An Ode to The Plazas of Bolivia
Like clockwork, at around 5:30p.m. my cousins finish their last gulps of coca cola, a staple drink to all meals/snacks (including breakfast), and head out for their usual social routine - “dar vueltas por la plaza”; Going for a spin around the plazaby foot, motorcycle or car is about the only thing you can do in the pueblo of Trinidad, Bolivia - population 101,283. However, plazas are the heart of the cities across Bolivia, and they hold more importance than meets the eye.
As we stroll to the Plaza 18 de Noviembre, naturally grabbing a coke on the way because heat waves overpower cavities, we run into a number of friends and classmates who are heading in the same direction. By the time we arrive, the busy plaza square appears to be a treadmill of teenagers on motorcycles and air-conditioned cars with the windows down. More teenage spectators sitting on tattered wooden benches are seen alongside. This is the social grounds for friend groups to begin their night of drinking, and boys and girls to exchange a few flirtatious words. Ironically enough, just as in every city in Bolivia, the plaza is located at the center of the city at the entrance of a pronounced cathedral.
75-year-old Lucho Velarde grew up in Trinidad, Boliviapartaking in the same social activity right under the Lord’s nose. “[The Plaza] has always been the center of gravity of each town. After all, there weren’t many other places to socialize. As a kid you would bike around the plaza. As you got older, you would go and see your girlfriend there. You’d sit on a bench, talk, and laugh, and so on”, he said. Movie theaters had yet to be built, and many coffee shops where reserved for the male geriatrics who argued about politics that would outlive them.
Actually, in the early 1900’s the social realms of the plaza truly began to form. The plaza served with a similar purpose. However, the conservative nature of the Bolivian society meant that boys and girls were segregated. Sharing the same dirtied white tiled floor, but separated by various coconut trees, boys and girls socialized separately, while stealing glances at eachother across the plaza.
Although the young folks have repurposed the plaza as an equivalent to the american mall window shoppings, the plaza holds much more of an insight to the developmental history of towns and cities in Bolivia. In fact, they go back as early as the 1600’s when Jesuits roamed the jungles of Bolivia and other neighboring countries to establish Jesuit reductions - a type of settlementstrategized by the Spanish Empire to Christianize, tax, and govern indigenous populations. That is why at the heart of any pueblo or big city in Bolivia, there resides a plaza in front of a cathedral; In the early mornings, you still see people gather in the plaza before and after mass. The establishment hasclearly left its mark, seen through the religious city names found mostly across the eastern parts of Bolivia. Western Bolivia has begun to change city names back to wordsthat stem from one of the three official indigenous languages of Bolivia.
However, being the center of gravity for a city naturally attracts the political. Plazas soon became the stage for political uproar. Protests can range from harmlessto quite dangerous. My time spent just last year included around four protests in the city of Cochabamba alone; two of which shutdown the city completely for more than just a couple hours. Kenya Reque, a college student in the city of Cochabamba explains it has now become the norm. “Students from my university San Simon chained school building doors and even shut down the city because they were unhappy with the university system”, she said. Made me begin to question whether not I should be shutting down Boylston street for my Sodexo food. “Here in Bolivia, we know how to organize a protest. And it all begins at the plaza”, Reque said.
Although many protests in the plazas are state-centric, some have been geared towards an international level. A 2011 protest towards the U.S. Embassy was the indigenous fight to obtain a special exemption to protect coca leaves from the 1961 single convention on narcotic drugs- the framework that governs international drugs policy . Bolivia had argued that the convention was in opposition to its new 2009 constitution, which obliges it to "protect native and ancestral coca as cultural patrimony" and maintains that coca "in its natural state … is not a narcotic”. Thousands occupied the plazas and streets across the country to chew coca leaf in support of the country's bid to remove an international prohibition on the age-old practice. Now, the growing of coca leaves is legal and licensed in Bolivia.
A more recent addition to the plaza activities is the traveling artisans that line the white tiled floor offering beautifully intricate pieces of jewelry and home-decor that they have handmade. These artisans came about in the late 1950’s - 1960’s when the Che Guevara social movements emerged. The majority of Bolivians don’t think much of the artisans, calling them lazy “Hippies” who have never been introduced to a shower. However, the plaza serves as the office space for these artisans. These “hippies” have created a new sub-culture to the plaza dynamic. Many artisans are from neighboring countries in South America who are curious about the world around them, or are escaping a lifestyle they don’t agree with back home.
At the center of the city, so many different scenes breakout. With so much movement, its easy to retreat and watch it all unfold in front of you. I finally sat down on one of the tattered wooden-benches while observing the artisans weave bracelets, observing the young people “coquetear", all the while the Holy Spirit observed, or maybe judged. Nonetheless, there is something special about observing the layers of history in front of you, and still contributing to the memories the tiles hold.