Last week we traveled to the other side of Bolivia for a week-long case study of regional conflicts in and around Santa Cruz.  Due to a long and complicated history, as it always is, there is a lot of racial and class tension in the area that has mobilized all sorts of people.  The places that we spent most of our time were the city of Santa Cruz and San Julian.  Santa Cruz is known as an “industrialized” city that is generally controlled by upper-class elite who have for a long time been pushing for autonomy from the central government.  San Julian is a rural town about 90 km away, but 2 and half hours in a bus, that was founded based on the colonization policies of the agrarian reform, which was a product of the Revolution of 1952.  The colonization practices gave a little bit of land to citizens of the highlands that migrated to the lowlands.  Consequently, there’s been a lot of tension in the region between the highlanders and the lowlanders, but also between the “farmers” and the “industrialized” elites.  This tension has manifested in blockades, protests, marches, riots…. It’s a really interesting area. 

Anyways, more about our trip-

Santa Cruz is HOT!! Living in La Paz, I forget that I’m sort of close to the equator because with such a high altitude, it’s really not that warm.  But I about died in S.C!  I’ve never been that great about adjusting to hot climates, and this trip was no exception!   Santa Cruz also felt like a different world because there was horrible smoke the whole time that gave the area an end of the world feeling.   A lot of the land around Santa Cruz is agricultural, and the dominate practice here is slash and burn- we caught the burn period of this practice.  It was crazy how heavy the smoke was, and also rather depressing.   What’s more, our drive to San Julian revealed the huge problems of deforestation in the area.  Despite the fact that we were in the jungle, the landscapes for the majority of the bus ride were of wide open fields. 

Although the timing of our trip was a bummer because of the smoke, our timing was also really awesome because the night we arrived just so happened to be the 200^th anniversary of the city!

This is a picture at the Plaza Central where there was a parade (behind us), dances, speeches, fireworks, and everything you need to celebrate a city!

We spent a couple days in Santa Cruz, but the majority of our trip was in San Julian.  We meant with government officials of the municipality, leaders of several of the unions, local workers, and farmers.  Everyone had a really interesting perspective on the conflicts in the area, and it was fun to spend time in a town so different from the places we’d been living. 

Also, as one of the conditions for coming to the town and learning from the people, the mayor had asked that we give a “taller” as a way of reciprocity.  So, one afternoon, the six of us and about twenty Bolivians gathered in a small office to discuss environmental issues in the area.  When we were planning the workshop, I was at first hesitant to choose the topic of environmental issues.  While there is no doubt that Bolivia has many environmental abuses, they’re still far behind the U.S.  It seemed really hypocritical to talk about climate change, when really it’s the U.S. that uses So much energy.  In addition, how could I talk about environmental practices, like saving water, when I had just bought a plane ticket to come to Bolivia that wasted more gas than each family probably uses in a year- or more!     However, I’m really glad we did do it about the environment.  First of all, the workshop was not us Americans, standing in front telling everyone how they should live- which is what I have for the most part experienced in the States.  Instead, the workshop was a discussion in which we would ask a question such as, what sort of problems do you have with water?, and there would be a long discussion about the issue.  It was super interesting!

 

                Also, one day we got to go to a workshop put on by a union of women, with the help of an NGO, about organic food.  It was really impressive how well-informed these women were, and also how motivated they were.

While the trip revealed many complexities of the issues that made me more and more frustrated, it was also a pretty inspiring trip because the people of San Julian are really well organized.  They’ve been able to create change in the government, and they continue to mobilize as a community.