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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Photo: Nikolaus Hochstein Cox
Where science and spirituality meet under the Amazonian canopy
Parque Madidi, in northwestern Bolivia, and its surrounding Amazonian territories, is a vast collection of trees and waterways, brimming with flora and fauna. It is a wild place away from human control, whose fate is not at the whims of the Bolivian government but El Niño. For travellers, it offers a plethora of tourist attractions. For biologists, it provides a lifetime of research. But after all, the rainforest remains grounded in the prosaic – it is a land justifiable by science and hard fact.
For the Takana, however, a population of 8,400 indigenous people who live within the park’s borders and neighbouring forest, the jungle is both science and fiction, history and mythology. For these rainforest-dwelling peoples, the lines between fact and fantasy become blurred when viewing the rainforest. Within living memory the Takana have been jungle nomads and the rainforest has both given and taken from them. Even after the Bolivian government created the national parks and the Takana became a sedentary population, the rainforest has persisted in being their sole provider.
During my travels in the area, my Takana guide Nilo acquainted me with three types of palms, the fronds of each have a different particular use in the construction of the thatched huts that make up Takana homesteads. Every tree has a different purpose – some provide poison used for hunting wildgame, some store gallons of water for drinking. The rivers seethe with fish, and as we go midnight trawling in the sluggish expanse, we capture seven ferociously barbed catfish – enough for Nilo's family to survive for a week. Money still has relatively little use out here, and Nilo vividly recalls when he was fifteen and first met tourists who tried to pay his family in cash. They ultimately made the notes into kindling. The jungle gives Nilo and his people everything they could ever want. His niece Raquel may study in the comparatively cosmopolitan town of Rurrenabaque, but even she considers the jungle her home and says it is all she needs.
But as the jungle gives, it also takes. Nilo is a guide, artisan, hunter, fisherman and carpenter, and is currently engaged in helping his brother build a new series of houses further away from the river. Serious flooding a year ago destroyed the entire community, which is why they all currently live under the skeleton of a house, covered by a blue tarpaulin. The jungle provides food for Takana hunters, but even experienced bushmen can vanish in its dense undergrowth. They could be gored to death by a wounded peccary, bitten by any of the poisonous animals that inhabit the woods, or simply get lost. For a Takana the rainforest is all-powerful; it gives as much as it takes, and humans are just one of the many countless organisms granted a short lease below its branches.
With this kind of perspective it comes as no surprise that the Takana consider the entire rainforest to be alive, as a great omnipotent organism, in which all trees and animals are connected spiritually in a symbiotic whole. Just as there are trees with practical uses for jungle life there are also those whose significance is spiritual. The most important of these is the great Mapajo, whose trunk can grow to be hundreds of feet in diameter. These trees are described to me as 'kings' and 'gods' of the forest, but even they are not the absolute deities in this spiritual landscape. They are simply messengers for Pachamama, the Andean Earth Mother. It is She who reigns supreme in the Amazon. The Takana annually gather around Mapajo trunks to dance, drink a ch'alla and sacrifice jungle game. This is to ensure prosperity, protection and success in the coming year.
As the spirit of Pachamama is in every tree and animal in the forest, the Takana never hunt for sport. Nilo speaks of a man who would stalk peccary every night for the thrill of the hunt rather than necessity. One night the man never returned and Nilo accepts this as Pachamama's punishment. Conventional explanations for the man's disappearance can be construed, but for the Takana, when the jungle is a deity, all things are spiritually connected. The forest is adored and feared by those who live within it. Just as Pachamama provides rivers full of fish and springs of pure water, She can also threaten the lives of those who live within her borders.
There are isolated areas in the forest where the jungle spirits roam free under the solitary influence of Pachamama. As Nilo quietly warns, when the Takana roam into these regions, into the 'corazón del bosque,' they are confronted by the preternatural: faceless men that walk over the waters in ancient dress, unknown compelling forces that attack tourist tents in the night. Pachamama is the jungle and, like the rational rainforest known to science, Her forest can be kind and cruel.
For a transient passing through the Amazon, the benefits and detriments of living there are only a consequence of naturally-occurring cycles and patterns. For travellers, the rainforest is not the whole world but another stop on the tourist route across Bolivia. It is spectacle, but little more. But for those who live their entire lives within the jungle, who live for the rainforest, the trees and rivers become something more. They become a single living organism, a sentient being with absolute control over everything that occurs beneath the canopy. The Takana know the jungle better than anyone else. They know it has moods and feelings. They know it lives.
Parque Madidi, in northwestern Bolivia, and its surrounding Amazonian territories, is a vast collection of trees and waterways, brimming with flora and fauna. It is a wild place away from human control, whose fate is not at the whims of the Bolivian government but El Niño. For travellers, it offers a plethora of tourist attractions. For biologists, it provides a lifetime of research. But after all, the rainforest remains grounded in the prosaic – it is a land justifiable by science and hard fact.
For the Takana, however, a population of 8,400 indigenous people who live within the park’s borders and neighbouring forest, the jungle is both science and fiction, history and mythology. For these rainforest-dwelling peoples, the lines between fact and fantasy become blurred when viewing the rainforest. Within living memory the Takana have been jungle nomads and the rainforest has both given and taken from them. Even after the Bolivian government created the national parks and the Takana became a sedentary population, the rainforest has persisted in being their sole provider.
During my travels in the area, my Takana guide Nilo acquainted me with three types of palms, the fronds of each have a different particular use in the construction of the thatched huts that make up Takana homesteads. Every tree has a different purpose – some provide poison used for hunting wildgame, some store gallons of water for drinking. The rivers seethe with fish, and as we go midnight trawling in the sluggish expanse, we capture seven ferociously barbed catfish – enough for Nilo's family to survive for a week. Money still has relatively little use out here, and Nilo vividly recalls when he was fifteen and first met tourists who tried to pay his family in cash. They ultimately made the notes into kindling. The jungle gives Nilo and his people everything they could ever want. His niece Raquel may study in the comparatively cosmopolitan town of Rurrenabaque, but even she considers the jungle her home and says it is all she needs.
But as the jungle gives, it also takes. Nilo is a guide, artisan, hunter, fisherman and carpenter, and is currently engaged in helping his brother build a new series of houses further away from the river. Serious flooding a year ago destroyed the entire community, which is why they all currently live under the skeleton of a house, covered by a blue tarpaulin. The jungle provides food for Takana hunters, but even experienced bushmen can vanish in its dense undergrowth. They could be gored to death by a wounded peccary, bitten by any of the poisonous animals that inhabit the woods, or simply get lost. For a Takana the rainforest is all-powerful; it gives as much as it takes, and humans are just one of the many countless organisms granted a short lease below its branches.
With this kind of perspective it comes as no surprise that the Takana consider the entire rainforest to be alive, as a great omnipotent organism, in which all trees and animals are connected spiritually in a symbiotic whole. Just as there are trees with practical uses for jungle life there are also those whose significance is spiritual. The most important of these is the great Mapajo, whose trunk can grow to be hundreds of feet in diameter. These trees are described to me as 'kings' and 'gods' of the forest, but even they are not the absolute deities in this spiritual landscape. They are simply messengers for Pachamama, the Andean Earth Mother. It is She who reigns supreme in the Amazon. The Takana annually gather around Mapajo trunks to dance, drink a ch'alla and sacrifice jungle game. This is to ensure prosperity, protection and success in the coming year.
As the spirit of Pachamama is in every tree and animal in the forest, the Takana never hunt for sport. Nilo speaks of a man who would stalk peccary every night for the thrill of the hunt rather than necessity. One night the man never returned and Nilo accepts this as Pachamama's punishment. Conventional explanations for the man's disappearance can be construed, but for the Takana, when the jungle is a deity, all things are spiritually connected. The forest is adored and feared by those who live within it. Just as Pachamama provides rivers full of fish and springs of pure water, She can also threaten the lives of those who live within her borders.
There are isolated areas in the forest where the jungle spirits roam free under the solitary influence of Pachamama. As Nilo quietly warns, when the Takana roam into these regions, into the 'corazón del bosque,' they are confronted by the preternatural: faceless men that walk over the waters in ancient dress, unknown compelling forces that attack tourist tents in the night. Pachamama is the jungle and, like the rational rainforest known to science, Her forest can be kind and cruel.
For a transient passing through the Amazon, the benefits and detriments of living there are only a consequence of naturally-occurring cycles and patterns. For travellers, the rainforest is not the whole world but another stop on the tourist route across Bolivia. It is spectacle, but little more. But for those who live their entire lives within the jungle, who live for the rainforest, the trees and rivers become something more. They become a single living organism, a sentient being with absolute control over everything that occurs beneath the canopy. The Takana know the jungle better than anyone else. They know it has moods and feelings. They know it lives.
Photo: Anna Grace
Life in Bolivian Border Towns
Surrounded by land on all sides, it is not surprising that Bolivia can call itself a neighbour to no fewer than five countries in total. Brazil, Peru, Chile, Paraguay and Argentina, each one of these borders is home to numerous border towns. Hotbeds of crime, points of migration, melting-pots of culture – one thing is certain, each pueblo fronterizo has its own story to tell.
‘People who have a strong sense of identity don’t kill. Mercenaries, people like that, don't have much sense of identity, that’s why they can kill.’ The words of journalist Domingo Abrego Faldín surprise me as we talk about the violence in the town of San Matías, located in the far east of Bolivia, on the Brazilian border. Plagued by murders which are very often linked to drug trafficking and land negotiations, San Matías is a difficult place to live in. As Domingo tells me, ‘It’s the most dangerous part of all Bolivia.’
In January of this year, Domingo wrote an article for the cruceño newspaper El Deber, focusing on problems facing the inhabitants of San Matías. The article tells the story of an elderly inhabitant of the town who, having just lost a grandchild to violence, laments the loss of tranquility. The San Matías of nowadays seems a town which innocence has forgotten.
The porous, immense, jungle-ridden Brazilian border provides an excellent setting for drugs, arms and just about any other type of trafficking. Those who live close by become collateral damage. Domingo himself has lost family to the violence. Showing me a photo of men holding a long, club-like weapon, he tells me, ‘My grandmother was killed by one of these things, una macana. This is the type of thing that happens here.’ It seems that no one is safe.
In recent years, the number of consumers of cocaine and other drugs in Brazil has increased. Its vast coastline is widely used for the exportation of cocaine to countries across the Atlantic. Bordering the three principal cultivators of the drug, supply is not hard to come by. Yet, given the levels of violence induced when trafficking and transporting narcotics, it comes at a price.
""The road from Kasani to Copacabana is to be admired in its own right – it offers a glimpse of quotidian life in the area, one which it would be a shame to miss.""
In December of last year, the killings in San Matías reached such an extent that military presence was increased drastically in a bid to control the area. The catalyst being the brutal murder of a migration worker, shot eight times by her Brazilian killer. Despite such measures, the killings continue, with reports of another life being taken at the end of last month.
A border town constitutes a sort of no man’s land. Feeling neither completely Bolivian nor fully Brazilian, living in a place that many people and things – legally or not – merely pass through, must be a strange sensation. I think back to Domingo’s words regarding identity. Many base their identity on nationality, or at least on pride for the city or town they live in. Those coming and going across the border surely miss out on this fixed sense of being. Maybe the border-dwelling lifestyle leads to a lessening of morality.
Another photo is presented to me. A large family standing in a line, squinting into the sun. ‘Look’, Domingo instructs me, ‘every member of this family is a good person. Sometimes people think everyone who lives on the border is bad. It’s not true, there are good, normal people too.’
Just as the border provides a dividing line between one country and another, so too does the illicit activity divide those who live there. It divides them into the bad and the good, into those who instigate the violence and those who are tragically affected by it.
San Matías, along with much of what lies on the large, poorly policed Bolivian-Brazilian border, is infamous for such violence and trafficking. Move to the west, however, and you find the crossing from Bolivia to Peru. Not without its problems, here is much better known as a tourist hotspot. With Lake Titicaca and Copacabana hitting the top of most backpackers' must-see list, this border has an altogether different feel.
In the town of Kasani, on the Peruvian border, inhabitants suffer a more subtle sort of disruption than that experienced in San Matías. Every day many tourists pass through, seeing no more than the inside of the migration office, and leave with no desire of seeing anything else.
‘Look, over there!’ My new friend Jhon points and I follow his gaze. ‘There’s my village, my school and, right there, my house.’ He smiles his gap-toothed, 11-year-old child’s smile as I make out the buildings he is pointing to. ‘I’m getting off here’, he adds. Hopping off the minibus halfway into the 15-minute journey from Kasani to Copacabana, Jhon turns, waves and continues on his way.
Kasani and its neighbouring villages are not the bleak, limbo-condemned pueblos fronterizos I had imagined them to be. Set on the shores of the magnificent Lake Titicaca and graced with green slopes and craggy rock formations, the scenery is enough to soothe even the sorest of sore eyes.
Yet, Kasani cannot escape the fate of all towns that find themselves on the cusp of foreign territory. That is, the struggle of being the only constant in a sea – or rather, lake – of transitoriness.
Arriving into Kasani, I had seen a group of tourists swarming out of the migration office before being quickly ushered onto a Bolivia te espera–branded bus. ‘They only stay for a minute, no longer.’ The lady, whose shop stands in the shadow of the grim-looking migration office, doesn’t so much lament as state. ‘One moment the place is full, the next it's empty.’
I can't help but think the empty moments must occur more than the full. As I sit, waiting for the minibus to fill up, I see a handful of bag-laden locals amble across the line of cones which constitutes the border. I spot a couple of migration officials looming in the customs office doorway. I spy a woman and her daughter taking their two sheep for a walk. Not much is going on.
I am glad when my little friend Jhon clambers into the seat beside me, burgundy sunhat on head and shiny new rucksack on back. Our small talk, covering such topics as afternoon plans and Semana Santa celebrations, injects some energy into this slow-paced, no-haste town.
I suppose many see the road from Kasani to Copacabana as a necessary linking of destinations, as they hurry to their first true stop-off point in Bolivia: the touristy Copacabana. However, it is to be admired in its own right. The road from Kasani to Copacabana offers a glimpse of quotidian life in the area, one which it would be a shame to miss.
Shortly after Jhon bounds off the bus, a campesino hauls three sacks of potatoes and a pick axe onto the seat next to me, brushing off his dusty worker’s hands in satisfaction.
A father speeds past on a bicycle as his small son struggles to keep up.
A mother strolls along, clutching a tiny, child-sized hand in each of her own.
It is easy to forget during the momentico most of us spend in places like Kasani that, for some, this is more than a transient crossing point. This is home.
So, next time you're passing through a typically dreary, dangerous or characterless border town, take an extra momentico to look around. You may be surprised by what you find.
Photo: Juan Manuel Lobatón
Penalties, Dismissals and Disallowed Goals
Passions always run high in South American football, but never more so than in the derby, or clásico games, taking place between local rivals. La Paz’s clásico, contested between the city’s two principal teams, Bolívar and The Strongest, is no exception. Boasting more than a 50-year history of official matches, this sporting fixture has had its share of highlights, lowlights and controversy over the years. Here are a few of the more notable events from its history:
The clásico paceño has always promised plenty of goals. The highest-scoring clásico ever occurred in 1978, when Bolívar defeated their rivals 6–3 and went on to defeat them again 6-0 the following year. However, in 2004, after an agonising wait of over 25 years, el tigre exacted their revenge on Bolívar for the humiliation and thrashed them 7–0. Strongest fans would perhaps say that it was worth the wait: this result remains the most decisive victory in the history of the fixture. Of course, ask a Bolívar fan, and they’ll say it was because Bolívar had put out a team full of inexperienced youngsters that day.
Strongest fans have reason to feel aggrieved over the controversial refereeing that marred the 158th league clásico in 2008. On the half hour, a Strongest goal was correctly disallowed for a previous foul on Bolívar goalkeeper Carlos Arias. However, soon after the referee missed a clear penalty claim when Bolívar’s Martínez fouled Strongest striker Miro Bahía in the penalty area. Things looked up for The Strongest when they converted a deserved penalty 48 minutes into the second half, but it wasn’t to be. As additional time came and went, the referee allowed extra minutes of play that facilitated a late Bolívar equaliser courtesy of veteran Colombian midfielder Arnulfo Valentierra.
One of the most fondly remembered clashes for Strongest fans occurred in December 1999 when los tigres managed to win the game 1-0 despite having played the entire second half with 10 men. Popularly named “The Last Clásico of the Century”, the victory was made all the sweeter seeing as the win earned The Strongest a return to the Copa Libertadores, Latin America’s most prestigious club football competition, for the first time in six years.
This year, in the 199th meeting between the two sides, The Strongest blew a 2–0 lead as Bolívar came back for the draw with 10 men. Controversial from the outset, an early penalty claim was dismissed by the referee when Bolívar’s Ivan Borghello was went to ground in the box. A red card for Walter Flores for obstructing a goal-scoring opportunity and the late equaliser in the form of a Bolívar penalty made this clásico one to remember.
Better luck next time, ref.
