Growing Old with Grace (and Dignity, Respect, Support and Freedoms)

What does it mean to “be old”? For “La Reina” of the Maria Esther Quevedo Care Home, otherwise known as Alicia Abigal Flores Burgoa, it simply signifies advanced age, a point at which all will arrive in their lives. She associates the word largely with pain and incapacity, confessing her fear of being unable to look after herself, as she witnesses day to day peers who need help with simple tasks such as washing, dressing and eating.

I am speaking to Alicia at her care home, nestled at the end of Calle Jaén, a beautifully preserved colonial street in La Paz near Plaza Murillo. Today, the centre has planned a variety of activities to commemorate the Day of Dignity for the Elderly. Every 26th of August in Bolivia is a day to celebrate the elderly and promote their right to live respectably.

This year, the day’s activities included a marathon for the elderly and a fair on Plaza San Francisco named “Recuperating traditions of days gone by”, along with a llajua cooking competition.

When I met “La Reina”, she was dressed in a grey pollera, a beige shawl with flowers, and a sombrero de cholita marked with a pink sequined crown. She had been elected Queen for the day and people were showering her with pink flower petals as she sat alongside her “Amigos Predilectos”, a select group of residents who were being honored. However, “El Rey,” who had also been elected, was nowhere to be found during the party. Upon asking Alicia of his whereabouts, she tells me, ‘My King died 30 years ago.’

Many residents at the home have lost spouses and other family members. The centre cares for elderly people who are poor, homeless and without family, due to loss, abuse or abandon. During my visit, I met a man who asked me, while weeping, if I could help him find his son before he passes away. He was placed in the home by his son more than 12 years ago and has not been visited since.

There are different programs at the Quevedo care home that aim to improve the lifestyle of the residents and redefine the social “label” of old age. One such program is called, “Adoptando un Abuelito”, which invites volunteer families to spend time with the residents. Another is called, “Abuelo, Cuéntame” and consists of a video competition in which the elderly share life stories on camera. This last initiative not only aims to recuperate the city’s memory but also to encourage empathy toward the elderly and boost their self-esteem, helping them feel connected to surrounding communities.

Indeed, these “grandmother stories” enable us to learn and grow through the experiences of others. Alicia is 86 years-old and will turn 87 this month. ‘Jovencita’ I say, in a joking manner. Then I ask, ‘What advice would you give to someone who is 21, like me?’. ‘That you respect yourself, that you don´t lie. That you are assertive and that you don’t accept bad things, otherwise people will take advantage of you,’ she responds. ‘If you respect yourself, others will respect you and become fond of you’.

This, she says, is important to gain many friends in life, who will support you. These are the friends that visit her regularly at the home. Her main source of happiness. ‘You need to plant the seed to reap the harvest,’ she points out, meaning you only get back what you’ve given in life.

The elderly may be frail, they may look impaired and increasingly unable to physically achieve what they want to. But, in this image-centric world,  let us not forget that there is more to an individual than what is visible on the surface. Inside an ageing body is wisdom, knowledge and experience that we can all learn and grow from.

‘What is self-esteem?’ asks Beymar Soto, a staff member from the Alcaldia of La Paz to a roomful of schoolchildren.

I am at La Escuela Corazón de Jesús de Fé y Alegría, a primary school in La Paz participating in  ‘Constructores del Buen Trato’, a project developed by the Defensoria del Gobierno Municipal de La Paz and is being supported by Save the Children Bolivia . In the classroom are fifteen 5th and 6th grade students, all shooting their hands up in the air, trying to get Beymar’s attention, who is dressed in a yellow jacket, the standard uniform for La Paz´s Alcaldia staff.

‘Respecting yourself!’ shouts out one student. ‘To like yourself, to love yourself and to respect yourself!’ shouts another.

‘There are three types of self-esteem,’ Beymar explains to the children. ‘The first is false self-esteem, the second is low self-esteem and the third is healthy self-esteem.’  According to Beymar, a bully has false self-esteem, a victim low self-esteem and an ideal individual has healthy self-esteem.

Beymar is a psychologist. Part of his work is not only educating children on different topics but also identifying children at risk of bullying schools. His team works in primary schools with children from 4-12 years old.

Alfredo Juaniquina Ajhuacho, project coordinator at Save the Children, says it is essential to start working with children at a young age. ‘The earlier the messages and behavioral patterns are noticed,’ he says, ‘the more likely we can get the children to put positive actions into practice in their lives so that these practices last into adulthood.’

A group of fifteen children was selected at the school to represent their classmates in the course. By doing so, the team from ‘Constructores del Buen Trato’ aims to empower the chosen students so that they may make a difference within the culture of the school. The information is passed on to these young individuals in the hope that they will lead by example and disseminate what they have learned amongst their peers, teachers and families.

‘For me the focus is on the family. The change has to happen within the family,’ says Dr Consuelo Torres, the Director of the Defensoria. Indeed, the largest influence on cultural attitudes begins with parents, which is why intercepting potentially damaging and violent attitudes in the home is essential in helping children grow into active, peaceful citizens, who will improve their community as a whole.

‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me’ is a common children’s rhyme that teaches young victims to ignore being affected by verbal abuse. It is a poignant phrase that illustrates the normalisation of cultural attitudes towards the issue of bullying. It denies the victim of his or her feelings and promotes the idea of bullying as a ‘character-building´ experience. The phrase infers that physical violence is worse than verbal violence, although both can have longlasting effects into adulthood.

With the use of technology and the ability to create a ‘digital self’, cyber-bullying has become an increasingly common phenomenon. According to Nadia Eid, Head of Communications and Corporate Responsibility at TIGO, one of the largest telecommunication companies in the country, six out of ten children in Bolivia are victims of cyber-bullying. Nadia believes that preventing bullying is essential for Bolivian society because bullying can ‘affect the way children relate to each other. There are victims and witnesses of bullying who can develop low self-esteem or violent characters in the future.’

Luckily, local programs are being developed to counter the prevalence of bullying on and off-line. TIGO has recently launched, ´Convivencia sin Violencia’, a project that is part of its larger initiatives to promote a ‘healthy digital lifestyle’. This program was created alongside an international christian foundation called, World Vision Bolivia, and it informs children, parents, teenagers and professors about how to identify and prevent bullying in all of its forms.

Back at La Escuela de Corazón de Jesús de Fé y Alegría, in La Paz, Beymar is leading the students through a number of workshops. Through cartoon videos and group discussions, the activities question preconceived notions of gender, sexuality and violence, hoping to slowly change the culture of various communities in the city. In a way, they are treating these children as adults; not hesitating to cover contentious issues like ‘Gender Constructs’ and ‘Sexuality’, or complex issues such as, ‘Self Esteem’ and ‘Human Rights.’ The subject of ‘Bullying’ runs across a number of the work modules.

The idea is to build a culture of peace, respect and better understanding through each individual. In order to reach a larger number of Bolivians the Defensoría will launch a digital platform for the program by 2016. With this information online, similar programs could be implemented in other departments, to prevent widespread bullying and change cultures of violence.

For centuries, the presence of black people in Bolivia went unnoticed and unappreciated. Now they are making their voices heard, but will anything ever change?

I arrive at Malegria, a club in La Paz’s happening Sopocachi neighbourhood, in the early hours one Friday morning and it is buzzing. Music pumps from all corners and hundreds of people are packed in tightly like sardines. They are all here to see Saya – an Afro-Bolivian artistic expression of song and dance originating in Bolivia’s Yungas region. For the past 10 years, an Afro-Bolivian troupe has had an agreement with Malegria that sees them playing Saya to the crowds on a weekly basis. It has proved a huge hit, with tourists and locals alike flocking to see them in action.

The pop music fades and performers begin to appear on top of the bar in cream outfits with trimmings akin to colours related to the Rastafari movement (red, green and gold). Drums, güiros and maracas are just some of the instruments that are used during Saya performances, and, like fans at a concert, the audience sings along to their favourite songs.  

Amid the excitement, I get chatting to an expat. Originally from America, she is working in La Paz as a social communicator and by her own admission is a ‘nigger-lover’. The expression shocks me, as the n-word is a huge taboo, having originated as an ethnic slur to refer to black people during slavery. To this day it is still sometimes used in a pejorative way. As a black person, it disgusts me that Afro-Bolivian men (and women) are still fetishised by those from other races. Although Bolivia has made great strides to recognise Afro-Bolivians as people, it seems that these efforts may have been in vain.

Over the past 30 years, there has been an emergence of leaders in the Afro-Bolivian community such as Jorge Medina, Marfa Inofuentes and Monica Rey, and grassroots organisations such as MOCUSABOL (the Saya Afro-Bolivian cultural movement) and CADIC (the Afro-Bolivian Centre for Integral and Community Development), all fighting for the right for Afro-Bolivians to be treated equally to other Bolivians.

I meet Jorge Medina at the offices of CADIC – which he founded in 2006 and is currently director of. Medina greets me with a huge smile, dressed in a bright green tracksuit. His office walls are plastered with numerous accolades and posters of iconic black figures including Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela and Bob Marley.

Born in Coroico, in the Yungas region, it wasn't until Medina came to La Paz that his passion for working towards the recognition and respect of Afro-Bolivians was ignited. He tells me that when he arrived in the city, it was devoid of Afro-Bolivians. Back then, it was not uncommon for other Bolivians to be oblivious to the existence of black people living in Bolivia, as there are were and are still no predominantly black neighbourhoods and blacks were not included in Bolivian history books, nor were they counted in the official census.

A portrait of Pedro Andverez Peralta, an Afro-Bolivian soldier in the early-20th-century Chaco War, holds a particular place of pride in the CADIC offices. For his service to Bolivia, Andverez Peralta was awarded several medals of honor but received no further recognition from the government, and is only included in books written by Western scholars interested in the African diaspora.

Black people have lived in Bolivia for over 500 years, the vast majority being descendants of slaves brought to the country in the mid-16th century. Thirty thousand African slaves were taken to Potosí, Bolivia's mining city, to work as human mules in the royal mint. As most slaves were unable to adapt to the cold weather in Potosí, a number were forced to work under new ownership in the warmer Yungas region, where most of their descendants live today.  

After slavery was abolished in 1851, exploitation of Afro-Bolivians by hacienda owners in the Yungas region continued until the agrarian reform of 1953. The reform allowed Afro-Bolivian communities to become owners of the land that they and their forefathers had tended to for generations. In spite of freedom from slavery and ownership of land in the Yungas, for decades Afro-Bolivians were discriminated against by fellow Bolivians and ignored by the Bolivian government. Where acknowledged, they were treated as objects of superstitious desire, with the widely held belief that pinching a black person would bring about buena suerte.

In 2009, Medina said, 'Barack Obama is president of the United States; why should an Afro not be able to be in Parliament here in Bolivia?', and in 2010 he was the first ever Afro-Bolivian deputy to be voted into the Bolivian parliament, winning the election in La Paz with 92.83 percent of the overall vote. For five years, he served as a deputy, working tirelessly for the rights of Afro-Bolivians and helped to introduce three laws specifically supporting the cause.

With the introduction of Law 200 came the requisite that Bolivia had to recognise Afro-Bolivians on future censuses, an action that had been omitted for over 100 years. As a result of this, the Bolivian census of 2012 reported that there were over 23,330 Afro-Bolivians living in Bolivia, the vast majority inhabiting the Yungas region, particularly in the towns of Chicaloma, Chulumani, Muranta and Tocaña. In addition to newly created laws, Afro-Bolivians also feature in Article 32 of the Bolivian Constitution of 2009 that states: ‘The Afro-Bolivian people enjoy, in everything corresponding, the economic, social, political and cultural rights that are recognized in the Constitution for the nations and the rural native indigenous peoples.’

Since 2011, September has been dubbed ‘Afro-Bolivian Month’ and is host to a range of activities including sporting and cultural events. The pinnacle of Afro-Bolivian month is ‘Festival de Saya Afrobolivian’, which until 2011 was held in Coroico but now takes place in La Paz.

Life for Afro-Bolivians has changed considerably over the past 15 years with racism and discrimination far less noticeable than before. More Afro-Bolivians are in higher education and working in professional jobs, and rather than being referred to as ‘negros’, more and more people are acknowledging them for what they are: Afro-Bolivians – Bolivians of African descent.

I ask Medina what is next for Afro-Bolivians, and he says that they need to keep working hard for access to positions of power in the public sphere. Since Medina, there have been no other Afro-Bolivian deputies. While Bolivia has come a long way to integrate its Afro-Bolivian citizens into society, there is still a lot of work to be done.

This year's Festival de Saya Afroboliviano will take place on September 25 in Plaza San Francisco, La Paz. Further information about the festival can be found on Jorge Medina´s official website: jorgemedina.org/p/editorial.html

As well as being the first Afro-Bolivian deputy in Parliament, Medina is the host of African Roots, the first radio show solely about Afro-Bolivians. He can be heard on 98.5FM or qhana.org.bo on Friday evenings from 7 pm to 10 pm.

Thanks to Paola Inofuentes, Richard Contreras Peralta and Jorge Medina for their help with this article.

Law 045 – Introduced October 8, 2010: Law against all forms of racism and discrimination in all areas of life, with the explicit mention of Afro-Bolivians as a group of people for whom the law should take into consideration.

Law 138 – Introduced June 14, 2011: Recognition of the artistic expression “Saya Afroboliviana” as belonging to Afro-Bolivian people and having originated from the Yungas region.

Law 200 – Introduced December 14, 2011: Declaration of September 23 as the 'National Day of the People and the Afroboliviana Culture', in order to reaffirm the identity and value the culture of those in Bolivia who are of African descent.