The electricity cut 'sparked' off political unrest in Coroico

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The Corte de Luz (the blackout) due to a burnt out transformer, which happened two days ago today provoked a march through the town to the main square and brought about a town meeting attended by all residents of Coroico where various speeches were made regarding three points. First of all, everybody in the square stood up to sing the national anthem of Coroico. Then one speaker, stood up in the middle of the square with a microphone and said ‘Residents of Coroico, we are here today to reclaim our rights as Bolivians……’ It was peaceful thankfully and beautiful to see a community work together for a better future.

The first point was regarding the sharing out of the land. The land of Coroico used to all belong to the church but the scenic parts (the mountains and waterfalls) had been sold off by the President Hugo Vancer Suarez in 1956 to various people. The speaker insisted that it was in the next generation’s interest to give the lands back to church and hand the land back to God.

The second point made by the next speaker, a woman, was regarding the court in La Paz which Coroico belongs to. The town hall of Coroico had submitted a request for a court case regarding the returning of the land, which after years had still not been processed. The people of Coroico wanted justice to be done at the court here in Coroico so it could be attended by all citizens, instead of holding it in La Paz.

The third point which was the topic which had originally sparked off the meeting was the business of the delivery of electricity to Coroico from Cochabamba. As Coroico is in the province of La Paz, the speaker argued that the electricity should come directly from La Paz. At the moment the electricity comes from Cochabamba, located a long way away meaning that any slight wind or rain can bring down the cables and causing the town of Coroico to regularly lose its electricity, meaning that the town cannot operate. This was another instance when the electricity was cut off for 20 hours. I wasn’t too happy either. Apart from it being quite fun that the Plaza could have made a good setting for murder in the dark and the fake panic was quite amusing, we couldn’t get wifi after spending so long looking for a hostel with wifi and making sure my tablet and Ronald’s iphone were compatible with the wifi system in the hostel, we were served bread for our breakfast instead of toast and there were no hot showers, and all because all the electricians were too drunk after fiestas to fix the transformer until 6pm the next day.

The town people sitting on the steps were applauding the speeches. Some of the women were putting forward their points of view which were all in agreement with the speaker, another woman would voice her agreement, then their would be a lot of cheering. It was like spending a morning watching the UK politicians fight it out in parliament . It was fascinating. The men of the town kept quiet but the women continued voicing their strong feelings about the lands and the lights.

The town was at a standstill. Nobody could open their businesses or go to work until all three speeches had been heard, and the traffic was stopped. It was inconvenient to say the least because Ronald wanted to get his shoes mended and we wanted to return to La Paz in the morning. Not interested in hearing the speeches, Ronald a self-declared Republican went to look for someone else to fix his shoes whilst I continued to admire this fighting talk.

We headed back to La Paz in a little minibus without too much ado, and had better seats than we did on the outward journey. We headed out to the main square in La Paz, watched some live comedy shows – one was of a kid dancing to Michael Jackson’s records, one was a play and the funniest one was a man dressed up as a bird with a long beak, making funny noises, imitating any people who passed our way causing them to be shocked and embarrassed. Then he would stop cars annoying the drivers by doing funny actions in front of the car, all in good fun. Ronald and I were rolling about with laughter, we were nervous about giving money though in case he imitated us.

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