Return to Salvatierra

It's been a mad dash of meetings the past few days as I've been preparing to head to Salvatierra:  Gabriela Flores of From the Mountain introduced me to Jennifer Marcy of the Craft Center of CHF International  http://www.craftscenter.org.  The Craft Center is a trust provider for the new World of Good socially conscious internet marketplace that eBay is launching.  We chatted over coffee at Fridolein, near the main plaza, and Jennifer told me about her current visit.  The Craft Center has been helping artisans develop products and reach markets for years.  They have been particularly successful in the Chapare (a gorgeous, rugged mountainous region filled with cloud forests and coca fields), implementing USAID alternative development projects ("alternative development" is a code word for "please grow anything but coca").  One of their successful groups is ArteTropic, which makes handicrafts out of jipijapa (pronounced hippy-hoppa), a fibrous plant that can be woven into baskets and shaped into whimsical little animals. Their artisans have a store in Cochabamba that will be well worth a visit.

Unfortunately much of the USAID funding is getting shifted into other priorities ("priorities" is a code word for "Iraq"). So the Craft Center is pulling out of Bolivia in September. 

That same morning we met with Patricia de Rojo of ArteCampo.  ArteCampo is a local umbrella organization that represents over a dozen rural artisan cooperatives; we've been ordering products from them for several years.  We have an order of wool rugs and ceramic mobiles that is about to be sent out; twelve large boxes were waiting for me when I arrived. Patricia pointed out a recent piece, a painted triptych from the Urubichá Painters Workshop: instead of wild animals and jungle, the artisan painted a scene of the Urubichá beauty pageant, Miss Cunatai.  (Cunatai means "Miss" in the local indigenous language, Guarayos....So "Miss Miss".) Local beauties paraded on a dirt street past pigs and palm frond roofed huts. I have seen that pageant many times, and the painting was right on.  "We are not very happy with this," Patricia opined.  I loved it; it was a perfectly bizarre convergence of languages and cultures.  

We then visited the store and workshop of Claudia Mercado, who produces the jewelry designs based on the Jesuit Mission Church motifs that we feature on our Web site. Claudia is talented and versatile; she studied at the Parsons School of Design and worked as a designer at Calvin Klein. She has since returned to Bolivia to start her own design lines of jewelry and accessories ("I missed the countryside most of all," she told me).  She and Gabriela did a quick brainstorm and came up with some excellent ideas for a new product line that we want develop with the women in Salvatierra.  While we were talking, Sandra Flores of BCCN (Bolivia Competitiva en Comercio y Negocios, funded by USAID), stopped by to meet us briefly.

Gabriela arranged dinner that evening with Marcelo Arauz. Sr. Arauz is the visionary behind Festivales APAC which organizes the International Baroque Music Festival of the Chiquitos Missions. The Festival is the largest baroque music festival in the world.  It attracts over 40 groups who play throughout the Bolivian countryside in the original 18th century missions. The festival will be held next year from April 24 - May 3.  Sr. Arauz told me that the struggle for funding is worse than ever; many of the corporate sponsors are leery of backing major events in Bolivia because the uncertainty about the trajectory of Bolivia under the Morales government.  Business is slow, exports are down. 

Opinions are deeply divided about Morales.   Crucenos generally abhor him and his policies: re-nationalization of oil and gas companies, relaxation of coca restrictions, a reluctance to allow regional autonomy, and constant blockades are the major complaints.  At the same time, he has made impressive reforms: cracking down on corruption, raising the minimum wage, demanding higher royalties on the gas extracted by foreign companies, sending those resources to local governments for health and education programs. There are computers in the schools and Cuban doctors in the countryside, where before there were none.

It is difficult to navigate the complicated web of public opinion about Evo.  Much of it seems to be based on regional bias (Evo Morales is from the mountains of Cochabamba, not the tropics of Santa Cruz).  The Santa Cruz anti-Evo interests are very powerful, and they have mobilized their propaganda machine. Posters such as these are common: