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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A Journey Through Time
She climbs toward the light. The elder cholita drags her legs, weeping willows as heavy as the memory of her grandchildren. Snow dances on Illimani’s three peaks. Another woman appears, apologizing for seventy years of absence. Delirious regrets of bygone motherhood. She trudges into the past and her mother disappears, now and forever absent. She sees the face of her child in the snow. Her wrinkles begin to recede.
She reaches the first peak. Old bones try to jump for joy. She stumbles down the other side. Her aguayo loosens as she falls. Her hands, suddenly youthful, quick like a mid-afternoon lightning storm, catch hold of the knot her father taught her to tie long ago. She collapses at the base of the second peak. The hunch in her back has receded; her chronic cough is long gone. The mountain smiles at her. She proceeds.
Now her body can run again. Past the cry of a rooster, the whistling of the good-morning teapot. The music of her daughter's quinceañera. The smell of her husband's cologne for the first time. Just as quickly as it passed when she lived it, she has passed adulthood.
A tune from her teenage years. A joke. Adolescence summated in one sound: jaaaaaaaaa! She charges on, further into the days of her childhood. Then the screams begin. Glass breaking, fire roaring. She smells the smoke, the varnish on his shoes. She barks profanity, the first words he taught her. The flames recede slowly, a VHS rewinding. She reaches the silhouette of a man’s corpse; she has not seen him in many years. His face and body spring to life. She gets closer. She hears his laugh for the first time since she was too old to remember what it sounded like.
Across the ravine, he waits for her. She jumps and clouds carry her to the other side. The warmth of his embrace. The weightlessness of infancy. Emotions she cannot comprehend. She cries out, a wretched cooing. He extends a finger. She grasps it with a tiny hand and holds on.
Her father carries her onward, toward a vortex at the final peak. She watches her mother leave without saying goodbye, then her face reappears at the top. It squeals in pain, cursing at the gods for implanting this child sideways inside of her. Machines beeping, muttered chatter of doctors in mint-green uniforms. Her father’s hands let go, and the baby floats towards the void. The silence of becoming engulfs her.
Photo: BX team
Samaipata’s Fondness for Perpetual Relaxation
Samaipata is a town without time. It has a square with enormous sagging willow trees, held upright by jagged, erect palms. A sundial without any shadows. Adobe houses and cobblestones streets. Children on tricycles. Waterfalls. Ruins. It is a town of songs and poems unwritten.
To follow a small, dusty mountain road 125 km east from Santa Cruz is to lean backwards softly into history. It is a three-hour ride from the city, through a hot and humid pocket of southeast Bolivia. Samaipata offers an escape from the fearsome doldrums of alarm clocks, schedules, and any sense of timeliness whatsoever.
We arrive past lunch, at 2:04 PM. All the doors in town are closed and the streets are silent, save for the chirping of birds in heat. The plaza is empty except for a shoeless, slide guitar-strumming Argentine man named Rico. No taxis, no need to go anywhere.
In the afternoon, the pre-and-post-siesta slumber lingers. You get the ain’t-nothin-gonna-happen-here-for-a-long-time feeling and it makes you smile. So you take off your shoes and hope for a long and sunny life.
The mud bricks melt in this infernal heat. I wonder where everyone has gone; I wonder, too, when the restaurants will open again. I look around for advertised hours and conclude that on a day like today, an inconspicuous Tuesday, they should be open. But they aren’t. I don’t hold it against them.
Then I realize: they’re resting, just like I am. Of course, once you’ve missed lunch, you’ve missed the whole day. And dinner can’t make up for it. Especially not here. Especially not now, in the summer. For some reason, it’s not high season, but it’s not low season either. Some travelers blow through, as they have for years. Every hostel offers camping. Most bed-and-breakfasts have shady porches. All that’s missing is the limonada.
Samaipata offers much, and asks for very little. In Quechua, the name means an elevated place of rest (samay: to rest; pata: elevated place). The town neighbors a wealth of natural beauty and boasts history and diversity at its center. Cobblestone streets and colonial houses stretch out in four directions from the main square. 4,500 people live here, most of whom are of mixed Spanish and Guaraní descent. Others have Arab, Croatian, or Italian heritage.
By taxi, some 30 minutes outside the city, one can find a majestic family of three waterfalls nestled inside the Las Cuevas ecological center. It takes plenty of trail-walking and stair-climbing, but the third and biggest waterfall becomes a mighty fine lagoon of river water que vale la pena for only 15 Bolivianos.
Not far, lie the ruins known as El Fuerte, which are not the remains of an ancient fort. Instead, they are the ruins of a ritualistic site of the pre-Incan Chané people. Most of the buildings on the historical walking tour were made by the Chané, but others are of Spanish and Incan times. Surrounding the weathered structures are curvy trails through thick foliage and magnificent mountain vistas. Along the way I get lost in an ancient labyrinth, and I shout from a mountaintop into an echoing abyss. Fun.
Upon return to my shire-like hostel, I meet a fleet of international backpackers who have nothing to do but rest in this tranquil town. We are from all across the world: ten countries in total. At least half of us are from South America. We laugh, drink and dance around the fire, sharing jug after jug of caipirinha. By the third jug, we’re shouting the names of our countries, just to keep the count straight.
None of us has ever seen a town like this. Friendly, green, smiling. We sing songs about growing old and wonder where the time has gone. Where did it begin? Probably like this, many years ago, when someone wanted to make sure they had enough firewood before the sun set.
Morning begins a good while later. A calm and mighty sun dumps heat on everything. I must return to Santa Cruz, the land of designer clothing and white-uniformed plaza-coffee vendors. Subsequently, after a hellish 19-hour bus ride, I reach La Paz, the land of altitude sickness, strong breeze and strong personalities.
I briefly considered spending the rest of my life in Samaipata. Then again, did I ever leave? Time, you and and all your bad moods, leave me alone and forget about me.
. . . Ah, to never wear a watch again.
Photo Credit: J.Q. Cooley
Six Key Points of Bolivian History told by Six Key Hats
Illustations: Nikolaus Cox
History can be told in many ways: through stories, photos, and even hats. A hat can speak fathoms about the head it covered and the world-changing events that it witnessed.
1825
Bolivian Independence
After a series of independence wars across South America, the revolutionary army of Gran Colombia, under the command of Antonio José de Sucre, defeated the last royalist forces in Upper Peru - modern day Bolivia. The independence of Bolivia marked the end of Spanish rule in South America.
Shako of Gran Colombian Infantry soldiers, who served under Sucre during the war for Upper Peru.
1879-83
The War of the Pacific
Disputes over territorial claims and mining rights in the Atacama desert provoked a four-year war between a Bolivian-Peruvian alliance and Chile. The war concluded in Bolivia losing the department of Litoral and access to the sea. Bitterness over this loss of land still informs relations between Chile and Bolivia today.
Kepi of Bolivia’s Colorado Battalion, involved in many of the greatest battles of the war.
1898-99
The Civil/Federal War
Due to the social marginalisation of indigenous people and the loss of their land to the expansion of white and mestizos haciendas, Bolivian Army Colonel Pablo Zárate Wilka led the largest indigenous uprising up till that point. Whilst frightening the ruling class, it ultimately resulted in the further isolation of indigenous people from national life.
The iconic sun hat of Pablo Zárate Wilka, which he wore during the insurrection.
1932-35
The Chaco War
The conflict for control of the Chaco Boreal territory, fought between Bolivia and Paraguay, was the bloodiest South American war of the twentieth century. Bolivia suspected the region was oil-rich and invaded the land, which was claimed by both nations, with the financial backing of Standard Oil and European commanders. Despite having a fighting force superior in numbers and technology, the guerilla strategy of the Paraguayans and the low morale of Bolivia's indigenous conscripts saw the latter’s defeat and loss of territory in 1935.
Field cap of the Bolivian infantry, based on the German feldmütze, for much of the Bolivian armament was bought from Germany.
1952
The National Revolution
After the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR) came to power, it moved against former conservative policies and practises of previous autocratic regimes. MNR established universal suffrage, which increased the number of eligible voters from 200,000 to nearly one million, including indigenous populations. The movement implemented agricultural reforms and nationalised the tin mines, putting them into the hands of the Bolivian state.
Helmet of the tin miners, a powerful symbol of The National Revolution.
1990-Today
The Rise of the Indigenous Profile
Since the Marcha por el Territorio y la Dignidad in 1990, there have been many marches demanding respect for indigenous land, identity, culture and the indigenous nation in Bolivia. These movements demand recognition for the people who lived in Bolivia before the land was ever known as Bolivia - before it was even Upper Peru. This process has continued with the election of the first indigenous president, Evo Morales, in 2006, and the constitutional change from a Republic to a Plurinational State in 2009. Whilst true equality between the 36 recognised Bolivian nationalities is yet to be realised, the process has been ongoing throughout Bolivia's history and has at last come to the forefront of the national consciousness.
The bowler hat of the Aymaran woman has become a fashion statement for indigenous people of the Bolivian Altiplano, whereas it was previously a cause for discrimination.
