A licit market is slowly expanding for the Andes’ most iconic—and demonized—plant.

The first clear liquor scorches the back of one’s throat but nicely warms the stomach. It’s known as Spirit of Coca—Pachamama. The second has a sweet, mellow flavour that soothes the throat and is known as Liquor of Coca Akullico. These two spirits form just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the many coca products on offer in Bolivia. They range from candies and energy drinks all the way to toothpaste.
Coca, which has played a role in Andean societies for centuries and is also the base ingredient needed to produce cocaine, is now the object of a campaign to broaden its appeal. Bolivia, the third-largest supplier of coca in the world behind Peru and Colombia, produces around 32,000 tons of coca a year. Some, of course, reaches the illegal market (around 20,000 tons a year, according to the United Nations), but the legal use and sales of the leaf have increased based on data for 2014 published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Coca accounts for around 1.5 percent of the Bolivian GDP, with a revenue of roughly US$283 million. This recent growth is due mainly to the development of a wide range of new products that local entrepreneurs have created.

One of the new breed of Bolivian entrepreneurs, Juan Salvador Hurtado, epitomises the reason the legal industry has been a growing success, drawing more farmers to provide coca leaf for this industry. His family-run business—which produces several coca-based products—includes his mother, Sdenka Silva, who runs a coca museum, and the family is deeply entwined in the traditions of coca within the Bolivian community. Juan describes it as ‘kind of a legacy, and my parents have been working on it as I have for a while already. So I think it’s in my blood in some way. I myself consume coca leaves and enjoy all the benefits of it . . . . I bond with it.’

Hurtado’s thirst for success is clear when I ask him about where he will look to sell his products next: ‘Peru will be our first big aim. I think next year we will look to do that.’ He offers a range of new products including coca candies, which are the strongest I’ve tasted. They start off with an intense bitter wave that washes over you. (I’d recommend not biting into it unless you want your entire mouth turning black!) ‘It’s strong compared to other sweets’, Hurtado says, ‘because they are just that—sweets with a little bit of flavour. What we are trying to have is the quantity as if you were using leaves in the traditional way. One lozenge has almost one handful of leaves.’

The family have been working in the coca sector since the industrialisation of the market, seeing many changes as different Bolivian governments come and go. Sdenka was in the heart of the industry during the peak of the war on drugs in the region, and she now uses the museum to tackle the debate from an academic viewpoint, documenting its history. Of the strong stance against coca, particularly from the United States, she uses the museum ‘to give a small contribution to solve this problem that is not very fair, not very clear, and not very truthful.’ The family sees coca as an important issue for the country’s traditions and economy, but because ‘it is mainly illegal, the doors to commerce will remain closed’ outside of Bolivia and Peru. But the family, ever hopeful, look forward to opening other markets in the future.
The scale of coca production in Bolivia is clear just from walking into the Villa Fatima coca market, one of only two of its size and scale in Bolivia (the other being in Sacaba, outside of the city of Cochabamba). The smell of the market is potent and lingering, and impossible to ignore. It looks like a military operation, as trucks line up out back piled high with coca and a continuous line of men carrying two bags at a time run inside delivering them to any one of the countless numbers of rooms stacked with coca. Money changes hands regularly, men and women buying and selling coca by the ton or in smaller quantities. As the drawers at the front desk pile up with bolivianos, it’s obvious that coca is big business here.

With around 300,000 families involved in coca cultivation, many Bolivian communities rely on it. However, current production levels are far too high for the legal demand. President Evo Morales, an ex-coca farmer, has been supportive of the industry, fighting for Bolivia to have special recognition of the historic and legal uses of coca. He has also curbed some over-production of coca with an anticipated third consecutive year of a drop in coca acreage of over 10,000 hectares in Bolivia. Sdenka sees this as ‘a step—and let’s hope that the symbolic step goes further.’ However, there is still strong opposition to the coca industry, particularly from the United States, after that country’s Drug Enforcement Agency was expelled from Bolivia in 2008. Morales has been attempting to increase the licit yield of coca leaf to 20,000 hectares for traditional uses from the current 12,000, although some studies have shown that only 14,705 hectares are needed for licit consumption. This highlights the ongoing battle that remains for the status of the coca leaf, in Bolivia and globally.

The difficulties for coca remain at the moment, but those within the industry itself are optimistic; they see a potential for future steps with greater recognition of Bolivian traditions and coca’s benefits. What does the future hold for coca—who knows?

Photo: Nick Somers

Economic self-sufficiency while incarcerated—con sabor

It’s not easy to make a salteña. 

The filling must be prepared the night before and refrigerated overnight. Construction is a delicate task: each ball of dough is rolled into an eighth-inch-thick circle, folded over the filling, and the edges sealed and scalloped together.

Twelve women stand together in a large kitchen, learning exactly this process. Their uniforms are brand-new, simple and professional: black chef hats, black chef jackets with red linings, and red aprons. One woman—dressed the same but in white—watches over their work. She advises them on their method and arranges the salteñas neatly on a large tray.

René, a bespectacled man in his early thirties, hovers over them. His candor betrays the enthusiasm of a proud parent at a football match: he is keen to show them off. The women are working hard, but every so often, they share a joke.

‘When the bakery opens, you’re going to get fat!’ Isabella, the loudest and most dominant of the group, shouts at René. The women all laugh affectionately. He protests, but laughs along.

René Estenssoro Torricos is the general director of the Seed of Life Association, or SEVIDA. This is an organisation that has been working in the Obrajes prison for women since 2000, attempting to improve the economic, legal, and psychological situation of inmates.

The twelve bakers around him are female prisoners in the midst of training. This prison bakery–large, flooded with light, technologically advanced—will soon open to the public. It will allow the women to learn employable skills and earn a personal income. Customers from outside the prison will be able to order through a door to the outside.

The economic situation in prison is difficult. Women receive a small breakfast and lunch every day, but beyond that they must largely provide for themselves. They need twenty to thirty bolivianos a day for basic necessities: toilet paper, shampoo, food, anything at all they might need for day-to-day living. If a prisoner has children, either inside or outside the prison, school supplies and other necessities are added expenses.

According to Bolivian law, the only thing a prisoner should be deprived of is her freedom. But in Obrajes, there is scant opportunity to work. The prison economy is in a state of fluctuation because jobs are on a constant rotation, and a prisoner needs to be inside for some time before she can start or join a business.

An inmate and baker-in-training, Isabella, seeks advice from the head chef as she attempts to form the edges of the dough. The economy of the prison, she says, can be frustrating and insecure. Although it is possible to start a small business, this requires an initial investment, and many prisoners must rely on loans. But the interest rates, set by fellow prisoners, can fluctuate wildly. This is why the bakery is so important: it will give the women a fixed income with which to rebuild. Isabella has a husband and son in La Paz’s San Pedro prison and a daughter in Obrajes. She cannot rely on familial support or outside income.

The need for money is often the reason behind women’s crimes, René says. ‘For example, a woman has five children’, says René. ‘She has an opportunity to send a package full of drugs for 1,500 dollars. There are lots of conditions that make her fall into crime.’

Their crimes can also be the culmination of years of domestic mistreatment. ‘In Bolivia, there are lots of cultural conditions that mean being a woman in prison is very different to being a man’, René says. Astoundingly, he reckons that 95 percent of the women in Obrajes—and, accordingly, the bakery—have been victims of physical, sexual, or psychological violence.

The importance of the bakery is more than financial. It means the workers are accorded respect, and rewarded for hard work. It’s a chance for women to gain back some control and plan for the future. SEVIDA’s new program is called the Plan for Freedom, and the idea is that, eventually, the women will form their own businesses and create an association. Every salteña sold in the bakery will contribute towards a common pot, from which every baker will receive income. The rest of the money will go toward programs to benefit prisoners such as contracting a doctor to provide gynecological and psychological care.

René is also trying to create a network of family members to sell bread so they can benefit too. The program is still in its early days, but its aims are clear: to empower the women and their family members, and to support the prison.

Signing up to the bakery is a gamble. There is no guarantee that jailhouse salteñas will sell. There are already weaving and laundering businesses within the prison that have enjoyed some success, but a panadería requires a very quick turnaround and a set of regular customers. The women will need a loyal network outside on which to build and extend their reach.

But whether or not the bakery proves lucrative, its significance—purely as a training ground—is clear. There are two handwritten posters tacked up outside the kitchen. One advertises the lessons for making salteñas. The other reads, simply: ‘Porque aprender algo más siempre es bueno’ (Because learning something new is always good).

René says he wants the bakery to ‘let the women know that the lives they have had are not the only reality. I want them to generate and construct a different type of reality.’

The bakery provides a reality of high expectation. The brand-new uniforms and equipment encourage a certain level of behaviour. Professionalism is expected, so the women rise to the challenge. But their individual personalities haven’t been hidden entirely. Just visible underneath their highly professional chef’s coats are long, coloured skirts, flip-flops and socks, heeled boots and Crocs.

And, as the women place their salteñas on a tray in the large oven in the corner, they discuss the party they’re going to have when the bakery finally opens its doors.

‘Can we have stripper clowns?’ roars Isabella. They all laugh as René shakes his head disapprovingly. But he looks away. He can’t help but laugh too.

Illustration: Emma Inge

La Paz’s new cable-car transit system is changing the commute of both paceños and alteños—and transforming the city.

Arriving in La Paz, one of the first things I noticed was the teleférico, the cable car system that is the city’s newest, and most modern, mode of mass transit. It was unexpected, towering over the streets and houses below. These travelling cabins are the city’s most efficient method of transport, carrying thousands of people every hour during peak periods, be it commuting to work, going about their daily routine, or simply riding on it for the spectacular views. From the congested and bustling city of El Alto to the wealthy and modernised Zona Sur, before the teleférico was built, such panoramic views of the city were near unseen. Now the government plans to build six more lines, dramatically expanding what is already the world’s longest urban cable car system. Because it seemed so incongruous, I set out to learn more.

The three current teleférico lines stretch almost eleven kilometers, connecting El Alto with central La Paz, and continuing south to the polished neighborhood of Zona Sur. So far it’s cost US$235 million, for everything from mechanical parts imported from Austria to surveyors and employees tending the stations. Six additional lines are scheduled for completion by 2019, which will extend the system by another twenty kilometers, costing a further US$450 million.

Torsten Bäuerlen, the La Paz head of communications at Doppelmayr, the Austrian firm that constructed the teleférico, described the technicalities of building an urban cable car system. There are safety aspects to consider; for example, the system must be accessible to elderly people, young children, and mothers carrying babies. To achieve this, the system is designed to slow the cars down as they are loading passengers. Communication devices are installed in each car in case of emergencies, and grated windows protect people on the ground from objects that otherwise could be dropped or thrown from the cars. The system also runs partially off hydroelectrical power, making it environmentally friendly (a particular benefit for La Paz’s smog-choked urban geography).

The teleférico stations were, for the most part, built on public spaces; for example, the central station on the red line, was built on a disused train station, and the southernmost station on the green line was formerly part of a military school. Where private land was used, a surveying company was employed to study the terrain and decide its market value, and the government then offered to buy out the landowners. Eighty percent agreed to sell, according to Bäuerlen. The government negotiated with the holdouts, and eventually gained access to their land. However, the planning for construction was easier than expected at first, Bäuerlen said, as the majority of the city was in support of the project.

Of course the teleférico has had a huge impact on the people who live and work near the stations, in particular on local commerce—both good and bad. María Castilla, who runs a small kiosk at the top of the yellow line in El Alto, says that since the teleferico was built her sales have decreased. María says this is due to the food and drink stalls set up in the Qhana Pata station in El Alto, which poach her customers.

However, across the road from María, Álvaro, who owns a similar small shop, says that sales have increased since the teleférico’s construction. ‘Before the teleférico, it was very difficult to get good sales. But now sales have increased significantly with more customers passing.’ He also says that the teleferico is a positive addition to the city in terms of travel: ‘I can get to the centre faster. Before, I used to have to take a bus, which would take lots of different turns to get to the centre and take me hours.’

But underneath the Qhuta Uma station in La Paz, a small market has been built over and covered by the station. I wandered in and chatted to one of the vendors selling api con pastel. She explained that her sales have decreased since the teleférico was built since people don’t pass through the market as much, which is now cold and dark from lack of light.

Commuters, of course, have a completely different perspective. Roxana, who works at the Spanish Institute on 20 de Octubre and commutes from El Alto via the yellow line during the week, speaks only positively of the teleférico. ‘Before the teleférico, I had lots of problems, in particular during rush hour—for example, at 6 pm when everyone is trying to get home to El Alto. Now, from Plaza España, I can get home in a relaxed manner. No one pushes me around and I don’t have to wait long for a bus.’ She also notes that the teleférico has brought new life to some areas: ‘Before the teleférico station at the top of the yellow line was built, it was deserted—no life, no people, no commerce. Now, there’s everything—it has had a great effect on informal labour.’

And the future of the teleférico? The next six lines are due to be given the all clear by the government in the next couple of weeks, and will take four years to build. How will it continue to change the lives of commuters, and what will it mean for the future of commerce in El Alto and La Paz? Only time will tell.

Photo: Michael Dunn