When contemplating football in South America, one automatically thinks about those countries steeped in World Cup tradition such as Brazil, Argentina, and even Uruguay. One would be forgiven for neglecting to appreciate the passion ingrained in countries such as Bolivia, as in the West we are caught up in the hysteria and romanticism of the upper echelons of the South American game. The salient fact is that football is in the DNA of the continent, regardless of which nation you are from. From birth, both men and women are caught up in the wonder of the 'beautiful game', and Bolivia is no different. However, a lack of grass roots initiatives have failed to capitalise on this female devotion to the game, not least exemplified by the most unlikely of sources: Bolivian cholitas.

Cholitas are primarily renowned for their traditional dress sense and reserved approach. With their bowler hats, multilayered skirts, ornamented shawls, and typically short stature, cholitas are instantly recognisable, yet their footballing prowess is usually kept hidden.

Indeed, when I visited an artificial football pitch near Valle de la Luna, all the cholitas whom I approached were, or had been, involved in football. Sonia Cuba, Silvia Escóbar, and Rosemary Illanes all cited enjoyment and health as the main reason why they and other cholitas play. Illanes and Escóbar both agreed that cholita football has been played for generations, as both their mothers had played.

In La Paz, cholita football is played casually on weekends in such areas as Irpavi, Ovejuyo, Chasquipampa and Villa Victoria. El Alto has more tournaments and Escóbar, who plays cholita futsal on Mother's Day in La Paz, told me that the cholitas of El Alto train and play in regular tournaments and season-long championships which are guided by rules.

The reason for this is that there is more unity and social endeavour in El Alto because of better organisation within the surrounding pueblos and thus have more teams to play in tournaments, as opposed to the recreational, unstructured cholita football of the big cities. In these rural communities, cholitas sensibly exploit the free open fields available to avoid the hassle of having to hire pitches to play.

Sunday is the main day for cholita football and in the various small provinces it is not really separated from the traditional customs, it is actually one of the main activities. Depending on the competition, what the referees allow, and individual preference, cholitas wear either their traditional polleras or shorts and tracksuits. Illanes, who managed a cholita team for two years believes many cholitas play with polleras because they’ve become accustomed to them when practicing.

Esmeralda, a local celebrity cholita, told me, 'cholitas play just to be able to play, they see it as a distraction, as fun, but they also play in championships to win cups, so they are great – they exert themselves... cholitas are really good football players'. Occasionally, cholita football carries a philanthropic element, as the women put aside their daily activities with the sole purpose of raising money for children from the various shelters across El Alto.

Cholitas are even hired in Mayoral initiatives and those of the Directorate for the Promotion of Sport, dependent of the municipal government of El Alto, such as the Cholitas Championship in honour of Women's Day.

Esmeralda who has played since she was a child, believes that cholitas inspire their communities by playing in, and organising, their neighbourhood tournaments. She believes that the intrigue of tourists and journalists at seeing women in long dresses play has popularised Bolivian football to the rest of the world; 'suddenly the country has a football image even if the senior team is not too good'.

An avid Bolivar fan, Esmeralda became famous when she was photographed with the barra at Estadio Hernando Siles. Determined to break convention, her and her friend were the first cholitas to be part of the 'Furia Celeste' (hardcore fans) and it is incredibly rare to see cholitas there even now. She started getting imitated by other cholitas that went to that part of the arena but they were quickly scared away because, 'cholitas are not very sociable, they're quite shy and reserved'. She now travels with Bolivar as an official fan and plays for the club's supporter team, 'las Yayitas'.

Bolivar's head coach Miguel Angel Portugal, was recently quoted as saying, 'I think football in Bolivia is a passion which has surprised me. I was surprised to see the city courts are always full of people, from small children to ‘mujeres de pollera’ (cholitas), playing football'. In his view, it is precisely because of the incredible passion for football in Bolivia that authorities should pay more attention to channelling all that energy into a sound structural development of the sport and thus the transformation of football as a whole.

Since Evo Morales became President, as a football fanatic he has helped small communities organise tournaments which provide prizes like cattle or even crates of beer. People therefore apply themselves more and have an added incentive to improve their skills. It is not as centralised, and everyone who wants to can take part. The government has been building more football pitches across the country. However, the sport is still largely underfunded and very little help is directed specifically at women. There is still a real sense that not enough is being done to garner success.

Bolivian women’s football even transcends the country’s borders. Anthropologist Juliane Müller, discovered that in Seville, Spain, teams of South American affiliation have been set up and seen an influx of Bolivian female immigrants flock to their ranks. Müller notices the ‘fuerza gravitoria’ (gravitational pull) exerted over Bolivian players who sign for female teams formed by players from their country of origin—such as 'Real Santa Cruz' and 'Bolivia'—through the migratory chains and interpersonal networks formed in Seville. Indeed, Müller believes these female football unions to symbolically mark the desire for ‘a new beginning, overcoming prejudice, and female solidarity’, going on to say that the language of football in general, and globally, is characterized by a strong metaphorical tendency.

This highlights the real desire of Bolivian women to break through traditional patriarchal chains, a sentiment fully endorsed by Rodolfo Garcia, 40, who coaches children of both genders. He told me, ‘women’s football has been left behind because of the lack of implementation of politics and policies from our local governments. There are no incentives for women’s football’.

‘It is in the hands of the leaders. I’ve been working with little girls for eight years, and I can assure you that I am the only teacher who still maintains the line of thought of equality of opportunity. I don’t close the doors to kids, I open them. This is the only school for women’s football, and there are many kids participating’.

'We need the sexist way of thinking to vanish, and start thinking in different ways. Change has come from the people that have power. The idea is first to convince the authorities to incentivise football, because we have people and we also have resources. We have to break parents’ traditional way of thinking, where they assign little girls to the sports or activities that they see fit'.

Garcia's uncertainty as to whether women's football as an activity will grow was equally as damning, as was his frustration that his football school was 'the only one' (in La Paz) that offers a place to play for children as young as four.

His hope is that one day, the girls he coaches will make it to the national team and that his school will give them an opportunity to access scholarships in the US or Canada, so they can consolidate a career through football. He nevertheless reiterated the need for help from the government and also institutions.

It is therefore clear that in Bolivia the renowned South American zeal for football is very much alive amongst women, but it is political and socio-cultural change which holds the key to harnessing the vigour of Bolivian Cholitas to see a real development in women's football.

I played SimPachamama for the first time 4 hours after landing in La Paz. In my zombie-like state, I found the game strangely addictive and continued to play it in a quest to become a better virtual town mayor.

The game is not only compelling and fun, but related to the increasingly relevant debate surrounding deforestation. The goal of the game is to find the right combination of development policies that will improve the life of the town dwellers while managing to reduce deforestation. It has a similar feel to the SIMS, in which you, the player, are in total control. On the left side of the screen, you have several game options. On the right side, are the indicators of your town’s development. Smiley faces are the barometer of your townspeople’s happiness.

Easy, you say? Come and try for yourself.

The notion of using a game as a vehicle for talking about deforestation is, perhaps, not entirely novel. But what makes SimPachamama interesting is its simulation of this debate in a rural context.

In your role as a virtual mayor, for example, you must decide as you play along how to invest the money you’ve generated through decentralized conservation taxes. This setup empowers you as a mayor to have a long term impact in your region. This setup, however, already presupposes a decentralized scheme for deforestation policy, which is not common practice in the real world.

The span of each game is a full 20 years of your town’s development, which elapse during only minutes of real game time. The decisions you make as the mayor, and the policies you set in motion, will determine the growth of your town as well as its impact on the environment. As the game unravels, you can observe the virtual consequences of your local initiatives.

The often abstract question of foreign investment is very real for you as a rural mayor. Given the debate surrounding the impact of foreign investment on sustainable rural development in Bolivia and elsewhere, there are two gameplay settings on this issue. In one setting, you can play the game with access to foreign funds for your rural town. In the other, you choose to rely solely on local taxation as a source of revenue for your mayor’s office.

After playing the game a few times, the local need for external investment becomes strikingly apparent. I will admit that the first few times I played SimPachamama, I was determined to succeed without the support of foreign nations even though I was told my objective would prove almost impossible. Reality hit me rather quickly however, as I realized I could not sustain the development of my town without also making considerable investments. I was shocked by this discovery, both as a gamer and as someone who is engaged in the debate over deforestation policy. It proved impossible for me to help my town develop in the long term and reduce our rate of deforestation without the help of external funding.

This was, frankly, a slight disappointment for me at first; something akin to finding out you can't complete a game level without using cheat codes. But, afterwards, I saw the value in letting each player discover this lesson during the course of the game, illustrating the potential of SimPachamama as an awareness device to bring these issues to the forefront of global and local discussions.

As a simulation game, SimPachamama approaches the conservation debate from a pragmatic standpoint, as opposed to a fundamentalist one. This, I think, is a good thing. The problem with approaching conservation from a fundamentalist viewpoint is that it inhibits the process of making important compromises. Ardent activists for the environment often demand a comprehensive policy change at a national level as the only way to address the issue of conservation. SimPachamama explores a different path. It is aimed at specific communities in Bolivia, where a scheme of conservation wouldn’t overtly damage the local economy, instead it offers the possibility of generating income and creating jobs. As a result, you, as mayor, are challenged to design a practical, tailored strategy with a local focus.

This element is what makes SimPachamama a useful tool for exploring how to reduce deforestation without damaging the development of local communities. It is both a game and a tool to shape local policy. It’s this intriguing duality that grips you from the outset.

My obsession with the game started a few weeks ago when I attended a press conference held by INESAD, a think tank instrumental in the development of SimPachamama, where I managed to grab an informal interview with its director, Dr Lykke Andersen. We discussed the inspiration of SimPachamama, as well as some of the difficulties faced during its development. According to Dr Andersen the starting point was Bolivia’s rejection of the UN-led initiative REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) in 2010. Undeterred by the obstacles this presented, INESAD and its partners persevered to produce this useful and absorbing game SimPachamama.

We also touched on one key aspect missing from SimPachamama; it assumes that the bureaucracy of local government will have no effect on decentralizing conservation initiatives. We agreed that this was a significant hurdle but that there are important examples both in Bolivia and the region that can contribute to solving this aspect of the debate.

I can't help but feel that the lessons learned from this game will face many challenges in their application. That said, I believe the spurning of REDD was beneficial insofar as it forced SimPachamama’s creators to rethink their approach and customise it to tackle the unique issues of conservation in Bolivia. By adopting a more pragmatic approach, I think they have a greater chance of persuading politicians to lend their support and begin to implement genuine change. While SimPachamama is certainly not the final solution for the development vs conservation debate, it does offer a place to start. Maybe that is enough for now.

Voladores sail in the sky, like vessels of the wind, soaring on the breath of Pachamama. Flyers forge a stronger connection with la madre tierra. Kites harmonize intergenerational dissonance, bringing people of all walks of life together.

If age is a game of blackjack between youth and seniority, who wins? Odds are the game is fixed. Youth is dealt the upper hand, hitting 21 on the mark. Yet age tends to discriminate when it comes to game. More than a number, spiritual age is a measure of state of mind, optimism, determination and perseverance. Visiting Pipiripi on a Sunday in late August, a recreational park between the city’s centre and Miraflores, it becomes clear how kite-making bridges the generational and existential gap between seniors and children. The ceremony harmonizes intergenerational dissonance, as people of all ages stand to contemplate their flying creations. On the 25th of August we were lucky enough to witness the city’s first annual flying contest, Wayra Phaxsi, festival of the wind.

Kites at Wayra Phaxsi come in every shape and design. It’s telling of our times that the day’s victor was neither this lion, nor the newspaper kite below. An Angry Birds kite soared victorious at the end of the afternoon.

Volador in hand, 4-year-old Valentina prepares for her kite’s maiden flight.

Weathered and dark hands delicately fold the tail of a kite.

Sailing high, a newspaper kite flies entranced towards Illimani.

After assessing wind conditions, a grandfather and his grandson prepare to launch their kite into the air.