Thanksgiving in Bolivia

---

Since Thanksgiving is obviously not celebrated in Bolivia I looked for the other fun ways to spend the day.

In the morning I had meetings at the center, but I left after lunch to go to the biggest open air market in South America: Mercado 16 de Julio. It is in El Alto so only a few minute from the Center. It is over 5 square kilometers and sells just about anything you can think of: clothes, tires, furniture, make up, DVDs, custom suits.

After that I went to Cholita Wrestling. First a little background on these women.

The word cholla was a derogatory term for someone of mixed race: Spanish and indigenous. Adding ‘ita’ in this case was to make it smaller. But the term ‘cholita’ has been reclaimed by these indigenous women.

Most cholitas in Bolivia come from the Aymara or Quechua cultures, two of Bolivia’s 36 indigenous groups.

Until as recently as 10-15 years ago, Cholitas faced heavy discrimination. They weren’t permitted to be in some public places, denied access to services and harassed.

But, then Bolivia elected their first indigenous president in 2012. While there are many negative things to say about this President he did make many changes that significantly improves the cholitas lives, the biggest being a constitutional amendment to acknowledge the rights of the first Bolivian people.

The wrestling cholitas began as a way to help women affected by domestic violence. It started with a group of women using wrestling as a way to relieve stress and restore a sense of empowerment among victims of domestic abuse. They later developed it into a performance to show women can do things normally dominated by men.

While of course it is a performance like any wrestling it was quite entertaining and the women made it a great time by involving the audience and keeping it high energy.

Since having turkey here wasn’t in the cards for me, I decided it was high time to try llama: the other other white meat. Betty, the volunteer I work with, is from Oruro where the most llama is consumed. So she was the perfect dining companion. There are several ways to prepare it, but the dish she recommended has shredded llama, served with maze corn, hard boiled eggs and cheese. The meat was a bit salty (that’s saying a lot coming from me!) But with a bit less salt I would have it again. The meat is very nutritious with a high source of protein, but very low fat content.

---

Comments

[Rana Ayaz Mahmood]

edgemanpower
Blog is very nice. In the morning I had meetings at the center, but I left after lunch to go to the biggest open air market in South America: Mercado 16 de Julio. It is in El Alto so only a few minute from the Center. It is over 5 square kilometers and sells just about anything you can think of: clothes, tires, furniture, make up, DVDs, custom suits.