About the health benefits of Quinua and Cañawa

I am back!! Sorry it has taken me so long to write since the last posting. The thing is, I have been KO in bed for the last five days with a rotten cold and a temperature that wouldn’t go. What can one do when one is of a delicate disposition…?

Oh yes, I am back and the proof of this is that I went with Karen and two other friends to the valle de las ánimas, a beautiful place outside of La Paz famous for its weird rock formations that make it look like I imagine the surface of the Moon to be.

We left early-ish this morning and thank God we had a 4x4 because the climb up to the starting point itself would have been enough to dampen the spirits of even the keenest of ramblers. But after starting lazily we got on with a good pace and walked up this valley of what I imagine to be an old glacier all the way to the very end. And just when it looked that it couldn’t get any steeper, we made summit at 4,660 metres above sea level and gazed at the most impressive view of Illimani, now looking really close at us. “Definitivamente im presionante”, like some famous bullfighter once said (you’ll have to keep reading. One day I’ll explain the bullfighter comment).

OK, so what cured me was a combination of bed rest and sopita de quinua (hummmm….yummy) and refresco de cañawa. These are both related grains that grow at these altitudes. I can’t breath so I don’t know how anything can grow this high but they do. According to Eduardo Galeano, the Gods once left a fox fall from the heavens and on falling, it hit one of the high peaks in the Andes, rupturing its stomach and spreading its contents all over the mountains. And from that grew the Quinua and this little, unassuming, grain has been a blessing for the Andean people as it is now recognised to be highly nutritious like its cousin the cañawa which you mix with water and simply drink both hot or cold.

OK, so now you know how people stay healthy at these altitudes… OK, and then there is chocolate, coca leaves and other blessings from the Gods I’ll tell you about some other time.

El cambio avanza…..Change is in the air

20 October is a historic day for La Paz , not only because it is the 460 anniversary of the city but because this day will be remembered as the day when the biggest ever political march descended on the city from every corner of the country. The social movements mobilized hundreds of thousands who came from the Yungas, from the altiplano and from the farthest reaches of a vast country, to demand that Congress approves the law that will put to the national vote the new political constitution of the country.

This is a constitution that is being regarded as necessary to re-found the state because it guarantees the equality and inclusion of all Bolivians, including the historically marginalized majority that belongs to the indigenous community. The constitution also recognizes various types of economic activity (community-based, cooperative), various forms of autonomic government - including autonomies that will guarantee the cultural reproduction possibilities of indigenous groups - and a number of economic and social rights that protect vulnerable groups in society and upholds the state ownership of key natural resources.

After a march of more than a week, the president himself joined his supporters and led their entrance in La Paz to the seat of government in Plaza Murillo where they sang, cheered and stood in preparation for a long vigil until congressmen and women inside approved the required law. In the event, they had to stand there for more than 24 hours until 1pm today Tuesday 21 October when finally the two thirds support necessary was reached after last minute concessions. Of them, and one that demonstrates the political stature of the president, the biggest was the acceptance by the President to seek only one reelection in December 2009 instead of the two that affords him the new constitution.

It was a long and painful wait and one that tested the patience of miners who, armed with dynamite, threatened to enter Congress and take it by force. In the event, the President himself had to appeal to the civility of all those congregated who, as if choreographed, would break in spontaneous shouts of cambio, cambio, cambio…(change, change, change...).

In the end, by 1 pm local time, the vice president Alvaro Garcia Linera was able to emerge on the square holding in his hands the document that calls for a referendum on the new constitution. And as befits a government of social movements, the president signed the document in front of the thousands who at that time cheered in the plaza ushering a new political phase of peace and equality in spite of the last minute attempts to derail this process of democratic change by the last remaining oligarchs with political representation.

Change…(we can believe in). Now, where have I heard this political slogan before?

Cooperativist miners in Llallagua

Llallagua is a 35,000–strong mining community situated seven hours drive from La Paz in the northern part of Potosi region. Well, this is not quite right. First was Siglo XX, a tin mine that gave work to thousands of miners and millions of dollars to people like Patino, the richest man in the world back in the 1930s. This mining camp, that’s all it was, was soon shadowed by Llallagua, the town that grew to service the needs of men in dangerous jobs and short life expectancies with money to burn (you get the idea). Eventually Llallagua grew to engulf the mining camp and walking through its streets you would not know you are entering into miners’ living quarters were it not for the characteristic housing – tiny, without water supply, or, in its day, sanitation – arranged in straight rows and resembling nothing more than a concentration camp. Now, where have I seen something like this? I know: Viloco, another mining camp high in the Andes that is home to 2,500 people, and, I have to say, the extreme corner of Runcorn in the UK.

Reaching this God-forsaken place is no small feat as the road, asphalted all the way past Oruro eventually reaches Huanuni - another important mining community an the site of many a political battle - before taking a sharp left up the mountain and a dirt track that keeps climbing for what seems the heavens. Close to an altitude of 5,000 metres, where the air is thin and despite the deep blue skies and the shining sun the cold is apparent, we stop for an all too quick gaze at nature before heading down to our final destination.

Llallagua is not what you could consider beautiful. At the entrance to the town all we can see are the artificial hills created by slagheaps, the remnants of excavated mountain in the form of poor grade mineral piled 20 or 30 metres high. Beyond the bend on the track, the first glimpse of the town is provided by a succession of pools in steps that follow downhill and serve the purpose of manually extracting the mineral brought out in individual sacks by miners on their backs. This is a process of mineral extraction that seems to have changes little in five centuries.

It wasn’t always like this. Siglo XX mine was a key mining town and workplace in Bolivia until, in 1985, following to the letter the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund to stem a runaway inflation, the state basically gave away to private investors all aspects of the economy under its control. Private investors came, chose the richest pickings, and where investment was needed, they simply walked away. The social consequences of this ‘Silent Revolution’ as Duncan Green put it in a very readable book, were enormous. Not only were thousands made unemployed, many of them left the mines and relocated to the area of Chapare where, lacking any alternative economic activity, they became coca growers (tell that to the highly skilled economic advisers who designed the privatisation policy).

However, many miners simply stayed behind and became cooperativistas. The name belies the reality of their work. Without state employer, these miners were simple left with the same mines they had always worked in, except this time without a salary, a pension, an insurance, equipment to do their job….All that was left for them to do was to continue to work in the mine, as individuals, and to sell any mineral they brought out to middle men. This they continue to do today but the consequences of that policy are there for all to see. Mechanisation of extraction and refinement have simply disappeared and miners have gone back one century at least in their working methods, hammering away at the rock with their bare hands. Safety standards are virtually inexistent. In many cases, it isn’t clear who is and who isn’t a miner, who is in the mine and who is out at any given time, how much dynamite or when it is used….you can imagine that if mining is in itself dangerous, these practices make it lethal.

Progress? Not something one could say for mining practices in places like Siglo XX.

‘Octubre rojo’ or ‘guerra del gas’; Five years on

During the August visit to Bolivia of a delegation from UNITE the Union, we had the opportunity to meet social and political actors from El Alto who were key to developments in October 2003. Red October, as it is often referred to, was witness to some of the worst excesses of state power during the history of Bolivia. It was also, crucially, the point at which the current process of political change the country is now living became unstoppable. Five years on, although much has changed in Bolivia, relatives of those who died at the hands of the military are still fighting for justice.

Juan Delfin Mamani looks after the church from El Ingenio in El Alto. As those of you who have watched the film ‘The War on Democracy’ by John Pilger will recognize, he is one of those witnesses whose testimony brings to the fore the full horror of the events of October 2003 in El Alto (he is wearing a hat in the photo).

It all began with a generalised opposition from all social quarters to a presidential plan to export, rather, give away, natural gas to the US and Mexico via Chilean ports, this, in a country in which there was no full internal supply of gas and a large percentage of the rural population have to burn wood in order to cook. However, this initial protest soon escalated into demands for a wholesale reversal of a neoliberal, export model of (under)development and in favour of a policy of natural resource sovereignty destined to increase the well-being of the Bolivian people.

After weeks of strikes, blockades and uninterrupted protests, President Sanchez de Lozada, popularly known as Goni, and his interior minister Sanchez Berzain sent the army to the city of El Alto, including tanks and helicopters carrying snipers. By 16th October, the result of the imaginable carnage was 65 victims and countless injured. Such was the reaction of the international community as well as of every political and social sector in Bolivia that on 17th October the president fled the country bound for Miami, leaving his resignation letter behind. He still lives there and has so far managed to evade justice.




His church being close to the violent events of those days, Juan Delfin was witness to the highest single massacre and led the process of recovery of the bodies, washing them, displaying them for the families and for the community that in the following days paraded through the church to pay homage to those killed.

We walk in silence, listening as he recalls the horror of bodies lying on display in an outbuilding next to the church. At the entrance, a huge mural on one of the walls depicts Juan Delfin’s emotions at what he experienced: there one can see represented all the protagonists of the events. On one side, the miners, the peasants, the indigenous peoples in protest. On the other, a bankrupt political class shielded by the army and it weaponry. And yet, in the midst of this darkness, we can catch a glimpse of hope and rebirth for the future.

Five years on, we have inaugurated October with the memory of those massacred in Pando barely a month ago. Certainly much has changed since 2003 but not enough to say this is a country at peace with itself.

Bruno Racua

Watching TV last night I learnt that 11 October is the anniversary of the battle of Bahia (1902-2008). As expected, 106 years after the battle all manner of civic groups in the town of Cobija, capital of Pando, were out celebrating a famous victory against Brazilian forces that had wanted to annex their territory.

Of all Bolivian heroes, no one was most celebrated than Bruno Racua, a local peasant who fought against the Brazilian forces with more heorism than most. Local history says that he distinguished himself in battle to such an extent that the national Congress, on hearing of his exploits, named him a national hero.

Watching TV last night, I was unaware that 11 October is also another anniversary. It is exactly one month of the massacre of 18 peasants by right-wing paramilitaries near the city of Cobija. Among the dead was one Bernardo Racua, great grand child of the national hero. Nobody remembered his death last night.