With my
wife's retirement in September, we left the world of work to live near our son
in Houston. A new home means a new house, and there is nothing surer to disrupt
domestic tranquility than the selection of trims and colors and cabinetry. So
in the name of preserving the general welfare, I left the house to my wife and
flew south for one last trip to the Andes.
Although
I have been back to Bolivia many times since I first saw it in 1968, it has
been nearly fifty years since I visited Chuquichambi, the little town where I
spent my three years in the Peace Corps.
I wanted to return while my aging body could endure the rigors of high
altitude, risky diet, and uncertain transportation. This seemed like the time.
Bolivia
in the 1970s was a series of regions united by little more than a name.
Moreover, the tiny elite and small middle class that had controlled the nation
since its creation had very little interest in the countryside. When I left
Chuquichambi in 1971, the town had 500 inhabitants, the same population
recorded in 19th century records.
It had no electricity, no system of communication and no reliable roads.
It was
this last deficiency that posed the greatest obstacle to a return trip. In my experience, the onset of rains in
November meant the end of predictable passage across the fifty kilometers that
separate the town from the Pan American highway that runs south from La Paz.
The annual rains turn the flat, dusty pampa into a sea of grasping mud. But it
was now or never. I contracted a driver and four-wheel drive Land Cruiser, and
this November meterology was running in my favor.
The Pan
American Highway is now a four-lane expressway, and the ten kilometers between
it and the jump off point on the railway is paved to two lanes. As we chatted
on the drive south, I had warned the driver, Humberto, that we would have to
ferry the Desaguadero River before we reached the pampa. But much to my
delight, there is now a bridge
over the river, and on the other side of it a sign reading: "Papel Pampa
37 KM," "Chuquichambi 51KM." More surprises followed. All of the
fifty-one kilometers were on a raised, gravel roadbed, much in need of grading
but all of it a foot above the annual water level. Chuquichambi now has a
bridge across its small river, electricity, and a cell phone tower, located
just out of town. (I called my wife and learned that carpenters had misread the
blueprints to the kitchen.)
These
changes, all occurring in the last five years, are directly the result of Evo
Morales' presidencies. Morales,
himself of a rural, peasant background, has diverted significant funds and
attention to developing the countryside.
As
Humberto laid out a picnic lunch, I walked around, testing my bearings. The
town plaza was as I remembered it, but the church and its bell tower had been
rebuilt, smaller and closer to the
plaza. The two buildings of greatest interest to me, the secondary school built
with funds from the United States (see images below), and the house where I lived, were still as I
remember them.
After
lunch Humberto and I parked in the plaza, hoping to attract attention. It didn't take long. First two
tween-aged boys on bikes stopped and stared. Though they had no memories of the
distant past, the boys served as a catalyst to my hopes. One summoned a middle-aged man who
remembered my residence in his youth and the building of the school. He asked
me to give him names that I remembered.
Not surprisingly, everyone on my list is now dead. But a woman sitting
in an open doorway nearby, now very old and nearly deaf, turned out to be the
widow of one of my best friends.
She summoned her son, now middle-aged and nearly toothless, and we
talked about old times. As we shook hands and parted, he thanked me for coming
back and proudly observed that "we've progressed a lot since you were here
last."
His words are full of meaning. Operating under the ethos of development, the Peace Corps’
purpose was to bring progress to the countryside. But in reflection, I, and many of my cohort, have realized that
progress comes only from within.
What the Peace Corps intended, Evo Morales delivered fifty years later.
The drive
back to La Paz featured one episode from the past. In Chuquichambi Humberto learned that there was a more
direct route back to the Pan American Highway and decided to take it. The route
was shorter, but it included a ferry across the Desaguadero. As our vehicle
reached the east side of the river a pilot launched his craft, and took us
across, using a long pole for propulsion and navigation.
This modern-day Charon’s days are numbered, though. Concrete bridge spans and a crane lay near the landing.
School 1971
School 2015
