If one had to pick the most notable Bolivian characteristics it would be their resilience and determination. It is not uncommon to come across marches in La Paz; Bolivians chant and protest with an unbreakable zeal, and you can see that they are not about to give up. Bolivia will probably survive any of the incoming end of the world scenarios that are looming over us. There is a good reason for this.
As the immortal chuños on our cover illustrate, there are things in Bolivia that will survive us all. The chuño, a lyophilized potato, goes through successive freezing and sun-drying cycles in order to become the ultimate survival food. It is the epitome of Bolivian nature and exemplifies an intrinsic Bolivian trait. We never give up.
This month, we are celebrating our 75th issue of Bolivian Express. As we have explored in the previous 74, Bolivia has an undeniable rich history and culture. But it also has an heritage that it struggles to preserve. The crumbling architecture of Sorata can attest to that. And optimum preservation demands maximum toil.
Undoubtedly, Bolivia’s past is filled with lessons for the present, such as Sebastiana, who has come back in 2017. The eponymic heroine of the iconic 1953 film, Vuelve Sebastiana, is returning in graphic novel form, breathing new life to her story and to the Chipayas. Different lessons were learnt when we traveled to the disaffected ski resort of Chacaltaya, to watch olympic participant José Manuel ski down the slope in his Calgary 88 ski gear. Still dusting the snowflakes from our pens, we eased into conversation with La crítica y el poeta, whose critical analysis of distant Bolivian poets leaves further food for thought.
While the critics revive the classic, the green areas of La Paz and Bolivia are left to both Bohemia, an initiative that produces biodegradable paper with seeds inside, and Emaverde, who works hard to maintain and replant the trees of La Paz.
Behind these efforts at preservation and regeneration we found people whose work can seem in vain, but whose passion and hope inspired us to produce this issue. Individuals who, against all odds, and in an uncompromising and unfavourable world, fight for a cause: the skiers of Chacaltaya, a city official in Sorata, poets, a film director, a young entrepreneur, green space workers in La Paz and jugglers in Cochabamba.
We invite you in, to read about the past, to understand how it is shaping our present and future. But the future may not be as certain as we would like. Temperatures are rising. And like the glacier on Chacaltaya, the chuños of the Cumbre may become another casualty of global warming. With revival comes conservation - otherwise all these efforts will have been short-lived. We can learn from these lessons, to preserve our present and prepare for the future.
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Text: Editorial Board
Photos: Carlos Ibañez
Is There a Future?
Chacaltaya, an hour and a half north of La Paz, was the highest-altitude ski resort in the world until 2009, when it closed due to lack of snow. The glacier on which its pistes ran had melted away, a casualty of global warming.
But skiing in Chacaltaya is not impossible, but without the glacier sustaining a reliable layer of snow and a functional ski lift, skiing trips have become more of a rare occurrence. Last time the Club Andino came to ski here was in 2012, and some of their members haven’t been up there in 20 years.
Sitting on an escarpment at 5,300 metres above sea level, this iconic structure houses the resort’s ski-lift motor. It was declared a protected monument of the municipality of La Paz in 2015. It’s called the Cabaña Museo Federico Nielsen Reyes, after the Bolivian sportsman and diplomat.
The ski lift at Chacaltaya hasn’t been used in over a decade, and is now nonfunctional. Along with the lack of snow, it is one of the obstacles that prevents the Club Andino members from skiing regularly. At this altitude – the same as the Mount Everest base camp – it’s not easy to climb to the top of the slope, and it’s even more strenuous if you try to do that in ski gear. The club needs to raise approximately $3,000 to get the ski lift up and running.
Picture 3 - José Manuel at the top of the mountain
Standing at the top of the mountain and listening to the wind howl, José Manuel Bejarano, member of the Club, tells his story of Chacaltaya, how he learnt to ski here long ago when the equipment was still made of wood. ‘People would ski here every weekend, a group of 30 or so,’ he says. Obsessed with the sport, he attended three different Winter Olympics: Sarajevo in 1984, Calgary in ’88 and Albertville in ’92. His suit is from Calgary, as are his skis and boots. ‘I will now say goodbye to the mountain,’ José Manuel declares before descending.
Picture 4 - José Manuel skiing down the mountainThe members of the Club Andino weren’t sure if skiing would be possible due to the icy snow, but José Manuel was determined to try. It took him over an hour to hike to the top. Checking the snowpack on his way up, he wanted to see if it was skiable and noted the icier patches. ‘It is skiable,’ José Manuel says, ‘but you can feel places where your foot sinks down low and other spots where the ground is really hard.’
José Manuel and the other members of the Club Andino hope that this snow around till next year; if so, next season could provide some good skiing opportunities. With the glacier gone, the rocky terrain heats up under the sun, and the snow melts away much faster.
Back in the chalet, we discuss the difficulties and challenges that the Club Andino has to face. José Manuel and Huascar Pacheco Muñoz, President of the Club Andino, comment on the irony of living in a city with cable cars and snowy mountains all around but no ski resort.
Although difficult, it is possible to ski in Bolivia: not only at Chacaltaya, but also on Mururata about 35 kilometres east of La Paz. It’s glacier is reasonably healthy and skiable. There’s an obstacle, though: The road ends five kilometres from the slope .
‘Tourist agencies do take people skiing in Huayna Potosí, and people go snowboarding in Charquini,’ José Manuel says. ‘So there is an interest from young people and tourists.’
The glacier on which its pistes ran had melted away, a casualty of global warming.
The dearth of skiing culture in Bolivia, an inconsistent climate, and an absence of funds make it difficult for the Club Andino to enjoy the slopes of Chacaltaya. But the dream isn’t that far-fetched. Perhaps with the help of tourism and ski enthusiasts from around the world, it’s possible to revive Chacaltaya – and even expand into other locales. And, should the snow hold – always a dicey proposition in today’s warming world – see people start skiing again.
Contact details:
Facebook Page: Club Andino Boliviano
Photo: Hannah Chukwu
Breathing life into young performers
The streets of the residential neighborhood Montenegro in Cochabamba are dusty, sparse and sprawling. At sunrise, the vast expanse of land is punctuated only by the silhouettes of children heading to school, to work, or to the streets. And a few of them are heading to the Performing Life centre.
Performing Life is an NGO based in Bolivia that teaches performing arts to children living in poverty in Cochabamba, combining professional circus and music training with social education programmes. The social circus programme began in 2005 when the founder, John Connell, was left to fend for himself as a foreigner in Bolivia and noticed someone special: Tania. In the brief stop of traffic at a red light, he watched Tania wander into the road, diablos in hand, juggle astonishingly, hoping for a tip from one of the drivers. He realised that children like Tania made far more money performing than begging on the streets, and thus the social circus aspect of Performing Life was born.
As I walk into the Performing Life centre, I am joined by one of the youngest participants, Matthias, whose mum spends the morning cooking a free meal for all of the children at the centre. Matthias joins a group warm-up before the social education programme, which is his first class of the day. Rosa, a volunteer from the United States working with the children, tells me how the class fills in the gaps left by the state education system. Children are taught about gender equality, alternatives to aggression and are encouraged to grow in ambition.
‘Damaging machismo is socially ingrained into these children from a young age,’ Rosa says, ‘and we try to help them unlearn it.’ She tells me that volunteering in Cochabamba ‘is the hardest thing she’s ever done’, as access to higher education for children from low income backgrounds is incredibly difficult. Teaching the children to be ambitious only helps to overcome one of the hurdles in between them and higher opportunities.
After the social education class, the core event of the morning begins as the children move on to another class with circus director Amy Booth. With her are two circus skills practitioners, who started out as students at the centre: Tania and Carlos. Amy scales a 6-metre-high structure to tie up silks for the practice, as unicycles, diablos and juggling balls are dragged out of the main room and into the sun. Laughter echoes through the courtyard, as Matthias giggles hanging upside down from one of the silk ropes. Diablos flash against the light as they fly from person to person. ‘Circus lies at the intersection between sport and performance,’ Amy tells me, as we watch Tania demonstrate a complicated juggling move for one of the children. ‘Whilst it helps the children to be physically healthy, it also aids in self-expression, and provides a practical skill for the children to earn money for their families,’ she explains.
The children perform astonishing solo routines, but teamwork is an essential part of their education. One of the most noticeable changes Amy has seen in children who have been attending the programme for a long time is an enormous growth in their interpersonal relations, maximising their ability to be selfless, thoughtful and confident in engaging with others.
Tania and Carlos have both been coming to the Performing Life centre for 11 years. ‘The discipline I learned through circus helped me realise I wanted to go to university and eventually join the elite police training academy,’ Tania tells me. Carlos, on the other hand, has travelled all across South America juggling on the streets, before coming home to help teach at the centre. ‘There are not a lot of options for poor children in Cochabamba,’ he says. ‘They often end up in gangs as young as 13, and many of them don’t have parents to look after them.’ Performing Life has managed to carve out a tiny haven in Cochabamba, where new doors are opened and new opportunities can be reached.
Lunch follows soon after circus skills class, and during the meal Tania asks all the students for improvements and criticisms of the day’s activities, reinforcing their sense of community. This community is wider than just one neighbourhood of Cochabamba, however, as Performing Life also conducts a music programme on the other side of town, teaching music performance to some of the city’s most vulnerable children. The reach of the organisation is always extending. Amy and Irene Soria Lopez, the national director of Performing Life, have even larger dreams for both programmes.
Amy dreams of turning the circus skills programme into a professional school, and Irene dreams of uniting the different groups in the music programme to create a 200-strong orchestra that plays with recycled instruments. Inspiration for these ideas has come from similar projects across South America. A music school in Argentina has managed to create the orchestra Irene pines for, and social circus programmes are becoming popular across Bolivia, with one having recently started in El Alto.
Performing Life is breathing new life into performing arts by combining it with a heart for community development. The results are breathtaking.
Contact details:
https://performinglifebolivia.org/
Photo: Iván Rodriguez
Unearthing Bolivia’s potato traditions
The chuño and tunta are traditional ingredients in Bolivian cuisine used in a wide range of dishes, notably chairo, a soup consisting of vegetables, meat and chuño. The use of these special potatoes has increased greatly in recent years with upscale restaurants utilising them in new and exciting ways. In order to learn about chuños and tuntas, I set out to La Cumbre, a mountain pass and the highest point on the road to the Yungas, where chuños and tuntas are often transformed.
The word for chuño comes from the Quechua language, meaning ‘frozen potato’, which provides a basic understanding of how chuños are made. On arrival to the Cumbre, I was taken aback by the traditional methods still employed today. Paulina, a woman who had been camping at the Cumbre with her daughter for three weeks to cultivate chuños and tuntas to sell in La Paz, explained the process that she implements. The process for the tunta is more complex and time consuming than that of the chuño, which is reflected in their differing appearance and taste. The chuño is small and black, compared to the tunta, which is white and slightly larger. The chuño itself tastes nothing like a Western potato, with the texture of a much denser food. This is part of the brilliance of the chuño; it is so vitamin-rich it is now considered a superfood, and due to its long shelf life, is a staple food in the Andean diet.
The first step of the process for making chuño and tunta is the same. Potatoes are scattered on the ground and water is sprinkled over them. They are left for three to four days during which they freeze through by night and thaw in the day. Due to the specific temperature requirement, Paulina explains that the process is only done during the winter, in July and August, to supply for the whole year. Paulina then walks barefoot over the chuños and tuntas. By doing so, she separates the skin from the potatoes. This is where the process then differs. The chuño is left out in the sun to dry, whilst the tunta is submerged in water for a month in large sacks. The tunta is then spread out to dry in the sun, just as the chuño was.
Leaving Paulina, I want to know: why has there been such a resurgence in popularity for these small, shrivelled and ultimately unappealing looking foods? At the gastronomic restaurant Gustu in La Paz, we ask head chef Mauricio López. He tells me he has been experimenting with different ways to eat and enjoy the chuño; from modern spins on chairo, to blueberry soaked chuño accompanying lamb. Mauricio was full of praise for this ingredient and its uses in his food enjoying its versatility as an accompaniment. As Gustu champions Bolivian cuisine and ingredients, the chuño is commonly featured in its menus. But Mauricio also loves the tunta and tries to incorporate it into his dishes whenever possible. Its plainer taste makes the tunta a somewhat blank canvass for a chef.
Chuños and tuntas have recently made a resurgence due to their adoption at upscale restaurants. However, they have always been very prominent in traditional Bolivian cooking. Their characteristics, such as their incredibly long life and vitamin and mineral-rich make up has led them to be cultivated and eaten for many years. Perhaps in the future, they will receive international recognition as the superfoods they are, just as quinoa has in recent years.
