Evo Morales Ayma

Evo Morales Ayma, from the Aymara village of Orinoca on the Altiplano, here at his headquarters in Cochabamba. I am given a short meeting with Evo on my first day in Bolivia. At this time he is Indigenous leader. During my time in Bolivia he was to become president after the uprising against President Gonzalo Sanchez de Losada.

 

Oruro

Oruro, the Southern Altiplano’s only city and on our route for Orinoca where we are heading, was founded on the copper, silver and tin mined from the surrounding hills. The characteristic features of Aymara dress are the bowler hat and skirts worn with several layers of underskirts. The awayo hung across the back is for carrying babies or any other items.

Cobacabanita

This small village, en route for Orinoca and at the point where the dirt road heads off towards Chile, seems deserted. But the dog and the bikes indicate there must be people around somewhere. At 12,000 feet the soil is sand and salt and full of shell fossils.

Orinoca Square

Orinoca is the Aymara village where Evo Morales Ayma, the Bolivian president, grew up. I come here with Miguel Ayma Tuco’s family, the family of Evo Morales Ayma. Once a year, the extended families congregate for a four-day-and-night fiesta.  Villages are organised by family name and gathered around this central village of Orinoca.

Orinoca dancing

All day and all night we dance, we eat and we drink. And the dust forever billows round us ... and the noise. Out here in this remote corner of the world we are a sea of colour on brown dust. And everywhere the Aymara greeting: shake hands, touch left shoulders with right hands, shake hands again.

 

Shopping

The food, grown locally, unmodified, and supplied fresh each day retains magnificent flavours. McDonald’s did not succeed in Bolivia and closed its doors there due to poor profit margins. In being strongly connected to their culture, their land and their traditional food, which they believe should be prepared with care and dedication, Bolivians have positive impacts on health and environment.

Orange Juice

These street vendors who peel and juice oranges are commonly, and most welcomely, seen around the cities. Another favourite drink is Api. Served hot after meals, it is made of maiz morada (purple maize), lemon, cinnamon and sugar. Chicha, identified with the Cochabamba region, is the favourite alcoholic drink of fermented maize. The maize is chewed in the cheek then laid in the sun to dry, boiled over a fire and then left to ferment. It is drunk from a shared vessel which one person fills up from a flagon and offers to another. Before you drink, you tip a little out to offer to Mother Earth - Pachamama. Then you fill the vessel and offer it on.

Shop vendors

Vendors are very specialised in what they sell. One may sell only stockings, another only potatoes. Likewise the ladies who cook on the streets specialise in one dish for one particular time of day, resulting in a high level of skill in their particular dish.

Orinoca Streets

As we dance the revolution is already rumbling. The movement began in protest against a decision by the government to sell the rights to Bolivian natural gas to America. There is also a growing rebellion against the privatisation of state corporations, and alienation by the attempts of the Bolivian and U.S. governments to stamp out the traditional growing of coca, now the only means of subsistence of many small farmers. Strikes by transport workers, teachers, miners, the workers union, coca farmers, human rights activists, professionals and students are on the increase and the campesinos are blockading the roads with scattered rocks. A state of emergency has been declared with talks between Evo Morales Ayma and President Gonzalo Sanchez de Losada breaking down. There is talk of civil war. The workers union have asked the government to step down. Bolivia has been classified high risk and roads to the airport are blocked.