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Raising a Baby in El Alto
PHOTO: ALEXANDRA MELEÁN A.
Doña Basilia rushes out of the store where I stopped to buy eggs, wrestles my baby from me, and wraps him tightly in a blue fleece blanket featuring a pitchfork-wielding bear. She tells me I can keep the blanket if I promise never to bring my baby outside like that again.
We are in a community on the outskirts of El Alto, that sprawling city that looks down onto adjacent La Paz from high up on the windswept altiplano. Once just a makeshift satellite suburb of Bolivia’s capital, El Alto has grown at a reckless pace since the 1950s, as migrants from rural areas arrived in search of a better life. Now a city in its own right, it has exceeded La Paz in population and is said to be the largest predominantly indigenous city in Latin America. This is where I live with my husband and his extended family, the newest member of which is our four-month-old son.
In El Alto, there is a strict set of rules governing the raising of babies. These include but are not limited to: always wrapping your baby as tightly and in as many blankets as possible (due in part to the icy altiplano weather, but also to avoid incorrect development of the hips or spine); making sure your baby always wears a hat, lest cold enter through the top of his skull; never carrying your baby in a vertical position, as this will cause her cheeks to sag; sleeping with your baby so that neither mother nor baby need get out of bed to breastfeed in the cold.
Those who choose to disregard these rules must be prepared to answer to the Blanket Police.
In effect, everyone is a member of the Blanket Police, since everybody subscribes to the rules and is aware of their duty to confront and discipline rule breakers. This is because, in El Alto, babies and children are collectively owned. Everyone has a stake in the upbringing of the child, from your mother-in-law and the woman at the corner store to a stranger on the bus.
‘No me lo vas a manejar así’, instructs the woman at the vegetable stall. It is the ‘me’ that is indicative. ‘Don't carry him like that for me’. (‘I'm sorry, I didn’t realize it was your baby I was carrying. If I had known, I would have asked you first how you wanted him carried’, says my indignant inner self.)
It is perhaps typical of a small community, which is what El Alto neighborhoods effectively are, that your business is everyone’s business, and by extension, your baby is everyone’s baby. The advantages, of course, are that a collective eye is being kept on children, and any perceived abuse will be made public, while for new mothers who don’t yet know a baby’s head from his bottom, there is always someone there to tell them. The downside is that your capacity to choose how to raise your child is limited.
At the beginning of my pregnancy, I signed up to an online forum of Australian mothers-to-be, wanting to know how they did things ‘back home’. There, the buzzword is ‘choice’. You can disregard SIDS recommendations if they don’t work for you, you can restrict in-law visitation hours, you can suspend all housework activities until your child turns three; it is your choice. In El Alto, your doctor tells you what to do, providing information only on a need-to-know basis. Your mother-in-law or Doña Basilia at the corner store issues you with commands that you, as the ingenuous new mother, must follow.
A large part of this has to do with information flows. New mothers in Australia overdose on a million conflicting sources of information found on the Internet; devour books on parenting; weigh up advice from mothers, friends and doctors; and then choose for themselves. In El Alto, information sources are limited to your doctor, your mother, your mother-in-law, and the Blanket Police, all saying essentially the same thing. The effect, in Australia, is an expectation that we can control and manipulate every aspect of raising a child to suit our personal belief system/lifestyle/timetable/horoscope. In El Alto, you just suck it up and get on with it.
I like to refer to the online forum mums as the ‘Oh Hunners’. If you’ve had a tiring day, only managed to put one load of washing on, or are not receiving enough support from your partner, you simply post a rant, and within minutes you will receive several responses all beginning with, ‘Oh hun, you’re doing great, you’re a great mum.’ Mothers in El Alto have a different set of expectations. There is likely to be no washing machine for that one load, no dishwasher, blender, car, cot, Jolly Jumper, sense-stimulating toys, mothers’ groups, postnatal depression support groups, and certainly no nappy-washing partners. No one gives up their place in a bus queue for a pregnant woman in El Alto. Women become mothers; it’s just what they do.
I would like to carry my son in an aguayo like the cholitas, but unable to shake that thirst for information and control, I consulted a fancy traumatologist down in La Paz, who ruled that a carrier on the front was better for a baby’s hips. And so, when we hit the streets, it’s like the circus is in town. People stare and whisper, “Did you see that baby?!” Cholitas ask to borrow him, and they pass him around.
The Blanket Police are used to us now. They’ve become resigned to our diviations. But I always carry a blanket when I leave the house. Just in case.
One man’s life and the dreams of his daughters
“I know it sounds funny, but I want to be a clown!” says Rina, laughing, wearing a half-guilty, half-thrilled grin. Then there is a pause. Rina considers another option: “I would also like to stay in La Paz and go to university.” She is fourteen, she is ambitious, and she faces a common childhood dilemma. Should she pursue an instinctive passion or chase a more realistic and secure desire? Nearly every child is caught between the two--no matter where they are from. Whether you’re from the small, countryside village of Stoke-Row in England (like myself) or from the urban sprawl that is La Paz, there is little difference in sentiment towards childhood experiences, dreams and ambitions.
Rina’s father, Wilmer Machada, has two other daughters: Maya,13,and Suyana,7,all of whom inherited Wilmer's engaging smile. He grew up in a town on the edge of La Paz called “Vino Tinto” or “Red Wine,” which ironically had no drinking water readily available. As a child, Wilmer had to fetch the water from the public well. His childhood recollections are of the 1980´s and 90´s, when he was living in a tight knit community without TV and where children were left to play on their own in the street and amuse themselves. ""You could say that my parents were irresponsible for leaving me out on the street,” he says, “but also there was simply more trust in others back then.""
Things have certainly changed for Wilmer. He lived most his life in Vino Tinto, but now calls Plaza Murillo home. In the city, Wilmer only knows a handful of his neighbours and has noticed that, unlike in his hometown, people simply go about living their own lives. For his children there is less street play and more structure. All three enjoy going to school, learning English and spending time together at home. They are more familiar with technology than Wilmer was. Rina has Facebook, Maya enjoys watching TV and Suyana plays games on the computer. Despite these differences across generations, however, Wilmer’s childhood dreams were not far from those of his daughters.
Today, Wilmer is a logistics coordinator and writer with Bolivian Express, but years ago his dreams used to take him far away from La Paz. ""As a result of the era I was born in,” he says, “I think I wanted to be an astronaut--there was a lot of Star Wars at the time."" His daughters laugh when he says this, either at the thought of Wilmer in a spacesuit or at the image of him charging about with a lightsaber--or both. Even though his family didn't have much money, Wilmer still dreamt of journeys into space or of taking to the field as a Bolivian football star.
Since Wilmer grew up in an impoverished rural town, I assumed he would have been forced to take on grown-up responsibilities and face circumstances that would limit his childhood wishes. This, of course, was not true. In fact, the nature of Wilmer’s childhood dreams differ very little from mine - dreams I had while living a comfortable life in rural England. I too had fantasious ideas, such as sailing the seas as an eye-patched pirate, win the world-wrestling championship with my very own signature move and perform a guitar solo in front of a live audience. All of which seem unlikely now.
k. There is a more realistic edge to their intentions. “I want to study architecture somewhere in the city,” Maya says, laying out her plans for the future. Like her older sister Rina, Maya wants to stay in La Paz and go to university. That sort of dream was not available to their father. As a child, Wilmer never thought of higher education, even though he has been studying sociology at university for six years now after he “began to want to know more things, learn and explore.”
Both Maya and Rina see their father as an idol. They are grateful for his hard work and seem to acknowledge that they’ve had a better start in life that he did. Even the youngest daughter, Suyana, when asked who her idol is looks over to Wilmer. There is a strong bond within the family as all three daughters also cite their grandmother as an idol. “Our grandmother is hardworking,” Maya explains, “she taught us to cook and she raised us.” In an age of K-Pop celebrities and second-rate movie stars, Maya’s answer was refreshing. For Wilmer, the silky feet of Diego Maradona and the superhuman strength of “He-Man” were the things he looked up to.
Wilmer is very clear about his daughters’ dreams and ambitions. He recognises that his children have more opportunities than he did and that they should make the most of them. But Wilmer would still like his children to pursue the lives that they want and not feel pressured towards one particular direction. “Many people in Bolivia are born into certains conditions, with their future already decided for them,” he says, “ but gradually this can be changed, even though the change will not be quick. It might take one or two generations, but the moment will arrive.”
PHOTO: NICK SOMERS
Be true of heart, persevere, and all your dreams shall come true.
Damsels in distress will eventually be saved by rich, attractive gentlemen.
Mother-in-laws are evil by their very nature.
PHOTO: MICHAEL DUNN - ILLUSTRATION: ALEXANDRA MELEÁN A.
These are some of the timeless morals that were drilled into my brain as a young child through the medium of disneyfied Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty. All of these tales deliver some of the same mantras. The only reason they’ve stuck with me is probably because of the countless cultural products that have emerged from them. Disney films have managed to transform originally dark and morbid tales into saccharine creations, catnip for kids. These stories are constantly being respun in the form of American TV series like Once Upon A Time, or BBC productions like Modern Day Fairy Tales. Why has the world become so obsessed with fairy tales written in Europe that stem from European culture?
Bolivia has its own set of folkloric tales that have been passed down to younger generations through the oral tradition of the quechua and aymara indigenous groupings. A separate collection of morals and fantasies inhabit these stories, influencing and enchanting children from a young age. Despite the fact that the vast majority of Bolivian children today do not know many traditional tales in detail, they are well versed in the globalised Disney versions of Cenicienta and Blanca Nieves. This is not to say, however, that folkloric tales have simply disappeared, they still exist in the collective imagination. When the TV turns off, these tales are the root of popular superstition, they watch over children as they go to sleep, at times invading their nightmares or taking shape as irrational fears.
Some writers in Bolivia have attempted to harness these stories and put them on the page, if only to reignite the magic of Bolivian tales. According to Víctor Montoya, a specialist in Latin American literature for children, Antonio Paredes is a key example of a Bolivian writer who has tried 'to rescue the themes and characters of the oral tradition from the void of the forgotten.' I found some of Paredes´ work and chose two of the tales he has published. Perhaps together, these traditional Bolivian stories could make a good script for an American or British box office hit. Or maybe not. Who knows? You can be the judge of that.
I’ve merged 'el Zorro Bailarín' and 'el Zorro y el Cóndor' for this fairy tale experiment, mainly just to see what would happen. The first part of the plot is in the voice of Paredes. Then it becomes my version of a Disney film, and then I put on the eerie hat of British movie director Tim Burton, who redid Alice in Wonderland.
What follows is my westernised Bolivian folklore tale concoction:
The Tale of the Misfortunate Fox and the Mountain
(Antonio Paredes)
Once upon a time, there was a Fox who loved to dance. He could only indulge his passion, however, when sheltered by the shadows of the night. It was then he could dress up as a man and go unnoticed at the parties of the local town, wooing the wenches and spinning circles around the knaves.
One night, the Fox in disguise found himself particularly entranced by a pretty young lass who spun him around and around in circles until he lost track of time and reason. Caught up in the enchantment of the charming girl in the blue dress, he followed her and her friends to a late night party, but before long, the sun was rising.
In the light of dawn, his true fur became evident. His tail sprung out from the disguise and the girls recoiled in horror.
The Fox ran from the party, humiliated, his tail between his legs.
(Disney Production)
To the sound of epic music, the Fox bursts into a melancholic but wistful song as he runs away from the party. The melody dips and rises as the lyrics narrate his frustration. He is an animal, not a man; he is devastated because he’s lost sight of the pretty girl.
“I have often dreamed of a far off place,
where the girls have tails, and they´re waiting for me…”
He skulks and runs past other human towns, seeing backs of heads and swirling skirts that remind him of his lost love. As the Fox rushes further and further from civilisation, the song peaks until he slumps at the foot of Illimani and looks out at the world he can never be a part of.
(Tim Burton’s Gothic Animation)
A Condor appears, announced by hum of eerie panpipes, and sees the Fox down below at the foot of the mountain. Gracefully, he descends to the ground and asks him:
'What's wrong comrade, my great, agile Fox?'
'The woman I love will never accept me,’ the Fox says. ‘She is human and looks down upon me as a savage and untrustworthy animal.'
Condor: Why, we must prove her wrong, I know just the way. You see the peak of the great Illimani in the heavens? Let us embark upon a journey to the summit of the mountain. That way no living being, man or beast, will doubt your power or dignity.'
The Fox looks up at the dark steep slope: black ice, unwelcoming rocks and a creeping cloud of mist. He remembers dancing with his woman. The memory pops up in a cloud and the two appear like ballerina-figures found in a jewellery set, trapped and turning mechanically to shrill, shaking music. It is only then that the Fox and the Condor begin the ascent.
The Condor hovers over the mountain as the Fox climbs rock and ice, seeking to prove his worth through the struggle. The ice bites down and the mountain seems to cackle as the Fox realizes he can no longer feel, touch or see the tail he had cursed at the party.
´We will reunite at the summit!´, the Condor shouts down to his comrade, but the Fox's body is slowly conquered by ice. His loneliness, his temperature, his life source dwindles.
When the bird lands on the peak of Illimani, he looks down to see his friend and finds only a faint dot on the ice with a Fox-like flicker. One hundred metres or so from the summit, lies the icicle that once was the Misfortunate Fox.
The Condor swoops down. He gets a hold on his friend with his talons and tries to whisk him up to the top, but the grip loosens. The Ice-Fox falls, smashing into 1000 pieces.
The end.
Morals of the story:
Do not stay out dancing till sunrise.
Do not try and be something you are not.
Do not attempt challenges you were not built for.
Make what you want of this oddball adaptation, and feel free to learn a thing or two from the morals it outlines... There are thousands of Bolivian folkloric tales waiting to be reworked or experimented with: lively characters, twisted endings, bawdy plot lines and Andean magic. What are you waiting for?
