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.

Back to the Land/More Praying

Finally, here are some photos of the land in Yuni, which we attempted to prepare last tuesday to finally plant potatoes. Unfortunately, I was recovering from a stomach ailment (which is now gone due to the magic of antibiotics) and spent much of the time feeling dizzy and periodically resting while Silvia and Maestro worked (Nico was planning to go, but threw a tantrum at the last minute to get out of it, later that evening returning and, desperate for attention, breaking a window in the house. Since then he has felt bad and repented, and he helped a lot with todos santos). Anyway, we got through the entire day of clearing the land--somehow we didn't bring food, just water, juice, and beer, which didn't help my condition any--and were completely exhausted, when this guy comes up over the hill and explains to us that the land we've been working on actually belongs to the neighbor. At first we tried to protest, but he showed us the property lines and we eventually gave in. I've been sore for nearly a week, despite my lack of productivity that day, and we have to go again and clear more this week in order to actually plant the potatoes. It is no joke, working with a pickaxe in the hot sun all day. But the spot is incredibly beautiful, with many birds and farm-animals stopping by also (not necessarily a good thing in the long run, since there will be no one watching the plants). We have to go again and plant--I'll end up doing so much work, I almost feel like I need to stay through january in order to actually see and eat the potatoes. Although we may be in a drought.

More recently, we celebrated Todos Santos, which is a very beautiful and serious holiday here. People spend days cooking for the dead people (you have to have died within 3 years to be eligible), then construct a shrine and feed them (later you offer the food to the ground) and give them alcohol and pray for them. Lots of people came to our shrine last night and we ate and drank and talked a lot. We didn't really pray much, but we did a little--Mercedes prayed in quechua and later, Silvia's amazing friend Elvira, an artist whose work will be featured in the Reina Sofia and who also, despite being my age, has a flourishing singing career and speaks both Aymara and Quechua, led us in Aymara prayers. They were principally praying for Olivia, a British anthropologist who died of a mysterious ailment and who was a vegetarian, and Nico's friend, who also died mysteriously, on a solo mountaineering trip. Anyway, I tried to join in, and added my own prayers--thankfully, I wasn't really close to anyone who made the 3-year deadline, but I prayed for the writers and theorists I was missing (Grace Paley, Eve Sedgwick, etc.) and the victims of U.S. and Israeli attacks, which I hope was allowed.

Maybe this is my newfound quasi-spirituality talking, but it was kind of nice to talk and think about dead people for awhile, to make a space for them, I guess. And the bread that Silvia made is pretty amazing; of course it's made from coca flour, which I don't think is traditional but which tastes wonderful. I didn't help make the bread, partly because I didn't know the dead people--you're supposed to be thinking of the person as you knead the dough--and partly because Silvia and Nico were actually getting along and they wanted to have some bonding time--but I guess there are huge public ovens where you bake all day. Each dead person gets a bread-doll. The other tradition is that you eat this really delicious stewed-peas dish, which is about both the roundness of the peas (they represent skulls) and they way you have to use dried peas and reanimate them, as you're reanimating the dead.

Everyone was very disdainful of halloween and the way they're promoting it like crazy in Zona Sur, the creepy rich part of town. And I do have to say that Todos Santos is much more social, solemn, and beautiful. It was nice to sit and talk around the shrine with everyone. Tomorrow we will bring a whole bunch of bread and fruit to the cemetery, where I guess people pray all day. Tomorrow I also have to figure out my archive schedule and take my friend Mercedes and her kids out for lunch, so more photos will follow.