TAMBO QUEMADO

TAMBO QUEMADO

February 8 1995

Did somebody say there was a road from Bolivia to the Chilean border?  A ROAD?  A Track? a trail?  They are making a road, it is true, but that is surely not quite the same thing!  

The new road from Cochabamba to La Paz is fine, but, of course, we had to leave that at Patacamaya where there is a sign to Puerto Japonés (What Japanese would be mad enough to come there remains a mystery to me), but a lady told us it was better to continue a little and take another road to the left at a bar where the buses stop.  We did that and were confronted by a multiplicity of dirt tracks.  Asking one man whether this was the road to Chile he replied "Claro que sí".  What was so clear about it continues to elude me, but he obviously thought it was clear enough.  We continued along the track and some time later came upon road building machinery.  That was fine because, although the surface was not asphalted, it was firm.  However, the smooth going did not last long.  The road works stopped and tyre tracks ran here and there all over the altiplano where truck drivers had obviously taken the most convenient route when it was raining.  We chose one and carried on.  

Not a living soul.  Very little in the way of vegetation, just sparse scrub.  Miles between one adobe hut and the next.  A dry salt lake.  The track got worse - ruts larger, deeper, sandier.  We stopped and Robert got out to ask some girls and a lady at a hut if this was the right way to Chile.  The girls ran away to hide and the old lady sat hunkered down at the door, impassive.  She could not help anyway because she only spoke Aymara.  Eventually the two girls, having wrapped themselves up in their cardigans and pulled their skirts down as far as they could, confirmed that the track in front of their hut, not the one behind which we were on, did indeed go to Chile.  Worse and worse.  Robert got out at another hut where he could see an old man herding llamas a little way away.  At the sight of this bearded stranger  a clutch of little children scrambled off and hid in the hut, all darkness and misery.  When he reached him, the old man was no use as a source of information because he was stone deaf and probably only spoke Aymara anyway.  Some distance later I got out and asked a lady with two young children minding their llamas.  Yes, right road but a long, long way to go.   On and on.  Worse and worse  - relieved only by the elegance of the llamas grazing on the sparse vegetation.

We were on the point of turning back to Oruro and trying the road to Iquique the next day when a pick-up truck appeared out of nowhere - the first vehicle we had seen since we left the road-building team behind.   This was the old road to Chile but it was dreadful, they said, and we would do better to go back and try and get on to the new road.  We would come to a hut with tyres outside.  There there was a track to the left.  If we took that, we would eventually come to the new road.  We took their advice.

In fact there was only one tyre outside the hut, empty except for a few chickens sheltering from the sweltering heat.  We stopped.  A campesino was walking in our direction.  Maybe he would know how to reach the new road.   He did.  He would come with us, so I gave him the front seat to act as guide.  Down the track, just as the men in the truck had told us, but the track did not last long.  Cross country. He had been walking all day long because he had come to visit a relative and was now on his way back home.  No schools here.  No doctor.  No nothing.  Survive or die.  Down a steep incline like a V which we thought we would never get out of - but fortunately we did.  The campesino got out at the place most convenient to him, rejoicing in his ride and informing us that we would soon reach the new road.  We did.  At times like this the power of prayer and hope and the realization of our powerlessness in the face of Nature are more than abundantly clear.  The certainties of urban life have no place in these bleak surroundings where nothing is foreseeable except the harshness of life and the inhospitable landscape.


Suddenly before us was a road block with more road-building equipment.  Sorry you cannot pass.  But we want to get to Tambo Quemado to get into Chile.  Fine, but not on this road.  How do we get there? On the old road.  Not on your life!  We have just come from there and it is impassable.  Impasse.  Argue, cajole.  Then the engineer in charge appeared on the scene.  United Nations.  Going to Chile.  Persuade, persuade.  O.K.  You can go.  The reason why we have the block up is that there were so many trucks coming and going that they were ruining our work before we had finished it.  We understand.  Thanks a million.  Off we went.

Some kilometres further on another block manned by a ruffian and his apprentice.  You can´t pass.  It ‘s forbidden.  We know that, but at the last block they gave us special permission to pass.  Where is your written authorization?  We haven´t got one.  Well, you will have to drive back and ask the "licenciado" for one.  There is no licenciado there.  He is an engineer and he has given us permission to pass.  Negative response, waiting for a backhander.  Lift that barrier and let us pass.  Finally we blunderbussed him into opening up the block.  Then, not long after - dismay! - a fork.  Which one to take?  Nothing for it.  Back to the ruffian.  The apprentice immediately chirped up that it was the road to the left.  However, since we had no confidence in the accuracy of this information as they were mad at having to let us through, Robert insisted, asking them their names  and reminding them that they had no idea of who they were talking to and that they ought to bear in mind that if the information was wrong they were both very liable to lose their jobs.  At that, the same ruffian´s apprentice vounteered that it was in fact the right fork.  Which piece of information to believe?

We were inclined to think that the latter was more likely to be correct, but another vehicle came by and took the left fork so we decided to check that out first since there was a kind of camp not too far away.  A truck driver at the camp was able to tell us that it was indeed the right fork so we turned around again.  Again the road disappeared and the solitude and heat of the altiplano in mid-afternoon weighed down heavier than ever.  The perfectly conical snow-capped peak of the Parinacota Volcano on the right and twin volcanos with their flattened crater tops on the left grew nearer, which was a comfort.  Time wore on and we ate up kilometres.  Silence.  Solitude and emptiness.  At last the road-building team again.  Another two hours to the border.  It was now 4p.m. and 8 hours since we had left Cochabamba.  On we plodded.  More road-building.  I never thought I would be so glad to see road-builders, the only sign of  another living soul in that landscape of vast empty flatness punctuated by  tortured volcanic protuberances.  

The members of these road-building gangs are reminiscent of the pioneers of the Wild West building the railroad: colourful characters each with his own particular eccentricity.  One we stopped to ask for information was a Brazilian engineer with his front teeth missing and a huge straw hat with multicoloured scarves entwined around the brim and streaming out behind him in the brisk breeze of the altiplano.  Although it was hot - about 33ºC - most of the men were wearing balaclava helmets to cover their noses in an attempt to avoid breathing in some of the dust which blew thick all around.   Another gang.  This time, more precise information.  18 kilometres to Tambo Quemado said the engineer after a swift calculation.  Thank God.  The sun was now low in the sky and we were anxious to reach the border before nightfall.  

Then disaster.  Some kilometres further on all progress was halted because a huge truck had got bogged down in the sand and they were trying to dig it out.  We could take a track to the left, or we could wait.  We decided to wait because we had been told that this new road would take us direct to the border whereas there was no guarantee where the other route would land us and there were not many minutes of daylight left.  


The men dug and dug until the rear right wheel was free of sand.  Then they threw huge rocks down and manoeuvred them in under the wheel in the midst of a swirling dust storm which obliterated everything.  The sand scratched the skin like sandpaper.  When that was done, a machine backed down and the truck was tied to it.  Pull, pull.  Wheels spinning.   Back down again.  Pull some more until at last the wheels started to turn and slowly the machine and truck emerged from the dip and the rut.  Next an earth-moving machine went in to pound a huge rock into the sand and flatten the way for other vehicles.  Finally, after half an hour or so, we were on our way once more.  

At last, with the last rays of daylight we reached Tambo Quemado, a desolate, forlorn cluster of adobe huts at an altitude of 4,660m.  On the right all the official buildings - Customs, Immigration, Police.  The cold wind tore at our thin clothing as we got out to proceed with all the formalities.  We were too impatient to be gone to bother to rummage around in the luggage in search of warmer things. Passports, permit to take the vehicle out of the country.  The village children,  drawn by this new attraction with two dogs, came running out from under the wheels of all the trucks waiting on the far side of the border.  Much hilarity greeted Simon's frantic barking and hands pressed against the windows were a further provocation.  Papers and more papers.  Finally the formalities were completed.  No, you cannot check the vehicle.  We have diplomatic immunity.  Ah well, then how about some cooperation?  What does that mean, asked Robert, knowing full well what it meant.  Well, something for the wawas (children).  Sixty bolivianos did the trick and they went off as happy as Larry.

The barrier pole lifted and we started off once more, buoyed up at the prospect of reaching the surfaced road on the Chilean side.  But where was it?  A rutted track was all there was and it seemed to go for miles.  Getting dark now.  At last half way across the seemingly endless no-man´s land on the Bolivian side the dirt track was suddenly  transformed into an asphalt road.  What joy!  What relief!  

At 8:15p.m. (one hour later Chilean time) in the pitch black we reached the Chilean border post.  Here all is order and cleanliness, all the more striking in comparison with the dilapidated installations on the Bolivian side.   The first building on the left is the carabinero post.  No, you must first go to the Immigration Office.  Passports, papers.  Customs.  Temporary import licence for the car.  No, you cannot check the luggage.  We have diplomatic immunity.  Well, all right then.  Sanitary Authorities.  Dog health certificates and international travel papers.  Finally back again to the police office.  Driving licence.  At last, half an hour later we were free to resume our journey.

From the travel information provided by the Chilean Consulate in La Paz we knew that there was a camp site near the border and this had been confirmed by the policemen at the border post, but it was so dark that we decided that the surest thing would be to continue to the nearest village,  Putre, some 50 kilometres away.  Mounted police along the road gave us instructions and told us to ask again at the military barracks some way down the road.  More information, all accurate, and at long last, at 10:15p.m. exactly fourteen hours after leaving Cochabamba, heads pounding from the altitude, we reached the hotel in Putre.  

In Chile they put the clocks forward by an hour in summertime so it was 11:15p.m. Despite this, they prepared some vegetables and hot milk and honey for us.  The temperature now was a chilling minus 3ºC, a far cry from the scorching 33ºC of the afternoon.  Turning on the heater in the room we prepared to rest.  Sleep was difficult because our pulse was racing from the altitude and we had to make an effort to breathe deeply to get enough oxygen from the thin air.  But the bed was welcome and our relief at having accomplished the arduous trip were reward enough.

That is the chronicle of the first day of our holidays.  

THE FLOOD

THE FLOOD


January 31 1995

Well, now I know how Noah felt.  When I wrote my last letter to you in the middle of the afternoon of January 31, I said that there was a deluge outside.  There was, and it did not stop but continued all night long.  In the middle of the night one of the watchmen came to waken us because some of the workers who live in cabins in the grounds of the dairy were marooned (basically because he, the watchman, had been asleep on the job and when he woke up the water was already high).  The river had risen by about 3m. and the cabins were now virtually in the middle of the water where the current was extremely strong.  Trees were rushing past at about 60m.p.h. (and that is NO exaggeration). The cabin where the vet stays  (Fortunately he was not in it at the time because he had gone to Santa Cruz) went sailing off down the river.  Since we have no boat or anything (Robert asked for a Zodiac and ouboard motor a year ago and nobody paid any attention), we got a couple of inner tubes from the tyres of one of the lorries and two of the workers who are strong swimmers swam across with them with a cable attached which was being held by Robert, Caruso (the Argentinian), the night watchman and a couple of others who pitched up.  They managed to reach the old carpentry above which lived two workers, one with his wife and a 10 day old baby.  From there they managed to get across to another cabin next to the one which had just been washed away and bring Gonzalo over to the carpentry shop.  

By then it was clear that with the inner tubes it would be impossible to evacuate the mother  and baby because the current was too strong and it would be too difficult - if not impossible - for the people to hold them.  What to do?  We got some stronger cable which they took across and tied to one of the wooden pillars of the carpentry and the other end we tied to a tree.  Things were getting pretty desperate because the water had risen another metre and a half and Robert was afraid that if one of these tree "torpedoes" were to hit the fragile structure again the whole carpentry would collapse and then there would be no chance of saving any of them.  The father was  too shocked to take the responsibility of bringing the baby across. Gonzalo and Milton were not good enough swimmers to be able to carry the baby, hold on to the cable and at the same time propel themselves across, and the mother was definitely not able to do that.  So, I asked one of the strong swimmers if he felt he could do it and he agreed, although it was a big responsibility because, if anything went wrong, I am sure he would always feel that he was to blame.  The other good swimmer was out of commission because he had been battered against a tree and his hand was injured.

It was a hard job to convince the mother to let go of the baby, but eventually it was wrapped up in a bit of plastic and then in a blanket and placed on the nape of this chap´s neck and the blanket firmly tied around him.  He jumped into the water and, holding on to the cable, came hand-crossing across the river with Robert and the others up to their necks in water pulling and hauling on this side.  I had dry things on this bank to wrap the baby in although they did not stay dry for long with the torrents of water that were falling.  The baby did not bat an eyelid!  When the mother saw that the baby was safe and sound on this side she came across too and then all the others followed, just in time to see two of the walls of the carpentry collapse.  They were going to call the baby Israel but Robert said they should call it Moisés.  Moisés it is going to be.


All the cabins will have to be dismantled and what can be salvaged will be used to build new ones on higher ground.  In fact nobody should ever have built anything down there because it is clearly part of the river bed when the river is in flood.  People say that when the Swedish missionary was building down there they told him this but his reply was "God is on my side".  What a cretin!  All the trees have been washed away too and now that the waters have subsided there is about 2m. of mud everywhere, including inside the electricity house which was full of water.

That was another worry, so all the electricity had to be shut off in case everything went up in smoke.  Now Robert says that he wants all that equipment transferred up to relatively safer higher ground.  Not a single soul from the UN called to find out if we were all right or anything.  Not a cheep.  Luckily the telephone to the house is still working because the wires come up a hill but all the other telephones in the area are out of order because the cables were washed downriver.

About midday the birds began to squawk and sing and move around a bit so we knew that the rain was going to ease off.  By late afternoon the waters had abated enough to be able to try and assess the damage.  When things had calmed down a bit we tried to get into Ivirgarzama.  That was not possible because the whole place was completely under water.  Several people were washed away.

At the height of the emergency I called the office in Chimoré and asked the watchman there to go to the UMOPAR (the military) to ask them to come and do something to help the people.  The reply was that they had enough to do looking out for themselves!

The other night watchman slept right through the whole catastrophe.   We had long suspected that he slept all night but had no proof.  This time he was caught red-handed.  Robert and Milton. the electrician, stepped over him about 6 times in the course of the night and day because he was sleeping in the generator house and, when they cut  off the mains supply and connected the generators, he did not even wake up!  At 5:30pm he emerged to start his night´s "work" whereupon Robert dismissed him on the spot.  He had the gall to say that he worked hard for his living not like these filthy foreigners who do nothing at all.  He was in his native country and nobody would dismiss him in a hurry.  He would take the whole thing to the Trade Union and then we would see because he was a revolutionary.  Robert said he was most impressed with his contribution towards saving his fellow countrymen in the middle of the storm, so good-bye.  Come back tomorrow to collect whatever is due to you.  Thank you and good night.  Off he stormed!

The roads to both Santa Cruz and Cochabamba were cut because several bridges had collapsed.  Filippo and Monica arrived back in Santa Cruz yesterday morning and, since the driver had almost been washed away on the way to collect them, he tried to take the old road from Santa Cruz to Cochabamba.  It took them 10 hours to get there because there were avalanches all the way.  They will try and come in to the Chapare from Cochabamba today, although last night the road was closed.  It has not rained since so maybe they will make it.  

My conclusion from all this is that the rainforest should be left as Nature intended.  Everyone should go back to where they came from and the Yukis and Yuras, the tribes who have lived here for centuries, should be left to live as they have always done.  The more trees that are cut down the worse this kind of situation will become.  

SAMAPAITA

SAMAPAITA

The weekend of November 25-27 we went to Santa Cruz.  The idea was to visit the ruins of Samapaita which Monica had visited with her mother.  Driving out of Santa Cruz along the old Santa Cruz - Cochabamba road one realizes for the first time why Santa Cruz's official name is Santa Cruz de la Sierra.  It had been a mystery to me because the perspective from the Chapare road into Santa Cruz is absolutely flat.  However, about 40Kms. out of the town the foothills of the Andes begin and the road which follows the course of the River Piraí begins to twist a little.  

The river which rises at Samaipata has cut a great canyon through the mountains which rise fairly steeply on either side.  The geological formation of red and yellow sandstone is very young and unstable, which means that avalanches are frequent, bringing huge rocks down on to the road.  They are made more common by the tremendous erosion caused by burning the forest on the slopes of the hills to make way for cultivation. The rock faces are quite dramatic with huge medallion "sculptures" where great slabs have fallen away. This area is being invaded by landless peasants from the Cochabamba valleys and elsewhere who simply arrive, decide where they want to stay, cut down the trees, burn the remainder and start  planting.  At first they erect a precarious structure of wooden poles which they cover with plastic.  As time goes by they progress to a more stable dwelling with a palm roof and wattle walls and later perhaps mud bricks and corrugated asbestos sheeting.  Human pressure on the land is the main cause of deforestation, erosion and destruction.

The vegetation is tropical at first but, as the road climbs, it becomes more temperate or sometimes Mediterranean with pines on the upper slopes. One of the most exciting aspects are the rock faces completely colonized by orchids or every kind which cling precariously to the smooth surfaces. There are some magnificent properties along the route, obviously the mansions of drug barons.  The people in this area are a mixture of Andean, Amazonian and lowland peoples because this area is a point of convergence of the Amazonian and Andean cultures.

120Kms. out of Santa Cruz is the signpost to "El Fuerte" or the Fort.  On the left a dirt track heads into the hills.  At first it descends and crosses the incipient River Piraí at the bottom of the gorge and then climbs steeply up to the "fort" which stands at 2,000m.  Fortunately it was dry because otherwise the road would have been impassable.  It was also fortunate that it was cloudy because up on the crest with no tree cover the sun is strong, even on a cloudy day.  There was also a stiff breeze blowing which was welcome and a novelty because in the Chapare winds are very rare.


The "fort" was not really a fort at all but a ceremonial centre of some kind.  It is a solid rounded rock of red sandstone forming the crest of a hill.  Into the rock a series of incisions have been made.  At the top there is a rounded, flat table.  There is also a kind of well-like depression with three seats cut into it.  This is where the priests would have sat.  There is another well and from this there descend two rectangular channels in one of which diamond shapes have been cut representing the skin markings of the rattlesnake.  The purpose of this is not clear but it would appear that liquid, either water or chicha, was poured into the well and flowed down the channels.  The incisions made the liquid flow more slowly so that by the time it reached the bottom it had become warmer.  At the bottom of the rock there are a couple of medallion shapes.  The one on the right is badly eroded but the one on the left clearly depicts a puma shape.  There are other carvings also depicting tropical jungle animals such as jaguars. The authors of this stage of the centre were the Chané, an Amazonian Indian tribe.

According to Chacho González, the UNIDO Bolivia national representative who accompanied a now famous achaeologist friend of his on some of the earliest studies of the rock, told me that some archaeologists believe that the site was a huge meteorological station because it sits astride a point where the tropical and Andean winds meet (This explains the fact that there is tropical vegetation on one side and barrenness on the other).  The two rectangular channels would therefore have acted as rain gauges.  On the right-hand side there is apparently a calendar cut into the rock which is hit by the sun in such a way that, in conjunction with the wind and rain information, it would allow them to determine the onset of the rainy season and hence predict the time to sow: this was one of the most important functions of the priestly class in all pre-Columbian American cultures.

On the right side of the rock rectangular niches have been cut into the rock, sometimes a small one beside a taller one.  It would appear that either statues were placed there or beautiful young girls were exhibited in them.  These niches may have been made by the later occupants of the centre, the Incas, who conquered the area at a later date.  None of the engraved motifs are of Inca origin. In some of the niches round holes are to be seen.  These were made by modern-day bounty hunters who thought that maybe there was treasure hidden in the rock and they tried to dynamite it!

The last occupants of the centre, and this is why it got the name "the "fort" were the conquering Spaniards who saw the strategic importance of such a site.  At 2,000m. it affords an all-round panoramic view of the surrounding countryside and a lookout station was posted there.  Four wooden posts were embedded in the rock and a palm roof probably afforded shade and protection from the rain.

All around the rock the vegetation is scarce and more temperate: Robert even found cranberries!  However, on the right side forest rises and inside it the microclimate is quite different: it is warm and humid.  In this forest there are a number of buildings which would appear to have been dwellings associated with the centre.  The site which was only discovered in 1974 is being excavated by the University of Bonn.  The day we were there was the last day of excavation for this season because the rains will soon begin and then it will be impossible to get up to the site.  They will start again in April or so.  These dwellings are being excavated and rebuilt using the original technique: adobe bricks coated with more mud on the outside.  A large amount of ceramics has been found at the site.  It is not clear as yet whether the this was merely a ceremonial site where people came at certain times of the year or whether it was a habitation site occupied all year round.  

Close to the nearest dwellings is a rectangular court with a double wall on three sides.  Apparently this was some kind of game court (ball games?) and there was seating on the three sides with the walls.  

As we wandered around the site, a condor did indeed pass by!  


The mystery is the water supply.  So far no water supply has been found in the immediate vicinity.  Two hydrologists were prospecting.  A little policeman on duty to guard the site, who provided the scant information we managed to glean, took us to see a natural well in the stone.  They have gone down 30m. and it still continues but it is now filled with leaves and vegetation to 8 m. from the surface.  It never fills up with water which would seem to indicate that it communicates with some underground stream but as yet no information is available on this.

He also took us to see a tree, the suburú, which drips sap all day long every day.  If you stand under it it feels like it is about to rain, large drops falling on your head.  This creates a special microclimate under the tree.

So far no publications have been produced on the excavations at Samaipata so there are no explanatory pamphlets or notes at the site.  This is a pity because I think people would derive greater benefit from their visit if some information was available.  However, according to the policeman, they are now preparing some explanatory boards which will be posted around the rock, and later a publication will be produced with the information they have got so far.

THE DOWNFALL OF OP

THE DOWNFALL OF O.P.

At the beginning of November the annual Feria took place in Cochabamba and the project took a stand. The Cochabamba tea representative, who owes the tea company a lot of money, wanted to have half the stand for himself, but Robert said he could not because the deposit he had made on behalf of the project was not really a payment made out of his own pocket as he had construed it but was merely being deducted from his large debt.  So, the stand was to be shared by all the plants and he could participate purely as a guest of the project.  Before this was all thrashed out this man had arranged for his daughter and a friend of hers to be on the stand selling tea.  However, when his original plans were forcibly changed, he decided only to have his daughter on the stand and, although he paid the other girl, she was not to be there.  Nobody in the project knew anything about this arrangement at all.

On the last day of the Feria the girl and her mother arrived on the scene and, when the mother saw the cholitas (indigenous girls wearing their polleras or voluminous skirts), she was furious, rounded on G. and said "So you turned down my daughter in favour of these cholitas!"

"No, not me," he said. "It was him" pointing at René, the manager of the dairy.  Then the woman launched herself at René, but he pointed out that the project worked with these people and that is why they were there and that Mr. G’s arrangements had nothing to do with him.  Whereupon, she turned around again,
"You poof, so you are blaming someone else for your own scheming.  Take that!" and she slapped him squarely on the face.  (The insult she used is very strong here in Bolivia where nobody ever uses swear words or insults unless tempers are running high, and even then it is not very common).

G's daughter, seeing the women slap her father, slapped her friend's mother.  At that precise moment O. P. Z. arrived on the scene.  He is a Peruvian tea consultant who was working for the project when Robert arrived.  He is tall, well-built and pompous in the extreme.  Walking in his usual decorous fashion, he had barely turned the corner of the stand when G ´s daughter said, "It´s his fault".  The irate mother turned on him and started to vent her anger, shouting "You son of a bitch!" and jumping up to slap him on the face.  The cholitas were all scandalised at such language and their eyes were out on stalks seeing the whole affair going on in the passage in front of the stand.  "Señora, señora" he said, but on she went slapping him, so he just slapped her back.  The daughter then ladled into him and he slapped her too.  At that point the daughter warned that she was going to get her boyfriend and then he would see .....

The boyfriend duly arrived, gave O. P. Z. a few good left hooks as a result of which he had to have six stitches above his eyebrows.  Then events took an unexpected turn.  A girl who was working on the stand next door came rushing into the passage, squared up to the boyfriend saying "So, you are her boyfriend!  Take that!  (wallop, wallop) I am supposed to be your girlfriend.  Since when have you got another girlfriend?" and a great barney ensued between "the boyfriend" and the two girlfriends who started pulling each other's hair.  

When the boyfriend saw the great gash in O. P.’s forehead and realised that he had beaten up "un señor" he was repentant and kept begging pardon - maybe as a way of extricating himself from the insults raining down on his head from the two girlfriends.  


The only disappointment about this whole affair is that the video cameraman was so shocked that he didn't film the episode so we have no documentary evidence.  One thing is sure: never again will the campesinos stand in awe of O. P.!  Now Robert just says "señoras, señoras" and everyone falls about laughing just thinking of pompous O. in such demeaning circumstances.

TOTAL ECLIPSE

TOTAL ECLIPSE

On Thursday November 3rd between 7:30 and 9:30 a.m. we had a total solar eclipse.  Scientists came from all over the world to Bolivia to observe the event because at Huancaya near Potosí, which is at an altitude of over 4.500m, visibility was expected to be excellent.  

During the preceding days there were announcements on the radio informing people that this occurrence would take place, that the sky would grow dark and it would become chilly, that animals might get agitated but that it was a natural phenomenon and nobody should be afraid.  Rigoberta Menchú, the Nobel Peace prizewinner from Mexico, also came, and she said that solar eclipses are related to life not death and people had nothing to fear.

It was a clear sunny morning.  At 7:45a.m. when the sun is already fairly high in the tropics, the shadows began to lengthen a little and the quality of the air began to change.  It gradually became cooler.  However, due to the strength of the tropical sun, the light from the halo still around the sun at the point of total eclipse was so strong that it never really became dark.  In fact, at that point both the temperature and the quality of light closely resembled those of a perfect summer´s day in Scotland!  By 9:30 the event had passed and the sun returned to its usual scorching intensity.

ACCIDENTS

ACCIDENTS


In the middle of October one of the dairy project's drivers had an accident on his way to Santa Cruz to make a delivery.  He had set out about 3:30a.m. and at Entre Ríos, some 70 Kms. away (It was dark, naturally),  a drunk cyclist came out of a "night-club".  A bus and a van were following close behind the lorry so he could not brake or they would have run into him.  He swerved into the ditch but still did not avoid the cyclist who was thrown up on to the bonnet, hit the windscreen which broke, and then fell into the ditch.  The serious part is that the driver did not stop - he drove on to Santa Cruz. When he called from there he was not sure whether the cyclist was dead or not.

When Robert heard this he was furious, and when the fellow came back from Santa Cruz he was dismisssed immediately.  René, the manager of the dairy, and Wilfredo, the production manager, went on a recce to Entre Ríos to find out exactly what the situation was.  They went to the police with the pretext that a person from the place had been contracted to do an inventory at the dairy and had absconded with the key to the cold store, which is why they were trying to track him down.  Did the police know of anyone of that name (an invented one, of course).  No, they did not.  Had there been any accidents recently - maybe that is why he had not come back to work.  Yes, there had been.  Last night.  A fellow on a bicycle had been hit and was in the hospital.  His boss was paying the medical bill.  Lucky that it must have been a small car because if it had been a truck he would be dead!  (Just goes to show how alcohol relaxes the muscles making drunks less prone to breaking bones).

Reprehensible behaviour to run off like that after an accident.  And it is.  However, things are not so clear-cut as they appear in the context of the first world.  If he had stopped, the police would have put him straight in jail and he would have stayed there for an age until (if ever) his case came up for trial.  Meanwhile the police would be trying to extract bribes from him.

The lawyer who came to do some work for the UN (the nephew of the President) told us that standard practice among lorry drivers is to carry a crowbar or some similar implement.  If they have a serious accident, they get out and kill the victim, because it is better to have a dead person than one maimed for life.  If the person is dead the company can go to the family and pay them US$1,000 or so compensation and that keeps them happy.  However, if the person is injured and maimed the problem is not the victim or even the family.  It is the police.  They keep coming back demanding more and more money to keep quiet or else they will concoct evidence and have the person in jail for the rest of his life.  This minimum jail term is likely to be around 10 years for an accident.  


And jail conditions are not like they are in even the worst and most over-crowded jail in Europe.  According to a Human Rights report just out, overcrowding in the Cochabamba jail is of the ratio of 100:1.  There are 100 people in the space designed a hundred years or more ago for one person.  There are only two latrines and no showers for all the inmates and there are no kitchen facilities: the prisoner's family must bring food every day or bring parcels of ingredients which the prisoners cook for themselves in any corner they can find. If he has no family then he must buy food from the other prisoners so long as he has money to do so.  If not, then he dies of hunger and that, according to the report, is not such an uncommon occurrence.  The worst of it all is that 93% of the prisoners in the jail are still waiting for their cases to come up for trial and they have mostly been there for a minimum of 5 years.  

In the case of prisoners detained under Law 1008 (the US-inspired anti-drug law) no bail is admitted.   The director of the jail himself gave the researchers examples of people who were totally innocent – their innocence had been proved on up to two occasions at the local court and at the Cochabamba High Court, - but they had to wait till their case came up before the Supreme Court at Sucre before they were released.  In most cases the evidence was cooked up by the UMOPAR or they had forced people to sign or put their thumbmark on "confessions" when they were under torture - burned with cigarette ends, electric shocks on the genitals, being hung upside down for days, etc.  One man had the powder used in tear gas bombs blown into his eyes with the result that he is now totally blind: he was a carpenter here in Chimoré. The director of the prison allows him to set up a little stand at the door of the prison and sell knick-knacks to people in order to be able to eat.

How´s that for justice?

No wonder the guy just kept going!

DEATH

DEATH

Towards the end of October news came that the daughter of the President of the Villa 14 Association had died.  Ignacio is a nice man and Robert went to see him the day of the funeral.  The girl was 15 years old and pregnant.  The schoolteacher had forced her to stay behind after school. Then he took her out of school and had her at his house (Her cousin who was also beginning to receive the same sort of attention opted to drop out of school).  This goes to show the kind of power individuals with a certain social standing (and that of schoolteachers is not so high) have in the community.  When she died her hands were completely red and green stuff was coming out of her breasts so the suspicion is that she was trying to take something to abort.  

Ignacio was absolutely distraught. He said to Robert.

"I had so many hopes for her.  In our lives you must have hope.  That is the very last thing you can lose.  She had been to school since she was five and she was clever, and now ....... look what we have come to.  She is dead."

Robert went to see the doctor to find out if he had seen the girl and what he thought of the strange symptoms when she died, but he said that he had not treated her and knew nothing about it.  There was no autopsy.

The day before the funeral was a bit of a drama because the family wanted to operate on the girl to extract the foetus.  This is an ancient Aymara practice now imbued with Catholic ideology.  They believe that a pregnant woman should not be buried with the foetus still inside, because the foetus should receive a separate burial.  If not the soul of the baby will go to limbo and will not settle and keep trying to come back.  Cleto Rodríguez, a Quechua, and the manager of the Association's plant which is in the project, managed to convince them that this was an old-fashioned idea and that there was no need for it.  So the girl was buried and life goes on.

However, in view of the behaviour of the schoolteacher which can only be classified as gross professional misconduct, Robert had a chat with Cleto and he is going to start a campaign to have him removed from the village before he does any more harm with someone else's daughter.  He also went to the house and removed the girl's things which he had there: 4 photographs, an apron and a pair of shoes.

What a pity.  What unnecessary suffering and all because the social structures are feudal giving excessive power to insignificant individuals against whom the families have no power to act.

November is the month when the dead are commemorated.  The week leading up to November 2nd. there is feverish activity at the cemeteries.  The vegetation is cleared away from around the graves and people decorate the tombs. On November 2nd., All Souls' Day,  the centre of activity is the cemetery:  in the morning everyone goes there to light candles at the graves and lay flowers.  The day before, the children shape babies out of flour dough and these are taken and deposited on the tombs.  The family also prepares the favourite meals of the dead people whose graves they are going to visit and the meals are carried to the cemetery where a plate with their favourite food is laid on the tomb of each dead person.  Then the family sits down around the grave and share the same meal with much celebration.


Rather than a cause for mourning, this is a day to celebrate with the deceased.  After the meal at the cemetery everyone troops off to certain spots where swings have been set up.  Two tall tree trunks are set into the ground with a crossbar to make the swing structure.  Then  a long rope is tied to this to form the swing.  There are two side ropes attached to the swing so that it can be manoevred.  In front and behind two other smaller "doorframes" are erected and decorated with coloured ribbon and flowers.  On one of these frames a number of small woven baskets containing goodies are hung.  The idea is that the girl who gets on the swing is swung up higher and higher by the two women pulling the side ropes.  When the person is high enough (if she ever gets that far) she must stick her legs out and try and grab one of these baskets with her feet. This is for the diversion of women only and they all wear a new pollera (skirt) for the occasion.  There is much merrymaking and music, although the music is special songs and tunes for the dead, not cuecas and other rhythms which are played at weddings.  This festivity involves the women much more than the men who are bystanders.  The idesa is that the young men can have an opportunity to see the young marriageable girls and should he like one he can “robar la cholita” or steal the girl.  They then set up home together. Tankers of chicha are brought in from Cochabamba for the occasion so that there will be no shortage.

I am told that the similar festivities will take place on November 30th, St. Andrew's Day.

Diplomatic Visit

MICHAEL HOWARD

14 Sept. 1994

On August 27th the British Home Secretary and his wife visited this area.  Apparently Britain had financed one of the infrastucture programmes (latrines) being implemented by another branch of the UN under the  command of one of the most undesirable individuals you could hope to clap eyes on.  He was coming to inaugurate the water system - but there was no water because the road building company had broken the pipe and refused to mend it again saying that it would cost too much.  Apart from this minor inconvenience, the inauguration went ahead!

Since Michael Howard is Jewish and therefore required a kosher kitchen, the only decent place for him to eat was at the dairy complex, so Robert was asked if it could be used and he said yes.  They were to bring along all the things they needed (I highly suspect that the people actually in charge of preparing the food (the owners of the hotel in Villa Tunari where all the US DEA personnel stay and therefore agents of repression) knew as much about kashruth as fly in the air (I saw no signs of different sets of milk and meat pots and all that) - but never mind, what the eyes don't see .....  We were sent a Union Jack to hoist on a flagpole!

They were to arrive on Saturday at midday by helicopter.  This meant that on Friday the helicopters had to come in for a trial run and Robert painted the helipad sign which made it easier for them to calculate their landing. Then, on the following day everything went smoothly  We had nothing to do with the event since it was not our show, but they got a tour around the dairy and all that stuff.  Robert was not here because he had left to go to Argentina.

The point is that apparently Michael Howard had wanted to talk to the campesinos and find out their points of view and so on, but the government sent the invitations via DIRECO , the repressive body which is always beating them up, so, naturally, nobody went and his visit to that particular area was a disaster.  This meant that the Minister of the Interior who was in charge of arranging the whole thing lost face, got mad, and, on his way back from here, had one of the most important campesino leaders arrested.  

Well, that caused a great flurry and then rumours started flying around that the helicopters had come into the dairy to do a recce and so on, with the result that Filippo, who was left in charge of the project while Robert was away, did not want me to stay here on my own.  I did not think that there was any danger but, at the same time, I did not want to give him any more worries since this was his first time at the head of the project, so Monica and I (plus the dogs) went to Santa Cruz.  Robert then decided to cut short his trip to Argentina and come back early, so we came back with him.  

Here is another example of how bigwigs do things in a totally stupid way with no consideration for how their actions will affect other people.  In fact, I don't think they even realise that they DO affect other people.  In any case, I think the British ambassador, who is apparently a very nice man, ought to have arranged things in a different way that did not involve the military, particularly in an area like this where people are so suspicious of all these armed bodies.  If I ever get the chance to tell him so  I will.


The irony of the whole thing is that the UNDCP boss, an Italian called Sandro Calvani, took umbrage and complained that the project had not cooperated and a whole tissue of other figments of his imagination, since the only bit of the visit which went smoothly was the time they spent here when strictly speaking we had nothing to do with it at all.

All the La Paz and Vienna people are currently running around like mad things because now is the time for capturing funding, and they are all trying to woo potential funding nations with a whole load of garbage.  If they would only show the realities I am sure people would much prefer it that way.

As far as the US is concerned, there is no point in writing to them  Their intervention in Ireland is based wholely and solely on the importance of the Irish vote there.  Here it is the US which is funding all the repression and training all the forces which implement it.  Why do you think they get involved in Haiti?  Only to look after their own interests.  And as far as Cuba is concerned, they are wooing the vote of all the right-wing Cuban exiles in Miami.  It seems to me that, in this political game, there are no objective, well thought-out decisions and policies,  only reaction to lobby pressures and vote-catching.  

As far as democracy goes, the whole thing is a farce.  For the best part of this century the US, that great paragon of democracy, has set up and maintained all the dictatorships in Latin America.  In fact, I understand that the new US ambassador to Bolivia was the person responsible for setting up the Pinochet coup which overthrew Salvador Allende in Chile in 1972.  It makes me want to throw up.  I have written a great screed which I have sent to Friends of the Earth and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds informing them of the situation here and asking them to exert pressure on European governments to include condition clauses in their aid programmes.  I don't know if anything will come of it, but it is worth a try.  I wrote to Friends of the Earth shortly after we came here telling them that ICI is selling Gramoxone, a papraquat-based weed-killer which is banned, and they have taken the matter up, so maybe something can be done by using large pressure group organizations.  One thing is for sure, you can't sit around and do nothing.