A Bowdoin student’s perspective on the crisis
By Manuela Velasquez
Op-ed contributor
This piece represents the opinion of the writer.
I wake up to my host sister yelling outside.
“MAAAA EL PERRO!!”
Ah. She’s yelling at the dog.
Most Sundays start like this, a slow stirring into bursts of ruckus, until the whole family settles around our chair-packed kitchen table. We pass around a basket of pancito, spreading thick layers of dulce de leche onto their crumbling halves. I drink mate de coca tea and my host brothers poke fun at me, again, for not putting sugar in it.
By the time we’re all ready to leave the house, the sun is already blindingly hot and high. At an elevation of nearly 8,400 ft above sea level, the Cochabamba sun is dry and raw, its heat stirring parched yellow dust into the sweat on my feet, my arms, my face. As we step out the door, my host mother squishes a pink sun hat onto the head of her protesting daughter; she then turns to me, narrows her eyes and hands me a cap too. We poke each other with teasing frowns until we’re both laughing, and then we head to the streets. It is Sunday, October 20—Election Day.
Families climb up and down the hills, coming and going from the neighborhood voting center. An air normally filled with the grumbling of cars and “trufi” (a public mini-bus) engines only sounds with the light echoes of shoes on pavement, and the occasional shouts of children careening downhill in “rodadores” (wheeled toy that kids can ride). Voting is obligatory in Bolivia, and on this national election, cars are not allowed to drive, most restaurants and shops are closed, and alcohol has not been legally sold for two days. The streets belong to the people. My family and I hide from the sun beneath the spattered purple shade of jacaranda trees.
That night, we watch the vote count around the kitchen table, the TV flickering as we jump between news channels. Evo Morales is ahead, as expected, but Carlos Mesa is close behind—within 10 percentage points, close enough to lead to a “segunda vuelta”, a second round of voting in December. By the end of the night, although not all of the votes have been counted yet, Mesa declares that there will be a segunda vuelta, and Morales declares his essential victory. The vote count inexplicably pauses that same night.
On Monday, I go to a cafe. I do homework, and take trufi three like always. Monday night, the vote count starts up again, this time showing Morales ahead in the race by more than 10 percent. I sit at the kitchen table, my back leaning against the wall, watching as the news shifts over the TV screen. In La Plaza de Las Banderas downtown, people begin to protest. There are marches at the edges of the city. My host brother and I look on social media and see that there are protests erupting in cities all over Bolivia. I see a university president in La Paz with blood on his face, and fires in the streets in Potosí, and a burning building in Sucre, and I have no idea what’s going on. I fall asleep confused and with a nervousness for Bolivia and the people I’ve met.
On Tuesday, the School for International Training (SIT) program director in Bolivia asks me and the other students on the program to stay in our homestays. Blockades start going up throughout the entire city. The one on my corner stretches between two telephone poles, layered construction of packing tape, rocks and paper flags reading “Bolivia Dijo No!” These flags refer to the 2016 referendum that Morales held asking to extend the number of consecutive terms a president could serve in office, vying to run for a fourth term; to this referendum, Bolivia voted majority no (Morales then appealed the decision with the constitutional court and the constitution was changed, under the grounds that it is his human right to run for office). Tuesday night, in La Plaza de Las Banderas, a gigantic cabildo, or community assembly, fills the plaza and spills into the streets with thousands of participants calling for a segunda vuelta.
During the day on Wednesday, I can walk through the streets, though there are barely any cars, save for those serving as blockades. The students in my program and I get a message that we have to pack all of our belongings, just in case, and that that night we are moving to a Catholic retreat center. We drive over that night while some of the blockades are down. From inside the center, I can hear chanting on the streets outside. My friend shows me a video on “RT en Español” of Morales warning against a “golpe de estado” (a coup d’etat) in progress.
During the next few days, we spend most of our time behind the walls of the center. During the days, the streets stay blockaded and the air is quiet. There are hardly any sounds of cars, and the sun keeps shining in broad sheets. In this wave of calm, I feel like I’m holding my breath with the city. Thursday night, with the vote count at 99.9 percent, Morales declares victory, and Cochabamba explodes with protests over fraud. We only hear echoes from the center, but we sit together on a bed and watch videos of confrontations downtown. A couple of nights later, the blockades still continue (as they would for weeks after). They are guarded by civilians, some accompanied by kids riding little bikes around the blockades. On the same street, I see people gathering in an intersection, singing together and holding each other arm in arm. Firecrackers still go off. Bolivian flags are everywhere.
I say goodbye to my host family for two minutes that Saturday. SIT decides that our entire program will leave Bolivia and go to Buenos Aires on October 29.
I think that it’s incredibly important, throughout this conflict, to look closely and carefully at news on-the-ground in Bolivia, and focus on how realities are shifting—in ways that are hurting issues of race, class and liberties.
I only lived and studied in Bolivia for two months, which was an incredible privilege in itself. I am not Bolivian, I am American-born. I cannot even begin to understand the depths of how complex this issue is, and I don’t want to pretend that I can. Especially as I’ve been living in Buenos Aires for the past couple weeks now, the news I see and read about a place that I am not in has to be critically considered. I know that there are debates about Bolivia right now across the world, especially regarding the politics of which countries label this a “golpe de estado” and which label it an uprising.
There are additional complexities in how we evaluate different manifestations of undemocratic behavior. These abstracts and structures can be real and important, but they do not constitute an entire reality. I think that it’s incredibly important, throughout this conflict, to look closely and carefully at news on-the-ground in Bolivia, and focus on how realities are shifting—in ways that are hurting issues of race, class and liberties. In terms of atrocities being committed, especially against indigenous people and groups, these are real and harmful acts that should be paid attention to regardless of where one might stand in the debate. I have no authority on saying what the conflict is or isn’t—I just hope to share a little bit of what I saw and experienced.
All news has bias in one form or another, but these are some of the more widely read news sources in Bolivia that I am currently reading: Los Tiempos (based in Cochabamba; frequent Twitter updates), Página Siete (based in La Paz) and El Deber (based in Santa Cruz; frequent Twitter updates).
Manuela Velasquez is a member of the Bowdoin class of 2021. She is studying abroad on SIT Bolivia: Multiculturalism, Globalization, and Social Change. Her op-ed was originally published on The Bowdoin Orient website. It is reprinted here with permission.
Jawad graduated in 2000 with a degree in civil engineering from the EHTP engineering school in Casablanca. He worked as project manager in several companies including OCP, the Moroccan phosphates state company, and as a temporary professor in Bouchaib Doukali University. He is currently working as consultant in construction management services. Jawad has been working as country coordinator for IHP climate change program since 2013. Jawad is also an activist for social and environmental justice. He took part in world social forum in Belem 2009 and Tunisia 2013 and he is an active member of ATTAC/CADTM Morocco since 2000 and has been member of its secretariat several times.
As a political ecologist, educator and researcher, Nicolas Stahelin has worked in experiential learning, international and cross-cultural exchange, school-community partnerships, and higher education for 20 years. He has a BA in environmental studies from Oberlin College, an MA in international educational development from Columbia University, and an EdD in international and comparative education focusing on sustainability, also from Columbia. His teaching and research engage with climate change and sustainability in global and comparative perspectives at the intersection of political ecology, environmental justice, critical policy studies, and education. Nicolas is also a faculty member of SIT Graduate Institute’s MA program in Climate Change and Global Sustainability. Active on several research fronts, Nicolas has published in a number of academic journals, including the Journal of Environmental Education and Environmental Education Research. Current projects include investigations into global climate change education policy programs driven by UN organizations, and reconceptualizing how the lens of climate justice should inform critical education for sustainability curricula and program design in post-secondary international education. Nicolas is an alum (fall 2000) and former program assistant (spring 2001, 2003–2004) of an SIT Study Abroad program in Brazil. Originally of Swiss- Brazilian nationality, Nicolas lived for 20 years in Brazil and Venezuela and is fluent in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French.
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BRATTLEBORO, Vermont – SIT Study Abroad alumna and University of Minnesota PhD student Vanessa Voller plans to develop sexual health and reproductive rights training for rural Bolivian youth early next year. Her community project is aimed at confronting Bolivia’s high rates of gender-based violence and teen pregnancy.
Voller is the newest Alice Rowan Swanson Fellow, a program offered through School for International Training (SIT) that returns alumni to the country where they studied abroad to pursue or continue their research. The fellowship was established by the family of SIT Nicaragua 2006 alumna Alice Rowan Swanson, an Amherst College graduate who was killed in 2008. It is a living tribute to Alice’s passion for bridging cultures and helping others, and the role that SIT Study Abroad played in her life.
“I would like to extend my sincerest gratitude to the family of Alice Rowan Swanson for selecting this project for the 2018 Alice Rowan Swanson Fellowship,” said Voller. “In the wake of the global #MeToo movement and the increased attention to the pervasive prevalence of gender-based violence and harassment around the world, I cannot imagine a more timely and relevant project.”
Through her project, Voller plans to collaborate with local public health officials, doctors, indigenous healers, women business owners, and community leaders to co-facilitate trainings for young people ages 13-18 about sexual health and reproductive rights. She will also develop a youth-led health fair and radio campaign to raise awareness about gender-based violence and establish a safe space for the youth of Buena Vista, Bolivia to develop their own agency, increase their self-esteem, and develop aspirations for their futures.
As a Colorado College undergraduate in spring 2015, Voller studied abroad on the SIT program Bolivia: Multiculturalism, Globalization, and Social Change. A native of St. Paul, Minn., she subsequently completed an MA in International Development Practice at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, where she is currently a PhD student in Comparative International Development and Education and Global Health Studies.
Starting in January 2019, Voller will work with a women’s group in the rural municipality of Buena Vista. The women had approached Etta Projects, a Washington-based nonprofit that works in Bolivia, for support in developing training for young people in their rural region. Etta Projects is named for Etta Turner, who died in November 2002 at the age of 16 while in Bolivia as a Rotary International Exchange student.
Voller noted the convergence of the values of the two young women who made her project possible. “While Etta Turner and Alice Rowan Swanson never met, their charismatic spirits and passionate commitments to the advancement of human rights are the impetus for this collaborative project between the Etta Projects and the SIT Alice Rowan Swanson Fellowship,” she said. “It is our hope that this project will be an honor to the legacies the young women left on this world before their tragic passing.”
Voller also thanked “the courageous women who initially called for this project. Their stories and aspirations for their children, and specifically their daughters, catalyzed the collaboration between Etta Projects, myself, and the local chapters of Rotary International in Bolivia.”
Heidi Baer-Postigo, academic director for SIT Bolivia, said Voller’s project directly relates to her SIT coursework and research, both of which focused on decolonization, the concept of vivir bien (living in harmony), the role of community in social transformation, and reciprocity, a core value of all SIT Study Abroad programs.
“Vanessa and I had numerous in-depth conversations about social justice issues during her time on my program, and I was consistently impressed that a student of her age had such thoughtful and intellectually rich personal and academic examples to draw from in such discussions,” said Baer-Postigo. “She possesses a rare combination of academic rigor and ambitiousness and a practical sense of working effectively and sensitively in a hands-on way with real people in rural areas of Latin America.”
Although there are several organizations in urban settings in Bolivia that focus on sex education, women’s empowerment, and/or support for survivors of sexual violence, Baer-Postigo said, “I know of very few such projects in rural areas, particularly working in collaboration with local community members who have reached out to ask for such support.”
Voller, who eventually plans to become an interdisciplinary professor of education, gender and sexuality studies, and women’s health, added, “I cannot imagine a better to opportunity apply what I have learned in the classroom to a meaningfully and action-orientated project that will impact the lives of youth today and for generations to come.”
The Alice Rowan Swanson Fund awards fellowships twice annually to SIT Study Abroad and IHP alumni to return to their program country to pursue development projects benefiting human rights. Annual application deadlines are March 1 and October 1. Click here to find out more.