Bolivia is made up of a multitude of cultures, with a complex mix of racial groups as diverse as the land’s topography. Many different indigenous groups have lived in various areas here for millennia, from the lowlands of the Amazon to the heights of the Altiplano. Throughout history, these groups have interacted with each other in commerce and in cultural exchange. Later, the colonial period saw the arrival of European populations who arrived with their own economic agenda. Enslaved Africans were brought over by some of these new arrivals and forced to work in Bolivia's mines, and eventually moved to its coca fields. Today, their descendants constitute an increasingly visible Afro-Bolivian community in various regions, particularly in the high-altitude tropical rainforest of the Yungas.
Over time, these groups engaged with each other more and more, and terms have come to pass to describe the progeny of this mixing of groups. These terms have carried different weights at different times, and among different classes. In colonial times, someone of means with mixed heritage may have simply been called white, while someone from the countryside or of lower classes may have been called mestizo. And even the significance of being Aymara has morphed; a word that once for many people brought an image of an indigenous farmer in a far-flung community now just as strongly can bring forth an image of a young university student in El Alto who listens to hip-hop music.
This type of racial categorization can be a messy business, as the terms and their meanings change over time and take on their own political, and too often derogatory, connotations. So like much of the region, Bolivia is a place where individual identity can be a difficult thing to unpack. One cannot simply meet a person and, upon observation of their place of birth, skin color or last name, fully understand who they really are. As with people anywhere, to be ‘Bolivian’ can mean many things at once, and defining a person by their race or heritage becomes more and more difficult every day. The government has tried to recognize these complexities in a constitution that now recognizes 36 original nations representing nearly any permutation of ethnicity imaginable, as well as Afro-Bolivians.
A close look shows much more complex connections between the people and places that make up this country. So in this issue of Bolivian Express, we explore the idea of ‘blurred lines’ to celebrate ambiguity, to bask in the grey areas, to find out when truth is anything but. We traveled to borders, physical and metaphorical, where worlds collide in big and small ways to make reality less than clear.
We visit Bolivia’s fronteras to see how proximity to other countries can challenge communities’ notions of being Bolivian. Conversely, we talk with individuals from other Latin American countries who have travelled across borders to arrive here in Bolivia, a place often adopted as their new home. We look at areas of cultural and political contention between Bolivia and its neighbours, from this country’s claim to the sea to the true origins of the salteña. Internally, we revisit the tumultuous history of the clásicos between La Paz’s two most prominent football teams, where each side has its own version of what happened during controversial games of the past. We explore communities that are changing definitions of their spaces, from the Takana people of the Amazon basin, bridging the gap between the physical and spiritual world, to the women in El Alto bringing a piece of the agrarian countryside to their urban neighbourhoods.
In many ways, ambiguity is the spice of life. One just needs to look at the rich tapestry of culture and tradition that comes from each ethnic and cultural group here, and at the results of the connections between these groups across generations. Not knowing answers is what keeps things interesting, what keeps us exploring. And Bolivia is a fantastic place to look deep to try and sort it all out.
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Local Produce Feeds the Urban Throngs
Photo: Elsemieke de Boer
On the outskirts of El Alto, peace is found when entering Doña Berta’s carpa solar, or greenhouse, with an abundance of vegetables. It is humid and smells fresh. For a moment one forgets the dusty streets outside. All manner of produce grows here despite being 4100 metres above sea level: there are little green bell peppers, parsley, spinach, baby lettuce, cabbage and much more. The sweet cherry tomatoes are Doña Berta´s favourites. She carefully collects a handful of vegetables and we head out before the chickens can get in.
Doña Berta’s greenhouse is part of a smart solution to today’s global urban challenges. The rapid urbanization rates of the last decades, especially in the Global South, have given cities little time to adapt to the large amount of new urban dwellers. Here in El Alto residents can face difficulties in meeting basic needs around issues of food security, income, social well-being and environmental sustainability. Believe it or not, urban gardens like Doña Berta’s provide solutions to all of these challenges. It is a healing space within the city.
Doña Berta planted the first seeds in her garden in El Alto 15 years ago. With help of an NGO she was able to gain agricultural knowledge, something she was missing before. Though many alteños are rural migrants and therefore have a strong relationship with the countryside and agricultural living, many like her simply do not. But that does not stop these residents from pursuing agriculture, says Katyussa Veiga, project leader of Eco Tambo, a weekly organized ecological urban farmers’ market in La Paz’s Plaza Lira. ‘Although some do not have agricultural knowledge, many learn very fast because they have the imagination,’ she says.
The main benefit of Doña Berta’s garden is secure access to healthy and fresh food. This was particularly important when her children were young. Good nutrition can be a problem within the La Paz–El Alto metropolitan area because many people don’t know much about healthy nutrition and don’t have the means to buy healthy products. Furthermore, most products sold in the city are produced far away, losing freshness after days in transit to the local markets. And for Doña Berta, being able to live off her own garden protects her against rising food prices, enabling her to save money and purchase other necessities.
Doña Berta sells her surplus crops at local markets and to restaurants and families. On Saturdays, a number of urban farmers gather at the Eco Tambo market. In addition to selling their foodstuffs, the vendedores use the market as a meeting point for maintaining their network, sharing experiences and negotiating exchanges. ‘Each urban farmer specializes in a certain type of products,’ Veiga explains. ‘This large variety of products has the advantage that they can buy products from each other, or exchange products amongst themselves when the market ends.’
The majority of the urban farmers at Plaza Lira are women. The fact that they are producers themselves, run their own business and maintain a large social network has given them stronger positions within their families, their neighbourhoods and also the city. ‘They are important leaders and innovators within the community,’ says Veiga.
Although Doña Berta’s garden seems a promising initiative, these urban gardens face challenges too. ‘There is a lack of understanding of the benefits of ecological products,’ Doña Berta says. ‘For example, people do not understand the crucial difference between the use of chemical and natural pesticides.’
Fabrizio Uscamayta, another project leader of Eco Tambo, also stresses some improvements. ‘Just two months ago a new law regarding the promotion of healthy nutrition got approved,’ he says. ‘This has been the first acknowledgement in the country that we are not eating healthy.’ This law seeks to promote healthier nutrition of the Bolivian people by establishing guidelines and mechanisms. Health, according to the Bolivian government, is a human right and contributes to vivir bien.
Climate change poses a major threat to livelihoods in Bolivia, but urban gardens might provide solutions. ‘This area has been pointed out as extremely vulnerable to future climate change,’ says Uscamayta. The region’s altitude and geographical characteristics pose challenges to the biodiversity, water and ground quality, glaciers and agriculture in the region. ‘It will be difficult to adapt to, but urban gardens could form a very interesting answer,’ says Uscamayta. Despite the altitude and climate change, Doña Berta still manages to grow her cherry tomatoes because her urban garden has its own sustainable micro-climate and maintains fertile soil and ideal growing conditions.
These urban gardens are also known for their therapeutic powers – they are spaces where tranquility can be found. The area where Doña Berta lives has very few trees and the low oxygen level poses an issue to her health. ‘The greenhouses are full of green and contain high oxygen levels; they are places of peace and silence to the women,’ says Veiga.
In many ways urban gardens are healing spaces within cities. They provide economic, social and environmental solutions to today’s global urban challenges. Doña Berta’s garden is a great example from which others can learn. When leaving El Alto, Doña Berta asks me at least 10 times, ‘My carpa solar has an abundance of vegetables, right?’ I assure her it is a beautiful place she can be very proud of.
Photos:Ellen Frank-Delgado
The century old struggle for Avaroa’s coastline
In the days leading up to Día del Mar, Plaza Abaroa is a tranquil place. All that can be heard are the sounds of gardeners peacefully watering the surrounding grass. One man sweeps the stone pathways that transect the plaza, while others in swanky suits quietly eat lunch on nearby benches. Yet, the bitter smell of fresh black paint stands out in the plaza, and forces Sopocachi residents to stop in their tracks. The paint outlines where Bolivian dignitaries and members of the National Congress will stand in a few days, during the March 23rd commemoration.
The War of the Pacific, fought between Chile, Peru and Bolivia, began as a border dispute when Bolivia imposed a 10-cent tax on the potassium nitrate produced by Chile in the Litoral province. In the first battle, fought in Calama in 1879, 500 Chilean soldiers faced 100 Bolivian men, including Plaza Abaroa’s namesake, Eduardo Avaroa, who owned property in the area. According to folklore, when Chilean soldiers asked Avaroa to surrender, in a moment of pure valour, the doughty landowner yelled back, ‘¿Rendirme yo? ¡Que se rinda su abuela!’ (Surrender me? Your grandmother should surrender!) Since his death, he lives on as a national hero in major plazas across Bolivia and in the Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa. Even so, Plaza Abaroa’s official name continues to be misspelled due to the linguistic similarity between ‘B’s’ and ‘V’s’ in spoken Spanish.
The War of the Pacific ended in 1883, but Eduardo Avaroa’s name still symbolises hope in modern day Bolivia. The country officially lost its Litoral province to Chile at the end of the war, but to this day it insists on regaining its sovereign access to the sea. Under Evo Morales’ leadership, Bolivia has taken actions to modify the 1904 Treaty of Peace & Friendship. In 2013, it filed an official plea to sue Chile at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. If the court sides with Bolivia, the landlocked country could gain back a portion of the 400 km coastline it lost 112 years ago.
On Día del Mar, the plaza could not differ more from the serene days leading up to it. In the morning, jets dart above the now-barricaded plaza. The crowds of paceños that fill the sidewalks can still see the bronze statue of Avaroa in the centre of the plaza. Floral offerings in the country’s vibrant yellow, green and red, surround Eduardo Avaroa. The many blue flowers encompassing the statue remind onlookers of the true purpose of today’s festivities. Local school marching bands, politicians, the Ministry of Defence, the army, and of course, Bolivia’s navy, occupy the streets themselves. The navy’s plain white suits greatly contrast the more whimsical and colourful costumes of the processions. Bolivia maintains a navy to surveil Lago Titicaca and the country’s rivers, as well as in the hope of one day regaining its coastline.
Evo Morales’ stern voice rumbles over the loudspeakers as he shares his hopes of ‘frank and sincere dialogue with Chile.’ His sentiments are emotional but optimistic, which reflect the country’s belief that one battle has already been won. In September 2015, the International Court of Justice rejected Chile’s claim that the court had no jurisdiction in the case. Chile now has until July 25th to respond to Bolivia’s case, while Bolivia has spent the past week analysing and preparing for different arguments Chile may make.
After a midday siesta, the streets in front of Plaza Abaroa are filled once more with parades. The marching drums seem to vibrate local buildings even more than the morning’s jets. Chants and songs, in combination with the drums, fill the air and drown out the Western music of Alexander Coffee across the street, from where local barista Mirea Sandoval Rivera has watched Día del Mar each year behind the counter. ‘In the heart of all Bolivians,’ she says, when asked if Bolivia will ever gain access to the sea, ‘we will always defend the story of Avaroa.’
The end of the day’s commemoration is eerie. After hours of music, the drums come to an unnerving halt. No soldier or onlooker chants or even mumbles a word. There is a chilling atmosphere and no one seems to know what is going to happen next, like in the uncertain months to come for Bolivia in the Hague. Amidst a few more shouts, the soldiers precede onward, carrying the flag flown in 1879 away from Plaza Abaroa. All that can be heard is the dismantling of stages, while the paceños are left wondering if their country will always remain landlocked.
The unfinished struggle to take back the streets
Photo: Michael Dunn C.
‘I remember I was waiting on the corner near my house and a car went by. The driver’s friend whistled at me. It was so uncomfortable. They were whistling and laughing but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. The next day, the same thing, the same guys, at the same time. I feel defenceless, like I can’t do anything about it. I’m scared to say anything to them. So I just walk further away and pretend I haven’t noticed.’
Solange is a young working professional in La Paz and her story is hardly unique. According to Human Rights Watch, women and girls in Bolivia remain at high risk of gender-based harassment and violence. An overwhelming majority of them regularly experience some form of sexual harassment in the streets. Whether it be staring, whistling and catcalling, or more invasive harassment such as unwanted physical contact – this behaviour is something that women like Solange have become sadly accustomed to.
‘The whistling happens all the time,’ she points out. ‘They almost always do it when they see a girl alone and they are with their friends. I don’t know why they do it. Maybe because they think it’s cute and that girls like it. But that’s just not true.’
Andreyna Gomez, a member of the Bolivian anarco-feminist collective, Mujeres Creando, has made it her personal mission to stand up against street harassment. ‘In Mujeres Creando, every member has their own voice to use against what makes them most uncomfortable about this society and for me it is precisely this: the invisible violence in public spaces that is minimised, naturalised and that puts women in the position of an object of satisfaction. The fact that it is such a fleeting encounter makes it one of the most difficult aggressions to confront and to classify as violence.’
As in countless other cultures around the world, for many years women in Bolivia had been confined to a largely domestic role, barred from public spaces and expected to conform to rigid gender roles. ‘Street harassment, like so many other types of violence, is a strategy for perpetuating machismo,’ Andreyna affirms, ‘and now that is being threatened and renounced. Street harassment reinforces that idea that these public spaces are the property of men only – where women who appear in public are harassed and objectified from very early ages in an attempt to intimidate them, immobilise them and re-relegate them to domestic spaces.’
‘Street harassment is a man’s way of telling a woman, ‘the street is not your space, the street is my space and your body belongs to me’.’
María Galindo, the founder of Mujeres Creando, seconds this opinion. She argues that street harassment is a man’s way of telling a woman, ‘the street is not your space, the street is my space and your body belongs to me’.
A common obstacle in the fight against street harassment is the view that compared to other forms of gender-based violence, catcalling and whistling is often perceived as relatively harmless. However, for María, these micro-aggressions can easily escalate to physical violence. ‘It normalises the intimidation of women,’ she says. For Andreyna, underestimating this issue is a serious hazard. ‘For me, violence is violence, it doesn’t matter which parameters it falls within,’ she says. ‘Street harassment has always been presented as an innocent, roguish gesture that should be taken as a form of flattery. However, its machista, sexist and objectifying content is an indication of people who in non-public places are even more violent. A man who harasses women sees them as something whose only real function is satisfying him. Consequently, raping her is only a question of circumstance and the same goes for committing femicide.’
‘This system normalises and tolerates acts of violence and the result is social insensitivity,’ she continues. ‘The system also tries to hierarchize the phenomenon of machista violence. We categorically reject the minimisation of street harassment that threatens the basic freedom of women’
In terms of government action on the issue of women’s rights, the landscape is unpromising. ‘The government does not do anything about it,’ María remarks. ‘The more economically and politically powerful a man is, the more they act with impunity. Justice here is so corrupt that many incidences of violence against women are not reported.’
In an attempt to improve the safety of women in Bolivia and prevent gender-based violence, the Bolivian government passed Law 348 in 2013 that defined the crime of femicide and promised harsh sentences for men who commit violence against women. However, according to a November 2014 study by national newspaper La Razón, the law produced a conviction rate of just 4% in eighteen months, with 206 recorded cases of femicide and only 8 sentences.
‘I feel defenceless, like I can’t do anything about it. I’m scared to say anything to them. So I just walk further away and pretend I haven’t noticed.’
‘In our media, the authorities reinforce [sexism],’ Andreyna asserts. ‘We have mayors who publicly harass women, corrupt judicial authorities and television presenters whose acts of machista violence have gone unpunished. There’s an endless amount of violent acts that aren’t considered in official statistics, but that women experience frequently. The government has made a law that figuratively “protects women,” but its protocols are still victimising for us. We’ve been demanding a “red alert” for the quantity of femicides, both recorded and unrecorded, for months but for the government, this is still a secondary concern whilst women are dying at the hands of their partners, dying after clandestine abortions and being constantly blamed for what happens to them.’
Whilst the situation in Bolivia appears bleak, María Galindo is keen to stress that the country’s fight against everyday sexism is part of a much bigger, more menacing global picture. ‘I disagree with the idea that sexism is unique to Latin America. I think it is a problem all over the world. It’s a western problem, it’s a colonial problem, it’s an indigenous problem. Patriarchy is a problem everywhere,’ she says.
For women like Solange, every day that passes is another day of feeling unsafe in her own neighbourhood. ‘If I go out into the street in a good mood and this happens… then my mood changes and I feel angry and impotent,’ she says. ‘It’s a lack of respect. Every citizen needs to feel safe in their home and free to step outside without feeling uncomfortable, both men and women. There should not be a difference.’
