Treinta Días

Today is the thirtieth day of my Bolivian journey. One month has passed already. How the time has sped swiftly in thoughts, words, and deeds. What will the next five months bring? Where should I go and what should I do? Do you have any suggestions, dear readers?

This day has been ordinary in its course. Four hours this morning with my classmate Joshua and our trainers, Profesoras Liliana and Julia, honing our literacy with the numbers 1-1,000, learning to use comparative phrases accurately, and understanding the language and culture of Bolivian dress. We had an interlude, me and Joshua and his fellow Maryknoll seminarian Charles, to go to the local migration office. There, I presented my passport and visa to extend my stay for the next 30 days. Thank you, Anita from the Maryknoll Mission Center, for steering me through this errand painlessly. The migration officer even complemented me for speaking Spanish well.

Following the coffee break at Maryknoll, Profesora Julia took Joshua and me to Museo Casona Santivañez, one of the historic and cultural landmarks of Cochabamba. It is a well-preserved example of late colonial architecture, dating, I believe, to the early 19th century. For about an hour and 15 minutes we toured the quarters, which have been partially or wholly restored. We marveled at the longest dining room table I’ve ever seen, with seating for over 40 people! We entered an interior balcony, where Profesora Julia explained that the chairs were for the men and the long benches were for the women, owing to the great width of their dresses, as was the fashion for the time. There, on the benches, the women would knit and weave. We stepped into a salon that came straight out of the courts of Louis XV of France. This room featured space-enhancing mirrors, a grand piano, lamps of crystal and bronze, marble tables, fine seats and sofas, and a recreation in paint of ornate wallpaper, all in imitation of the royal style favored by the aristocratic family that dwelled here. Just about everything in these preserved quarters reflected the Eurocentric cultivation and sensibility of the Santivañez family. The patriarch, Jose Antonio Santivañez, was a criollo, a Latin American of full Spanish descent. Hardly a trace of indigenous culture appears in these quarters, save for one painting of the Blessed Virgin Mary, represented like Pachamama or a mountain deity, that is far more abstract than the pious, dolorous paintings of Christ, Mary, and the saints that predominate throughout.

However, outside the preserved quarters, the rest of the building, the ground level specifically, is dedicated to modern art and photography. Here, indigenous culture and its blending with the colonial heritage, receives its due. One of the current exhibitions presents the masks and costumes of Carnaval, the customs of the Compadres and Comadres celebrations, and the enduring devotion in the department, or state, of Potosí to El Tío de Las Minas. El Tío is a god of the underworld believed to provide protection to the miners of Potosí. It is a strange coexistence, Christ and the indigenous deities and spirits, but as I have written before, the people of Bolivia today have eyes to see the light wherever it shines, and they have arms wide enough to embrace the contradictions that arise.