.

MIKO Art Gallery is a platform to cultivate the fine arts, with open doors to anyone who wants to be part of this movement. ‘Art deserves to be continually cultivated, and this is a space that allows people to fulfill their dream,’ Leonardo Calisaya, head of MIKO Art Gallery Bolivia, says. ‘There are different ways of thinking and expressing ourselves, and we need to grow together and share – that is the priority of this space. The artists cultivate their technique from the individual to contribute to the collective. We deserve to grow together, make art together and build culture together.’

‘Art teaches you to love life, to enjoy. It is very important not to lose the ability to be amazed by everything.’

—Leonardo Calisaya, director of MIKO Art Gallery Bolivia

Mural at one of the entrances of the Kuljis Passage.
Photo: Renata Lazcano Silva

Detail of the colonial vestige.
Photo: Emily Kilner

‘Catarsis’ 22.11.2019
Photo: Renata Lazcano Silva

Photos: Manuel Seoane 

The Aymara business elite in modern Bolivia 

Just 15 years ago, Aymara, Quechua and other indigenous people in Bolivia regularly suffered open discrimination, including being barred from entering certain businesses and being generally looked down by the mestizo-criollo elite. In the last decade, though, racist stereotypes have diminished drastically with the appearance of an Aymara business elite, whose success and visibility are epitomised by the colourful and extravagant cholets of the indigenous-majority city of El Alto, buildings which exhibit a neo-Andean architectural style characterised by geometrical lines and vibrant colors.

The last 14 years in Bolivia have been defined by a process of change led by the recently deposed Bolivian president Evo Morales (the first indigenous leader of the country). During his tenure, Bolivia recorded an average GDP growth rate of 4.8 percent, attesting of the success and stability of Morales’s presidency, which has used the upward mobility of the indigenous middle class as evidence of its policies’ success. Current events notwithstanding—in which a right-wing interim government is trying to consolidate its newly gained power after a disputed election—it would seem difficult after the advances gained by the indigenous majority for it to lose this cultural recognition and acceptance.

However, as sociologist Pablo Mamani of the Universidad Pública de El Alto (UPEA) explains, this elite ‘[is] not a product of Evo; they have always existed. They are more visible now.’ According to sociologist Gustavo Adolfo Calle, a member of Jiccha, an Indianista-Katarista collective, in the last 15 years ‘the emergence of a social class with an indigenous face allowed large-scale social mobility in Bolivia, giving way to the structuring of social classes within the indigenous world that broke with the apparent homogeneity that characterised them.’ 

‘The emergence of a social class with an indigenous face allowed large-scale social mobility in Bolivia, giving way to the structuring of social classes within the indigenous world that broke with the apparent homogeneity that characterised them.’

—Gustavo Adolfo Calle

This social category is often referred to as an Aymara ‘bourgeoisie’, an accurate enough term if using the broader definition of the word as its members are clearly of the middle class. But the Marxist connotation of ‘bourgeoisie’ doesn’t apply to this social group, as this elite doesn’t own the means of production and is not yet particularly concerned with acquiring them. The word ‘elite’ is closer to capturing the essence of this group, but it, too, doesn’t fit perfectly, as there is no sense of superiority in terms of ability or qualities compared with the rest of society. Additionally, there is still a deep sense of internalised colonialism within Bolivian society, in which the criollo-mestizo classes remain the traditionally recognised elites.

The term Bolivian sociologists prefer to use to define this emerging upper social class comprising Aymara-Quechua bourgeois businesspeople is qamiri, an Aymara word used to describe someone with money and influence and the capacity to share their status and wealth. This follows the Aymara notion of ayni—reciprocity between individuals—that is central to relations in Andean society. Ayni allows the indigenous elite to convert their economic capital into prestige and social capital. By redistributing their earnings, they generate social capital and establish new economic ventures. This allows qamiris to gain and expand control of spaces that were once monopolised by the criollo-mestizo elite.

The defining characteristic of the qamiris, according to sociologist Tania Quilali, who investigated qamiris during the Gran Poder celebration in La Paz, is that they hold ‘economic, social, cultural and symbolic capital.’ However, there is no consensus on how much financial success one needs to become a qamiri. According to Quilali, the threshold is US $2,000 per month. For Mamani, someone who employs at least 10 workers can be considered a qamiri, or owning a property worth at least half a million dollars. Qamiris are also expected to be able to independently organise and finance traditional parties, as opposed to those who simply borrow money to hold these parties in order to gain social influence and strike up business relations. (According to Quilali, these parties normally cost at least US $30,000 to $40,000.)

These parties, such as those held during the Gran Poder festivities, are central to the qamiri identity, notably in the form of prestes, a type of communitarian celebration given by pasantes (sponsors, usually qamiris), which typically honor a saint. Prestes are frequently accompanied with folkloric dancing parades, and they are large celebrations in which no expenses are spared. But celebrations that qamiris finance and partake in are not limited to prestes; they also include weddings, building-inauguration and business-opening ceremonies, and anniversaries. According to Quilali, a socially active qamiri will attend on average about two to three parties per month.

These celebrations serve as spaces in which qamiris can flaunt their money, exhibiting their financial acumen and success, and where they can make new contacts to expand business opportunities and form connections and consolidate their social and business relations. Particular attention must be made to impress celebrants. As Quilali describes, ‘The clothes used are expensive, the garments must be fashionable and modish, shoes must have a special design and outfits are never to be repeated. Women will wear vicuña wool scarves, as well as gold and silver jewels.’ 

But the garishness of these celebrations is contrasted by the modest and unpretentious daily lives of qamiris, who generally eschew demonstrating any external signs of wealth. They use public transportation and wear the same clothes and eat the same street food as everyone else in their community. There is no overwhelming push to distinguish themselves outside of the parties. For Mamani, the reasons are social and cultural. ‘There is a saying in Aymara—“Don’t be like the q’ara”—don’t be like the white men. Don’t exploit others and don’t behave haughtily.’

'Qamiris use public transportation and wear the same clothes and eat the same street food as everyone else in their community. There is no overwhelming push to distinguish themselves outside of the parties.'

Qamiris came to the attention of academics in the 1980s, when the informal economy in Oruro, another large city on the Bolivian altiplano, experienced a boom following the creation of a free-trade zone in the port of Iquique, Chile, and local Aymara traders amassed fortunes importing, sometimes illegally, merchandise into Bolivia. According to Mexican sociologist Carmen Rea Campos in her 2015 paper ‘Cuando la otredad se iguala. Racismo y cambio estructural en Oruro (Bolivia)’, this indigenous elite ‘is the unexpected and unintended result of the economic crisis of the 1980s, the flexible labor market of the 1990s, the expansion of Asian trade in the national economy and, above all, the ability of these agents to translate, reinterpret and articulate two rationalities regarded as opposites: the traditional-emotional and the pragmatic.’ But for Bolivian anthropologist Jorge Llanque, who has investigated the qamiri elites in Oruro, this growth of the qamiri class was part of an inevitable process: ‘This elite has not emerged spontaneously; on the contrary, it is the product of historical relations consolidation in the western border area from the department of Oruro.’ Essentially, qamiris are the result of the revolutionary nationalism of the late 1960s (a consequence, in part, of the 1952 National Revolution), the subsequent rise of Katarismo and Indianismo (ethnic- and class-solidarity movements originating in the late 1960s that still wield enormous political heft today), the structural neoliberal changes in the 1980s under right-wing dictatorship and governments, and the more recent expansion of Chinese business interests in the national market.

The existence of qamiris is the result of a long social and historical process that started three or four generations ago, with each new generation building on the previous one to grow its economic capital. For instance, ‘In La Paz we are seeing processes that took three to four generations. The grandfather had a small import business from Chile. The son improved on this business, and the grandson amplified it and thrives now doing business with China,’ Mamani says. ‘However, it is not a homogeneous group; their social and financial capital can vary greatly, with the richest qamiris’ worth being valued up to US $3 million.’

Additionally, central to the formation process and the construction of a qamiri identity is the migrant route from rural to urban areas, which plays a defining role as traditional Aymara concepts are transposed and then adapted to urban living. If ayni is the notion of reciprocity between individuals, ayllu involves groups of people (families, communities). But it is not just about reciprocity and harmony. Embedded in aylluis a very competitive rivalry between these groups in order to show competing groups which has the most wealth. According to the Aymara sociologist Jesus Humerez of UPEA, this concept of ayllu explains how the economic success of businessmen is based on competitiveness amongst themselves in regards to resources and social capital. But if in the countryside wealth is measured on how many sheep an individual owns, in the city the emphasis is placed on the social abilities and social capital of an individual.

The ability to create vast social networks is the key to the success of the modern qamiri. The range and tightness of these networks forge solid business relations and confer upon the qamiri a reputation and prestige that can’t be bought with money. These are not just local networks, as they can extend to other countries too, notably China, Argentina, Brazil and Chile. China is a very lucrative market for Aymara traders, who regularly travel there to buy tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise. Alfonso Hinojosa, a sociologist and specialist on migration at the University of San Simon in Cochabamba, says that the commercial bond between Aymara and Chinese businessmen is so strong that some Chinese sellers tailor their products to Bolivian tastes, and it is not uncommon for qamiris to send a relative to live in China. ‘There is even a cholet in El Alto whose style is reminiscent to a Chinese pagoda,’ Hinojosa says.

The same is true in other South American countries and across Bolivia. Qamiris, through family and social connections, create local, national and international networks that bring economic and social prestige to themselves. And here is another reason for the success of the Aymara businessmen: the capacity to use and adapt traditional values of reciprocity and competitiveness in order to thrive in the modern capitalist world order. As summarised by Hinojosa, the secret to this success includes the following three factors: ‘control of a determined geographical space, versatility in business ventures, and the ability to create solid networks on large scales.’

'Here is another reason for the success of the Aymara businessmen: the capacity to use and adapt traditional values of reciprocity and competitiveness in order to thrive in the modern capitalist world order.'

The logical next step for a social class experiencing upward social mobility and accumulating capital would be to consolidate this power by acquiring political influence. This hasn’t happened yet, as the qamiri social group is not affiliated with any of the current political parties in Bolivia. ‘They don’t join political parties, but they think about their group,’ says Pablo Mamani. Jesus Humerez echoes this sentiment. ‘There are sectors who know about politics, but they are not interested in it,’ he says. ‘They have their business and as long as politics are not affecting them they will continue doing what they do. Maybe if a new political context affects [them] they will reconsider it.’ Humerez says that it’s not that qamiris have absolutely no interest in politics, but that they have deep ideological differences with political leaders. ‘Evo Morales is a syndicalist,’ he says. ‘He sells a socialism for the 21st century, a state socialism, and [the qamiris] are going in another direction; they are looking for another way [to enter politics].’

Qamiris are often asked about their involvement in politics and why they don’t invest in larger projects such as universities, banks or TV stations, Pablo Mamani says. ‘It is hard for them to answer,’ he says. ‘One of the reasons is that they don’t want to wait to receive a return on their investment. And it could also be mistrust in the system or a lack of knowledge on how to invest money and how banks work.’ For Jesus Humerez, a recurring factor is the absence of dialogue between qamiris and the intellectual new wave of Aymara thinkers. ‘A common vision cannot emerge,’ he says, ‘until academics and intellectuals sit down together and build a project with a common vision. What is missing is a state vision.’ Pablo Mamani shares a similar sentiment after asking qamiris various questions such as ‘How do you envision your city in the future?’ ‘How do you imagine it should be?’ He says that the qamiris he interviewed mentioned improvements to their neighbourhoods, but very few mentioned improving the city as a whole, and even fewer had national ambitions. This lack of vision, which impedes any successful political participation, may have deep roots but preclude any desire to engage in politics.

‘What I’ve seen is that they would rather not enter politics because of the risks [to their economic capital],’ Jesus Humerez says. ‘But yes, they think about politics. They want to take the power but, as Aymara, they don’t consider that they could do it. I still hear people saying that they are not capable to be ministers, deputies, to have high positions of power. There is still a complex of inferiority. For historical and ideological reasons. We have to break this so our people can believe that they can rule this country.’ This complex of inferiority, or internalised colonialism, as Tania Quilali and Pablo Mamani call it, is still very present and can manifest itself in two ways. According to Mamani, ‘There are two tendencies, either become “whiter,” or move to new neighborhoods, which implies a retaking of these [criollo-mestizo] spaces and a rivalry to dominate them.’ 

For Tania Quilali, this internal colonialism is so deeply ingrained that ‘the qamiris seek recognition in parties because, despite having economic capital, they cannot be part of the traditional bourgeoisie in La Paz.’ Because of this internal colonialism, being of Aymara origin itself is still a disadvantage despite the fact that many qamiris have capital equal to or greater than that of the traditional upper class of La Paz. They will never be acknowledged as equals to the traditional criollo-mestizo elite. Qamiris are still ‘indigenous’, ‘brown’, ‘peasants’, ‘without education’ and ‘folklorists’ (in a derogatory sense). What Quilali describes is not a reflection of how all criollo-mestizos see qamiris, but instead how qamiris think they are perceived and how they see themselves. Racism is still very much present in Bolivia, but the internal colonialism affects the ethos of a class and prevents them from entering a more elevated position in the larger Bolivian society.

It is not clear what direction the children of qamiris will take. Some of them are now attending private universities and share spaces with the children of the criollo-mestizo elite, which can lead to a rejection of their family values and businesses. ‘The children don’t necessarily want to follow in their parent’s footsteps,’ Tania Quilali says. ‘They want to learn English, travel abroad, and would rather live a different lifestyle closer to the ones of the white elite.’ But she observes that, perhaps years after this initial rejection of the qamiri lifestyle, the children might still take over their parent’s businesses once they realise the financial advantages of doing so.

Qamiris have gained visibility under Evo Morales, and they have established themselves as a social class with power and influence which they demonstrate during celebrations, by moving to neighborhoods normally associated with the criollo-mestizo elite, and by commissioning buildings each time more grandiose than the previous one. At the moment, and especially in this uncertain political and social context, we can only guess how Bolivian society will look like in a few years. Will the country move past racial cleavage and turn into a society divided along social classes? How will traditions and language be passed down to the next generation? Bolivia has changed enormously in the last 15 years, and that is no small part due to the consolidation and legitimation of the qamiris as a new social stratum. The changes that have and are happening are part of a process that started long before Evo Morales took power in 2005, going back to the 1952 National Revolution, if not before then but in a more inchoate manner. The emergence of the Aymara elite and the differentiation of social classes among Bolivian indigenous groups are representative of a social and cultural shift that will have repercussions for the whole of Bolivian society. ‘The changes are irreversible,’ says Pablo Mamani, concluding that ‘things are going to keep advancing, and as these groups will become more politicised, that will lead to a global social, economic and symbolic reform.’

Santos contemplates the space where his house was back in the 1990s, now it is full of bushes and trees. 

Photos: Manuel Seoane 

The Chiman people cannot be understood outwith the context of the fight for self-determination of indigenous communities and their territories in Bolivia 

This is a fragment from the article 'The Chiman of Maraca'tunsi, after their Sacred Hill was taken from them, with the support of the Rainforest Journalism Fund and in association with the Pulitzer Centre.

‘How long is the strip?’ asks Casimiro Canchi Tamo, a Chiman community member.

'It’s around 700 metres long,' replies Santos Canchi, his cousin, as they walk across a huge deforested space in the middle of the rainforest, around half an hour from Maraca’tunsi, a Tsimané community from San Ignacio de Moxos in the Beni region of Bolivia.

'How often did planes arrive?,' I ask.

'Once a month, they bring supplies,' replies Santos.

'Until what year did they come?'

'2010'.

Santos and his family during a common morning.

Santos explains that the small planes of the San Ambrosio timber mill arrived to the area in 1990 to exploit the wealth of the rainforest, and to facilitate the transportation of food, supplies and people, they created a landing strip close to where the logging took place in the middle of the Bolivian Amazon.

It’s half past four in the afternoon, and it’s a Tuesday, in September 2019. We walk through the landing strip that still appears to be in good condition. It’s around half an hour from Cujma’tunsi, where Santos and Casimiro were born and where the loggers community was set up.

Santos, is 28 years of age, he has light skin, slanted eyes, a small body and wears a denim visor. 

He’s one of the few members of the Maraca’tunsi community of around 8,500 who speak fluent Spanish, the majority of which preserve their native language.

From an early age, chimanes children learn to hunt and fish with the bow and arrow, indispensable tools for survival.

Behind us there’s a Chiman couple with their child on the mother’s back, who are taking advantage of our visit to gather oranges from neighbouring trees. It’s not a place that they often visit.

The arrival of the company came after the Bolivian state provided concessions for these territories inhabited by indigenous communities towards the end of the 1980s. This occurred because in 1986, the state created an executive order which removed the protected status of around 1.2 million hectares of rainforest in the Bolivian Amazon, known as the Chiman Forest (Bosque de Chimanes). This area includes multi-ethnic indigenous territory where Maraca’tunsi and Chiman indigenous land is found, explains Fátima Monasterios, an investigator for the Centre for Social and Legal Studies (CEJIS).

'Despite the fact that there was knowledge of indigenous presence in the Chiman Forest, when they were providing the concessions, they didn’t consider the negative consequences that would arise for the communities residing in the territory,' Monasterios explains.

At that time, seven companies were given permits, many of whom had already been illegally present in the area before exploiting the land. Many were particularly interested in mara trees, which supposedly produce better quality wood.

What Manuel Canchi, Santos’ grandfather, remembers most is that they cut down and destroyed the largest trees in his territory. The presence of these companies and the clearances of land in the Bolivian Amazon were some of the main reasons why on 15 September 1990, an emblematic march of indigenous communities in favour of territory and dignity took place.

Chimanes women are responsible for household chores such as cooking, which is carried out in wood and in groups.

'The march of 1990 was an important turning point and it could even be considered as a foundation of a movement. It’s something magical, the first moment in which the state acknowledged the existence of indigenous people,' Martín Torrico, an investigator of the Centre for Investigation and Promotion of Rural Populations (CIPCA) explains.

After 35 days of walking from the city of Trinidad to La Paz, the government approved four executive orders that would benefit the indigenous people. One was the DS 22611, which declared that the Chiman area was now recognised indigenous land, and also recognised 352,000 hectares that belong to the Mojeño Trinitario, Mojeño Ignaciano, Movima, Yuracaré and Chiman communities.

What’s more, the Area for Rainforest Use was established, which meant that logging companies could only occupy an area for a maximum of 20 years and after this period the land would be returned to the indigenous people.

The logging company San Ambrosio, that belongs to the larger conglomerate Hervel and that was already exploiting land in other parts of the country, arrived to the Bolivian Amazon. They established themselves in the mid-1990s a few metres from Cujma’tunsi, which was home to around 12 indigenous families. This didn’t stop them however, as the area was rich in mara trees and almendrillos, or cujmas in the Chiman language, which is actually the origin of the name of the community and the name of the river of the settlement.

The presence of San Ambrosio drastically changed the lives of those living there, and since their arrival, the area and even the river had been renamed as San Ambrosio. The loggers outpost they built put an end to the tranquility of Cujma’tunsi.

'The companies extracted wood, they cut down trees with huge machines that made a lot of noise,' Don Manuel remembers as though it was yesterday, on the patio of his home in Maraca’tunsi, where he fled to shortly after San Ambrosio arrived.

Manuel is 90 years old and is the only nonagenarian of Maraca’tunsi, which means a place where the oranges grow, or also orange orchard.

Manuel Canchi, one of the first inhabitants of Cujma’tunsi who was expelled by the San Ambrosio logging company to Maraca’tunsi.

He was one of the first inhabitants of the area when he arrived there with 18 years of age in the 1940s from the other side of Chiman Forest. Him and his wife along with other community members walked more than 140 kilometres in search of the Sacred Hill.

The Sacred Hill was devised by indigenous people of the lowlands, known as the Mojeños, due to the fact that towards the end of the 17th century, the ancestral inhabitants of Gran Mojos were forced to flee due to the occupation of their villages by creole and mixed people.

'The distancing of the populated areas towards the forest was something constant for the Chiman people,' says Monasterios.

That’s why the Chiman people, like the Mojeños, the Yucaré and the Movimas, were very mobile, and they always went in search of new places that would provide them with adequate living conditions, a process of re-appropriation of their territory.

'My grandparents came here searching for Sacred Hill, to live well, so they didn’t have to fight. My grandfather told me that they cleared just enough space to produce their chicha (traditional indigenous drink made from fermented corn) and their food,' Santos recounts.

His grandfather Manuel can no longer see nor hear and has difficulty walking alone, but he still retains his memories about the San Ambrosio invasion.

'What is it you remember most about when the loggers arrived?,' Santos asked him in Chiman.

'They would cut down the trees and didn’t pay anything. They would loot the forest,' he said whilst he dried the tears coming from his eyes.

'They looted everything. Now I need wood for my canoe for the rainy season but there’s nothing left. They left nothing in exchange for everything they took, not one health centre, not one telephone line, nothing,' he said.

At night fire is indispensable.

When Santos was eight years old, the families of Cujma’tunsi decided to abandon the area. Fabio Garbari, a priest from the San Ignacio church, says it was a displacement caused by the loggers.

'The company was more important than the community, so much so that they were displaced. They’re all in Naranjal. There’s basically been a displacement. The Chiman left, they aren’t fighters,' says Garbari, who has accompanied the indigenous fight in San Ignacio de Moxos since 2013.

That’s how Manuel and the rest of his family arrived to Maraca’tunsi, where they currently live. From there we walked a little more than an hour among pathways and trails that connect the two areas and that can only be crossed on foot. Part of the area which the company inhabited has closed in these past nine years.

At around 1,000 metres from the end of the landing strip, Santos hears a noise that frightens him, he raises a stick from the ground and immediately, the aggressive barks of dogs get closer. They belong to the security guard who watches over the San Ambrosio machines that they left in 2010, 20 years after the concessions were provided.

The dogs get closer but they are stopped by Casimiro and Evaristo, another community member and a teacher, from the guaraní community, that arrived a week earlier. Santos gets frightened coming here, which is why he always does so accompanied by a group of people.

'Calm down, calm down' says Mucheiro to one of the dogs and then turns to us, 'Good afternoon'.

We all replied with a greeting, as we arrived at the entrance of the sawmill.

'We’ve come so that our brothers can get to know the place,' Santos says.

'Go ahead,' he responds, and stops to talk with the teacher and Evaristo

A huge wooden construction still shelters the heavy machinery.

'They cut the wood with this,' says Santos, who looks over at the machines abandoned by the company. There’s a high power light motor and bundles of wood left over that were never taken out of the area.

'Will these machines work?' Manuel Seoane asks, the photographer with whom we travelled 

from La Paz a week ago.

'They should still work but maybe you have to change a few pieces,' Casimiro responds.

'But we don’t want them to take more wood from the forest. They didn’t leave anything good behind for the community and the territory only lost out,' he says.

A chiman mother holds her newborn baby.

The expectation that the company would return emerged in 2011, when after the territory had been returned to the indigenous people by the state, the government of Evo Morales created the Administrative Resolution of the National Agrarian Reform Institute, that declared this area would become available again, and would be named a ‘fiscal territory.’'Settlements are prohibited, as well as occupations of individuals and collectives on government land,' a sign says close to the logging outpost, that remains there despite no longer being a ‘fiscal territory’ as of August this year.

Five minutes from the loggers outpost is the place where Santos was born. Manuel takes us there and we get further away from the dogs. The area is covered with lime and orange trees and other species that cover his home, of which there is no trace left. The exodus of Cujma’tunsi included the homes that were moved to Maraca’tunsi.

'Here we made another home, but we’re going back. I’m going to make my new house, I don’t want to abandon the Cujma’tunsi community'.

'When?'

'I want the machines to go away'

'Why?'

'It would be better if they left,' he says, as he walks towards the place where the house once stood and lifts up a branch, 'We’ll have to clean up a lot'

'Why haven’t you thrown out the loggers rather than moving to a different place?'

'Because my grandparents didn’t have the capacity to get them out, but now that we’ve organised ourselves with other communities, we have more strength to get rid of them, because we don’t want them to take more wood from here,' he says as he begins walking.

On the way back, we are taken through another route, that way we avoid the dogs and the loggers outpost that’s a potent symbol of what has been stripped away from them that continues to be a threat to their livelihoods.

Casimiro has many skills, apart from being the community healer, he is a skilled musician and is usually the party entertainer.

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