There and Back Again: the World Travels of a Watson Fellow: Farmstay in Pacajes

Well that was an interesting experience! Although I have tried not to complain too much in this blog, I am going to apologize in advance for the negativity that permeates this post – it has become a venting session for me. To preface it, I just spent the last four days herding cattle on the Altiplano and living with a farming family in a quinoa expansion area. I lived with a twenty-four-year-old woman named Amalia, her ten-year-old son David, and seven-year-old daughter Victoria (her husband and in-laws were also floating around too). My colleagues at the NGO PROINPA connected me with Amalia and her indigenous pueblo (village) of Janko Saya in Pacajes province, as we have gone the community twice now on our field visits as part of the Food Security and Climate Change project. I have been trying not to go into things with too many expectations because you seriously never know what you are going to get. With this farm-stay, however, I can say with relative certainty that it was my Bolivian experience in a nutshell: difficult and trying (physically and emotionally). Let me elaborate. It started when my colleagues dropped me off in Janko Saya and I was greeted by Amalia and the pleasant fact that we would have to ford the river to get to her house. This may not sound bad and on the bright side, it was a sunny day, but it didn’t change the fact that the water must have been less than 50 degrees. I decided to change shoes thinking that I could wear my flip-flops across the river, saving my feet from the razor sharp rocks. Wrong. The minute I stepped into the mud, my right sandal snapped as I attempted to lift my foot from the quicksand-like substance. Greeeat. So I decide to ditch the shoes and go barefoot. What else could I do?

Amalia fording the river (we had to do this four times)

RIP Che Guevara flip flops

Fast forward to the rest of the day. We meet her son and daughter in the fields, as they’ve been herding cattle (nine cows) for several hours now and it’s midday. We share a lovely apthapi lunch (not really kidding, there were ample potatoes to go with the abundance of chunos and even some rice), then we continue following the cows around. I have never herded cattle, mind you, but I think my brain atrophied a bit during these few days. I don’t think I could ever herd cattle for a living – I was going crazy after only a few hours. At least with farming, you can see that you’re giving life, growing something, and can reap a reward at the end. I would describe animal husbandry and the boring act of herding more specifically as doing a dance – back and forth, leading, following, and ushering the bovines, never quite knowing where to go yet simultaneously wondering if they know the way. During these long, hot hours in the blazing sun, which is even stronger with the high altitude, I realize more how the Bolivian Altiplano is a vast and empty place, treeless with virtual silence except the occasional howl of the wind, baah of a sheep, or hum of the radio that Amalia keeps in her awayu blanket. We continue the cattle dance until around 5 PM when we retire back to the farm. The phrase “until the cows come home” has taken on a whole new meaning, as we coax the beasts back to their pasture where we tie them up for the night, shelter-less.

I desperately want to sleep early this evening because I know we are going to get up at 3:45 AM the next morning. Why such an ungodly hour, you ask? Because we are going to the local market, which is about two hours away by foot. I thought it couldn’t get much worse than waking up at 5:45 AM for a 3+ hour drive to the field as I had grown accustom for PROINPA field visits. Well, it has: waking up at 3:45 for a 3+ hour walk. And if you know me, you probably know I don’t really like kids. Well I like them even less when it’s 8:30 PM and I’m trying to sleep in anticipation for the early morning but they insist on shining their laser pointer in my eye and jumping around like little monkeys. At least they’re cute, I guess. I decided to sleep on the mattress on the floor, even though there were two double beds in the large room that serves as everyone’s bedroom and the living room. Yet, I continued to ask myself: what is it with group sleep? I assumed the two double beds would be taken but I wake up to find an empty bed and the kids and mom squished into one. It reminds me of India where there is hardly space for anyone and that time in Punjab where I slept in a bed with a twelve-year-old girl and her grandmother. Good times!

Back to Bolivia: I remember Amalia telling me that if it is raining very hard, we won’t go to the market. I think this is the first time I was wishing for rain this year, mostly because I dreaded the thought of rising two hours before the sun. But alas, my alarm sounds and the tin roof is silent – there isn’t a rain cloud in sight but rather the bright light from the moon illuminates the compound. The stars are out and there’s something wonderful about being back in the Western Hemisphere where you can see the Big Dipper, even if it’s upside down. Amalia has said some funny and memorable things during my stay. For instance, as we dress that morning, she notes, “if the river is too high, we’ll turn back; I can hear it from here.” Hmmm…that’s comforting, sort of. I also notice that she sleeps in three skirts (also known as polleras, an essential part of the traditional Cholita dress). Watching her get dressed in the morning was fascinating (in a non-creepy way, I assure you!) as she layers her skirts/petticoats. It’s ritualistic and mesmerizing, similar to the other cultures I’ve experienced: watching women wrap their saris in India and tie their Kiras in Bhutan. There are subtle complexities involved in the quotidian action of dressing oneself, and I am further impressed and perplexed as the women do everything in their ornate and traditional garb, from farming paddy fields to herding cattle for ten miles. These women are amazing.

Anyway, if there is any lesson I should get out of this year, maybe it’s to always expect the unexpected. RIP Che Guevera flip-flops (yes, the left one too). You will forever be missed and strangely, you’ve reminded me of India since I bought you in the city of Pune (even though Che is known for his activism in South America and especially Bolivia). If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend the film The Motorcycle Diaries, which traces Che’s journey as a doctor through South America before his rebel stage. Your tragic ending came when I was fording the river for the second time – this time around 4:30 AM in the pitch dark. My makeshift repair failed miserably, though it was quite the comical sight: two bandanas tied around my foot and ankle, attempting to secure the broken sandal to my right foot. However, it was not long before the left one busted as well. This was probably one of the most painful experiences of this year, crossing in bare feet in forty degree water, grasping Amalia’s arm with a death-grip to try to maintain my balance as the water rushed past us at mid thigh height. It was like walking on a thousand needles since the riverbed isn’t sandy but rather caked with cutting pebbles. I wondered if this is like child birth, ha! And when the bottom was sandy or along the shore, the mud was treacherous and quicksand-like – one wrong move and you were sinking; and don’t even think about fighting it, you’ll only sink deeper. I wanted desperately to stop, for someone to pick me up and carry me across, yet I could do nothing except close my eyes, grit my teeth, hold my breath and push through. And there was no use crying or stopping because at this point, I was in the middle of the river. After all this, I knew I should have brought my damn Teva sandals!

I honestly thought I wasn’t going to make it this particular morning. A two-hour walk turned into 3.5 hours, as Amalia neglected to tell me that it was two hours at Cholita pace (read: power walking up and down hills at 4,000 m above sea level). At least the views were stunning. To describe Altiplano at sunrise: think African savanna meets Punjab, India at dawn meets the Arctic with frosty grasses. Once we finally get to the market, we only end up staying for about an hour and she isn’t even selling anything. Typical. Though she did have a good one-liner: “quick, something to eat for my friend, she’s dying of hunger,” as we sit outside a corner shop for breakfast.

Sunrise over the Altiplano on the morning we walked 3+ hours starting at 4 AM. Good timez

We met up with the family (cousins) on the way

Pink flamingos!

We finally made it to the market!

Meat for sale

This is where I got my free Jell-O ;)

Riding back in the back of a truck...about 9 of us squeezed in here

With three windows and two doors

In general, I have found Bolivia to be everything that India and Bhutan are not. Where everyone wants to talk to you and treat you like you walk on water in India (and I was a virtual celebrity in the local newspapers), here my hosts don’t even want to talk to me. It’s the opposite of feeling welcomed. In India where “guest is God,” men would greet you with bouquets of freshly picked flowers. Here, I haven’t ever really felt welcomed anywhere I’ve gone, the exception actually being market day when someone offered me a milk crate as a seat outside a shop and a free cup of red jell-o (LOL). Even Amalia just orders me around rudely. I know she has a no-nonsense attitude that is probably quite common for the Bolivian campo (countryside) where you have to be tough, else perish. And while she also has little patience for what she may perceive as my high maintenance tendencies, I am also becoming less tolerant of struggles in Bolivia. This place has tested me in every conceivable way – physically, mentally, emotionally, especially my patience and perseverance. More often than not, I’ve felt ready to throw in the towel on Bolivia, from the attempted robbery to horrible Spanish classes to now this experience, I’ve really wanted to move on – to where, I haven’t the slightest idea. In fact, I’ve already been here twice as long as Bhutan but haven’t had a quarter of the productivity to match. I know it has to do with my wonderful hosts in Bhutan, as working through an official channel via the government opened a world of doors and made for great efficiency in my research. In contrast, here I am flailing around independently trying to meet the right people and ask the right questions in a less than helpful environment. Here I am living with farmers where I can’t understand rural Spanish for the life of me, to the point where sometimes I couldn’t distinguish if Amalia was speaking Castellano (Spanish) or Aymara (indigenous) and they are very different sounding languages, mind you. Someone once described Aymara to me as being the German equivalent to Bolivian indigenous languages, very harsh sounding. And the children, albeit cute, are also nearly impossible to understand as they mumble and slur their words. I know another part of the problem is that I think I’ve gotten a bit too comfortable living in the city (shameful and unexpected, I know). It was like being thrown into another world as I entered the campo where you have to walk hundreds of feet to the door-less outhouse, shoe the chickens out of the bedroom, march 3.5 hours to the market where you stay less than two hours, and just the lack of comfort in general.

It’s all been overwhelming, especially when your host treats you like a burden and makes it clear that she wants you to leave. In fact, I felt like Amalia was just waiting for me to admit defeat. During our several days of herding cattle (and not doing anything with quinoa), she must have asked me every ten minutes if I was tired or my feet hurt. “It’s so far, isn’t it?” she would comment in playful spite. When I would ask her the same questions in return, she would always reply pompously with “no, I’m accustomed to it.” Jeez woman, I know you were born and raised in this harsh landscape, but you don’t have to rub it in. I swear she just wants me to admit how exhausted I am and how the Altiplano is getting the best of me.

And finally, it’s quinoa day! On my third day living with Amalia, we finally start talking and seeing quinoa. We spent much of Sunday morning preparing the quinoa to make peske, a traditional dish that is essentially porridge with fresh cheese grated on top (it can also be made with milk). We separated the grain and leaves from the stalk, the latter two going to the animals as fodder. Then we had to wash the quinoa by hand for close to an hour, at least 10 times, which involve scrubbing the grain, draining the soapy saponin-filled water, and rinsing it thoroughly. We were also able to visit Amalia’s quinoa plot, which is mostly jach’a grano variety. She said she prefers this sweet quinoa to the “quinua picante” (spicy quinoa? No idea) she was cultivating before because it is easier to wash. She said she had been cultivating quinoa for three years before the PROINPA project started, but in smaller quantities (quinoa apparently skipped a generation in her family, a testament to Pacajes as a new expansion region). However, her plot now cannot be more than a ¼ hectare, which she only visits four times a year (once to sow the seeds, twice more, then finally to harvest). She claims her absence is due to the far distance of the plot and lack of time with priority going to cattle herding. Yet, it seems like a bit of an illogical excuse since the plot isn’t that far compared to walking 2-3 hours to the weekly market. She also says the plot needs to be far because the cows will get into the grain if it’s too close to the house, yet they have a plot of potatoes adjacent to the cows. And the contradictions continue: her and her husband would really like a tractor to expand the area under quinoa to eventually sell it, but they can’t afford machinery. But it seems to me that they can barely maintain a ¼ HA, which was in shambles and overgrown with weeds (apparently no time to weed or add manure to enrich the soil). How could they possibly cultivate more if they don’t even seem willing to put the effort into the existing small plot? And I can’t figure out for the life of me how the community’s demonstration plot looks so much better – fuller plants, fewer weeds, etc. Even her neighbor’s plot, which is adjacent to hers, is much healthier looking.

Finally quinoa day!

Drying meat

Sifting the quinoa

Washing off the saponin (soapy-like resin on the outside)

Laying it out to dry

Poor piggy who doesn't know his Carnaval fate

"Toilet"

Amalia in her weedy quinoa field

Birds are a huge quinoa pest

Community plot

Amalia casually uprooting a tree to use as firewood to make the peske (quinoa porridge) in a mud oven

My shining Cholita moment with Amalia's awayu blanket

Making peske

Home for a few days

She's clearly enthusiastic about taking pictures with me ;)

That's better :)

Peske (quinoa porridge) for dinner

Nomming with cheese

Other side notes: it appears that the farmers in Pacajes change where they cultivate the quinoa each yet, as there are remnants of fields past with dried quinoa stalks protruding from the ground, but there doesn’t seem to be a set field rotation. I also wanted to see the community oven, but apparently the village authority has the key, so it can’t be used by just anyone at any time (and I think he lives in La Paz, three hours away, weird…). I’ve been trying to ask people I meet in Bolivia about their thoughts on Evo Morales and his administration, and Amalia said she is happy with this government because of the support they give to the elderly. She and her husband like working with PROINPA because of the training and support they receive, however, they seem unsure about selling quinoa in the future because of the perceived lack of markets (e.g. apparently local people don’t want to buy it because it’s expensive). When I asked her and her husband about their thoughts on the recent quinoa boom, although they felt that the UN’s International Year of the Quinoa didn’t affect them, they are still enthusiastic because of the high prices. At home, they tend to use quinoa for soup and occasionally for peske or espina, though it was funny because neither of the kids seemed to like the quinoa porridge and it was a struggle getting them to finish their dinner. However, I learned that they are only able to eat quinoa once a month or so because they simply don’t produce it in large enough volumes.

I attempted a second interview with Amalia one day when we were out herding the cattle. It was like pulling teeth – worse than the first time. At one point, she literally got up and walked away to check on the cows and sat down elsewhere in the middle of our conversation. I really didn’t feel like she wanted to talk to me the entire time. And when she did talk to me, it was brusque and impolite: “water, now,” she would bark or she would talk down to me, sometimes shouting at me as if I was stupid. I found her to be intimidating, especially when I was trying to communicate in my struggling Spanish. I guess this is what it feels like to not have the linguistic upper hand as I’ve had in the past (where I guess everyone accommodated me with broken English). Working with impatient people, however, has the plus side of making me want to be a more patient person in general.

On the final day, in between my napping in the fields and trudging around, I went with seven-year-old Victoria to harvest some potatoes from a neighbor’s plot. It was amazing hearing her describe which potatoes to pick, as she knew how to qualify the mature and good quality ones. We took them to a small puddle-like pond to wash, though I’m not sure washing is the correct term as there was nothing clean about it. We rubbed dirt off the potatoes as sheep manure floated inches away.

We were washing potatoes in water that had feces. Nice.

Colorful native potatoes

And while I don’t generally like small children, I’ve really taken to David and Victoria (when David isn’t shining a laser in my eye and Victoria isn’t rummaging through my belongings). But they really are adorable, helpful, obedient, and good-natured children – for example, taking the cows out to graze in their mother’s absence or fetching anything at her beck and call. They were even helpful when we came across a neighbor slaughtering a sheep: Victoria went to the pond with her mother to wash out the stomach and David helped as the neighbor disemboweled the carcass. This really should have grossed me out, but it was the first time I’ve ever seen someone skin and dismember an animal, so it was fascinating more than anything! Warning – these photos are graphic.

Slaughtering a sheep

Disemboweling it

Somehow this didn't gross me out

The cows were also curious ;)

Amalia and Victoria washing the intestines

Wrapping up in the innards

As my time with Amalia and her family was coming to an end, I was eager to get back to La Paz. Unfortunately, the farmstay just wasn’t what I had hoped it would be. But I know the challenges are good for me – after all, what would this year be if it was all rainbows and butterflies? Fortunately, I wrapped up my visit to Pacajes with an informative interview with one of Amalia’s neighbors, a sixty-two year old named Oscar Apulaca. Oscar was heading back to La Paz too, so Amalia dropped me at his house in the village so we could go together (our fourth time fording the river and you’d think it would get easier each time, but alas, no such luck). I learned more from Oscar in a half hour than I did from Amalia in four days, maybe because of his friendly disposition and his more articulate Spanish. The father of six children, he used to work for a private business exporting Soy in Santa Cruz, which apparently paid very well. He is now retired and chose to move back to the village where he was born and raised. When I inquired about his farm, instead of measuring his plot-size in acres or hectares, he commented on how it takes three hours to plow with a tractor (who knows how much that is in area units…). Oscar is renting a tractor for plowing and preparing compost from animal manure, which he buys from neighbors, and sprays his quinoa fields with natural pesticide twice a season. He seems very motivated (compared to Amalia), especially because he wasn’t sowing anything before the past few years. He also stressed how much he wants the community flourmill, so they can increase the amount of quinoa under cultivation and sell both grain and flour. Now he claims to use the quinoa he grows for everything from peske to espina, cookies, and cakes. He likes working with PROINPA because of the useful seminars and training courses, which allow the community to learn and apply the knowledge. Moreover, he thought the International Year of the Quinoa was good because the increased attention also meant more help from NGOs with trainings. According to Oscar, more consumers in the US, EU, and other places buying Bolivian quinoa is a good thing because of the markets – they want to sell it and preferably without intermediaries. He also feels that his community has more than enough arable land to expand quinoa cultivation but the problem is that there isn’t adequate technology and mechanization. Last year, he rented a tractor from the local Coro Coro municipality, but noted how it would be ideal if the community owned one, especially because he used to operate tractors in Santa Cruz, cultivating thousands of hectares of soy, owned by private businesses. Interestingly, he noted how 600 hectares of soy can be sprayed in a day using modern tractors in the eastern part of the country – what a contrast to the Altiplano in the west! And while Coro Coro has ten tractors, they are apparently poorly maintained and lack a schedule for sharing among communities. It costs about 90 Bs ($13) per hour to rent from the government.

Regarding politics, Oscar claims to approve of Evo Morales because of the support he has given the countryside but also dislikes how Evo does not support private businesses. He noted, however, how many years before Evo, Bolivia was filled with military dictatorships and was so unsafe that people couldn’t even congregate in public without threats of violent crowd control. It was a time of oppressive regimes, so at least under Evo, Bolivia is now a participatory democracy. Yet we also discussed that because Evo doesn’t have any legitimate competition for the next presidential election – is it really a democracy? Moreover, Oscar feels that the various local development projects are poorly designed/managed since the directors don’t actually visit the site and some plans are based on other areas, which are irrelevant to Pacajes. Oscar wants local development projects with few communities where the money from the state comes direct because no there is so much corruption at the municipal level that valuable funds are lost. I was grateful for Oscar’s willingness to talk with me and his company as we took the three hour bumpy bus ride back to La Paz, just in time for my meeting with the tour company La Paz on Foot regarding a farmstay visit to Lake Titicaca. More on this to come!