Being counted as part of history

On Wednesday 21^st November, we witnessed and became part of a little piece of history in Bolivia. For the first time in 11 years, the Bolivian government decided to conduct a census to determine the size and demographic of the population.

The entire population was confined by law to their homes for 12 hours, and any person found on the streets without at permit was swiftly arrested and detained. In all between 300 and 400 people were arrested for breaking the curfew in the whole of Bolivia which, as a number of people pointed out to me, is probably less than are drunkenly arrested on an average Saturday night in England’s towns and cities.

It was a very strange experience; you think to yourself, ah great, a quiet day to go for a walk (can’t do this), get some shopping done (can’t do this either) or maybe grab some food (nor this). Ironically it would have been extremely special to be able to walk the streets had we been allowed: to see the capital city of a country completely devoid of people, cars and buses, with only stray dogs wandering the streets, it would have looked almost post-apocalyptic.

  

We began to feel slightly claustrophobic in the stuffy house and then in the early evening we were treated to one of La Paz’s spectacular thunder storms. With panoramic lightening, deafening thunder and torrential rain it was a spectacle to watch so we opened up all the windows on one side of the house and sat down to watch the show. Because of the way La Paz is situated in the ‘bowl’ of Andes Mountains, the almost daily storms are especially impressive to witness. It was certainly the most entertaining thing we saw that day!

The census was quite widely criticised across the country for a number of reasons including being accused of having poorly thought out questions, which, after talking to some of the locals questioned I would potentially have to agree with. The idea of the census was to gain a better understanding of the demographic and lifestyle of the population in order to create more effective government policy. However without asking the right questions that goal is lost to merely counting the population and causing an awful lot of inconvenience in people’s lives. Whether the questions were an effective use of 200,000 data collectors and 35,000 policemen’s time, as well as a temporarily halted economy, is yet to be seen. However from the point of view of a foreigner caught in the middle all I can say is it will probably (hopefully) be the only time in my life I will be subject to a military police curfew. 

Trout, the face of a cat and a 3 piece suite

With a weekend in La Paz this week, we decided to get up early on Sunday morning and go to El Alto Market, known to the locals as Mercado 16 de Julio. We had heard that it was experience not to be missed, not least because of its vast size and ability to sell everything you could ever imagine. We had also be warned that it was fairly dangerous and not to take anything remotely valuable with us. El Alto is situated above La Paz, high up on the mountain side (4150m above sea level) and is considered one of the fastest growing urban areas in Bolivia. However, El Alto is also considerably poorer than most parts of La Paz and is a much more dangerous place for tourists to venture, particularly at night. 

Despite this and a few scare stories, we decided to get the bus up the mountain on Sunday morning (which costs just 2 Bolivianos or approx 18 pence). My first impression of the market was the sheer volume of people, all locals, browsing, pointing, bartering and buying all sorts of goods. The market is situated right on the edge of the mountain, with the most incredible, crystal clear view of the whole of La Paz to one side.

Now, when it comes to what they sell, there really is no other way to describe it other than to give you a smattering of examples. They sell: fake designer clothes, rip-off adidas trainers, toiletries, old tyres, bits of engine, live chicks (10p each!), a puppy, llama feet, trout, the face of a cat, a 3 piece suite, carpets, beds, televisions, posters of naked women, phone chargers, potatoes, army gear, fresh juice topped with whipped cream (?), musical instruments, pirate dvds of every description, wads of fake money, fake taxi signs, number plates, baby clothes, billions of plastic toys, a sheep, used socks, CD’s, underwear, alpaca woollen clothes, make up, food processors, pans, plates, teaspoons, prams, cuddly toys, watches, brooms, mops and so much more…

Bringing a new meaning to the concept of a zebra crossing

This week, we were given the opportunity to do something truly unique.

Eleven years ago, an initiative was introduced in La Paz in an attempt to improve road safety for pedestrians, and make driving through the city easier for cars.

This essentially involved bringing together young and unemployed people in La Paz, providing them with training, plenty of enthusiasm and a full body zebra costume and head and sending them out into the streets to spread the message of road safety, bringing a new meaning to the concept of a zebra crossing.

For the first few years, the zebras were considered a joke. They were abused, kicked, pushed and laughed at by most and there was no respect for the message they were trying to promote. However 11 years later, the zebras are considered an important institution of La Paz and most citizens see them as delivering a vital message.

So on Wednesday morning we were given the morning off work and around 20 of us volunteers and some of the office staff made our way to the tourist area of the city- Plaza San Francisco- for 9am. None of us had a clue what to expect, we didn’t know what we would be doing, who with or how long for. We were greeted by two young Bolivian guys who took us down to the basement where we began two and half hours of team building, warm ups and training to get us ready for our zebra experience!

After we had jumped around like lunatics, assumed strange characters and sauntered around the room and therefore lost all our inhibitions (and possibly dignity) we were finally ready to be zebras. We were formally introduced to the full-time zebras by their arrival in the room, fully costumed-up and singing the ‘zebra song’. We were then ‘adopted’ by one of the true zebras, given our costumes- which turned out to be incredibly hot and stuffy, topped off by the head which allows only minimal tunnel vision. This wouldn’t usually necessarily be a problem, however, the job of being a zebra involves stopping traffic, helping pedestrians cross the road and keeping an eye on the traffic lights which generally needs to be done all at the same time…

We were finally let loose on the street and the fact that not only do I normally speak broken Spanish and have to listen extremely carefully to be able to understand others speaking it, but now I had a zebra costume preventing me from hearing or talking properly and that meant that I had no idea what my zebra was telling me to do, leaving me to resort to copying his every move.

I’ll paint you the picture. Me, in my costume, holding a circular sign reading ‘tengo actitud cebra’ or ‘I have zebra attitude’ dancing around wildly on the pavement waiting for the lights to turn red, waving the traffic through the lights and waving at anyone and everyone. On red, we would hold out our boards, encouraging the traffic to stop behind the line and then go out onto the crossing, helping pedestrians to cross safely (with more dancing, shouting and bowing). Another major part of the job was waving at and greeting small children who completely and utterly adore the zebras and make you feel like some sort of striped celebrity.

I think the most powerful part of the experience was the freedom and empowerment that wearing such a recognised ‘uniform’ gave me, and the strange feeling of walking down the same street as yesterday, when no-one even looked you in the eye or said hello, and have people respond cheerfully to your greetings, smile at you, say thank you for doing a great job etc. The problem was, after finishing our ‘shift’, taking off the costumes and then going to walk to get a bus, I had such a strong urge to shout ‘bwenas dias!’ at strangers in the street, cross the street by dancing in circles and even hold on to the tail that was no longer there….

Salty haven

Whilst Bolivians celebrated Todos Santos and The Day of the Dead this weekend, some of us took the opportunity of a four day weekend to see a little more of Bolivia and decided to travel to Uyuni and the salt flats. We took an 11 hour night bus on Thursday evening which turned out to be very comfortable and spacious, however sadly nothing can make 11 hours of Bolivian roads ‘comfortable’. The only benefit of not being able to sleep for more than about ten minutes was that I was able to see the landscape change and emerge as the sun rose in the early hours of Friday morning.

Wherever you go in Bolivia you feel sure that you must have accidently left the country and gone to some strange land, as the landscape changes so dramatically from minute to minute. Leaving busy, mountainous and warm La Paz we headed for what began to look more and more like the US mid-west (perhaps slightly post-apocalyptic). Dry, dusty and flat, the sun rose up over this semi-desert just as we came towards the town of Uyuni. Everyone commented on how odd a place this was; it essentially existed purely for the tourist trade, made up of numerous bus companies and tour operators and swarming with backpackers.

We arrived early on Friday morning and made our way round a few of the operators who all seemed to offer exactly the same tour for a variety of prices so we decided to go with the cheapest, which was 700 Bolivianos (about £63). This was a three day tour that included two nights accommodation, food and drink, a pretty comfy jeep, driver, petrol and all the landscapes you can imagine to see.  

The first day of the tour started in the salt flats. This vast plane of salt stands at almost 3,700m above sea level, measures up to 10,500 square miles (considerably bigger than Wales) and up to 10m thick in some places. Standing in the middle of the salt you lose all sense of depth and distance and not even the best photo can portray the sheer scale of the landscape. In the wet season it turns into the world’s largest natural mirror, although it was dry when we visited.

Our driver was Javier, a sweet man who found us very amusing and claimed to speak no English, despite laughing at our conversations and responding to whispered English requests to each other asking how to say ‘can you turn up the music’ in Spanish. He took us to the train cemetery, a collection of old steam trains deserted in the desert-like environment just outside Uyuni, just short of the salt flats. The trains were all lined up one in front of the other for hundreds of meters, rusty and covered in graffiti, making for some good photographs.

We also went to the Isla de los Pescadores which was a waterless island in the middle of the salt flats covered in giant cacti and with incredible views across the plains. We were served lunch on a stone table on the salt and then paid the equivalent of a few pounds to walk around the island, taking in the breathtaking views. The walk was tough, the altitude difference between La Paz and Uyuni really showing, despite being acclimatised to 3,400m, the extra couple of hundred meters really take their toll!

The way the tours worked was that each tour had its own jeep or jeeps and they followed essentially the same route around the whole of Uynui and the national parks, so we ended up meeting up with the same people (including two of our team leaders) at most points.

The first night we stayed in the Hotel de Sal (salt hotel) which was well above my expectations considering the price of the tour. It was a beautifully decorated hostel with dorm rooms and a great view of the salt flats to watch the sunset. The next morning we drove to an active volcano about 3 hours from the salt flats and took pictures and relaxed on the rocks from a distance. After that we drove to the first of a number of lakes which was the home to a species of flamingo, hundreds of which were feeding on the shores.

After this we entered the national park where there was another incredible lake, this time called the ‘red lake’. The reason for this became strikingly obvious as we approached. If I hadn’t been there I’m not sure I would have believed the pictures. The lake was so red it looked rather brutally like a massacre of flamingos had taken place. We were told that it was in fact, less morbidly, the colour of the sediment in the lake that made it so red. That night we stayed in the national park at a hostel on the edge of the lake.

The next morning was an early start- 4.30- but the morning was worth facing the freezing cold of the dawn. The first place we stopped was the geysers, at an incredible 5000m above sea level where hot water and sulphur bubbled to the surface creating vast quantities of steam (and odour!). It was an incredible sight, despite the early hour and freezing temperatures. The next stop was perhaps the most anticipated- the hot springs. Stripping off in the freezing cold at 7am took courage but the water was so beautifully warm and relaxing we couldn’t bear to get out for over an hour. After that we hastily got dressed back into jumpers, hats and gloves and headed for the third lake, more of a yellowy green colour because of the mineral content, and then to the valley of rocks, an incredible stretch of artistically eroded rocks, forming a kind of city sky line against the red mountains.

The whole weekend was incredible and despite hearing bad reviews about the lack of food and constantly breaking down jeeps, we were so impressed with the experience and didn’t want to leave this salty haven we had found. In just 6 weeks Bolivia has already proved to be a diverse country in landscape, people and experience and I’m confident the next six weeks will offer more of the same. Now, back to work!

Todos Santos y Dia de los Muertos

All Saints Day and Day of the Dead

A curious mixture of indigenous and catholic beliefs, Day of the Dead is celebrated in Bolivia on November 2^nd, following All Saints Day on the 1^st. Less morbid than it sounds, Day of the Dead is a day to remember those people who have died and celebrate their lives.

 The main cemetery in La Paz. A family can pay for a space to place flowers, photos and personal items behind glass. 

On the 2^nd, Bolivians converge upon the countries cemeteries to set up a kind of feast for their loved one, setting a small table with a tablecloth- white for a child, dark or coloured for an adult. They bake fascinating bread creations known as tanatawawas  in the image of the person they are remembering and place them on the table along with traditional items such as coca leaves as well as the favourite dish of the deceased.

Many in Bolivia believe that death is not separated from life, and the traditional belief is that on Dia de los Muertos the dead return to Earth for the day to renew their presence in the living world and to share the day and feast with their families. This coincides with Bolivian Spring, when the rains start to fall and everything turns green.

In traditional Andean beliefs, where mother earth or Pachamama is revered as sacred, an important concept is reciprocity. They believe that by feeding the dead with the Dia de los Muertos feast, they will be rewarded when the dead then intervene to ensure that pacahmama delivers the rains needed for harvest.

To come from a world where, for the most part, death is a taboo subject rarely discussed let alone celebrated as a part of life, there is something powerful about a culture who devote this weekend of celebrations to the people they love and remember.