Of toilet paper and other sundries

To explore a world of meaning, toilet paper is as good a place to start as any. In Bolivia, you will find ubiquitous pink rolls, the cheapest option. They serve the obvious purpose, and they also double (quintuple?) as kleenex, paper towels, napkins, and a nutritional supplement for youngsters. I don´t know if it´s possible for paper to have lead in it, but there`s something utterly irresistable to small children about these rolls, rivaling even the culinary allure of playdoh. I`ve witnessed some impressive slights of hand on the part of dexterous toddlers evading the watchful eyes of their parents.

Toilet paper serves at least a few other social purposes. It helpfully indicates areas that have been ¨rezoned¨as public restrooms. It is also a symbol of commonalities or differences in economic status and understanding. Tourists and the upper class carry about packets of kleenex and stock their bathrooms with soft, white toilet paper, the cost of which, during cold season, could rival a working class family`s daily budget for food. (Incidentally, children seem to have no interest whatsoever in the consumption of white toilet paper.)

On a bus ride back from Río Abajo, Zenobia and I are portioning out of the last of her overtaxed pink roll. The stifling air of the bus is a soporific; at least half of the 18 passengers inside the (12 person) van are sound asleep. It would appear that even the half dozen stowaway flies are dozing as well, and I can only hope that the 4 or 5 people perched on the roof are immune to the allure of sleep. Sleep seems to come even more forcefully with the rocky road, stream crossings, and steep rises and drops that would tax even a four wheel drive. We dodge trucks and sheep herds in small towns where parked cars hug the adobe walls of houses like teenagers with their ears pressed against doors, hoping to catch fragments of conversations. We each have a sweaty, sleeping child in our laps, exhausted from the day`s travel and exploration.

In Huaricana, we have visited my friend`s elderly father (Emilio), who apologizes profusely for the state of his house. He just bought this house, he explains. He has plans for it: he will paint over the graffiti on the walls, replace the rotting wooden floors, plant some trees inside the small, bare courtyard. I find it hard to get across to him that most people in the U.S. would travel long distances to catch a glimpse of the world that he sees outside of his window every day. Steep, burgundy-stained canyon walls surround this village. Snow-covered Mount Illimani glares from just beyond the peaks of these mountains (hills, Bolivians would insist). Peaches, figs, bananas, pac´aya, and pears grow naturally in these parts, and the valley cascades downward in a patchwork of lush flower and vegetable patches. These are fed, not by the putrid waters of the river that created (and was destroyed by) La Paz, far to our left as we descend, but by pristine waters flowing from the mountains to our right. Each patch is tended by hand by farmers armed with an instrument that looks like a pick on one side and a hoe on the other. They dig open the openings of elaborately dug channels to let water flow through the patch.

Huaricana is still an oasis from a growing presentiment that water shortages (and ensuing water struggles) are impending in Bolivia. Those closest to the earth are the first to sound the alarm. ¨The wells are going dry,¨ one friend tells me of his village. ¨People go to get water at 3 AM. At 4 AM, it`s too late.¨ ¨The earth is dry,¨ I am told, over and over again. ¨Why?¨ I ask. ¨The water isn`t coming down off the hills like it used to,¨ Salomè tells me. Is this a phase, or is it a sign of things to come? ¨The land is changing,¨ they answer.

I believe their intuition of the land and climate, just as I`ve come to trust their instant recognition of thieves and bad food. ¨That man has the face of a thief,¨ my co-worker once told me as we were boarding a bus (in perfect foreshadowing). ¨Not this salchipapa stand,¨ I would be warned, or, ¨It`s better to buy fish from the other street.¨

If ever you should share a drink in Bolivia, you will offer the first taste back to the earth (ch`allar), a tradition rooted in pre-Incan wisdom about the relationship between people and the earth that they inhabit. In a land of tremendous ingenuity and natural richness, it brings me sadness to know that it may in the end be the indescriminate consumption of resources in another hemisphere that disrupts the long-standing balance between these people and their land.