Seeking Decent Restaurants in Bolivia

In 1987 or 1988 I was in Cochabamba, Bolivia to improve my Spanish skills. One morning I arrived at the Maryknoll-sponsored language institute and discovered a great deal of consternation. A problem had arisen. A student from the United States had been denied entrance to a local restaurant.
No, let me correct myself. It wasn’t exactly that she had been denied access. She could have entered. It was just that she couldn’t take the accompanying Quechua woman friend with her. Students at the institute were encouraged to live with local families. These were not poor families but neither were they wealthy. If they had been, they wouldn’t have been renting rooms to foreign students. But they weren’t homes of Quechua or Aymara families. However, every home had at least one live-in servant woman (Quechua or Aymara) who washed the clothes, cleaned the house and prepared the food.
According to The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2003, the Quechua make up 30% of the Bolivian population and the Aymaras account for 25% more. Most live in the altiplano. 30% of the Bolivians are mestizos and 15% white. But while the indigenous Aymaras and Quechuas compose the majority of the population, they have been looked down upon and have effectively been left out of the control of the country for centuries by a good part of the white and mestizo population.
A mestizo Bolivian once told me that he and his wife had a successful relationship because, “she knows her place.” The same could be said for the relationship among Bolivians.
It has been, in many cases, a violent relationship. In Latin America and the Caribbean, only Haiti has a higher rate of infant mortality than Bolivia (53.11 deaths per thousand births—CIA figures). But statistics in Bolivia are very deceptive. The mortality rate is much higher in the altiplano. Those who live in the altiplano have fewer doctors, less education and worse living conditions. The 1996 South American Handbook (Passport Books) says that, “Under 40% of children of school age attend school even though it is theoretically compulsory between 7 and 14.” Again, in the altiplano the percentage would be higher.
Bolivian politicians and the U.S. Government overlook that type of every day violence, which has accompanied the Bolivian people in the altiplano for centuries, when they accuse Bolivian leaders such as Felipe Quispe, Evo Morales and Oscar Olivera of supposedly fomenting violence in their protests and struggles for human rights.
Today, there is a separation movement among the “cambas” who live in the lowlands. They consider themselves to be a “nation” in many ways superior to the “collas” who live in the altiplano.
Some cambas in the Beni-Pando region laughingly told me that the collas stink. They were right. They do. So do the cambas stink. So do we all stink. Some of us have more access to water, deodorants and perfumes and so we stink differently, but ask any dog and he or she will be able to tell you more about our stinks.
But, so does the natural gas that exists in abundance in the camba territory stink. Right now it is especially stinky. Its smells of money, power and greed. Let the collas go whatever way they want to go. Just let the cambas keep “Cambaland” the way they want it.
A website, nacioncamba, gives details of the history of Cambaland. (Cambaland is my own word. The site speaks of the Camba “Nation”). It beautifully tells of how the Spaniards started mingling with the local population way back in 1561.
But if they mingled so well, why did Spanish become the official language? Why in their history of Cambaland does the site first put emphasis on the “Jews, Arabs, Germans, Japanese, Italians, Croatians, Mennonites and other citizens of the world” who have gone there? Oh, the site then says, “We also have Latin-Americans from neighboring countries and bolivians from other parts of the Republic. With all of them, the man of the plains shares the same desire of becoming better and of progressing.” It is interesting to note that the “bolivians” they mention from other parts of the country don’t merit a capital “B” such as the other groups do. It is also interesting that they don’t mention that the multinationals and the U.S. Embassy have also been welcome friends in Cambaland.
But the offer is there, citizens of the world. If you want to become part of a better race and of more progress, just come and join the people of Cambaland.
I don’t know what is going to happen in Bolivia and I am no expert on the matter. Through the years I have had the privilege of being there a total of only about six months. I treasure the friends I have there and I have no advice to give to anyone in Bolivia. But I do know that the idea of people “knowing their place” isn’t right and can’t continue. The time has come for all the people of Bolivia and of Latin America to know an equal place. That time is overdue.