1 February
The bus from La Paz arrived early for once, 5:20 am, and now I’ve got an hour or so to kill in Cochabamba before catching the bus to Quillacollo to meet José and Helga (the dentist) at the truck to go to Aramasí. The only place open, Brazilian Coffee, potentially served breakfast and had fast WiFi, no such luck. Breakfast stuffs arrive at 7 and the WiFi is not working.
There is no cheese, either, for the ham and cheese croissant, so I got a double portion of ham. Awesome. Who needs cheese anyway, when you’ve got mustard and mayo?
Unexpectedly, on Wednesday, I rode back to Cochabamba with José because we had to pick-up the dentist chair mechanic early the next morning. I used the opportunity to get some pizza with an old friend in Cocha I hadn’t been able to catch-up with since I arrived. She told me about some friends of hers in La Paz that were doing a dance called La danza del Sol y la Luna (the sun and moon dance).
This just in: José has to stop by the Villa before going to Aramasí and he will pick me up on the way, maybe around 9. Voile, 2 hours.
I was pretty sure there is only one group of people that do that dance, and they were MY friends from Bolivia Mística, my jungle tour agency. It so happened that the dance was this weekend, she was dancing and was supposed to bring someone to help the work crew. Everything happens for a reason, right? I had never been to the dance, but had heard tons about it during my time in jungle, and I thought it would be super fun to see my old friends and surprise them at the same time. So I went.
The Sun and Moon Dance is actually a North American tradition, practiced by the tribes living in the Mesa region, which is now Arizona and New Mexico (I’m pretty sure). This dance was prohibited and persecuted for about 500 years, so that at one point there was only one guy practicing the dance and keeping the tradition alive. He taught his family and some close friends and kept it under the radar long enough that it outlived the persecution. Then there was a tribal leader (I’m ashamed not to remember which tribe) named Beautifully Painted Arrow who trained a young Bolivian medicine man, Miguel Kavlin, and initiated him into many Mesa traditions. Miguel Kavlin brought the dance to Bolivia 10 years ago.
The dance lasts 3 days, Thursday night to Sunday morning, and the dancers fast everything during the duration of the dance. Yeah, not even water. The old practitioners did it for 4 days, and young men on their vision quest fast two weeks! I thought you died after 3 days of no water. Apparently the Mesa tribes had not learned that. The founder of the Sierra Club said something like, I love youth because they do things before learning that they are impossible. For that reason, I love Bolivia. Not to say that it’s young by any means, it just hasn’t been fully trained in Western thinking. But there is a tug-of-war since Evo (President Morales just won his second election) between westernization and indigenous revitalization.
These things are all connected, I promise. The people attending this dance are people with the means and free time to be able to hear about such things and take time to do them; which means the upper class of Bolivia, mostly mestizos and criollos (people of mixed and pure European heritage; white people born in Bolivia), who are most likely Catholic. Also in attendance were numerous foreigners from all over. A guy who rode his motorcycle from Oregon, a Brazilian software designer, an Austrian (not sure what he does, but he comes from a “traditional” background, not Mesa tradition), and two German free-lance something-or-others.
It was touching that at the end of this marathon dance, many of the dancers’ families came to share in the meal and final ceremonies. And many of the foreigners spoke of how they wished their families could experience what they experienced and how they would think of their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and friends while they were dancing and praying and fasting.
The other family-related element to the dance was that there were three mother-daughter pairs dancing and one tri-generational family helping. In this sense, the presence of family support was very strong. And it was powerful.
The theme of what everyone said, with one exception, was this: THANKFULNESS more than anything else, for the others present and the dance, because without the others dancing and supporting the dance they couldn’t have realized the Truth that we are all part of the same life because we all have the ‘universal heart’ inside us from the ‘Great Spirit’ and the essence of that heart is Love. I feel pretty good summarizing this because I was the translator of this 3 hour meeting and had to pay very close attention to what everyone said, and then repeat it.
I haven’t even described what the dance was, have I.
Well, first of all, everyone was nude, no clothes were allowed to contaminate the sacred dance circle. No, not at all, there were special rules as to what clothes should be worn, and what shouldn’t be worn. I’m not sure what those rules were, but I think everyone had to wear some kind of long skirt, (only one guy wore a women’s skirt that he borrowed from an x-girlfriend at the last minute, he was the only pure native Bolivian from El Alto and he was awesome), like traditional vestments worn by most cultures practicing sacred rituals. It was really cold, so everyone was layered up beneath their appropriate attire. I also think that they weren’t allowed to wear any lettering at all and they were encouraged to wear baggy clothes with bright colors, but maybe those trends were just preference. And they all had whistles, not like referee whistles, they had wooden and clay whistles, some with holes to make a twittering noise. It was all very festive and celebratory, and very sacred. A good combo that I don’t see enough of. Also, they wore sunglasses so that they would not be distracted in their neediness of fasting and fatigue to look around at others. They were dancing to celebrate all life given by the Great Spirit, no distractions allowed.
My favorite part of the weekend was Saturday night. I was asked to keep vigil over the fire with Pablo till 3 am. The fire, I was taught, represents something like the soul of the universe, and it must be kept going at all times, and kept pure, burning only Eucalyptus wood and incense, no trash, paper, nothing else. The fire was outside the dance, but used to cleanse everything entering the dance with incense, and put in incense buckets to swing around the dance once in a while, also for cleansing. When you are put in stressful situations like not eating or drinking for three days while dancing constantly, it’s not just the good stuff that comes out of you. Lots of suppressed anger and bitterness, shame, insecurity, doubts, and all the other demons that try to snuff out love in our hearts show their ugly faces. The incense is what washes away all the gross crap that the dancers are shedding while they push through the three days. Otherwise that gross crap will just get everyone dirty. So the fire is the burning soul of cleansing and must be kept constantly. If you’ve ever seen Hal’s Moving Castle, a little known Disney movie in Japanamation, I recommend you do. Califer, played by Billy Crystal, is a little fire with a real attitude and superiority complex that turns out to be justified in his self-importance. You should watch the movie. This fire reminded me of Califer is all.
Anyway, staying up late, processing all the weird stuff I’d see that day, chewing coca with Pablo and talking about the important stuff in life was made all the better because there was a full moon over mount Ilimani looking through the clouds while a low fog and silence isolated us from the rest of the world. It really was magical. And the perfect conditions to have an exciting heart to heart with a fascinating new friend.
It's raining now and I'm in Casablanca, which is closed, but the side door is open and a co-worker is practicing the piano. And the internet is up! I must stink, because a fly will not leave my face alone. Moving on. . .
There're some photos to give you some idea of the place, but none were allowed to be taken of the dance, and actually, I forgot my camera and these are from two years ago. But it's an idea.
Whew. I think José will be by soon and I better get going. Back to Aramasí. ¡Kosapacha!
Carnaval has come and gone. I worked alone in Aramasí during the festivities which was harder than I thought it would be, but a good process to go through. I came out the other side more confident and peaceful. I have been out with José several times and Patty a couple times visiting the neighboring communities, which are just as beautiful as Aramasí. I am the only gringo ever to have visited Ahuri, which is a lush community on a wet hillside crossed with high stone terraces.
These are burning sheep bones. It is a burnt offering to the Pachamama (mother earth/mother nature). I'll tel more about the Ch'alla later.
