#006: Fieldnotes, Khonkho. 06/20/06
Trip 2 out to Khonkho. After truck broke down yesterday, a few of us hung around in La Paz with nothing to do, since all our bags and computers went in the other car, which actually got to Khonkho. It was nice to be unable to work, in a way, forced to just slow down and relax. This morning we got a ride with the nice owners of the tienda (deli/bodega) down the street in their big blue van. I stupidly forgot to wear a sports bra, so the ride - bumpier than ever in the backseat of such a large van - could have been better.
Passing through El Alto, the most insane and chaotic part of La Paz, I begin to notice a certain lack of fear of moving vehicles among urban residents here. People more or less “share” the road with cars and trucks, walking boldly, between, around and in the middle of fast-moving traffic. They seem to trust that: a) they will be visible, and b) they won’t get hit. They take the risk that both are true seemingly out of a desire, equal with that of motorists, to dominate the streets. There is a tense intimacy to their competition for space, and, perhaps, a bit of mutual respect.
Arrive in Khonkho late afternoon. Lots of guests here for the Solstice: Two grad students and one just-graduated undergrad from UC Berkeley, plus three archaeology undergrads from the University of La Paz. We have tea, and the Berkeley undergrad and I get along great. We talk a bit about our projects, and wonder together what anthropology does to help anyone. She's working on the Taraco peninsula, near here, and is thinking about how to use the internet and multimedia design projects to get communities more involved in archaeological excavations... but might just do non-profit work instead, like me. It's surprisingly nice to have another person my age there, someone just as lost-but-ambitious as me.
We have a light dinner, and I talk with one of the Bolivian students about entertainment tastes (what kind of movies, music, food I like) and politics (the Cochabamba protests, Bush, September 11). It’s difficult, since my vocabulary is so very limited, but we agree that Bush sucks, and the world doesn’t like him. He asks me, real earnestly, how Americans view Bolivians, and I’m not really sure what to say to that. I say that they don’t know too much about them, but people on the left are big fans of Evo. He says he doesn't like Morales very much, because his policies are directed only at Indigenous people, but Bolivia is so much more diverse than that.
We later depart for the beginning of a misa ritual – wakta’s, they’re called – in a school building down the road. Everyone sits in a candle-lit classroom, on mattresses and chairs which form a kind of oblong circle around the shaman, blanket spread before him. I sit down on a mattress on the floor next to the cultural anthropologist, a visitor for the solstice. She offers me some coca leaves, and scolds me (with good intentions, of course), when I hold out one of my palms toward her. She says you always accept coca by putting out both hands or a piece of cloth (a scarf, a skirt, apron, whatever). It’s getting hot in there so I take off my jacket, and am greeted by snickers and some commentary I can’t understand from a guy sitting near me, a community member. He’s asking me if he can wear my jacket, somebody translates for me. I’m confused but eager to please, so I say “yes, of course” and start to hand it over to him. He and his friends just laugh, though; that wasn’t what he wanted. The cultural anthropologist’s son (sixteen years old) is sitting near me, and whispers to me about how, living in Bolivia with his mom for a few years, he’s learned that people in the altiplano have “this thing about the cold,” and get kind of upset to see you not wearing warm or enough clothing. I put my jacket back on and leave it on for the night, and nobody says anything else about it. I feel frustrated and pouty, sick of being given a hard time for everything when all I’m here to do is learn about this shit. I want to go back to my bed and read Moby-Dick.
The shaman prepares the offerings – candies and other objects wrapped in paper. Everyone watches, but kind of chats along the side too. There’s not really a structure to the ceremony, it’s just kind of something that’s going on while we sit there. The lights are soon turned on, met with lots of squints and “aaoow’s,” and the partying commences. A few cases of beer are brought in by the project directors and presented to the mallkus. An hour later, two more. Whiskey and puro (the pure-grain alcohol stuff) make their way around the circle, and the other young people (the Berkeley undergrad and the cultural anthropologist’s son) strategize about how to avoid drinking the vile clear stuff. Purse your lips as you swig and just let a little cover your mouth. Lick your lips and that’s enough. I wonder whether, as a cultural anthropologist, I shouldn’t just pretend to drink it. It’s called "participant observation," after all. I decide my liver is more important.
I end up having a great talk with the cultural anthropologist, about her work studying tourism in Peru. Even though this isn’t the community she works in, she’s so perceptive about the drinking customs, and knows exactly in which direction the bottles should be going, who we should be offering drinks to (tells her son every now and then, “ok, now go over to the mallku on the left with a glass and pour him some…”). She asks me about what I’m doing here in Khonkho and thinks it sounds like a really interesting project. She makes me nervous as hell, though, when she casually asks, “So, do you speak Aymara?” Then again, she also reassures me a bit when I mention my anxiety about getting started with interviews and she says, “If you didn’t have any anxieties, I’d be worried about you.”
The cultural anthropologist asks me to take picture of her double-fisting bottle of beer and flask of whiskey. Some kids in the room (sons of mallkus, I think), three boys, notice the camera and so I get bombarded with requests for portraits. The kids are ten or twelve years-old or so, but pose very cool, sophisticated, like these are pictures for their pen-pal girlfriends. The cultural anthropologist writes down their names for me and assures them that I’ll print out the pictures as soon as I can.
Later, I pour a glass of beer into one of the two glasses in the room and offer it to a former mallku. He embraces me and tells the Bolivian co-director about how he wants to baptize me with a case of beer, since this is my first time to Khonkho. He’s joking, I think. The two go on talking about how my work is so important to the project and community, since I’m going to document all of the archaeologists’ interactions with community members. This is what my Berkeley friend tells me in her translations, at least. They then get to talking about more technical project matters, and how things in the Project need to be done “in a certain way,” and something about consejo, permission. I didn’t catch much else.
The partying goes on for a few more hours – the room is thick with smoke and drunk laughter. The kids keep asking to see the pictures I took, so I tell them I’m out of batteries, which is almost true. I’m tired and tipsy, so I head home early (too early, everyone says) at around 1am.
Passing through El Alto, the most insane and chaotic part of La Paz, I begin to notice a certain lack of fear of moving vehicles among urban residents here. People more or less “share” the road with cars and trucks, walking boldly, between, around and in the middle of fast-moving traffic. They seem to trust that: a) they will be visible, and b) they won’t get hit. They take the risk that both are true seemingly out of a desire, equal with that of motorists, to dominate the streets. There is a tense intimacy to their competition for space, and, perhaps, a bit of mutual respect.
Arrive in Khonkho late afternoon. Lots of guests here for the Solstice: Two grad students and one just-graduated undergrad from UC Berkeley, plus three archaeology undergrads from the University of La Paz. We have tea, and the Berkeley undergrad and I get along great. We talk a bit about our projects, and wonder together what anthropology does to help anyone. She's working on the Taraco peninsula, near here, and is thinking about how to use the internet and multimedia design projects to get communities more involved in archaeological excavations... but might just do non-profit work instead, like me. It's surprisingly nice to have another person my age there, someone just as lost-but-ambitious as me.
We have a light dinner, and I talk with one of the Bolivian students about entertainment tastes (what kind of movies, music, food I like) and politics (the Cochabamba protests, Bush, September 11). It’s difficult, since my vocabulary is so very limited, but we agree that Bush sucks, and the world doesn’t like him. He asks me, real earnestly, how Americans view Bolivians, and I’m not really sure what to say to that. I say that they don’t know too much about them, but people on the left are big fans of Evo. He says he doesn't like Morales very much, because his policies are directed only at Indigenous people, but Bolivia is so much more diverse than that.
We later depart for the beginning of a misa ritual – wakta’s, they’re called – in a school building down the road. Everyone sits in a candle-lit classroom, on mattresses and chairs which form a kind of oblong circle around the shaman, blanket spread before him. I sit down on a mattress on the floor next to the cultural anthropologist, a visitor for the solstice. She offers me some coca leaves, and scolds me (with good intentions, of course), when I hold out one of my palms toward her. She says you always accept coca by putting out both hands or a piece of cloth (a scarf, a skirt, apron, whatever). It’s getting hot in there so I take off my jacket, and am greeted by snickers and some commentary I can’t understand from a guy sitting near me, a community member. He’s asking me if he can wear my jacket, somebody translates for me. I’m confused but eager to please, so I say “yes, of course” and start to hand it over to him. He and his friends just laugh, though; that wasn’t what he wanted. The cultural anthropologist’s son (sixteen years old) is sitting near me, and whispers to me about how, living in Bolivia with his mom for a few years, he’s learned that people in the altiplano have “this thing about the cold,” and get kind of upset to see you not wearing warm or enough clothing. I put my jacket back on and leave it on for the night, and nobody says anything else about it. I feel frustrated and pouty, sick of being given a hard time for everything when all I’m here to do is learn about this shit. I want to go back to my bed and read Moby-Dick.
The shaman prepares the offerings – candies and other objects wrapped in paper. Everyone watches, but kind of chats along the side too. There’s not really a structure to the ceremony, it’s just kind of something that’s going on while we sit there. The lights are soon turned on, met with lots of squints and “aaoow’s,” and the partying commences. A few cases of beer are brought in by the project directors and presented to the mallkus. An hour later, two more. Whiskey and puro (the pure-grain alcohol stuff) make their way around the circle, and the other young people (the Berkeley undergrad and the cultural anthropologist’s son) strategize about how to avoid drinking the vile clear stuff. Purse your lips as you swig and just let a little cover your mouth. Lick your lips and that’s enough. I wonder whether, as a cultural anthropologist, I shouldn’t just pretend to drink it. It’s called "participant observation," after all. I decide my liver is more important.
I end up having a great talk with the cultural anthropologist, about her work studying tourism in Peru. Even though this isn’t the community she works in, she’s so perceptive about the drinking customs, and knows exactly in which direction the bottles should be going, who we should be offering drinks to (tells her son every now and then, “ok, now go over to the mallku on the left with a glass and pour him some…”). She asks me about what I’m doing here in Khonkho and thinks it sounds like a really interesting project. She makes me nervous as hell, though, when she casually asks, “So, do you speak Aymara?” Then again, she also reassures me a bit when I mention my anxiety about getting started with interviews and she says, “If you didn’t have any anxieties, I’d be worried about you.”
The cultural anthropologist asks me to take picture of her double-fisting bottle of beer and flask of whiskey. Some kids in the room (sons of mallkus, I think), three boys, notice the camera and so I get bombarded with requests for portraits. The kids are ten or twelve years-old or so, but pose very cool, sophisticated, like these are pictures for their pen-pal girlfriends. The cultural anthropologist writes down their names for me and assures them that I’ll print out the pictures as soon as I can.
Later, I pour a glass of beer into one of the two glasses in the room and offer it to a former mallku. He embraces me and tells the Bolivian co-director about how he wants to baptize me with a case of beer, since this is my first time to Khonkho. He’s joking, I think. The two go on talking about how my work is so important to the project and community, since I’m going to document all of the archaeologists’ interactions with community members. This is what my Berkeley friend tells me in her translations, at least. They then get to talking about more technical project matters, and how things in the Project need to be done “in a certain way,” and something about consejo, permission. I didn’t catch much else.
The partying goes on for a few more hours – the room is thick with smoke and drunk laughter. The kids keep asking to see the pictures I took, so I tell them I’m out of batteries, which is almost true. I’m tired and tipsy, so I head home early (too early, everyone says) at around 1am.
posted by kazmira at 3:32 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home