The place where other people´s heroes come to die

Wow, or, as they write it here in Latin America, GUAU, this has been quite the week. After a single day of work with Pro-Habitat I found myself hopping onto yet another bus, this time to Santa Cruz, a tropical place off to the East. Most of Pro-Habitat was traveling, along with an assortment of community members, youth leaders, a trio of indigenous ladies, a host of representatives from our myriad partner organizations, and a relatively famous old man on a speaking tour. We are currently engaged in this huge project in favor of the Right to the City (El Derecho a La Ciudad), a project which demands equal access to and enjoyment of the city, from access to land and water to cultural diversity and participation, popular control over public spaces and city politics, and collective construction and ownership of property. It´s a pretty inspiring and complex platform which I am excited to learn and think more about. We presented first at a conference for International Habitat Day, where the esteemed old man (Enrique Ortiz) spoke at length, and then got back on the bus to head to Vallegrande, where we presented as a part of the 5th Alternative Social Meeting, which was a kind of smaller scale regional World Social Forum type event.


Vallegrande is the tiny Andean city where Che´s body was brought after he was shot in La Higuera. The town is super old and lovely. We went to see the various places where his body lay in the local hospital, in front of which we took slightly absurd and solemn group photos. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are among the other famous souls who were killed in these mountains, which lead my project director to describe Bolivia as ¨the place where other people´s heroes come to die¨. This may be the single most depressing description of a country I have ever heard.


The Social Alternative was pretty awesome, and mostly what I expected: a bunch of young punk and hippie kids from Argentina, Uruguay, and Bolivia, plus a random bunch from Switzerland and a few unidentifiable gringos. Our delegation was by far the oldest bunch, though I suppose there were a fair assortment of adult types about. Because Mercedes Sosa died just a few days beforehand, we got to have a really lovely ceremony for her wherein they played a gorgeous song and we all stood silently with our hands on our hearts. It was nice to be somewhere where they really felt her death as a social thing, and also to be able to celebrate the legacy of radical music in such a space. There was also a speaker from Honduras, which was really amazing, since she had basically come as a refugee to ask for our solidarity, and everyone in the room screamed and clapped and declared their trans-national Latin American support. It´s amazing that a military coup can still be happening here at all. The echoes of the 80s in Latin America are terrifying even as echoes. So nice to see the United States working so hard to protect democracy now... (Work to shut down the School of the Americas, the US program to turn Latin American armies into assassins and murderers, which coincidentally trained the current Honduran coup leaders, here.)


For reasons I don´t understand but am grateful for, these indigenous and Quechua speaking ladies have taken a particular liking to me. They giggle and pat me on the shoulder a lot. I tried to impress them with my two words of Quechua. Everyone at the social forum wanted to take their picture and they kept dragging me in. I bet my gringa presence really threw off their indigenous photographic charms. My other coworkers took me out for a night and lived up to their Bolivian reputation for drinking hard- I actually had to surreptitiously pour my drinks into potted plants, off of balconies, and hide my glasses behind napkin holders and empty bottles just to maintain a basic sense of consciousness. Guess we´re all friends now though! I also fell for an adorable four year old from the slums, whose father has vowed to take me to see some radical indigenous hip hop artists, which Bolivia is rather famous for, in small, obscure circles, anyhow.


It´s weird to suddenly be busy. I´ve had to cut down on the sulking. When I got back from Vallegrande I felt like I was coming home. That is really something, I think. Hasta la victoria, entonces.