16.8.8 Fiesta!

I was spending the weekend with friends on the outskirts of Coroico, a sleepy tourist town down in the Yungas jungle. In the morning, Viviana and I were looking for a coffee and found the plaza was packed with people who had come in from outside town for a chat on market day. We were approached by a tout trying to flog us his trip to the annual fiesta of a community of the descendants of African slaves.

They are a famous community because there are very few black people in Bolivia. The Spaniards had brought slaves from Africa to work in the mines but they could not adapt to the conditions so they were moved to work in the Yungas plantations. The community remains here retaining some of its culture and independence. There are so few back people that until very recently it was considered good luck to see one in La Paz.

After a very bouncy trip across to the next hill, we arrived at Tocana to find dozens of people (tourists mostly) outside the church. There were also black cholitas with tiny braids. When the congregation came out, prayers were said for the party and its organisers: immaculately made up black women in dangerous heels, pointy shoes and low cut tops, and a white guy in a suit. It was an incongruous scene on the dusty road outside the tiny church.

Eventually the procession set out from the church. An icon of Mary was carried at the front, followed by black priests in white vestments. Behind them a band in white sequined jump suits pounded on drums accompanied by a man with a scratch board. Next came a group of women dancers in beautiful white dresses, who led us all away. In all, we were approximately 50 black Bolivians and the same number of visitors—largely Argentine hippies.

Our Pied Pipers took us past a mountain of beer and down to the USAID-funded basketball court/football pitch cut into the jungle-covered hill. At either side of the court, piles of speakers pounded out “Hotel California” and then the stalkers’ anthem “Every Step You Take”. Somewhere here was the descendant of an African king but I didn’t get to meet him.