In parts of Bolivia and across the Andes in general, one can learn to see time as through a mirror. After spending your life ‘looking forward’ to the future, or ‘thinking back’ to the past, taking in the view of some of the locals here just may turn you around.
Rafael Núñez is a professor at the Department of Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego. He has spent years studying the languages and gestures of the Aymara – one of the two main ethnic groups in the Andes – in Bolivia, Peru and Chile. In a famous study carried out 10 years ago, he visited regions of rural Chile interviewing monolingual Aymara speakers as well as bilingual Aymara and Spanish speakers. Taking care to note physical gestures as well as use of language, he noticed a few interesting things about the way his interviewees communicated notions of time.
For one, when referencing the past, the Aymara speakers tended to gesture forward, extending their arm further and further in front of them as they moved deeper into the past. As they discussed the future of their children, they flicked their thumbs back, over their shoulders. The same notions are apparent in Aymara vocabulary. Nayra is the word for ‘past’, which can translated as ‘eye’, or ‘sight’. Conversely, ‘future’ is written as q’ipa, often translated as ‘behind’ or ‘back’.
Nearly all understandings of time are constructed using metaphors of space, in which a person moves forward, with the future approaching. In nearly all cultures, a person is perceived by moving in this way through time, with the past behind him and the future laying ahead. But here, high in the Andes, this may not be the case.
And this approach to understanding time makes a lot of sense. Memory is its own kind of vision, supplying us with a rich (though perhaps flawed) resource to understand and see what has happened in our lives. Meanwhile, the future may seem a dark, mysterious void, a big unknown.
Perhaps we are walking backwards through time after all.
In this issue of Bolivian Express, we thought about ‘time’, and how it affects ourselves and the places we inhabit. We wrote about people and places that, on the surface, it seems time forgot. We explored deep into Bolivia’s history, to a time before humans, to the age of the dinosaurs. And we visited more relatively recent times, writing of the rich history of Bolivia’s precolonial, colonial and postcolonial past. And we wrote about some of the most important histories being written today, as significant changes in the role of women are being forged across the country.
In June 2014, the Bolivian government famously reversed the clock on its congress building on Plaza Murillo in La Paz. It’s hands now turn in a counterclockwise direction, and its numbers are reversed, with the number 1 to the left of the 12. A political act for certain – serving as a bold statement of southern identity and seen by many as a big symbolic step in Bolivia’s process of decolonization. Here in Bolivia, it may just make sense. Time does mean something different here, and we hope this issue helps you see and enjoy this mirrored point of view.
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Animals around Bolivia suffer daily in the black market. Bolivian Express visited one place that rehabilitates these orphans of the jungle.
Author’s Note: Upon entering Sende Verde, a wildlife refuge in the North Yungas, I thought of Rudyard Kipling, who authored numerous stories from the perspective of animals which reflected the positive relationship between wild creatures and mankind. At Sende Verde, I saw the negative side of interaction between humans and animals, and thought to replicate his literary style to illustrate this sometimes devastating relationship.
IN the Not-So High and Far-Off Times, O Best Beloved, I was struggling to sleep in a cabaña upon the banks of the Yolosa River. I was getting used to the humidity of the Yungas, the alpine cloud forest of Bolivia, and found it profound here at Senda Verde, an animal refuge in the heart of a verdant valley.
At once I heard voices beyond the mosquito mesh, and I set forth to investigate, for I knew I would not sleep this night. It was with surprise that I found Senda Verde's animals in deep conversation not far from where I lay.
Colonel the parrot was protesting that when he had been poached from his rainforest to be sold as a pet, they had broken his wings to prevent him from flying. It would never be the same, he squawked indignantly. And I saw how indeed his right wing pointed unnaturally heavenwards, at right angles over his left.
Balu the howler monkey spoke. When poachers had taken him he had still been an infant upon his mother's back. But the way Man acquires baby monkeys for the black market is to shoot the mother. He had clung so desperately to her body when people attempted to pry him loose he had broken two fingers, and he now shewed the mangled digits to all assembled.
Tipnis the manic, spectacled bear stirred and all eyes fell onto her. Her tale all knew but she would regardless repeat it. Her mother, brother and herself had once walked into a part of the forest that was no longer forest, and had been chased by Man and his dogs. Man had killed her brother and kept Tipnis as a pet.
At last Maruka, the spider monkey with broken jaw and nose, entered the circle carrying an infant monkey in her arms. Maruka did not talk of personal ills but held the sleeping baby aloft. She softly explained – so as to not wake the baby – that when poachers had killed its mother, she had fallen from the tree onto the infant, leaving her legs immobile.
All animals hung their heads, for they mourned every arrival at Senda Verde. But Maruka concluded on a note strangely ebullient. Since coming to Senda Verde the baby was starting to regain some control over her legs – these animals’ lives may never be the same, but at least it was better than out there, in the Age of Man.
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THE rest of Bolivia is found upon the Yolosa River's opposite shore. Since the country is one of South America’s poorest, the government is invested in revitalising the economy: through forestry, road building or land clearing for plantations. These actions deprive many animals of their homes, but whilst the government morally supports refuges that rehabilitate animals displaced by industry and poaching, commercial exploitation of the natural environment continues – there is no economic benefit in preserving animals. For this reason, the government provides no funding to the few places across Bolivia that care for the orphans of the jungle.
The tragedy of this epoch of exploitation is that the black market persists unabated. Senda Verde's animals nominally belong to the government, and there are organisations that scour El Alto markets for smuggled creatures, yet all action is after the fact. There exist no institutions to prevent poachers from stripping the rainforest of wildlife.
The majority of animals taken become household pets. But pet owners do not know the events surrounding these animals' acquisition – indeed, for every baby monkey brought in, a mother is left dead in the forest. And, as is often the case with high-maintenance pets, owners can tire of them, subjecting them to abuse, keeping them in ill-fitting cages and feeding them improperly.
Senda Verde cares for a constant influx of animals, currently numbering 530, and the black market is as strong as ever. Only 10 percent of poached animals survive captivity, making the orphans of Senda Verde lucky representatives of thousands of dead creatures. Add into the equation those animals in other refuges, kept as pets or still languishing in the black market, and the scope of the problem becomes evident: Tens of thousands of animals vanished from their native environment, unable to reproduce and sustain the wild population.
The reintroduction of captured animals into the wild is illegal. They could spread foreign bacteria into the ecosystem, if they are not killed by their own kind, and they are too human-dependant to survive on their own. For them, their best hope is to end up in a natural habitat like Senda Verde, under the dedicated care of the refuge's owners, Vicky and Marcello, and their team of vets, caretakers and volunteers. For while it is the exploitative Age of Man in greater Bolivia, it remains the Age of the Animal at Senda Verde.
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HERE, the animals have a level of power foreign elsewhere in Bolivia. The first thing one sees in Senda Verde is the ‘human cage’ – an enclosed walkway. It is from within this that tourists may see the animals, in order to limit human interaction with them. Most of the animals are free to roam the entire length of Senda Verde. The old eco-lodge's swimming pool, along with a house, has been given over to the monkeys. Here, humans are second-class citizens, servants to a multi-species leisure class, making sure the creatures are warm by night and fed by day, and helping new arrivals – like the crippled baby spider monkey – regain some semblance of their wild lives. These animals would not have lived naturally this way, but it is better than out in the Age of Man. At Senda Verde, in the Age of the Animal, they can be free from fear and want – they can be safe.
Photo Credit: Nikolaus Cox
The Strive for Gender Equality Within the Plurinational State
From documents demanding change to señoras selling cheese: the fight for equality can be undertaken in many ways. I explore two very different approaches to empowering women in Bolivia.
I am standing in a small tranquil garden in the Sopocachi neighborhood of La Paz, surrounded by chattering, music and laughter. This is La Casa de los ningunos, and today is market day. Stalls of freshly grown herbs, recently dug-up potatoes, marvellously organic vegetables and dangerously tempting cheeses make up the feria. Shiny, a deep purple in colour and fresh as anything, the aubergine I hold in my hand is far superior to any I have found so far in the local supermarket. I tell this to the woman who sells it to me. She smiles. ‘We’re here every Saturday. Come back next week for more.’ The pride she takes in the product is understandable, having grown it herself. Yet for the mostly female vendors of the feria, this is much more than a mere weekend hobby.
‘We want them to recognise themselves as women, to see how valuable they really are.’
Joey Astorga and Lorena de la Torre of International Citizen Service (ICS), the organisation behind the project, talk to me about their work with the women of El Alto. ‘We try to empower women through urban agriculture’, Joey says, explaining how they build the vegetable gardens, which enable these women to earn a living. Isolated, poor and often raising their children single-handedly, the women the project helps can rely on their own products to feed their families, generating an income at the same time. Each weekend, the sellers earn around 600 bolivianos each. Additionally, the project runs workshops dealing with violence against women and sexual harassment, as well as teaching the women about their rights and the importance of contraception. The project educates and supports individual women, leaving a very positive impact on their lives. On a personal scale, the project works wonders; yet to tackle gender inequality in society as a whole, a different approach is required.
‘The biggest obstacle which Bolivian women face’, Elizabeth Salguero, an expert strategist at UN Women Bolivia, tells me, ‘is the patriarchal society.’ Patriarchy, sexism, machismo – however you wish to call it, the underlying sentiment is the same: gender inequality. Salguero’s group have helped draft a document that recommends policies and laws to help better the situation of women living in Bolivia. It was recently presented to the government.
Salguero sums up the work of her organisation: ‘[UN Women] tries to be a bridge between the state and civil society. It tries to establish a dialogue, to find out how we can work to empower women and, therefore, to achieve gender equality.’
A bridge – this is exactly what is needed, a way of uniting strategy and the people it is destined to help. The document recently presented to the government looks to facilitate this union, to improve the everyday lives of women in all parts of Bolivia. Yet, I ask myself, how feasible is it to convert strategy into action and how far can policy go towards achieving the goal of a truly gender-equal society?
Female empowerment – that is undoubtedly the aim of both projects, but the difference lies in the approach. A practical supply of aid, hands-on interaction and an emphasis on communication and education: the work of ICS produces a visible change in the lives of the women they deal with. Inevitably, though, they cannot reach out to all those who need their help. The national agenda of UN Women attempts to include all women, to empower all women. Its demands are well presented, rigorously researched; yet, with a scale so large, it is difficult to tell whether anyone is being helped at all.
Projects such as those by ICS and UN Women are making important steps towards the ending of discrimination, towards changing sexist attitudes and norms, towards achieving a safer society for all Bolivian women. Salguero spoke about a ‘triple discrimination’ which occurs due to ‘being poor, being indigenous and being a woman.’ In Bolivia, where nearly half the population lives below the poverty line and almost two-thirds of inhabitants are indigenous, the struggle is real. However, progress is being made in every policy changed, in every person educated and in every aubergine sold in that market; a positive step is made towards a brighter, more equal future, a future in which gender discrimination – in all its forms – can be ousted from the Bolivian way of life. It seems that it is time for change, and that time is now.
Bolivia’s Attempt to Shed its Colonial Past
Time: the universal truth, a constant system across nations. Definite, concrete, unquestionable?
The wrist watch I am wearing begs to differ. It has a black leather strap, a large black face and white numbers from 1 to 12. It is normal in many respects, until you notice that the numbers appear in reverse order. The number 1 is to the left of the 12, instead of the typical 11. The reason? This is a watch that tells time in an anti-clockwise direction. This is a watch that challenges temporal convention.
Ramiro Ulloa's interest in designing such time-tellers came after a trip to Asia. Happening upon a factory that produced similar specimens for an international crowd, he asked for a copy of their design and so was born his craft. For Ramiro, however, the backwards nature of the watches goes far beyond a quirky aesthetic.
‘Technical matters have always been imposed by dominant systems’, he tells me, describing his bewilderment when he was taught at school that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. ‘This isn't true in my reality’, he declares. In La Paz, water boils at 72 degrees. ‘If we want to go against dominant systems, we need to create situations that can change the mentality of the population.’
These dominant systems, of course, are those of the hegemonic ‘north.’ They are the social, cultural, and political modes of superiority established by European and U.S. powers in Latin American countries for centuries. ‘They imposed a colonial logic, their manner of reasoning. In short, they wanted us to be like Europe,’ says Cecilio Ilasaca, a member of the Vice Ministry of Decolonisation.
Ramiro is not alone in believing watches can subvert this prevalent logic. In June 2014, a similar clock was installed on the Asamblea Legislativa in Plaza Murillo. It received a mixture of praise, criticism and indifference, but it is meant to serve as a constant rejection of the country’s colonial heritage. It is meant to mark Bolivia’s independence and defiance as a nation.
This year, from the 11th to the 14th of November, the Vice Ministry organised a summit to discuss the ways in which Bolivia aims to revert its legacies of colonialism. The summit looked at tackling all forms of discrimination and racism in the country. ‘The main objective was to establish alliances between political entities at an international level,’ explains Cecilio, ‘and to examine the theme of decolonisation from the viewpoint of Fausto Reinaga’, an influential Quechuan-Aymaran intellectual.
In the second half of the twentieth century, Reinaga asserted the superiority of indigenous thought and generated a theory of social revolution rooted in the Andean region. In the twenty-first century, the Bolivian government has translated this radical approach to a pragmatic “process of change,” undertaken through building strategic alliances, governmental programs, and international awareness. It seems the reversal of clockwise time is only one way to demonstrate a change in logic.
For Ramiro, however, change is a simple and more personal process. ‘It's not going to stick if it’s not something banal, something that you’ve already seen,’ he explains. ‘With this watch, when you look at the time in the morning, you realise that the world is changing. I want people to realise that the world is changing.’
According to Cecilio, just as the hands on Ramiro’s watch move steadily towards the left, rather than to the normative right, Bolivian society also wants to move in a different direction; one he hopes will lead to independence from colonial impositions. ‘Now, with the government of our President, we’re following a different course to that implemented by neoliberal governments’, he says, speaking of Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous leader.
But initiatives such as the summit and the watch have more symbolic, rather than material implications. They symbolize the optimism of those who have created them, the fervent belief that improvement is around the corner. Change, in the eyes of Ramiro, is already underway: ‘When a snowball is set into motion,’ he says, ‘it’s very difficult to stop it. Our snowball has been set into motion’.
Gathering momentum, force and company as it goes, a snowball is perhaps an apt image for what these initiatives strive for: effective action and unity. Under Evo Morales, Bolivia has been officially named a Plurinational State due to the quantity of different – mainly indigenous – ethnic groups found within it. The idea is to find unity in the country’s plurality and bring the different groups together. Cecilio may well praise the President, but there are many who doubt Morales’s commitment to the plight of the indigenous and question the effectiveness of his government.
Ramiro, for all his optimism, concedes that there is still much work to be done: ‘I insist that this is still not the right time. It is probable that we will encounter setbacks.’ What is lacking then? The willpower certainly seems to be present, the ideas and the strategy. What lacks, it seems to me, is the all-essential unity, a mutual consensus on the direction in which the country is to move.
The full implications of decolonisation may still lie far from being accomplished. Changing the national mentality, overcoming years of subjection, unifying numerous ethnicities: no small feat. But the attempt to normalise an understanding of time that runs backwards is for some the symbol of a nation that is on the cusp of moving forward.
‘What's important is that, at some point, we obtain a flag of cohesion,’ Ramiro tells me, ‘a banner, and that we work towards it.’ With these words, the watchmaker points out the Wiphala flag beneath the 12 on my wristwatch. It is an indigenous symbol that was adopted by the current government as the second official flag of Bolivia. Perhaps, this is the unifying symbol that Ramiro believes Bolivians are after. For Ramiro, this watch is so much more than a teller of time or a piece of jewellery. For his hopes to be realised, though, what the object symbolizes must become reality. A flag, a watch: is this what it takes to change a national mindset?
Photo credit: Anna Grace
