Bolivia Diaries: Day 5, Part 4 - A Unique Birthday Celebration

This diary is part of a series describing my trip to Bolivia to study food sovereignty, agroecology, and climate change. We spent our fifth day in Yungas, the warmer and greener region just down the mountains from the Altiplano. That evening contained a surprise. What I expected to be a routine meal at a restaurant became a profound cross-cultural experience.

As I briefly mentioned, I had a migraine during our first day in Yungas. A BAD migraine. And I left my meds in the hotel. I ended up laying on the floor with my eyes closed while everyone else roasted coffee. Pretty soon, I had to ask for help. Friends helped me leave the coffee demonstration and go find something to eat and drink to see if that would bring a bit of relief.

At this point, an Aymara woman came up to us. When Tanya, our tour guide, explained about my headache, the woman became very concerned. Her name, it turns out, is Bertha, and she is a very close friend of Tanya's from when Tanya lived in Yungas. I sat down with her, kind of wanting to be left alone, but soon became engaged in conversation with her. Bertha was wonderful.

We talked about our mutual love of chickens. She had some criollo chickens that matured at the usual rate (six months), and a few Cornish cross industrial broiler chickens that matured in a mere 40 days. (Imagine a child growing to adult size by age four... sick!) The industrial broilers are from the school's vet program, which is a lot less organic than the agriculture program. When I showed up that day, Bertha had a chicken in one hand and a knife in the other. The chicken was now nowhere to be seen, but I had caught a glimpse of it lying limp on the ground before it was plucked as we had returned from harvesting coffee.


Most of Bertha's chickens are free range, but these two are locked up together because they are a mating pair.

I asked Bertha if the chickens were for meat or eggs. She looked at me with the same confused look EVERY Bolivian gave me when I asked that question. Both! (Unsaid here: why would you have chickens and use them for only one or the other?) We giggled over different ways to kill chickens, and I told her about a friend who calls herself "a good rooster murderer." And we talked about our families a bit too.

I had all but forgotten about my migraine by the time the rest of the group was ready to leave. I gave Bertha a big hug and hoped I'd get to see her again during our time in Yungas.

Flash forward to the next day. We didn't see Bertha at all until dinner time. As it turned out, today was Bertha's brother Javier's birthday. Tanya had invited him out for a celebratory dinner, and another gringa who lives in Yungas, Sarah, invited his sister and her family (Bertha, her husband, and her daughter).

Javier, strangely, picked us up in his van and drove us into town, dropping us at the restaurant but not joining us. I don't know why. Apparently, he's a bit weird. But Bertha and her family did join us. It was a nice restaurant that wouldn't be super-fancy in the U.S., but it was certainly on the high end in Coroico. The restaurant was run by a French woman and offered a mix of French and Bolivian fare.

As I sat down near our Bolivian friends, I noticed nothing out of the ordinary initially. I enthusiastically ordered llama with a white wine sauce and ginger that was served with mashed sweet potatoes and another delicious Andean vegetable that I now forget. Bertha and her family didn't even open their menus. Tanya ordered for all of them.

What I was entirely ignorant of was that this was their FIRST TIME IN A RESTAURANT. Ever. They initially told Tanya they would get nothing (we were treating) and she coaxed the two girls into ordering trout and Bertha's husband into ordering llama. He had never eaten llama before, even though he is from Bolivia, where it is commonly eaten. Llamas are raised and eaten at higher altitudes, but around here one would have to purchase llama meat if they wanted any.

I commented on my meal, recalling the first time encountered the Spanish word for ginger, jenjibre. I couldn't even imagine what on earth "jengibre" meant! Bertha replied that she STILL doesn't know what jengibre is. That is, she's never heard of or eaten ginger before. It made me feel very lucky that I've been fortunate enough to encounter and try foods from all over the world, and usually I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want.

Once the food came, the mood lightened up, and we began joking. There might have been wine involved (I can't remember). We passed tastes of our food around, and I let Bertha try some ginger from my meal. We talked some more about my chickens, and the Bolivians seemed to love hearing about them. They asked if I ate them and I pretended to be horrified and said "No! They are my princesses!" The Bolivians giggled. Here, where chickens are dinner, it seemed very silly to consider a chicken a precious pet.

After we finished, we gringos ordered a few desserts: tiramisu and a chocolate banana crepe. Then we passed them around the table for everyone to share, insisting that our Bolivian friends help themselves to generous portions. By this time we were all having a great time and we started joking about the fact that we were celebrating Javier's birthday without him. "Happy Birthday, Javier!" I said. The Bolivians laughed. I told them I hoped he had another birthday tomorrow, because this was fun! They laughed again.

They dropped us off at our hotel, where we all gave one another lots of hugs and exchanged email addresses (Bertha is learning how to email with Sarah's help). The next morning, they walked to our hotel very early in the morning for another round of hugs and to see us off. Here's a picture of our group, with the gorgeous Yungas landscape in the background:



(Looking at this picture at the end of the trip, we decided that it was almost too perfect to be on earth, but the miserable little chuspi bugs that bite you up make it quite unlike heaven.)

As we talked after our dinner, a few things came out. This was our Bolivian friends first time ever dining at a restaurant like this. Bertha's husband told Tanya that he would remember his life all his life. And yet, this meal, while delicious, was routine for the Americans in our group. But now I would remember it too, feeling somewhat guilty and sheepish that I can afford delicious meals at restaurants whenever I like and for so many people on earth, such meals are once in a lifetime experiences, if that.

I'm not sure if I am accurately conveying the experience and my feelings with mere words here, because it feels so much more powerful than something that can be described in words. I think our Bolivian friends might feel a little guilty or beholden to us for treating them to such an - in their worlds' - lavish, expensive meal. And do they also feel the inequality, that we can dine like this every night if we wish, and they cannot enjoy such meals at all, ever, unless we treat them?

But most of all, the experience was just sheer joy at meeting and enjoying a meal with such lovely, wonderful people. Even with linguistic and cultural barriers in the way, Bertha's kindness comes across loud and clear. I hope that I will be able to see her again in the future, and I also hope that I can do something about the inequality in our world that allows me to treat my chickens like princesses while hers must be dinner, and that allows me to dine in any restaurant I like, even one half a world away in Bolivia, but denies Bertha the same opportunity.

Bolivia Diaries: Day 5, Part 3 - A Biointensive Garden

This diary is part of a series describing my trip to Bolivia to study food sovereignty, agroecology, and climate change. We spent our fifth day in Yungas, the warmer and greener region just down the mountains from the Altiplano. After lunch, we visited a biointensive garden that the students maintain to provide their own food supply. John Jeavons aficionados, buckle up!



One look at the garden told me much of what I needed to know about it. If you've ever used John Jeavons methods, as outlined in the book How to Grow More Vegetables, then you know what I'm talking about. I asked where they learned the methods they used, and sure enough... They learned from an Argentinian expert, but the Argentinian learned from John Jeavons.





As you can see here, the beds here are one to one and a half meters wide (3-5 ft), which is just wide enough so that someone can reach from either side into the middle, and so that you don't have to walk on the bed, compressing the soil in it. The beds can be as long as you want them to be. Here, they prepare the soil by double digging it (as outlined in the Jeavons book) down to 60 cm from the walkways (about 2 ft), which is closer to 70 or more cm below the top of the raised beds. Double digging is a way to aerate compressed soil, and you typically add soil amendments to the soil when you do your double dig. After an initial double dig, you can simply mix future amendments into the top few inches of the soil.

The idea behind planting in beds instead of rows is that you can plant more in the same space and thus derive more productivity from it. The chard (below) is a great example of the recommended plant spacing.


Don Desiderio shows us his chard


Floating row covers used on a broccoli plant

Don Desiderio began his tour by telling us the most important part of biointensive gardening was living soil. Initially they used chicken litter, but then it became very popular and now they cannot get enough of it. Now they make their own amendments - compost tea and compost.


Compost tea


Compost tea

This compost tea is created by putting kitchen scraps in buckets. Each bucket has small holes in it. On the top, he put yogurt and urine. He also adds oats and molasses to stimulate the fungi and bacteria, respectively. The scraps break down after a few weeks and they come out the bottom as a compost tea. He mixes a cup of the tea with 2 liters of water and then sprays it on the plants. He said it's a very fast system so you need to constantly add more food on top. You can add a little meat and fat and you can add eggshells, but no plastic and no bones. To create a bit of an organic insecticide, he adds spicy pepper seeds to the mix.


Compost pile

To make compost, they want to mix materials both rich in nitrogen and rich in carbon. They strive for a mix of 30:1 carbon to nitrogen. Dry material like leaves, straw, and wood are carbon rich, whereas food scraps are typically nitrogen rich. With too much carbon, the compost pile doesn't break down quickly. With too much nitrogen, it can go anaerobic.

To build the pile, they begin with carbon rich material, then a layer of nitrogen rich material, and then a layer of soil. That's because the soil has the microorganisms that are needed for composting. They continue to build the pile, layering it like this. Then they add water. The big plastic tube is for aeration. They turn the compost every month or two (ideally every month) and it takes six months to be ready. Don Desiderio said they just always need more compost than they have, but for a small family growing a garden, this would be a good system. They use about 5 to 6 kilos (11-13 lbs) of compost per square meter in the garden. (If they have chicken litter, they use 1-2 kg per square meter as an amendment.)

They also grow peanuts, beans, and other legumes to add fertility to the earth. And they have a small scale worm composting operation going too.

Many of the plants are started in trays and then transplanted into the ground. This allows them to maximize their use of space. They make their own potting soil by mixing soil (which has a lot of clay in it) with sand and compost.


A student mixing potting soil.


Plant starts.

The entire garden is done on a slope, so it is all terraced in order to retain nutrients and moisture and to prevent erosion. The bricks that line some of the terraces heat up during the day and radiate the heat back at night.


A view of the terraces, from below.

Several rows of trees (citrus trees, plantain trees) are grown as windbreaks. The plantains are eaten green and boiled, not raw. They accompany every meal here, often as a bread substitute. I noticed that one of the trees is a legume, which puts nitrogen into the soil.


A row of trees that serves as a windbreak.


Trees


Plantain trees


Leguminous tree

Near the compost pile, Don Desiderio pointed out wild relatives of some native plants - wild amaranth and ground cherries.


Wild amaranth growing near the compost pile. Good food for birds, says Don Desiderio.


Physalis peruviana, a.k.a. ground cherry, growing wild

Lemongrass, which they call hierba luisa, is used as an insecticide. I asked if they also used neem and he said they don't have it here, although it is grown in Bolivia (he said in Alto Beni, which is closer to the Amazon compared to Yungas).


Lemongrass - the essential oil is used as an insecticide.

Next, Don Desiderio showed us a solar dehydrator. It was something the students built and worked with but then sort of abandoned. Don Desiderio said it's very good to use for drying herbs, tomatoes, bananas, or even fish.


A solar dehydrator.


A solar dehydrator.

One of the crops here, locoto peppers, are very special and loved in Bolivia. Recall that chiles are native to this part of the world and there is great biodiversity of chiles here. These are the ONLY crops in this garden that grow from saved seeds. Here, the locoto are flowering and the peppers will be ready in 2 months.


Locoto peppers


Locoto flowers

One very disturbing detail that came out during our visit to this garden was that they are forced to buy seeds that have already been treated with pesticides. As noted before, the only saved seeds are the locoto seeds. Those have always been saved and they aren't available commercially. Untreated seeds are available to buy but are much more expensive, too expensive. Treated seeds are affordable. And, very unfortunately, most or all of the seeds sold are hybrids, which means you can't really save them - although they are trying. So even in this beautiful, organic garden, all of the seeds except for the locoto seeds already have pesticides on them.


A student shows me his agroecology book.


A hoophouse that provides partial shade.


Oops, looks like the pests had a good meal here.

Bolivia Diaries: Day 5, Part 2 - Andean Crops, With Photos

This diary is part of a series describing my trip to Bolivia to study food sovereignty, agroecology, and climate change. We spent our fifth day in Yungas, the warmer and greener region just down the mountains from the Altiplano. After lunch, we were treated to a fascinating introduction to Andean crops.

During our time in Yungas, we mostly visited the Unidad Academica Campesina (UAC) Carmen Pampa, and we were generously led around by Desiderio Flores. We first met him at the coffee plant and then met again for lunch and for a spectacular presentation of Andean crops and a tour of a organic, biointensive garden.

About Our Host
UAC-Carmen Pampa began in 1994 with 52 students in the Agronomy department, and now they have 752 students in 5 departments - vet, tourism, nursing (public health), agronomy, and education. The agronomy department is the largest. A Fransciscan nun named Sister Damon was teaching high school in this area for a long time and grew to understand the structural problems around poverty. She saw so many students graduate high school and they would return to their villages and remain poor. The only other option for them was to go to the city for a higher education, but then they wouldn't return to the country after that. So she wanted a university that would serve the needs of rural students, and that's what the university has done.

Our guide, Don Desiderio, is an agronomist who is passionate about Andean biodiversity. He is from Oruro but came to this area in 1995 to work on a project on roots and tubers. Subsequently, he was invited to become a professor of agronomy at Carmen Pampa. During his tenure, he began teaching organic agriculture. Recently, he was put in charge of the coffee facility. It's not his expertise, but he agreed to do it because of his love of the agronomy department and the college. However, he plans to leave the university to return to Oruro (and he might have already done so by now).

Andean Crops
Don Desiderio began his introduction to Andean crops by saying that many people who live in Yungas are not native to here. Many people came from elsewhere and colonized this land, and they brought their food with them. They also adapt to the food we grow here.

Tubers

Oxalis tuberosa: Oca

Don Desiderio began by describing oca. Oca is native to the Andes and were domesticated thousands of years ago. They are produced in the high Andes from 2500m-4000m about sea level. They yield 25 to 30 tonnes per hectare. There are about 150 different varieties of oca in Bolivia. They differ by size and by color of flesh and of skin. You can eat them roasted, raw, or fried. Oca is sundried to increase the amount of sugar. Sometimes they dry them until they are very dry so they are pure sugar.

Andeans have learned how to preserve oca. They put them outside during freezing nights and then put them in the sun during the day. This is called kaya. (The bowl on the left contains kaya, I believe.)

Oca is grown by planting the tuber, not by planting a seed. They plant them in mounds, about 10cm deep, 40cm wide.


Ullucus tuberosus: Papalisa

Next, papalisa. According to legend, people who eat this get soft skin, which makes people fall in love with them. This species grows in the same conditions as oca, and there is huge variety of papalisa in Bolivia. They come in green, purple, red, and yellow colors. This is grown in the region near Lake Titicaca. You will find many varieties of this near the town of Sorata. They grow 2500-4000m above sea level.

In Holy Week, they traditionally make a an ají (spicy salsa) of papalisa. Papalisa has a mucous so it must be boiled first before it's cooled in the ají to get the slime off. In Peru, papalisa is called ullucu.


Tropaeolum tuberosum: Isaño

Isaño has a bit of a spicy flavor. But the Andean people learned to cook it and then cool it very quickly and that makes it sweeter. In the Altiplano, they make a paste and mix it with milk and let it freeze at night and sell it as a kind of ice cream. And now they are making a tea with it to help with prostate problems. Isaño is grown from 3000m to 4000m but mostly between 3500m and 3800m above sea level.


Solanum tuberosum: Potatoes

There is an incredible diversity of potatoes here. For more, see the post on potatoes.

Roots

Lepidium meyenii: Maca (No picture)
Maca is like a small radish. It is grown between 3800m to 4800m above sea level. There was a boom in maca for using it to enhance male fertility. There are also rumors that it increases your brain size. The Incas would give their soldiers flour from isaño to keep them from thinking about women. Then, when the soldiers returned, the Inca gave them maca flour. Now, they are starting to use maca to feed alpacas and llamas to increase their reproduction. During the Spanish conquest, the Spanish was scared of the indigenous population increasing, so they did not want to the indigenous to eat maca.


Colocasia esculenta: Walusa (incorrect name, see below)

The plant in the photo here appears to be taro, which is correctly labeled with the scientific name Colocasia esculenta. Apparently, another name for taro in Bolivia is walusa japonesa, or Japanese walusa. Walusa itself is Xanthosoma sagittifolium. The two are routinely mixed up in Yungas, according to this document, which is quite useful to learning about Andean crops if you can read Spanish.

Don Desiderio said that this plant was introduced from Africa, but it has been Andean-ized. From some quick and imperfect research, it appears that Colocasia esculenta (taro) was introduced from Africa, but it didn't originate in Africa either.


Smallanthus sonchifolius: Aricoma (Aymara) or Yacón (Quechua)

Yacón is the name I've seen used for this in the U.S. This enormous root in the picture weighs about 16kg (35 lbs). (You cannot tell its size from the picture, but the paper label on the plant is the same size as the paper labels in other pictures if that helps you visualize how huge this is.) They traditionally make a drink with it. Just wash it and peel it, you don't need to cook it. Don Desiderio told us to eat this when we are thirsty and the water content will quench your thirst. Yacón is good for diabetics. The Japanese have started growing this and they have patented the process for extracting inulin from it (a type of fiber). This is also a diuretic.

When you grow this, it takes about 8 months to grow. There are nodules that you break off to plant instead of using seeds. Yacón has been somewhat lost due to the introduction of processed foods and the rate of diabetes has also gone up.


Canna edulis: Achira

Achira is an Andean root crop. This grows in almost any soil type, and it doesn't matter if pests attack the leaves because the part you eat is the root. The starch in the root can be used to make very high quality pastas. It can be used to create organic types of plastics and glue. In Bolivia, they either use this to extract the starch or they cook the root itself and eat it.

There isn't very much interest in this crop anymore in Bolivia. However, he recently got someone from nearby to grow some for flour, which makes very good bread. In Colombia, there are factories that extract the starch and there are women's cooperatives that make pastries with the flour. Don Desiderio thinks it would be a good idea to do something like that here.


Arracacia xanthorriza: Racacha

Racacha is a relative of celery. It was domesticated even earlier than the potato or oca. It's grown throughout the Andes. Racacha roots have a very fine starch that is easy to digest. This makes it a good food to nourish the very young, elderly, and sick people. It comes in many varieties, and the most important are purple, yellow, and white.

Racacha leaves can be fed to livestock. The root has 1-3% protein, but the top part has 15% protein. In Costa Rica, they don't even eat the root, they just eat the top part. In Yungas, they are trying to salvage the high protein part, perhaps by making a flour with it to feed to hogs. Also, they say that this is a good food for women to eat after they give birth because it is high in calcium. Similarly to the carrot, which it is related to, it also has lots of vitamin A and phosphorus.

The largest producer of racacha is Brazil. It was introduced to Brazil by Colombia 100 years ago. Nestle has gotten involved with racacha production in Brazil for export to Japan.

Grains
While roots and tubers have been the basis of the Andean diet, they also have grains and cereal.


Chenopodium pallidicaule: Cañawa (Shown here: Pito de Cañawa)

Cañawa is a chenopod, and it is highly nutritious. It contains 18 essential amino acids. The grain is similar to quinoa but smaller. It hasn't been used as much as quinoa. Cañawa is grown at 3500-4500m above sea level.

Cañawa is often roasted and ground into "pito," a fine flour used to make into drinks. This is mixed with water and sugar or even mixed into coffee. Pito de cañawa (shown in the picture) is a popular item to send in care packages to soldiers by their parents. (In Bolivia, the men serve 1 year of mandatory service in the military.) It's practical, easy to carry in its dried form, and it's nutritious. Don Desiderio said it's extremely nutritious if it's drank mixed with milk. Cañawa is even higher in protein than quinoa.


Chenopodium quinoa: Quinoa

As I've noted before, there are over 3000 varieties of quinoa in Bolivia, which is the world's top producer of it. Quinoa is known here as the "grain of gold." It's one of the most important domestic crops grown at high altitude. It is grown from 2500m to 4000m above sea level. Don Desiderio said that the strange thing is that Bolivians don't like it very much because it's too much work to process (i.e. the washing required, see below). Even though it's very nutritious, it's more work than, say, cooking rice. He feels frustrated that his country imports so much wheat when Bolivia grows so many grains that can be used instead of wheat.

A problem with quinoa is a type of toxins called saponins that are in it. (Amaranth has no saponins and cañawa has very little.) Quinoa must be washed to get rid of the saponins. The bitter varieties have the most saponins. At first, the global market demanded a specific sweet variety of quinoa, so everyone grew it and a pest attacked. Later, a process to convert saponins into shampoos and other products was discovered, so then the international market began demanding the bitter varieties. Now, there are not so many problems with pests, but there are problems with untimely freezes and desertification of soils.

Recently, the price of quinoa has gone up substantially. A pound is now 10-12 Bolivianos. When you export it, you get about 15 Bolivianos. ($1 = ~ 7 Bolivianos)


Hordeum vulgare: Barley

Barley is not native to Bolivia, but it is commonly grown there. It's a base of the Andean diet from the highlands down to the tropics. It was brought from Africa but adapted to the Andes. In the picture, you see both barley and pito de barley (similar to the pito de cañawa, above). It is grown between 2500m-3500m above sea level. The grain is eaten by people and the straw is eaten by livestock. Don Desiderio recommends eating pito de barley with dulce de leche.

Don Desiderio said a problem is that when kids go to school, they lose the habit of eating traditional products and don't want to eat it anymore.

Beans

Pachyrhizus ahipa: Ajipa

This is Ajipa and it grows in both a bush and pole form. It has a tuber. The root of ajipa is used similarly to Yacón. However, it is propagated with the seed. It is an interesting species because the seed can be used as a natural insecticide, rotenone. Ajipa is grown in the valleys between 1500m and 3000m above sea level. Ajipa is in the same genus as jicama.

Other Foods

Solanum quitoense: Naranjilla


Solanum quitoense: Naranjilla

Naranjilla is a native of Ecuador that has adapted perfectly to this region in Bolivia. It's used in juices.


Solanum betaceum or Cyphomandra betacea: Tree Tomato


Solanum betaceum or Cyphomandra betacea: Tree Tomato

The tree tomato is a native crop that Don Desiderio said most people don't take advantage of. However, it's great in a juice, jam, or hot sauce.


Isp'i


Close-up of Isp'i

Isp'i is a fish from Lake Titicaca. They are eaten whole, eyeballs and all.

Not shown here but still important in my humble opinion:

• Tarwi (Lupinus mutabilis): Grown from 2000m to 3800 m.
  
• Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas): Grown in Bolivia in the Altiplano and in the valleys. Although sweet potatoes are native to the Americas, the majority of the world's sweet potatoes are now grown in China.
  
• Fava beans (Vicia faba L.): Introduced here by the Spanish and adopted as a very commonly grown crop. Grown in the Altiplano and the valleys.
  
• Peanuts: Domesticated here.
  
• Coca
  
• Coffee: Originally from Ethiopia, but a very major cash crop in Yungas.
  
• Cacao: This is native to Amazonia, and it's mostly grown at a lower altitude as you head toward the Amazon, in an area called Alto Beni.

Bolivia Diaries: Day 5, Part 1 - Coca

This diary is part of a series describing my trip to Bolivia to study food sovereignty, agroecology, and climate change. We spent our fifth day in Yungas, the warmer and greener region just down the mountains from the Altiplano. There, we got to see how coca - the plant with many benign and spiritual uses in the Andes and more harmful uses when made into cocaine - is grown.

We began our morning in Yungas (near Coroico) with a nice walk over to meet Don Gregorio, a local community leader who was kind enough to show us how he grows coca. In Yungas, there's a dusty dirt road that goes along through the mountains, and below it are towns, homes, and farms. Above it is forest that is used as communal hunting and gathering space. Often, wild plants are used as medicines as well as foods. Communally managed forests can also provide firewood, which is needed especially for people who lack cooking gas. As we waited for Don Gregorio, we saw a gorgeous bird, a male swallow tanager:


This is Wikipedia's picture... mine wasn't nearly as good.

Once Don Gregorio arrived, he introduced himself. To describe his role in the community, I must explain the syndicate structure. Each indigenous peasant community in Bolivia forms a "syndicate" that uses a very participatory form of democracy. All of the community will come together for the syndicate meetings. Meetings are conducted in the indigenous languages. The people are called to the meetings by the sound of the pututu, made from a cow's horn (there's a picture in the El Alto Market diary). People who were not born in the area, even if they have moved there and lived there for years, are not included in the syndicate.

In Yungas, the syndicate leaders are elected. Elsewhere, the community rotates the leadership position among each man in the community. A group of syndicates will come together to form a "sub-central," and several "sub-centrales" come together to form a "central." If a person goes against the community or breaks the local rules, the syndicates will administer punishments. (In some areas in the Altiplano, the syndicates will even lynch criminals.) This is how local democracy is administered. And, from what I gathered, these syndicates, sub-centrales, and centrales exist outside of the official Bolivian government.

Back to Don Gregorio, he is the leader of his Sub-Central. Therefore, he's an important guy in local politics. With our introductions out of the way, we began walking down the mountain to Don Gregorio's cocal (coca field).

As we walked, Don Gregorio ran us through the normal day of a coca-growing family. The woman wakes up first, before 5am, and she prepares the food for the day. For breakfast, she makes soup and herbal tea (like the sultanas leftover from coffee production). Then she makes rice or noodles, boiled plantain, egg or charque (jerkey) or dried salted fish from the Amazon or other smaller fish from Lake Titicaca (isp'i) for lunch. The man will eat first and go to the field. The fields are far from their homes so it is a long walk. The woman will then eat, clean up, and leave for the field, bringing food for lunch with her.

Coca is a traditional crop in Bolivia, as it has been chewed or drank as tea and used in religious ceremonies for centuries. The two most important coca growing areas are Yungas (where we were) and the Chapare. Yungas is considered the traditional coca-growing zone. Although yields are lower there than in the Chapare, the leaves are considered smaller, sweeter, and more desirable for coca chewing and rituals.

At last we arrived at Don Gregorio's coca, where we saw coca plants for the first time.


A coca plant


Very green coca leaves. These must be a darker green before they are ready to be harvested.


A plant with light and dark green leaves.


Another coca plant.


A coca plant with fruit


Don Gregorio's cocal

Don Gregorio's cocal is just under one cato, a quarter hectare. Evo Morales passed a law that every farm family can grow one cato of coca. Don Gregorio's cocal is seven years old. Typically, a family will clear land via slash and burn and then, for one year, grow crops like maize, cassava, or Andean crops to help prepare the soil. Then the farmer will prepare the soil for coca by building stepped terraces called wachus (details and photos below).

Coca is germinated and grown in seedbeds that are protected from the sun. After the seedlings grow for about a year to a height of about 15 centimeters, they are transplanted into the soil.


Don Gregorio's area for germinating coca seeds (under the wooden poles).

Coca growing is incredibly labor intensive and the soil is very poor. Yungas is known as the "traditional zone" for growing coca, but because this region has grown coca for so long, the soil is often worn out. (That said, coca annually uses far fewer nutrients than corn.) Most people do not use soil amendments here, but some people will use composted chicken litter or even some urea fertilizer. Below are photos showing how much of the land is devoted to coca, how steep the slopes are, and how the terraces are constructed.


A view across the valley at coca fields.


A really steep slope

Wachus:

The construction of wachus or terraced steps is the technique most frequently utilized. The soil is prepared to a depth of some sixty centimeters, work which is done manually because of the steepness of the slopes. Then terraces are built following contour lines, beginning at the low end of the field and proceeding to the upper end of the slope. The wachus can vary between thirty to fifty centimeters in altitude, depending on the slope of the field. Between each [wachu] a ditch or canal of about ten centimeters deep and twenty centimeters wide is then prepared where shade is maximized and humidity is retained. The coca plants will later be transplanted within the outer edge of the canal, where conditions favorable to the rapid growth of roots are optimum.

The actual building of the wachus is done with a tool called a paleta, a flat wooden board with a handle which workers pound and compact the soil to stabilize the recently formed terrace steps. They later cover these with a thin layer of soil to smooth their surfaces. In this way the completed wachus look like little mud walls. Rainwater collects and is absorbed inside the canals, preventing all runoff. In addition, the working of the soil in the process of constructing wachus has the added advantage of minimizing weed growth. - Coca, Cocaine, and the Bolivian Reality by Madeline Barbara Leons and Harry Sanabria, p. 214-215.

This was described to us by Don Gregorio, who said they wait til the rainy season so the soil is soft. Then they hold a board up to the soil and beat it to form the steps. The baby coca must be planted in the rainy season or else it would need to be irrigated (if it were planted in the dry season). Coca can be harvested one year after it is first planted.

The wachus are very effective at preventing erosion:

This is because the coca shrub, without being cut back, as it is every few years or so, would turn itself into a small tree several meters high. An extensive root system develops over time and holds the soil in place. - Coca, Cocaine, and the Bolivian Reality by Madeline Barbara Leons and Harry Sanabria, p. 218-219.

The mention of cutting back the plant refers to the practice of pruning the tree after productivity begins to decline (after about five years) to 10-15 cm above the soil. This is called pillu. In fields more than 20 years old, this is done every 3 years. In this way, a coca field can stay productive for several decades.


Wachus (terrace steps)


Newly built terraces.


View from below.


If you can see, baby coca plants (wawa coca) are planted right at the base of each step.


There's a small depression at the base of each step.


Wawa coca growing (and some weeds too)

Harvest takes place about every three months, depending on rain. When the leaves are harvested, they are placed in a bag the called a mitiña. Then they are dried before they are stored and sold. The entire family will help with the coca harvest. Don Gregorio told us that when there is good weather, he can get 70 lbs of coca from his field. According to the same book I quoted above, productivity is about 900kg per hectare. Currently, coca is going for 28-30 Bolivianos (US$4-$4.25) per pound.

Because harvest is labor intensive, often families will hire workers to help with the harvest. They are paid about 3 Bolivianos per pound or perhaps 75 Bolivianos for a very productive day of work. Often college students in this area work to pay for their education by harvesting coca.

In the past, there was an equal, reciprocal relationship in which people would share labor. This is called ayni. Ayni represents two people who are equals, so they can each help one another harvest coca and the amount of help they give is roughly equal to the amount they receive.

A second form of traditional labor sharing is called minca (or minka). If one person has more land than the other, then there will be a payment made to the person who owns less land for harvesting the wealthier person's land. This is still more traditional and personal than day labor, in which you work for someone you have no relationship with and you are paid for your work.

These forms of traditional labor sharing are somewhat dying out in favor of day labor.

Don Gregorio told us that he does not use any chemicals on his land. He also showed us his license, emphasizing that his coca is grown and sold legally.

In addition to coca, this area grows oranges, tangerines, coffee, limes, peanuts, corn, walusa, taro, plantains, rice, cassava, squash, and hot peppers. I even saw a little bit of sugarcane growing. There is some cash cropping done with squash and hot peppers that use quite a bit of agrochemicals in this area. Don Gregorio told us that sometimes the people here will bring oranges and plantains to the Altiplano to exchange them at the markets for chuño.

One thing that's notable about some of the other crops grown in this area for sale compared to coca is that coca can be harvested and sold one year after sowing, whereas other crops (coffee, citrus) would require more time before they provide a crop after planting.