My study abroad group went to two northern provinces: Salta and Jujuy. We spent the first few days in Salta, which is horseshoe shaped and borders Paraguay, Bolivia, and Chile. Actually, it's quite weirdly shaped, kind of jagged as well--much like your typical House of Representatives member's district. Nested inside the awkward horseshoe is Jujuy, bordering Bolivia and Chile, where we spent the next 5 days. After those 5 days we once more came back to Salta to finish the experience.
During this trip, I tried a number of new things; probably the most exciting ones were llama meat (it's not bad) and coca leaves (not legal in the United States, to my knowledge). I first had llama meat in a stew while visiting a collective of salt miners without even knowing it. I had llama meat once more a few days later when eating and enjoying some folklore music at a restaurant in Jujuy. The band played traditional songs, but also surprised us with some Beatles songs as well ("Let It Be" was a hit). As for the coca leaves, Jujuy is situated very high--the highest point we saw was during the trip from Salta, 4,170 meters. That's over 12,000 feet! The coca leaves helped with the altitude very well, and, being the source of cocaine, also gave me a bit of a kick that I have to say I rather enjoyed.
Our first day in Jujuy, we went to visit the Salinas Grandes, and the aforementioned collective. The shift to a cooperative model has greatly improved the lives of the workers there. Although they only receive 90 pesos per ton of salt (somewhere along the lines of 10 dollars using my personal exchange rate), the benefits they receive from working in an equal environment sin patron (without a boss) heavily outweigh the burdens. This appears to be the case in salt mining as well as many other types of industries, ranging from the occupied factories throughout Argentina, to printing presses like Chilavert--which I visited a few weeks ago--to the occupied and cooperatively run Hotel Bauen, which is a block away from my apartment and which I will probably examine throughout my independent research.
A few days later was one of the most impactful moments of the trip and an experience I won't soon forget. It happened on the Bolivian border, where the first thing we saw were people running raw materials across the border to Argentina. And i mean literally running--because for these people (as the saying goes), "time is money."
And not very much of it, either.1
I didn't feel comfortable taking pictures of what I saw, and instead took the time to write about it in my journal. I figured that though it is said that a picture is usually worth a thousand words, a few respectful words would be worth more than a thousand pictures. It dawned on me as I was watching and writing how little I knew of the person i saw a few hundred feet in front of me, running across the border. For some reason, I fell into the deep end of the pool, thinking about what it would be like to be God. The classical conception of Him is omniscient, meaning he knows every single detail about every single event in the life of every single person, including the person I was staring at. I didn't even know this man's name, but I though about how incredibly marvelous it would be if I could know literally everything about every person who had ever lived. I sat and entertained myself for a few minutes, completely lost in thought.
When it came time to cross, I remembered I had not brought my passport. We talked to the border officials and to my surprise, crossing the border was extremely easy. I was waved through, walking past a long line of people waiting to pass through the system--some of which were other members of my program, in sheer disbelief that the one who lost their passport would be the first to set foot on Bolivian soil (or fourth or something. There were a few pretty far ahead of me).
Yet, after crossing back over a few hours later and learning more about the border in class, I learned that it should not have been so easy. Over 3,000 people cross at the border of Villazon a day, and I only saw a fraction of that number as I bypassed the line on my return to Argentina. Many come to Argentina as immigrants, and if my skin was not so pale and my hair not so blond, I would not have been so lucky.
A few days later, I we went to San Salvador de Jujuy, the capital of the province. We visited an organization called Tupac Amaru (the leader of a historically famous indigenous uprising from which both this organization and west coast rapper Tupac Shakur were named), which was also incredible. We visited an entire community within the city that had been constructed by Tupac
Overall, what I encountered during this trip were the malaffects of the neoliberal economic model, which has been imposed on entire communities. I found myself stumbling around as a tourist, a role I've never felt comfortable filling. In Bolivia I crossed the border with more pesos than the man running across it probably makes in a week. I felt uncomfortable and helpless trying to convince myself that buying a few pairs of socks was helpful to their cause. I mean, what kind of twisted thinking is that? Did they even really need my help? Perhaps my discomfort with being a tourist is that I found myself working within the system rather than changing the system. Tourism seems to me to make everyday life look more like you're walking through the service-sector, and for this we often don't see the people we are interacting with as equals; merely the person giving us the thing they owe us for our money. The reality was that the old man in Bolivia who was selling socks that were made in Peru probably didn't always live this way. Before neoliberalism, these street vendors and their ancestors were mostly campesinos, living off the land. I've benefited greatly from neoliberalism so far (and have 4 pairs of socks, some stripey pants, and a sweater as evidence of that), yet my experiences in the north made it ever so obvious that many, if not most people, have not.
My experience at the border forced me to reflect on my white privilege. This was the first time I had actively realized that I was receiving different--arguably better--treatment because of my different appearance. And it is obvious that this hasn't been the first time; I've never been stopped-and-frisked, my race has probably contributed to my overall positive interactions with police officers, and as I can't even imagine what it must be like to be the mystery man on the border, I cannot imagine what it would be like to walk any other shoes besides my own.
Sometimes privilege can be a burden on the mind.
Yet the ultimate take-away amongst thousands of take-aways for me is that the miners' cooperative, Tupac Amaru, and the other organizations we visited all show that people are resilient, and have been able to find ways within this powerful system to continue to live, treat and be treated as humans, and care for another. And for this I have been greatly inspired
1 $1 peso for every trip across means roughly (according to my exchange rate) 12 cents
