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One of the biggest moments in Evo’s presidential career is one week away. On January 25 Bolivia will vote in a referendum on whether to adopt the new constitution that Evo has been pushing as part of his effort to bring greater rights and representation to the majority of Bolivians.
The constitution and its 411 articles will be approved or rejected by a single yes/no vote by each Bolivian citizen. Contained within that one vote will be the question of whether the president of Bolivia should be able to serve multiple terms in office (currently he cannot), the degree to which land will be distributed from the current wealthy owners to the impoverished farmers, the accessibility of national health care and future of relations between the nation and the private enterprises that extract its natural resources. It is an awful lot of information to be bundled together into a single vote.
It seems likely that Evo will have the majority needed to see the constitution approved. His popularity has only improved since he took office in 2006. The ratifying of the new constitution would be seen as another major step forward for indigenous rights and as the path to a more inclusive nation.
Despite the seeming inevitability of the outcome, there has been plenty of campaigning by both the YES and NO factions. In Cochabamba before i left this was more sedate, with peaceful gatherings of people beneath an enormous SI! banner in the main plaza. Cochabamba is not Evo’s stronghold, but he does have ample support there.
Arriving in Sucre I arrived in a very different political climate. Sucre is one of the cities most opposed to Evo, it being the original capital and the repository of much of the old money of Bolivia, and thus one of the places that stands to lose most by Evo’s planned reforms. All over the city, in shop windows and in buses, on flags waved from cars and on t-shirts, NO is being declared. Posters place Evo beside Hugo Chavez and Augusto Pinochet. In the main plaza flags are flyig that read ‘with blood and deaths, NO!’. There are small rallies of pro-Evo supporters too, but they are isolated, dwarfed by the adjacent NO rallies, and have none of the vitriolic passion of the NO campaign.
Some of this fervour has been drummed up by misinformation. Advertisements have linked the new constitution with the elimination of religion, and with other catholic abominations such as abortion and homosexuality. Evo and his supporters have been throwing around terms like autonomy and independence, though what exactly their connection is to the constitution is unclear. They are just the buzzwords of Evo’s term.
There is something schizophrenic about this whole process of rewriting the constitution. The date of the referendum has been changed several times. The contents and scope of the constitution has been changed and re-negotiated as opposing parties grapple for an advantage. This has resulted in some very grey areas, such as exactly how much health care will be accessible and to whom. False advertising and the drawing in of every possible unrelated issue (from abortion to Evo himself) has confused the issue greatly. It is unclear exactly how much effect a new constitution would have on day to day life in Bolivia. Perhaps it will usher in the destruction of civilisation as we know it, perhaps it will bring about a Utopia of equality and Evoism.
Perhaps in a week or so sense will finally be made of all this. Or maybe it won’t. But it is going to be a week of great passion and great exertion for Bolivia.
I woke up in the new year and knew it was time to move on. As much as I was enjoying Cochabamba, I’d managed less than two weeks of volunteer work, and had fallen into the old, dissolute expat lifestyle. I expected more of my time in Bolivia.
Deciding once and for all to leave wasn’t easy. I had made good friends and had a great Spanish teacher. I’d wanted to live in Cochabamba for a long time, and six weeks didn’t seem like nearly long enough to get to know a city.
Exacerbating the difficulty was that I had very little idea what would happen when I moved on to Sucre. I didn’t know anyone there, which meant it was unlikely I’d find an apartment or Spanish lessons quite as good as those I’d been lucky enough to find in Cochabamba. There was the opportunity for interesting volunteer work there, but the only confirmation I had of that was a single line in an email.
And yet it was time to move on, to wring as much from my time in Bolivia as possible.
So, again, the sadness of leaving, of packing up a recently established life, of putting final ticks in final boxes, and of saying goodbye to the people and places and habits that I’ve come to enjoy so much.
And one final dump of photos; an attempt to capture just why I’ll miss Cochabamba…
When I lived in Korea if I saw a white guy in the street, I could be almost certain that he was a teacher, that he spoke English but very little Korean, and that he was only living in the country for a few years at most.
Things are not so easy in Bolivia though. A white or blonde or blue-eyed or tall person stands out on the streets of Bolivia, but that does not mean that the person is a gringo. As a blanket term to cover those people who are not gringos, I’ve – very unfairly – labelled them the Ruling Class.
The Ruling Class can be distinguished from resident gringos (i.e. volunteers) by their perfect Bolivian accents, by their more severe, very latin fashion, by their implants and immaculate make-up, and by their studied expressions of disdain for those beneath them.
Unfair as the term may seem, it is none the less true that the whiter people in Bolivia tend to be the wealthier ones. Historically the also tend to dominate Bolivian politics, often to advance their own interests (i.e. staying white, rich and beautiful).
For anyone who is curious, here are some places in Cochabamba at which you can be sure to find the Ruling Class.
At outdoor recreation facilities. Like all white people, the ruling class like to have an impressively even tan. They can be found perfecting their tans at the swimming pools and beach volleyball courts. Being taller and better looking than most people, the ruling class are particularly suited to volleyball. Note that soccer fields cannot be considered as recreation facilities, because they are ubiquitous and because soccer is a poor man’s sport.
At Burger King. Burger King is the only major western franchise in Cochabamba, and as such isn’t viewed as proletarian and common, but as prestigious. Although French fries are available at every eatery in Bolivia, Burger King fries are more expensive and thus considered superior by the ruling class. Burger King is thus a place for looking your best and splashing out with your ample cash.
At any other international eatery. Chicken, potatoes and rice are the staples of the Bolivian diet. Any other foods are considered exotic and thus elite by the ruling class. This is why they are so often found in Brazilian restaurants, or more rarely in Asian restaurants. Brazilian food is considered safer by many because it is not so distant in its exoticism.
North of the river. The river running through Cochabamba separates north from south, and attractive from common. North of the river the city begins to look more blandly suburban, and there is more space for recreational facilities and car parks. This is the ideal neighbourhood of the ruling class.
Behind very high walls topped by barbed wire or broken glass. In many places opulent houses are built to display to the neighbours, provoking jealousy. In Bolivia the nicer your house, the more you conceal it behind gates, walls, guards, broken glass and barbed wire to keep jealous people as far away from it as possible.
In an SUV. A cumbersome, fuel-guzzling vehicle may seem unsuited to the narrow, congested streets of Cochabamba, but these petty inconveniences are far outweighed by the prestige attached to owning such a vehicle, and by the opportunities these present, if you are a male, to ride around with your buddies throwing water balloons at girls. Such vehicles are also useful for keeping expensive hair, shoes, and faces out of the mud and rain when the wet season arrives.
At the Mormon temple. The Mormon temple in Cochabamba – the 82nd in the world – is located far north of the river, in the quietest, poshest area. It and its sprawling complex of buildings are surrounded by a high fence, and its white façade is visible from a great distance. Mormonism, like Burger King, is a western import, and while in much of the world this would not be so, the church in Cochabamba keeps to itself and to its splendid, north-side, ruling class neighbourhood.
After having immersed myself in the gringo volunteer community in Cochabamba, I’ve been able to observe the ways in which the average gringo interacts. In the interests of promoting cross-cultural exchange, I’ve compiled a list of safe conversation topics for anyone interested in engaging with a gringo.
1. How dull Bolivian food is. To create a point of common ground with a gringo, mention how tired you have become of your Bolivian diet of chicken, potatoes and rice. Generate sympathy for yourself while demonstrating your health-consciousness by mentioning that you wish less salt and oil were added to these staples. This works particularly well if the gringo you are engaging is a vegetarian. These are identifiable by their thin, pale, ungainly appearance.
2. How much of a cholita is clothing, and how much is human. Cholitas, the braided, hatted, traditionally-garbed indigenous women are a subject of fascination to gringos. The fascination stems from the fact that cholitas are simultaneously exotic and (generally) unattractive. Mentioning the disproportionately large butts of cholitas, and questioning how much of this bulk is layers of skirt, and how much is actual flesh, is guaranteed to generate much discussion among gringos. Raising the idea of dressing like or dating a cholita is a safe way to add humour to the discussion.
3. Your declining currency. If a gringo conversation is becoming lost in economic jargon, you can bring it back to a more manageable, understandable level by mentioning that the current economic climate has caused your currency’s exchange rate to plummet, and that this is destroying your savings, and forcing you to tighten your belt. You can demonstrate your helpfulness by quoting actual, current exchange rates. This is a particular useful for topic for engaging Australian gringos.
4. How slow Bolivian internet connections are. If you encounter a flustered gringo, it is probable that they have just come from an internet café, or have been stealing wi-fi. Sympathise with them by quoting how many minutes it took you to send a single email, or to open facebook. Lament with them how long it takes to download music and sitcoms. To demonstrate that you have not lost perspective, follow this with an ironic comment about how little most Bolivians have, and that all you can complain about is the internet speed. Follow this with an embarrassed laugh.
5. Which graduate program or career path your volunteer work is qualifying you for. To show your sensitivity, this topic should be prefaced by ‘I really just want to help, but…’. Having done so you will be free to comment on how inefficient many Bolivian NGOs are, but how your perserverance and hard-earned successes will help you qualify for the graduate program or career in international relations that you intend to commence once you return to your home country.
New Years Eve arrived with even less fanfare than Christmas, there being no grand meals or decorations to organise. In language classes everywhere teachers used the multiple holidays to have their students talk about holidays in their home lands. They then explained some of the quaint customs of Bolivia.
Customarily Bolivians sit down to dinner with their families for a midnight meal on New Years Eve. When the clock strikes twelve, twelve grapes are eaten and twelve wishes are made. People change their underwear; into a new red pair if you want the year to bring you love, or into a yellow pair if you would prefer wealth. People run up and down stairs (for some indecipherable reason), and count wads of fake cash to bring prosperity in the coming year. Then they take to the streets.
We approached the new year in a restaurant full of families and white couples. When ’09 hit it did so in an empty bar where we were breaking in our new, colourful underwear on the dance floor.
By the time we plunged down into the somewhat notorious Green Pepper the city had come to life, the streets busy with taxis, and the dance floor busy with the young, the pretty, and the inebriated. Prices inflated and breathing space contracted into a heaving, seething mass of new year sweat and smoke.
When we emerged it was light enough to make out the cigarette burns on my arms. It was a cool light though, the light of the year’s first rain, rinsing off the merry-makers as they hailed cabs that scuttled for the Prado, one of the main avenues of town. There in the rain the festivities carried, crowds of people waiting for their first fricasé of the year, rival bands of roving musicians beating out tunes that got the tired masses dancing. Guys with black eyes or dried blood on the mouths dodged through the crowd, but none of them looked tired. Instead they looked for ladies. Elderly cholitas bundled up in their bright blankets asked for money, but few people had any left.
Admission to the fricasé-serving restaurants was on a case by case basis. We waited patient and demure until we were allowed in out of the rain and cacophony. But all the fun was going on outside. Inside there was only stew.
When we cabbed away, heads nodding, the bands were still playing and more and more clothes were being pulled off and whirled around drunken heads. The rain was still falling and it made everything seem all the more festive.
By the time the rain eased the celebrations were over and the city was sleeping off its excesses, and I went looking for grapes to make sure my twelve wishes were properly registered.
