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South America » Bolivia » Cochabamba Department » Villa Tunari
August 5th 2005

Published: August 5th 2005

Hello everyone, first off some people might be wondering where are the photos? But, I do not have a camera with me on this trip, blasphemy I know, but if you want to see any pictures of our adventures check out the travel blog of Steven Grin (it’s on this same website).

We arrived in the field on Tuesday, July 26. Ramon and Maggie arrived into Cochabamba, we all met with out two Bolivian team members: Julio and Bernardo and were off on Tuesday. We are staying at some cabins in Villa Tunari while working here in the Tropics of Cochabamba (also known as the Chapare). There are four departamentos (like a county) Villa Tunari, Shinahota, Chimoré, and Entre Ríos; we are working in all four departamentos- some villages are 30 minutes from our cabins and others are up to two hours. The main highway (carretera) in the Chapare is paved but the side roads are either pedrados (organized rocks) or dirt. One of the most successful projects in the regions has been the projects to build roads to connect the villages and larger towns.

A bit of background information…

The US consumes two-thirds of the cocaine produced in the world.

Bolivia is the poorest nation in Latin America next to Haiti.

Instrumento Politico por la Soberania de los Pueblos (IPSP)

Side note: on Monday, July 25 we met with Oscar Coca, the right hand man of Evo Morales. Evo Morales is the leader of the political party MAS, widely considered as a socialist movement. MAS grew out of the political pary: IPSP (Instrumento Politico por la Soberania de los Pueblos) or Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Pueblos. Morales is a cocalero (coca producer), a Federation* leader and essentially supports the rights of Bolivians to grow this crop. Morales was recently declared to be the Presidential candidate for MAS in the upcoming December election. We are working on securing a face meeting with Evo before we leave.

*Each village in the region has its own Syndicate (called Sindicatos) and essentially each community member is associated with the Syndicate, if you are not you can be ostracized from the community and not benefit from the services provided by the Syndicate. Syndicates usually control all justice/ legal issues as there is not government run infrastructure for justice in the region. They are widely considered to be coca producers and considered to be against alternative development and outside influences. Syndicates make up Federations and the Federations make up the Centrales (Centrals) there are five Centrales in the Chapare.

Domestic use of the coca plant in Bolivia has existed for centuries- as a natural medicine it can be chewed or used in teas and the indigenous populations also use it in for religious ceremonies. When chewed it numbs hunger, gives you energy and is used by laborers to work long days with little food as nourishment. It is a part of their history.

In the mid-1980s cocaine consumption was at its peak in the US and the US government began pressuring Bolivia to stop the production of the coca plant (the base product for cocaine). In Bolivia, the Chapare was one the leading producers of the coca plant in through the late 1980s. The US government began eradicating coca farms throughout Bolivia by sending in Bolivian military, paying off the farmers and destroying their crops. Members of one community we visited told us how in that time period "the US paid for soldiers to come and kill us." They had very negative opinions of our country.

The eradication began in the late 1980s and continues today but legally each farmer is still allowed to harvest 1600 square meters (one cato) of coca for domestic consumption. The plant grows with little to no care and provides between three to four harvests a year. The amount of money an individual can earn from one cato is significantly more than they can earn from hectares and hectares of alternative crops such as pineapple, yucca, palm hearts, citric fruits, platano or bananas. The promise of coca drew Bolivians from all over their country to the Chapare with promises of a way to earn a living. So many of the coca farmers are not agriculturists by trade, they are only agriculturists as a result of moving to the region to capitalize on coca.

Rather than teaching them to cultivate other plants we eradicated theirs, paid them off, and as a result created a sense of entitlement among the people on the region. Once the US decided to provide support for alternative crops we gave out seeds and machinery to the people, exacerbating their sense of entitlement. (The development projects in this region are referred to as “Alternative Development” in that crops are introduced as alternatives to coca.)

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We are conducting our project in this region, interviewing campesinos (farmers), teachers, Syndicate leaders, and development officials from USAID, Bolivia, and the EU. More than anyone we are interviewing the campesinos to evaluate how and whether the alternative development has improved and affected their lives. We chose a random sample of villages spreading across the entire region ranging in size from a few families (20-40 people) up to a few hundred people. We usually leave our cabin between 4:30 to 6:00 in the morning to arrive in the designated village by 6:30am. The men in the families usually enter their chaco (field) by about 7:30 to 8:00 so we arrive in time to interview some men before they are off. The women remain at the house, caring for children, etc…

Our first few days in Villa Tunari (Tuesday, July 26 to Thursday, July 28) we met with tecnicos (technical officers, for lack of more direct translation) associated with the PDAR, the Bolivian arm of alternative development, getting background information, maps and other necessities for our entry into the field. That Thursday and Friday we did some test runs in a few villages to try out our interviews, tactics, and to problem shoot before getting started. The first village we tested in the afternoon, only met with women, and many of them only spoke Quechua (indigenous language) if they spoke Spanish they were not willing to speak with us. Our tests went well these two days and we were able to work out some kinks so the “actual” interviews would go more smoothly.

That weekend we returned to Cochabamba, ate very well, went our dancing and enjoyed ourselves. We left on Sunday afternoon to return to Villa Tunari and get to work this week.

We hit the field each day this week, spending between three to five hours in a village. As there are six members on our team we work in groups of two, two gringos with a Bolivian. (As Ramon is half-Bolivian he is our third Bolivian on this project). We split into groups, and knock on doors. But in actuality most people do not have doors so we approach, saying “Buenos Días” and hope someone comes out of their house. If there is anyone home, they come out.

Monday we visited a village located directly on the carrertera, Chasqui, as they are on the paved road, they see more tecnicos, more gringos, and are more accustomed to foreigners coming around. One house in particular was very interesting; luckily Julio was with me because I could hardly understand the man we spoke with- he had no teeth left and was chewing coca the whole time, a combination that made it very difficult to understand him. His wife came out, hugged and kissed us both and offered us oranges to eat while we chatted. We were there for at least and hour and a half and heard about how his coca was eradicated, he now grows mostly oranges but it is not sufficient to earn a living. How he carries his products for 30 minutes byt wheel barrow to bring it from his chaco to the road, where people come by in trucks to buy his harvest. They also grow their own corn and yucca to eat. The pull electricity off the electric lines running along the carrertera, and they had to pay U$150.00 to make this connection. They have a well, which they put in themselves, no medical care in the village and must travel about one hour (on a good day) to reach a doctor. So they rely on natural remedies. The wife recounted how if you show up at the hospital without money to pay they will just not see you. Some of the other people in the village do not have a well and use the “public” well that the village installed at the school. Overall the people we spoke with were receptive, open, and honest as best we could tell.

This past week, we visited two other villages, one thirty minutes off the paved road and another over an hour off the paved road. These populations were much less receptive. Mainly, since we are Americans they are extremely distrustful and reticent to speak openly- despite our explanations that we are merely students conducting an independent project. The US is associated with coca eradication, taking away their livelihoods and thus is not at viewed positively. But can you really blame them? I can’t. One individual, the leader of the local syndicate, explained that they just grow the coca, they do not process the cocaine and they merely sell/ sold it on the local markets with no control over where it ends up and whether it is processed into cocaine. From his point of view they are punished for growing a product they grew for centuries.

In the same village two of my team members has a meeting with a Federation leader, who spoke openly about how there are Cubans and Venezuelans (associated with Hugo Chavez) in the region training the Syndicates and Federations as well as MAS for how to implement a new system post elections in December. He also spoke about how they harvest coca- and that it is their primary crop for earning a living in the region.

(Friday, August 5) This morning, while driving to another very small village (maybe 50 people) we passed Bolivian military conducting an eradication only three villages away from where we were interviewing. As a result, the people we even less receptive and we were able to secure very few interviews. For the first time some individuals outright refused to talk with us; as our presence was surely suspicious with the eradication taking place right down the road.

A bit on efficiency (or lack there of) a major problem here: One day this week, in lieu of visiting villages we met with some UN officials, and observed a capacitation course in how to pack pineapples for export. The class was requested by a Cooperative in Chimoré. Ramon and I showed up on Wednesday morning, chatted with the women contracted to work only to find out the tecnico didn’t show up from Cochabamba. So the women lost money and time coming into town as there was no way to communicate that the course was postponed until Thursday. So we and all the workers returned on Thursday, the tecnico showed and the course started. However not one person from the cooperative was present to take advantage of the course and the knowledge of packing. Everyone there was a hired worker. Everyone from the cooperative was in their chaco harvesting the pineapples. So the course was taught, the workers learned, but what about next time. If they cooperate cannot contract the same workers they have lost the knowledge and the opportunity to take advantage of the tecnico’s knowledge. Inefficiency.

Some interviews reveal more information than others, some people welcome the chance to share their point of view and some do not. All this was expected prior to beginning the project but in the end we are extracting some interesting information, opinions, and evaluations of alternative development in the region.

Essentially we are given the chance to see everything from their local point of view, how this “development” affected their lives. How the supply of coca is related to the high demand (basic economics) and that the demand comes directly from the US. But as we eradicate in Bolivia the coca production only increases in Colombia or Peru, and if we eradicate in either Colombia or Peru the production moves back to Bolivia etc, etc… It comes to down a problem of demand, and we are not winning the war against drugs and can we honestly say that we will?

The projects in the region are so huge and far reaching that they do not address the problems of the individual campesinos. Water tanks are constructed that do not work, medical posts are constructed with no one to man them. Schools are constructed and only two teachers are contracted for fifty plus students. I am not saying there has been no development, as they millions of dollars invested have surely created some opportunities not existent before but these opportunities do not seem to reach the smallest and most remote villages.

There is much more for us to learn, much more perspective we need to create a final report but so far it has been both exciting and depressing, both frustrating and informative. We will continue to visit villages, while also meeting with more of the development officials in the region and also follow some tecnicos into the field to observe their work. Overall it has been and will be an amazing experience, in development, Bolivia, teamwork, as well as a chance to gain some insight into this field we are all studying in the glass towers of graduate school.

I hope this finds everyone well, this weekend we will be staying in Villa Tunari for the “Feria de Pescado” or “Fish Festival” for some eating (fish of course) some drinking some dancing and surely a lot of fun. (This region abounds with rivers and freshwater fish are on every menu, hence the Festival).

Monday we’ll be back to work and back in the field, more then…

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