It is rare to find women shoeshiners and our guide told us that people often try to take advantage of her.
One Italian man tried to buy her body and offered to send her two hundred dollars a month if she would have his children!
When I heard that Maria Galindo helped rescue this women off the streets,
my opinion of Maria changed entirely. When I interviewed Ms Galindo last week (see photo below), I thought she was a petulant misandrist. But knowing that she had taken a stranger into her residence at Mujeres Creando and changed her life forever, forced me to reconsider.
She does not have time for everyone, myself included, (she kept me waiting for an hour then passed me over to a colleage), but at least she is proactive in her feminism.
But that´s just one chapter of this shoeshiner´s story.
Our guide and her husband met each other on the streets. She was adopted by
a widow then ran away from home when the widow died and her family
mistreated her. Meanwhile, her husband was abused by his Father and
started living on the streets when he was eight years old. They both dabbled with drugs but when he got her preganant, they decided it was time for a new start. They were determined to make a new life for their children and wanted them off the streets. They eventually saved enough money to rent a place in El Alto; a remarkable acheivement considering that average shoeshiner earns the equivalent of four to six pounds per day. Our guide managed to find her biological Mother. Although she feels no attachment to her, she gets along with her siblings despite the fact they were blessed with the love and resources she never had. They occasionally lend her money, but mostly, like always, she has to look out for herself. As for her husband, he still hides the fact that he is a shoeshiner (he wears a mask and tells his family he is a bricklayer), but he is proud of his son and hopes to make more money with the shoeshine tours and magazines (an NGO called ´hormigon armado´ allows shoeshiners to voice their opinions on a variety of political issues).
While our guide is telling me this, her son kept tugging at my arm and I tell her he is very strong for such a small child. His parents proudly claim he´ll be a famous footballer one day.
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A couple of days later, La Paz was covered in flags and market stalls to celebrate independence. We saw countless parades with crazy costumes and as night fell, the Prado became extremely crowded.
Cholitas were selling a toxic white drink with foam spilling over the sides. When Damien (a French diplomat working in Bolivia) asked what was in it,they dodged the question but we think it contained milk, cloves, cinammon, singani and God knows what else. Apparently, it is a secret recipe, inhereted from Paceñan ancestors which was invented to stop them feeling the cold. Elena Cavari, a local television presenter, came up with a curious similie to describe it.
"Sucumbe is like the mountain, Illimani", she said. "People are drawn to its white top."
(picture credit: http://www.summitpost.org/images/medium/632371.JPG)
This comment made me laugh because it makes heavy drinkers sound like intrepid explorers capable of climbing the Bolivian Andes! This woman should be employed by Heineken for her creative advertising. Anyway, thanks to sucumbe, the grandeur of the parade was overshadowed by drunkeness. Eighty-two people were hospitalized and two people died that night. Right by San Francisco square, everyone was pushing and shoving. Soon, it turned into a stampede and we were struggling to breathe. Me and Matthew were very worried about a little boy caught up in the middle of the death-trap. He was crying and terrified so we started shouting "¡cuidado, hay un niño, cuidado!". Someone stronger started shouting too and managed to protect him by wrapping him in his arms.
On the news the next day, they tried to interview a drunk ambulance driver who had bumped into and damaged two houses in El Alto. He refused to co-operate and spat straight into the camera.
Apparently, Evo Morales tried to ban such verbenas and wants to spend the money people use on booze on public works. The pueblo ignores him, and helps themselves to another drink.
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