Thursday, January 23, 2014

Tierra Padillense (the land of Padilla)

First Impressions

Where on earth do I start;

located four hours from Sucre by bus, I feel that my complete appreciation for Sucre only became fully apparent after visiting something smaller and more rustic to put my perspectives in check. This is not to say that there is a void of beauty and unique characteristics to Padilla (it truly is a marvel on its own), this is simply stating that: the size and level of development within any city must be held in complete relative terms; the discomforts and unfamiliarity experienced in one place are always subject to subconscious comparison alongside another place that you either have or have not been to. Although a fairly brief visit, my experience of Padilla was an enriching one, one that taught me many things: things not only about the rural areas and municipalities that I am working with, but also about myself, and how comfort-zones can be broken and reformed within relatively short time lapses.

My journey began at seemingly random bus station in Sucre (not the main bus terminal). Small micro-bus companies are scattered around the neighborhood and basically each have their own small 'office' where people come and wait for the bus to arrive.

We left on time and the bus itself was not as full as I was expecting it to be, I was lucky and had legroom. the road out of Sucre set the tone for the following four hours, winding mountain highways, rising up above the valleys, and then dipping down into the very same valleys with shadows of the looming mountains overhead. Something I noticed almost immediately was the constant glimpses I was catching of old train tracks along the way. They were often half buried or overgrown with soil and plant life, yet still remaining quite visible throughout the first half of the journey. (I was later told by fellow passenger on my trip back to Sucre that the tracks were abandoned approximately 20 years ago, when the government either ran dry of funding, or simply lost interest on the project; a phenomenon that seems quite prevalent in the country).
Upon my arrival I was greeted by my friend and co-worker, Nicholas, and he proceeded to show me around the town, greeting and introducing me to every single person we passed as if he had become friends with all of the supposed 2,000 inhabitants. Now I have read somewhere that there are 2,000 (approx.) within the built-up area of Padilla, though for myself this was hard to believe. It is always interesting to see how our minds perceive places and sizes, and my mind perceived Padilla to be very small (although in comparison to other surrounding towns, it is actually quite large). We passed by the houses of his friends, other co-workers, and other acquaintances from who knows where, all greeting him as the sole white person in town (this may not be entirely true, as there is rumour of another white person in the midst of Padilla, a German woman; however, I did not encounter her during my two days there, so I will wait to hear back from Nicholas to see if she surfaces).



One particular co-worker of Nicholas that we encountered was the official driver for the Municipality of Padilla, one who drives the Mayor around and is in charge of moving the 'officials' to and from the town. It was 6 pm on a beautiful Sunday afternoon and we approached him from the opposite side of the vehicle he was attempting to enter, attempting to surprise him. Nicholas sneaked up behind the SUV and began to rock the vehicle back and forth, to evoke a reaction out of him. After a good 5-10 seconds of doing so (and rocking the vehicle quite hard), we came around to see that he was extremely inebriated, so much that he was unable to open the door to the SUV or notice the entire vehicle rocking back and forth (very noticeable for a sober person). Once we presented ourselves in plain sight, we attempted to chat with him for a while with the attempt proving quite futile, as there was barely any coherent words escaping his mouth in this moment. We continued to explore a bit more of the town before grabbing some dinner and heading back to Nicholas' house for the rest of the night.

-As substance abuse is seen all over the world, it was sad to see someone in this state on a Sunday afternoon. And although not quite to this extreme, Nicholas says that it is very common to find people in a similar state, on all days of the week. It begs to ask the question as to why this culture has become so engrained in Bolivia (along with other countries); is it a sign of sheer boredom, lack of motivation stemming from little opportunity? It could come from many things and this is as significant a problem as any when it comes to development work -



As many bloggers may do, at some point or another there needs to be some commentary on the cuisine or unique food experiences had. In the case of Padilla, there is a very basic set lunch menu that will put you back under two dollars for: a soup (broth, grains, a few vegetables, and either a bone or some meat), along with a main plate consisting of some type of meat with a mountain of rice and baked potatoes. As this comes at a good price and gives the people the energy they need, there is definitely a lacking of variation and nutritional value in terms of vitamins. My culinary highlight of my stay when I was strolling over to one of the few stands in front of a someone's house, displaying a few assorted baked goods. I selected a small slice of cake and an alfajore(tasty dulce de leche-filled cookie), both at one Boliviano each. (7 Bs to 1 USD). I asked the lady what flavor the cake was, as it embodied a slight tinge of the colour orange. She responded: "Fanta"... The cake was Fanta cake, I suppose this means they pour some refined carbonated soda product into a cake mix and voila! Fanta cake.

Tourism Promotion for Padilla

The town of Padilla has some marvelous sights that are fairly nearby. The purpose of my visit was to meet with Nicholas and a few other team members in Padilla to select which attractions we would choose to promote and further develop, in an attempt to attract more external tourism dollars into Padilla. There is already a very popular Carnaval event that happens once a year, yet this is short-lived, and there needs to be a stronger promotion of year-round activities for tourists. From a morning meeting with our new project team, we arrived at the following two promotional themes: History (Incan ruins and the nearby "El Corte"), and Nature (flora and fauna). Our first field visit came the following morning and left me in awe of the beauty that lied at mere 5 km from Padilla.


El Corte


We took a couple motorbikes for the 4 km dirt road that lead to a barbed-wire fence. Here we parked the bikes and began our final one km walk in. The trail descended past eroded mounds of dried out soils, leading down into troughs where flash floods had passed. We entered a short segment of the trail that was tree covered, and then almost immediately reappeared on the other side of the trees to serene beauty that I had no idea existed so close to the town.






It is said that hundreds of years back, the valley in which Padilla lies used to be a gigantic lagoon filled with water. The settlers of the time (colonizers from Spain was my interpretation), decided to drain the area to created highly fertile 'pampas' that would yield healthy and plentiful crops. In order to do this they needed to carve out an area of rock to allow the water to drain out of the lagoon. This is why they call this spot "el corte" (literally, "the cut"). The ecosystem thriving within el corte was just as beautiful as the location itself. In our short one hour visit we spotted a baby coral snake, a beautiful little frog, and were told that pumas roamed the areas as well, but were lucky to not see any that morning...
Although the town of Padilla may have never came to be if the rock had never been cut and the lagoon drained, there is a constant lack of water now, with the rainy season the only time of year when one can somewhat rely on running water in the town. In addition to this, the town experiences frequent electricity cuts, with people losing power within their homes. As the climate is host to neither extreme heat nor extreme cold, the electricity cuts mostly affect people's refrigerators, along with the restaurants need to keep their meat products from going bad as most everyone eats lunch at these local spots. As Nicholas mentioned to me many times, there has been way too much of the town's money placed into grandiose construction projects, when there has been a major lack of attention on the basic needs: water, power, etc. Some food for thought. (but make sure that the meat in the food has been properly refrigerated, and the vegetables washed with clean water...)



Please leave comments and share any thoughts of Padilla, I'm sure Nicholas (and I) will appreciate :)