The High Way of Life
BY “AWAKE!” CORRESPONDENT IN BOLIVIA
FOR people on Bolivia’s altiplano ‘living it up’ is a daily affair.
Now, if you are like most people, when you get into the thin air much above a mile high you begin to feel somewhat light-headed, even dizzy. But here, on this high plateau well over two miles above sea level, some two thirds of Bolivia’s people comfortably live and work—their heads somewhat ‘in the clouds,’ their feet on the ground.
The altiplano is a broad, flat tableland, stretching out between rugged cordilleras or ranges of the towering Andes Mountains. Windswept and arid, the plateau is almost treeless. Yet it has its own unusual beauty. The light seems different here in the rarefied air—so brilliant, making colors stand out with a clarity not seen in lands at lower altitudes. To these Bolivianos, as for their ancestors for centuries past, this is home, and they like its high way of life.
Whatever the altiplano may lack in greenery or variety, the people make up for in their colorful costumes. Ponchos, large square wool blankets with a slit in the middle for the head to pass through, are regular male outerwear. Homemade sandals likely have soles cut from discarded automobile tires. For the women, bright-colored polleras, skirts gathered at the waist and becoming full at the base, reach a standard length halfway between knee and ankle, be the wearer young or old. Some of the cholas (women of mixed Spanish and Indian ancestry) may wear five, six or even up to ten skirts, one over the other. On their backs is a square sack of woven material in which a baby may ride, or perhaps some bedding, or products being carried to the marketplace. Hands free, as they walk along the women can spin thread from sheep or llama wool, using a simple hand spindle.
What part of the country are they from? Their hats usually tell. Cholas living in or around the cities of La Paz and Oruro wear a brown, beige or black derby-type sombrero. Those from the Cochabamba area wear hats of hard straw enameled white with a high crown, tied at the base with a black ribbon. Women with no hats? They are probably from Sucre in the south central part of Bolivia.
Wherever they are from they never need worry about outdated styles for these outfits have remained basically the same for centuries. And they are still attractive.
Few places equal the busy marketplaces for life and color. The cholas squat on the ground or sit enthroned with their goods and wares heaped around them. Fruits and vegetables form neat little pyramids. Buyers haggle over prices with the vendors, who never expect to be paid the first price they quote. When the purchase is made, the vendors follow the Latin-American custom of giving the yapa (or ñapa)—that handful extra of whatever product is bought. If you happen to be their first customer in the morning, attempts to sell will be strenuous. Superstition has it that the first customer must buy something or business will be bad that whole day. They may kiss the money from that first sale, for the moment idolizing it for what it is supposed to bring in good business.
Nearby, little boys play with simple toys. Bottle caps, patiently pounded flat with a stone, are used in a game similar to marbles. Here comes a lad with something fancier—a little truck fashioned from some sardine cans with empty wooden thread spools for the wheels and a string to pull it by.
Little cholitas, maybe five or six years old, play with rag dolls made by their mothers’ loving hands. Like their mothers, they wear a complete chola outfit, including the sack on the back, perhaps filled with corncobs, sticks or rags—anything to make it look like they too are carrying their own little load.
Simple things compared to what many boys and girls in industrialized lands have. And yet these children are obviously happy at their play.
Exploring the Altiplano
Most visitors to Bolivia touch down at La Paz, widely known as “the highest capital in the world” (although Sucre is actually the official capital). Flying in from the north, one may get a view of sparkling Lake Titicaca, its extraordinarily deep blue waters reflecting the clean, clear sky above. At 12,500 feet above sea level, this 138-mile-long body of water is the highest navigable lake on earth.
Over to the southeast looms snowcapped Mount Illimani, grandest of all Bolivia’s peaks. And thousands of feet below its summit, in a deep narrow gorge, lies La Paz.
For travelers by land the approach to La Paz gives just as sensational a sight. For, almost until you reach it, the city is hidden, buried from sight. Then suddenly at a certain point of the road you look down and there, bathed in brilliant sunlight, the city spreads out as if in the bowl of a terrace-shaped crater.
Most persons are satisfied with just seeing some of Bolivia’s principal “high-in-the-sky” cities, such as La Paz, Cochabamba and Sucre. But a trip into the interior of the altiplano can be rewarding—if you are one who is interested in people and in gaining insight into the varied ways of life of earth’s big human family.
Way of Life
Take the little settlement where a couple named Desiderio and Francisca and their six children live—simple homes, most of them just of a single room, walls of adobe bricks, thatched roof and floor of pounded earth. This larger home is Desiderio’s. Actually it has one main room with a number of separate adobe structures built around it, all connected together. In the center is a dirt patio with its own well.
“Entre! Entre!” they say, and you go in. The furnishings are very unpretentious. An interesting item is that cow’s tail hanging beneath the mirror on the wall. Its use? Obviously, to hold the comb stuck in it. The simple beds are insulated with sheepskins, keeping the family warm when the altiplano winds blow strong on cold winter nights. There is no electricity, and if you spend the night with them you will find them up at daybreak so that none of the precious daylight hours are wasted. Still feel a bit sleepy? A quick wash in the basin beside the well out in the patio will take care of that—especially if it is winter and you have to break the ice first.
Now you can appreciate why a favorite spot is the kitchen, a structure next to, but separate from, the main room. Francisca is in there sitting before her small adobe stove, its fire fed with the dried dung of llamas, cows or sheep. At mealtimes the whole family gathers in the warmth of the cozy, though somewhat smoky, kitchen. The menu? Perhaps some of Francisca’s delicious llama meat with rice, followed by soup. But for you, she may prepare a special delicacy: the head of a sheep. Its horns first knocked off with a sharp blow against a rock, the head is skinned and then cooked as is—so now it sits on the plate facing you, eyeballs, teeth, nose and ears all there. Maybe along with it you can have a more familiar food—potatoes. But here on the altiplano they grow more than 112 distinct varieties. And often the potatoes are prepared as chuño, alternately frozen and dried by exposure to the cold night air and the warm sunlight and then squeezed free of any remaining moisture. “No preservatives added”—nor needed! They keep almost indefinitely this way.
People Worth Knowing
You soon find your hosts are not ordinary people. Desiderio explains why he is often up at five a.m. You see, he and his family are Jehovah’s witnesses, part of a small congregation in this area. In their Bible educational work, they often conduct Bible studies very early in the morning with interested persons before the daily chores occupy all the students’ time. Even Desiderio’s eleven-year-old daughter Julia, who regularly leads the family’s sheep and llamas out to pasture, conducts four such Bible studies with some children of her own age—thus pasturing “sheep” (or “lambs”) of another kind.
Different costumes and customs, simple ways and simple tastes—yes, but people are people the earth around. And here you see how wholesome and happy a family can be when the elevating effect of God’s Word operates in their lives. Even little four-year-old Adrián, who usually sticks close by mamá in the kitchen, has committed to memory a number of songs from the songbook the family uses, songs with Bible themes, and he sings them for you with gusto—with a little bit of coaxing first.
True, you can see many of the cholos on the altiplano with an impassionate, rather dull look on their faces. This may be due to the practice many have of chewing coca leaves containing the narcotic cocaine. They believe the plant has magical powers. It dulls their senses to feelings of cold or hunger. But Jehovah’s witnesses here as in all lands find comfort instead in the cheering promises of the Bible. And they find the privilege of showing love to their neighbors by Bible educational work a most stimulating and enriching feature in their lives. On foot or by bicycle they enthusiastically cover a wide area with good news about God’s righteous government, the Kingdom. This, and not just sheer altitude, is what makes their life on the altiplano truly a “high way of life.”