Fabián Luizaga’s repertoire consists of various kinds of boleros, huayños , Christian tunes and even waltzes. Among the most popular requests he receives are ‘El Llanto de Mi Madre’, ‘Mi Querido Viejo’ and many other similarly heart-wrenching songs.

Locally, his line of work is known as ‘servicio de canto funebre’. For this guitar-wielding man of the La Paz General Cemetery, singing to the deceased is only one part of the job. Singing for the mourning is, arguably, a more important role he fulfills.

Photo: Ryle Lagonsin

‘These songs make the family cry. When I sing these songs, they remember their loved ones. They think about the person and they cry’, Fabian Luizaga says, laying his guitar on a bench and sitting down. ‘It is important to take out your grief. Do not keep it in, because those bad feelings can have bad effects on one’s health.’

Luizaga is no stranger to death, having seen family and friends of his die through the years from various causes. Singing, he thought, could be a way to help people cope with losing loved ones. It didn’t hurt that the job paid a good sum either. A former police officer, he found the opportunity to make a living off elegies and dirges sixteen years ago on All Saints’ Day. ‘I saw everyone singing at the cemetery’, Luizaga says. ‘It seemed to be a good kind of job’.

Working eight hours a day and earning a monthly average of around 2,100 bolivianos, he is able to support his family with what he gets from this occupation—importantly his 31-year-old daughter, who is studying social communications at university. And although his own singing group, Grupo Nostalgias, performs other song services for many other kinds of occasions, 52-year-old Luizaga sees himself continuing his cemetery job for a very long time.

Photo: Ryle Lagonsin

‘I earn more with this job than in the police. And besides, I have a great faith in God, and I believe I show it by doing this’, he says. ‘I will sing for the families. I will sing for their dead until I no longer have a voice.’

Aparapita is the name given to the hundreds men who carry huge loads for a living across the city’s main commercial arteries. Wilmer Machaca talks to two different generations of these personages to understand whether there’s a future for this mythical urban character.

Photos and Translation by Amaru Villanueva Rance

The Max Paredes macro-district without a doubt contains some of the clearest displays of La Paz’s character and spirit. It not only feeds from a living past, but continues to renew itself without losing its essence. In this economic quarter of the city, life begins at early hours of the morning and ends with the first lights of dawn.

The variety and volume of commerce in the Max Paredes is unrivalled across La Paz. Streets such as Huyustus, Graneros, Garcilazo de la Vega, Isaac Tamayo, Tumusla, Eloy Salmon, Rodríguez, Churubamba and Gallardo offer us everything from clothes, electrical appliances, food, animals, stationery, hardware and medicinal remedies. These districts bring idiosyncratic order to the chaotic panorama which pervades across this part of the city

Its streets are populated by several illustrious characters: food ladies, peddlers, chalequeros, anticucheras , knife sharpeners, pajpakus , and aparapitas.
The mythic aparapitas have served as an inspiration to many. There’s a museum that carries their name, and through the prose and poetry of Jaime Saenz they have become immortalised in the popular imagination. David Mondaca later transported them to theatrical plays, and even the local band Atajo wrote about their sorrows in their songs.

As a paceño born and raised in this cold and noisy city I have always naturally cohabited with these characters without reflecting on them or their historical significance. Through reading Sáenz I learned about this underwordly inhabitant of the city, often caught in the twin vices of alcohol and coca. Saenz believed the aparapita held the key to understanding the true spirit of the city. Today, I don’t believe Saenz’s representation of the aparapita represents him well.

Behind them are the long distances they had to travel with heavy loads on their backs. Today, the cargadores, as they are also known, are organised in fixed shifts and places, where their services are sought. Their routes have been shortened, not only in length but also in number. Their way of working has been transformed by wheeled carts which have lightened the burden of the loads they have to carry.
I met with Don Lucio Quispe Mamani, a 65 year-old Achacachi native who works on the Pasaje Ortega, where he has been working for over 40 years; longer than any of his fellow aparapitas.

During my visit to Max Paredes I was able to see three types of aparapitas: those who are contracted by merchants to move loads from and to their stalls in the mornings and evenings; those who stay near the shops throughout the day, carrying furniture or heavy electrical appliances for customers to taxis and trucks; and those known as runners, who accompany shoppers throughout the market as they collect various goods.
Those in the first category make up the majority, perhaps due to the stability of their employment. They are organised in syndicates and take part in various challenges and football championships against aparapitas from other streets. 

I also met Severo Catari Vilca, a 42 year old aparapita from Provincia Omasuyos who worked in Mercado Rodriguez for 20 years and has been at Pasaje Ortega for the past 5 years. As Don Severo tells me, they have also united to conform a communal organisation to let and sublet storage depots. The rent per load is Bs 5, and that each aparapita is in charge of around 50 of these. The cost to carry a load from or to the depot is Bs 3. Severo is currently responsible for carrying 30 of these, but points out that some reach 50 to 70, adding that “knees and lungs” are the main mechanism used to understand one’s limits.

Severo is a short-statured Aymara with a sturdy build. As one of several siblings, he arrived in the city at the age of 17, driven by the poverty his family was going through in his community. He worked for a time as a plasterer but his main activity has always been carrying loads. He only works as an aparapita during the early mornings and late evenings, seven days a week without a rest. He spends the hours in between working in his locksmith’s shop in El Alto, a responsibility he shares with his brother. 

Severo is now married and has two sons. After working in the area for several years, he found a spot for his wife in Mercado Rodriguez. Severo reflects on how things have changed in his line of work, not just due to the carts, but with the presence of security guards who are paid by stall owners to guard their goods throughout the night, meaning they don’t have to transport their wares to or from depots, and therefore don’t need to hire aparapitas. Their number has been reduced from 50 down to 20 in the Pasaje Ortega, something we see repeated across all commercial arteries. As Don Lucio points out “now everyone wants to leave their bultos”. The wooden stands and chiwiñas are being replaced by metallic structures and in some cases have been turned into closed booths. 

Neither Lucio nor Severo are optimistic regarding the future of their occupations. They know that in some moment their services will become redundant. Don Severo tells me that several merchants on the Calle Ortega hired him to modify the structure of their stalls from wood to metal; perhaps ironically Severo himself has contributed to the disappearance of the job which has given him so much in his life. There’s a question mark over the continued existence of this local character; it’s likely the next few years will either see a disappearance of deeper transformation of their jobs towards further opportunities to renew themselves.

Originally written in 2008, this piece documented the gradual decline of a once-popular occupation: that of the chalequero. Their work consisted in providing phone calls (by the minute) to passersby who didn’t have a mobile phone or were out of credit. Now almost entirely extinct, the chalequero can only be found in the city’s outskirts.

Photo: Amaru Villanueva Rance

I walked naively from plaza del estudiante to San Fransisco church in search of a ‘chalequero’. 

On the way I came across innumerable phone boxes, call centers, kiosks with up to six phones, and even a shoe shiner who sold calls from a telephone built into his stand. I walked up from Calle Comercio and asked one of the street performers if he had seen a chalequero in the area. ‘They rarely come here. Go to the Plaza De Los Heroes, near the heads... know where I mean?’

I followed his instructions and headed over once more to San Fransisco Church and its surroundings. In one corner, under the midday shadow I saw a solitary sun-burnt man wearing a neon green waistcoat. ‘I was looking for you!’ I said, whilst he nimbly marked a number for a man in a hurry wearing a three-piece suit and holding a briefcase.

He looked at me suspiciously, taking another phone out of his pocket, gesturing at me to dictate a telephone number to him. The man in the tie was now mid-conversation. I said I wanted to ask him some questions as I took out a tape recorder from my rucksack.

He told me his name was Wilfredo. ‘I have been a chalequero for two years. I work at San Francisco from 11 in the morning. The best times for me are from 4 until 8, there’s more activity around here. Chalequeros have existed since 2002 or 2003, but there are fewer of us all the time’. I ask him about territory. He interrupts me ‘yes, of course, if another chalequero arrives [he mimics a violent gesture]....we have always protected this area. There are five of us here’.

Photo: Amaru Villanueva Rance

There are two main reasons for the extinction of the chalequeros. On the one hand, the increased ease of installation of mobile telephone spots means that any shop-keeper can offer passersby phone calls. It’s like phone boxes springing up everywhere. On the other hand, the existence of these local personages has seen itself threatened by Supreme Decree #28994, which states that calls must be charged by the second instead of the minute. For the time being, they are not regulated or taxed by the Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (SITTEL) who have exempted them from this law as they are providing a private service and taking part in an alternative form of employment.

Chalequeros also exist in other countries. In Peru there are people who offer special SIM cards for chalequeros which claim to guarantee their profits. A few years ago they became a concern for Colombian mobile companies who saw them as resellers of their services.

Yet it could be argued chalequeros offer a value-added service. If the other line is busy they will redial a couple of minutes, later, and quickly re-approach you if it starts ringing. I’ve seen chalequeros following businessmen who walk hurriedly to some appointment while using one of their phones, somewhat like a mobile phone box. Sometimes the phone found its way to you instead of the other way around.

But what would happen with the chalequero if the rising number of puntos telefónicos comes to invade this small fort? ‘well the clients will drop, but because I have another job I’m only here during my free time.

And what is the life of a chalequero like? ‘Well there’s the heat... it’s a sacrifice. In the wet season you also have to find places to hide from all the rain. It pays well but that’s because there are not many of us.

‘Sometimes I have clients who call asking the other person “where are you?”, on the other line they respond with “I am here! Waiting for you”. The client turns around and realises the other person was behind them all along. Sometimes couples fight; one day someone spoke for an hour with his girlfriend. I charged him sixty Bolivianos and went home happy.’

El Chalequero - by Amaru Villanueva Rance

Carcajeante, jovial y paspado, el chalequero camina flotante bajo el sol de la tarde. Vive encadenado a celulares Nokia, que a su vez son prisioneros de sofocantes estuches chinos.
Mas estos aparatos no son sus carcelarios, sino tentáculos que lo extienden y alimentan.
Con dos o más satélites se enfrenta al bullicio de almas interminables al mediodía. Con descaro tienta a sus víctimas, atraídas por su plumaje neón y ronco cantar. “Llamadasaun, Llamadasun”
Y pasos apresurados no se dejan esperar. El chalequero accede a toda demanda recitada en dígitos, que para él son poemas y canciones. Su danzar es promiscuo, su agilidad delirante. Sus ojos vítreos se esconden bajo la sombra de un gorro gris de tela. Y como agujeros negros, sus oídos esconden la dicha y desdicha de infinitas conversaciones, a Bs1 el minuto.