Día de la Tierra

I had planned to go to the People's Summit on Global Climate Change in Cochabamba to translate for the Asamblea Feminista, but was laid low by scarlet fever, which might sound glamorously 19th-century but is actually incredibly uncomfortable and disgusting. Consequently, I missed Evo's idiotic pronouncement, in an otherwise lucid and militant capitalism-bashing speech, that eating hormone-laden chicken would make men "deviantly" masculine, which all the Latin American newspapers reported as basically "Evo: Chicken will Make You Gay," and which, at least here, reduced all talk of the summit to a series of jokes about said chicken. So we have another slightly comic yet devastating example of one of my central theses (of course not originally articulated by me; see Michele Wallace, Maria Josefina Saldaña-Portillo, the article I translated for Silvia in Qui Parle [actually this is just the announcement of it, but it's almost out and I'm really excited], etc): that imperialist violent conceptions of masculinity never fail to screw up the most amazing and important moments of revolutionary struggle and potential social transformation.

Anyway, barely recovered, I spent Earth Day harvesting potatoes in Uni with Maestro and Silvi (Silvia's lovely employees with whom I originally bonded over our mutual awe at the level of chaos in the house) which was beautiful, much greener than before, though I missed the flowery, celebratory, non-physically-taxing phase when the rest of the colectiver@s went to decorate and bless the harvest. Probably because I have never farmed on a large scale before, I didn't remember that harvesting potatoes is almost as much work as planting them in the first place, though far superior because you get to see the fruits of your labor. In this case we'd waited a bit too long and many of the fruits (starches, whatever) were wormy, some filled with big fat spectacular worms who stood their ground inside the potatoes (or were exceptionally sticky) . But many were worm-free, and we harvested all of them. Silvi and Maestro have tricks for getting the worms out--you have to dry the potatoes in the sun and soak them with an herb whose name I can't say because there's the Aymara guttural "c" in it. At the end we also picked some peas and fava beans, which are very popular here.

Silvia was supposed to pick us up, but on the way her jeep had been bucking horribly (I had a combucha on my lap that she was taking to her brother, which made the experience more than a little nauseating), so we ended up having to walk almost a mile lugging huge sacks of potatoes and heavy tools, then ride a very slow bus back into the city. It was good though: we harvested our own organic food without mechanized devices; did so in the shadow of the fast-disappearing Illimani glacier, signaling the water shortage that millions of Bolivians are facing; and later used public transportation to lug everything back to the city. And I feel that much more ready to be able to fend for myself during the even-more-extreme global crisis that will surely come, since all the people who actually might be able to stop it, not to mention those who are causing it in the first place, continue to preoccupy themselves with stupid macho posturing.

Caminata

So last tuesday at 10pm I was at Mechy's and one of my colectivero friends Alvaro called her house trying to find me to invite me on this 2 1/2 day pilgrimage to Copacabana that his brother Rolando was doing, along with scores of sinners and supplicants, in order to ask for money to pay for his engineering program. They were leaving in an hour.

I love a good walk and was feeling like my superhero mother had set somewhat of a challenge with her cross-Vermont march to shut down Vermont Yankee, and Mechy encouraged me, so I ran home, where Luchi and Fernando encouraged me more and sent me off with remedios for blisters, soreness, exhaustion, and various other hazards--they also said "hay que traer fé," which I didn't really, at least not in Jesus or the Virgin or what-have-you. Maybe at that point I should've realized that the hike, 120 KM (75mi) over many hills and mountains, would be arduous almost to the point of insanity. But I happily gathered my stuff together and met them at 11pm, bringing blankets and a small flashlight (thanks to Dan and Jay) but somehow thinking thinking they, having prepared in advance, would have a tent, their own flashlights, and possibly even snacks.

But no. We started walking at midnight in El Alto, about an hour before it started pouring down rain, and I soon realized that all they had in their little shoulder bags was coca, socks, and a small piece of plastic on which we were supposed to sleep. And Rolando bizarrely brought 3 hats, one which he only wore for fotos.

I soon also realized that sleep was not really something you do on a hike like this, at least for more than a few

hours at a time. We walked all through the night, in the freezing-cold rain--I was a bit fearful because my hands were clenching up and I actually had gloves but was unable to reach into my backpack to get them. We rested for an hour, from 8-9 AM, then walked for the entire day in the blazing sun until about 11 pm, when we rested (in this very small yet very cold room that some guy was renting out, with about 10 other pilgrims, two or three of whom were snoring dramatically. The first night and day we had walked very fast, and by the second day the boys were complaining and in a lot of pain. I was surprisingly ok--I briefly had 3 very big blisters, but they came and went. When we got to the lake, they wanted to take a shortcut by boat, but I talked them out of it in my machista way. Then, not 10 min later, we passed by some military guys who said "pobre gringita!"in sympathy with me (I was the only non-bolivian we saw on the entire pilgrimage), which I thought was really funny. In fact, Alvaro was a bit upset that I wasn't complaining more--"why are you so stoic? we all have pain." etc--but I was really happy to be outside, and to think, and also (I have to admit) to feel tough and superior.

After walking through almost the whole 3rd night (we stopped to sleep for about an hour on the side of a mountain next to a bone-filled cattle-graveyard but I was too freezing to really sleep), we arrived in Copacabana. We only hung out there for a few hours lighting candles in the church and watching the other pilgrims before heading back to La Paz. I was sore for a few days, but I somehow managed to emerge relatively unscathed. In fact, I felt energized, at least until today when I woke up with mild flulike symptoms. Despite my lack of faith, arriving in Copa with lots of people who had just done a totally grueling hike was kind of exciting.