Fruit truck part deux

---

The little town, Yolosa, was 7 km below Coroica. All it was was a few houses
(all little cafeterias offering exactly the same things … about 12 of them) set
up adjacently with one big street that everything in town took place in. Which
in a town of 40 or so is not much, but quite varied: trucks and buses splashing
through the mud and water that the townspeople were dumping their raw sewage
into; stopping in the open space to breathe a collective sigh of reliefe after
surviving the road and the toilet-less hot buses; being pounced upon by vendors
selling nuts in long plastic bags, or soda in baggies, or ice cream from a
dirty Styrofoam bucket. The town is devoid of bustle and hustle for 55 minutes
of the hour, but for the 1 or 2 minutes a bus comes through, the women (always)
come sprinting up to the truck, clutching onto their bowler hats all at once,
crying plaintively fo the people on the bus to buy their things.
Then the bus leaves and they go back aimlessly to their posts and watch and
talk while their naked little children play in the water.

Because we had to be back in La Paz ASAP, we just decided to grab the first
vehicle through … a huge dump-truck filled to the brim with fruit (bananas,
mangoes, … jungle fruit) and 15 or so Bolivians peering over the side at us. We
asked the driver to take us to La Paz. Impossible, he said - the truck is full,
I cannot. Izzy and I parlayed. I went back: We´ll give you 40 Bolivianos (about
$5). He looked at me to see if I were joking, then grinned, climbed out, and
hoisted himself up and straddled the edge of the truck. I handed him the bikes,
he delicately placed them on top of the fruit, and we took our seats on some
crated fruit at the front of the truck, nodding and smiling to the people. The
truck lurched forward and we were off - very slowly … hm. On the way out of
town we got nailed dead on by the local children chucking pitchers of water at
us. Full of sewage-mud-water… mmm…
That broke the ice with a little kid of 9 or so because he was laughing so hard
it was hard not to join in as well… He began asking us all kinds of questions:
where we come from, How long does it take to fly from your country, Do you know
kung-fu, Did I (Patrick) know how to fight - to which I answered, Only to the
Death - at which point he scrambled backwards and tripped behind some crates
and stared out at me wide-eyed, everyone else cackling gleefully.
Our truck companions were: a family in the rear, an old expressionless man, a
nursing mother in bright Andean campesina colours who couldn{t have been older
than 17, a staring teenager, a few kids, and a few other adults. Up front with
us were two families: the 9-year old and his 14yr old brother, and their dad,
lounged out with his feet up on a tarp and his back against a crate. On the
left side was a man and two young women - although impossible to tell who was
what (daughter, wife, sister, …), because of the timeless faces Indian women
assume after about age 19.
The kid finally got up the courage to talk to us again. He wanted to
check out our helmets, so Izzy gave him her bright green snazzy Giro rented
helmet. He stared at it for a second, then giggled and put it on backwards,
with the neck-straps framing his eyes. He was pretty proud of himself and
looked at us for approval but we were laughing so hard we couldn´t say
anything. That broke the ice for everyone … everybody shouting instructions as
how to wear the helmet. We had been taking pictures with Izzy´s mini snazzy
digital camera, and so of course everyone was curious. They wanted to know what
kind of film was on a camera where you could instantly see the picture, so we
explained that this was ´digital´, and didn´t need film, that you could put it
on the computer and see it directly. ¿How? Well, it´s just light, that´s all …
Then of course the question, How much does it cost? (the little boy). We asked
him - How much do you think?
He pondered that for a bit, then said, tentatively, 100 Bolivianos? ($12.50).
We said that actually it cost around $200 (which is a lie, it´s about $120 more
than that). Everybody gasped and then gathered closer to see what thing could
be that valuable.
We didn´t want them to be more people who just saw gringos as the
extremely rich. So we said Wait, let´s explain. $200 is only about 2 days of
work. So yes, it´s expensive, but if you save it up, then it can be done…
We talked for a long time about cost of living, how much $ are worth compared
to the Boliviano, Yes, there are poor people in the US and Belgium, telling the
kid (again) that it really did take 10 hours to fly from the US,…
The father would listen and nod, mostly listening … We didn´t talk all that
much about their life, at first. All they wanted was for us to take pictures of
them and then look at them and ask questions to us.
Meanwhile, we´re lurching and bucking our way up along the road, 20ft up on a
truck going walking-pace next to the edge of the cliff. The edge varied between
3ft and 2 inches away from the tyres…
We came to a few waterfalls. God, waterfalls are such the cliché but these were
espectacular… seemingly drifting down from hundreds of feet up, until you rode
under them on your bicycle and got a heavy blow to the head. Coming down on
bikes, as a tourist, it was a blast, algo divirtiendo. Now, completely exposed,
and with fresh, fragile goods for market and a pass where the temperature would
be 40F coming soon, getting wet was not quite such a pleasant situation.
Fortunately there was a huge orange tarp in th etruck and we spread it out over
us all, jockeying for position a little bit for the better parts of the tarp.
The kid put himself in charge, shouting out orders to hold it this way or that
way, or tighter!, until the truck hit a bump and he went sprawling again. Once
we had the tarp covering us we all waited, staring round at each other in our
little orange cocoon and smiling apprehensively. I almost got knocked over by a
low branch that came running down the middle of the tarp like a submarine
breaking surface upside-down, which set everyone laughing again, at my expense.
Finally we got to the waterfalls. It reminded me a lot of a theme-park ride
where everyone knows they´re going to get soaked but still scream anyways.
1,2,3,4 waterfalls and we were through. The tarp was rolled and stowed, and we
settled back down onto our crates.
Eventually we noticed that the boys were pointing down and shouting every so
often. Birds? Animals? Ronald McDonald?
Wrecks, actually… little dots down at the bottom of the gorge… Say, the view
straight ahead looks great, don´t you think?
Every 50m or so was a long scar through the trees, leading down from the road -
where trucks had gone over and taken the vegetation with them. That led to a
discussion about de-forestation, how the tree´s roots hold the earth, and if
they go, the first rain or strong wind takes away the earth too … The father
nodded agreement.
Finally we jolted our way off the dirt and onto the paved road that would take
us up the La Cumbre pass we had begun at that morning. Alright! Three
excrutiating hours on the road of death, now we were going to open up! We came
onto the road, the driver revved the engine - and we proceeded to go exactly
the same pace. Maybe slower.
As we rose, out came the warm stuff. For us, that meant wicking fleece
underclothes, fleece-wool hats, rain-wind jackets, and hand warmers (a
euphemism for socks in my case). Izzy was pulling on her nylon-covered fleece
mittens that we had thought we weren´t going to use after I got sick, but it
turned out to probably have saved her life. Or at least discomfort. Whatever. I
had put on my socks as well as Izzy´s spare on my hands and we were settling
under the tarp again when I happened to glance at our friend next to me and
realized he had no socks at all, barely anything warm to speak of. I grew up in
bleak, cold, northern Europe, and I was cold. What was it like for a man from
the jungle? I took off my socks, and handed them to him. I settled back again,
got comfortable, and realized that the boy didn´t have socks either (actually
he just had some nylon shorts, no underwear). Izzy nodded, and so I gave him
hers. Then I looked round and realized that no one had socks or proper shoes,
except for the girls. Aie. The foot of the unshod person is something the foot
that has had a sole its whole life cannot comprehend. It´s black, but white and
cracked on the edges where the old calloused skin is falling off and the under-
skin is moving to become more callouses. It´s flat and splayed, and the toes
are pushed out the same way teeth grow wildly without braces. If the feet have
car-tyre sandals, then the rubber and the foot are indistinguishable - equally
black, equally tough. I´ve seen campesinos walk through snow for hours with
just tyre sandals. When I gave them my socks I wondered if they´d actually use
them, but they did. They´d all love socks. They´re just a frivolous,
unaffordable luxury, though. If your feet are cold then asi es, and you keep
going.

We talked some more. It came up that they had overheard us telling the driver
we´d give him 40 Bs to take us. What is that in $, someone asked. Oh, about $6,
I said. A half-hour´s work.
The two men looked at one another. 40 Bs. That´s about … three day´s work?

Oh.

They were paying 15 Bs for the ride to La Paz, for the family and their goods,
hoping to sell all their fruit in the big rich city of La Paz and then make it
back with hopefully enough to eat better for a few days.

I had opened my wallet at some point for something, and the little boy saw my
US Military ID and exclaimed. I wasn´t sure wha the US had done around here.
But I decided to show him, and he gazed at it for a while, then passed it on.
Everyone stared at it and touched it for at least two or three minutes each.
Then someone saw that the colours on the hologram changed when you moved it,
and then everybody had to have a go again.

We kept climbing. The trees disappeared, the clouds came low, and every so
often we could see a black sharp peak through a hole. We stopped for a bathroom
break (everyone squat in a ditch next to the road), and then it got too cold to
see things so we pulled the tarp fully over our heads and all snuggled
together, trying not to think of all the hairy insects that lived in banana
shipments, until a centipede scurried across Izzy´s coat and then that´s all we
thought about.

It got darker, everyone was asleep. We crested the pass, and then lumbered down
into El Alto, the city above La Paz.
I wanted to give my socks to our friend, but thought to just give would be
demeaning and patronizing (who was it that said the worst kind of person is he
who would tell another he is not as good?). So we decided to trade, ask him for
mangoes in return for socks. Which actually isn´t all that generous. I would
trade my first-born child for a fresh mango. Almost as good as a Colorado
peach.

As we got off, he handed me the socks. I asked if there was a way he could do
an exchange, and then handed the socks back, and forgot about it as I had to go
over and get the bikes off.
We had got them down and were about to take off when he popped himself over the
side, lowered himself down, and handed me four mangoes - hugely
overcompensating for our trade. It was an extremely generous gift on their
part. Who said; The Poor man is also the Rich man? Jesus? If not, he should
have.
We saddled up, said goodbye, and then shot down the hill for the bus station,
through sewage water, oil, mud, past chasing dogs, around and over potholes and
bricks and trash, all the while dodging past slower combis and trucks, with the
lights of La Paz spread out below like a night sky turned inside-out.

We never even learned their names.

---

Comments

[KM]

Thanks
Thank you for another view of this area and the people. It makes it much more real than others I've read.