BOLIVIA FIRST IMPRE

BOLIVIA - FIRST IMPRESSIONS


06.01.1994

In the words of Dilip Mukherjee, the tea expert from Calcutta, this is a God-forsaken place.  I would qualify this by quoting Porfirio Díaz, president of Mexico at the time of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, who said, "Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States".  Although, in geographical terms, Bolivia is much further removed than Mexico from the United States, the one remaining superpower dominates every aspect of life.  

Government policy is determined by whether the U.S. approves or not, and mostly policy revolves around the U.S. drug eradication programme: if you are a good boy and do as we say then we will give you aid.  When government people here say "and then the ambassador came in", they mean the US ambassador - nobody else counts! The newspapers are dedicated to articles about the U.S. reaction to Bolivia's coca programmes. Since we saw the first television interview with the President, who said a lot of sensible things, we have since come to think that he must be a CIA plant.

Unfortunately, aid comes mostly in the form of materiel for repressive measures.  One example will suffice:  a project was allocated US$16M. for alternative development.  However, of the 16M. 15.3M were spent on machinery of war by USAID and only $700,000 were spent on anything to benefit the people, in this case a pig-rearing installation, except that $700,000 was not enough to finish it, so the building is standing there with no electricity, no water and no sewage, but the USAID plaque is up on the wall to celebrate this magnificent donation.

Mexico may have been far from God, but My God! God's self-appointed representatives are here in force - mainly in the shape of U.S.-based evangelical churches: Pentecostals, Seventh Day Adventists, Church of Christ of the Latter Day Saints etc., etc., etc.  This, of course, is all a part of the Rockefeller policy of promoting religious proselytization as part of the anti-communist campaign.  Communism may have disappeared as a force to be reckoned with, and the US may not have agreed with many of the underlying ideas, but they certainly believe wholeheartedly in Karl Marx's opinion that "Religion is the opiate of the people": if you brainwash people with these sectarian ideas you have them under your thumb and captive as long as you can keep them there.

The most unacceptable part of this, as far as I am concerned, is that the churches they build (at least in and near the cities) are enormous edifices, all the more striking since they are surrounded by poor, insanitary housing and squalor, and there would seem to be very little effort put into improving the living conditions of the people.  Filippo, the Italian agronomist, spent last year in the south of the country where a Swedish missionery ruled with a rod of iron, but the only thing he was interested in doing was spreading his creed with virtually no efforts to teach people about hygiene or help them improve their lot.  A significant fact is that among his flock a large number of children died of cholera with no attempt on his part to teach the parents, particularly the mothers, how to avoid such diseases.  VOLVO trucks abound.  Why? Because the Swedish church representatives have the exclusive on importing them to the country.


In economic terms Bolivia would seem to be divided into two separate economies.  A primary teacher (one of the worst paid professionals in Bolivia) earns between 175 and 300Bs. a month (US$65) depending on years of service, a maid earns between 200-300Bs. plus her keep if she lives in, other salaries are around 500Bs. and an engineer might earn about 1,000Bs. (US$250).  The Prefecto of La Paz, the most important prefecture in the country, told Robert that he earned 1,200Bs. a month, his technical personnel earn 500 and secretaries earn 180, so, he said, I am in no position to demand efficiency and no corruption from my staff when I know that what they earn is insufficient. Food, especially fruit, is cheap: a pineapple costs 1B. (25 US cents), but, as far as I can see, everything else is expensive. So, how do people manage?  I have not managed to answer that question. The only response I can think of is that they don't.  The Trade Unions claim that the cost of a family shopping basket for one month is 1,850 Bs. and they are pressing for wage increases so that people can meet their basic needs.  If their calculations are correct, then there are a lot of people living below the breadline. I think the dichotomy is pretty well summed up in the bathroom of the house in Cochabamba: the bathtub has massage nozzles and jets of every description (which I never found out how to use) and yet the water coming out of the taps has to be boiled before consumption.

Teachers are on strike with over a hundred on hunger strike to force the government to do something about their salaries.  The government wants to reform the education system (and it needs it), but the teachers say no amount of reform will do any good if they are not adequately rewarded for their work.  The other day there was a demonstration of former casino workers demanding that the casinos be re-opened.  I don't know when or why they were closed.

On the other hand there are large Japanese and American 4 wheel drive vehicles everywhere, certain people have telephones and faxes and TVs and wear fashionable clothes.  Anything you want you can find - household appliances, electrical goods etc - but all at European prices. What do these people do and where do they earn their money?  One answer might be that people who run import businesses make money, or people who have their own business of whatever kind.  These people work in dollars, so they don't lose on inflation.  In any case, the economy is dichotomous and I still cannot reconcile the prices with what people are supposed to be earning.  A lot of it is said to be drug-related earnings.

The exchange rate was 4.45 bolivianos to the US dollar when we arrived and now it is 4.71.  The currency is grossly over-valued, it seems to me.  Virtually the  only foreign currency you can change (and that you can do on any street corner) is the US dollar.  Pounds Sterling are a non-starter: there is only one place in the whole of Cochabamba where you can change them and they give you nearly the same rate as for the dollar - 5Bs. instead of 4.5 - so you make a great loss in such transactions, and pesetas are absolutely out.


One of the main reasons, it seems logical to assume, why things are so expensive is that Bolivia makes virtually nothing.  Apart from raw materials, such as tin (the bottom dropped out of the market in the 70s), antimony, oil and natural gas (which is sold to Argentina and Brazil - a new contract has just been signed by the President to sell the gas at give-away prices), and forestry products (unfortunately), they sell almost nothing else. There is an explosives industry (fundamental if you have all these coups taking place all the time and as we learned to our horror at Christmas and New Year when there were fireworks exploding all night long), milk processing (the milk is excellent, just like it used to be with proper cream and everything), and not much else that I have been able to discover so far.  Everything is imported. The industrial and commercial power house of the area is undoubtedly Brazil: towels, bedlinen, crockery, pots and pans, fridges, toilet furniture, foodstuffs, cleaning materials, you name it, everything comes from Brazil.  Apart from that, the main supplier of such goods is the US, but these are more expensive.  Electronic goods come from either the US or Japan. Chile is beginning to increase its trade because bilateral relations between the two countries are improving.  The other strong economy is Argentina but, although Bolivia has a border with Argentina, they do not look in that direction and there is very little trade.

The Japanese, who have a strong presence  in the Santa Cruz region, have got the market sewn up when it comes to cars: Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi, and on a more modest level Suzuki, rule the roost.  A close second comes the US represented by Ford and Chevrolet.  There are some Volkswagens made in Brazil, but not so many.  The odd Renault (very odd) and no, but no Citroens or Peugeots.  British cars none at all, except the very exceptional Range Rover.  The cars here need to be very sturdy because outside the towns most of the roads are dirt roads tending towards rocky river beds. Land Rovers, we are told, are imported by the son of the British ambassador, but he must be a rotten businessman because you cannot buy them anywhere.  The reason we know that he imports them is that Robert was at the airport one day and a lady came along driving a Land Rover, so he went up to her and asked her where she got it.  She turned out to be the wife of the ambassador and told him that her son imported them.

At first the traffic was a complete mystery, but I soon realized that it was very simple.  There is no need for indicators, lights or any other accessory in your car, except the horn.  There are no lines on the roads and no traffic lights or give way signs or any such superfluous nonsense. As you approach a junction, you toot your horn and the person who toots first crosses the junction first - dead simple!  However, you need eyes on the back, front, sides and top of your head, because at night cyclists and motor-cyclists ride around with no lights, and outside the town dogs, sheep, cows, ducks, pigs, chickens and anything that may feel like it lie down in the middle of the road to sleep.  It must be said, however, that the animals respond very well to the horn!

Public transport between towns is the domain of the "flota" whilst urban transport is done by "micros".  However, there are other kinds of transport which seem to me to be an excellent idea:  there are "trufis" which are minivans that carry a small number of passengers on a fixed route and "trufi taxis", cars which work on the same principle but carry fewer passengers.  They are cheap, frequent and efficient and I think many places could adopt a similar system.  The trufis are privately owned and, I suppose, have a licence to ply a particular route.

Retailing, as would seem natural, is not very advanced.  There are some supermarkets, but small, and no hypermarkets.  Mostly you find small shops which sell the essentials.  Then there are the open and covered markets and street vendors who will sell you almost anything.  There are some shopping centres with a number of small shops but these are pretty exclusive and would seem to be for the yuppy population.


Hygiene is a difficult task for the majority of the population.  There are schemes to provide water and sanitation but, for the most part, this is lacking.  All water must be boiled before use, particularly during the rainy season, but many of the families that live on the street can only drink from the fountains.  As a result illness is rife.  50% of deaths are children under the age of 5 and the primary cause of death is diarrhoea. Second are respiratory diseases and third polio and other children's illnesses.  Another fairly indicative scene I saw reminded me of the American western films where the quacks sell medicine in the street.  At the open market there was a great throng surrounding a man who was extolling the benefits of his potions and explaining the dire consequences for the target - worming remedies.

The population must be at least 70% indigenous and most of the rest mestizo.  There is a very small ethnic European community who, of course, are the dominant class.  In general the people are not handsome as the Brazilians are handsome,  Some of the indigenous women have quite beautiful facial features and when they smile their faces light up, but they are careworn as a rule.  When they are young the indigenous women have a very upright carriage but, as they get older and carry children and heavy loads on their back, they get increasingly bent.  Where in Brazil even fat people move with grace, here the people do not: the gait of the indigenousAndrean peoples is fairly stiff and since the rest of the population is a mixture I suppose they inherited the gait too.  The Europeans are pretty graceless at the best of times so .... What people do have, especially the indigenous people, is magnificent thick hair!

The people are peaceful, courteous and quiet, they speak in low tones (inherited from the Quechua speakers, I think, who are very soft-spoken) and are generally amenable.  On the whole they have no drive, but this may be due to the fact, as someone suggested to me, that there are no incentives in society to make an effort because they don't seem to get anywhere. With so many military coups in the past there was no incentive for national or foreign investors to set up businesses, so employment opportunities are scarce and poorly remunerated.  However, they do seem to be steady workers, even if they don't "knock their pan out" working.  And why should they if they get paid so poorly?  However, people do make an effort to get work.  A fellow who has a qualification in rural development went to the Chapare to see if Robert could give him a job: this involved taking a bus from Quillacollo to Cochabamba (a relatively short journey) and another bus from Cochabamba to Chimoré which, by bus, is an 8-10 hour journey depending on the state of the "road"!

With such a high percentage of indigenous population, similar to Guatemala, one of the first things which struck me was that there is virtually no sign of  crafts anywhere.  Whereas in Guatemala there was an awareness, even among the upper classes, of the treasure their country had in terms of indigenous culture, here this does not seem to exist.  The awayu or cloth which the Indian women use to carry babies and goods on their back is brought from their home villages and I have yet to see any place where it can be bought.  I have been told that there is one shop in Cochabamba where they sell some, but I have yet to find it.  Alpaca wool is certainly appreciated abroad but here the only people who seem to value it are precisely foreign traders who sell alpaca sweaters at inflated prices.  I have found one shop in the centre run by a Bolivian where prices are more reasonable but there is no general awareness of what the country has to offer and most certainly no attempts to promote it.

Again a newspaper article may give us the clue by bringing us back to the ubiquitous churches.  Apparently over the past 20 years the policy of these organizations has been to devalue indigenous culture.  This can only be part of the explanation, because in Guatemala there are plenty of such churches too and yet there is a strong awareness of the value of indigenous culture.  Perhaps the difference lies in that in Guatemala the upper classes see the cultural (and commercial) value of their heritage, and here people do not.  All American (and unfortunately Middle American) aesthetics rule O.K? - plastic doilies and all!


These are simply first impressions which may be modified as time goes by, but I think it does no harm to record one's first reaction as a kind of control.

Some weeks ago Robert committed the cardinal sin of eating a piece of fruit withour peeling it and within 10 minutes was struck down with an almighty attack of Moctezuma.  Three days later he was so weak he could hardly move.  A group of doctors from the World Health Organization (whom he was suppoed to be conducting around) ended up having to visit him instead.  Although he had been drinking fluid he had electrolytic deficiency due to the loss of sodium but mainly potassium salts and had to have oral rehydration therapy.  He lost a fair amount of weight but is fine now.

Our boxes arrived on January 21st.  I use the term boxes advisedly, because about half the contents were missing.  I was on my own because Robert was at a meeting which lasted all day and he did not get home till nearly 10p.m.  Before the boxes came the transport company called to warn me that at least 2 of the them looked as if they had been opened and I should check them at once.

When I started to unpack I realised immediately that the boxes were half empty, so I started to check against the inventory.  It wasn't really necessary, because every single item of value, from the computer to the Irish linen tea towels, including the brand new video camera and my flute, had  disappeared in a meticulous sacking operation.  All the decent clothes have gone too, so I think we can safely say that we are "back to basics".  Since then I have been running around like an idiot trying to get all the documentation for the insurance claim.  The Lloyds representative came the following Monday and the eventually everything was sent to Vienna along with all the other documents.  So far we have heard nothing more.

At first we thought the robbery had taken place in the La Paz customs and the Minister of the Interior was all ready to start an investigation there.  However, my own research revealed that when the stuff reached La Paz it was already 60Kgs. short. The first thing everyone asked was whether the shipment came through Lima which is apparently a notorious black spot.  It did, and what is more it reached Lima on December 6th and sat there till December 29th., so they had more than ample time to check through everything and then reseal the boxes.  That is the worst of these cardboard things: there is a lot to be said for the old tea chest!

Of course, we were upset and disappointed, particularly Robert, but, in a way, I can understand it.  Here are these people earning a pittance and all these items which they could either use or sell pass under their noses every day.  It's understandable.